Third Black Wave: Electric Boogaloo

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  • ArchaeonArchaeon Ur mums house lol
    probably just ratting bro
  • JiraishinJiraishin skulking
    They have rats down there? Fascinating. 
    ________________________
    The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."

    (Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
  • Jiraishin said:
    You know what concerns me? I once found a chipped shard left in a Balan'maal room with multiple tsol'teth in it.

    WHAT WAS THAT PERSON BASHING.
    The children, obviously. I’m going to go down and drop like 2-3 shards in every room :D

    The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."

    Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
  • If you were around for the year 750 games, Tlalaiad was the one that called the staff from the earth and gave it to Tesha. It was actually the first time we got to see Him favor someone.

    The precedent of the Tsol'teth (or at least their God which they follow without question) not wanting to betray every other Divine and keep the staff was there.
  • I wasn't around, but that makes sense.
  • Shirszae said:
    @Tiax The thing is, going for the staff should have been the obvious choice  for obvious reasons. People were making a big tiff of being sampled, but that was such a minor thing to be concerned about in the face of the possibility of getting what is effectively the most powerful artifact known to mortals back in coalition hands. The real problem is that people were set on what they wanted to do and not do and unwilling to consider anything else.

    And that is fine, if that is how you all wanted to play it, but the evidence of the scrupulousness of the Tsol'teth with their word was there, and I know some people keep pointing at it, and they were all mostly ignored, so yeah. 

    Personally, I found the event to be overall pretty fun, and I am intrigued to know where things will go from here, but I have to admit to some disappointment with how the 'chapter' lets say, ended. I am aware this is but a beginning, but nonetheless, I would have liked something a little more dynamic than some gods shouting.
    I guess my complaint is that it wasn't clear at least to me that I was making that choice.  I was under the impression that the Tsolteth path to victory was getting people to submit to sampling, not getting an ally to win the staff.  Maybe it should have been obvious and maybe I'm just dumb, but it would have been nice to at least know what the correct goal was.  I don't think my interpretation of the Tsolteth public post is totally out of left field - if their best plan for how to use the staff is to entice people to submit to sampling, it seems like the natural counter position is to refuse to be enticed.  

    I will ill note that I found the fact that only the sojourn required sampling very confusing.  Why wouldn't they demand sampling for every event of it is so important?  Maybe that should have been a clue that sampling was actually a red herring?  But why include such a red herring at all?  

    I think if the games were framed as being a battle for the fate of the invasions, it would have drawn far better engagement from all sides.
    image
  • Taryius said:
    If you were around for the year 750 games, Tlalaiad was the one that called the staff from the earth and gave it to Tesha. It was actually the first time we got to see Him favor someone.

    The precedent of the Tsol'teth (or at least their God which they follow without question) not wanting to betray every other Divine and keep the staff was there.
    I'd agree, but he is a new god, and has his own motives for things.

    So, I don't really see a clear precedence. He's the enigmatic wild card in the pantheon lately. Adhering to what he sees fit to at the moment. Add Twilight into the mix and who knows what can happen behind the scenes anymore. Which is exciting albeit worrisome.
    "Alas. Alas for Hamlin. The Mayor sent east, west, north, and south. To offer the Piper by word of mouth. Wherever it was men's lot to find him, silver and gold to his heart's content. If only he'd return the way he went."
  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    And instead Cyrene went and forbid anyone from even participating.  =)

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • edited June 2019
    Jinos said:
    Surprised that wasn't posted to the Cyrene news for us that missed it.  :o
    ^^^This. I just scoured the news trying to find references to that chat. Couldn't find anything.

    Edit: I am under the weather though, so I may have missed it. Still looking, but not finding anything either.

    Additional Edit: In the sake of fairness, I was mistaken when the games began and held many misconceptions in regards to the role the Tsol'teth were playing in them. Sojourn was the only event requiring "sampling", true, but I learned that probably about four days after the Games started via CT. From the first post by the Tsol'teth, that wasn't really clear (hence why Nereaos had to clarify.) However, I will also say that I am -still- unclear of the difference between "sampling" and "processing", and that one of the concerns I had back when the game started was that the Tsol'teth would be "processing" anyone that fell during the games. This, again, was only corrected days after the game started by someone puppetting the Magistrate on CT, but up until that point, it seemed to be a very common misconception.
  • All I can feel is pity for Neraeos in that log. He was trying to make it as obvious as can be to what they needed to do to win. They still noped out...
  • edited June 2019
    Ictinus said:
    I wanted to chime in, in response to some of the assertions that have been made in this thread. In particular, the question of whether Cyrene was provided any direction or guidance on how they may best proceed, whether the Staff was clearly outlined as being of crucial importance to the resistance, and also the subject of processing being required in order to compete.

