I'm not sure what to do anymore

Parua · December 2013

I'm a noncom. I freely admit this. I have tried dabbling in combat in the past, and I just don't have the head for it. I know this.

When you get raided, you want to do what you can to defend your city or commune from the invaders, because it's the right thing to do, even if it just means zerging up and spamming damage attacks/vines. I want to do it, the novices and midbies want to do it, it's the natural inclination.

However, I cannot in good conscience encourage Seren novices and midbies to join in defense when I have everybody telling me not to, because if they defend they will get enemy statuses, and become targets for ganking both on-and-off prime. Don't try to argue that this doesn't happen, because it does. I've heard multiple instances of this sort of thing happening on all sides. I've experienced it myself, along with even worse reasons for enemy status as a low level character.

So I get to sit here, and watch my friends and communemates get torn to shreds over and over, because there is nobody else around that can do anything, and get frustrated and angry, both at themselves for not doing better, at the commune for not putting up a fight, and at the other side for doing what the game encourages us to do: participate in conflict.

People are leaving the commune, people are no longer logging in, and the familiar faces every day dwindle while novices show up for a day or two, get discouraged by lack of leadership, and seeing the raids with no real defense, and then stop logging in.

I don't know what to do anymore. All the air seems to have gone out of the org, when not even a full two months ago, the commune was bustling with activity. Now all I see are people idling about. And yes, I am guilty of this too, because it's hard to engage people that don't engage back, or are just too dispirited to want to play.

I've been playing this game on and off over 9 years. I love Lusternia, but I'm not really enjoying the game anymore. And I don't know what to do to fix the problems that I see.

And don't tell me to switch orgs, because this does not fix the problem, it just makes it worse.

Thoros · December 2013

The activity of Lusternia tends to wax and wane. You're right, about two months ago the population was bustling, domoths weren't dominated by one side, and everyone seemed to participate in events more. Lusternia's an ever changing place, and the balance of power will always shift from one city to the next.

Sometimes an org will be raided, and there aren't enough defenders to deter the raiders. It will happen. And when it does there's no need to be discouraged. No, theres no reason for newbies to throw themselves at experienced raiders. It's futile and useless. Theres a difference when newbies want to learn how to Pk and join on raids and such to learn with the bigger guys. But when it's only newbies who are on the defensive, the only thing you can do is sit and wait for the enemies to leave. This has happened to every organization before. It will happen again, forever, whenever the balance of powers shift and populations of certain orgs and alliances wax and wane.

I've never heard of novices being enemied for defending. I've never done so, I admit, I am guilty for enemying for the most simplest crimes. I think I was the one who brought up order-enemying and org enemying for Domoths and village revolts, because, in-game and roleplaying, you are fighting for resources and power, and by competing another org for those resources and powers, you are taking something from them that they believe (Or, in the eyes of Thoros) is rightfully theirs. But as far as becoming enemied for defending your organizational territory, and especially as a novice/newbie/lowbie, I'm not sure I've ever heard of that. And, if I've ever done so in the past, my bad! But nowadays, I'd definitely never do something like that.

You shouldn't let org raids get to you so bad. Honestly. There is no loss being taken. Aspects and elementals die. There is no loss happening to the organization in question. Essence will be only worth 1 power now, however, that is still not a loss. Angels and demons die, and cost Celest/Magnagora power. But even if you were to clear Nil 10 times, which takes about 10 hours once you consider respawn time, you've drained the nexus by about 600 power. In 10 hours, Magnagora has regenerated more than 600 power, passively, without the assistance of citizens placing power in the Megalith. Serenwilde and Glomdoring don't have this power loss attached to their ethereal guardians. Now, this is not an excuse to not defend, because in game, you will want to defend the ladies from being killed. And it does suck to have to just stand there and watch enemies tear through your loyals. Been there, done that. However, it should not discourage you to the point where Lusternia doesn't feel like it's fun anymore. When I felt the game was becoming like that for me, I took a small hiatus. I'm not telling you to quit, but if you just take a quick 15-30 minute break, those dumb raiders really weren't such a big deal anymore. Some ethereal guardians died. The raiders are now gone. Life continues, and life goes on, and life in Lusternia is good.

Riluna · December 2013

Parua said:
However, I cannot in good conscience encourage Seren novices and midbies to join in defense when I have everybody telling me not to, because if they defend they will get enemy statuses, and become targets for ganking both on-and-off prime. Don't try to argue that this doesn't happen, because it does. I've heard multiple instances of this sort of thing happening on all sides. I've experienced it myself, along with even worse reasons for enemy status as a low level character.

This isn't the healthiest approach to take, IMHO. Even as a non-combatant, avoiding conflict entirely isn't that useful to anyone, yourself included, for all the various reasons you go on to say, and more. You've likely heard it said many times over the years, but Lusternia is a conflict game, and when the game is healthy, conflict abounds. You'll find it everywhere. It will find you. Going out of your way to make it not happen kind of shuts you into a self-created cage.

