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R.I.P. Stavenn

IniarIniar Australia
edited January 2017 in General Discussion
ANNOUNCE NEWS #3516
Date: 1/16/2017 at 20:57
From: Jeremy
To : Everyone
Subj: City Reduction

After much deliberation we have decided to retire Stavenn from the game.

It is hard to remove any large player orgs from the game world, as they all have a history and loyal player base that is going to be very disappointed.

Stavenn has been selected for a variety of reasons, the largest being the fact it has the lowest population and playtime of any of the cities.

As a game world, we need to group people together in order to increase community for existing players and add help for new players. Logging into an empty city in the middle of the day is not fun for anyone.

This will include dissolving the Noctusari and Diavolous guilds. We are going to change the Stavenn affiliated townes to an unaffiliated status, free from any player city or council control.

Gold and credits from the orgs will need to be removed by leaders and distributed as they see fit. City shop and house owners will have a week or so to get their items those locations.

We will be working on some code to refund shop and house owners for a portion of any addons they may have purchased. It will not be a full 100% refund.

We will be running an event this weekend, which will culminate in the destruction of Stavenn. The event will give players who are interested in helping, either with the destruction or fighting against it, a chance to do so. We will include events posts and honours for players that participate in that way.

We will be saving all news posts, rooms, and other data from the involved orgs in case they are needed in the future.

If you have any questions, please email at jeremy@ironrealms.com or message me in-game.

Penned by my hand on the 15th of Ferinus, in the year 125 AM.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rest in peace, beloved Stavenn.

From the beginning, you were a hated child, the obnoxious one, the bully, the enemy. You had the coolest skills, the craziest men, the meanest of roles played. You took nothing lying down and you bred generation after generation of fighters, both skilful and hapless. It would be remiss of us to debate their contribution based on their likability, for what is a good guy with no enemy? What is a hero with no foe? Boring, is what.

I adored you, oh Stavenn. You who forged much of the early world against the slavering fools of the desert. You who stood for the empowerment of the individual, at whatever cost. You who decided that bickering and politicking was an unnecessary detractor to greatness, merely the wasting of the time of all involved; you stood up and said, there is but ONE RULE and that is MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. Is this not true to this day?

I lament you, my beloved Stavenn. For what the price of peace? For what the price of agreeability? Age tore away at your strength, but criticism tore away your will. For a century or more, the Imperial Parade was bulwarked with walls and unseeing defenders, guarding your spirit that had died long ago.

And here we are, the end of a journey, the arrival at the destination. Diseased from birth, you played a role no one else could. You played it for as long as you could, as hard as you could and no other player in the game has fulfilled their promise with such verve and elegance. Know that while long though the corruption of peace, equality and justice had metastasised into the very marrow of your bones, those of us who first called you home still carry you in our hearts, though our bodies have long left your bloodied halls.

Rest in peace, beloved Stavenn.

wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
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Comments

  • Stavenn, the Empire, the Republic, birthplace of my fiery shenanigans and unscrupulous banditry. You will be missed.
    currently tentatively active
    (may vanish for periods of time)
  • I started in Stavenn, and even though I would make alts in different cities on occasion, I always came back to it.

    Definitely going to miss it.
    (Ring): Lartus says, "I heard Theophilus once threw a grenade and killed ten people."
    (Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."

    (Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
  • edited January 2017
    I have not been apart of this community for long, but I know what Stavenn players are going through in what I dealt with in the closing of MKO. If any of you want to reach out to talk, I am here. After spending more money than I ever imagined on a world full of unique interests and fun. It is often hard to come to terms with your character in many ways losing meaning.

    All I can say is....at least you get to keep those characters. That is one thing I wish I never had to give up when I came to Imperian from MKO. Always a brighter side of the coin, despite what the signs may be telling you.
  • Message #1 Sent By: Raini Received On: 8/07/2011/3:25

    "-shrugs- I suppose not, just message me what you want and mail me the comms."

    Has it really been that long, Sar-sargoth Stavenn?
  • IniarIniar Australia
    edited January 2017
    > @Eldreth said:
    > RIP Stavenn.
    >
    >
    > Eldreth Iolar, Former Imperator and Stavenn's finest-dressed aristocrat.

    Blousery, noun, describing or pertaining to the dressing of persons known as blouses. Attr. Eldreth Iolar, circa 14 AM.
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • R.I.P. Stavenn

    Juran existed for a RL decade to thwart you, until joining you very late in my life to get you all five obelisks for shard research. You were always a great villian, and as the more thematically appropriate choice you deserved better.
  • DruuDruu The Garden
    Well stated, @Iniar. Though it's obviously sad to get rid of such a long standing organization, I hope everyone takes solace in the fact that we will be giving it a proper, grand send off. I personally feel honored to be a volunteer during such an interesting time in the game's history.

