Two hours left on random praise curse yay aaaand Seren has been nice, I've made um two friends. The rest are confused by my OBVIOUSLY INSANE praises of Manteekan
thank you all
ediiiit: I TOTALLY have NOT been doing my own random says and yells praising manteekan or rp-ing it at all. No
Right, so I removed the profanity from my previous post in the interests of civil discussion, because profanity distorts and prevents measured responses, but I kept all of the venomous contempt I had when I wrote that post by reflex, because nothing else reflects the sheer ridiculousness of the arguments that I was responding to. There was one aspect of the argument I wanted to address properly, however:
Yes, our experience in this game is tempered by our own intentions of how to receive what transpires. You can get killed, but if you make it out to be more negative than it needs to be, you can ruin your own experience. And it is not fair to blame others if you're just driving yourself in a downward, self-destructive spiral. I am not a bright-eyed newbie either, and I am well aware of this. I have employed this philosophy myself, not just to revive my own flagging motivation at times, but also to try and do the same for others.
Resilience is a quality that should be highly valued.
However, it is dangerous to wrap everything up under such a lens and just ignore the very real, visceral emotions and frustrations that people experience. There are many things the playerbase and community as a whole can band together to weather, and the result can be very positive. Improvements are rooted in players reaching out to fellow players in this way: how many times have Sidd harangued his opponents for not doing more to help themselves and their own teammates? It's not an unreasonable perspective. Illustratively, political and combat success swings on a pendulum, partly due to such influences.
However, anyone who takes a survey of the Glomdoring news group can attest to the fact that this mechanic is firmly in the realms of the unreasonable, if only because of the sheer number of posts throughout real-life years that people have posted to encourage and support each other - that has done nothing to temper or slow the increasing amount of grief that this mechanic creates each time the issue arises. This indicates an abject failure of such an approach to contain the frustrations associated with this so-called "conflict mechanism". Talan, your very own posts in that vein are what I was referring to when I mentioned you as a role model a few pages back. The argument of "toughen up, princess, do more to help yourself" is one that would have been valid maybe 8 real life years ago - try it out for a little longer, hang on for a little longer. It'll get better as we build more resilience.
2016 is Lusternia's 12 anniversary. The recurring lapse into untenable, unreasonable and wholly disproportionate waste of time for those most affected by this mechanic is no longer something that can be solved by standing around, poking and rubbing our chins, saying, "Maybe a little more encouragement on this front." Don't even bother mentioning the word resilience. The result of 12 years of trying has led to an increasing erosion of patience and restraint. The only reason it even lasted 12 years is because of the long stretches of self-imposed boycotting of the mechanic by the commune orgs. That the polar opposites, the designed mutual antagonists had to resort to boycotting a "conflict" mechanic to delay their self-implosion and protect their own collective sanity is a testament to how abysmally this mechanic fails to generate fun and sustainable conflict.
As a mature game community, enough is enough. This mechanic cannot remain in its current incarnation. Whatever the change is, something has to be done. Statements that imply not enough is being done on the part of the players to manage the frustration touches my nerve, and I am out of the patience and restraint I mentioned earlier to moderate my responses.
If a mechanic is tedious or boring then we should change it to be more fun. Its as simple as that really I guess.
If by simple you mean, "Has been tried by players, envoys, and orgs for over a RL decade, and has never been fixed", then yes, it's simple.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
Exactly. In no way is cutting down an elder acceptable retribution for anything other than cutting down an elder on the other side, and even then it's messed up.
If you're a cityfolk cutting down an elder, you're in the wrong. Unless that forest did something like a supernal/demonlord/spheres/flesh raid, you're way over the top. Especially if the excuse you're using is "it's valid rp" or "They raided our elemental lords" or "they kicked our villagers".
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Ah, yay... what five pages of arguments about totem carving. As it stands this is a one-sided mechanic in the majority of cases(the only time it isn't is when its only the forests involved), and like with fire starting it seems that a very large portion of the defense for the status quo is from those who don't personally have to deal with the mechanic.
Apparently what needs to be done is to nerf city dweller active power generation, make statues directly equivalent to trees in all ways, and then watch as the changelogs roll in to rid us of this horrid mechanic.
