[Neus]

Maybe a weapon choice or a character is just overpowered, maybe you feel like someone on the enemy team is cheating, or maybe the person you end up matched against is just plain better than you and nothing you do matters. This all happens very regularly in any competitive space.

This is why rules matter. If people want to have wars, there needs to be a definitive way for things to be run, and how things are managed. Something people can easily point to, or direct others to in order to keep people from going out of bounds of what is proper. Basic rules like only having one character involved/not alting, or having to pick a side, or how the war is going to be scored in order to determine a winner are all critical to managing this issue, which I feel was very much lacking in previous conflicts. Another critical feature would just be systems supporting nations/conflict, something like tangible resources or supply lines or anything so that conflicts aren't just a "we have more/better built people", though that will still be what they end up coming down to primarily. I am not surprised that people got upset or heated over competition, but I am surprised things were allowed to get as bad as they did.

I don't disagree, because rules do matter. There should be a hard ruleset and a way to score the conflict would go a long way to ensuring it runs smoothly - and if anything, previous conflicts have made it clear that we need to have a more firm stance on how they are handled. But making it more expansive and trying to figure in a lot of variables is not exactly a simple task.

And for me personally, after having to manage Fairview vs Meiaquar on an OOC level, which had a fairly straightforward and simple ruleset, yet still managed to implode due to OOC - I haven't felt particularly inspired on how to handle rules for something even grander in scale, nor very motivated because it was an extremely draining and frustrating affair to try and moderate.

I am working on things adjacent to it, in terms of making a nation's actual circumstances into a more tangible and influencable thing. But it will be some time before that's fully in place.

I think a very major part of people's annoyance with consequence driven conflict, at least on this large a scale where it affects nations... Is just that there's no "opt out" button. If someone just wants to be a bar keep in Meiaquar or something, and has done so with the intent on never touching serious conflict or wanting to be involved, and suddenly finds out that their nation is at war, and now everything is practically revolving around it for the next few months at least, with possible serious RP changing consequences that they kind of have no way of impacting themselves? I can get being upset, yea.

That is a part of it as well. Wars are a crisis and therefore demands attention, so if you have your own stuff that you want to do, but your nation is involved in the war, getting it sidelined for something you don't really care for can be frustrating. Especially if your IC obligates you to take part.

[Shujin]

I don't want to derail the topic too much, but since the subject of IC wars came up, I wanted to offer my perspective.

I agree that this community has BECOME not ready for these events. But I 100% blame the GM team for at least parts of it, for being too handholdey, protective and spoiling these kind of people so much that they could invoke powers of Time reversal or Godhod or Ultrainstinct Autonomous Consequnce Dodge, based on how hard they cried so that it became a valid strategy to save your character from another character, no matter how deserved it ICly was. The GM team shouldn't exist to Veto or prevent RP, they should only exist to ensure things go according to the rules and as fair as possible. (And not change or make up rules, based on how they feel at that moment. Don't act as if you don't.)

I don't think the community ever was 'ready' for them, beyond the very start of Korvara. Even back then, there were a lot of loud voices that came out at the first sign of a larger scale conflict brewing.

Ultimately the GM team doesn't actively try to veto RP; they are trying to keep things fair. Sometimes, people RP in an uninteractive way, sometimes they metagame or abuse alts/pets. Not referring to any specific situation, but there have been several cases like that.

What I am trying to say is...That this enviorment for no Wars or ANY negative conflict, even when some clearly want this conflict, is based on a simple double standard mentality. "Good" characters will always benefit IC and OOC, while "Evil" characters will always suffer as they are not seen equal as Characters, yet they are very much needed to prevent staleness and need the help the most. GM's rule very often based on Emotions based on that, I feel. Its high time, there are more places detached from the 4 nations, with clear rules that they are not as handholdey by design, and let people go there if they want more "mean" Rp, without the protection. Then these that enjoy this can live in their bubble without dragging people that do not want that in. Probably the most healthy solution, even if not perfect.