The simplest answer to everything you've raised really is "do what you want to do." It's really not any more complicated than that. It can largely be just a matter of goals. Ducking your head down and hiding from the "gankers" is one solution to your problems. You also can choose to do what you want to anyway, and learn how to deal with them when they come, instead. But you don't have to "learn combat" to do it!

You can pretty much always get away and just run, if that's all you want out of combat for now. That's a much smaller thing to learn, so maybe focus on that goal instead? You'll be caught, and you will die (more than once), but you can learn how you died each time, so you can figure out how to gtfo next time instead. Whether ganking happens or not is irrelevant, since if it ever does again, you're not helpless to it! Knowing when (and how) to escape is actually a pretty big part of combat (1v1 and groups), so if you ever do want to learn more, you can build it from that foundation, too.

So, there are consequences if you stand up and defend. So what? You can learn to deal with those, too. If what you want to do is defend, there's nothing truly stopping you but you. It might take a different approach than what you're used to, but whatever you want to do can still be done. If you think there's a lack of leadership, step up and be a leader. Be the reason the others come around, rather than waiting for somebody else to provide that air.

Do whatever you want to. You can't, and never will, control how anyone else plays, whether you look up or down on how they choose to play. So play however you want to. Play loud enough and others who want to share what you're doing will tend to tag along.

Lerad · December 2013

Lusternia is one of the most benign places for newbies in terms of enemying, raid defense and being targetted by PK whores. All because of Avenger.

There's no need to hide the fact that there ARE jerks on both sides of the current fence, who would enemy for raid defence, and then use that as an excuse to jump said people, newbies or non coms or not, after the fact of the raid. However, even if you get actively targetted by one of these bullies, you'll at most suffer one death if you take the right precautions - that is, stay in Avenger protected territory when alone. And avenger protected territory, even minusing those areas that enemy you for bashing in them, easily cover more than half of the game. Sure, there will be certain quests, some lucrative bashing areas, and some lore-rich and atmospherically nice areas that will be out of your reach for as long as a bully has his firing sights set on you, but the rest of the game is just as rich in bashing, influencing and questing opportunities. Not to mention the fact that prime raids pretty much are non-existent, so you have your entire prime org territory to RP in safely as well.

In short, there is little downsides to participating in raid defence even if there's a bully trying to make your life miserable.

You're right in the psychological effect of raids: it makes people want to defend, and when defending ends up with them being bullied, newbies/non-coms start to get very frustrated and turned off. However, beside the psychological impact, actual bullying in Lusternia is very limited in effect. There is only so much that a bully can "physically" in the game sense do to you in Lusternia. Unlike in other IREs, you can conceivably be locked out of 90+% of the game world if there's a "pk-whore" (as they are traditionally called) intent on griefing you.

Of course, this is just my perspective - in other words, it's a subjective point of view. And that's part of the suggestion I'm offering: You might want to try changing your perspective. Instead of seeing just the bad parts about raid-defense in an inactive org, look at the protection Lusternia's admins afford you even when you defend with little hope of success and with a high risk of inviting bullying behavior: between conglut and Avenger, your gameplay experience is almost entirely protected and unaffected by whatever the bully can bring to bear to do to you, and this is without even touching issues.

Karlach · December 2013

I'll say this clearly.

People who enemy you for defending are really dumb, and chances are there's someone higher up than them in their organisation who will overturn it. Enemying someone for raiding is a thing, enemying someone who defending against a raid is really low. People should encourage others to defend against their raids, and create combat, not give people reasons to sit and afk while they essentially pve bash.

You may get temporarily order enemied to take advantage of things like Exalt Wrath, but that's about it.

Ultimately, Lusternia is an RP conflict game, a fair number of the core mechanics revolve around fighting and one up levels of dickery (and by that I mean questing/counter questing on notifiable world objectives, such as raising/dropping Cthoglogg or Zenobia, or doing TBC/Soulforge/Slag etc) so I encourage people who want to learn the combat side to do so. But at the same time there is a game outside of it if you don't want to participate, and you should never feel forced to. People who demand you show up can start paying for your membership, because they don't own you or have a say in what you should be doing (within obvious general city/commune laws and parameters) if raids happen.

Caerlyr · December 2013

As much as it pains me to say this, the solution is simple: You stop playing for a bit or you actively discourage people from defending. That way, those doing the 'raiding' get so bored they also move onto something else.

While this might seem like a defeatist attitude, let's face facts here. I counted a total of 26 people for the alliance earlier. For nearly an hour, not a single one did a thing to repel the actions. Why is this happening? I'll tell you why: Apathy, complacency and a lack of really giving a shit. It's gotten to the point now where the few people who tried to help their org have either given up (see above reasons) or simply switched sides or play an alt. Why is it worth putting in the effort when it's constantly for naught?

