I appreciate the effort that went into the event, and I had fun and all. However, is this going to wrap up soon? Or at least the apparition grinding part? I know most of us are now finding the grinding extremely tedious.
There are a few very dedicated people in Kinsarmar that have been actively ensuring the chain isn't over Kinsarmar. However, they don't typically play in the peak US hours.
I notice that once EST time zone players start turning up, the chain goes from being over Celidon/Antioch to Kinsarmar/Antioch.
For my part, I've lost interest now because it's simply too grindy. Horses for courses and all that.
This is starting to feel like a high stakes localized shardfall, which already (from what I've heard) have low turnouts due to it not really being a big problem if you don't have shards. Now it's a problem, You got people who crush it, got people who are usually pretty good at ducking hostiles and people who just don't care about it, to begin with, cause (insert reason here). You bust your butt to hold your spot, at the very least, till your population dwindles as we all have to sleep sometime because if you don't do it? Legion's Bug Zapper(tm) comes to town and forces you out into the world, thus forcing you to participate if you want your home back. Which is fine, something to slap the eternal AFKers on the wrist a bit, but it's starting to wear thin.
Save the world If the endgame on this is to cause players to work together and effectively play hot potato with the chain, it's not gonna happen with how things have gone so far. Khandava wants Kinsarmar to go boom and will rain its unholy tree sap on those who get in their way, they don't give a damn who it is. Antioch is decimated by the fact the barrier strength isn't circle based and has most of their players burying their heads in the sand (I mean this in a more 'I'm out' sense not in a 'pretending this isn't happening' delusional sense) because if it was? Ithaqua's numbers would compensate for Antioch's. Kinsarmar (as far as I know) is trying to play the 'save the world' card, but it's probably getting nowhere.
TLDR: we're not going to work together, there are too many ulterior motives at play, so the grind is going to continue unabated.
This event, if nothing else, is a good indicator of how and when each org is active. Antioch seems to lack activity most portions of the day. Khandava has a deadzone later at night. As Justus said, Kinsarmar has its own issues. Ithaqua does too. They're both bigger orgs in their circle.
I have no feedback on this event yet. I am waiting for it to conclude, or at least this stage if this is not the end. I will say, however, that I'm worried about my org burning out on the grinding. There's a lot of grinding. I feel bad only really protecting people and ganking for apparitions. I'm just not on enough on my desktop to contribute meaningfully aside from that.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
So, here's my thoughts on the apparitions stage the last few days - note the longer list of Good than Bad:
Good: 1. This event feels high stakes and Jeremy's recent Announce #3696 really hammers that home. Not a lot of events can truly convey that grim feeling. I'm very impressed that Imperian's staff managed to make tug o' war feel like a life or death battle. Avoiding the scary chain is a true, panicked scramble. Nobody wants that in their living room. Combined with foreboding of multiple Twitch streams hinting at org deletion, some people truly are sweating bullets. We are making some pretty brutal decisions. This event is great character and org RP development.
2. This event has neat potential lore. Legion is a pretty cool guy. We also don't know shit about the Rashirmir, so the tidbits here are very nice.
3. Giving us reasons to squabble and fight is great because it returns us to circles and sides mattering. I'm proud of everybody for not opting to work together through this stage. Duking it out has made this event much more novel.
4. Pseudo Open PK in these zones or events rocks. I think after the first few hulking apparitions waves, the shock wore off and we all had some fun.
5. The entities providing some exposition made the information for the event much easier to consume, at least for me. They were how we got rods, how we found out how to infuse spirits, weaken the chain, etc. It kept things compact; if an entity spoke up about the event the right way, we knew to listen.
Bad 1. Lotta grinding. I'm sure people were/are close to burning out. I know some Ithaquans were ready to be done.
2. Not a lot of direct interfacing with the villain.. though, with the wrap-up on the horizon, maybe I'm speaking too soon?
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
So, here's my thoughts on the apparitions stage the last few days - note the longer list of Good than Bad:
Good: 1. This event feels high stakes and Jeremy's recent Announce #3696 really hammers that home. Not a lot of events can truly convey that grim feeling. I'm very impressed that Imperian's staff managed to make tug o' war feel like a life or death battle. Avoiding the scary chain is a true, panicked scramble. Nobody wants that in their living room. Combined with foreboding of multiple Twitch streams hinting at org deletion, some people truly are sweating bullets. We are making some pretty brutal decisions. This event is great character and org RP development.
2. This event has neat potential lore. Legion is a pretty cool guy. We also don't know **** about the Rashirmir, so the tidbits here are very nice.
3. Giving us reasons to squabble and fight is great because it returns us to circles and sides mattering. I'm proud of everybody for not opting to work together through this stage. Duking it out has made this event much more novel.