Exactly. In no way is cutting down an elder acceptable retribution for anything other than cutting down an elder on the other side, and even then it's messed up.
If you're a cityfolk cutting down an elder, you're in the wrong. Unless that forest did something like a supernal/demonlord/spheres/flesh raid, you're way over the top. Especially if the excuse you're using is "it's valid rp" or "They raided our elemental lords" or "they kicked our villagers".
You mean killing a thunderbird is not a valid reason?
The Divine voice of Ianir the Anomaly echoes in your head, "You are a ray of sunshine in a sea of
Or, in less insulting terms: if you're proud of the fact that you're part of the problem, your contribution to a discussion on solutions doesn't mean much.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
It's not a problem for you because you're privileged
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
@lerad great angry argument against something I never argued.
I'm just saying, if the admin won't do anything about, you could solve the pain by changing the RP approach.
Congrats for writing an angry wall of text though.
Btw: you kick running is lame as hell, just like chopping and running is lame. It also has nothing to do with the discussion, except to try to get a needle in about raiding with no defenders around. It would appear that you were around though, so... Erm, that's self contradictory. You were just rage kick raiding to annoy us because you couldn't take a face to face fight. I don't understand how that gives you some sort of moral high ground in this discussion.
I provide a solution to save people the stress of constantly replanting and they freak out. It wasn't a command or something, just an idea, because complaining for the last 10yr hasn't gotten you anywhere.
I don't chop trees or set fires. Tbh I don't have a horse in this race, but OK, I'm trolling...
This conversation exceeded its usefulness some hours ago. If you're genuinely confused about the response you just got, Ciaran, I'll simply go so far as to say this: Many players, myself included, have pointed out to you that the way you express yourself can sometimes seem unnecessarily, and unconstructively, condescending or provocative. That may come down to the lack of tone in forums conversations, but it does appear to be a persistent phenomenon. I hope you'll accept that in the spirit in which its intended.
I don't expect you to know the specifics of what happened when you were killing villagers for the kicks, because I don't expect you to know that I logged on that night to the villager cries on CT, and without anyone else available to respond, I ran immediately to summon guards etc.
That was, by the way, one of those scenarios I described about coming back from work, to more work.
I mentioned absolutely none of that in my "angry argument", because I don't expect you to know anything about that. I didn't mention that to you back then, not even when you sent me a tell saying something along the lines of "Whoa, chill out man", nor was I interested in quibbling about the specifics of the frustration that you directly caused me with your actions in my earlier post. It's not just irrelevant to the arguments I was responding to, it is also, as I mentioned, unfair to be blaming you for an act I "brought on myself" by logging in on the weekdays. But hey, since you brought up righteous horses and all:
I don't log in on weekdays anymore, Ciaran.
On the topic of reacting to an argument that you didn't make - part of my profanity filled post was reacting specifically to your implication that everything can be solved with a flick of our magical fingers, to detach ourselves from the RP. Specifically this post of yours - in general, the entire reasoning behind the post, but the bolded line would be the one that set me off the most:
If planting, raising trees, and carving them is too annoying, and you don't care about the power, stop doing it. Reserve it for RP occasions and rituals etc.
You could change the RP to be whenever a new person can bond to a totem, their duty is to raise it from a sapling to a totem, or whatever. The deeper idea being that an untended elder is a deeply irresponsible thing to do, or tragically lonely, or somesuch.
Problem solved, no admin intervention needed.
Specifically, the "Look, everything solved! 5 hours of respawns to set up one room for replanting? Yeah, just ignore it and only do it when there's a newbie that needs it!" argument.
We might as well make it 50 hours of respawns, then. 100 nuts to plant a single room. Why would that be unreasonable? We can just ignore it, can't we? Change the RP and everything. We are taking issue with the mechanic itself, not the RP that forces us to care about these bits and bytes of data on a random server in a country pretty much as far away as can physically be from my geographical location. The RP is, engaging, fun, and a part of what draws this game - and that's a personal statement from me. The issue is with the mechanic, we say again and again - and the people who defend it as a valid conflict mechanism.