Now, don't get me wrong here. I've been on completely opposite sides of the spectrum in my short time playing here as both one getting killed repeatedly and also as one doing 95% of the killing, so I am fully aware of this situation. The above reasoning comes as a result of this and is wholly indicative of this game (and most games) in general. Nothing is going to change.

We forced an alliance shift last time which just never worked as that resulted in everybody just joining the mostly populated org. Things can shift so quickly here. I recall days when Gaudi was deader than Halli.

The real issue that needs addressing is (as always) player interaction and interpretation of events. (Read: raids) -What POINT is there to it even? From both sides. As things stand right now, there are just far too many are all, "Oh, we're a massive org so that makes us bigger, better and stronger than you". - Ideal demonstration of this was a few weeks back. A simple comment was said to a CL which was passed along the chain, lies added, epeens expanded and before you know it, there are two dozen people raiding your org when there are just three of you online. Yeah, loads of fun that.

Anyway, I had a whole slew of things to add to this thread but I'll keep it at that for now.

Munsia · December 2013

I wouldn't say epeen has much to do with it at all anymore as far as raiding these days. At least not for who I raid with. Most of us are veteran pvpers and we are looking for a fight most of the time. We actually got worried for a moment earlier today when there was a large force ready to fight against us, and then suddenly just dissolved. Now we can understand that attitude of not wanting to get involved and we don't fault anyone for it. Honestly there isn't a point where we snicker and laugh to ourselves claiming 'hehe newbs can't defend.' or anything.

We raid out of pure boredom some times, but the end result we are looking for is always the same. Will we get bored of raiding? Maybe. Maybe not. We may just try to up the challenge a little more. Every org almost has faced these situations. Glomdoring faced it for a long time. I wanna say 30 ig years? They couldn't even lift a foot off the ground until Hai'Gloh changed things around with alliances and members. So it flows and goes with all organizations. At that time Celest began to falter, and Magnagora, Serenwilde, and Glomdoring buffed up their supply of people. There's a never ending rotation through-out the years and yep...it sucks. What can we honestly do? We can't force people to play the game and as the months tick on I see less people playing than were playing when I had real fun in this game.

Caerlyr · December 2013

Thoros said:

I'm not telling you to quit, but if you just take a quick 15-30 minute break, those dumb raiders really weren't such a big deal anymore. Some ethereal guardians died. The raiders are now gone. Life continues, and life goes on, and life in Lusternia is good.

Sadly, in reality, that never works. Certainly not when these 'raids' happen every. Single. Day. (Sometimes multiple times per day) and almost always when there are no or very few people around to do anything. Fact remains that while your post holds much credence, the situation DOES put people off and causes those waning periods to wane even further. People don't like losing. They want to be on the winning side. Case in point was earlier when I was bitching about nodes. Celest went from sixteen people online to there being just six in a matter of mere minutes.

Until things like this are addressed, one can't possibly hope to fix other issues.

Caerlyr · December 2013

Munsia said:

I wouldn't say epeen has much to do with it at all anymore as far as raiding these days.

Heh. Epeen has absolutely -everything- to do with it when you can just stand there and do nothing with your autobash loop turned on, but that's for another thread.

Munsia · December 2013

Caerlyr said:

Munsia said:

I wouldn't say epeen has much to do with it at all anymore as far as raiding these days.

Heh. Epeen has absolutely -everything- to do with it when you can just stand there and do nothing with your autobash loop turned on, but that's for another thread.

Man...I wish I could sit there with my autobash loop on. But alas beast attack doesn't work like that anymore

Daem · December 2013

Eh, I liked it when Glomdoring was losing all the time and I was forced to defend. Made me feel useful, and gave a good feeling those few times when we actually repelled the invaders. I've been a part of a lot of unsuccessful defenses, and some people just give up and log out because they are losing, but it's the mindset behind it. To me, that one time I happened to kill Shuyin with my barghest because he got separated from the group, or the time I got the last hit on Narsrim when he was raiding Glomdoring made all of the losing worth it. There are other times when we went and repeatedly died and knowing how to role play out those times, and play it off as a victory even though you lost is key to helping people cope. It's not losing, it's practice, the next time that novice will have a better understanding of what to do and perhaps will be able to succeed in getting the catharsis of actually killing an enemy. It's an exciting moment.

Discouraging conflict in the game by telling people to ignore the raiders will drive a specific kind of individual away from the game. For me, if I weren't encouraged to defend every day when I logged in I probably would never have had any motivation to learn combat to the degree I did and I would have eventually got bored of bashing and just logged out and never played again. The conflict kept me playing, promoted me to work hard to trans my skills (I did a majority of it with Gold I earned bashing) and gave me something to strive for. I'm a goal oriented person, and there aren't a lot of things that drive goals in this game outside of demigod, and being good at combat.

