A Measure of Criticism for the Garden

A number of people have asked me about my departure from Eleusis, either out of their own curiosity or care for my personal well-being. While there were things about the leadership of Eleusis that were frustrating and ultimately led me to step down, a large part of my disinterest in continuing in the position has to do with the interactions that I had with several divine on behalf of seeking a patron for Eleusis, and trying to produce RP content for the Village. The opinions expressed in this post are my own, and while not everyone will agree with what I have to say, it's important for me to express my experiences because I believe they are indicative of a broader decline in the game as a whole. For context, I have played Achaea since around 2001 off and on, and have left for stretches of time. I've served in various capacities of in character leadership across Ashtan and Eleusis factions. 

In recent years, I've noticed a staunch decline in interest in engaging specific factions in meaningful RP experiences as a whole. Thinking back to the old days of Achaea, each of the City-states had some active RP through-line that made sense within the context of its' faction, each exciting and engaging in a way that provided purpose and added to the meaning for the player as being a member of that faction. With the exception of Mhaldor and Ashtan who seems to be able to keep a high level of activity for their divine, I think there's a wholesale lacking of this for the other factions. The two factions that I believe have suffered the most from this lack of story development are Cyrene and Eleusis. I cannot think of a single recent RP event that highlights the true proactive RP of either faction. More specifically, Eleusis has been seemingly eliminated from consideration from the last major roleplay event, the re-emergence of the black wave, and their alliances with Hashan and Targossas.

As I took leadership in Eleusis, and while working hard to overcome the lack of directive leadership created by mismanagement by previous in game administrations and far further exacerbated by a lack of divine presence, I became aware of just how difficult it is to engage a large organization from a position of leadership. Even with efforts to push roleplay devices and with regular consultation with some of the garden, it seemed as though the garden was unwilling to do anything other than act in a consultory role. Whether this was the case or not, it seemed as though they were paying lip service to helping Eleusis while not actually seeming interested in the Village's story or promote any new RP within the Village. From my vantage, and even after having talked to several divine on the matter, it seemed the Garden were completely divested from Eleusis having any RP significance. This opinion was further solidified during world events where the divinely controled NPCs would shout derrogatory remarks about eleusis or certain villagers, and not being given an opportunity to contribute to the story in any meaningful way. When Eleusis made attempts to become involved, further remarks from NPCs about Eleusis's involvement were biting criticisms about it's lack of relevance. These types of comments only contribute to the toxic sentiments within and without, about lack of direction of the Village. Lady Pandora was the first to actually take some time to work with the Village towards fixing some of the damage done by the garden as a whole due to lack of attention and guidance. Even then, this commitment has been severed once more as Pandora moved on to patron Ashtan (a city with 2-3 active divine already).

As I considered my options for moving forward, I even considered Celanihood, trying to apply for a position (and giving the garden the benefit of the doubt) because perhaps they don't have the manpower or the right person to work with Eleusis. In addition to two RP events that I sent into the garden (who solicited these types of events in the Leadership clan) and no response was given. I sent messages to the administration for even an acknowledgment of receipt, but they couldn't be bothered to respond to any of these. Even if they outright didn't like the ideas or feel like they would fit within the theme or other ongoing storylines, a simple 'thanks or no thanks' would have gone a long way to demonstrate that they cared about the time and effort that went into putting it together. It seems that as long as the tried and true victimization narrative is alive and well, then nothing else need be done to push the RP throughline forward for Eleusis. This lends to the feeling that the garden has certain factions that it favors over others in terms of pushing roleplay forward, at the cost of other factions just 'being along for the ride'.

One such RP event that I suggested was one that put Eleusis in the seat of the antagonist (something I don't think has been seen at all in the history of Achaea), pushing forward the 'expansion of nature' throughline and giving some of the traditional antagonist factions an opportunity to be a protagonist for once. As it stands, the current tropes of 'large invading force from some far off land' or 'evil or chaos are at it again', feel unoriginal at best, and gone are the times where an individual guild/house had a sense of specific identity other than that of just being ancillary to that broader faction. It lends to a blandness that each house while stating a specific aim or goal still feels like .. general combat or non combat styled house of each faction. (At least it certainly feels that way to me.) Much of this was caused by the renaissance (but that's a different conversation altogether) as much of house lore was abandoned in lieu of thematic shifts to this new model.