And the solution you have is to change the RP - (that we've, or at least I have, indicated we [used to] enjoy, but are willing to sacrifice and give up) but keep the griefy part of the mechanic, and hey, presto! Everything's solved! No admin intervention is needed!
I reject that emphatically. Admin intervention is absolutely required - change to the mechanic itself is needed. I don't know what Estarra will approve, and my previous attempts have only achieved bandaid discretionaries so far, but I won't stop trying. And until something is done to properly address the problem, I will continue to express my frustration and increasing exasperation - alongside anyone who feels similarly.
@Lerad, it is not crazy to suggest that the forests start ignoring this mechanic that is so miserable to you. You do not need totems to keep your forest healthy; you are choosing to say that a dead phallic pole in every room is a sign of a healthy forest. RP can change and be adapted to new circumstances. Consider that Glomdoring went from caring about the Illithoid to not caring. Consider how both communes choose to ignore the non-faethorn fae when it comes to defending and protecting. Consider that both communes ignore the wishes of the fae in faethorn when they explicitly say they want to stay or serve the opposing spirit.
My point is, you can choose the more convenient option (ignoring totem) without sacrificing core rp, and you can make this change at any time. Others have made these decisions in the past - you can too.
They're not dead, they're living. Otherwise, yeah, the totem stuff was probably a contributing factor to me dropping Qistrel, I got seriously annoyed with log in to have people telling me that I need to carve all the totems because everyone else in the guild is classflexxed.
@Lerad, it is not crazy to suggest that the forests start ignoring this mechanic that is so miserable to you. You do not need totems to keep your forest healthy; you are choosing to say that a dead phallic pole in every room is a sign of a healthy forest. RP can change and be adapted to new circumstances. Consider that Glomdoring went from caring about the Illithoid to not caring. Consider how both communes choose to ignore the non-faethorn fae when it comes to defending and protecting. Consider that both communes ignore the wishes of the fae in faethorn when they explicitly say they want to stay or serve the opposing spirit.
My point is, you can choose the more convenient option (ignoring totem) without sacrificing core rp, and you can make this change at any time. Others have made these decisions in the past - you can too.
You're utterly and completely wrong about this roleplay and what it means to the forests (Serenwilde in particular). It's not at all like the Illithoid/Kephera or the nuanced fae politics.
Of all the examples quoted, the illithoid one is the only real player-chosen one that goes against admin mandated lore, and very weakly mandated one at that - it's the only one that is the more "convenient" option (many Nekotai would dispute that, by the way, but we'll let it be) in the interests of more fun and less grief. I'll note here as well that this part is also debate-able, the illithoid relationship never did create grief or unhappiness to any level similar to what tree-chopping and totems have created - to say that the choice to abandon them is similar to the choice to abandon totems is a stretch at best.
Secondly, the choice of defending, or rather, not defending non-faethorn fae was never given to the Communes. There were never tools given to encourage such a choice, no commune call outs when they were attacked, not even the flimsy excuse of an enemy territory that a combatant could leverage in the GIP. Like the GIP, these were neutral territory - not even villages, that any commune trying to "protect and defend" would find obstacles to do so. I can make an argument that this points to the admin actively discouraging communes to make this choice - but if I tried to make the opposite, the best case would be that the admin are neutral about whether communes want to do it or not.
Thirdly, ignoring the wishes of the fae in faethorn is explicitly reinforced by the mechanics. This is not a choice that players made to avoid grief and go against admin mandated lore. This IS admin-mandated lore.
The same "neutral" choice (the best argument I can come up with in favour of your logic) is not given to totems. Totems (and trees) grow in ORG territory. PRIME ORG territory. Brennan, the nexus keeper, calls out on the commune channel for retribution when they fall. The "dead phallic pole" is not a dead phallic pole in the room description. The implication that their existence points to a healthy forest is not a player made choice.
But okay, like I said, we're willing to give this up (via mechanical changes) so why don't we give it up via choice? Okay, that's a valid question. Let me answer that. So let's say we make that choice - not a "convenient" choice by any means - to go directly against admin-mandated lore for the sake of saving ourselves some grief. We ignore totems. We stop upkeeping them, we stop replanting. We tell newbies that they are not important, that they are dead phallic poles. We only grow one when there's a need to. After doing ALL of that, in the one ultra rare case that an Axelord chops a tree of an active person who carelessly or accidentally let his bonded totem fade. What happens then?