I stopped the combat game when we were winning all the time unless someone told me that they absolutely needed me or the odds weren't in our favor. It's just as boring steam rolling and pressing the IWIN button as it is to be steamrolled. For me actually it's more fun to be steamrolled, at least then I have a goal, or something to achieve eventually. So many ways to role play around the PVP and it's an interesting part of the game to attempt to maneuver for the combatants to come to your org, or to build up your own from your newbie/midbie stock pile.

Sadly I don't have the time or motivation to log in recently and part of the reason is because Glom was winning all the time and I won't change orgs because I like the theme of the Shadowdancers. Has the Glom winning thing changed yet?

Shaddus · December 2013

Munsia said:

I wouldn't say epeen has much to do with it at all anymore as far as raiding these days. At least not for who I raid with. Most of us are veteran pvpers and we are looking for a fight most of the time. We actually got worried for a moment earlier today when there was a large force ready to fight against us, and then suddenly just dissolved. Now we can understand that attitude of not wanting to get involved and we don't fault anyone for it. Honestly there isn't a point where we snicker and laugh to ourselves claiming 'hehe newbs can't defend.' or anything.

We raid out of pure boredom some times, but the end result we are looking for is always the same. Will we get bored of raiding? Maybe. Maybe not. We may just try to up the challenge a little more. Every org almost has faced these situations. Glomdoring faced it for a long time. I wanna say 30 ig years? They couldn't even lift a foot off the ground until Hai'Gloh changed things around with alliances and members. So it flows and goes with all organizations. At that time Celest began to falter, and Magnagora, Serenwilde, and Glomdoring buffed up their supply of people. There's a never ending rotation through-out the years and yep...it sucks. What can we honestly do? We can't force people to play the game and as the months tick on I see less people playing than were playing when I had real fun in this game.

It was longer than that, because Narsim would constantly raid Crow Avatars, and Shaddus as a midbie Ninjakari would actually try to help defend (and fail miserably) while Glom rarely had defenders.

Munsia · December 2013

Daem said:

Discouraging conflict in the game by telling people to ignore the raiders will drive a specific kind of individual away from the game. For me, if I weren't encouraged to defend every day when I logged in I probably would never have had any motivation to learn combat to the degree I did and I would have eventually got bored of bashing and just logged out and never played again. The conflict kept me playing, promoted me to work hard to trans my skills (I did a majority of it with Gold I earned bashing) and gave me something to strive for. I'm a goal oriented person, and there aren't a lot of things that drive goals in this game outside of demigod, and being good at combat.

I think that's how a few of us start. Since Lusternia was my first MUD ever back in Open Beta, it became the fact that Visaeris was raiding constantly that I wanted to learn how to fight and fend him off, and eventually my first kill was against Daevos as a novice Hartstone and it snowballed from there. (If anyone remembers year 1, Daevos was King Pin of Mag!)

Karlach · December 2013

Actually after the last Alliance shift in January, we had a large number of new characters move into Seren and Celest, which lead to the pretty good summer they had.

The issues were internal, and nothing to do with the strength in Glom/Mag/Gaudi (which at that time was minimal with so few people playing)

Thoros · December 2013

Thoros · December 2013

Yep Daevos/Valek!! Fun times.

Pre nerf mugwump equilibrium...quicken/amissioX5/absolve. Man, I landed lots of kills that way. Those were before the days I was first targeted heheehhe.

Nimhuire · December 2013

I haven't been logging in much, but it's for other reasons than getting stomped on. It's a super busy time of year for a lot of people between family/exams/work/december releases/whatever else you might have going on right around now.

I can definitely understand the frustration that comes with being on the losing side, dying, and feeling like my ic goals (defend the avatars at all costs! Rescue the fae even though I'm in danger of getting slaughtered anytime I poke my nose into Faethorn!) and my ooc I want to have fun playing Lusternia goals are in conflict. I could do things to learn how to be better at combat, but it doesn't come naturally or easily to me, and so, when I don't really have a lot of time to log in, it's not really what I want to be spending my time focusing on. That said, asking for some tips on how to escape is pretty simple, easy and has definitely helped me (As has spamming scent in faethorn. A glom shows up who I think will attack me instead of trying to debate me? Take Hart's teachings to heart, and run)

I also haven't had a ton of experience with getting enemied for defending against a raid. I think the only times it's happened to me/I've seen it happen to others is when the defence spilled out into Faethorn proper, and then other people got involved to defend the people who were now getting jumped on faethorn. I also think that there's this assumption on the part of people receiving the enemy statuses that the statuses are permanent, when, often, if you find someone and then rp at them politely about the mistake, someone's happy to fix it. It may involve a nominal gold fine, but that's just a face saving measure that you can roll your eyes at and tolerate. In general, I've found that a lot of things start getting better if you roleplay around it.