I've encountered other issues with garden responsiveness that have led to an erosion of my confidence that the administration is committed to the player base. The move away from monthly or holiday events towards almost exclusively purchase-oriented events, as well as strictly content expansions that do little to enrich the general richness of the game as a whole, gives the impression that the administration is more interested in squeezing every last penny out of the playerbase rather than creating an experience that keeps the person coming back for something unique and new. The addition of numerous items whose actual in game value is arbitrary, as well as the rampant market deflation and recycling of certain talisman sets and legend deck cards shows an lack of concern for quality across the board. Numerous systems have been left obsolete or undeveloped over the years, for example the talisman market, Village Relations/feelings villages, legions, and more lend to the feeling of a game that feels bloated and clunky in certain areas, and feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities to create something meaningful to the overall game play.

I have ideas about how to change and fix a lot of these problems (which may be better left for another post), but this rant is not meant to be the complaints of an ungrateful player, so much as an opportunity for us to revisit the golden days of Achaea where every action felt like it meant something.
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Comments

  • edited December 2019
    Re: not getting a receipt, I'm no leader so my interactions are fairly limited, but whereas the "coding producer" is basically a gold standard for customer support, sadly the "rp producer" has been known to fail to respond at all to player concerns, or respond on entirely different media where they won't notice.
  • edited December 2019
    It makes me sad to feel like if I want some authentic role-play in the game that I have to choose one of the "preferred RP" factions which means leaving the Village and joining a place where there's a known active divine which borders on meta/OOC, while there's such an IC stigma to doing this. Those are the kinds of people that rub me wrong from an authenticity standpoint. (Not going to name names though, but we know who you are.)

    The point i'm trying to make is that you shouldn't have to go to one of those factions to engage in a flavor of RP that doesn't suit you. Spread the wealth already!

    There is a large subset of Eleusians who would love an opportunity to gain a sense of relevance within the context of Nature faction RP. The garden holding irrelevance over Eleusis' head might as well be blaming the victim.
    When I initially asked about certain types of patron requests, a lot of the feedback I received was that you need a patron to do most of everything. Which then led me to seeking out a patron for the Village. When I sought out patronage on behalf of Eleusis, much of the feedback I received  from specific divine was so vague that it was hard to tell who was serious about the possibility of patroning the Village at any rate. This led me to exploring Phaestus as an option for a time. In the end, it became clear that none of the potentially viable options were really interested in the undertaking to begin with, so why jerk us around and waste my time?

    It is good to see that Hashan is getting some love these days. They had gone so unattended to for so long.

    edit:
    I always remember Achaea as having such a strong spirit of independence and community collaboration earlier, and that there are a lot of opportunities to integrate feedback from the community into creating something if only the Garden sought out mortals more readily to partner with. In some ways it leads to a steady drift from Achaea feeling like an open RP game to an on the rails adventure game where nothing meaningful happens for long stretches of time and folks are waiting around for divine to take notice the value of the work that they're doing. That could easily be done by partnering more with leadership of houses and cities, but it's something that (from what I'm seen) is simply not happening. The tangible effect of this is Achaea slipping steadily down the top muds boards, which to them leads to less new players coming on board, smaller population, less revenue, and then your older players get bored because they're fighting the same people over and over again. And cross faction fighting begins to feel like a pointless bait and kill, retaliate gank cycle.
  • edited December 2019
    Long-time IREer, first-time as this alt. Whatever you're looking for from IRE divine (who are mostly VOLUNTEERS), you won't reach a solution by describing their efforts as 'an utter failing.' I would also stress that just because a player doesn't see effort from (VOLUNTEER) divine doesn't mean they aren't listening or taking feedback. As the saying goes, you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

    Thank goodness they took away the dislike button B)

    Edit: Did I mention these are mostly VOLUNTEERS?
  • Sobriquet said:
    I think you'll find they're paid staff who run these things, including an RP lead. 