5 hours. 3 real life days.
And this a proper solution to you? This is an acceptable solution to you?
This is besides the fact that a BT newbie would have to be around for 5 hours (not consecutive, of course) to set up a room to start growing. And if he doesn't do it consecutively, because of real life commitments or whatever, the 3 real-life days that he needs to grow his tree can be delayed for up to however he needs to actually do the 5 nuts. Okay, let's say the commune pitches in to help the poor newbie, puts up ironbark, invests however many thousands of power needed to protect his trees with guards etc, all for the newbie, yes. At the earliest? 3 real life days to get his totem.
And that's okay with you? Whose earlier post said that the main victims that you feel sympathy for are the BTs who have had to deal with this? This is an okay solution?
This is besides the fact that taking this choice means commune enemies can continue to traipse through prime org territory without statue backlash. Besides the fact that communes are the only ones whose ethereal territory does not have a distortable (the planar skill) gateway entrance. Besides the fact that there are less ethereal essence creatures than there are elemental essence creatures. Besides the fact that they don't respawn. Besides the fact that the communes-exclusive power resource (fae) are in a neutral territory.
Let's say we take all of the above, and deal with it. I did say the power doesn't matter, I did say we're willing to make sacrifices. Let's say we do it, then, and also go against admin mandated lore, all to avoid the grief of totems. Let's say we take this very "convenient" choice. At the end of it all.
5 hours. 3 real life days. From two 6s balance chops of a thrill seeker. Or to let a newbie get his totem.
Are you surprised that I've put quotation marks around every time I type "convenient" in my post?
Worth noting: Hallifax doesn't. Explicitly. Encouraged not to, in fact, otherwise when we complete our epic cycle the player would have some hard introspection to do.
Not that Hallifax is the example to strive for, just saying that the analogy might be lost.
Comments
thank you all
ediiiit: I TOTALLY have NOT been doing my own random says and yells praising manteekan or rp-ing it at all. No
Signature!
Yes, our experience in this game is tempered by our own intentions of how to receive what transpires. You can get killed, but if you make it out to be more negative than it needs to be, you can ruin your own experience. And it is not fair to blame others if you're just driving yourself in a downward, self-destructive spiral. I am not a bright-eyed newbie either, and I am well aware of this. I have employed this philosophy myself, not just to revive my own flagging motivation at times, but also to try and do the same for others.
Resilience is a quality that should be highly valued.
However, it is dangerous to wrap everything up under such a lens and just ignore the very real, visceral emotions and frustrations that people experience. There are many things the playerbase and community as a whole can band together to weather, and the result can be very positive. Improvements are rooted in players reaching out to fellow players in this way: how many times have Sidd harangued his opponents for not doing more to help themselves and their own teammates? It's not an unreasonable perspective. Illustratively, political and combat success swings on a pendulum, partly due to such influences.
However, anyone who takes a survey of the Glomdoring news group can attest to the fact that this mechanic is firmly in the realms of the unreasonable, if only because of the sheer number of posts throughout real-life years that people have posted to encourage and support each other - that has done nothing to temper or slow the increasing amount of grief that this mechanic creates each time the issue arises. This indicates an abject failure of such an approach to contain the frustrations associated with this so-called "conflict mechanism". Talan, your very own posts in that vein are what I was referring to when I mentioned you as a role model a few pages back. The argument of "toughen up, princess, do more to help yourself" is one that would have been valid maybe 8 real life years ago - try it out for a little longer, hang on for a little longer. It'll get better as we build more resilience.
2016 is Lusternia's 12 anniversary. The recurring lapse into untenable, unreasonable and wholly disproportionate waste of time for those most affected by this mechanic is no longer something that can be solved by standing around, poking and rubbing our chins, saying, "Maybe a little more encouragement on this front." Don't even bother mentioning the word resilience. The result of 12 years of trying has led to an increasing erosion of patience and restraint. The only reason it even lasted 12 years is because of the long stretches of self-imposed boycotting of the mechanic by the commune orgs. That the polar opposites, the designed mutual antagonists had to resort to boycotting a "conflict" mechanic to delay their self-implosion and protect their own collective sanity is a testament to how abysmally this mechanic fails to generate fun and sustainable conflict.
