What we need for successful invasions

[Tyl Ro]

Though my character is decidedly female Yay confusing gender roles!

 

[Ali Hadrix]

[member=Jarek Zenduu] That's precisely why I reference by character gender exclusively.

 

[Oddball]

[member="Ali Hadrix"]

You've met some of the other writers bating for the other team right? I've seen them multiple times never take hits, God mod, just tons of bs.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

[member=Oddball]

That has everything to do with their attitude and nothing to do with the improvements I proposed. If I had not had previous successes running things in the manner I've suggested here, I would have only recommended we play like they do.

Their writing style lacks everything on this list.

I have another additional point to make as well: I'm tired of hearing "we can't decide for others what damage they should take." If you feel you've been cheated out of a solid hit, go to an RPJ every single time. Writers get away with that sort of behavior because we don't bother holding them accountable, and instead expect them to just start toeing the line.

 

[Kana Truden]

If you feel you've been cheated out of a solid hit, go to an RPJ every single time.

No, don't do this. This is not what we are here for, we're a last line when communications between writers absolutely won't work. If your opponent doesn't co-operate, find a new one.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

[member=Kana Truden]

I have to respectfully disagree, though only on a personal level and you may rest assured I will avoid this as per the request for the time being.

However, if the RPJ's that judge invasions base those decisions on damage taken, hits landed and so on, and writers from one side are making concessions while the other is not, then that former side will continue being judged as failed time and again. It happened at Ord Mirit and I am aware of it having happened in previous engagements.

So what DO we do? Merely...behave the same way? Why can't we expect help in enforcing a standard of some reasonable kind? Of ANY kind, even? Sounds like we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.

As I stated earlier, I understand that writing is about fun, but invasions are about winning, and it seems the cards are stacked against us as long as the other side is free to run amuck as they are want to do.

 

[Cira]

Just in case this Staff Announcement was missed, please do click the link below in regards to reporting.

Hello Chaos,

Just tossing out this general reminder that if there is a concern or issue with another writer, please talk to each other first before reporting it.

The RPJ's are here to be the last and final call if all means of attempting to find a resolution through a conversation with another writer are exhausted. A quick and courteous conversation via PM may settle any questions or concerns you might have off the bat to get you back into the RP game!

http://starwarsrp.net/topic/63078-before-you-press-that-report-button/

 

[Tefka]

but invasions are about winning

You're dead wrong and are contributing to the reasons why some Invasions are so poisonous.

And if you keep convincing people to try and use Reports as a way to win Invasions, you'll end up looking even more foolish than the Mandalorians who did the same exact thing - and lost their invasion in the process.

Which is what you're doing, no matter how you try to justify it, no matter how many RPJs you respectfully disagree with.

 

[Cecily Demici]

We have to stop treating site members in other factions like our real life enemies. If you feel you should have landed a hit, but they dodged, go talk to them. Going to staff members should be a LAST RESORT if, instead, it becomes your first instinct you will give yourself and our entire faction a bad name.

Obviously [member="Tefka"] knows what he is talking about here, so it's wise we take heed.

Remember: you make your own enemies on SWRP. Choose to make friends instead.

 

[Mantic Dorn]

I am not along term experienced invasionist but I just feel I should step in with a minor comment here. I believe Ali did not have the intention of turning to judges each tume but rather that members of the GR for some mystical reason dont argue about these things while other players do.
From what I gave seen great GR RPers know very well how to RP bring hit and defeat. I guess its more in its nature or something.
Anyhow, these are Great storytellers with powerful and experienced characters loosing to lesser ones regardless. It has come to that these great writers are making the GR loose because of it. It is frustrating for admins like Ali and I can agree on that invasions should not be won by a faction merely because its writers avoid writing defeat to a greater length.

This is a question that is complicated and sensitive. But Ali deserves some credits for her own efforts and if chaos admins/judges notice this is not representative of her as a chaos member. Normally this is not her chosen words at all.

