A Discussion

[Cromcruaich]

Once more respect to you for being so helpful and open. I also appreciate the purging of the thread it is simply an important issue that we need addressed and Mythic need to know about pure and simple.

I accept what you say above and I kind of anticipated your response to this because we had run through it. Now you have said it you have to admit that in fact you agree with the definition I gave you that it is the intent of the player that matters.

The question we should now consider is just how practical the definition is and then we then get to see just how hard your position is over this.

On the notion of grief play you agree with me that you have to be able to read intention and that is obviously going to be very difficult for you to enforce because it opens all sorts of issues up. We had evidence right here in the thread when Manisch and Fatload went at each other of the kind of can of worms this could open up. Would adding or ganking soloers be seen as griefing for example? I think we all know how stupid that debate has been. This is almost the same.

Where you critically miss the point however is that I felt that if a persistent pattern of behaviour existed as your player base perceived there to be that you should immediately try to do something to a) either quell the rumors or b) warn those doing it that their actions because they were repetitive risked being seen as intentially attempting to grief the server.

Showing that you cared and letting people know that the situation was being monitored would have been enough for many people. However having said this I fully appreciate Requiel that you cannot babysit a community and this then brings me to the crux of the issue and the possibility of the solution.

Clearly this is a problem within the community. As part of that community we are all responsible for what happens. Asking for the hosts of the game to arbitrate is impractical. This should have been solved by the community for the community. It could even have been done through roleplay.

What if we had a voluntary charter call it 'sportsmanlike conduct' or something that people could sign up to? That a series of agreed actions following such a raid could be undertaken to avoid such conflict in future. One such action would be lowering the relic keep and all towers - where guilds had agreed to sign up to the charter. The charter could even allow people to defend under the conditions of the lowered keep so that there is still a defence albiet a more sportsmanlike one.

A charter could specify the right procedure to follow that such action could only be taken if the majority of Guild masters had agreed. Clearly then when lowering the keep the intention is not to grief others but to promote fair and decent play on the server. People could even agree to stand aside and publicly state that they will simply not condone attacks like this on the community. That they are signed up to the charter and this outlines their beliefs.

This is within the spirit of the game and what is more it is positive because it is the community trying to work out its own problems with out putting you and GOA in a silly position.

What I was completely surprised by was the honesty of Kagato, Kinetix and Blow. Respect to them for their honestly in this situation because it allows us to try and bring more of this out than we could have otherwise. What I noticed them all saying was that there should be more deliberation and more discussion by TT and I know some TT members could agree now that maybe more discussion would have helped. How do they see what I am suggesting for example?

Clearly there is potential here for a unique solution.

Not the creation of yet more rules but the generation of a way to come together and discuss how to deal with these incidents. Thats all.

If the community could solve it it would speak volumes of that community. You told me that this was unworkable and I actually still believe it is possible. A community problem should be allowed to be sorted out by the community and you should do exactly what your doing now - try to get people to dicuss it meaningfully.

You should also encourage them to reach a meaningful solution. One possible answer was the charter. I am willing to see if others can be developed. I would even help such solutions if people could agree to do it positively.

All servers have their rules and guidelines why we never developed any escapes me.

edited for crappy English (this is what happens when I don't drink!).

I think your breaking your balls over a completely lost cause. Interesting discussion to have, though overall, from the Requeils responses, absolutely nothing will come out of it, GoAs hands are tied apparently, they cant enforce anything, they cant make any changes, people will not sign up to any charter and there are hardly enough people to make it pratical anyway. Just a PR exercise in my view.

Ive grown very weary of the whole thing, especially telling is the reluctance to accept in any way that the actions against TT were totally out of proportion and unjustified within the CoC as it stood at the time against some of the arguments here indicating that they are unable to take any actions against persistant AC raiders.

 

[Conway]

I read the original post in this thread and skipped the umpteen pages to the end. I left the game a few days before the TT thing. I forgot the new game has a patch going in at the moment, so passing the time reading the web and can post a reply. I expect the debate has moved on to the usual aggro but can't be bothered to read through it all.

So, I played Hib Prydwen and was on all Aran's relic raids. The real problem with AC raids from our viewpoint was we were outnumbered so we had to really work hard to achieve something prime time. We weren't getting up in the middle of the night, so it had to be prime time.

The classic one I remember was either the last relic or one of the last Aran took. We spent hours taking keeps to open the relic gate, and fighting our way through both Albs and Mids, took the relic, had the narrowest of squeaks on the way back. The Mids didn't know it, but it probably doesn't hurt to say it now, that you hit us after we got through the relic wall, you wiped a lot of us, you wiped half the relic carrying group fortunately not the relic carrier so the relic didn't drop. Relic group rezzed and ran without time to do more than buff the relic carrier. We were unbuffed, alone, not a full group and with only one healer due to lds. We were sitting ducks walking through albs and mids but got lucky. We made it to the coast and into the boat meeting us with a ton of Mids chasing and just got away. We were incredibly lucky to do it. It was really exciting.

So what happened then. The relic got ACed back a few hours after we went to bed. It wasn't a surprise, and I didn't get angry. We had the thrill, the people fighting guards to take it back didn't. It was disappointing not to get the chance to defend it. The real damage is that its hard to motivate people to then put in all the effort to do it again when they know it will be ACed back when everyone is asleep. And for Hibernia we needed everyone taking part and motivated to succeed prime time. So basically AC raids undermine the motivation to do things prime time.

I actually have no problem with people doing rvr in the middle of the night if they really want to, but it is a bit easy mode stealing relics then. Maybe just up the number of guards when the number of players is low to make it a bit more of a challenge for them. It was a lot tougher for me getting a relic title prime time than for people doing it at 5 am. Doesn't work like that for other titles, the dragon is still pretty tough at 5 am.