Getting ganked unexpectedly is a pretty miserable experience, and it sometimes just happens, and even having it happen once can feel horrible. At least for me, my gut response is completely irrational and entirely out of proportion with the damage that was actually done to me/my character, and I can't really explain why. And, since I dislike getting emotional for no reason whatsoever, just makes me dislike the experience even more. It's a little frustrating to me how both communes are encouraged to run around Faethorn beginning very early on, and that's considered a prime spot for jumping people. I also think that both communes do, as a whole, try to avoid killing novices and lowbies, but that certain individuals can definitely make it disproportionally unpleasant. Sadly, the only thing you can really change about this is your own attitude. Which is hard, and something I'm still working on.

As for raid defense, if someone is around who knows what they're doing, I usually follow them, do what I can to hinder the enemies, and if I die, oh well. It doesn't cost a lot. Plus, usually raiders will target the people who are actually a threat first. Playing up the sacrifice, talking to novices about how they're helping, encouraging them to learn more about what skills to use, how to stay with the group, these can (or at least for me, have) make up for the experience of being squishy and dying a lot.

Redirection instead of discouraging is usually a good strategy. Can't influence kephera because someone bashed them all out? Find something else to do. Can't influence fae on faethorn because some mean glom is lurking around? Go do village quests. Can't defend because the only people online are level 50 novices? Lead them on a hunting trip to strengthen themselves, take the opportunity to tell stories about glories of Serenwilde, teach them about how Hart is reborn and Moon waxes after the new moon, encourage them to see death as part of a cycle, not a stopping point.

And finally, the one I really like: Start writing propaganda. It has really helped me to write out my frustrations in an in character way, and then to say "but we're still better because reasons." And if you're having trouble proving that our enemies are just cowardly, incompetent fools, find someone to talk to about it. If you're having trouble catching someone around, write them a letter with your doubts and concerns.

And then write something for the stage/for the library. (give me stuff to publish please!)

Vivet · December 2013

People idling about is probably the worst part of this issue, which is why I tend to log out/log back in later. I think the game as a whole needs to encourage more of that, with more leniency towards people with large numbers of power defences (thank god I don't have much of any to fret over).

The most important thing you can do is determine exactly what you want out of the game for a given day, week, or in general, then focus on that. If there's multiple raids in a day and you just want to sit down with some newbies to go over advancement, then turn loyal says off for the day. No, it's not perfect, and it's not going to feel right for a given subset of people, but the option exists for a reason. If the admin didn't want to see this sort of behaviour, then loyal says wouldn't have a toggle. If you're the only one who can announce a progressing raid and you know it's only going to stifle whatever activity is going on, then don't announce it.

Often I just have a few hours at a time when I log in. Generally, I have very specific ideas for how I want to use that time. Other times, I'm ready and willing for whatever. If you can take this approach to balance out your time, then it can help.

Honestly, though, I think the biggest issue is just that there's too few people to help prep people for combat these days, along with too many interfaces being used to play the game (I only play on an old-fashioned desktop, I don't even know how to help people set themselves up to bash if they're on a phone/nook, nevermind fight!)

Turnus · December 2013

I'll answer one of the original questions of what to tell newbies/midbies they can do to help raid defense. The answer at the time is really just "grow stronger". This includes both just leveling up, etc. But also trying to learn about combat when there's not a raid. If they learn the basics of systems (I know there's at least one free Serenwilde one, maybe more?), and find somebody to buddy up and start learning the ropes of combat they might feel encouraged to stick around and when they go to help can actually contribute later down the line. But telling them to just run in when it clearly wouldn't be enough and say to web doesn't help.

Daedalion · December 2013

I think the most important thing for people to remember, that usually gets lost in translation, is that for some of us PK is a large part of the reason we play. Just like you have your fun doing what you do, we do what we do. The only difference is that a lot of the time our fun crosses paths with your fun and you take it too personally.

Honestly, spars only get you so far before you just want to go stomping through someone else's territory. Be it boredom or for kicks, we're gonna go punch a few deer in the face. You arn't going to like it, obviously, but you're not being forced to put yourself in a situation that's going to make you unhappy. If you come to defend? We're going to be happy. If you don't? We'll give up and go raid someone else fairly shortly once it becomes obvious that you arn't coming. Nobody is going to send you a tell to make you feel bad for not throwing your body in front of the squirrels or chaining yourself to a tree. We understand.

The point is that for most of us, nobody is deliberately taking a leak in your corn flakes. Don't feel bad, because we don't want you to.

Enyalida · December 2013

There are two things I tend to tell novices who ask me "What now?" questions. I try to hit two of the major motivators in the game while also touching on a whole slew of other potential topics.

