Quote:OOC Characters/Existing OOC

• Characters that exist in the game environment in an 'OOC' fashion undermines the RP environment and can create confusion about when and where it is appropriate to try to start RP with someone.
  
  
• Similarly, people behaving in an OOC manner or polluting the IC channels with memes and OOC jokes are distracting and have a negative effect on RP.
  

My Thoughts: I very much sympathize with people who feel this way. Meaning no disrespect to anyone, since I'm sure when this is done, it's not with negative intentions, and at times is distracting no one else. However, when it is done excessively and in very public areas, I feel like it is a large negative to people who are seeking to engage in more meaningful RP, and may in fact drive them away to other areas, even private ones, so that they can distance themselves from it.

Solution Ideas: The primary idea that comes to mind is simply to have more concrete rules on what substance RP in IC, especially public areas such as towns or the arena, should have, so that people grow out of making OOC jokes in IC channels, or otherwise being a distraction. 

Furthermore, as far as characters existing OOC, there should also be more well laid out restrictions on what you are and are not allowed to do while 'OOC'. This requires additional discussion on why someone goes into 'OOC' mode to begin with, however.

Quote:Applications for Events, Requests, Lore, Etc.

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• The process for getting things approved and requesting them is vague. It is hard to see when someone gets something approved and for what reason.
  
  
• For this reason it is also hard to know if someone actually has some aspect of their roleplay approved, or if they're just making things up.
  
  
• Sometimes the lack of transparency creates a feeling of favoritism when someone is denied something, but sees others get things approved.
  

My Thoughts: Ultimately I feel this is an issue of clarity and consistency. The process has always been to contact a GM or myself privately, and while that's fine for the most part, it does create the issues listed above.

Solution Ideas: The first thought I had for this was simply to make a public forum here for player applications and requests, as well as guidelines on what you should do to get something approved or not. Establishing this forum would allow for greater clarity, allow review by both GMs and players to see what has been approved and what hasn't been (and why), and help correct the perception that nothing significant is approved.

Quote:Community: Cliques

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• The game often breaks down into friends only wanting to be around their friends instead of RPing with others they are less familiar with (for whatever reason).
  
  
• Could partly be caused by people breaking down the RP environment with OOC-like behavior or 'memeing'.
  

My Thoughts: Cliques are not inherently a bad thing, but they definitely hurt RP in some fashion, especially when people only interact with their friends group in private areas. However, this is something that involves the community primarily - there is not a lot that I can do to resolve it, I feel.

Quote:World Rigidity

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• People perceive the world as incapable of being changed or affected in any meaningful capacity.
  

My Thoughts: When we first announced eventmins, one thing that was asked and answered is that I was definitely open to people being able to take steps through them to change the world in a significant way. I feel like that has been forgotten, or that people haven't had the proper motivation or ideas to do so. In a lot of areas, though, this is my fault as well, as I haven't personally run events with the intent for something big to change and given players an avenue to participate, and have instead relied on the idea that players who want to see such things would rather take their own steps towards it.

That said, a lot of the time, when people approach me or the GMs about their requests, we hear a lot of the same things - I want to blow up X town/building/person. Not to dissuade anyone from going for such a thing if they desire it, and I am certainly not against such activities, but if feel you've hit a roadblock while trying one of these, just know that we have heard it a lot and it can feel a little low effort.

Solution Ideas: On the players' parts, if you have interest in causing such change, then I encourage you to make use of the eventmins. On my part, there may come a time where I will have to actually help steer or do some of these events myself. I also feel that the previously mentioned application forum would go a long way here.

Quote:Lack of Roles

• People perceive that there is a lack of place for their character to go, and positions in the existing world that their character can fill. (Not just mechanical Roles.)
  

My Thoughts: This is going to sound like a repeat of the last section, but again, I am absolutely open to people trying to rise up the ranks of the existing political structure, or to try and create their own. That was one of the goals of adding the roles system - to give people a foot in the door for contributing to the world in some fashion, and help them foster RP around it. However, it hasn't done as good of a job as I'd have liked.

Solution Ideas: This is another area where we would benefit greatly from an application forum.

Quote:Conflict, Rules of Engagement

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• Rules for expected etiquette in situations of conflict only exist in vague terms.
  
