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Korvara Retrospective - Poruku - 07-10-2023
This isn't a quitting post, but rather a large post to reflect on the past year or so of SL2 and especially on the shift from G6 to Korvara. I'd like it if others share their thoughts, and we can discuss korvara and SL2 as a whole in light of all the things we've learned and the things we did and enjoyed or not. I'm also gonna give my own two cents but it might be long so feel free to skip to TL;DR or just post your own reply
Sigrogana Legend 2 is a journey
As someone who has played this game an extreme amount for the past 3 years, I have done and experienced a lot of things. I even became an eventmin of this great game, and seen the other side of the coin. I've been on all sides of conflict. I've died, had relationships, had moments of tragedy and true happiness. I've made great friends, and lost many. I've seen people get hurt or burned out and quit, close friends of mine forced out to new horizons multiple times. I've organized large groups of people under a single banner, creating awesome stories with people, often making new friends along the way. I learned a ton about RP and how to enjoy it and how to enjoy SL2.
I think a lot of one's journey through SL2 should be about finding out how to best enjoy it, and then making the most out of that once you've found something you truly enjoy. That's something I was saying a long time ago, and it's resurfacing in my mind nowadays.
The game has stopped being fun for me a couple months ago, I'm not sure when exactly. I just booted up BYOND, wondering what character I wanted to play, and didn't feel like playing any. This happens sometimes, but this time it's more persistent.
To explain why, I think we have to break down what happened in the past year with the game itself. Starting at the beginning.
The golden days of G6
Before the announcement of Korvara, I was having a lot of fun with the game. There wasn't much to do, but I had fun with a few things: Antagging, LFG rp, casual pvp, private rps... There was at least always a way for me to just open up a bar or make my way somewhere with people to rp with. A place for socializing.
Sigrogana Legend 1 and 2 used to be a lawless place, full of rather terrible things happening on an OOC and IC level. I constantly heard stories of crazy things that happened in the past... But somehow that seemed to quiet down about the time I started to get into the game full time (help).
The atmosphere in G6 was fairly nice for a moment. A little golden age, where we didn't have too much crazy stuff happening. Though of course, there were still many issues of conflict between players. I was witness to many situations that made me sad on an OOC level. Three in particular resulted in one of my close friends being truly deeply hurt, and they simply left the game, or it was never the same again. The type of player behavior and atmosphere that caused this isn't exclusive to that era of course. That's something we've always had, and we'll always have. Yet amidst the anguish that I've witnessed and felt, there were some good times...
The best scenes I've had on SL2 were little moments with a few people I know, playing our characters in our private setting or just having a scene together. Having fun or experiencing amazing drama. Living through some beautiful character tragedies was my favorite thing, and it happened many times back then. Devastating scenes, watching the characters evolve and grow, and develop these bonds and... Well, I'm not going to spend hours talking about it. But I will say that it was fairly difficult to get those good scenes without a lot of luck. Unless we did some planning, like a group of some kind. Often, the best scenes were just us, in private... Oh, right.
Private RP tangent
In those days, people were complaining a lot about private rpers hiding away in their houses to do their own thing. And I'm going to be that guy who goes ahead and says it, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If someone is enjoying their time in private with people they trust, then what exactly is the problem? The only issue with that is the lack of players rping in public. But can you blame them? RPing in public kind of sucks a lot of the time, especially in areas that aren't really inherently made for people to rp in, for instance in some sort of town square. It's not very natural to have a conversation in an open public area with strangers, it's especially difficult to get a meaningful conversation or scene out of it. For that reason, I always favored LFG roleplay, where you either set up a scene or go somewhere with an established scene. Sometimes, a private rp is cool too if needed. But having the choice to do any of those things allowed for a lot of freedom, something that has been a cornerstone of SL2 for a long time. Overall, player housing is a very versatile tool, it allowed us to do anything. Build (Y)our Own Net Dream, even.
And all those players who are content to roleplay in private with their friends, sometimes called cliques, would it truly help the game to drag them out into the sun by force? Are they actually going to improve the public rp experience by way of their begrudging presence? I always found it odd to argue that player housing is making people hide away. Just let them hide. SL2 is about doing what you enjoy. I'm not even someone who did a lot of private rp overall, I did a mixture of public, LFG, and private. Yet it just makes sense to me... We need all 3.
Regardless, there were undeniable problems back then. Mostly the low activity and lack of interesting stuff going on. The world was very static, and even boring. Things stagnated, nothing changed.... Most things felt like they didn't matter, except the most prestigious and ambitious of events. For that reason, an idea was born: Korvara.
