Let's shed some of this baggage.

[Tathra Khaeus]

​I've tried to read everything, and I'll try to keep this short & sweet seeing as I only have the use of one hand.

​I don't think there is anything wrong with the rules or map game. But its rather the people playing it, and how we view it.

​I agree with [member="Tefka"], once you go Major you go from pve to pvp. But, this is not a competitive format and it never will be. All somebody needs to win invasions or do dominions is something pretty looking and a few alts they don't give a damn about losing a fight.

​Its PvP, but its not really measuring anything such as skill. Its still a game, and ultimately who wins is based on subjectivity of RPJS not objectivity.

​So, in my opinion; people need​ to stop putting winning over people. Yea, I guess it feels good to t-bag timmy in halo, your kindergarden nemesis but this isn't the same thing. We really, need to start talking to each other like human beings. I've contributed plenty to toxicity myself, but I'd like to think I've turned a new leaf recently, been better. So I know what its like, and yea we all hold grudges but this is meant for everyone.

​And that should be a shared mentality. Its not CIS people, UCM people and whatnot. Its just you & I, and whatnot. Discord has helped cultivate these mentalities, backroom discussions and such. But of course, this weird shit was going on back in the skype days. We can't pretend it wasn't.

​We've just been ignoring the rot in this old house but now the rot is everywhere. That might be over-dramatizing it but every new person who joins is hit with a wave of opinions and gossip from what I've seen.

​Ultimately like [member="Argis Volmir"] said, there are people on here that are just POS. There always is bad eggs, but how are we supposed to help improve ourselves & each other when so many people smile to each others faces when they despise each other? Nobody is airing their issues, well most people aren't, its not conducive to a constructive environment. This fakeness needs to stop, stop pretending things are perfect to the public until it erupts.

​We're not feckin' politicians. Lets keep this stuff simple.

​There is even from just reading these replies, very different ideas of what chaos is or how it should be played. But, ultimately we are all, all we've got. If we wanna fix things, we need to stop having discussions where group mentality and 'loyalty' trump integrity and sensibility.

​We need to deal with issues as a community, not leave it to this set of people or another set.

 

[WolfMortum]

As far as the Map-Game goes, telling people not to play-to-win is silly.

Keep in mind here that playing to win (Competing with other Factions), can still happen without disrespecting other players and writers.

But telling people to ignore the objective takes away the entire purpose of being in a major faction and being in the game. Invasions are competitive, people want to win and that's perfectly fine. This doesn't make them bad people or mean that they're suddenly biased.

On the other hand, this also doesn't take away the opportunity for these players to write and cooperate with others, in or outside of their factions.

There will always be winners and losers in this type of competitive thread. No one likes taking an L, but there's also a thing called "fair sportsmanship" in these sort of scenario's which promotes positive behavior and etiquette towards others. Whether you're winning or losing, if you don't want the salt, don't throw it in other peoples faces.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Veiere Arenais"]

I don't know if that is directed towards what I said But, I never said people shouldn't try to win. But at the same time, this really isn't the place for being super competitive. Even though I don't stop people from being so.

You're right, you can aim to win and still treat you enemy with respect. Bevause OOCly you shouldn't view them as 'the enemy'.

In team slayer, the objective is to kill the enemy team. In this overall it should be to write a good story. The map game should be flavour to the story, not the other way round.

And like Jay Scott said, you've only got and only should have control over 50% of your narrative. So you winning is only 50% important. The story is 100% important cause the best thing you can do is roll with the punches.

 

[WolfMortum]

[member="Tathra Khaeus"]

Not in direct argument with you no, but partially influenced by your first paragraph (third line in your post), as well as in response to a number of people who have been saying a lot lately how members of major factions shouldn't be focusing on competing to win.

Now, I'm not saying this is Halo or anything, but when we're competing against another faction in categories such as Story-telling, most people would be hoping to do their best to represent their faction wouldn't they?

Hands down, I play to push my faction forward to gun for the win as best as I can. I want the Silvers to do well, I want to help promote the success of the Faction. I don't want to do this at the expense of other players, but nor do I go about this in any way deceptive or inflammatory towards other factions. Yes the aim should be to write a good story, as is the category that both factions are judged by. Taking the recent Invasion of Azure for example, the Silvers are based for their part in telling their story, and the UCM in theirs.