Anyway, I didn't really get angry about AC raids, more disappointed. I left just before the TT thing hit. The level of anger in the game on Pryd/Exc was getting out of hand, with the community in conflict, which is why I left. I think the problem really was that a culture of anger and conflict had gradually built up. Somehow it had become natural if anything annoyed someone for them to get angry at a level that imo is a bit excessive in a game. This had gradually come to be accepted as normal and acceptable.

In a situation like that something like the TT thing was a natural focus for anger but it flared up around anything. All the threads were descending into the level of abusing instead of talking. Where there were different viewpoints and styles, it was instant conflict instead of respect. The difference with the AC raids I think was that instead of two groups arguing over adding or something, where only a limited number of people had strong feelings, this was an issue that concerned just about everyone to a greater or lesser extent. Once a lot of annoyed people start posting fuelling each others anger it snowballs. In the end too much anger is naturally destructive. Only a few people genuinely enjoy continual conflict. It also has the danger of building things up to the point where someone feels so strongly about something, important or trivial, that they move because of it. Either server (I don't personally see the point of doing that if your argument is with something like AC raids which can happen on any server) or to a new game.

Looking at it from the perspective of now playing another game, its interesting to see the level of anger on game issues. I didn't leave because of AC raids. I left because the community was not what it once had been, the aggro level was too high, and I play a game to relax not for aggro.

 

[Matriarch|Sneakers]

Put simply RvR should be done by players against players, we just make it possible for you to go at it.

Exactely, this is what most people want. AC raids are People VS MoBs, destroying very hard work others put in within the terms of RvR as in Players VS Players.

Not much to discuss else then,

1) is ACing a harmful aspect of the game?

2) Should it be allowed to continue?

3) What can we as the designers of the game do to help the situation without directly dictating rules?

This is what should be discussed, anything else is just involving moral standards and diffrent PoVs and shit slinging.

You as designers need to have a hard look at what you have created, what future you want for your creation and if this ACing is by defention something that should be supported/revolved in the defention of "RvR" and "Players VS Player".


I speak the truth kidz!

/edit, I know that Mythic made, coded and developed the game but we pay GoA our money who in turn gives mythic the bigger cut, to me that makes you commited to forward our, your customers, complaints, thoughts and input.

 

[Shike]

heh and in the end my old statement still stands and hold water.

The more disgusting player you are, the more of a winner in DAoC you are. The ones that will be standing last of all are the wankers, griefers and those with no sense of honour or morale. Those who care nowt about the server or its population and only of themselves, are the winners.

I said that a long time ago, funny how it still stands tbh.

 

[Craparoni]

Praise u O great one, the allmighty prophet of doom to Daoc.

 

[Kinag]

You as designers need to have a hard look at what you have created, what future you want for your creation and if this ACing is by defention something that should be supported/revolved in the defention of "RvR" and "Players VS Player".

If you already knew that GoA only held the servers, then why do you point to them as designers?

They have nothing to do with how the game is built up.

 

[Shike]

Praise u O great one, the allmighty prophet of doom to Daoc.

bow before me you filthy maggot!

 

[Sorin]

One word:


Why?

 

[Sharkith]

I think your breaking your balls over a completely lost cause. Interesting discussion to have, though overall, from the Requeils responses, absolutely nothing will come out of it, GoAs hands are tied apparently, they cant enforce anything, they cant make any changes, people will not sign up to any charter and there are hardly enough people to make it pratical anyway. Just a PR exercise in my view.

Ive grown very weary of the whole thing, especially telling is the reluctance to accept in any way that the actions against TT were totally out of proportion and unjustified within the CoC as it stood at the time against some of the arguments here indicating that they are unable to take any actions against persistant AC raiders.

Frist of all Crom I never once believed that Requiel and GOA would ever cave in and go into wild admissions. Like Shike I can see that they are stuck. I was a bit surprised he did not admit he was actually using the same definition of grief play I cited but never mind that.

What Requiel and the people here have established from the discussion is a lot, a lot we didn't know before. I will recap:
a) AC raids could be grief play by definition, however;
b) the definition of grief play is practically unworkable as a tool to police the community and AC raids (we knew this from the previous conversation though)
c) some people here clearly engaged on systematic AC raids not always to grief the server
d) some have openly admitted to doing an AC raid to grief some people on the server
e) finally the vast majority of posters now agree for once that this is damaging the server

On VN Boards I got one response from a player on the US who clearly indicated that nearly all relic raids are in the early hours of the morning. Obviously the size of the US reduces the pressure on the problem. They also said it is up to a guild to decide what they do with their BPS. Although they were not aware that GOA had done a server side search on the logs.

From Pryd.net we have found out that a Guild has done likewise (dropped the relic keep to 1) on Merlin and there were no recriminations from Mythic. Now that is totally and completely at odds with Requiel's reply to me here is the original post:

Is it GOA's view that lowering a keep that contains a relic from 10 to 1 would be in contravention of the SoTG in 'all' cases?

For example, if a guild declared that a relic was obtained through dishonourable means and that as a result it was opposing such action as against its principles of honourable warfare. Would that be deemed as against the spirit of the game? To put the same thing more directly does GOA envisage that it might be possible to have a relic keep lowered to 1 and still be in keeping of the spirit of the game?

Firstly I can't think of any situation where such an act wouldn't be against the spirit of the game. Obviously there are additional complications since the cluster with guilds that may be active on more than one realm to take into consideration. While that wasn't the case in this instance, it's a small part of why we felt that there should be a clear message from us regarding this situation.