The Korvara Hype Days
When korvara was announced, there was a big shakeup in the community. A lot of people were excited for it, myself included, while others were leery or outright disliked the idea. I thought it had a lot of potential and might fix the aforementioned "issue" of a static world.
Despite the many concerns that were shared, people looked at Korvara as the future of SL2, which it would be! In fact, it's essentially SL3, even if it doesn't have that title. There was thus a phenomenon I'll dub the "Korvara waiting room crisis", during which player numbers dropped over time. After all, SL3 was coming out soon, so what's the point on continuing to play a char that I'll be dropping?... It was a bit of a boring era sadly. But hey, it eventually gave way to:
The Korvara Early Days
An exciting time to play SL2 for sure. Everyone was motivated and active. Things were chaotic and crazy. People had hopes and dreams and things to do all the time. At the same time, a lot of things were really bad. But I think the shittiness of early Korvara had a certain charm. People were just doing shit.
When Korvara launched, leaders were rolled randomly, which I believe is a huge mistake. In fact, it's the pinnacle of a phenomenon I'll call "Dev Hopium". This belief that players will simply "sort it out" together and things will be okay. Well, the leader lottery ended up being a huge mistake in my opinion. Sure, it's nice that anyone had the opportunity to get a very important role, but it turns out most of these people didn't have what it takes to be a leader, on an OOC level. Sure, it's fine if leaders are bad IC. But the role is also an extremely important one OOCly. In fact, being a leader is MOSTLY about how you can handle the ooc aspect of managing a whole nation. And it puts a lot of pressure on people. I think there should have been a bit of a curation process and a little training process. Teach these people how they should lead. You might think that defeats the purpose of Korvara, as players are supposed to do whatever they want, but we saw how that ended up going. You can't just expect everyone to know what they're doing. The most egregious example was rubin, which, although her character was very fun to play with in game most of the time, wasn't really able to handle the stress of the position and ran herself into the ground. There are other examples of leaders that ended up causing or receiving OOC trouble, and crumbled as a result.
Still, I remember fondly the fall of Lexaly. The rich roleplay that ensued, the beautiful conflicting values, and the time when Geladyne was trying to find itself. I miss those days dearly, even for all their flaws.
The Beggar's Hole Days
A bit later, after the initial chaos of those days, people were ready to chill for a bit. New leaders were in place, and now we needed to look at what was next. A few people were doing some silly bandit stuff, which turns out it was satire or something, I don't really get it still. And their group took residence in a settlement near Geladyne, which is nowadays known as the Wanderer's Vale.
In a striking turn of events, Geladyne suddenly decided to show up and tax them. Which I thought was pretty funny at the time, and cool. Although it had a few major implications. First of all, Beggar's Hole wasn't officially part of Geladyne, which means this was a threat of conquest and as such a declaration of war if they wanted to keep independence. They did, which means there was fighting. This is a problem because of the fact there was no warning.
Conflict
So, this is kind of the crux of the issue with Korvara, and probably merits its own thread. Conflict is something everyone has their own opinion on. Over time, I've learned something quite important about SL2.
Our community has a strange relationship to conflict. A portion of the playerbase wants MORE conflict, and a portion of the playerbase wants LESS conflict. In addition, the vast majority do not want to be on the losing end of a major conflict. This creates a fairly big problem, as you might imagine.
Now, what happened with the beggar's hole incident is the following: player(s) who want MORE conflict go attack players who just wanted to do their own thing. You might say, well, that is Geladyne land, so it's normal that they would be conquered. And I say to that, yeah, sure, on a logical standpoint for sure. But you can't overlook the effect these things have on people. I think a big problem is that the people who want MORE conflict tend to focus too much on things such as their own freedom and what makes sense IC, while forgetting that the game isn't real life. The main purpose of the video game is to be fun for everyone, and that means when you are initiating conflict, you need to make sure your enemy enjoys it too, unless you really have to do it regardless.
Only problem with that is, most of the time, your enemy isn't going to enjoy it, even when it's well planned and executed. But when it's unplanned, it's always going to cause problems, as we saw with Beggar's hole. Of course, people were unhappy. But thankfully, we learned from this era that planning and warning was very important.
The Fairview Days
The next big event was eerily similar to the first one. This time it was fairview who was the target of Meiaquar. Unlike the first time though, there was some warning. Not only was there warning, there was GM intervention. However, things did not go as smoothly as you might expect. Instead of mediating the situation from both sides, the GM team mostly oversaw the planning of an invasion, and there was very little communication between both sides of the conflict. An invasion eventually began with some artillery shooting sleeping gas into town, with the intention of putting everyone inside to sleep and imprisoning them. That didn't end up working out. In fact, it caused an outcry and great amounts of salt. There was some fighting, but it was inconsequential.