    Even for volunteers there is a right to call them out of something isn't working, even more so considering how ludicrously expensive Achaea is.

    Yes, there are definitely professionals keeping our lovely games afloat! There are also volunteers that we all know and love who are doing invisible work for us. Everyone has read HELP CELANI I don't need to over-explain :) I agree we as players should offer feedback, but I was trying to stress that describing someone's effort as 'an utter failure' is never a way to start a productive dialog. Even if someone is certain they are right. I know I would not respond to someone criticizing my work that way especially if I were being attacked on a public board where my replies will be seen for all of time.

    I guess the question is, do the posters in this thread want a dialog, or to blow off steam? It seems like great input and feedback has been provided, I hope it can be delivered appropriately.
  • edited December 2019
    Celani in another IRE were you? Sure sounds like it.

    We all know how much they do, but when someone has explored other options and getting nowhere, why not put it here? The RP side I'm not really having a say in as in Hashan we see a fair bit of Twilight so I don't have the same frustrations as Andraste does (You'd have seen this, had you stuck around) but for the other frustration I have? That is 100% down to someone in IRE who gets paid to be there and imho the billion new shiney things and steadfast refusal to address the shitstorm that are lootboxes has drained the heart from this game. 


    Edit - Also, who is responsible for putting the volunteers there? Why would a game that sells lootboxes at $129 EACH still have to rely on unpaid staff with very stringent entry requirements to run their game? That person no longer cares for the players. 

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • ArchaeonArchaeon Ur mums house lol
    If I asked for someone to volunteer to run a food booth at a squadron event, and that person that volunteered showed up and did nothing at all, I would be mad at them.
  • Archaeon said:
    If I asked for someone to volunteer to run a food booth at a squadron event, and that person that volunteered showed up and did nothing at all, I would be mad at them.
    If I volunteered at your thing and got the same level of obnoxious, petty, contrarian nonsense both IC and OOC admins have gotten from Eleusis, I would be mad at you for asking me. 

    And I certainly wouldn't volunteer again. 
  • Eleusis has a very bad reputation for running off volunteers and fighting back against any divine mandates that they don't 100% agree with. Hashan used to have the same problem when it came to combat, where as soon as the actions of a player/group led to repercussions they were blamed and exiled.

    I can't blame volunteers for not wanting to have to deal with that and heading towards places that have a track record of embracing divine rather than rejecting them. I can however blame the 'Only Patrons are allowed to do anything' policies that lead to feast or famine situations. The more divine a faction has the more fun stuff happens which leads to people flocking to it which leads to more people desiring to be divine there.

    There are lots of non-controversial things that could happen within a city that don't need a deep background knowledge of the faction to perform. Without a patron you are very limited in what you can do, making city events largely indistinguishable from just another non-canon ritual done with emotes.

    Obviously there needs to be some limitation so there is no stepping on toes but when there is (and hasn't been for some time) no active divine in a faction the Garden should throw them a bone every now and then.
  • edited December 2019
    Reyson said:
    Archaeon said:
    If I asked for someone to volunteer to run a food booth at a squadron event, and that person that volunteered showed up and did nothing at all, I would be mad at them.
    If I volunteered at your thing and got the same level of obnoxious, petty, contrarian nonsense both IC and OOC admins have gotten from Eleusis, I would be mad at you for asking me. 

    And I certainly wouldn't volunteer again. 
    Sorry but a military LOL at being mad for being volun-told, and thinking you could just "not volunteer again".  (Nothing personal, just...that isn't how any of that works w us)

    Edit: I would take on Gaia and just fucking zap everyone who wouldnt fall in line. Im pretty sick of the piss-ant attitudes in Eleusis.  I would literally be fine being patron of a city with 1 citizen if they were zealots for Nature.