I don't believe that it's based on any double standard. People are averse to wars because of the major conflicts in memory, such as Fairview or Geladyne vs Meiaquar.

This isn't because the IC situation didn't make sense, or because there wasn't a system in place preventing it from progressing. It's because there was a lot of OOC toxicity, often over petty things. This is the case almost any time 'big' conflict comes up. It doesn't matter what or where it is, or what the stakes are. It doesn't matter if both sides have a firm agreement on how things will go beforehand (like in Fairview, or even the Marauders), or not.

All it takes is one big argument and the shine is off the apple. I know in situations where ICly, I have been the catalyst for conflict, and people loudly complain OOC (be it over valid points or not), I typically lose interest in pursuing it much further - if anything stifles wars or conflict in general, it's that. No one wants to engage when people behave this way and make the experience miserable.

While adding areas like Law's End that offer a different experience than the existing nations is a potentially good idea, doing so under the motivation of creating spaces where 'things really matter here, and you can do everything people would whine about elsewhere' is not. First of all, let's be real - people are still going to complain.

Second, and more importantly, creating isolated areas with wildly different OOC expectations is harmful to the RP environment, because it makes it less immersive, among other reasons.

Well when I speak about the Community having been ready, then I talk about older times, where we had deadly encounters all the time, in G6. Primarily in Laws End, but not Exclusive to it. 
Bloeden, The Vampire Cult, The Church that hunted that Vampire cult, Voilegardes first Mayors group (probably still to this date, the people that pulled of their schemes the best, while staying out of the spotlight.), Shivanias group, The Blackguards and countless random encounters and smaller groups. I believe during that time you weren't as involved with the Community and the RP, or at the very least, thats what everyone said, that you do not actually play the game. (which by the way, I think is very cool that you do now at times. cause that gives you some insight on firsthand basis.)
We had all out Wars, and they were amazing. Some of my best memories in SL2, and while admittedly sometimes there was some unhappiness or smaller OOC Arguments? It was never in the scale that we see nowadays in Korvara. And usually those arguments were sorted out fairly. We weren't Murderhobos afterall, more often than not, did we let people leave to progress the story and only if someone truly pushed boundaries or was being a shit both IC and OOC, did we even consider Death. 


This did however stop once things slowly became more Event-driven, where the big bads were always either throwaway Villians or a Long Plotline like the Joker Series (though in the early stages they were with Fern as a Player and they were also Encounters with deadly possibilities or at the very least very negative consequences.), people were conditioned to 'win', No longer was it needed to engage with weird other Content like Laws End and actually risk your life and character, cause all 'real' content was now behind events, such as the Black Falcons and that eventline. These events, rather than player events, where SO important that we even used it as Excuse to Change the Cellsvich map. Up to that point we only saw that a single time, where players did something and it had visible impact on the world, and that was Voilegarde's ghost town being turned into...Well Voilegarde

Meanwhile "Evil" Characters, could A.) Not participate in those events realistically, cause why would they? and B.) They were effectively banned from all RP, because all RP was in Sigrogana anyway, so if they wanted to do anagonistic stuff, you better believe that 40 people were on their butts, not exaggerating. That happend. We had so many fights were like 3-4 people had to fight off 30+ people. Eventually that lead to the rule being added that one group only needs to defeat 2 groups max. but then they can only escape after-> The 2 groups that lost had no consequences, while the Antagonist would very likly be executed when taken in. So This was also never fair, cause only one side played with their life on the line.

There are many more of such examples. Anatagonistic Characters are always treated like lesser characters and people have the expectations that they HAVE TO win against them. If the Anagonists Win, suddenly the whining starts. Which I understand when the Situation was forced on them, consent is important, but I feel people do that even when the prior to it agreed to it OOCly. I have seen that a lot in Korvara, when I was running around with Sawrock and Polk. We always asked if they are okay with it. 
So yeah I do honestly think this is a Double Standard. The good ones always want to win, and expect the 'bad' to die but the when its the other way around they are suddenly up in arms and complain very loudy. And in my experience thats also the way GM's rule it. 
Favorite Example for this is:
->GM gets called to a fight. Its 2 Versus 10 (the 10 waited untill none of the first group were online)
->GM Says: make this fair, its in the rules, no deadly encounter
->Fight ensues 'fairly' 2 versus 4->the two lose obviously(had to probably fight the others after anyway, so there was never a chance)
->Get taken in and then executed.