  
• Playing as an antagonist character carries a lot of risk with very little in the way to bounce back; a single failure often carries extremely harsh punishments, including long times in jail away from meaningful RP.
  
  
• Other parties, including guards, can often feel like an insurmountable, infinite, and at times omnipotent force, stifling antagonist encounters and RP.
  

My Thoughts: This is definitely an area where we have had long struggles, and it mostly falls on me. I haven't really been able to discern what, on average, a player looking to be an antagonist actually wants, and how to properly keep that in check. This is something that will require discussion, with the intention of creating a very clear list of guidelines and rules of what antagonist characters can do, when and where they can do it, and what protections they and their potential victims have, without the need of GM oversight in every situation.

I also do feel that taking antagonist actions, especially illegal ones, should come with the risk of punishment, but I also feel that there are more creative ways to deliver that punishment without inflicting 'soft bans' on people (although such things will likely still exist for extreme cases).

Again, this requires a lot of discussion based on what antagonists think they should be able to do without GM oversight, and what players are concerned could happen, or what a fair 'defense' would be.

Solution Ideas: First and foremost is establishing a clear set of rules and guidelines for antagonists and engaging with them, as mentioned.

For the problem of punishments, perhaps instead of hard jail time in every instance, the requirement of paying a fine within a certain period of time, or commuting of sentences in return for doing community service, or hunting down another criminal, or some other type of redemption service could be explored (and failing those, you would just get thrown into jail).

A 'scene lock' rule has also been suggested, where once an antagonist scene has begun (for example, a robbery), the scene is locked and no one else can participate without the permission of the two parties. This would prevent issues such as being mobbed by a growing party of guards, or someone calling for backup, or things getting extremely complicated when people simply wander into the scene. Such a rule would likely not apply if it occurs in plain view of NPCs or guards in a town, etc.

Quote:Personal Thoughts About Other Things

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Note: Nothing in this section suggests that I am going to change anything randomly. They are merely my personal thoughts and things I've noticed.

While I understand why it exists, I view the mentality of having to rush to max level and gear out to begin RPing their character to be a negative for a few reasons;

1) People feel like they can't RP when they aren't max level, leading them to spend more time grinding instead of roleplaying, which can exacerbate the lack of finding RP.
2) It skips over potential character development and puts your character right at where you want them to be, giving them less room to grow.
3) Max level characters appearing out of nowhere leads to characters feeling ephemeral and without much substance.
4) It encourages the same behavior out of other people, as they may feel excluded if they do not.

The general solution to this would be to require you to RP to actually progress your character. Mechanically this would probably be represented by level caps that can only be overcome by putting in enough effort in your RP, such as with in-game RP posts that are reviewed by GMs (for example) and given a 'gold star', or posts on the forum that can also contribute to that sort of progress. (Potentially 1 level = 1 gold star.)

I also feel like such a system would be met divisively by the player base - since it doesn't exist currently, it adds another roadblock to getting to 'PvP ready' status. It can also be a demerit for people who like to make alts for different character concepts that they want to enjoy mechanically, and may encourage people towards omniclassing characters, leading to a lack of distinct, fleshed out character concepts.

I like making several characters because I like trying out several concepts, be it either build ideas or character ideas. Sometimes, it's because I really like a playby and want to use it because I got an idea out of it, or I simply want to use it. At times there's really not much of a big reason to why I'm making another character. Generally, I just repurpose (repurpose is the term given by the community to the action of changing an existing character slot's playby and other things to a new one in order to skip the grind, since sometimes people just no longer want to play a specific character but don't want to waste that slot) a character that I don't plan on using for a long, long time to whatever the new one is. I usually don't have reason to start the grind from zero for the new one because the concept I have in mind tends to be that of a race I already have fully (or mostly) set-up.
 
The reason I usually only go IC with them after they are Level 60 is because I want to be combat ready in the off-chance someone or something happens that puts my character in danger. Essentially, I don't want to be curbstomped because I didn't at least set up the minimum of my character beforehand. Seeing sudden Level 60s is not unreasonable, at least to me, because this is a common trend in fiction and technically in real life as well. I'll elaborate on that.
 