My point was, it's not a bad thing to want to win. It's only a bad thing when you start going about these things at the expense of other writers.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Veiere Arenais"] and that's all fair and well. I agree, it's okay to want to win. I even said as much in my post that is the problem, when its at the expense of others.

I suppose the competitiveness for me is that sure, if a faction needs to be militarily successful to progress it's plot then I hope they do and its okay to want that. But to me it's not competitive, there's nothing to me that says a winning faction is categorically better than a losing one so it's not competitive for me.

This is more like DnD or charades for me. I want everyone to have fun. And I think those differences that we have in perspective are secondary to our preference to put each other first, before winning.

 

[WolfMortum]

I want everyone to have fun. And I think those differences that we have in perspective are secondary to our preference to put each other first, before winning.

Don't get me wrong, I want everyone to have fun too. I've written a blog post about this sort of thing, encouraging the site to be more cooperative and treat each other with respect.

I read your post, and yes you said that people can play to win without being disrespectful. That didn't go over my head. Nor did I say that one faction is better than another. They may do a better job of writing a story dependent on a variety of factors in an Invasion thread, but that doesn't make them better than the other faction over-all.

I'm a very laid back person, and I prefer to get along with people. I'll always do my best to treat others with respect, but I can't force people to enjoy an invasion thread, nor do I hold any weight or have any impact on their faction's story or decisions.

In this regard, when organizing an opponent for the purpose of an invasion thread, I do my best to let them know that I'm approachable and should they have any issues with my posts, they can speak up about it to me. But that's as far as I can personally influence their enjoyment of a thread, by being open to communication and respectful in our interactions.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Veiere Arenais"] sorry I didn't mean it like you were saying that, rather that that stuff is why I personally don't hold the same views as you.

And no we can't force people to enjoy invasion threads, but me personally I wouldn't want to invade anyone who didn't wanna be invaded by me in a collaborate story. Cause honestly, just look at the ORC & TSE. Those are the only good ones.

 

[WolfMortum]

[member="Tathra Khaeus"]

Yeah, I can understand that too.

Ideally, this would be the best way to go about things, and the best threads have come from planning on both sides.

Invasions, are however invasive. The best way to tackle those would be to find a means of working together via the announcement threads. Finding a compromise, but that's on the two factions.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Veiere Arenais"]

They are invasive. But this isn't a mechanic issue, it's a social one. We need to stop allying with our friends, we should be killing our friends.

The solution in my opinion is that we fix our relations with people before you invade them. And if you can't, I suggest you don't invade. It's not worth it.

 

[Ryan]

[member="Tathra Khaeus"] How does one Fix CIS and the mandos? There was a discord made a while back that was going to be used for mediation between the faction leads to hash it all out. But it was declined by CIS.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Ryan"]

You can't fix everything. And even then I don't know how.

I already suggested cooler heads or non-admins should deal with issues if they get too difficult for those emotionally involved.

 

[Tefka]

[member="Ryan"]

As I recall, Mandos have a time-honored tradition of dealing with their problems. I'd suggest looking to history for solutions.

 

[Captain Larraq]

For the overwhelming majority of this, I have no idea what's going on behind closed doors and in discord. But if we're going to discuss things.

Maybe responding to an Invasion by having three different factions launching simultaneous counter-invasions (forcing a group of writers into 4 demanding threads at once) is a bit much. Like, really. That's a bit much. If you want to say that "this is the in-character response to the invasion", that's fine and all... But you can either condense that into fewer threads with a unified IC offensive, or you can space out the threads as far as IRL time is concerned. You can also sit down with the admins of the defending faction and say "hey, we're looking forward to the invasion, but these three factions are a part of an alliance. In response, we're all going to want to counter attack you. How about we do these two threads at once, and when they're done, we set aside the next two weeks for the other two?"

But what happened was just too meta and it does not come off as IC motivated. Even as a casual observer with no interest in the ME as a faction, I couldn't help but to see the IRL response as a personal attack against the ME writers. Which, as far as perceptions goes, definitely wasn't helped by the follow up with CIC and ME admins failing to negotiate a delay (I know CIC voted on it internally, but when added to everything else, it still painted a bad picture).