Now this is totally at odds with Mythic's own policy and this opens up an interesting problem and a possible way forward.

As for the charter admitting defeat before anyone had even seen what was being proposed seems totally strange. Especially in the absence of any real alternative other than telling people to grow up.

 

[mazdaline]

quote requel: I am aware that some people have cited AC raids as a reason to move to other servers. I'd like to ask those people if they can explain what exactly it was about this issue that made them take that choice? I'd also be interested in hearing other reasons people may have for holding extreme negative views on the topic. Like I said at the top though, keep it civil please.

reasons for Golden age guild to move to US server:

1> the way GOA handles things and their poor fucked up customer support
2> loosing rps from a toon wich has put in a lot of amount of time and energy and not knowing why had great impact on the guild
3> peoples retarded behaviour towards eachother
4> hours of waiting and eventually nothing going on
5> al the whines ppl make about add/zerging/specc/toon you name it
6>server population to low it has become a 2 realm server with crap action
7> the big zerging problem no fg vs fg action only zerg vs zerg/small group
8 can name a dozen other things

why Us server?:

1 more action less whiners
2 friendly ppl and always someone to team up with
3 ppl always help eachother and less whines about being leet and perfect
4 better customer support
5 so we dont have anything to do with goa anymore
6 much more relaxing there

in other words excalibur cluster is just a dead fooked up server and the last few months we diddnt had any fun anymore we got sick of the whines and goa mostly wich made ppl play lees and eventually leave game totally couldnt make fgs anymore and the action was just crap running 3 fg on stick and when u were solo only came across fg bridge bug abusing campers.
and then the endless keeptakes and defends not fun defending a keep with 5 ppl when a zerg albs trying to take relics sieging is fun to do during the day but not al the time and not til late in the night, some ppl work and dont like to spend the time they can play on hours of keepdefence. relics are part of game and ofc are fun if they chance hands from time to time but for that u need 24/7 action wich the uk cluster cant provide

our guild desided to started on usa server and so far is way better then excalibur and with warhammer inc this year we dont have any fait in uk cluster anymore and with al the things that happend we are glad we moved

so cant care more or less what ppl say we play for fun and fun isnt what we could find on excalibur anymore

 

[censi]

Requiel has joined the leetist side!

Victory!

seriously though... what you said pretty much sums it up.

this isnt really to much of an issue now, but about 6 months ago when mastade came back and was active, hibernia were perma siegeing and gaining an advantage from hard graft and getting relics and stuff. its was great fun except for the fact that not only were the victories short lived , everytime our work got reverted by a small group of about 8-10 players at 0400. we refused to AC back (in the SoTg) but it just kept happening day after day after day. eventually hib gave up and there has not really been any serious siege campains since.

It was all the more annoying by the fact the AC'ing realm did have more than twice the active RVR population than us.

frustration and imbalance go hand in hand with any mmrpg (and most other competative type games) but you simply cannot have that level of utter pointlessness to the end game and not expect people who play to become a bit cynical about the issue and generally unimpressed with the end game.

Daoc is dying because it doesnt address the real core failures of the game, which at this stage of its shelf life will always be RVR issues (the main attraction of the game). Instead of really look at the obvious flaws with the end game, mythic would rather do a patch that gives a new dungeon a new class and a new grind to complete. Either that or make class changes that totally mess up comptative elements of the game in their short sightedness.

 

[Tallen]

I think your breaking your balls over a completely lost cause. Interesting discussion to have, though overall, from the Requeils responses, absolutely nothing will come out of it, GoAs hands are tied apparently, they cant enforce anything, they cant make any changes, people will not sign up to any charter and there are hardly enough people to make it pratical anyway. Just a PR exercise in my view.

Ive grown very weary of the whole thing, especially telling is the reluctance to accept in any way that the actions against TT were totally out of proportion and unjustified within the CoC as it stood at the time against some of the arguments here indicating that they are unable to take any actions against persistant AC raiders.

Pretty much sums it up for me. When Hib has only 100 online at primetime it's all over bar the shouting.

Personally I can't be bothered to play on the US and pve a load more toons for a game that will be over in 6 months. So I'll sit here and wait for the end instead, only question is, will it be AoC or WAR that drives in the final nail?

 

[Belisar]

I have been quite calm about the whole Ac raids and TT position whilst trying to express a point of view sensibly. This thread winds me up though.

Firstly it is far too late in being posted. Why try to understand it now ? Myself and a fair few other players have been suggesting that AC raids would cause real server issues for some time. That much was obvious to see even before TT's actions (as Req has said) so why has it taken until now for the question to be asked.

This is a mass RPG. When 16 players can screw the fun and enjoyment of 200 or 300 then it is no longer a game people will bother with. People play for fun. When your efforts of 4 hours or more are stuffed up by 2 fg's who consistently undo all your hardwork then it ceases to be fun.

For Req then to almost admit that nothing is going to be done anyway, I wonder why the thread was made. All it has done is drag up the past.

Quite frankly GOA got it wrong in dealing with TT. They misread the feelings of a lot of people and at that time did not stop to ask the obvious question ...why ? To ask it now is a complete joke... unless there is possibly something they can do to make a difference.

The matter is done and dusted and people have moved on. If you are not seriously going to try to understand and actually do something then just let the matter rest.

 

[IainC]

Just got back from Milan and getting ready for my early morning flight tomorrow so I can't respond in depth to a lot of the posts I'd like to. I'll try and catch up later when I'm not horribly jetlagged.