4. Pseudo Open PK in these zones or events rocks. I think after the first few hulking apparitions waves, the shock wore off and we all had some fun.
5. The entities providing some exposition made the information for the event much easier to consume, at least for me. They were how we got rods, how we found out how to infuse spirits, weaken the chain, etc. It kept things compact; if an entity spoke up about the event the right way, we knew to listen.
Bad 1. Lotta grinding. I'm sure people were/are close to burning out. I know some Ithaquans were ready to be done.
2. Not a lot of direct interfacing with the villain.. though, with the wrap-up on the horizon, maybe I'm speaking too soon?
I agree with Sarrius, up until the point where every got them kill yourself to win button. the chains have pretty much stopped, and nothing we seem to do will weaken the rashirmir again. its depressing going from winning the us against the world to log in a day later and see all your progress gone. How do you expect us to win when it seems so predetermined like that?
the difference being, it went from Khandava putting in a lot of work to everyone else only costing themselves a few trips to dis. its very unfun. sure death should scare us, but lets be real, we all know death cost us nothing, so its no contest on the decision, versus having to fight us for the apparitions. you can say the shoes on the other foot all you want but you really need to see it from our side too.
The vast, vast majority of the damage to Rashirmir was done by the chain being stationary in Antioch. You weren't 'winning' by dint of any extraordinary effort on your part, but rather because of the lack of people in Antioch.
I wish I could disagree with you and lol at the same time because out of all the cities, khandava was the only one actively trying to weaken the rashirmir, and while I may not have put my whole heart into the event before I figured out what needed to be done, we had people doing way more than most, getting up at odd hours to participate in an event that had all the progress erased by something that cost no one anything but 30 seconds a few times.
I've been on record over and over saying "I am thankful that our game doesn't harshly penalize death". That said, the problem with what's been done here and why people are upset is probably because it's nonsensical to be able to use death in the way it's apparently being used in this event within the context of our game's lack of harsh death consequences (as a potentially strong scale tipper, in and of itself).
I'd argue that this is fairly true of any game that doesn't have actual, perma-death, and also argue that it wouldn't be a particularly fun or interesting mechanic even then - but it's certainly true of ours.
I wish I could disagree with you and lol at the same time because out of all the cities, khandava was the only one actively trying to weaken the rashirmir, and while I may not have put my whole heart into the event before I figured out what needed to be done, we had people doing way more than most, getting up at odd hours to participate in an event that had all the progress erased by something that cost no one anything but 30 seconds a few times.
I'm not going to argue that it doesn't feel good to be in that situation, but I do wonder what you mean by "way more than most" because Ithaqua put a huge consistent effort over RL days to keep things together.
I think you're gravely underestimating how much damage the chain was doing to the Rashirmir. One of the entities told us that it would take > 200 rituals to recover the rashirmir after the chain had done its damage, and that was with the chain being gone. Now, Khandava -might- have been putting in more effort than Ithaqua, but I think it's ludicrous to ignore just how much the chain was doing for you. Galt's right in that the chain did most of the work, for both sides.
I wish I could disagree with you and lol at the same time because out of all the cities, khandava was the only one actively trying to weaken the rashirmir, and while I may not have put my whole heart into the event before I figured out what needed to be done, we had people doing way more than most, getting up at odd hours to participate in an event that had all the progress erased by something that cost no one anything but 30 seconds a few times.
I'm not going to argue that it doesn't feel good to be in that situation, but I do wonder what you mean by "way more than most" because Ithaqua put a huge consistent effort over RL days to keep things together.
I think you're gravely underestimating how much damage the chain was doing to the Rashirmir. One of the entities told us that it would take > 200 rituals to recover the rashirmir after the chain had done its damage, and that was with the chain being gone. Now, Khandava -might- have been putting in more effort than Ithaqua, but I think it's ludicrous to ignore just how much the chain was doing for you. Galt's right in that the chain did most of the work, for both sides.
my whole was not really to point fingers and say lol this person did x amount of work. more to point out a crap mechanic. it was an interesting event, but too much way introduced in steps, and it felt like a slap in the face to the only city trying to be different when the last thing that gets introduced was, again, basically an easy win button. yeah sure the chain did all the work both ways, which pretty much means none of us players did a damn thing. that doesn't make a fun event. the only saving grace might could come from the end, but I feel like its more set than we are lead to believe.