Due to constant disagreement and arguing, there was actually basically no fighting that happened after that. Participants ended up stuck waiting for the higher ups to give a green light that never came. It ended with a peaceful takeover after the OOC side of things resulted in a ban or something. The conflict fizzled out, and a meiaquarian mayor was appointed as the leader. Thus, fairview was now conquered.
The Shift to the Modern Era and the Geladyne-Meiaquar war
So, thus far in Korvara up to this point, we've got 2 major conflicts that did not go well. So the playerbase has a lot of feelings about conflict at this point. Many of them are tired of it, if they didn't quit already due to it. Others are hungry for a proper war, a conflict that is done well, to show that it's possible and pave the way to a better future for Korvara.
With a lengthy time of peace, the nations start to settle into a rythm, doing their own thing a lot of the time. Geladyne eventually switches leaders, and soon after, war is declared. This move was quite controversial. Some were happy, some were unhappy. But for the most part, Geladyne was hopeful and glad to finally have a war to fight.
Thus began the tedious and arduous process of "figuring out" how to fight a war properly. Unfortunately, the two sides of the conflict weren't really in agreement, and as such, before we could fight the first skirmish, the war was put on pause. A jarring thing for the IC side of things, but it was ultimately needed and helpful. After a lengthy period, the leaders announced it was finally time. And then, boom, war began. On a surface level, it actually went fairly well, as many people engaged in battles and some fun was had. Admittedly, I haven't participated, as I had lost interest in playing my normal characters at that point, and was busy helping out as an eventmin instead.
Overall, it seems the war is a far, far better conflict than its predecessors. Battles planned, PvE and PvP provided, agreement on outcomes, and countless people involved with plenty of RP to be had in the midst of it all. Great stuff.
Of course, it also created some salt and dissent. To the point some were harassing certain people about it, and many were vocal about their distaste. It turns out, a lot of people in SL2 just don't want to be in a war. Yet a lot of them want to be in a war... Either way, soon, the war will conclude, and we will know how history will see it... Will this usher a new era where we're able to have war properly? Finally making Korvara deliver on its promises? I don't really know. And truth be told, at this point, I don't think I have it in me to continue in the MORE conflict gang.
I gradually realized that most people aren't really happy when you cause conflict... Playing an antagonist in Korvara has been fun, but gradually exhausting on an OOC level.
My personal experience with antagonism
So, I wanted to talk about what I've been doing, myself. Aside from being mostly an observer in the major conflicts, I've especially focused on antagonism. Both on my own, and with Sawrock. Teaming up with Sawrock is its own kind of playstyle. We make some characters that work together, and run around ganking people for fun. Sometimes, people aren't into it, and we do our best to offer them to escape or omit the scene. We try to give people a fair 1v1 fight especially these days. We offer them options. And yet some people still don't like it. It kind of saddens me that even something so innocuous as a random gank bandit, is seen as a problem to some people. No, it really saddens me. To think that some people see it as exhausting, like they have to deal with every criminal themselves. That whenever something bad is happening, they need to deal with it immediately. That when there's a single criminal out on the roads, it's a problem and we need to hunt it down and end this so things are ok again. And when things are ok and nothing bad is happening, we can relax, and if another criminal comes around, we need to deal with that too. I get it, but it's just a real shame, because I do this stuff to have fun. And there's so many amazing scenes that come out of it. Yet it's like sometimes people aren't having fun and I'm like, alright, what do we do? Let's figure this out. But it often causes as much frustration as it causes fun, and/or ends anticlimactically. For all the great moments we've had, there's also moments where I've felt disinterest in game, or directly was told about frustration or such. It makes me sad. In those moments I remember the G6 days. Where guards were so pained to receive pings that asked them to do their job, where it was often treated as a chore. Things improved a lot since then, but perhaps that burdensome feeling has translated to others who feel like they have that responsibility on an OOC level.