Invasions can be stressful. Getting attacked can make writers have knee-jerk reactions and feel personally attacked. I remember several years ago, I got invited to a chat server that had numerous Sith and Imperial writers in it. And I remember... I think Vornskr? One of the major Sith writers at the time went to town personally attacking me as soon as he noticed me. I was pretty shocked and had no idea why he was so mad at me as a person. His friends pulled him aside and apologized to me for him and explained that he held me responsible for the Sith Empire of the time collapsing. He felt that I destroyed the faction on purpose and hated me as a person because of it.

When really, at the time, I had no idea that the faction was struggling, had been on the site for... I think less than a month, and was just thinking that a counter-invasions would be a fun story idea. It never occurred to me that the writers on the other side would take it personally, and that realization always really stuck with me after that.

Just... Freaking talk to each other. And if you don't like someone OOC, stay the heck away from their characters IC. Because that's just asking for trouble and you should know better.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

I don't think that was me, but I could be wrong.

[member="Captain Larraq"]

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Darth Carnifex"] I have no idea either. It happened so long ago that people were still using Skype. It's all water under the bridge anyway. At the time, I was mainly just confused. Getting called mean names never bothers me, I just had no idea what I did to earn the language.

 

[Reverance]

eah, you shouldn't have to go through BS with people who don't want to cooperate, but throw up a blog post (we have those) and expose the kind of bad behavior we have experienced (or the bad behavior that we, ourselves, have performed). If I do something so mean and insensitive to you that it changes how you view me and the site as a whole, I would want to hear about it (preferably in private first, but if I or someone else is such a monumental jerk then ->) or have flagged so people know to avoid me. Nobody changes without consequence, and while we all know that IC actions have IC consequences, OOC actions most certainly do as well. If you don't like someone, don't write with them, but if they become such a blight that you and others are being pressed down on with stress and begin to avoid the site, then take the leap and push back on them.

There's a reason why this doesn't happen. And I'm not going to name names, but when someone posts a blog about something going on - and the responses from community leaders (not necessarily admin but sometimes, yes) post gifs about eating popcorn, well it doesn't promote the practice.

More than anything, the site took on a dismissive attitude towards concerns. "If you don't like it, don't get involved in the map game," "we aren't here to babysit," "settle your problem like adults." All valid responses that totally disregard the impact major factions have on the site culture and atmosphere. There's a lot of power and responsibility there with a substantial effect on newcomers who get gobbled up by recruitment oriented writers. With that sort of hands off approach, it's not really a surprise that this tribalist sort of divided culture continues to permeate through the site. And discord has only helped shield these practices from recourse.

But my experiences are dated so maybe things are better now...

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Reverance"]

I've been around for 5yrs now, and active more now than ever and it is definitely worse.

 

[Tefka]

I dunno man... I've seen some stuff. I agree it can definitely be better, though.

 

[Ryan]

[member="Tefka"] It can be much better. And i honestly think you are trying here. If there is to be something to be taken away from this therapy session, its that Site staff's dismissive and hands off approach will need to be looked at and re-evaluated. Not saying you need to go all C E E L on us, but a bump in proactive administration would be a huge boost for many of us. I do not know how that would look or how much added stress that would put on a team of volunteers in a thankless position. I hope its worth a try.

Things that are truly not needed on this site

• Passive aggressive blogs that are aimed at individuals or entire factions OOC.
• Excessive Status updates spams.
• Insulting or demeaning posts that are not constructive in regards to Faction Interest posts and advertisements. Same goes with the Feedback forum.

and before anyone thinks i am personally pointing these at individuals. I am not. I have been guilty of these myself. Recently and in the past. And if i plan on keeping residence on this site, i hope that i myself can do better in holding myself in check when it comes to such BS.

 

[Ellie Mors]

There's a reason why this doesn't happen

Yes, it doesn't happen precisely because every time the option is brought up, someone brings up an incident from god knows how many months/years ago and then people who would have otherwise been able to find a solution, or a start to their solution, fall back into the same vague passive aggression you find in all of the suggestion threads that pop up all over the place for things that are indirectly connected to a specific event or person rather than just addressing the problem itself.

Every time someone sees a suggestion to come to someone for help or to post a blog or something along those lines, and see an option they might be willing to choose, there's a comment like this that is dismissing that solution and informing them not to even put in the effort to try and find a solution.

Do we, as a community, need to be more reserved when someone gets to the point that they air their grievances in public because nothing else is working? Yes, absolutely - but you don't tell people not to try it just because of a past experience.