    I'd be fair and drop the warning zaps but I assure you I would lag the game with a goddamn Artemisian meteor shower of zap warnings

  • Minifie said:
    We currently have seven active divine. Half of that number is currently focused on one city.
    If it's any consolation, Ashtan is currently Eleusising its two factional divine, so I don't really know how long this is going to be true.
  • edited December 2019
    Reyson said:
    Archaeon said:
    If I asked for someone to volunteer to run a food booth at a squadron event, and that person that volunteered showed up and did nothing at all, I would be mad at them.
    If I volunteered at your thing and got the same level of obnoxious, petty, contrarian nonsense both IC and OOC admins have gotten from Eleusis, I would be mad at you for asking me. 

    And I certainly wouldn't volunteer again. 
    I've heard a lot of that criticism, but unless the Garden is willing to leave the sins of past leadership administrations in the past, that argument becomes a self fulling and self-propagating problem.

    Ultimately the garden is responsible for the RP environment of each city state. If what you're asserting is true, would you want to play a game where your org is being punished for 2-3 or more real life years for what someone or a group of people did that you never met. While I've heard they have had to put up with a lot of nonsense from past eleusians, I can't point to a single situation in the past 2-3 years where that's been the case. The ones that came up I did the best to address. (Not going to point out individuals, again, since that will take us off topic.)

     I worked really hard to try to change Eleusis and appeal to the Garden that Eleusis was ready and open to working positively with them and that I wasn't going to tolerate the petty BS, singling folks out for correction as needed. (which had gone mostly undone up until i took office because the council was allowing certain people to get away with murder). The fact that despite best efforts there was radio silence on the part of the administration just demonstrates that Eleusis or Nature faction RP isn't on their priority list.
  • My character's actually fairly aware of that dynamic regarding Eleusis/tsol'aa (looking down on Eleusians who believe otherwise) and tsol'aa/teth, and that still went over my head, haha.
  • edited December 2019
    As usual, excellent reply from an Admin when this thread could have just been closed and ignored, and appreciate the honesty.

    The one part that gets me is just how much everything costs. You currently have 29 Lootbox items for sale on the Website ranging from $5 to $635. Every single one of those gives no guarantee of what you are actually getting, it's all pure luck. Six Hundred Dollars! There are two standard Credit Packages over $1000. 

    If you are not making money from this over and above just making sure bills get paid there seems something wrong. Honest question, have you done any research on where the line could be that reduced cost of Credits / Items could lead to more sales?

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • Unfortunately I really can't go into details concerning finances more than I already have. I will say a lot of research has been done and we are always trying new things, even if its just part of a larger promo that we then look at in isolation on its own merit.

  • Andraste said:
    Reyson said:
    Archaeon said:
    If I asked for someone to volunteer to run a food booth at a squadron event, and that person that volunteered showed up and did nothing at all, I would be mad at them.
    If I volunteered at your thing and got the same level of obnoxious, petty, contrarian nonsense both IC and OOC admins have gotten from Eleusis, I would be mad at you for asking me. 

    And I certainly wouldn't volunteer again. 
    I've heard a lot of that criticism, but unless the Garden is willing to leave the sins of past leadership administrations in the past, that argument becomes a self fulling and self-propagating problem.

    Ultimately the garden is responsible for the RP environment of each city state. If what you're asserting is true, would you want to play a game where your org is being punished for 2-3 or more real life years for what someone or a group of people did that you never met. While I've heard they have had to put up with a lot of nonsense from past eleusians, I can't point to a single situation in the past 2-3 years where that's been the case. The ones that came up I did the best to address. (Not going to point out individuals, again, since that will take us off topic.)

     I worked really hard to try to change Eleusis and appeal to the Garden that Eleusis was ready and open to working positively with them and that I wasn't going to tolerate the petty BS, singling folks out for correction as needed. (which had gone mostly undone up until i took office because the council was allowing certain people to get away with murder). The fact that despite best efforts there was radio silence on the part of the administration just demonstrates that Eleusis or Nature faction RP isn't on their priority list.
    You may be right. I only have an outsider's view on Eleusis. 