I am not sure where the fairness was in this, nor how this wasn't a deadly encounter. But it happend.


I feel we are currently in the very same stage, that we have been in the end of G6, which is no surprise. Cause the conditioning is still in, lots of people have SL2 as their first RP and never even played other Roleplaying Games, where death is very real or concequnces in general...And many also do not want that, which is totally fair. Which is, why in my opinion the only healthy way is to seperate people that do and do not want to with such places. Because that way, people can give non verbal consent, and everyone knows just by seeing them in such an area "Oh yeah, we are on the same page here!" So I don't know what to say really, its not an as easy Fix. There is also no point in just adding a "Laws End" like place, if there is nothing going on there. No reason for wanting to be there, ICly. But I think thats a general problem of how little infos or weight is put in Lore and RP concequnces, and would need enitre systems in place so everyone is on the same page about Military strength, economy and other things that are very important to the Roleplay. Important resources, or other such things. Reason for people that might want to step out of their comfort zone to engage with these things. Not an empty Sandbox like Laws End, where you couldn't even change at all.

But I am a firm Believer that Roleplay SHOULD matter. And so far I do not feel like anything matters in SL2 over Slice of Life and empty buildings.
Whats the point of RPing R&D, when R&D can not Research and Develope outside of what make believe everyone else can just decide on doing.
We as Players, only have TWO ways to interact with the world and ourselves-> Basic Rp and PVP. and I guess technically Map Requests, but I also argue whats the point of bloating the Map with 100 places if none of them serve a purpose other than to be a hangout spot for that group. Its nice to have, but at that point whats the difference between Private housing? 
And PVP follows the problems I mentioned above if its stakes are actually higher than just a friendly spar.

I just wish we could interact and engage more with the world. I am just some dude in Real Life, It would be cool if I could be a little bit more than that in a Make Believe Fantasy World, without trying to compete with someone else for a Position of Leadership or anything. I don't want the Burger King Crown. I want organic world-building and expansion. Cooperative RP, moving towards new goals, even if it takes a long while. Perspective, a carrot dangling infront of me, to steal the last statement from the other thread. I think that would be really cool, even though I also understand that opening such things is maybe scary, given that maybe everyone would want that then.
But is it really that bad, that people can collectively do something to enrich the world? I think with proper Guidelines, thats not an impossible ask. We get new things all the times, but at the moemnt entirely disconnected from any RP and feels 'random'. New weapon in the Dungeons, Awkward Gremlin suddenly has new recipes... I think the latter could very easily be done by players, to give them the "We did that!" to point back to, in 5 years.

You are obviously correct though that there were many more reasons why the Wars felt bad. The one below is why it felt horrible to me, even though I like conflict.
[quote pid='56295' dateline='1723437934']

If folks wish to ever move forward with conflict in RP environments they need to accept and understand that it is not something you inflict upon others, and is something you work on with others. Like a wrestling match, otherwise you will find much like in wrestling. If you do not work together. No one will be willing to work with you.

[/quote]
I agree with your Sentiment, but I have not made these Expereinces. While we all know the 2ed war was overall a load of negativity all around and No one enjoyed it...Its also my prime example for why what you say, Is Simply not true or based on facts.

Let me summarize some things from my personal Expereince, and you tell me if that wasn't working with the people instead of against them.

