The event is still ongoing, pryla’ari is still ahead, you still have 2 cities to gather facets with. Devs probably want people to participate in the tail end of the event instead of going, “Targrene won already rip oh well time to just completely ignore the rest”. that is even IF they chose ashtan solely to keep scores more even.
I'm increasingly unsure about you two's reading comprehension skills. It feels like every time I have to respond to you, the best way would just be to go pull quotes from my earlier posts that you clearly skimmed before jumping to the strawman.
So let me be clear here: Nothing that I said about Ashtan winning the writing contest was a complaint. I think that letting Pryla'ari, Sevet, or Telaan win would have been an incredibly boring way for this event to have gone, and I'm glad that it didn't happen that way, whether it didn't purely because of merit or if there was a thumb on the scales for the sake of a more interesting event.
I -also- heavily suspect given the huge disparities between the work that went into them that Pryla'ari could easily have actually had the worst essay. Obviously I don't know for sure, it didn't seem bad to me, but it seems fairly likely. And hey, Ashtan easily could've had the best, by the same token!
All I'm saying is that this wasn't an unpredictable result.
I am extremely grateful and appreciative to the dedicated citymates on our end who have made it so that I can dip a foot in and have some fun without being too pressured about participating. I'm also happy I got to contribute to some part of where Sevet is now, and all things considered, I think we're doing a really great job.
Sevet was a challenging subject to try and write an argument for, and (while I am naturally very biased in this), I'm proud of what we ended up submitting and the different specialisations of everyone that we pulled from to create it.
While of course it would have been nice to win, the submissions that I have seen were all creative and well-written, and I think everyone who contributed to that put their best foot forward and should be proud of that. Congratulations to Ashtan, and whoever wins tomorrow, it was an interesting bit of history to be part of.
Interested in joining a Discord about Achaean RP? Want to comment on RP topics or have RP questions? Check the Achaean RP Resource out here: https://discord.gg/Vbb9Zfs
I'm increasingly unsure about you two's reading comprehension skills. It feels like every time I have to respond to you, the best way would just be to go pull quotes from my earlier posts that you clearly skimmed before jumping to the strawman.
So let me be clear here: Nothing that I said about Ashtan winning the writing contest was a complaint. I think that letting Pryla'ari, Sevet, or Telaan win would have been an incredibly boring way for this event to have gone, and I'm glad that it didn't happen that way, whether it didn't purely because of merit or if there was a thumb on the scales for the sake of a more interesting event.
I -also- heavily suspect given the huge disparities between the work that went into them that Pryla'ari could easily have actually had the worst essay. Obviously I don't know for sure, it didn't seem bad to me, but it seems fairly likely. And hey, Ashtan easily could've had the best, by the same token!
All I'm saying is that this wasn't an unpredictable result.
Honestly I just think you are really poor at clarity.
I mean, I'm not about to use that logic IC, it's entirely an OOC argument. And I'm also not trying to dismiss the work that went into Ashtan's post, or it's quality, I'm sure it was very good, and could easily have been far and away the best.
But as someone who's done their share of competitive argumentation, any judgment between argumentitive pieces in a contest with no predefined standards is basically impossible to keep objective. Even -if- you're trying your hardest to let absolutely no outside factors colour your judgment, it's inherently a question of "which of these do I personally like best".
And when the alternative to an Ashtan/Eleusis victory was to render the entire rest of the event meaningless (by jumping any of the other factions up so far that not even winning both remaining events would've helped), it's hard for me to believe that there wasn't some definite imperative to picking one of the factions that were behind. Even -if- the admin really wanted to be impartial (and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they didn't, for the sake of a more interesting event) they aren't exactly in an unbiased position.
Maybe Ashtan made by far the best, giving the Admin a super easy way to go with an outcome they probably desired. Maybe in a complete vacuum, Ashtan still would've won. Nothing I've said is to say that couldn't be more than possible. I just don't think that it was realistic from the outset that any of the factions that weren't behind would've been given the win, so long as it was justifiable that they not.
Well, Ashtan won the Pandoran Lullaby contest.
Ashtan won the World's Fair Debate. If anyone didn't think we were a big
contender for the essay, they've not been paying attention. We may not
have the large group of raiders we used to (although we're up and coming
again there as well), but the one thing we do have is people who know
the lore and can write!
For our part, we sort of assumed that the Reckoning's history and recent calls were themselves predefined standards for the essay, and it paid off in the end!