Something similar happens when we're talking about more event-like antagonists. A few times, I've made my antags more focused on intrigue and a proper story to follow. An event, if you will, even before I was granted eventmin. I even made events, such as the flame guardian thing. But I liked to do these little antagonists that had a bit more going on, where people could enjoy a story. I did this for the players, so they could enjoy a storyline and eventually reach a boss fight, like the necromancer or Valya. I was kind of sad about Valya as I was dispatched by like 4 people ganking me in a meeting without warning they were coming to kick my ass. But I digress. The Necromancer is a good example of everything going right. It was a fun time for sure, although it is fairly difficult to handle a whole event antag as a non-eventmin. So I did that rarely as it took effort. In the same vein, managing a large scale event with a lot of intrigue has been a bit difficult. Things don't always go as planned, and in the end things progressed far quicker than I anticipated. I was a bit disappointed about how quickly the guardian was labeled a threat that needed to be deleted right away, but hey at least it was an awesome finale.
The current state of affairs on my end
Overall though, my motivation for antagonism has waned, even though it's pretty much the only thing I enjoy about the game nowadays. I feel as though the negativity in the community has gotten to me. And I think I have grown tired of trying to play the game of politics, and trying to be a big shot in the world of Korvara. It's truly tiring, takes a lot of constant effort, and you may not even be rewarded for it. Even the mundane characters feel like a slog to play, I'm unable to really find a context in which I enjoy playing the video game. Back in the days of G6, I could make any random char I wanted, and play them in the vast sandbox world. Nowadays, I feel like every character needs to fit into a faction, into a niche. Being unaffiliated in Korvara is dreadfully boring, as you're basically just getting inconsequential public RP. Maybe I've just grown bored of public RP as well, or haven't found my people. Sure, I still enjoy logging on to rp with certain people, but the general, basic experience has lost its spark to me.
I have also lost interest over time in my current enterprise, which is the Marauders. I've run into a magnified version of the issue I mentioned about antagonists. People just... Don't like to be attacked. Hell, people don't like pvp. People don't enjoy pvp, man. But that's the one thing I love about this game. I frickin love pvp in this game, and it's so sad to see that I'm a complete minority in this. People prefer pve a lot of the time... Why are we even doing this? Why are we even trying to have conflict? That's without even talking about the fact that this game doesn't have any systems in place to have large scale conflict, which means anything more than a gank is going to take insane levels of planning. And what happens when you want to attack someone and they're like "I don't want to"? Do you force it, or give up?
Why are we even on Korvara if 90% of the playerbase doesn't enjoy pvp itself? That's the entire point of the continent. The promise of player agency comes with the promise of conflict. With conflict, comes PvP. With PvP, comes salt and frustration and unfairness and disinterest... More and more, I am feeling the weight of this. If you put people who enjoy conflict against people who don't, what are you going to get? Someone is going to be unhappy in that equation. And more and more, I feel like... It's not worth it, man.
Conclusion
I think that we learned a lot as a community over the year we've spent on Korvara. I think a lot of people, like myself, have become disillusioned about the promise that Korvara offered. I think that our community just isn't ready for this level of conflict. Just look at how much shit the GM team has had to deal with recently. Is that really sustainable? Is it worth it? That's the question I'm asking myself these days. Is it truly worth it, to go through all this effort, to plan everything, to discuss with parties involved, to figure out schedules and disagreements, and make everyone happy... When we could just have eventmins do some events instead? Yes, I'm going to honestly say I wish we could go back to G6. I miss it, now, and I don't think Korvara's promises were worth it. I'm fine with not having war, anymore, and I think I'm done with trying to make big waves. I'm done with trying so hard to get a high ranking position in a government, that I might never get, and even if I do, I don't know if it's going to even be enjoyable. The leaders sure don't seem to be having a good time...
The big problem with korvara is that your character isn't going to get much interesting RP if you aren't part of a group. Be it a nation, or a small faction. And it's really difficult to make a small faction, as evidenced by what happened with beggar's hole and fairview. Best you can get is a tiny faction that is a part of a larger nation... There is truly no escaping the structure, unless you're small enough to go unnoticed and don't really interact with the world, which is not only difficult, it kind of defeats the purpose of Korvara. Everything is hard in korvara. Everything takes effort, everything is connected. I think I'm just tired of how much work this continent is.
I think I'm ready to go home, now.
Afterword
TL;DR: Korvara has taught us many things, but overall, I don't think all the pain was worth it for what we got out of the conflicts and the structure of Korvara overall as a player-run world. I think we lost a lot, and I miss G6.
Sorry for the long post, but thank you so much if you read it all. I'm sure a lot of it is just repeating stuff you guys already know, but I wanted to look back and... Have a retrospective. Let me know your thoughts on it all, and share your own experience of Korvara if you'd like. I'm sure there are many points people will disagree with, too, so feel free to make your response towards specific things as well.