    Thanks to the wizards in the Garden, I'm able to provide the following snippets from 4th June, where Neraeos made a distinct effort to cover some of these exact things. It is worth noting that at least two senators were present at the time.
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "The games do not interest Me, but there seems to be a flaw in the logic the proposed manner of resistance."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "How does holding your own games defy the Tsol'teth?"
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Then you can merely allow the staff to go to their allies, and then back into their hands when the time comes to continue the cycle."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Point out where they say submit to processing."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Because it is hard, it should not be tried? I am pointing out that defeating the Tsol'teth, as far as these games go, would be winning the staff and never returning it to them."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "I am spelling it out for you now then, it [sampling] is only for Sojourn."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "I know the terms they have set, if they were to break them, I imagine Others including Myself would step in."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "If you don't wish to participate, then don't. This does nothing to remove the staff, which I will remind you is a powerful weapon, from those who would turn it against you."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "If the last bearer of the staff handed it to Tsol'teth, then surely you can hand it to another."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Also I will remind you that the staff is the most effective weapon to use against the Tsol'teth."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "So it is mostly about the staff from My view."
    Don't let this derail the flow of discussion in this thread, I'm offering it up simply to provide context and clarity on one of the most prolific comments we've seen both here and in other platforms.

    That's sort of my point, though. When gods are framing the situation as "taking the staff would make sure they can't run games again" (which is how it was framed in a few other cases as well), then a lot of us are going to assume that -that- is what the implications of the staff are, not assume that taking the staff will be the sole determiner of whether the war we're in the middle of will end with a victory or a defeat. It's super easy to read what got said weeks ago now and say that it proved it all, but when we (or at least I) was under the assumption that there was a lot more to this event? It's also super easy to read that and not come away thinking that the staff will make all the difference in the event when it has done jack all in the hands of adventurers up to this point.

    Like, I was glad that we were getting any kind of nudging to fight, but in retrospect, I find the way the situation was presented to us to have been more than a bit misleading. If we'd heard "I suspect the staff will be very consequential to the outcome of this war" instead of "take it and don't give it to them so that they can't run games again", I think things would have been a lot different. Believe me, I was looking for any damned excuse I could find to push going for the staff as being important, but I didn't for a moment suspect that it was going to be the one thing that decided if our months of work would end in success or failure, because that still strikes me as making no sense.

    Like, let me be clear, I used what got said to try and push for being allowed to participate, and I spent hours arguing for it, but this is the Cyrenian senate we're talking about. When it's a lot of people who aren't very engaged with the event, and aren't going to take part in the games one way or another making the call, it's going to take a lot more then just suggestions that we could keep them from running another set of games like this in fifty years (especially because no one OOCly believes that's likely). I will one hundred percent take and run with anything an admin says if I think it will help us actually convince Cyrene's leadership to let us participate in more things, but the moment things are even slightly vague, members of the senate will straight up deny that we have any control over the situation. Verrucht spent hours arguing that despite what Neraeos had said, "sampling" might be different then "processing" and so it wasn't worth the risk of taking part, and that giving them legitimacy was a bigger risk then anything else.

    This goes back to people being tired, too. In the end, the only way Cyrene was going to be allowed to participate is if I personally drummed up the support and the votes, and I was exhausted, busy, and much as I thought we should try and get the staff, I didn't understand that it would be -the- event that decided how everything else went. So in a lot of ways I blame myself for that, but it's part of why I'm a little frustrated that I decided to try and make other big things happen - because if I hadn't, I'd have had the energy to drum up votes and do more. Running a different set of games ended up being directly detrimental to actually taking part in the event, and that really sucks to hear after weeks of work.

    When nothing we've done has made a lick of difference in the outcome of things for weeks, why were we going to decide that -this- was the one moment that mattered? How were we going to convince a group of players feeling like things were railroaded that we were at the climax of the event, the single moment that would determine everything else? Even our most engaged players who wanted the chance to do more with the games didn't suspect for a moment that the war was going to end within two hours of the end of the games, and so we weren't in a position to push that narrative either.