I mean, I'm not about to use that logic IC, it's entirely an OOC argument. And I'm also not trying to dismiss the work that went into Ashtan's post, or it's quality, I'm sure it was very good, and could easily have been far and away the best.
But as someone who's done their share of competitive argumentation, any judgment between argumentitive pieces in a contest with no predefined standards is basically impossible to keep objective. Even -if- you're trying your hardest to let absolutely no outside factors colour your judgment, it's inherently a question of "which of these do I personally like best".
And when the alternative to an Ashtan/Eleusis victory was to render the entire rest of the event meaningless (by jumping any of the other factions up so far that not even winning both remaining events would've helped), it's hard for me to believe that there wasn't some definite imperative to picking one of the factions that were behind. Even -if- the admin really wanted to be impartial (and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they didn't, for the sake of a more interesting event) they aren't exactly in an unbiased position.
Maybe Ashtan made by far the best, giving the Admin a super easy way to go with an outcome they probably desired. Maybe in a complete vacuum, Ashtan still would've won. Nothing I've said is to say that couldn't be more than possible. I just don't think that it was realistic from the outset that any of the factions that weren't behind would've been given the win, so long as it was justifiable that they not.
Well, Ashtan won the Pandoran Lullaby contest.
Ashtan won the World's Fair Debate. If anyone didn't think we were a big
contender for the essay, they've not been paying attention. We may not
have the large group of raiders we used to (although we're up and coming
again there as well), but the one thing we do have is people who know
the lore and can write!
For our part, we sort of assumed that the Reckoning's history and recent calls were themselves predefined standards for the essay, and it paid off in the end!
We went for a mixed roll and try to prop up sevet and attack the others. Almost paid off too if it wasn’t for those pesky chaotes!
No shade meant at Ashtan. I would have put money on either Mhaldor or Ashtan winning anyway. But even if Pryla'ari had the best essay, I don't think the admin would have given that faction the win. That's all anyone's saying....
I like IC that Pryla'ari is ahead but I think it was a stupid-ass decision to have 4 candidates that are each clearly associated with 1 city and then 1 candidate that's a close match for 2 cities. If they meant it as a clear city v. city thing, they should have put up 6 candidates. If they didn't, they should have gone with 3 candidates that aren't as clearly aligned to specific cities and let people choose their faction individually. That's the only part of this that I think was really badly set up.
It feels like admin wants Cyrene and Targossas in conflict, which is fine and makes things interesting. But setting us up to be guided by IC goals to work together and then forbidding us to do that for a paper-thin IC reason is just silly and frustrating for everyone, including the cities operating against a quasi-alliance.
Well, Ashtan won the Pandoran Lullaby contest.
Ashtan won the World's Fair Debate. If anyone didn't think we were a big
contender for the essay, they've not been paying attention. We may not
have the large group of raiders we used to (although we're up and coming
again there as well), but the one thing we do have is people who know
the lore and can write!
For our part, we sort of assumed that the Reckoning's history and recent calls were themselves predefined standards for the essay, and it paid off in the end!
By standards, I mean standards on which something is judged, to be clear. The prompt was super open ended, which inevitably means that different submissions will take different approaches as they guess what judges are looking for. This makes it as much a question of what the judges decide they prioritise as anything else, which also gives judges a lot of freedom in deciding who wins.
But to be very clear, I have no doubt in Ashtan's ability to win a writing contest on its own merits. You guys have good writers and debaters (you won the debate contest that took place as well, after all!) and I'm sure the submission was very good, and almost definitely better than ours.
Ya'll did good, and the writing win is deserved. I'm just salty about the structure of this event as a whole.
For our part, we sort of assumed that the Reckoning's history and recent calls were themselves predefined standards for the essay, and it paid off in the end!
We has this element also. From what I can see (3 of the 5 entries), the contest rewarded a solid knowledge of the lore behind the contender and possibly good counterarguments against the other contenders as well. We tried our best on the first--and I don't think we did badly--but the second was missing, mostly because of a (possibly misguided) desire not to go negative in the campaign, at least not as an opening gambit (responses in kind are another matter).
We also thought that with two more essay contests in the pipeline, it would be more of a proposition and response type format--say, the five essays are published (as the application letters were), and then a second round of rebuttals, and then a third round of concluding statements. That would have provided more opportunity to understand the judgment criteria and adapt subsequent entries accordingly. We likely would have approached it differently if we had not been thinking about the essay contest as a three part series.