    One thing I will say- there's a fairly good bit of wisdom I like that states that if you want to get the true measure of a person, see how they treat people they have authority over, not people who are their equals, or people they have to pay lip service to. 

    In Achaea, I think there is no better barometer than how a faction treats the people it fights again. I'm not accusing you or Eleusis of anything in particular; consider, for your own sake, if you'd like, your own attitudes and what you've heard people in that faction say about those that rub them the wrong way. Those they are in an antagonistic relationship with. 

    I've personally gotten some pretty intense OOC comments from Eleusians lately. That's in itself fine, Mhaldor and Eleusis have a contentious relationship that leads itself to moments of stress. If that's just solely about myself as a single person, no problem. But if you look into the behaviours, attitudes, and comments that you've seen, and you notice that perhaps they border on the kind of thing that no one would possibly want to endure, particularly as a volunteer trying to help people with that attitude, maybe Eleusis has not changed as much as you seem to think it has. 

    You know your faction much, much better than I do, at the end of the day. I have no idea how different it is now, compared to how it was before. But you might be able to gauge that accurately. 
  • MelodieMelodie Port Saint Lucie, Florida
    Andraste said:
    Reyson said:
    Archaeon said:
    If I asked for someone to volunteer to run a food booth at a squadron event, and that person that volunteered showed up and did nothing at all, I would be mad at them.
    If I volunteered at your thing and got the same level of obnoxious, petty, contrarian nonsense both IC and OOC admins have gotten from Eleusis, I would be mad at you for asking me. 

    And I certainly wouldn't volunteer again. 
    I've heard a lot of that criticism, but unless the Garden is willing to leave the sins of past leadership administrations in the past, that argument becomes a self fulling and self-propagating problem.

    Ultimately the garden is responsible for the RP environment of each city state. If what you're asserting is true, would you want to play a game where your org is being punished for 2-3 or more real life years for what someone or a group of people did that you never met. While I've heard they have had to put up with a lot of nonsense from past eleusians, I can't point to a single situation in the past 2-3 years where that's been the case. The ones that came up I did the best to address. (Not going to point out individuals, again, since that will take us off topic.)

     I worked really hard to try to change Eleusis and appeal to the Garden that Eleusis was ready and open to working positively with them and that I wasn't going to tolerate the petty BS, singling folks out for correction as needed. (which had gone mostly undone up until i took office because the council was allowing certain people to get away with murder). The fact that despite best efforts there was radio silence on the part of the administration just demonstrates that Eleusis or Nature faction RP isn't on their priority list.
    This has already been partly addressed by Makarios explaining above, and I'll also add in that I do see and agree with many points of your original post.

    That said, I was Eleusian for about... 7-8 months during that particular period people refer to when talking about Eleusis and its behaviors towards its admin. I was not present for Artemis (I had gone to Mhaldor by then) nor her interactions with Gaia, but I was present for when Gaia was the sole Patron for the city and its (previous) Houses. While I had my own motivations for going to Eleusis, I took my time in my selection, speaking with Rangor, Penwize, Ellodin, Yae, and a few others about being a citizen. Ellodin was the only who gave me any kind of warning of what to expect, but despite that, I decided to take a chance and make the plunge.

    And at first, it was great! Probably the first one to two months were quite exciting, I met a lot of people, I really pushed into (group) combat hard for the first time, I got exposed to different roleplay and culture. It was pretty exciting.

    Then Ashadra started playing again, and between her and a few other voices who thought like her, that eventually drove hoards of people into a fever pitch, all of that changed. People started to steadily watch my every movement, who I was with, and questioning me. Because I was friendly with Gaia (who had also given me a small push to join), and I watched her release of the Viridian Charter among many many other new things she added, and supported her, people also took to claiming favoritism (... except I was Nereian, so, yeah). When Gaia got branded by Cresil, and I watched her take it graciously (this was shortly after the Eleusis vs Mhaldor war), and the amount of outrage people had against HER, not against Cresil, absolutely blew my mind. People were bringing up the old old old event about Gaia going "crazy" (back before events had the standards they do now) due to Twilight and how we can't trust Gaia or anything she says because of that event having taken place, and we need to rise up and tell the GODDESS OF NATURE ITSELF what Nature means and we'll decide how Nature is to be represented. You cannot make this shit up.