Hope y'all have a good day. I love you guys. I've said it many times, but I believe in this community. I think we're gonna make it.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Fern - 07-10-2023
I just want to say that, even if I don't necessarily agree with everything in your post, I appreciate that you've brought some of these issues to light Polk. I was debating on writing a big reply post myself venting all the frustrations I've had with the game ever since after Early Korvara, but then I realized I don't really have the energy for it anymore.
But the game is not fun anymore. At least, to me. Early Korvara was a huge blast for me though.
Leader lottery was in all honesty a huge mistake, but at the same time it got Dev to play the game with us and I feel like some things would've never happened if he didn't otherwise, so at least there's some bright side in what happened with the lottery.
There's something I want to add in regards to the 'I didn't have energy for writing a big reply post' though. Usually, when there's big problems like these, I end up making some post about it or some big mention of it somewhere (like the 'opinions of the state of SL2' thread a while back), but this time around I never really felt the energy to do it, or the motivation and I thought that was a pretty bad sign for me. It feels like it's to the point where my motivation is mostly gone. When I work several hours in a row, and then have free time, I find myself putting SL2 last in the list of priorities because in the back of my head I know I'm not really going to enjoy it much.
Communities are very difficult to change but I hope that eventually there's something that helps make things more fun and less like a dark atmosphere, as difficult as that may be. I don't really want to quit.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Poruku - 07-10-2023
I feel ya, Fern. SL2 has always been a game that demands a lot of effort, because at the end of the day, whether you're making an event, or trying to do something impactful, you have to make things happen on your own (or coordinate with others). It's hard, man.
Making events isn't easy, running them isn't easy. Creating a sub community with plenty of things to do and consistent rp isn't easy. Rising in the ranks isn't easy. Making something big happen isn't easy. The only easy thing is grinding and public rp, or meeting up with your group of friends and rping among yourselves, if you are lucky.
It can get exhausting after a while... The public RP ain't hittin the same as it used to, either.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Soul_Hacker - 07-10-2023
I'll play the contrarian here, I suppose. I've been playing SL2 for quite some time. 2015? 2016? Something like that- before I'd made my discord, I know that much.
To be honest, I hated it. G6 was miserable for me, and I've never quite been able to pinpoint why. Perhaps it was the community, perhaps it was the game itself, or perhaps it was just being a teenager or some other such thing, but, when I quit, I fully expected to never come back. The game wasn't fun for me. I didn't like how static the world was. I didn't like how little of a purpose being around seemed to have. I didn't like how unless you knew someone, you were no one. Perhaps that doesn't hold true for some folks' experience, but, it certainly felt like it held true for mine.
There were good folks there who tried to help me get into the game, and I did maintain a steady presence for most of my time there, but I never felt a love for the game. I never felt like it was something that I'd ever fully enjoy. I hated when people would try to drag me back into it, as some friends could attest. No matter what was going on, no matter what I was invited to, or told about- the experience felt the same, and the feeling was not a positive one.
I didn't expect Korvara to change that. I thought it was the stupidest damn idea I'd ever heard, truth be told. An over correction in the wrong direction, changing the systems without considering the community that had grown so used to those systems. I expected it to be more of the same in the worst way possible. And, it seems, for some, it was.
But, as oft-stressful as it has been, I can earnestly say I've enjoyed these twelve months with Korvara more than the previous 72 or so months with Sigrogana. I've met plenty of people who would never have given SL2 a chance without Korvara, reconnected with people who had quit as I had, made friends, lost a few, but even when I'm stressed to my limits due to the things I (willingly) take on, I always want more.
I want to play more. Interact more. I want to log on. I want to talk to people. I'm excited for things to happen. Not all the time, mind you. I mean no offense to Polk or Sawrock, but I am one of the people who's expressed fatigue at their antagonism. Perhaps it's just a difference in mindset that can't really be bridged, but, I find that it's not something I do enjoy, certainly not something I like being repeated ad infinitum. While Korvara was created with the intention of player expression and change at the forefront, I disagree that this always means 'antagonism', at least, in the sense of traditional banditry and the such.
I feel the 'issue' of characters not feeling worthwhile if they do not belong to a group. . .is missing the forest for the trees, admittedly. Korvara was created with these four nations in mind. Other small settlements of players and such have come and gone, some staying, some being absorbed back into the fold- but I believe that to be the point. Can't speak for the folks who helped Korvara come to life, of course, but, those are my personal feelings on the matter. The four Nations are Korvara. They are the RP experience that is advertised. The structure seems to be the entire idea.