The first thing I tell people who want to "make our commune/city stronger" is to make themselves stronger. Go influence or bash, or better yet - find a group to bash. Learn what all your skills do, and figure out some useful tricks with them. Learn what your ally's skills do. Learn what your enemy's skills do. Just plain learn more skills. Do quests while you're at it, some of them will help you figure out the limits of your healing, others will buff you, still others have amusing death messages ("My poiiisssonsssss"). Increasing the store of knowledge you have about the game, both its mechanical elements and its story elements, make you better at being a Lusternian player, and your character better at being a 'real' person in the context of the game. Along the way, you can build your character figuratively as their statistics increase literally. This always feels a little like a cop-out answer, but it's true, and decent advice. More importantly:

It segues into the next thing I say: "Talk to the Culture Minister, the Librarian, or your guild leaders - join a project". Some orgs will always struggle with combat. A lack of fighters in a particular guild or with a particular tert, a lack of fighters with sufficient skills or abilities, a lack of cohesion among fighters, or just a plain lack of fighters can all contribute to a bad losing streak. Even with all of the above, a poorly timed conflict can leave your org in the lurch, but those things do change. The more persistent problem is tied to this issue of fighters, though it's not exactly clear which came first: a lack of culture. Without a strong unique cultural atmosphere, any org will find it difficult to make fighters 'stick'. Of course, without enough fighters to protect your citizens or allow them the breathing room to do their thang, it can be hard to keep your culture from deflating like a sad souffle.

The second big thing (and this is really the biggest thing) a novice can do is get involved with some kind of cultural project. Write lore books, help organize for flares, manage tradespeople, hold speeches or concerts or lectures, throw a ball or a hoedown, write poetry, help get all the relevant paperwork signed properly in triplicate, whatever. If your representative doesn't have something for you to do, spitball and work out a 'job' that will be fun for you, or just keep poking them and other leader people for something useful to help with. The important point is to just jump into something. Practically anything could end up creating a real identity and provide something fun for you to do, as well as enhancing the culture of your org, or exploring some facet of Lusternian life.

Do you think it would be cool for Hallifax to have a ballet troupe? Find out how your public tailoring cartel handles new designs and get some Lucidian friendly shoes fashioned, cajole some artisans into somehow wrangling mirrors, a bar, and a box of chalk into a spare room, and open your new dance conservatory to students. With any luck, your success will be rewarded with one of your friendly neighborhood gods helping to construct a space just for you. There are so many interesting questions related to this relativly simple idea. How does ballet work in Lusternia, with all of the different races? Tae'dae in tutus? Do the more agile races (like Aslaran) tend to win out, or do the winged excel. How en pointe can Lucidians get, aren't they already pretty pointy? Not up to all that? Start simple, learn how to design something for a cartel. Outsource some of the more difficult tasks to some friends in your org or in some other org, if you tell people what you're planning, if it's interesting enough, people will come. I'll bet you there are some Lusternians with more than a passing (or googled) knowledge of ballet would might be willing to RP being teachers for classes!

All in all, the biggest myth (that I tend to fall into myself) is that your contribution needs to be born complete, larger than life, and revolutionary. Trust me, it's just never that glamorous. You don't get to start as Meryl Streep, magnate of culture, fierce queen more-or-less on top of the world... you have to start as the bizzaro-world frumpy Anne Hathaway and work your way up. Parts of it will be tedious, there will be crazy bitches dissing your new style, and you may not end up doing what you started out shooting for at all, but in the end, you know it's going to be fabulous.

Laysus · December 2013

Thoros said:

You shouldn't let org raids get to you so bad. Honestly. There is no loss being taken. Aspects and elementals die. There is no loss happening to the organization in question. Essence will be only worth 1 power now, however, that is still not a loss. Angels and demons die, and cost Celest/Magnagora power. But even if you were to clear Nil 10 times, which takes about 10 hours once you consider respawn time, you've drained the nexus by about 600 power. In 10 hours, Magnagora has regenerated more than 600 power, passively, without the assistance of citizens placing power in the Megalith. Serenwilde and Glomdoring don't have this power loss attached to their ethereal guardians. Now, this is not an excuse to not defend, because in game, you will want to defend the ladies from being killed. And it does suck to have to just stand there and watch enemies tear through your loyals. Been there, done that. However, it should not discourage you to the point where Lusternia doesn't feel like it's fun anymore. When I felt the game was becoming like that for me, I took a small hiatus. I'm not telling you to quit, but if you just take a quick 15-30 minute break, those dumb raiders really weren't such a big deal anymore. Some ethereal guardians died. The raiders are now gone. Life continues, and life goes on, and life in Lusternia is good.

I have to disagree with a fundamental part of this, because as a roleplaying game, there's more to the matter than NUMBERS GO UP/DOWN. You have to sit there as your character and know that you should be defending something sacred to your character, And then it's a matter of the work we've put in. You kill three ladies, that's the equivalent of a run through Faethorn. You kill nine, that's three runs, so three hours to restore. And you often kill more if you can. It makes it pointless for us to go and get them, because there's a limited number of us who do (Despite our best efforts). So it wastes our time, and makes the work we put into certain aspects pointless.