    The mud slinging on the news boards, the building drama, people going crazy when Logistics was branded as a traitor, it just all got so much worse as the months dragged on. The amount of both IC and OOC bitterness aimed at me for being supportive of Gaia and daring to have different opinions was surprising, and eventually, I had enough, made some plans, and off to Mhaldor I went. I later found out, OOCly, that Eleusians had been hiring Hashani serpents to spy on me, take things I said out loud, and twist them a bit to send anonymous letters to the then-Speaker and leader of the Sylvans (Ravien and Ainia, respectively) in an attempt to see me ousted. Who knows what else happened that I still don't know about.

    Suffice to say, it was an extremely toxic experience that taught me the standards I should have for my fellow peers and whom I play with. It also made me genuinely appreciate Mhaldor and stick it out, despite the wild ups and downs that course has led me down.

    Should the admin hold that period of time against Eleusis forever? Of course not. And it's clear they don't. But instead of blaming the admin, Eleusis should work on bettering their city and the kind of people they allow to represent you, both roleplay-wise, combat wise, and attitude wise. I think some improvements have been made, but from some of the things I hear are messaged to Mhaldorians just for playing our role as the bad guys, there remains plenty of room for improvement.

    Also, don't take anything I said above as a slight to you, or current Eleusis. I'm just offering a first-hand story as someone who was there.
    And I love too                                                                          Be still, my indelible friend
    That love soon might end                                                         You are unbreaking
    And be known in its aching                                                      Though quaking
    Shown in this shaking                                                             Though crazy
    Lately of my wasteland, baby                                                 That's just wasteland, baby
  • edited December 2019
    A) How the hell did I miss someone leaking a patrons name and role?  Damnit.

    B ) I would not be a good team player for the Divine, but would make one sick ass Gaia. Think hellfire and dire consequences...like a Green Sartan.

    C) Eleusis has the same core that ran other divine off, and they are still actively fighting ANY change brought to Eleusis.  Some now do it through proxies, but they are very much still there.  One saving grace is they seemed to slowly be getting outnumbered.

    D) My biggest beef w the game is what @Sobriquet and @Antidas mentioned.  If I knew I would actually get something from a promo that I wanted (even if cards meant after you buy 10 you get the rare or that I could buy them for gold IG) I would be spending cash.  But when I buy promo spins (because the website said "vastly upgraded prize list") and get 6 consecutive Bound Credits for 11, I feel cheated and makes the game feel like a money grab. Especially when one of the few times I did a free spin I got a rare mineral and the next I got 45 bound credits. Free. 

  • All cities go through bouts of hating a Divine, Eleusus did it with Gaia and Artemis, Mhaldor did it with Keresis, Hashan did with Twilight pre Ren. Like @Minifie said Eleusis just gets the most flak cause it's the most recent. It has changed since that time and I do want to thank @Pandora and @Aegis for the wonderful work they have done to help us. They didn't have to but it has made these times bearable and the most fun I have had in a long time. I also want to thank @Makarios, and @Nicola thank you for responding. It's hard to guide a org when it feels like you still getting beat for what happened ages ago but the interaction such as this as well as what Nicola said to us in the past was very helpful!
  • Lenn said:

    They've added an org request system for stuff like this, but I've never seen a leader even hint that it's actually useful.
    It's not. Basically, you put a request in and if one of the admin has both time and the inclination, they may take the time to look at the open request pool and if you are lucky, they may actually complete one.

    That is not the fault of the admin behind the scenes, they would be doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, not out of any kind of obligation. There are so few actual admin and so much always going on in just a single organization that those requests are just left alone.

    I probably bugged the hell out of Nicola asking questions about it while the patron was MIA (dormant) so she explained how it worked.


    As a side note, I found an email chain with an admin dating back to 2010, so that was going on at least up until then.
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