Storyline starts, very long before the War, I'd say atleast half a year before that, relatively at the beginning of Dahlias Rule:
-Character is getting themselves hired by them, to work as a Spy. technically double spy, cause their end goal is to Help Meiaquar.
-Character proceeds to be the spy, and works in Meiaquar.
-Things proceed, Dahlia hates Donna, so she begins plotting against them
-Spy asks, if they should work together with anyone else in Meiaquar, since she knows there were more than one Spy
-Is being pointed in the Direction of the Master of Coin (Important-> Indirect info that they might be a spy too)
-Works with Master of Coin finds out they are also from Geladyian, so checks out with the assumtion above
-Master of Coin and Spy become friends and pretty close, so Spy is talking with them in serval political meetings.
-Finds out that Basically every Nation hates Meiaquar, and refuses to even interact with them (Spy a patriot to Meiaquar, as a Nation. Does everything so the Nation can strive. So this i bad)
-Spy has a few meetings with Dahlia, and basically get the mission to get rid of the Donna.
-Meeting Happens, where the Geladyne was so fed up with Meiaquar, that they gave them an Ultimatum to hand over the piece of land or fight them in a war. Spy knows for a fact we stand no chance in the war and suggests that maybe we should just count our losses and hand it over instead of risking our peoples lives and risk more happening.
-Don and Donna proceed with the War. (Obviously, Spy is not happy about that, cause thats a War they couldn't possibly win.)
-Spy offers to Dahlia if she might step down on the War, if she brings her the Don's. Dahlia was fine with just the Donna to consider going easy.
-Stuff proceeds, Things are being guided and manipulated so that the Donna steps down and the Master of Coin becomes the next Donna.
-We Communicated OOCly with Croakie to attempt and see if we could come to some agreement, the moment we just mentioned to use her as a bargainship, she threw a hissy fit and blocked us. So that storythread goes nowhere. (In my opinion, since we had her basically in our hands, Admins should have allowed us to just hand her over ICly. She effectively just avoided the RP and all the consequences. But we moved on.)
-Things are being orchestered by either trying to ask for help from Fairview or Telegard-> Both don't give a shit what happens to the Don's. (Reaffirmation that Meiaquars Leadership is the problem, ICly)
-So next on the line, with all other Options exhausted, the plot moved to "Well guess we Assassinate Bruno then and end the war".
-so manipulation began to happen, people were gathered that were also unhappy about it and at the end of the Talks, we had atleast 15+ people that wanted to ACTIVELY do something, and another big group that didn't want to be mentioned, were there for passive support.
-Spy and Vesuvio work together-> Vesuvio becomes Guard Captain (all part of the storyline and by design.)
-Della for some reason changing her complete character and decides to become a Psychopath ICly. I up to this point do not understand why.
-Even attacks Spy, cause trust issues, but lets them live.
-Spy decides that maybe its time to not let the person she pretty much knows to be a Geladyian spy to proceed, if they are not being cooperative and litterally went batshit insane.(If you read the other brackets, you might see why this assumtion wasn't so far fetched, given Dahlia litterally told them to work together. She did everything but spell it out for them)
-Open Forum happend, we gave Bruno a chance to step down ICly, he refused.

Take a guess what happens next? Up to this point the whole thing was a great storyline, including many many people. Highstakes. Everything was going according to RP, with all the hiccups and unexpected things included.

-Spy takes the infos they have and begin to manipulate people regarding it
  ->GM chime in and threaten to ban me, for Metagaming? 
Which realisitcally doesn't matter, even if I DIDN'T know the things I knew ICly. It was the most reasonable and easiest way to manipulate the masses so even if it was a lie, it should have been legit IC.

->We proceed with the assassination plan as we are left with no Options with the 15+ players.
->Rules state that Nation Leaders are always DL4 and have no such protection.
->Me an actually nice guy, asks admins to overlook this to make it Fair and have it make sense. Cause  I want that RP to play out Nicely
->Admins change the rule, suddenly we need 'Reasoning' and a normal ticket like when we do that on anyone else.
->We go "Fine, sure....We literally have bazillion RP reasons to do so", thinking this is just a formality at this point.

Admins Respond back, after every single person here gave a different reason why they specifically want to do this-> Not to mention he literally threw us into a War we can't win which alone should be reason enough-> Not enough reasons/questionable reasons.

Please explain to me how this long-running plotline, which engaged so many people, catered to the majority of people who played in Meiaquar and involved all Major players, Is somehow not exactly what I describe?