In TV shows/anime/manga, there are often times where the characters meet someone fresh new to the story that turns out to be just as strong as them or perhaps even stronger. In Dragon Ball Z, the characters were initially unaware that there were other planets and even galaxies, as well as a full-on afterlife with warriors much, much stronger than them, and they eventually found out that such a thing actually existed. Was that a bad move for story writing?
 
Personally, I wouldn't say so. If it were, then this sort of trope wouldn't be so common in most stories we see today. It tends to have varying levels of shock when people find out such strong people that they never met before exist, and usually adds intrigue/curiosity. Where does that person come from? How did they get to that point? What's their purpose here? That sort of stuff.
 
One of my characters is a Chataran that goes by Neron Magnus. He's the IC leader of my adventurer guild, Blades of the Promised Land. I had thought that being the leader of an officially sanctioned adventurer's guild would usually mean that you'd likely be a very skilled person. He was not the sort of character that I would've wanted to begin from Level 1.
 
So instead, I made him start at Level 60 with a build specialized in damage reduction stacking, since his core theme was supposed to be that he thought defense was the best offense. ( this resulted in Golden Glow and Weir Konnen being changed to not be additive ;_; )

I asked for help with getting him set up, I started the guild, tested the waters with a relatively small amount of people then opened up to letting more players in. Did I skip the "potential development" from the IC grind? Yes I did. I definitely did. Was it worth it?
 
Yes.
 

 
Very much yes. Because I did not turn him into a flawless character that knew how to do everything - he was meant to be strong, but not perfect. As the guild proceeded to grow, so did my character that had originally only become IC after reaching Level 60. He had been designed to be the wise sounding man, and despite that, he ended up learning from the people he met and battled alongside with, on top of the members of his own guild.
 
He learned that he can't always be so distant from people. He learned that there'd be much more left to do in his life, and that he wasn't truly content with things as he thought he was. He learned so many things, even in the field of combat-- Neron came to the realization that defense doesn't mean everything in a fight, and started working towards improving himself in that regard. He began attempting to improve his offensive capability, seeking to determine what would be the best timings for a defensive/passive/offensive behavior in a fight. As he did that, he began ICly getting stronger. How did I represent that?
 
I began LEing off-screen and showing his changes in segments every time he would return on-screen. Improving on his builds, improving on his stat spreads, his equipment, and trying to come up with better tactics for PVE/PVP myself OOCly so I could represent it ICly. He's not the only one from my roster that has gone through similar to all of what I've described, either. The character I usually play the most, which is Delphia/Joker, has gone through 6 OOC years worth of character development.
 
It may not be the character grind development you might have envisioned when designing the levelling system, but it honestly felt worth it to take that route for me. It's the sort of thing that wouldn't have happened the way it did if I chose to treat all of his grinding progress as IC, or purposefully refrained myself from going past a certain level range too often.
 
I end up stressing myself out at times because I sometimes find myself bumping into a wall of 'how do I keep Neron's mechanical strength similar enough to his IC ability.' But there's usually something I end up content with, in the end.
 

Quote:3. The community doesn't want a harder grind. Levels or mechanical rewards are not going to inspire people to stick to one character. Roleplay does. A sense of weight on the world. I believe point one would remedy this issue, because it would allow people to feel more comfortable pursuing a goal in the game. Because they would feel confident setting an objective within the world, and reaching out to achieve it.

 
Drezdin said this and I strongly agree with this statement for the most part. People generally see the grind as a chore, something you 'have to get out of the way' like your parents asking you to wash the dishes or to do laundry when you're already interested in doing other things, rather than something you could have fun with. I understand that one of your intention were to give potential for IC progression through it, but this is generally only a case with new players. It's usually more appealing to hit Level 60 first, then make mechanical changes throughout time in order to represent it.
 