Belisar.
I'm not actually trying to understand the issue for myself. As I've made clear, this isn't an issue that Goa can directly affect - either through policy or new mechanics. I am interested in hearing points of view that haven't been put forward but mostly the point of this thread is to get players to debate the issue calmly without reference to a particular incident that might not be typical of their feelings on the subject as a whole. I don't believe that people had 'moved on' as you say. If anything the emotions being expressed and the reactions were getting stronger.

Primarily this isn't a post where you explain everything that upsets you to Goa and then we go away and fix that, the main thrust is to get people talking and reaching understandings with each other. I've seen some thoughtful and useful posts in this thread by people who normally go into flamey overdrive on the regular 'you ACed our keep' threads and if that level of civilised discussion and acceptance can continue then I'll consider that making this thread was worthwhile. If there is something we can fix then I'll also take that away from this thread but mostly this is for you not for us.

Regarding the remarks concerning population issues by various posters in this thread. I have never said that the population isn't dropping, I have however said that it hasn't dropped as significantly as some people have suggested or as much as popular perception may think. In one of the threads on DAoC General where I responded, I said that we were monitoring the population on the server and were looking into what options would be available when it dropped to an unsustainable level. There's no point in denying that we'll be at that point eventually, wheter it wil be sooner or later is another matter. You have to remember that I have to be very careful what I say, anything that can be latched onto by doomsayers will be and I'll be endlessly quoted out of context for evermore. I really don't want to give those sort of people more ammunition and I don't want to see 'Requiel said the population is plummeting' threads either. I was in Milan today helping our marketing dept get coverage with Italian gaming magazines and websites for Labyrinth of the Minotaur. We did the UK journalists back in December. I'm of the opinion however that population can only partially be solved by us - we can market the game as aggressively as we like but it's the ingame experience of the community that will determine whether new players stay or not.

Anyway, I have a plane to catch in 6 hours and I'v been up since 4.30AM so I'm going to try and get some sleep. I'll try and come back to this thread when I'm awake and unjetlagged.

 

[Vodkafairy]

I think GOA took too little initiative to really get things back on track with the UK cluster. There are a lot of things you could have done, but did not.

Some examples:

- Player videos are great and costless commercials, just look at "the internet is for porn" for WoW. Sure, GOA cannot really make those videos themself nor force people to make them; but they can stimulate it. However, the only stimulation to making player videos I have ever seen from GOA was a link to fraps ages ago, and my tutorial a while ago. Nothing really serious. Hell, you could have volunteers (or even did it yourself) to make a library of freely distribual (sp? ) music for videos so you can host them yourself, organise like competitions for the best rvr/roleplay/fuckknowswhat video.

- 8vs8 tournament you organised for the french servers (or well, for all, but noone knew about it except the french) - there were rumours you would organise a new one in june or so last year but then for all servers. Noone ever heard from that again, while it is such a fucking good idea for the entire 8vs8 community.

- The "roleplayers" vs the "leetists" civil war (guess it can be called like that): the 'add whine' posts were banned way, way, way later then they should have been. Next to that, GOA could have watched other servers to see how they 'solve' with the issue. Many communities fixed it by themself by making a 8vs8 zone, but that didn't quite happen as properly organised on the UK cluster. GOA could have taken initiative to allow both playstyles to coexist in a semi-peaceful way. Incidents will always happen, but it escalated so, so bad here.

Its a fact many people quit because of ToA and NF, and ofcourse it's completely out of your league to pressure mythic to... not release expansions or certain patches. Some things are out of your control.

But there are so, so many things to come up with that you could have done to push the community in a more healthy direction, to gain a healthy flow of new players. Fact is: you didn't. You stayed perfectly fine within your contract and ruleset or whatever, but you didn't put in the extra effort, you didn't make the extra step, you weren't creative enough to -within your licence, agreements and possibilities- still have positive impact on this cluster.

Because you lacked in doing so, the UK cluster has for a large part, and will continue to destroy itself. Might be too late to solve it now, but keep it in mind if any of the other servers/clusters gets caught in the same situation.

Just fucking do something. And if you do something, fucking communicate it to the community so we can respect and appreciate you for putting in the effort for us.

Scuse me for a lot of fucks in there, it's just so sad to see that after all this time you start a FH discussion which will eventually result in absolutely zero concrete solutions, and that's disregarding the fact it is like a year or more too late. I also realise it's not a discussion to give people some time to freely complain at you (like I just did, woo), but well, just had to get it out of my system - in my eyes the UK cluster is simply dead, nothing left to rescue here, hence maybe not my place to post here, just delete it if you think its irrelevant (want me to squeeze more comma's in this sentence? ,,,,). But maybe it will in one way or another inspire you in the future!

Oh, and just to go a bit more on-topic, I havn't ever seen an AC'er say he thouroughly enjoyed raiding an undefended keep, while a succesful raid at primetime is a blast for everyone involved. That alone should prove that AC raids are good for absolutely nothing and should be made impossible - the community had strong agreements on this before, but over time the agreements broke apart for reasons I don't really understand (noobs getting too cocky mayhaps, excuse the leetism!). The 'only' solutions are:
1) not give a shit and let the AC crew have all relics, giving completely unbalanced rvr and fucked up travelling times due to broken ports,
2) agree with the whole community to stop the AC raids once again, which probably won't happen since they get kicks out of griefing, and
3) find a way to increase population, ensureing enough people for an all-around-the-clock defence.
4) put pressure on mythic to increase relic guard-poprate/level according to population in new frontiers.

I can't really see any of the above happening, sadly.

 

[censi]

I'm not actually trying to understand the issue for myself. As I've made clear, this isn't an issue that Goa can directly affect - either through policy or new mechanics

If GOA can make bulletproof fins, they can make bulletproof realm guards?