And I can understand that not feeling good, if it's not what you enjoy. I didn't enjoy the Great Six, but I'm aware there are a great many who did, and prefer it to Korvara. Nothing wrong with that, but, on a personal level, that 'pain' was entirely worth it. I enjoy the game more than I ever have.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Poruku - 07-10-2023
I certainly have some rose tinted glasses when it comes to G6, I think the game was more fresh for me at the time as well, so back then I had a feeling like I was discovering something I loved again. I also joined at a particularly good time, and got lucky meeting people who made it enjoyable.
I also have to say that I enjoyed a lot about Korvara. And I also understand why people don't like the gank bandits, even though it saddens me. It's not like doing that was the point of Korvara. I did have my fun with Korvara, and I'm not really saying that going back to G6 would fix everything, it might not even be better. But I still miss it.
Perhaps my fatigue with the game is causing me to see more issues that aren't that bad. I'll probably give Korvara another honest shot at some point. Try to take what I've learned and make it fun again
RE: Korvara Retrospective - caliaca - 07-10-2023
Hi.
I don't usually post on stuff like this. I don't really have the same overarching unhappiness with the game that a lot of people do, so I haven't really thought about posting. I never want to like... be that annoying person who's like 'Oh, I'M having fun! WHY AREN'T YOU HAVING FUN?' cause I find that really lame and sort of demeaning of other people's viewpoints and thoughts. So I still probably won't type a lot where but there was like, one or two things I wanted to address as someone who is really relevant to this post, and frankly most types of these posts lately - as much as I'd prefer it not be.
A comment on the war pause-
We did not delay the war because of a disagreement between the two sides on how to conduct war. We delayed the war because people on both sides were getting heavily harassed which lead to severe mental strain on the ones who were trying to make it work the hardest. I'm not really going to say names here, but let's be real, everyone knows the big one at this point. We also stopped the war because GMs and the staff team as a whole had not for a moment helped us out with the planning, we hadn't gotten anything regarding war rules or how to conduct things, and it was essentially trying to figure everything out from scratch. The real reason that the war got delayed was because I had a mental breakdown in a semi-public channel that GMs were watching and finally intervened after it got *really* bad.
The war pause served to replace the most unreasonable actor and while we still didn't exactly have a lot of staff help, working with reasonable people made it much easier to actually get things done. The leaders who were involved still weren't getting much assistance from the harassment standpoint, and it took until new GMs were declared and the rules were updated for that to change (albeit partially due to public outcry. I thank everyone who came to have my back then).
Since then, things *have* changed. GMs are much more active in curtailing these things and it's been a great, great boon to those of us who were in the firing line the most. While we had to go through hell to actually get the change, I'm nonetheless happy that we finally have it. I think it's the first big step to making sure that everything works out in the long run.
I'll reply to something on Fern's post as well. I fully agree the leader lottery was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened, or if it did, it should have been vetted so that it didn't seat so many problematic people into positions of power that still have reverberations on the game state to this day. Leader vetting is a thing that needs to occur, and while it may feel like shit for someone to get denied from a position if they've been previously and recently banned or warned for extremely problematic behaviour... well, they shouldn't have it. Straight up. Leaders have a large amount of ic and ooc power and are generally going to be who gets ragged on and harassed first, if someone is given a spot with those things as red flags, it'll often reverberate through the entire country and cause cultural issues from the top down. Rarely, a country deals with it IC in a quick manner, such as with Lexaly, but other times the position is allowed to be kept for much too long - not to the fault of players, but because they shouldn't have been allowed it in the first place.
Even as a nation leader, I certainly agree with there not really being spots on the map to build things up for new stuff. Most of the map is claimed at this point, and while I don't think personal houses are the answer, I think something could be done about it. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure **what**. Outskirt new maps? Island maps? Danger areas where nations wouldn't want to extend but other groups might?
I'm not sure. I don't know.
I'll also apologize once more for my role in the Valaya thing. I thought others had already communicated and I was pretty much still a dumb new player at that point. The Guardian thing to to a much lesser extent, I'm not real sure that one was my fault but I do wish you'd had the investigation more and I'll warp stuff in the future to give that better. I think both roads could have communicated a bit better there, but that's sort of besides the point I guess.
I guess I'll also comment on the war thing as a whole. I do think it went well after all the hardship to get there. I think if things in the future can be more like that and less like Fairview, we're going to be looking good and smiling. It wasn't perfect and there's a lot we learned from it, stuff that I'll likely try and compile together for the future, but I do think it went well and provided many people with many good stories. It also bummed some people the hell out, but I'm not really sure how to fix that either outside of a mind set shift.