You don't necessarily have to give people 'gold stars' or an increased level cap, Dev. If you added them, I personally wouldn't object until after trying it out and making an opinion on it, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. What I think people need the most is:
 
1. Feeling rewarded for investing time and effort into developing a character that's attempting to pursue a particular goal (as Walrus described, I think special opportunities or items would be a solid start. Not necessarily the only thing.)
2. Not feeling too obligated to spend several hours on SL2 in order to be mechanically relevant alongside people that sink so much time into character developement
 
I'll elaborate on #2. One of the pros SL2 has over other RP games (to me) is that unlike a Dragon Ball RP game or Eternia, you don't have to be no-life playing the game for several hours to be relevant and contribute once in a while. You don't have to play 24/7 to catch up to people on the mechanical side of things, be it PVE or PVP. Why is this good? Because:
 
1. If you're a busy bee, you can stress less about your character's relevancy
2. Roleplay is generally considered a hobby. If the game doesn't make you feel forced to be on all the time, then you are more likely to treat it as a fun hobby rather than an annoying chore.
 
If you do ever decide to raise the level cap, I think it should be tied to roleplay in some form, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to increase the level cap with what has been previously mentioned. Again, if it does happen, I would prefer to try it out before telling you if I think it's good or bad, but I don't think it's needed. At least not right now.
 
I'm aware that some people are feeling very cynical or pessimistic about this thread. Personally I want to have some optimism about it myself, because it's the first time in a really long while we've had anything like this, even if I understand why they would feel negative about it. This thread is a fair start to me.
 
I know you're a reserved man, Dev. You have your reasons and everyone is different. But I want to say that your attempts at getting more in touch with the community over time have been a great help, specially the part where you suddenly joined the SL2 Discord. I'm not going to say you should be forced to do it, you are free to do whatever you want really - but I think that if you keep doing this sort of thing, it'll also keep helping! Also it'll probably help you be more in the know about the more important things that happen with the community's people, since as far as I've understood, there's a lot of things you've been (mostly) unaware of until recently.

(10-24-2020, 05:20 AM)Fern Wrote: And Water Sourcer is just seen as "oh, you're the person that helps find water" rather than anything bigger. Which personally I don't really have much of a problem with, despite being the Oniga Water Sourcer myself. I wouldn't think of it as a role that needs much recognition, frankly, I'd pin that on Medical Head instead... but back on track.
 
From what I understood, you were mostly testing the waters

(10-22-2020, 05:37 PM)Neus Wrote: First of all thanks for putting the effort in, with discussing with us and listening to our worries and complaints to properly work something out, to enhance everyones experience.

OOC Characters/Existing OOC

• I think OOC characters are fine, aslong as they lurk around areas like the "OOC" room. To some extent I would probably prefer if the Test server was basically permamently avaibale or manually hostable.This would make it easy and low effort to build test, even with very difficult to get item, like 10*. Its also in certain cases "Unoffical" ways to get normal players better ways to host mini events for their own Cliques by quick creating certain mobs. Its not the cure of all by all means, but it can make people not stand around "unacessable" in the OOC corner, cause their real characters would still be avaiable and could be pinged for attention.(Which I am certainly guilty of, as I haven't even logged into the games for months outside of sometimes checking out updates and RP mostly in discord if at all.)

Quote:Applications for Events, Requests, Lore, Etc.

Clarity and transperency is certainly an issue I struggle with and is disheartening in many cases. I have been waiting for 4+ years on clarifications on one single event. An Event that is very essential to my chracter and with how time flies in game, this resulted in her basically twiddleing her thumbs for soon 30 IC years. While time is a bit objective within the game world, I feel that is also a big disconnect when one person is RPing the time accurately to ingame time and some others cause it makes realisitcally more sense to not have a stare down for 3 days straight during an RP fight thats probably taking les than 5 minutes. It creates awkward situations where someones child is suddenly of legal age while you basically only made it progress a few days since you were "scene locked" in an event that took forever.
While people often joke it off one way or another and try tow ork around it, its certainly immersion breaking, even more so when you RP a character who is putting a lot of value into "DOING" what they say as soon as possible just to wait 30 years with not a inch of progress.
I do not think I need to eleborate on how this is frustrating and not making you feel as you can reach literally anything.

Quote:Community: Cliques

A nessecary evil that is unfortuantely not good for "Newbies". I think it can't really be helped all that much, except that a trent that I used to notice back then, was that there were only certain people that basicaly spotlight hogged every single event at all times, simply by being a bigger clique/stronger mechanically tot he point that event actively got catered around them.