As a mature game community, enough is enough. This mechanic cannot remain in its current incarnation. Whatever the change is, something has to be done. Statements that imply not enough is being done on the part of the players to manage the frustration touches my nerve, and I am out of the patience and restraint I mentioned earlier to moderate my responses.
And then turn around and argue that you should just not put them back up like that same RP doesn't exist.
Trees suck and needs changing. It hasn't changed in 10 years and it has always been a problem. I don't think it is changing.
Well I mean the argument it change is it simple
EDIT: I mean if people don't want to listen to a simple argument you can't force them to stop being pig headed stubborn I guess.
If you're a cityfolk cutting down an elder, you're in the wrong. Unless that forest did something like a supernal/demonlord/spheres/flesh raid, you're way over the top. Especially if the excuse you're using is "it's valid rp" or "They raided our elemental lords" or "they kicked our villagers".
Apparently what needs to be done is to nerf city dweller active power generation, make statues directly equivalent to trees in all ways, and then watch as the changelogs roll in to rid us of this horrid mechanic.
EDIT:
Do I need a reason?
No. No I don't.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
Or, in less insulting terms: if you're proud of the fact that you're part of the problem, your contribution to a discussion on solutions doesn't mean much.
Edit; To elaborate, it's apparently not a problem which can be fixed by discussion on the forums.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
You people are spoiled with your pretty goop noses.
I'm just saying, if the admin won't do anything about, you could solve the pain by changing the RP approach.
Congrats for writing an angry wall of text though.
Btw: you kick running is lame as hell, just like chopping and running is lame. It also has nothing to do with the discussion, except to try to get a needle in about raiding with no defenders around. It would appear that you were around though, so... Erm, that's self contradictory. You were just rage kick raiding to annoy us because you couldn't take a face to face fight.
I don't understand how that gives you some sort of moral high ground in this discussion.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I provide a solution to save people the stress of constantly replanting and they freak out. It wasn't a command or something, just an idea, because complaining for the last 10yr hasn't gotten you anywhere.
I don't chop trees or set fires. Tbh I don't have a horse in this race, but OK, I'm trolling...
That was, by the way, one of those scenarios I described about coming back from work, to more work.
I mentioned absolutely none of that in my "angry argument", because I don't expect you to know anything about that. I didn't mention that to you back then, not even when you sent me a tell saying something along the lines of "Whoa, chill out man", nor was I interested in quibbling about the specifics of the frustration that you directly caused me with your actions in my earlier post. It's not just irrelevant to the arguments I was responding to, it is also, as I mentioned, unfair to be blaming you for an act I "brought on myself" by logging in on the weekdays. But hey, since you brought up righteous horses and all:
I don't log in on weekdays anymore, Ciaran.
On the topic of reacting to an argument that you didn't make - part of my profanity filled post was reacting specifically to your implication that everything can be solved with a flick of our magical fingers, to detach ourselves from the RP. Specifically this post of yours - in general, the entire reasoning behind the post, but the bolded line would be the one that set me off the most:
Specifically, the "Look, everything solved! 5 hours of respawns to set up one room for replanting? Yeah, just ignore it and only do it when there's a newbie that needs it!" argument.
We might as well make it 50 hours of respawns, then. 100 nuts to plant a single room. Why would that be unreasonable? We can just ignore it, can't we? Change the RP and everything. We are taking issue with the mechanic itself, not the RP that forces us to care about these bits and bytes of data on a random server in a country pretty much as far away as can physically be from my geographical location. The RP is, engaging, fun, and a part of what draws this game - and that's a personal statement from me. The issue is with the mechanic, we say again and again - and the people who defend it as a valid conflict mechanism.
And the solution you have is to change the RP - (that we've, or at least I have, indicated we [used to] enjoy, but are willing to sacrifice and give up) but keep the griefy part of the mechanic, and hey, presto! Everything's solved! No admin intervention is needed!