The GM's basically looked at this an refused to let the RP happen because the end result was someone being assassinated. Someone, no one wanted in the position of power ICly and OOCly. (expect for his friends of course)

Meiaquar would look a lot better today, if this Divine intervention didn't happen. And the story would have been better too.

[WaifuApple]

This is beginning to seem more like a cry of complaint about the GMs and their part in the last war and conflict with regards to it than it is addressing the post as a whole and how to go forward from here. My only two cents on it are that, when you read the end, you see the problem. Mentioning 'no one wanted them in the position of power ICly and OOCly' and furthermore 'Meiaquar would look a lot better today if this divine intervention didn't happen' kind of melt together into the idea that this was being done for partially OOC reasons, which make IC bases problematic. If you can't detach from the OOC when doing these things you're left with a pretty sour situation to let go forward, and compromise your own IC in doing so.

[Shujin]

I do believe that a game can not be enjoyed, when OOCly no one enjoys it. To a degree, it has to be a pleasant environment both IC and OOC.

GMs are just people too, they can be wrong.

If you remember back to what Meiaquar was during that time period, then I am sure you remember that it was hard to even find a single person there RPing. that part became alot better after the fact. Its Ingenious to claim that RP is not a effort in both IC and OOC to make it a pleasant experience for everyone. There will ALWAYS be atleast a little OOC Motvation. For example "I want to have fun!" or "Hey there is a problem I want to fix so we can have fun." Disregarding that is kinda...Contraproductive.

Always Remember that we are playing a game.

[Trexmaster]

I've always wanted to have a candid discussion in the aftermath of the last war. The plethora of bans doled out and the general negativity that followed made it awkward if not impossible to have that conversation.

While this thread has far gone off the rails, I believe now is as good a time as any to at the very least finally address the elephant in the room and talk about how the war went wrong and how we can move past it. It has been left to rot in the past unaddressed partially due to the fact many of the GMs responsible for how it went have since abdicated and left the game entirely, or went inactive. The only consensus given is 'no one wants to do a war again'. Which isn't necessarily untrue, but for those negatively impacted by how it was handled there lies no proper closure.

First, I'll address the more recent posts in the thread.

Shujin makes a good point. While it may seem like OOC in IC, you have to understand just how much of a problem it was ICly AND OOCly at the time with how poorly leadership was managed. Only for the GMs to make constant rulings in favor of maintaining that situation until it got so bad nearly everyone wound up quitting one way or another. I also agree with Dev, the GMs were not making these rulings for the sake of vetoing RP. Rather, they were misguided in how they acted. I like to think we have since collectively learned from those mistakes in particular following the most recent additions to the GM team and departures from it.

Now moving on to the war itself. I'll be breaking it up into key points for the sake of readability. Those being:

Gm Inaction
Bias
Misinformation
OOC in IC


For those who are blessed to have not been a part of the community at the time (roughly from March 2023 - Aug 2023) when all this was boiling over, let me provide some context.

Meiaquar's leadership at the time wasn't great. The primary point of contention being the since permabanned player, Croakie, effectively making enemies out of nearly everyone at every opportunity. Attempts to rectify this were met with bans, another unfortunate part of the past that we have thankfully moved past with changes in the GM team. At the time though, Meiaquar made everyone's lives generally unpleasant one way or another. Without getting too far into the weeds, this led to the aforementioned ultimatum from Geladyne that moved toward the prospects of war. This ultimatum was not shared with anyone outside Meiaquar's leadership, thus when the war was to be declared it was put on pause for a month or so. Giving plenty of time for people to prepare for how to handle such a large scale conflict and for staff to organize a proper response. In theory.

GM Inaction

One of the most glaring issues was the lack of GM oversight where promised. Initially it was set out that the GMs would handle arbitration in determining the results of operations. No verdict was ever passed down by a GM as to the result of either operations, even if it was quite evidently a Geladyne victory in both scenarios there was a lack of information shared about the results of the conflict from a neutral party.