If the above is all true, then the biggest way to weaken the Rashirmir is probably not available to you guys for the 20h25m you have left until tomorrow's go-time. Ithaqua made quite the showing yesterday utilizing the 'focus mind to..' mechanic. It seems to have turned the chain off entirely, as far as I can see. This means that the 'anti-Legion' side (if you can call it that?) has crossed a soft finish line and to destabilize that would take an amount of time you likely don't have. Barring the rest of the world doing a 180, you might not stand a chance if you put all your time from now til then in to weakening. You would surely be stopped by SOMEBODY, too; or at least hampered, taking valuable time you don't have to waste.
All of the above considered, I can understand why Khandava might throw in the towel (sort of) for now and just see what happens tomorrow.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
In all fairness logic says Khandava would have "lost" anyway, given that it's Khandava vs Antioch, Ithaqua, Celidon and Kinsarmar (all of whom were pro-Rashirmir). Team Rashirmir has the numbers to "win", even if the chain wasn't doing damage.
As a side note I feel like the rituals and the barriers have been frozen until the ending, because Astris and I infused about 120 spirits yesterday and didn't budge Ithaqua from weak, nor did it make Celidon budge from exceptionally strong.
So even if part of Kinsarmar go against (I know most did not go against), then Khandava is still outnumbered - so I'm not wrong. Also, doing nothing neither helps nor hinders, so we can really just exclude people who did nothing from the count.
Fumble at the end. Why does this game consistently make me question why I bother giving heaps of my time and energy to it?
E: Is it not actually the end? I swear I am not doing any more apparition crap.
I'm kinda feeling Kabaal right now. It seems like the events are targeting Demonic. Deletion of Stavenn (yet Antioch was able to be saved by one person). Deletion of Esmyrsia. Kabaal is upset because we had plans for her, yet there was no discussion saying 'hey-we're taking her'. I understand there was no forewarning for anyone with Entities. I think its just a shock as there was no thought that the event would go this way or that Esmyrsia was even involved.
Whilst I don't think Demonic is being targeted, I do agree that allowing the actions of (mostly) one person to save Antioch feels wrong.
Overall, I did like the event - but it felt less like a contest to see who'd get deleted and the way the chain worked did favour moving it around rather than letting it linger in any one place. That led to people helping Antioch who would otherwise have ignored Antioch. It also doesn't solve the problem of too many orgs, and Antioch being in a weird spot.
I'm also guessing if demonic had done the lich and pool stuff differently to how magick did, it might not have been Esmyrsia that got deleted.
I feel like the "it was saved" was just more of a global recognition for Grashella trying so hard. Antioch will still get destroyed at some point, I'm sure of it.
As one that stood at Deaths door focusing to keep it closed, it was very confusing! Thank you to all those defended and kept our little group relatively safe! The entities did play a part there, though it was about 2 hours and 50 mins of watching us bash apparitions.
The mechanics were confusing, and hard to come to clear decision for a while, we wanted to kill all 3! When advised many times we can only really affect one, decided that we had loved with the Liches for so long, best to keep this new evil out.
Watching Esmy got splat was funny, and keep an eye on Kavar! He stole some of her essense before Charon showed up. Not sure how that will affect him!
Antioch is in a weird spot in large part because in addition to some retirements, several people left a city they really liked specifically because that city (Antioch) was WAY too strong. I like Ithaqua well enough, but Ithaqua was completely irrelevant on the world stage (which is fine, as long as there is an org like Antioch that is a powerhouse). And the reason it was that way, was really because the people there (in Ithaqua) tended to WANT a more quiet game. I think it's always a good idea to allow those two types of players (engage with the world less, engage with the world by the sword) to self-segregate somewhat. I will say, if Antioch gets deleted, I will never willingly help break up a juggernaut org again. Ever. And I might actively encourage susceptible people to build just such an org. Then I will stay in that org. Forever. No matter how much it crushes the will of the entire game to fight against it.
To be honest forcibly redistributing combat assets on occasion should be an admin function anyway. It's a terrible thing to leave in the hands of players (along with a lot of things that are terrible to leave in the hands of players), and it's a miracle when players sometimes get it just about right. I sort of regretted it already, even though I like magic well enough. At the end of the day it wasn't really enough to help revitalize combat anyway, and now I've actively helped slate my favorite org for destruction. gg.
Oh my god it's like if LeFou constantly retold the tale of that time Gaston totally trashed the Beast even though he respectfully declined to participate in the final showdown
Comments
I notice that once EST time zone players start turning up, the chain goes from being over Celidon/Antioch to Kinsarmar/Antioch.
For my part, I've lost interest now because it's simply too grindy. Horses for courses and all that.