This isn't a you problem, and more a Community problem. But being aware that eventmins certainly should help and pick up the smaller people and allow them shine in their own way is definetly something people should keep in mind. Its disheartening when the difficulty of events and the only solutions to them is catered to for exampled a PVP squad.

Sometimes our local Heros simply need to be "Cock blocked" so to say. They can't get every "trophy" in the game.

Quote:World Rigidity & Lack of Roles

I pack them together as this is a bit of the same deal in this. And I certainly do not attempt to attack you here, but simply retell my personal experiences with that, and why I believe why this statement of yours is...A bit of a punch in the face. While also trying to get one clear statement of how your current mindset on those things is, as times certainly change.

I have to start with this from almost 5 years in the past. Back then, le me was a very active (and only active together with my guild) member of the Laws End. I figured that this sand box was...A bit too much sand and too little anything else so I wanted to make it more interesting while keeping its theme of being a Lawless and dangerous place.
Over the time I came up with the idea to "Develope" the place to be more meaningful in the "Underworld", I am sure you remember me sending you serval drafts ideas and fishing for the greenlight regarding a blackmarket with very exclusive items/arena etc.
Which you eventually did! Great, that was awesome! You put on the simple conditions that I have to do a couple events regarding that raging from Caravan raids towards getting yourself known with other big underworld fishes. Colaborated with a couple of players there and did it. Another condition you set to me was that I provide the map for it, which I eventually send you and early alpha of (basically just a redesign of the Laws End pub, with a secret entry down to a room which was very barebone with a fer carpets/tents supposedly for the shops, made by skulls cause I can't map for the life of me).
So then I didn't get an answer from you, I also was a bit shy because I didn't really want to bother you so there is a bit of blame from me to take for not pushing it. So I dropped it for a while participated in other relatively meaningful events for my characters and got distracted but eventually I wrote you again with a plot progression of this, and here is where I feel like this is a little bit of a smack in the face as you say we do not really make any efforts in fleshing the stories out at all and they basically boild down to just wanting to bomb X/Y (I am aware this was hardly a personal thing, but since up to this date nothing any direction regarding this plot has ever happend I feel like its a good time to point out as it doesn't give the impression that you can actually become what you claim we can.)

I post a very short version here, cause that plot was gigantic, written over serval pages connected with alot of research and reading of already established lore:

• My charatcer played part in an event with supposedly high stakes/high rewards run by Chaos.
  
• During this event, my character lost their dominant arm permanently (also no repalcement possible) and was crippled from neck down for 2 IC years. In exchange for that since she basically won the game with the highest possble reward, she asked how to find the Kraken god Grave and how to get there and perfom the ritual to godhood step by step. (This is something I wait since 3 years now on any sort of feed back and progression towards the storyline..As this is obviously huge so I didn't want to push for it either.)
  
• Since just getting OP for no reason what so ever isn't really satisfying I worked out a huge plot that connected to my previous established control of caravan raids, this plot included the involvement of basically every Clan that has been established by you in the Offical Oniga forum. It went from working with the Kusaragi (I think it was them I honestly haven't looked it up in a while anyway they hate the current tennnou and are masters of information gathering/manipulation and seek a new strong leader). Then the already established caravan raids as a usage of artifically creating even more provety in Oniga to keep the people on the fence, using fake propaganda to fan the unrest more and step by step lead it up to a Civil war against the current Tennou, which then would be hijacked by my character to support the Rebellion and work towards winnign the war and becoming tennou themselves.
  
• Once in a position of more global power, and since all of this has been by design to begin with they could artifically increase the wealth of people again, by simply not withholding the resorces they have gathered over time and with the obviously decreaed number of living people (they just came from a war afterall, so casulties are kinda  a given) she would creat a feeling of "stuff getting better".
  
• In reality while she also wanted to work something out with the Emporer of Sigrogana which I wanted more specific input from you from as I only have some rough ideas and theories what the true resaon for Sigrogana/Oniga war and the gold curse is, she would use her new position of power to furhter build up Laws End and enhance the lives of those there cause in the end of the day, that place is her home and she cares deeply for it and their people and whats to better their life.
  
• She wanted to work out something to truly lift the Gold Curse and bring true change and prosperty to both Oniga AND Laws End.
  