 

[Vodkafairy]

oops, too late to edit my previous post, but wanted to quickly add this point:

if we take CM as example, probably the most notorious AC raiding guild there is on this cluster - would they go for undefended keeps and relics if there were enough people to fight at the times they play? I sure as fuck hope not.

Probably the main initiative to go bash some keeps is because there simply is nothing else to do, putting some flames on the map usually gives some action, even if its little. No resistance means, oo, lets take another keep. And one more. And a relic. Jajaj, drama, here we are.

Population = the key to all, either artificial guard population to defend siegable objects (towers/keeps/relics) or 'real' population in the form of players able to defend.

 

[Shike]

it's the ingame experience of the community that will determine whether new players stay or not.

And that was that And thats what many many players have forgotten I think, including those that hurl around abuse at realmmates for adding and such too.

What I think many also forget is that FH just is a channel for ventilation for many players (or at least I imagine it is so) and act quite differently ingame. And a majority of the players still doesnt post here at all either. FH can only give signals and hints about things and it can be very very different ingame.

There is no way to measure if nightraids really have affected the population but, look at the primed targets population now and compare it to before the sillyness began. Thats all I have to do to see that something did go wrong somewhere along the road. I never understood why these albs picked hib in particular as the nightly target since mids actually are the stronger realm overall and thus can offer abit more of a defense and also a tougher fight when it comes to taking back the stolen relics and real reason is probably, it was easier to steal from hibs and thus that is the natural target, IF, the goal is to get away with one relic. Funny thing is, those that have participated in this has often said it was a natural thing to do, since it started with a keeptake, they went bored and decided they wanted more. I believe the situation would have been very very different if Mid had been the primetarget instead, since those at least can put up a proper fight and pay back properly.

What do this tell us? Not much I guess but it does raise the question about the motive, why was it done in the first place? Was it really out from boredom as claimed? Wouldnt it be natural to pick the harder target if it truly was boredom? Or was it because it could be done, and because they knew how annoyed the victims would be? As I said earlier somewhere, one time is ok, two times is provoking and annoying, three times is too many and albs have nightraided hibs even more times than that. Thats idiocy and well, how many hibs are now online ingame primetime on the cluster? How many bother with RvR? Thats partially a result of the recent nightly events.

Many have in various ways tried to say: Stop what you are doing, you are demoralising our realm and people are fed up. Did those fellas care at all? Nop, they went on doing their thing, to the very same underdog, on and on and never really at least switched target to mid.
Did they know people got really annoyed? Well, I bet they did. Unless they are completely relieved of intelligence. Which perhaps is the truth? ;-)
Did they demoralise people that sleep during night? Yes ofc, many have said this in the open, many many times. Hell, on many occasions even albs explain that they are sad to be in same realm as those who do the nightraids since they have an understanding for what this all cause in the end. That if anything should be a wakeupcall. Or is it normal for just albs to take distance in such manners? Pretty unique for just albs if so and that actually explains a thing or two aswell when I come to think of it.
One particular guild tried to do something about it in their own way and well, heh, we know the result of that.

Did these nice players even once, consider what the consequences (sp?) possibly could be from their actions? Well, this is a tough one, if they did they should at least have switched target and swapped around between hibs and mids just to spread out the annoyance some. They didnt swap target and they ignored what many hibs said about it aswell. Does this tell us that they are completely stupid? Or does it say that they totally ignore what their actions will cause over time. Or.. can it be so that they fully know and understand what it is that they actually do. That they undermine a realms spirit completely and also give people a reason to not log on and participate in raids anymore, since the result of those raids is undone middle of the night.

Whichever you pick, is imho bad. Its ofc worse if they full well knew what they did and just ignored it and for that they would deserve to be banned since that imo is a direct violation against the SoTG. I settle with the knowledge that they just are plain and utterly stupid since thats what they are in either case. Nobody but an idiot bites the hand that feeds him, only an infant or an imbecill. By helping in killing the server, thats quite exactly what these morons have done. Well done chaps, hope I never see you again in any game, ever again.

 

[anioal]

Requiel,

regarding "AC" relic raids:
I do belive that those type of raids are both lame and a grief for most of the population for reasons that were already mentioned by previous posters.
I do belive that those raids had a much greater impact over the server population in the last year that you are willing to admit.

Regarding the remarks concerning population issues by various posters in this thread. I have never said that the population isn't dropping, I have however said that it hasn't dropped as significantly as some people have suggested or as much as popular perception may think. In one of the threads on DAoC General where I responded, I said that we were monitoring the population on the server and were looking into what options would be available when it dropped to an unsustainable level.

weird.
obviously you dont play in Hibernia. when a realm can provide at most 3 full groups at primetime, it's clear that Hibernia cant do anything in terms of large scale rvr action and the cluster is pretty much 2-sided atm. i cannot do anything about it except for playing only my chanter/druid to help building those few fullgroups.

regarding this thread, i had hopes that you started it to have all the oppinions concentrated in one thread so someone above you at GOA can see it easily and take some (too late) measures, but it seems you wanted only some reconciliation inside the player base and GOA won't do anything about it.

pity.

 

[Sharkith]

Hi Requiel,

to promote an equal sided debate you ought to have adopted an impartial approach and started with the question framed in a different manner.

Why? Well because it is the people who got seriously demoralised by the actions of a number of people over the last year and a half that have left. By asking them to give account you are placing the emphasis for the problem on their feelings and emotions.

Basically to solve the issue we also needed those who participated in these raids to come and explain why they did them. To show their motivations and maybe attempt to defend their actions. Kagato, Blow and others have been on these boards for a long time. They have never once been called to account in a debate on the matter. All your doing is allowing their views to go without scrutiny. Now we know that they have admitted to these raids on a repeated basis they ought to come and justify the raids in some way.