Save the world
If the endgame on this is to cause players to work together and effectively play hot potato with the chain, it's not gonna happen with how things have gone so far. Khandava wants Kinsarmar to go boom and will rain its unholy tree sap on those who get in their way, they don't give a damn who it is. Antioch is decimated by the fact the barrier strength isn't circle based and has most of their players burying their heads in the sand (I mean this in a more 'I'm out' sense not in a 'pretending this isn't happening' delusional sense) because if it was? Ithaqua's numbers would compensate for Antioch's. Kinsarmar (as far as I know) is trying to play the 'save the world' card, but it's probably getting nowhere.
TLDR: we're not going to work together, there are too many ulterior motives at play, so the grind is going to continue unabated.
I have no feedback on this event yet. I am waiting for it to conclude, or at least this stage if this is not the end. I will say, however, that I'm worried about my org burning out on the grinding. There's a lot of grinding. I feel bad only really protecting people and ganking for apparitions. I'm just not on enough on my desktop to contribute meaningfully aside from that.
Good:
1. This event feels high stakes and Jeremy's recent Announce #3696 really hammers that home. Not a lot of events can truly convey that grim feeling. I'm very impressed that Imperian's staff managed to make tug o' war feel like a life or death battle. Avoiding the scary chain is a true, panicked scramble. Nobody wants that in their living room. Combined with foreboding of multiple Twitch streams hinting at org deletion, some people truly are sweating bullets. We are making some pretty brutal decisions. This event is great character and org RP development.
2. This event has neat potential lore. Legion is a pretty cool guy. We also don't know shit about the Rashirmir, so the tidbits here are very nice.
3. Giving us reasons to squabble and fight is great because it returns us to circles and sides mattering. I'm proud of everybody for not opting to work together through this stage. Duking it out has made this event much more novel.
4. Pseudo Open PK in these zones or events rocks. I think after the first few hulking apparitions waves, the shock wore off and we all had some fun.
5. The entities providing some exposition made the information for the event much easier to consume, at least for me. They were how we got rods, how we found out how to infuse spirits, weaken the chain, etc. It kept things compact; if an entity spoke up about the event the right way, we knew to listen.
Bad
1. Lotta grinding. I'm sure people were/are close to burning out. I know some Ithaquans were ready to be done.
2. Not a lot of direct interfacing with the villain.. though, with the wrap-up on the horizon, maybe I'm speaking too soon?
The vast, vast majority of the damage to Rashirmir was done by the chain being stationary in Antioch. You weren't 'winning' by dint of any extraordinary effort on your part, but rather because of the lack of people in Antioch.
I'd argue that this is fairly true of any game that doesn't have actual, perma-death, and also argue that it wouldn't be a particularly fun or interesting mechanic even then - but it's certainly true of ours.
I think you're gravely underestimating how much damage the chain was doing to the Rashirmir. One of the entities told us that it would take > 200 rituals to recover the rashirmir after the chain had done its damage, and that was with the chain being gone. Now, Khandava -might- have been putting in more effort than Ithaqua, but I think it's ludicrous to ignore just how much the chain was doing for you. Galt's right in that the chain did most of the work, for both sides.
All of the above considered, I can understand why Khandava might throw in the towel (sort of) for now and just see what happens tomorrow.
As a side note I feel like the rituals and the barriers have been frozen until the ending, because Astris and I infused about 120 spirits yesterday and didn't budge Ithaqua from weak, nor did it make Celidon budge from exceptionally strong.
E: Is it not actually the end? I swear I am not doing any more apparition crap.
Overall, I did like the event - but it felt less like a contest to see who'd get deleted and the way the chain worked did favour moving it around rather than letting it linger in any one place. That led to people helping Antioch who would otherwise have ignored Antioch. It also doesn't solve the problem of too many orgs, and Antioch being in a weird spot.
I'm also guessing if demonic had done the lich and pool stuff differently to how magick did, it might not have been Esmyrsia that got deleted.
Esmyrsia’s end was rather anti-climatic. A misadventure. And unexpected because she just appeared out of nowhere and died.
I expected new entities to play a more significant role in the finale considering they were guiding a lot of the buildup.
The mechanics were confusing, and hard to come to clear decision for a while, we wanted to kill all 3! When advised many times we can only really affect one, decided that we had loved with the Liches for so long, best to keep this new evil out.
Watching Esmy got splat was funny, and keep an eye on Kavar! He stole some of her essense before Charon showed up. Not sure how that will affect him!
Long event, enjoyed most of it.
To be honest forcibly redistributing combat assets on occasion should be an admin function anyway. It's a terrible thing to leave in the hands of players (along with a lot of things that are terrible to leave in the hands of players), and it's a miracle when players sometimes get it just about right. I sort of regretted it already, even though I like magic well enough. At the end of the day it wasn't really enough to help revitalize combat anyway, and now I've actively helped slate my favorite org for destruction. gg.