  I am sure I had more worked out, something that also invovled  Sawrocks Vampire Clan at that time cause they had very specific beef with Oniga and would have been a colaboration with dear Sawrock. This whole thing was stomped down with one line from you.
  "I have plans for the Tennou." While I respect that, 3 years later nothing has happend around Oniga nor anything regarding my plot and I am frozen in time forced to do nothing.
  
  Again this is by no means an attack. But I feel this certainly a lot deeper than just "I wanna blow up X" with more than just a one demensional "Villain" that while the methods are certainly crazy, means greater good. (It never mattered to me if this was truly succesful, but this eventline had a lot of potential in many ways for people to take active part in it and change the world in one way or another). So while definetly not the best plot ever to live, and even if Tennou was a big no-no, many parts of this plot could have been adjusted slightly one way or another and mayhaps shifted to an "Do my own thing, but kinda like this just differently?"...
  So yes that one liner after I went through a lot of Events, some very depressing ones for my character and literally crippling ones, and the lose of serval of her close friends during these events wasn't really encouraging to try anything at all as it just seemed undesired. Which is why I want a clearer statement here and if anything of this is remotely possible, even if in alternative forms. (If not Tennou I am certain I could probably pull a similiar plan without the Civil war part for example)
  
  I do write Chaos from time to time about and progress about this, because my last info was he is working something out with you. Chaos as much as I love him as an Admin though isn't really...Responsive most of the time and tends to "forget" and I tend to be "I do not wanna bother them too much". Which is a bad combination of personalties when you are trying to make something work. And this has been for over 3 years now. If a change to that would come, even if its just a clear "Nah, not posisble at all" or a "You can probably go up to that point and no further" is indefinetly better than the uncertainy one expereince in the many years of literal silence and the simple "We are working something out" statement.
  

I'd highly appriciate if you read this and gave a clear answer, I am certain this also helps other peoples to get an idea of what could be possible, as this certainly is an extreme case of trying to influence the world.

Quote:Conflict, Rules of Engagement

• I gave my personal thought about that in the other forum.

Quote:Personal Thoughts About Other Things

This is an unpopular opinion, which I can also understand the people that are iffy about it. But personally? Some of the best, most magical and interesting moments I had Pre-GR. Even though the gameplay was so much more flawed and less polished. It was still the better RP in my opinion.

This is a bit of a rant, and trip down my memory lane and "Best of" SL2 from what I experienced and why it felt to me more special than many of the engagements I feel in the more modern SL2, while in a weaker form they still exist...Its...Well not as meaningful anymore in most cases. you do not need to read it, but I think the "must have 60" mindset is party due to the lack of what I remember as being great.

• I play SL2 ever since it came out, with my off and on times when I felt burnt out from it. I know that I was one of the first ten to reach 60 back then (probably even first 5 but there is no real way of checking that and unsignificant to the matter). While a bit trivial I remember a innocent scene in the pub where we oh so happend to be together with some of the currently highest level people all on one table, and people starting to joke that we could literally solo the rest of the server, while of course just a jest it was kinda a cool feeling, cause leveling back then? Was a chore and a half.
  
  
• Another dear memory I have was a time where I have been working on the character (remaking afew times cause we didn't have LE system back then and I wanted to more optimize what I was doing as I got a better Idea of what charatcer I want to play. Full on Ice/sword fighter. Naturally since the stats back then were all RNG, and I remade a couple of times to get more useful stats for me, I was fairly strong. But so where certain other. Others not so much and...They knew it. So I remember the episode of a Knight, that I shall not call his trendy name, and some IC drama about some supposed cheating and people (literally) picking up pitchforks and torches to chase this man down, who has been known at that point of time to be...Terribly strong spearman, and he was! So people actually had to gather a mob! They even asked me ICly to assist them cause I was fairly strong at the time as well.
  Get this! Someone was literally so strong and feared, that people who were upset with him had to gather a literal lynchmob to confront him! that. Is badass. While the person in question certainly felt more than one headache about this OOCly, from an RP perspective? This is a huge accomplishment. that this situation was absolutely ridiclious made it one of my most fondly remembered memories, something current SL2 will never have in this form again (cause the person in question wasn't really impressed by the lynchmob, more than he was annoyed). this also lead to my first real meaningful character interaction with said person, as my character choose to not help the lynchmob and they had a little heart to heart instead (and she proceeded to duel him, and if memory serves right, she won too even if barely. Unimportant to the story!). Something I like to note is...People weren't caring so much about reaching level 60. Many were fine and comfortable around level 45-50. Because it was very hard to level at that point, and RP actually did you better than running the dungeons (kinda, of course you could have done both and level faster, but meh). I feel that the random RNG and feeling happy with your rolls to that point played into it as well, making you feel more confident.
  