I actually agree with you Requiel that this is a community problem and not a political one. It is the community that this starts and ends with. GOA politically intervened by banning TT members for a short period of time. As we can see all that did was make things worse for a lot of people. The only people who can improve things are the people who feel they are part of this community. This brings me to the crux of this post:

On the subject of some of the current server population
Some of the people who remain on the server in many respects continue to attack those that left. Evidence for this is that even after people have long gone they want them to stop posting here. I mean just how aggressive and stupid is that?

What you have here is the same people constantly telling people who could potentially play again here to fuck off and stay away. To fuck off and not post.

I am sorry but I have two toons there that I put a lot of my time into I can play them in two minutes time. I don't. Why? Because I simply see no reason to go to a place where my views and various play styles are not welcome. I do not want to go on a server where a minority of gamers are allowed to tell everyone else what they will be doing over the next few nights because they AC'ed a relic. I will go somewhere where I can play the game as it is intended.

Now if any of the effort I have put into these discussions counts for anything people should think about that. I actively choose to avoid this community because my views were scorned and attacked. Even after I left I was told by a few prominent members of that community to fuck off. We were and in many ways we remain unwelcome.

Some people come here and constantly post about how good cluster is. Yet we know that Hibernia as a realm is totally fucked and that means the game has lost one of the protagonists. Look at the Hibernia boards. How many large scale events are happening over there? How much activity is there in ToA and DR? Just seriously take a look and you know that it is fucked. You can improve it but you need to put the effort in to convinced those that left that they would be welcome back - you need to try and promote your server now. It is now your responsibility to make it attractive.

Now of course and this is the hard bit for me to swallow. I am responsible in some way for walking away. I left people to wallow in a situation that I felt was intolerable. It was something I never wanted to do. As time moves on it gets harder and harder to go back. This is why I have put so much effort into this. I am trying to see if there is a way back and as time progresses I am sadly starting to feel there isn't.

I am trying to avoid agreeing with Crom and VF. But as time moves on there seems to be nothing that can be done about this.

To what extent are the people that left the server potentially part of the solution?

What do people who remain here if anything feel they would like to do to try and change things? Would they welcome the Avalon people back for an evening into RvR?

I doubt they would they seem to hate us with everything they have and they seem more than happy with the current siege action. The fact we are not welcome for many is the reason why we can barely log in to pay our house rent.

What would it take to have those from Avalon and other places go back?

The server would have to seem attractive at the moment the public face of the server is aggressive, beligerant and down right ignorant at times. I can avoid all of that in Avalon because I cannot read German!

 

[Gahn]

I'm sry Requiel but i don't see anymore the utility of the thread, u coming up and urged a debate and then u said that Goa can't do anything about it anyway? U do really think that a "calmed down" discussion will change anything? We didn't managed to put some salt in some heads for years and one thread should solve the situation?
Where's the point? I honestly don't get it and tbh i'm feeling a bit joked also.
At least i would have expected u to screen the thread, find some good ideas, elaborate em and send to mythic a report about "the problems of Daoc on low populated clusters and our ideas to prevent the ever decreasing population's problem".
At this point is pretty obvious that Goa doesn't really care about this problem, heck u don't even recognize it as a problem.

 

[Shike]

Sharkith, the boards are the boards though and well, I dont really care if some random muppet tell me to fuck off since I aint active atm. Manisch likes to say this to alot of people and the funny thing is, he posted while he was inactive too. See the sillyness here and realise it is nothing but sillyness and take it for what it is, someone tossing out onelines because he has nothing better to do. Who cares about him? Really Ive played DAoC for 5 years, Im entitled to stay as a part of the community if I want to, and if someone tries to stop me I'll hurl a mountain of abuse at that person. This is a public board and every single one that has been a part of the community has the right to say whatever they want, aslong as they dont breach the CoC. Those that toss out idiotic oneliners like: Do you even play here anymore?.. Yada yada yada... Should just shut the fuck up and go on with their own business. The day GOA own FH and actively mod the boards and call them official boards for DAoC EU, then I'll consider toodling off and flame, discuss, argue, inform and do whatever it is I do on another board if I feel like it. Until that day, I'll stay as long as I want to.

And no way in hell that you should stay and act as a martyre (sp?) when there are other choices around . Nobody should do this, a game is about having fun, if it aint fun then do something else as you do now.

"I left people to wallow in a situation that I felt was intolerable."

You are basically saying:

"I left the server because I didnt have fun anymore and wanted to try out something else"..

Gee, I hate you sharkith, honestly! I think you are a prick for leaving people behind and not taking care of the whole world and embrace every single soul that need a helping hand. For gods sake, do as you want, let other do as they want, I assume everyone playing DAoC is somewhat of an adult and adults can both think and decide for themselves. (evidently there are children or adults with childrens minds playing too ofc but I dont really care about those). If they aint having fun, there are alternatives. If they have fun, they stay and keep on playing, it is not on your shoulders to do anything about anything, it is GOAs and well, they have already showed what they are made of. That Requiel comes here and do what he do changes absolutely nothing, whats done is already done and it is now too late for changes of any sort, its nice if the community can agree on something to make the life on the cluster more bearable until its time for burial but so far I have seen no real interest in that from the nightraiders and I can only assume that they as usual, only care for themselves and their "fun". If people like Blow, Muylatrix and such, comes to this board and openly say: We wont do this again and we dont condone it anymore and we will actively work against it with informing about the bad sides of it, things can finally settle down and go back to normal and who knows, some players might even return then. All i hear Myulatrix say is, all is fair in war and ok, thats his way of doing things, fair enough but then also realise that cluster wont change a single bit and it will just die alil faster then most likely and ultimately, those who wanna stay, stay. Those who are fed up with these people and what they stand for, leave for other pastures.