[member="Kana Truden"] [member="Cira"]
[member="Ali Hadrix"] [member="Tefka"] [member="Cecily de Demici"]

 

[Cecily Demici]

I don't think Ali is in the wrong. I think she is very justifiably disillusioned with the invasion process. I for one think that the invasion system is terribly flawed.

It is just important to keep reminding ourselves that just because we are divided into factions does not mean we are members of a separate site. We are all members of SWRP together and we should be working together across faction lines to write better stories. We can't build relationships with other factions unless we agree to start opening up and talking these things through.

As a staff member of the site (albeit the lowest tiered staff member,) one of the most valuable lessons I have learned is that NOTHING at SWRP is done alone. Everything good is a team effort. When you guys come and submit something to the Codex, if you went into it with the "me vs the codex judges" mentality you would fall flat on your face every time.

When someone submits something to the Codex they aren't on their own. They are a part of a team. I work very closely with every submission to perfect it and all the while I am consulting with the Codex Judge Team to make sure my judgements are fair and thorough; and the submitter might be working with his faction in the pre-sub forums to perfect it; and the admins are checking and double checking all of our work to make sure all the I's are dotted.

Anyway, the point is: Chaos is greater than the sum of its individual members. We must strive to preserve that through teamwork.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Always assuming we have the option, of course. It's not a coincidence that the Republic has the track record it does, and it's not because the GR produces worse quality writers or employs a less sound strategy. Pretending all this happens in a vacuum or that the other writers we all recognize as teammates in the writing of stories share this mentality is both silly in the face of all evidence, and wrong.

Frankly I'm pleased that the GR has someone like [member="Ali Hadrix"] who is willing to be as dug in and competitive as our 'friends' on the opposite side of the game table. Not that it matters now that the OS are giving us an intermission from the ass-kicking we seem to so richly deserve in the form of the cold war.

 

[Cecily Demici]

It just astounds me whenever we talk about members of the OS like they are these... foreign beings, nothing like you or I. We place them all into a neat little category labeled "Not to be trusted" and we behave accordingly and then we have the audacity to wonder why they might have some animosity toward us.

I have never had a bad interaction with the members of the OS unless that bad interaction was instigated by someone else. If the OS really was out to get all of us, then they should be just as hostile toward me because I've given every spare minute on SWRP to making sure the GR gets ahead.

There is a time for digging in your heels and there is time for setting aside differences and moving on. It is time for the latter.

 

[Tefka]

As I stated earlier, I understand that writing is about fun, but invasions are about winning, and it seems the cards are stacked against us as long as the other side is free to run amuck as they are want to do.

Again, this is completely wrong. I'm not judging the writer's behavior or personality on it, I'm sure he/she is a wonderful person, but many people believe this of their opposition on this website. But you're just simply wrong. We make jokes about factions being "Staff" factions, but there is no favoritism, no hand-outs, no silver spoons. When you enter into a report with an RPJ, it doesn't matter who raised the report - only the facts matter. Did this person try to reach a reasonable agreement? In the event a reasonable agreement was impossible between the two parties, was the Faction Leadership of both sides consulted? Have both parties been reasonable for the duration of the invasion, or have they consistently presented negative behavior? Only the facts matter.

If one side is running "amuck" on you, it's not them nor you to blame, but your leadership. My Staff team is held to some pretty high standards and I don't spend weeks training them in how I want them to judge so that factions can run amok on each other.

You're not facing an issue that needs to be reported. You're facing an issue of an opponent who

1. Has just as many people as you do (or more)
2. A more unified goal for the faction (your faction's destruction)
&
3. A very enticing advertising platform (it's easy to be bad).

If you want things to change, if you want to get out from this "ass-kicking", the Republic needs to stop ignoring these points and addressing them - and beating the OS at them. Do not mistake this advice as "we need to do better on these points specifically the same way the OS does it". There are a million different ways to skin this cat, and you'll have to keep trying different ways until you find one that works. And even then, don't stop. Keep going.