I'd point out that the one person who gets nothing from it is the raider, they get what? A few minutes of boredom alleviated until they realise there's noone coming out to defend against them? The grim satisfaction of what is essentially bashing something massively below their level, knowing that there's nothing the opposition can do so it's fine to not just knock them back down but kick them while they're there? If it gets to the point where people see you raiding and log off in response (Which it does for me, it's not worth the shitty feeling of watching all the things my character values die, so I'd rather go do something enjoyable), then IMO thats a problem.

Turnus · December 2013

Laysus that kind of thinking oocly is what leads to burn out and should be discouraged. ICly the thought should be these poor killed loyals, even hold a memorial for them. OOCly you should not think about the hours to get back to where you started. It can sometimes be hard, but I'm of the opinion that if part of the gameplay feels like a grind and isn't something fun you care to do. Don't do it. You might not win as much, but you'll enjoy your time with lusternia more.

Parua · December 2013

I think that the essence of my initial post has been missed, because I was feeling frustrated when I wrote it.

My problem is not that people raid. Conflict is central to the games health. My problem is the fluctuation that occurs.

There are no leaders, so the novices get frustrated and move orgs, or leave because there is nobody around to help them or teach them. This means there is no forward movement, the org stagnates, and any motivation to participate in culture wanes, because there is nobody to share with.

It's not so easy to just "step up" and become a leader. For one, if there is nobody to teach you what you need to know, you are severely handicapped, and can't pass on the information that has been lost. Secondly, it paints a big glaring target on your back. Not even necessarily combat related, either. If GR 3 franklin sits around and does some light to, a power quest or 2, and then some bashing, nobody blinks an eye. GL Melissa has everybody's eyes on her, looking for direction, motivation, and inspiration. If she makes a mistake, the consequences are harsher, and can become a scapegoat for everything wrong in an organization.

If I log out, I'm running the risk of missing out on the moments I even play this game for. The rp interactions, events, conflicts, etc. I am also not there for the novice with a question

Silvanus · December 2013

Why would you sit there and do nothing with when you are getting raided? There are so many ways to influence an organization, and raiding is the least effective way to do it. When I was Warlord Magnagora was getting destroyed and didn't have a single village or bubble and very few defenders. First week of being WL all the DLs were killed. It sucked.

But then we won and dominated Culture for a long time. We focused on other things and empowered our Org in other ways. Every single Avechary we almost always had four sands and all elemental lords empowered. At the same time we ran a power contest, one that was based on tiers of power donated (I think Muns was the only one that got 50k+ power) instead of rewarding the highests, to try and get everyone involved.

Also, we put up the Construct that gave us free powers on Nil, instead of having the Crypt or Machine, and us Nihilists had ripple/distort running 24/7 on Nil. It was such an annoyance that I actually got issued for it. You would forgo your construct that gives you the Moonchilde aura and instead roll with the Guardian Tree, and always have Liveforest/Distort up. That with Shrine powers will quickly deter almost any raider, regardless of defenders.

Marcella · December 2013

I joined the game when Magnagora was being destroyed. I really considered leaving for Hallifax at that point, but there were people in the org who kept me in the city and gave me quite the pep talks. It does take people reaching out to newbies and saying that 'it won't always be this bad, be proud of what guild you're in, because you're gonig to be the best eventually' to get them to stay.

Daedalion · December 2013

Laysus said:

I have to disagree with a fundamental part of this, because as a roleplaying game, there's more to the matter than NUMBERS GO UP/DOWN. You have to sit there as your character and know that you should be defending something sacred to your character, And then it's a matter of the work we've put in. You kill three ladies, that's the equivalent of a run through Faethorn. You kill nine, that's three runs, so three hours to restore. And you often kill more if you can. It makes it pointless for us to go and get them, because there's a limited number of us who do (Despite our best efforts). So it wastes our time, and makes the work we put into certain aspects pointless.

If we're going to ask this question, we might as well ask another. What exactly is the purpose of Moon Ladies? Because to be quite frank, I think their entire purpose is to protect Ethereal Serenwilde, which in turn means their entire purpose is to be killed or kill other people. So your problem isn't them being killed, it's the entire mechanic they revolve around.

I understand waving the 'Dude, have a heart' flag when it comes to Elder trees. Those take forever to replace and have a large impact on the Commune. But where does it stop? Should we ask your permission first? I'm not mocking you. I just don't understand what you want to have happen here. Should they not be killed period?

Shaddus · December 2013

When in doubt, turn off your aethers and take the local newbies to watch a play. That's what I did during wildnodes last night.