It is that simple. Dont overcomplicate it !

(you spotted my sarcasm and shitty mood I hope my friend^^)

 

[Sharkith]

(you spotted my sarcasm and shitty mood I hope my friend^^)

I did of course and I still remain unswayed. This is not about becoming a martyr. I honestly seriously believe the answer is there and I also believe that the people you named can help solve the problem. I also believe those people want to try and see and end to this. Not the kind of shitty end you and others are suggesting is going to happen.

The first principle to solving a community problem is to believe and stick to the belief that the community 'can' actually solve the problem.

I fundamentally disagree with Gahn and others on this. I firmly disagree that this is something GOA can solve. Although I am losing confidence that the solution can be reached but I still fervently believe this can be worked around. I don't think you calling people names helps but I suspect you do it almost to protect yourself from becoming too involved. Your so long in the tooth in this community you read like the grandfather in the corner with his shot gun on his lap. Its nice being a space hobbit isn't it? Away from all this in fighting.

In all earnestness GOA got involved by banning TT. Are you seriously going to tell me with that track racord of intervention that we are honestly going to allow them to become the arbitrators of this situation? Seriously catch a grip folks wake up and do something constructive rather than pointing the finger. The solution is there it is a case of starting to try to find it rather than blameing everyone else around you.

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

A small additional comment for me as well as my earlier essay in this thread...

Was up this morning at around 0800 GMT as i have business stuff to deal with. Logged into Lancelot to pay housing rent at around 0830. Some further population figures:

100 online total on the Prydscalibur Cluster - Local time GMT 0830
720 online total on the Caerleon Cluster - Local time EST 0330

So as you can see, its really NO danger when people go for a relic in the early hours - I logged on briefly at midday GMT yesterday to pick up some armor and the like. Still nearly 500 online on the cluster and thats at 0700 EST for the Americans.

The low population isn't a symptom of the late night relic raids in my opinion. They haven't helped sure, but they are a problem BECAUSE of the low population being too low to defend against a well organised 8-24 men raid.

Edit: One comment for Sharkith: With the greatest will in the world, rule by comittee doesn't work mate - and whats what a community solution is - rule by committee. Where theres personal gain at stake, 90% of people won't be calm and objective about a situation, that 5-10% will always disagree and the community cannot function as a governing body - GoA will never allow that, and without official powers its all just a bunch of nice ideas that you are powerless to enforce.

Note: I am in no way hammering CM with this comment - i knew/got along with more than a few of em when I played there.

 

[Maeloch]

Re: 'the stfu off our forums you don't play here anymore' thing:

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=211883

Take it with a pinch of salt like any poll, but seems the majority of the FH community 'dont play here anymore', so who has a right to tell who?

 

[Cromcruaich]

Frist of all Crom I never once believed that Requiel and GOA would ever cave in and go into wild admissions. Like Shike I can see that they are stuck. I was a bit surprised he did not admit he was actually using the same definition of grief play I cited but never mind that.

What Requiel and the people here have established from the discussion is a lot, a lot we didn't know before. I will recap:
a) AC raids could be grief play by definition, however;
b) the definition of grief play is practically unworkable as a tool to police the community and AC raids (we knew this from the previous conversation though)
c) some people here clearly engaged on systematic AC raids not always to grief the server
d) some have openly admitted to doing an AC raid to grief some people on the server
e) finally the vast majority of posters now agree for once that this is damaging the server

On VN Boards I got one response from a player on the US who clearly indicated that nearly all relic raids are in the early hours of the morning. Obviously the size of the US reduces the pressure on the problem. They also said it is up to a guild to decide what they do with their BPS. Although they were not aware that GOA had done a server side search on the logs.

From Pryd.net we have found out that a Guild has done likewise (dropped the relic keep to 1) on Merlin and there were no recriminations from Mythic. Now that is totally and completely at odds with Requiel's reply to me here is the original post:





Now this is totally at odds with Mythic's own policy and this opens up an interesting problem and a possible way forward.

As for the charter admitting defeat before anyone had even seen what was being proposed seems totally strange. Especially in the absence of any real alternative other than telling people to grow up.

Not strange particularly, but if you think you can draw up a charter that will have anything other than (at best) a short term effect on the server then at the very least ive got to admire your optimism. The other point ofcourse is that there isnt a charter you could write that would bring enough people back to the game to make it viable (at least from a hibernian perspective). Perhaps one could temporaily stop the tit for tat between mid and alb at the moment, but that I would say is the only single achievable thing.

 

[Gahn]

I did of course and I still remain unswayed. This is not about becoming a martyr. I honestly seriously believe the answer is there and I also believe that the people you named can help solve the problem. I also believe those people want to try and see and end to this. Not the kind of shitty end you and others are suggesting is going to happen.

The first principle to solving a community problem is to believe and stick to the belief that the community 'can' actually solve the problem.

I do really deeply esteem your persistance Shark but this Community failed and i see really no reason y it should have success this time? Nothing changed.

I fundamentally disagree with Gahn and others on this. I firmly disagree that this is something GOA can solve. Although I am losing confidence that the solution can be reached but I still fervently believe this can be worked around. I don't think you calling people names helps but I suspect you do it almost to protect yourself from becoming too involved. Your so long in the tooth in this community you read like the grandfather in the corner with his shot gun on his lap. Its nice being a space hobbit isn't it? Away from all this in fighting.