Additionally few if any efforts were made by the acting GMs at the time to establish any clearly defined rules for the war, the majority of the work was left to the leaders of the conflicting nations at the time. For all the headbutting that occurred throughout the war the GMs sparsely acted and only dropped in for reasons illustrated below.

The greatest takeaway from this is if we do ever find ourselves wanting to have a conflict to a larger degree, there needs to be clearly defined rules, as Druby mentioned.

Bias

From the onset to say the deck was stacked in favor of Geladyne would be an understatement. ICly, Korvara was designed in a way that if Geladyne were to 1v1 anyone else, they'd almost assuredly win. This by itself is not a problem, rather for reasons I'll get into later on it became an issue.

Assurances were given that the outcome of the war would be determined by more than PvP, that one could reach out to their respective leader to organize operations during the war to attempt influence by other means than PvP.

The war was entirely determined by two operations comprised primarily of PvP with a minor PvE element (that Meiaquar could sparsely participate in due to how few players they could manage comparatively). Several GMs at the time were actively playing on Geladyne's side, including some that would be promoted not long after/during the conflict. The only active leader for Meiaquar was in actuality a double agent for Geladyne, who participated on an alt for Geladyne in the first of two operations. 

All attempts to rectify the leadership situation in Meiaquar (removing/supporting Croakie - Mewni/Lumi/Aegis were all banned over this, removing Bruno - DL4 application was denied 2-3 days prior to Bruno abdicating anyways, revealing the spy - Any mentions or speculation that the spy was a spy were blocked by GMs citing 'You don't know they're a spy' even in the wake of them being captured by the enemy after refusing all efforts to evacuate them) were all blocked by GMs. I understand that it was not the GMs intent to actively block efforts to make Meiaquar better, but that was the unfortunate result of their actions at the time.

Other nations even hated Meiaquar so much they refused to offer any support and remained neutral to the war. For Duyuei, this made sense, for Telegrad, it was bizarre, but something I'll get more into later.

This problem isn't likely to resurface but it should be kept in mind to prevent only seeing one side of an issue in the future, and to better understand what those who were on Meiaquar's side went through at the time---being made a pariah for the errors of a single individual, of whom was safeguarded until the very last moment, when it was too late to change anything.

Misinformation

This is what I got in hot water over, and I will be very transparent about that. I was passionate about rooting out and battling against the perceived tide of misinformation being spread during the war. Supporters of the war took to public channels citing their contentment with the situation, and active efforts were made to silence or discredit those who spoke out against how things were handled.

I do not condone the things said in that time from myself or those punished for it, what I would like to be made known though is why I said what I said. Meiaquar was being attacked not only ICly but OOCly. The war was said to be fair, the numbers were claimed to be even, and opportunities were purported to be had for both sides fairly.

Meiaquar's support consisted of the following: Two leaders and the Warden. One leader was a double agent working for the enemy, one leader was chronically absent though at least participated in the battles.

Meanwhile Geladyne had several GMs and a fairly active leadership structure to facilitate any extraneous operations beyond the major operations, as well as organizing proper teams for PvP/PvE. Meiaquar effectively lined up and picked dodgeball teams on the day of to decide who'd be in whose team. It was, at best, about 12-16 vs 20+ people. The final operation day had at least two Geladyne teams of 4 that could not be matched with another Meiaquar team due to the lack of numbers.

Thus it was understandable those on the Meiaquar side at the time would find it insulting that the narrative would be pushed that the fights were fair and people were all collectively enjoying it. When the only people truly enjoying it at the time were those on the winning side, with a few outliers who'd simply not been invested or otherwise ambivalent to the overarching issues with the war.

It's difficult to have a clear cut takeaway here. Ideally, everyone is on the same page as to what the facts are. The line between right and wrong gets blurry when it becomes a matter of 'who's side do I like more'. In an ideal world, GMs would intervene and help facilitate a productive conversation.

OOC in IC

A phrase people like to use a lot. Sometimes for good reason. Here, I believe it was a major factor in how things ended up the way they did.