    Stavenn produced a lot of interesting moments in Imperian's history. Anyone wanna share any cool stories?
    "One batch, two batch. Penny and dime."
  • edited January 2017
    When I made my first character, Epistar, he was a wee little Summoner. Isadarr announced on CT that she wanted to see blood in the streets, and she offered a city favour to two individuals of CR1 for dueling at the gates. I was one of the ones accepted. I remember fighting this other lowbie, heart pounding, with Zenigra sending me tells about how to kill him. And I won. It was glorious. This was probably 7-8 years ago.

    My second city favour came when, during a city meeting, I said something to the effect of, "Servitors do not deserve rights." Dregaur gave me a city favour for "Having wisssdom beyond hisss years."

    Oh, and there was that one time when, on another character, I made Stavenn a Republic--which probably set in motion its demise. RIP.

    "Even the glory of Rome had to come to an end."
    (Ring): Lartus says, "I heard Theophilus once threw a grenade and killed ten people."
    (Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."

    (Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
  • I started as a Stavennite summoner. 2 RL hours after I began, I was dragged into a shardfall by the then-Demonic PK train consisting of Ahkan, Khizan, Iniar, etc. I was hooked. Thus began an age of fire and blood.
    currently tentatively active
    (may vanish for periods of time)
  • RIP Stavenn.

    You were given the short end of the stick from day one. You were always stuck in this awkward position where your RP and background should have attracted a higher class of villain, but your event roles and general theme only really managed to attract Evil Edgelords. You should have started with Demon Lords, playing politics with their Court to gain power in the material world. You should have started with thematically reskinned abilities that spoke of demonic taints and domination. You should have been Demonic Rome. Instead, you got to be Mhaldor Jr, with a generically evil pantheon and standard-issue Necromancy.

    And on top of that, you always got screwed in events, too. Imperian was designed around the three faction system from the very start, around the idea that there are no good guys in the world and everybody has the potential to be a villain. Somehow, that never came to be. Somehow, they always overlooked the potential of over-ambitious mages with their unreliable magical arts and Antioch's mindless zealotry and settled for "Demons did it!".

    You never had the easy option, the good option. You never got to be the hero. You never got the choice to oppose the senseless schemes of other factions. You never got the easy RP of "My enemies are doing bad things and I need to oppose it". The world never faced endless waves of flame elementals chanting RETH RETH RETH, or angelic hordes seeking to end magick on this world. Nope. Demons or undead. Even the Horde resorted to demons and undead when they wanted to get their evil on.

    And that last bit is the worst of it, really. For all that they treated you as the Big Bad Villain of the series, they rarely ever let you get any serious villainy on. They'd fill the world with aggro demons and not even let you side with them. It was the worst of both worlds. You always looked like the villain and you were always treated as the villain, but you rarely ever got to the chance to actually be the villain. Some crazy orc bastard would unleash demons on the world and you'd get blamed for it. All the pain and none of the gain. None of the crime and all of the time. Some random orc would get promoted to main villain every week and you'd get stuck dealing with the mess he left behind.

    You deserved better but never got it. In the end, though, you died as you lived: an afterthought in an event you should have been the star of.
  • SylioSylio SE Ohio
    edited January 2017
    Would love to see logs, if anyone wants to share them. I was present up until the point where everyone really started to fight over the intersection in the Ravana Gorge, but had to leave.

    EDIT: Also, thanks so much to the admin for leaving behind a ruin. I'll never forgive Achaea for just dumping Shallam into the ocean and never even giving us so much as an underwater exit down.
  • edited January 2017
    You know, when I offered to give my notes to the admin no doubt trying to tie things together but having a lot of stuff to try to look over, I didn't expect them to actually excerpt the prose I'd put together and included with that as part of the body of notes in the Event post, but that was kind of cool. My system is non-existent because I just assembled this new computer on Friday and still have to re-install everything, so I decided a way to still kind of participate was playing detective with the lore behind it. I guess that came in helpful, and I'm glad it did!

    I'll probably have a book with the full details with prose like that at some point available. I have no idea even who to lob books to get them in anyone's library but my own though.

    I feel kind of sad now, because Ihsan played his role well and I liked his little bits of RP I saw in that event, but who knows if that's someone we'll see again now. Goes for a lot of the Stavenn crowd sadly. I imagine most of them will just alt.
    image
  • @Ihsan has always been an amazing RPer, and especially in the context of Stavenn. He inspires me for sure.
    (Ring): Lartus says, "I heard Theophilus once threw a grenade and killed ten people."
    (Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."

    (Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
  • It seems fairly silly that both guilds were destroyed, taking away 2 out of 3 of demonic's guilds.
  • We are open to reopening one of the guilds or making a new one to locate in Khandava.

  • On the

    @Ihsan has always been an amazing RPer, and especially in the context of Stavenn. He inspires me for sure.

    I liked what @Ihasan did in the event as well.