There are things that GOA can HELP to solve, no1 wants em to wave the magic wand and find some strange solution, but for god sake they HAVE to discuss some ideas and possible solutions and get Mythic to change some game coding accordingly to prevent such shit happening (as for Relics Shrine lowered by 16 peeps for example).

In all earnestness GOA got involved by banning TT. Are you seriously going to tell me with that track racord of intervention that we are honestly going to allow them to become the arbitrators of this situation? Seriously catch a grip folks wake up and do something constructive rather than pointing the finger. The solution is there it is a case of starting to try to find it rather than blameing everyone else around you.

This is surely another domain in which GOA can and, imo, should do something.
They should back up a bit and see the lot in a more general perspective and do an official statement that they fucked up in the TT incident cause they basically took side in an internal Community debate (so either they act or they don't act imo) and that they won't ever take another stance in an INSIDE game happening aside cheating and personal grief.

 

[Cromcruaich]

I did of course and I still remain unswayed. This is not about becoming a martyr. I honestly seriously believe the answer is there and I also believe that the people you named can help solve the problem. I also believe those people want to try and see and end to this. Not the kind of shitty end you and others are suggesting is going to happen.

The first principle to solving a community problem is to believe and stick to the belief that the community 'can' actually solve the problem.

I fundamentally disagree with Gahn and others on this. I firmly disagree that this is something GOA can solve. Although I am losing confidence that the solution can be reached but I still fervently believe this can be worked around. I don't think you calling people names helps but I suspect you do it almost to protect yourself from becoming too involved. Your so long in the tooth in this community you read like the grandfather in the corner with his shot gun on his lap. Its nice being a space hobbit isn't it? Away from all this in fighting.

In all earnestness GOA got involved by banning TT. Are you seriously going to tell me with that track racord of intervention that we are honestly going to allow them to become the arbitrators of this situation? Seriously catch a grip folks wake up and do something constructive rather than pointing the finger. The solution is there it is a case of starting to try to find it rather than blameing everyone else around you.

What would be required to make you return to cluster? I suspect a moritorium on AC raids wouldnt come close.

For me it would have to start with an apology to TT and recompense for the ban time to the individuals concerned.

Oh, expect me to have to duck out of this conversation soon as im racking up warnings for my posts in this thread.

 

[Sharkith]

The other point ofcourse is that there isnt a charter you could write that would bring enough people back to the game to make it viable (at least from a hibernian perspective).

Yes sadly I think thats true and it is the main reason why I am doubting just how well it would work. I feel that many who left are just enjoying the game too much elsewhere to really want to go back to this crap. That means the remaining people need to find their own way forward.

___________________________

To the TheBinarySurfer,

there are a lot of concrete situations where communities have sorted out their issues without outside interference and without a police force being involved. There is no rule of law and no arbitration simply ways to work around problems and antisocial elements. It can and has been done the first step always requires people to listen to each other. This is the second reason why I am doubting a solution is possible - given the kinds of posts we see here for example.

___________________________

To Gahn,

the community has failed to date. Do you see your self as part of it?

Answer that question first for yourself and then think if you can help.

I think GOA can help but they can only do so when people speak to them clearly and without any form of malice. They got throwin into the TT situation knowing full well that this was potentially going to blow up. All the conflict did was make things even more unclear. It is our responsibily to be clear what we want - otherwise how can we expect them to act on our behalf and to it with confidence?

I do think they could and should speak to Mythic after all they have a contract with them. We should send that message to them and demand that at the very least a conversation is had and some feedback is given.

As for the TT incident. I can see why GOA won't do what you ask. The question I have for you is what effect do you think such an admission would have. How would you feel mate?

Sharkith

 

[Gahn]

Snip ...

___________________________

To Gahn,

the community has failed to date. Do you see your self as part of it?

I do feel part of that part of the Community that tried to accomodate all playstyles and always acted respecting other players (Solo Zone 1 for all?), au contraire SOME peeps mentioned in this thread did nothing in that direction if not exacerbate the problems in the community.

Answer that question first for yourself and then think if you can help.

Well i thought i could or i wouldn't had posted that much in the heated threads trying to put some common salt in some heads, that said it can't be a theorical practice when u realize that they won't EVER even try to see the problem from another perspective. As i already said i admire your patience but my limit is well gone at this point.

I think GOA can help but they can only do so when people speak to them clearly and without any form of malice. They got throwin into the TT situation knowing full well that this was potentially going to blow up. All the conflict did was make things even more unclear. It is our responsibily to be clear what we want - otherwise how can we expect them to act on our behalf and to it with confidence?
I do think they could and should speak to Mythic after all they have a contract with them. We should send that message to them and demand that at the very least a conversation is had and some feedback is given.

When people speak to em? Doh mate it's been years that these kinda debates going on and they clearly didn't cared till the situation was healthy and they could go away with some people cancelling or rerolling US, now that Cluster is almost at its end (better later than never mind ya) they do come and ask y this and y that? -.-
Time they do some research and they try to walk a mile in the all aspect of game Community and come out with some ideas to solve or alleviate the problem, wtf is this idea that we, as customers, must hand ppl solutions on a plate every fucking time?

As for the TT incident. I can see why GOA won't do what you ask. The question I have for you is what effect do you think such an admission would have. How would you feel mate?

Sharkith

I would feel way better to openly admit i made a mistake cause i understimated a situation, wtf it takes balls to say we were wrong sry peeps, if after 5 years Mythic gave up and admitted they did some errors i sincerly see no real reason y GOA shouldn't. And the effect is clear, send a message to the cry babies that they won't back up or endorse some kind of playstyle interferring with an inside Community debate wheter the morning AC Crew is healthy or not for the good of the Uk Cluster.
Easy as 1 2 3.