Let's start by looking at the reception to the war starting. At the time, many people did not like Meiaquar due to how Croakie had bungled things spectacularly. This, I believe, was a major factor in Telegrad looking past the fact that Geladyne was about to have a direct land border with them by actively annexing their neighbor. Citing their underhanded 'one-way' defensive pact to weasel out of any obligation to defend Meiaquar as the majority of players did not like the administration at the time.

A quick IC history lesson. Telegrad was founded by refugees from Geladyne. Thus it is baffling so many player characters from Telegrad would openly advocate for the invasion of their neighbor by the nation they ceded from. It is entirely possible they are stupid, ignorant, or both, but the fact remains many of the influential player characters at the time supported the invasion by inaction.

Duyuei at least had good reason to remain neutral. Even if they had good relations with Meiaquar, they are a nation that does not like getting involved in foreign matters more than they absolutely have to.

Broadly speaking, due to the animosity generated by Croakie and the ambivalence of their co-leader, then the subsequent efforts to sabotage the nation by the double-agent put in place of Croakie, many people outside Meiaquar loathed Meiaquar. Even some people in Meiaquar loathed Meiaquar because of the treatment they got trying to help it at the time (see: getting banned).

The takeaway? The only real issue I see is the Telegradian response at the time. People's IC is their IC, though it feels like they immediately forgot the lore when it came to everyone banding together to ensure a Geladynian W against all sense of self-preservation. Why on earth would everyone agree to keep supplying Geladyne when they're actively conquering their neighbors? That's a level of incompetence that goes beyond IC to me, and rather, is because they're OOC friends more than any IC logic behind the actions at the time leading toward the war.

In Conclusion

The war caused many problems, shined a light on many issues, and serves as the primary thing for people to point at and go 'SL2 can't handle conflict'.

I think it can. Maybe not WAR, for now. It just needs the right support. It needs GMs to establish clear rules, act as arbitrators for such conflicts when necessary, and above all: be impartial about their ruling.

Some individuals make conflict extremely difficult to facilitate, as many of us, Dev included, have had the joy of dealing with. To me this is all the more reason to have it clearly defined so there is less room to argue over banal points, and anyone kicking up a fuss can be dealt with punitively rather than humored for hours on end.

At the end of the day conflict is the heart of roleplay. The adversities one faces in the pursuit of their goals. The only people who can make it happen, healthily, outside of friend groups, are the GMs.

I am hopeful for what Dev is cooking up for tangible circumstances regarding the nations.

Though I should clarify what I am hopeful for in terms of conflict rules. Things such as antagonists being captured then summarily executed is one extreme example provided earlier that has nothing clearly outlined in the rules preventing beyond the player of the antag refusing to consent to death or detainment beyond the 1 day limit. A right very few if any people choose to exercise, as there is a great pressure to acquiesce to permanent detainment/death. As the alternative is being captured again in perpetuity whilst being denied by others via the selfsame consent rules to do anything to other characters until your antag is, inevitably, taken in once more.

The rules as they stand force prospective antagonists to only interact with those they trust lest the system be wielded against them in a way so as to deny them any meaningful interactions until they are caught and effectively removed from the RP environment.

Thus my hope is for conflict rules that would provide even stakes in these scenarios, so that antagonists (acting in good faith OOCly) could thrive and provide content, so that we are not entirely reliant on EMs to provide such conflict.

[Rendar]

I'll come out as someone that was a member of Telegrad.

We wanted to help. A huge number of players wanted to help. But we were told by the duke at the time (Pandos), not to get involved whatsoever. Because we also had our OWN shit going on. See: Kunai's Zombie Eventline in the Forest that was straight up having a huge NPC death toll (puportedly).

"We can't even protect ourselves at the moment. We cannot lend them aide. We can help, a bit, to send aide via a few people to deal with Snabd."

IC, Telegrad was so fucked up by event-after-event-after-event-after-event that we were. Just. Straight up burned out to high hell. My character, Zach, wanted to help. I'm pretty sure Vonum, and a few others did as well.. but we just couldn't muster enough IC support whenever we were getting mulched alive by the Tattermarch event anytime it came around.