    It would have been -trivial- for the admin to frame the games more clearly as a climactic battle for the fate of this event. It's a lot harder to do that as an exhausted player with a dozen other things you're trying to handle. And that's why a lot of people are frustrated, we were making a choice that we had no idea we were making, and we just wish we were given the information to make it more clearly.
  • Shirszae said:
    I don't know how things could have been made any more clearer than Neraeos made them by that log.  :/ Really can't believe that people insisted on banning everything in spite of it. That's the biggest wtf and proof that most of the senators in Cyrene shouldn't be there... 
    "The Staff of Nicator is the only means by which to defeat the Black Wave and turn the tide of the war you wage with them. If you seek vengeance, justice, and retribution for your fallen, then go forth, compete, and lay your claim to the staff. Otherwise, be as silent as the graves you have dug."

    Taryius said:
    [snip] this is Achaea, marching down the streets with posterboard signs will never be as effective as murder, war and sabotage. 
    I know that a number of us tried the murder, war, and sabotage route, but we weren't able to get any traction from that either in game or from NPC interactions. I know I poked at Hycanthus a number of times to try and get something going, but had no luck there. In the end I believe the best we mustered toward that goal was the coalition efforts during the XP Event, but even that felt like I was gonna be shrubbed afterwards for griefing.
  • So far seems like a lot of ego and pride is what blinded the Coalition. The fact that I'm saying that of all people should trouble you.
  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    edited June 2019
    Synthus said:
    Shirszae said:
    I don't know how things could have been made any more clearer than Neraeos made them by that log.  :/ Really can't believe that people insisted on banning everything in spite of it. That's the biggest wtf and proof that most of the senators in Cyrene shouldn't be there... 
    "The Staff of Nicator is the only means by which to defeat the Black Wave and turn the tide of the war you wage with them. If you seek vengeance, justice, and retribution for your fallen, then go forth, compete, and lay your claim to the staff. Otherwise, be as silent as the graves you have dug."
    That's basically what he said. He litterally made a point of mentioning the staff is the most effective weapon against the Tsolteth. You are nitpicking because he didn't say it like you would have, but the essence of the message was the same:
    " what you all are seeking won't be achieved by foregoing the chance to get back the staff" 

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • edited June 2019
    Well ego and pride sort of lends itself to a fantasy game. I'm more looking at the post-mortem from a tabletop DM's perspective and what I am considering in this case to be a failure to anticipate the mood of the players and the likely directions they'd take.

    Edit: I am also not looking at this from the lens of we'd just had victory snatched away from us because x. I think Farrah still had a very good chance of winning even if we actually knew the proper win condition. This is really mostly just me thinking aloud as to how things might have been handled better.
  • Ictinus said:
    I wanted to chime in, in response to some of the assertions that have been made in this thread. In particular, the question of whether Cyrene was provided any direction or guidance on how they may best proceed, whether the Staff was clearly outlined as being of crucial importance to the resistance, and also the subject of processing being required in order to compete.

    Thanks to the wizards in the Garden, I'm able to provide the following snippets from 4th June, where Neraeos made a distinct effort to cover some of these exact things. It is worth noting that at least two senators were present at the time.
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "The games do not interest Me, but there seems to be a flaw in the logic the proposed manner of resistance."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "How does holding your own games defy the Tsol'teth?"
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Then you can merely allow the staff to go to their allies, and then back into their hands when the time comes to continue the cycle."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Point out where they say submit to processing."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Because it is hard, it should not be tried? I am pointing out that defeating the Tsol'teth, as far as these games go, would be winning the staff and never returning it to them."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "I am spelling it out for you now then, it [sampling] is only for Sojourn."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "I know the terms they have set, if they were to break them, I imagine Others including Myself would step in."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "If you don't wish to participate, then don't. This does nothing to remove the staff, which I will remind you is a powerful weapon, from those who would turn it against you."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "If the last bearer of the staff handed it to Tsol'teth, then surely you can hand it to another."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "Also I will remind you that the staff is the most effective weapon to use against the Tsol'teth."
    (Cyrene): Neraeos says, "So it is mostly about the staff from My view."
    Don't let this derail the flow of discussion in this thread, I'm offering it up simply to provide context and clarity on one of the most prolific comments we've seen both here and in other platforms.
    (My points have likely already been made by the time I get this sent, but what the heck...)

    I think that at this particular point, Cyrene was more focused on picking up the pieces than following the plot tracks, even those alluded to by our Patron. Considering how enjoyable said plot had been for the city thus far, I think our slight lack of 'fucks to give' and overlooking some hints here and there can be somewhat forgiven.

  • Yeah, it was a rough position especially on very short notice. Still, I hope you take my comments for constructive criticism, @Neraeos and the rest of the Garden too for that matter. I don't envy the position you guys found yourself in and Cyrene is bloody hard to herd on its good days as it is, so I appreciate the work you do for us.
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