Too often, I think people view losing in this game as actually losing. But it's not. Losing is generally just the ability to get a new set of possibilities and RP opportunities. Losing isn't the end, it's the beginning of something new. I think I could wax poetically about that for hours, but I'm unsure that it would actually be useful. And I know this may seem just like a load of shit coming from the side that won, but I will truly and honestly say ninety percent of my best opporunities and memories from roleplay have happened after I lost instead of the other way around and I hope that feeling can maybe perpetuate. I don't know.
My current state?
I'm enjoying myself a lot. I think things have gotten better. I hope they continue to. We aren't there yet, but I think we can be.
Quick edit here, but Robin, I vibe with your post real hard even if I didn't play G6. There's been some bad times, real bad times, but holy hell if there hasn't been some incredible experiences here.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Poruku - 07-10-2023
That's awesome, man. And thanks for clarifying that, I didn't realize that's why the leaders quietly changed. I do really appreciate your efforts, and don't worry about the Valya thing lmao, I know it was an honest mistake. It was just an example of what generally happens when you play a bad guy.
I seriously vibe with your sentiment at the end. People on this game take losing really hard. I think it's because everyone kinda has in their mind a story for their character and the future, and when things get in the way of that or they have some kind of setback, they can become frustrated. The community as a whole needs to learn to roll with the punches, as it were. Not on an OOC level, but on an IC level. When conflict happens, losing isn't causing you to actually lose anything. It only means your character is going in a different direction, if even that. Often, losing can be a simple matter of escaping and it's nothing more than a blow to the character's pride. Some people can't allow even that.
I do think things are improving. I like the positivity of your post, I do wanna give korvara another shot after I recharge, and see what can be done with a fresh start and a fresh mind
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Ray2064 - 07-10-2023
(07-10-2023, 08:33 PM)Soul_Hacker Wrote: I'll play the contrarian here, I suppose. I've been playing SL2 for quite some time. 2015? 2016? Something like that- before I'd made my discord, I know that much.fuck you pho u suck at ur job
To be honest, I hated it. G6 was miserable for me, and I've never quite been able to pinpoint why. Perhaps it was the community, perhaps it was the game itself, or perhaps it was just being a teenager or some other such thing, but, when I quit, I fully expected to never come back. The game wasn't fun for me. I didn't like how static the world was. I didn't like how little of a purpose being around seemed to have. I didn't like how unless you knew someone, you were no one. Perhaps that doesn't hold true for some folks' experience, but, it certainly felt like it held true for mine.
.....
And I can understand that not feeling good, if it's not what you enjoy. I didn't enjoy the Great Six, but I'm aware there are a great many who did, and prefer it to Korvara. Nothing wrong with that, but, on a personal level, that 'pain' was entirely worth it. I enjoy the game more than I ever have.
...Okay, I originally just came here to poke fun at Robin, though I might as well add my own experience, since it's something I feel like could be relevant, from a new-Korvara-player's lenses.
I've been trying to get into the game a couple of times amongst the past few years, to no avail. Whether it was the relative lack of support, people not bothering to lend me a helping hand when I was clueless about all, and the lack of ways for myself to truly get ingrained into the world and more often than not just feeling like an extra , having to watch others supposedly having fun amongst themselves just for a feel of it.
By sheer coincidence, around last year and the same date , as I was leaving another RP community, I tried to find myself another sort of timesink I could just get myself into to escape the common woes of real life. I decided that, maybe I should give this game a shot once again, and by sheer coincidence, arrived shortly after Korvara was released, a few weeks afterwards or so.
I once again started as some completely unaffiliated character , who was as much trying to find his footing into the world ICly as I was OOCly. Though here, the open-ness and public RP actually came into my favor. People showed me around, taught me things, gave me reasons to RP and stick around both on IC and OOC levels, something I could never quite thank them enough for.
Through some RP and will to truly give a shot at interacting with more players and having structured RP, I ended up having my char join Geladyne. My expectations were pleasantly fulfilled, and my first wants'n needs satisfied.
Though after a while, I've fully bit into Eden's apple, and that whole "woah" factor somewhat dissipated for me, save for rare occasions such as the most recent huge Korv update.
Though I've stayed around for the sole reason that I ended up realizing that I do enjoy RPing on this game,that there are some characters, plotlines and players that I'd like to stay around for despite the fact that I've grown weary of playing with the new toy, already. Even if that type of enjoyment I get out of the game honestly makes it very hard for me to actually play any other character other than my main, or rather, did for a while.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Balor - 07-10-2023
Having reached out to both you and Sawrock in regards to people's fatigue, and to discuss things regarding your antags in a reasonable and polite fashion. To wake up the next day and find a forum post bemoaning antagonism and the lack of freedom or how hard you must work to get anything of value from Korvara.