I reject that emphatically. Admin intervention is absolutely required - change to the mechanic itself is needed. I don't know what Estarra will approve, and my previous attempts have only achieved bandaid discretionaries so far, but I won't stop trying. And until something is done to properly address the problem, I will continue to express my frustration and increasing exasperation - alongside anyone who feels similarly.
Edit: Mispelling corrected.
My point is, you can choose the more convenient option (ignoring totem) without sacrificing core rp, and you can make this change at any time. Others have made these decisions in the past - you can too.
Vive l'apostrophe!
You're utterly and completely wrong about this roleplay and what it means to the forests (Serenwilde in particular). It's not at all like the Illithoid/Kephera or the nuanced fae politics.
Secondly, the choice of defending, or rather, not defending non-faethorn fae was never given to the Communes. There were never tools given to encourage such a choice, no commune call outs when they were attacked, not even the flimsy excuse of an enemy territory that a combatant could leverage in the GIP. Like the GIP, these were neutral territory - not even villages, that any commune trying to "protect and defend" would find obstacles to do so. I can make an argument that this points to the admin actively discouraging communes to make this choice - but if I tried to make the opposite, the best case would be that the admin are neutral about whether communes want to do it or not.
Thirdly, ignoring the wishes of the fae in faethorn is explicitly reinforced by the mechanics. This is not a choice that players made to avoid grief and go against admin mandated lore. This IS admin-mandated lore.
The same "neutral" choice (the best argument I can come up with in favour of your logic) is not given to totems. Totems (and trees) grow in ORG territory. PRIME ORG territory. Brennan, the nexus keeper, calls out on the commune channel for retribution when they fall. The "dead phallic pole" is not a dead phallic pole in the room description. The implication that their existence points to a healthy forest is not a player made choice.
But okay, like I said, we're willing to give this up (via mechanical changes) so why don't we give it up via choice? Okay, that's a valid question. Let me answer that. So let's say we make that choice - not a "convenient" choice by any means - to go directly against admin-mandated lore for the sake of saving ourselves some grief. We ignore totems. We stop upkeeping them, we stop replanting. We tell newbies that they are not important, that they are dead phallic poles. We only grow one when there's a need to. After doing ALL of that, in the one ultra rare case that an Axelord chops a tree of an active person who carelessly or accidentally let his bonded totem fade. What happens then?
5 hours. 3 real life days.
And this a proper solution to you? This is an acceptable solution to you?
This is besides the fact that a BT newbie would have to be around for 5 hours (not consecutive, of course) to set up a room to start growing. And if he doesn't do it consecutively, because of real life commitments or whatever, the 3 real-life days that he needs to grow his tree can be delayed for up to however he needs to actually do the 5 nuts. Okay, let's say the commune pitches in to help the poor newbie, puts up ironbark, invests however many thousands of power needed to protect his trees with guards etc, all for the newbie, yes. At the earliest? 3 real life days to get his totem.
And that's okay with you? Whose earlier post said that the main victims that you feel sympathy for are the BTs who have had to deal with this? This is an okay solution?
This is besides the fact that taking this choice means commune enemies can continue to traipse through prime org territory without statue backlash. Besides the fact that communes are the only ones whose ethereal territory does not have a distortable (the planar skill) gateway entrance. Besides the fact that there are less ethereal essence creatures than there are elemental essence creatures. Besides the fact that they don't respawn. Besides the fact that the communes-exclusive power resource (fae) are in a neutral territory.
Let's say we take all of the above, and deal with it. I did say the power doesn't matter, I did say we're willing to make sacrifices. Let's say we do it, then, and also go against admin mandated lore, all to avoid the grief of totems. Let's say we take this very "convenient" choice. At the end of it all.
5 hours. 3 real life days. From two 6s balance chops of a thrill seeker. Or to let a newbie get his totem.
Are you surprised that I've put quotation marks around every time I type "convenient" in my post?
EDIT: Not talking mechanics but the trees are rp wise basically a loyal entity similar to the elemental lords/fleshpots/supernal/daughters/ladies etc.
Not defending them would be the rp equivalent of celest not caring about the water lords or the supernals.
Not that Hallifax is the example to strive for, just saying that the analogy might be lost.