For our part, we sort of assumed that the Reckoning's history and recent calls were themselves predefined standards for the essay, and it paid off in the end!
We has this element also. From what I can see (3 of the 5 entries), the contest rewarded a solid knowledge of the lore behind the contender and possibly good counterarguments against the other contenders as well. We tried our best on the first--and I don't think we did badly--but the second was missing, mostly because of a (possibly misguided) desire not to go negative in the campaign, at least not as an opening gambit (responses in kind are another matter).
We also thought that with two more essay contests in the pipeline, it would be more of a proposition and response type format--say, the five essays are published (as the application letters were), and then a second round of rebuttals, and then a third round of concluding statements. That would have provided more opportunity to understand the judgment criteria and adapt subsequent entries accordingly. We likely would have approached it differently if we had not been thinking about the essay contest as a three part series.
We may have had one small part that pointed out the vast difference between her and the others, but ours was mostly a pure pro-Maim piece. We too were expecting a possible debate or continued writings that required counterarguments and such, but in the end decided to follow the prompt and Reckoning lore as closely as possible. Looking forward to when this is complete so we can see/share all the entries.
If they don't want called out for doing something dumb, they are free to not do that dumb thing in the first place.
So does anyone consider it something dumb to intentionally use that exploding adventurer mechanic when fighting the witch to kill an entire group? Even when none of them are actively killing the witch at that moment? Or is it just me that was bothered by that.
I like IC that Pryla'ari is ahead but I think it was a stupid-ass decision to have 4 candidates that are each clearly associated with 1 city and then 1 candidate that's a close match for 2 cities. If they meant it as a clear city v. city thing, they should have put up 6 candidates. If they didn't, they should have gone with 3 candidates that aren't as clearly aligned to specific cities and let people choose their faction individually. That's the only part of this that I think was really badly set up.
The only way to do that would be if the admins had decided on the candidates and left out the players in that decision entirely. As long as it was up to the players, no number of candidates would have guaranteed a "perfectly distributed" setup, so alliances were always likely to form. Allowing people to choose factions individually among a 3 candidate set wouldn't have solved the issue. There still would have been teams, some larger than others, and many cities would have banded together behind one candidate.
Admin-set candidates (e.g. one per city) would have made the event appear more "fair", but it would also have been a lot more boring. I think the whole lead-up to the Reckoning, including talking to the candidates, their campaigns and such, was the most interesting part of the event so far and we completely would have missed that, just in order to have a "fair combat event".
I think the admins at first simply wanted to create a fun and interesting event from an RP perspective and allow for a lot of player choice, but later decided to cut back on this again (via Aurora, in this case) when they felt the angry backlash of players who didn't enjoy having to fight alone against a team.
I think the main problem is thus simply that the Reckoning feels a bit caught between trying to be a fairly open-ended and player-driven RP event on one side, but also a fair competition for players to engage in. It's really hard to make both sides happy at the same time.
Personally, I don't mind "unfairness" in something like this at all (yes, I know this may sound hypocritical coming from a player in the currently "winning" team) and I'd much rather see a focus on making the event exciting from an RP perspective, but I know that many others see it more as a competitive "world game" (like a CTF or the Staff-of-Nicator games) and thus want an entirely different focus. I wouldn't want to be in the admins' place for this.
Be allied all ya want, but atm IC both sides are acting and participating as an alliance while being told on the forums you are not allied. So for Targ either ya'll are allied and you've all made Ygia look like an idiot, or you aren't allied but you haven't told your citizenry about it. AFAIK though Cyrene hasn't been forced to not ally, so they can do whatever they damn well want without looking like hypocrites so keep on keepin' on.
Well, I have no Targossan character so I can't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that while Targossas' official stance is clearly "don't work with Cyrene", many individual Targossans are being torn between following that decree to the letter or still trying to do well in the event by sort-of-half-but-not-really-or-maybe-still-a-bit collaborating with Cyrene (which you might attribute to a "win at all costs mentality", but which can definitely also be justified RP-wise).
It is often super hard to try to work towards the same goal as someone else without actually helping them, so personally I'm glad I'm not in their shoes. In order to definitely not collaborate, Targossas would probably have to leave any commander area, whenever any Cyrenian entered.
In Cyrene, we're in a much less problematic situation, but there's still a dichotomy between some players who want to outright kill all Targossans they see and others who want to follow a more utilitarian approach and focus on succeeding in the event.