Lerad · December 2013

Parua said:

I think that the essence of my initial post has been missed, because I was feeling frustrated when I wrote it. My problem is not that people raid. Conflict is central to the games health. My problem is the fluctuation that occurs. There are no leaders, so the novices get frustrated and move orgs, or leave because there is nobody around to help them or teach them. This means there is no forward movement, the org stagnates, and any motivation to participate in culture wanes, because there is nobody to share with. It's not so easy to just "step up" and become a leader. For one, if there is nobody to teach you what you need to know, you are severely handicapped, and can't pass on the information that has been lost. Secondly, it paints a big glaring target on your back. Not even necessarily combat related, either. If GR 3 franklin sits around and does some light to, a power quest or 2, and then some bashing, nobody blinks an eye. GL Melissa has everybody's eyes on her, looking for direction, motivation, and inspiration. If she makes a mistake, the consequences are harsher, and can become a scapegoat for everything wrong in an organization. If I log out, I'm running the risk of missing out on the moments I even play this game for. The rp interactions, events, conflicts, etc. I am also not there for the novice with a question

It's certainly not easy to become a leader overnight. But that doesn't immediately invalidate the comments here that are urging (or even haranguing, if you want to look at it that way) you to try. And certainly, a lot of trying or not trying boils down to personal motivation.

Not everyone has 10 hours a day to pour into Lusternia. Not everyone has the kind of mental fortitude to try and lead an org from being inactive and stomped on. And you're right in saying that anyone who tries will likely be painted as a scapegoat by their own org mates when they fail, and any budding leader will fail many, many times. But that doesn't change the fact that you (or someone else) have to try. If you're feeling frustrated that no one is stepping up to the plate, that's understandable. If you don't have the time to step up yourself, that's also understandable. But if you expect someone else to change that status quo for you, by changing the way mechanics work, or by somehow magically making it easier to become a leader, or by summoning a leader out of thin air, you're looking for the wrong thing.

If you're not going to be able to invest the time and effort needed to become a leader yourself, the least you can do, as an informed and experienced player, is to mitigate the effects of the downturn on newbies or encourage others who are trying to take up the mantle. A defeatist attitude doesn't just make the game boring and frustrating for you, it also obstructs those who are trying to make an effort to create change. If you're truly aware of how frustrating it is to be in that position, then since you're here and actively seeking help, try to do your part to change the mentality of not just yourself, but also others around you, to make it an atmosphere that is more likely to encourage others who would dare to wrestle the pressure-cooker position of being leader, combat or otherwise.

Karlach · December 2013

The fear of being made a scapegoat is all too common, yet at the same time, it's entirely unfounded from my personal experiences. I pretty much got pushed into it in Glom, I didn't want to, and I sure as heck didn't think I was capable. Yet people supported and stuck with me, and didn't tear into me when things went sour.

I can't tell you why they did or what I did to have them react that way, I suspect it's a case that people simply will support anyone willing to take up the role, because it means they don't have to. People's biggest critic tends to be themselves in this game, there are very few people who draw ire and criticism from others, and those people tend to paint a target on their back by complaining loudly about others then doing nothing to help.

Twelve months ago, people who were tired of the status quo and unhappy with what they had took action, and lead to one of the biggest political shifts in a few years, and for a period of time there was instability and to and fro-ing that went on right through to the end of summer. Not everything is entirely stable now, the biggest draw back in the north is a domino effect of apathy, a lot of those who can, simply don't care to. Even when the North was on top, some of the most capable combatants and experienced players simply didn't take the time to help and teach, so it wasn't even a case of "sing when you're winning".The biggest mistake you guys keep making, is relying on certain people to lead, and said people simply don't help others learn, in and out of raids, they may be good or great fighters, but that doesn't make them leaders. Take the time to evaluate those with genuine leadership and teaching capabilities among you, and give them support.

Also, Serenwilde, Celest and Halli needs, from an outsider perspective, to do what the South did during the Summer. We lost a lot of experienced combatants, they either stopped playing all together, were far too busy to be around or left for other orgs, we couldn't rely on those people any more, new people had to step up, had to learn, had to be a difference maker. We got our backsides handed to us for a few months in the process, but at the end of it we have more experienced combatants, which has been reinforced by people who moved orgs or came back to playing again, which is why things are going so well. It's a mixture of younger players who have had to learn, and older players who can simply jump straight back into the fight. Every org has veterans who vanish for months at a time and then come back, look at these people as a bonus, an extra, don't count on them or rely on them to be there to bail you out, learn to fight without them, and then be stronger when you fight with them.

Lastly, good luck, and remember. Leading isn't always about big sweeping changes and massive action, the little things are huge.

Everiine · December 2013

And it is entirely possible to be an effective leader without being a major combatant--I'm proof of that. If you want to talk about being a leader without being a fighter, chat with Ev IG.

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