  
• Next! Was another very fond memory that I have up to this very date, and I hold very dear. It was during some of my off time and just returning to the game, I was a bit holdign back, so many new faces (which wasn't because people remade, but because we just had a influx of new people. So people I had connection with were still around ICly) and one of them being Fern. He had been around a bit at that point, so he kinda figured I was new. We interacted a bit, RPed and fought in the Arena. He absolutely destroyed me, because my build was outdated and it was the time where LE had been around already, so I had a unlucky "run" at that point as well.
  What was funny to me was, that this NOOB had the guts to tell ME icly that my charatcer was weak. This was hilarious to me on many levels, cause from established IC she knew she was better. So it ICly hurt her pride, gave me a bit of incentive OOCyl to regrind and we started a beautiful rivalry between us, training, competing each other and rising each other to higher heights with each run. Spo eventually joined that "rivalry" and another terrifyingly strong swordman.
  This rivalry was ICly beautiful for many reasons. It had conflict. It had the feeling of accomplishment when you reworked this tedious grind and got better rolls AND equipment (Back then 10* weren't the shit (with the exception of unarmored turtleshell, which I feel by todays standarads actually has a right to exist again with how squishy dodgers are.)...the Shit was randomly generated items with very specific materials and enchantments on them...For me it was one sword that suddenly made me like 25% stronger...Rustic Arctic Yukijin! (with positive quality rolls) ...By todays standard literally a trash item, but back then? *chefkiss*... Also finding that item took me and serval people who helped over a year to get. Cause you couldn't just handwave a material kit or tools to even out these flaws in the weapon, what you got is what you got.
  All of this? was a long journey. A lot of lost sanity in the alot more painful grinds than people are used to today, combined with frustration when you missed a single roll in your 60 levels of randomly generated stats and absolutely glee when you unexpectingly next to all of your main stats somehow happend to also get Vit/def so you are not only dodgy but relatively tanky. And people that were newer recognized that as well, titles lile "Local Behemoths of Badlands Arena" were tossed around, and some of those people there genuinely able to 1 v 2 others of equal level. Simply by putting more effort into it. ICly at this point you were recognized as something and you had a REAL journey of growth over just "grind to 60 and done". While the system back then certainly had flaws and I do not want to go back to RNG stats, It did progression still a lot better than todays SL2.
  While some of those titles are still tossed around todays...Its not because you put alot of work in it, but because you happen to play the current meta or simply hardcounter someone. I feel its far less deserved and making you feel accompliehd then back then, and it fades more and more away with each update that heavily shifts the balance around. 
  