We have not been working with Cyrene, we don't tell them to go hunt to summon the boss, have separate parties since like day 3 of the event, we don't invite them (they show up like anyone else when the global announcements that the bosses are up). It would be infinitely easier if we had any formal connections with them. They are well-meaning but a knowledge gap exists and we can't even tell them anything that would make things a lot easier for both parties.
There's literally evidence of ya'll working together and I'm a troll. Man, I'd tell you to lay off the paint chips but you've been delusional for decades now.
I like IC that Pryla'ari is ahead but I think it was a stupid-ass decision to have 4 candidates that are each clearly associated with 1 city and then 1 candidate that's a close match for 2 cities. If they meant it as a clear city v. city thing, they should have put up 6 candidates. If they didn't, they should have gone with 3 candidates that aren't as clearly aligned to specific cities and let people choose their faction individually. That's the only part of this that I think was really badly set up.
The only way to do that would be if the admins had decided on the candidates and left out the players in that decision entirely. As long as it was up to the players, no number of candidates would have guaranteed a "perfectly distributed" setup, so alliances were always likely to form. Allowing people to choose factions individually among a 3 candidate set wouldn't have solved the issue. There still would have been teams, some larger than others, and many cities would have banded together behind one candidate.
Admin-set candidates (e.g. one per city) would have made the event appear more "fair", but it would also have been a lot more boring. I think the whole lead-up to the Reckoning, including talking to the candidates, their campaigns and such, was the most interesting part of the event so far and we completely would have missed that, just in order to have a "fair combat event".
I would be surprised if the referendum actually decided the top candidates. And anyway, even if it did, admin at least had the choice of how many candidates to include. 5 is literally the worst number they could have possibly chosen. No city has multiple possible candidates, only one candidate has two aligned cities. It was a bad decision, IMO. I know admin works incredibly hard and I think this event is great in a lot of ways, but they didn't -have- to have a referendum for the candidates, and they didn't -have- to pick exactly 5.
There's literally evidence of ya'll working together and I'm a troll. Man, I'd tell you to lay off the paint chips but you've been delusional for decades now.
Yes, and I have logs of Dalran backstabbing Targossians, every faction prioritizing Targossas over Ashtan, Hashan, Mhaldor. The best analogy I can think of is we are both frequent patrons of the same local restaurant (support your local small businesses), and peek over at what they have ordered and vice versa.
There's literally evidence of ya'll working together and I'm a troll. Man, I'd tell you to lay off the paint chips but you've been delusional for decades now.
Yes, and I have logs of Dalran backstabbing Targossians, every faction prioritizing Targossas over Ashtan, Hashan, Mhaldor. The best analogy I can think of is we are both patrons at our favorite local restaurant, and peek over at what they have ordered and vice versa.
This is like comparing apples and the lunar landing. Show logs of Mhaldor/Hashan/Ashtan rezzing/flaming/protecting the others and you have a ghost of a point. Until then, your claim that Targ hasn't been helping Cyrene is provably false. Maybe YOU haven't been helping them, but doesn't mean, as a faction, Targ hasn't been doing so. It's fine if you want to, ally up, but this "we ain't helping" OOC while helping IC facade has been broken. Try again another time.
Ya'll are welcome to do w/e IC, but own it instead of being bitches and trying to claim moral superiority on an internet forum. Cyrene doing their thing and owning it, be like Cyrene.
And Cyrene above has said we haven't helped him. It's been super cringe watching them die needlessly at times but we can't share or warn them. We have a ceasefire with them for obvious reasons, but we have had one hand (maybe both) tied behind our backs since early on in this event.
And Cyrene above has said we haven't helped him. It's been super cringe watching them die needlessly at times but we can't share or warn them. We have a ceasefire with them for obvious reasons, but we have had one hand (maybe both) tied behind our backs since early on in this event.
I can also post logs of Cyrenians from Discord telling me they've been helping/helped with you. You are either arguing from delusion or just ignoring evidence offered. I am unsure which, but at this point you should just clarify YOU personally don't work with Cyrene, but accept that there is this going on. No one really cares if you do, but being dishonest about it on an OOC level while doing nothing about it IC reeks of being deliberately dishonest.
Comments
Sevet was a challenging subject to try and write an argument for, and (while I am naturally very biased in this), I'm proud of what we ended up submitting and the different specialisations of everyone that we pulled from to create it.
While of course it would have been nice to win, the submissions that I have seen were all creative and well-written, and I think everyone who contributed to that put their best foot forward and should be proud of that. Congratulations to Ashtan, and whoever wins tomorrow, it was an interesting bit of history to be part of.