Continuing to falter at addressing these issues internally will only serve to continue the "ass-kicking".

your only other hope is to stalemate until the OS inevitably karks up and karks itself as all Sith factions do

 

[Ali Hadrix]

Just in case this Staff Announcement was missed, please do click the link below in regards to reporting.



http://starwarsrp.net/topic/63078-before-you-press-that-report-button/

I understand that most clearly. During Ord Mirit I spent the majority of my time coordinating such things internally and with Reverence himself. It allowed us to avoid any reporting at all, though a part of me wonders if our offensive suffered as a whole because I was so focused on avoiding it.

As successful as I have been coordinating with other writers over issues, I also had a handful of blatant denials, countered with the opinion that it is no one's job but the writer themselves to decide upon things such as damages.
I can believe in that to an extent, but there has to be a reasonable limit to that, and I feel as if those limits were breached multiple times during our invasion. To avoid an RPJ incident, I had to merely bite the bullet more times than I felt fair or necessary. We can't be afraid to step on people's toes if it's decided by a collective that they're being unreasonable.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

You're dead wrong and are contributing to the reasons why some Invasions are so poisonous.

And if you keep convincing people to try and use Reports as a way to win Invasions, you'll end up looking even more foolish than the Mandalorians who did the same exact thing - and lost their invasion in the process.

Which is what you're doing, no matter how you try to justify it, no matter how many RPJs you respectfully disagree with.

My apologies, please allow me to clarify two things:

Invasions are not solely about victory, but they are more goal oriented than standard threads due to their very nature. If one group did not want to strike a veritable win against a perceived enemy, then invasions would never be launched.
Of course these threads should never forget that a good story is important, though again the focus lies on the combat itself due to the nature of the story being written: An invasion.

If victory is not the goal, why do we not settle all invasions beforehand with a coin flip? I have practiced that before and it did one remarkable thing: Once the concept of victory/defeat had been removed, battles were written almost effortlessly.

My second point, [member=Tefka]: I have not encouraged writers to rely on RPJ's for every little issue they have, nor have I dissuaded anyone from handling things personably betwixt writers, though I should have added that to the statement as a reminder. My point was spawned from an avoidance some have had over engaging with the RPJ's over any issues at all. My statement was intended to be a reminder that if a writer feels they have been cheated, and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve matters with the other writer(s), then they should take the issue to an RPJ rather than let it go and stew in frustration, which has happened.

The failure is mine for not clarifying this.

[member=Mantic Dorn]: I appreciate your support on the issue and assure you my only intention is to help improve our collective experience.

[member=Cecily de Demici]: To be honest, I resent the suggestion that I am in any way disillusioned. I feel a better way to perceive this is to merely accept that you see Invasions in a different light than myself.
And I must speak for the invasion system you lot have to begin with. I have roughly ten years of collaborative text-based RP experience, and I've struggled to find a system as good as the one you have now. The fact that both sides collaborate on invasion terms to begin with is a huge improvement for me. Have faith in your system, it works well. It's just the minor, very human details that need to be worked out.

So yes, while we do all exist here together, and must work together to hobble along, indeterminate invasions are not necessarily the time for that. When it comes to victory, which I understand many of us feel is important, we cannot just work with the other side; they advocate for themselves, and we must do the same. If we want to win, and we advocate for the other side, we're working against ourselves.
Healthy competition is a good thing, and I'm only trying to help make it healthier.

As for the OS specifically...I have had mostly pleasant interactions with their writers, though I've had some not-so-pleasant-yet-bearable interactions as well. I am pleased you have only experienced positivity. However, while they are not "foreigners" of any kind, they do write for a faction that is both diametrically opposed to our own IC, as well as being self-serving in its goal for preservation, as are we.
And this is okay. We can work against each other, we just have to be able to do so in an appropriate manner.