    @Anette sent me an entire essay from her journal detailing her experience, which was pretty nice.

  • Leading both Stavenn and the Diavlous were the highlights of my playing experience. I don't think I'll be coming back any time soon but it could be fun playing the "Where is my Empire!!???" line.
  • The Limorasi arc, despite how much so many didn't like it, was the highlight of many years of playing IRE. I will always always be connected to @Kanthari in this way. 

    I have always been connected to Stavenn, even from my first character, a Kinsarmarian. I know this is super later, I'm rarely around the forums and never IG...but damn...
  • Alitis said:
    Damn, popping in to check out old haunts out of a sense of nostalgia, only to find this. It's like... it's like when I wondered what happened to an old Blockbuster I used to visit before Netflix was a thing, and discovering it's now an auto-parts store.

    I remember being, well, an absolute prick. Even when my guy was paying lipservice to others claiming to fight against it, he was always Stavennite at heart. Cruelty, brutality, efficiency, convinced of his own superiority, often able to prove it... but mostly remembered for when he failed to. So many public vivisections left to the dustbin of history (probably for the better I'll admit - Alitis was quite the **** back in the day). So many glorious raids, so much debauchery, so many rituals, so many friends and enemies. So much politicking that you knew would end in a public bloodbath.

    Running the Diavlous was always a chore, but it was also a labor of love. Trying everything I could to balance the emphasis on martial prowess while also trying to make sure those who did the dirty work of smithing and crafting had a place. Looking for ways to make things a little bit better... and then making things worse because of ego. But still...

    Yeah, I know this thread is several months dead, but just wanted to leave this here because, well, nostalgia. Also some rather embarrassing memories... yeesh, what was I thinking back then?

    Can't say I'll be making a comeback (if the learning curve is still as steep as I remember I'd probably just get frustrated :P ), but it's nice to reconnect with your past sometimes.
    Everything you said is what I wanted to say, but I didn't have the words for it. Stavenn was my first city and the Noctusari was my first guild, then my second character was Diavlous. Those days were the highlight of my IRE career, and those memories got me through some pretty tough highschool days. Some people became family, and some of those memories are my fondest. The only difference is that I stuck around... maybe because I hope I might one day rediscover what we've lost. But at the same time, reconnecting with your past doesn't necessarily mean reliving it. Thanks for this post, @Alitis . I just wish some current players could see what Imperian used to be like 5-7 years ago. It will never be the same.
    (Ring): Lartus says, "I heard Theophilus once threw a grenade and killed ten people."
    (Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."

    (Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
  • Learning curve? Autocuring on, reave strychnine reave aconite soulstorm: now you can be a pew pew bot!

    And then you can come back and express your grief through MURRRRDER
  • DruuDruu The Garden
    I often wonder what Dregaur would have thought about all of this. Heh.
    "One batch, two batch. Penny and dime."
  • We could ask the same about all the oldbies that are no longer with us.. however, if they were around to ask, this likely wouldn't have happened. 
  • Khizan here.

    I'm as old of an oldbie as you can get and I have advocated blowing up cities for YEARS now. Just too few people spread across too many organizations, and the systems don't work with populations that small.

    If they had destroyed organizations years ago, they might not have lost all the oldbies. 
  • Some other oldbies who were more invested in Stavenn might have opinions about the change other than the mechanical alterations. Not that I disagree since even ~150 peak max / 6 main orgs was a bit too spread out, but lol.
  • I always wanted to keep Stavenn, honestly. Has the most history and the best storyline.

    Instead of making Khandava demonic, I'd have probably blown up Celidon, Ithaqua, and Kinsarmar. 
  • I'd have gone with Celidon, Antioch, and Khandava if we were smashing the least exciting org in each faction, but yea. 
  • Ithaqua never had the playerbase, even when it was popular.  All the most interesting lore in the world (and it was interesting, at least, I thought it was anyways), doesn't matter if you got like all of like five people.
    image
  • Ithaqua as an AM organization was always terrible and boring on a macro scale. Maybe they had better fluff and lore for small scale stuff, but that stuff is less important for the game in the big picture. Too isolationist, too insular, too uninterested in the world at large. That kind of stuff can fly when you're a secondary city in a faction, but it won't do when you're the only one in your faction. 

    Antioch's historically been bigger, stronger, and more active in the world as a whole. As a plus, it's all godly and zealoty and such. That's a bit cliche, but it's a role with a good solid foundation and there's always lots of people who want to be paladins and such. So, Antioch for AM.

    Taking Antioch for AM also means that you can keep Khandava for magic. That's good because it's the most foresty forest council and it would give magick an inherent slant towards Nature. This would give magick a conflict hook in the form of"Nature v Civilization", which is something that it has always lacked. It would also have allowed for a Gods/Elemental Spirits/Demons split as far as the respective circle pantheons go, which would also be a plus.
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