• The next memory, I vividly remember and made a huge impact on serval people even to this date was around the time where bloeden and his gang existed. My character had been a resident of Laws End, long before they appeared. I remember great interactions between bloeden attempting to assert dominance over my character and "taking over" Laws End, which either hilariously failed or because Sawrock is a great RPer when the muse strikes him...In just memorable interactions that are entirely out of the left field. Long story short, he wanted my character to join him, she didn't want to because she believed Laws End didn't need a leader and she is against it, but he can do whatever he wants. While he didn't like it, and they kept clashing in hilarious interactions, he and his group became known as "Leaders" of Laws End, because they were the ones actively stirring up shit and my Character didn't care as that title held no meaning to her.
  Eventually the sad day appeared where Bloeden after the more or less failed execution of the emporer (or rather his revival) was captured and soon brought to the axe, for the ONLY real interaction we EVER had between us and you(Dev) in RP. One that was actually player driven and not around the convienant new map of Cellsvich for example.
  So with him gone and his gangs remains scattering, people assumed Laws End was up for takes. Cause the assumed Leader was dead. My character was still not thinking that that place needed a leader as it was a place of freedom for her...So she clashed with serval groups that wanted to "take over", and back then, I could do that alone because I was stronger than the average person. I could effectivle hold the fort to to speak.
  The most memorable group that tried to bring "laws" and protection to Laws End, was a guild named "Black Guards", while my character didn't approve of that, they also saw benefits in having them around and hijacked their guild more or less to supervise them. Time passed and eventually they had a little fall out, based on my chgaracter disliking that they recruit children/child like character to a place that is as dangerous as Laws End....fast forward-> She humiliated the Guild leader, in an attempt to make sure she would never do anything like that again and the Guild retaliated in an attempt to bring my character down in a 4 versus 1.
  While that fight was a mess and a half from an OOC perspective as there was a lot of grief and OOC communication involved that even made that gank possible, I accepted it and played it out. An epic battle unfolfded, not all of them were maxed, and I was clearly better prepared for the fight as I had experience with Laws End stuff and had potions and stuff..I won. Pretty Sure Fern also got invovled had his on fight with another person outside of that but...Now there I was, having basically 4 people at my mercy, and frankly from an IC standpoint I should have probably killed them. I hate doing that OOCly though, and this is my favorite memory of why you do not just kill...So what I did was give those people a sort of ultimatum. One of the 4 people, that she icly saw potential is...She recruited. She told the rest to disband the blackguards and leave Laws End.
  So why do I like this so much? Because this significantly effected serval characters. My Character, up to this date has the person she recruited that day as her loyal servant. The leader of that FC was traumatized ICly and had certianly alto to chew through ICly and while sad, it certainly added to their character growth (I certainly hope they felt similar, but from later conversations it seemed that way.) a thrid of those characters, turned into a hateful psycopath ICly. Who many years later encoutered them and had obvious tension because of it (ironically they met in Jail, which was probably the only good time I had in Jail). This was great on many many levels for many storylines. Not only was it an accomplishment for me, that being prepared/stronger/knowing what I do that neted me a situations where I could have just as well lost my character as a win, but I felt from an RP perspective this was a good developement most people could be "happy" with, seen longterm.
  

I am sharing those memories because, they kind of point out that people do not all need to be "Equal" and "Fair". If power is handled responsible it can be very rewardning, also for the people that do not have it. Another point is that SL2 in its current state is TOO convieniant in many ways, that it takes away this feeling of growth of accomlishment because the ceiling, the absolute top, is reached fairly easy so people think they might as well just go there and "Max out"....I do not think SL2 should be so easy to "Max Out", if at all.
I had REALLY big hopes when the rework of the Crafting system was announced, but my concerns with it are pretty simple...Its once again just...Kinda halfhearted without any real accomlishment tied to mastering a craft. No real work (even if harder now) and once you are done and have it maxed? You might as well forget about it. Jobs are still very much a joke...Same as the progression system. Most items get trivalized by the fact that material kits/quality tools exist, so have a "masterwork" smith make something good, is worthless...I much rather have it so, that you could level up higher (further enhance the chance for quality rolls/maybe even better ones if you truly want to keep tools) and that this grind doesn't nessecailry "max out". You just eventually take very long to see any progress, but longterm? having a level 12 smith, over 10 is a little accomlishment on itself, even though they probably don't get much benefit out of it. Though I guess you could justify applying for a custom made weapon then, that you smith yourself. RPing as a blacksmith that can make "one of a kind" weapons? That would be pretty cool and feel rewarding.

By today standards...nothing makes me less interested in a character than being "done" with them. Which in terms of progression I acheive in less than a day. Then there will be never any form of progress. neither meaningfully ICly storywise nor strength growth for those battle freaks..Or crafts for those support chars. (Globally speaking, outside of slice of life and in character events that are otherwise meaningless)

A bit of wisdom I feel many forget, when they get on the fence when I try to suggest to take away the "training wheels" of SL2 and its handholding.... One can only fully appriciate what they have, if they also suffered for it. The amount to happiness one can feel, is expotentional to the amount of challange and effort put into it...Also why games like Dark souls feel extremely rewarding.

TL;DR:
I feel more insignificant in this game, than I feel in real life...Thats an accomplishment on itself...But not a welcome one in a game where I am supposedly part of the "1%".