[member=Tefka]: To address your more recent post, I apologize but I've caused a misinterpretation here. I blame no one for the GR's failures up to this point. And when I say no one, I mean no one. Placing blame, even if it's on the right person/people, situation, cause, what have you, does no one any good. Identifying the issue and correcting it does, and this is what I'm attempting to help with.
However, using the phrase "cards stacked against us" gives my thoughts the wrong slant, and I should have chosen a better way to say that. I meant only that there are things preventing the GR from being successful on the battlefield, and that is the "stack of cards" I'm referring to. No external sources of any kind, and I do not blame RPJ's or staff in any way what-so-ever. I have heard plenty of those arguments regarding invasions and they sound ludicrous. The idea that staff members have a little club that favors certain individuals is absurd, as well as impossible to prove, which is another reason I do not bother with it.

The causes of our failings thus far are in the list I posted, and exist only within ourselves. That is what I'm wanting to change. We need to advocate for ourselves primarily, which is what my statements regarding RPJ's was intended to convey. I offer my apologies that I failed in this goal.

(Though out of an entire wall of text I'm a bit peeved those two sentences got all the attention...)

I'm moving on from this issue, and would like to turn the discussion away from my choice of words and back to the issues on the list.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

[member=Aurelia Volcata]: I began noticing a while back that some within the GR saw advocating for our faction as something done at the expense of other writers, which I disagree with. One must advocate for ones own faction, without throwing extra-organizational writers under the proverbial repulsor bus.
The OS does a good job of advocating for itself, and I wanted to do the same for the GR. I appreciate your support in that manner.

 

[Cecily Demici]

[member="Ali Hadrix"]
I apologize if I misunderstood your feelings about the invasions system. I do think it is one of the better systems, but at the same time I see room for improvement. Seeing as I've only read invasions from the observers side of things, I do have a different perspective than you would.

To clarify though, Ali, I do not think you are the problem. You are a reasonable person and a darn good team player who has contributed much to our Faction so far in the way of improving our performance on the battle-field. I did not mean to come across as if I was holding you responsible for the negativity that comes from our side.

I was merely trying to pinpoint a vocal minority in the GR Faction who promote the animosity between our factions through underhanded, impolite, and war-hawkish behavior. They are the members of the Faction who cannot seem to separate the OOC and IC interactions between the OS and the GR. They insist on belittling OS writers and absolutely refuse to accept any responsibility for the losses we have suffered in our various military engagements. I reiterate that this is a minority, but a vocal one, nonetheless.

On to the other point you made about needing to advocate for ourselves. Yes, we absolutely should be staunch advocates for our own victory. However, I don't know if I would agree that we can only unshakably be advocates for ourselves. If you step back and read an invasion and you can tell that the other side wrote WAY better than we did, you should absolutely give them the victory because that's fair.

In an ideal world, the other side would do the same thing, but that may not always happen. So, we have to SELL it. We should be able to politely convince the other side that we did a good job and that we truly are deserving of a win. This returns me to my first point that this is all a team effort. I know for a fact if I was sitting across the table from Reverance and we were discussing the outcome of an invasion that he would completely trust me to be respectful and fair when I assert my opinion of who won. That sort of trust and familiarity greatly increases my chances that Rev will concede to me on certain things.

So, imagine if all of our members were able to have that sort of connection with their OS counterparts. I may just be overly optimistic about my point, so let me know if I am but I'd like to think that these friendships would help the GR achieve more victories in the long run.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Mea culpa maxima, friends. Since we're entering a cold war with the OneSith, we should probably be more conciliatory towards them. After all, we have wronged them greatly with our suspicion and hurt feelings. No matter how ill-treated we feel, we cannot allow that to stand in the way of a bright writing future together with them. If we're too pushy, people won't want to write with us anymore, and then who would facilitate Sith power fantasies - the Rebel Alliance? Please, they don't have what it takes for that. Only we do, and we do a damn good job of it.

We can't be bad sports, it's unbecoming and plus we're all friends in the end, aren't we? Winning is meaningless if we don't have friends to share it with. We can at least scrape a shred of dignity by having a stiff upper lip about it. So stop fussing and let's just write, huh?

 

[Cecily Demici]

[member="Aurelia Volcata"]
Finally! Someone who gets me!