Stories by Jurixe and Stories by Jurixe 2
Interested in joining a Discord about Achaean RP? Want to comment on RP topics or have RP questions? Check the Achaean RP Resource out here: https://discord.gg/Vbb9Zfs
For our part, we sort of assumed that the Reckoning's history and recent calls were themselves predefined standards for the essay, and it paid off in the end!
I like IC that Pryla'ari is ahead but I think it was a stupid-ass decision to have 4 candidates that are each clearly associated with 1 city and then 1 candidate that's a close match for 2 cities. If they meant it as a clear city v. city thing, they should have put up 6 candidates. If they didn't, they should have gone with 3 candidates that aren't as clearly aligned to specific cities and let people choose their faction individually. That's the only part of this that I think was really badly set up.
It feels like admin wants Cyrene and Targossas in conflict, which is fine and makes things interesting. But setting us up to be guided by IC goals to work together and then forbidding us to do that for a paper-thin IC reason is just silly and frustrating for everyone, including the cities operating against a quasi-alliance.
Edit: Misread the above post. Thought Laedha said they wouldn't have put money on us. My bad.
We also thought that with two more essay contests in the pipeline, it would be more of a proposition and response type format--say, the five essays are published (as the application letters were), and then a second round of rebuttals, and then a third round of concluding statements. That would have provided more opportunity to understand the judgment criteria and adapt subsequent entries accordingly. We likely would have approached it differently if we had not been thinking about the essay contest as a three part series.
We may have had one small part that pointed out the vast difference between her and the others, but ours was mostly a pure pro-Maim piece. We too were expecting a possible debate or continued writings that required counterarguments and such, but in the end decided to follow the prompt and Reckoning lore as closely as possible. Looking forward to when this is complete so we can see/share all the entries.
So does anyone consider it something dumb to intentionally use that exploding adventurer mechanic when fighting the witch to kill an entire group? Even when none of them are actively killing the witch at that moment? Or is it just me that was bothered by that.
Admin-set candidates (e.g. one per city) would have made the event appear more "fair", but it would also have been a lot more boring. I think the whole lead-up to the Reckoning, including talking to the candidates, their campaigns and such, was the most interesting part of the event so far and we completely would have missed that, just in order to have a "fair combat event".
I think the admins at first simply wanted to create a fun and interesting event from an RP perspective and allow for a lot of player choice, but later decided to cut back on this again (via Aurora, in this case) when they felt the angry backlash of players who didn't enjoy having to fight alone against a team.
I think the main problem is thus simply that the Reckoning feels a bit caught between trying to be a fairly open-ended and player-driven RP event on one side, but also a fair competition for players to engage in. It's really hard to make both sides happy at the same time.
Personally, I don't mind "unfairness" in something like this at all (yes, I know this may sound hypocritical coming from a player in the currently "winning" team) and I'd much rather see a focus on making the event exciting from an RP perspective, but I know that many others see it more as a competitive "world game" (like a CTF or the Staff-of-Nicator games) and thus want an entirely different focus. I wouldn't want to be in the admins' place for this.
→My Mudlet Scripts
It is often super hard to try to work towards the same goal as someone else without actually helping them, so personally I'm glad I'm not in their shoes. In order to definitely not collaborate, Targossas would probably have to leave any commander area, whenever any Cyrenian entered.
In Cyrene, we're in a much less problematic situation, but there's still a dichotomy between some players who want to outright kill all Targossans they see and others who want to follow a more utilitarian approach and focus on succeeding in the event.
→My Mudlet Scripts
We have not been working with Cyrene, we don't tell them to go hunt to summon the boss, have separate parties since like day 3 of the event, we don't invite them (they show up like anyone else when the global announcements that the bosses are up). It would be infinitely easier if we had any formal connections with them. They are well-meaning but a knowledge gap exists and we can't even tell them anything that would make things a lot easier for both parties.
Ya'll are welcome to do w/e IC, but own it instead of being bitches and trying to claim moral superiority on an internet forum. Cyrene doing their thing and owning it, be like Cyrene.
I can also post logs of Cyrenians from Discord telling me they've been helping/helped with you. You are either arguing from delusion or just ignoring evidence offered. I am unsure which, but at this point you should just clarify YOU personally don't work with Cyrene, but accept that there is this going on. No one really cares if you do, but being dishonest about it on an OOC level while doing nothing about it IC reeks of being deliberately dishonest.