I can't help but feel some type of way. Not all positive.
I will address the gaping chest wound. But I do feel that antagonists and conflicts on G6 were easily vetted, and you were given a greater volume of choice in regards to who, what, and where you engaged with it. Many people will gripe over the clique-ish nature of player homes, and the segregated manner of G6 SL2. But it provided a great deal of safety for people who were not here to engage with the random Polk, Sawrock or general antagonist gank.
While I understand your own frustration. I feel as though some thought and consideration is not being spared for the general populace that you're engaging with. Not everyone wants what you do, and to break it down to terms as simple as "Winning" or "Losing" in PVP disregards the collaborative nature of storytelling and roleplay. Where the PVP is only there to act as a mechanical expression at the tail end of the story. And ideally would not be needed as conflict would resolve as the story and authors dictated via trust.
I respect your need to step away and I wish you well. But I can't help but feel uneasy that attempts made politely in private have escalated into a very big and public forum post. Though you did not specifically target I, or anyone, and I can imagine it was not your intent. The vibe does not abide against the surface check.
Regardless, as with all people I do hope you are well, and that the break does your stress and such some good. I am enjoying myself thoroughly, but I understand that I am but one man among many.
RE: Korvara Retrospective - Miller - 07-10-2023
I don't really like to comment with my own perspective on things but I figured I throw in my own point of view.
Korvara has things I like and things I don't like, I adore the more public aspect of roleplay and it was much more organic and fulfilling to find RP naturally during the early days of it, some of my fondest memories of the shift were all pretty early on before I swiftly retreated to back to being my anti-social and sponge of negativity self. I ran in multiple hurdles when I was finally returning to be more consistent with RP, between getting hard screwed over by one of the initial leaders, to a majority of the people I was looking forward to RPing with leaving another nation and finally the cesspool of negativity that happened in the wake of a bunch of miscommunication that happened during Beggar's Hole, leaving me a bit jaded until I found my personal fun months later after going through a failed relationship at the time.
I think back and look at the Great Six and wonder, was it really that better and frankly speaking? No, it wasn't, honestly they both have big negatives. But the Great Six had something that I heavily feel day to day; the ability to just... do whatever you wanted and see if people would engage with it; nowadays if I consider any sort of idea I have to consider it within the context of Korvara and try to keep things tame and grounded within the setting, it has led to me pulling out my hair and wondering how to do x or y when we have limited space to work with for both events and as a player. It can end up being both frustrating and demoralizing when you have to talk to five different people and potentially one of them saying 'No' or simply not liking the concept could hard deny whatever you're working towards. While on the Great Six, anyone could start up whatever concept in some house drop a LFG/DM and see if anyone bites without the need to go through multiple parties besides a GM for approval in some instances.
When it comes to the game itself, I've never really been interest in the PVP aspect of Korvara to tell the truth? My honest opinion is that I find the current state of the game equally frustrating and not very fun when it comes to builds as someone who's been running a suboptimal Ghost/DH wielding two swords and trying to dodge. (Impossible!) In the prior state of the game, or potentially according to my rose tinted glasses; a lot of builds were doable or didn't have a significant gap between them. With Evade and DEF/RES adjustments, the gap between a Black Knight and another class without any personal DRs in terms of tankiness is like heaven and earth much like how a Spellthief vs Ghost when it comes to the evade compartment. You could argue that this creates a stronger identity for these classes but I frankly... don't care? I personally don't find it fun, so why should I bother?
As for the community itself, I frankly feel like the community has improved leaps and bounds as someone who has been on this game for ten years now; it's actually insane to me how much the community has come together in a sense, there's much stronger community bonds and interaction within the community than there was ever, prior to Korvara most people talked in discord servers for guilds as they often didn't want to bother with the main server of SL2 for one reason or another, but now? I see a constant stream of people planning and trying to sort out matters rather than fuming in the dark like many including myself did. While I do have gripes with Korvara, it's astounding how much it did for the overall community as a whole.
At the end of the day, I miss the creative freedom that the G6 gave me even if that was an indirect result of people being upset with the 'stagnation' and I love the maps and open nature of Korvara which allows for much more organic RP but the lack of initial leader vetting and creative outlets led me to feeling more burned out than I'd like to admit.
FREE VORPAL