[zericosmic]

I do think part of the problem with conflict in general is that.. Well..

There's very little room for any Medium-Sized conflict on Korvara.

Personal conflicts are often very much small scale, you don't really want more than like 4ish people to participate in them, and most often it's just you and a bud writing a story together.

medium conflicts sort of.. don't have any room to exist in Korvara currently as is.. Every piece of land is owned by a nation, so often there's little room for places for antagonistic forces to exist, if they do, and cause any amount of problems, it often becomes a nations problem, and calls for larger scale conflict, and often these smaller factions have very few options for other smaller factions to butt heads with, which becomes more difficult due to the lack of theming around.

Korvara lacks religion in general, so any kind of religious faction is often stifled, it also doesn't really have any kind of 'race' or rather existence which would be an affront to others like say the undead races, who's existence calls for conflict.

Then comes the question of who you even can butt heads with? It's mostly just.. nations.

And really most of what you can make that will get conflict is is simply bandits or criminals, you can try and make a cult, but we get in to religion problem once more, so in the end, IMO it feels like there's simply not that many options for anything in between huge conflict and small conflict.

[Snake]

Zeri makes a valid point, and I can see where my struggles are rooted. Things are becoming repetitive, largely due to the limitations imposed by the original nation’s design. It feels like there’s only so much that can be done without breaching the established norms.

I’m not fond of the idea of a 'blank canvas' approach, where anything can be added without consideration. When you mix all colors together in one spot, it just turns into a black sludge, lacking any grace or coherence. In my view, each nation should offer something truly unique to its players. Ultimately, the sum of these distinct experiences should define Korvara, rather than creating a self-sufficient place where everything converges and homogenizes all content. I want solutions for that in particular.

As mentioned, wars and conflicts should be primarily PvE-oriented to maintain their grace. PvP conflicts are only viable if the stakes are significantly lower, allowing participation to be based on choice rather than forced conscription. This approach is not only feasible but preferable, as it directs any potential toxicity toward fictional elements rather than real players, keeping it all within the realm of a fictional war. With that said.

Now stop derailing my thread!111one!!

[Mewni]

Once I finish the loredoc on Fairview it will pave a unique angle on how to run content for it, did quite a bit of consultation with folk (and especially Drez, sorry for bothering you that much boo) and in the end it will provide something I see lacking a lot and don't really have a platform to happen in.

So people that have that itch for fantasy adventures and classic tabletop shenanigans will have a home, as well cartoon-ish villainy that won't be as punitive as it is everywhere else, at least, that is the goal.

In the end people have to play ball, but those that know of it are excited, and its all I really care about.

[Shujin]

I do think part of the problem with conflict in general is that.. Well..

There's very little room for any Medium-Sized conflict on Korvara.

Personal conflicts are often very much small scale, you don't really want more than like 4ish people to participate in them, and most often it's just you and a bud writing a story together.

medium conflicts sort of.. don't have any room to exist in Korvara currently as is.. Every piece of land is owned by a nation, so often there's little room for places for antagonistic forces to exist, if they do, and cause any amount of problems, it often becomes a nations problem, and calls for larger scale conflict, and often these smaller factions have very few options for other smaller factions to butt heads with, which becomes more difficult due to the lack of theming around.

Korvara lacks religion in general, so any kind of religious faction is often stifled, it also doesn't really have any kind of 'race' or rather existence which would be an affront to others like say the undead races, who's existence calls for conflict.

Then comes the question of who you even can butt heads with? It's mostly just.. nations.

And really most of what you can make  that will get conflict is is simply bandits or criminals, you can try and make a cult, but we get in to religion problem once more, so in the end, IMO it feels like there's simply not that many options for anything in between huge conflict and small conflict.

To add to that, its not just a lack of Conflict options as antagonist. There generally no ways to really open new avenues aside of the bare minimum or just another bar. No Marks of interest that are desireable to have ICly like rare resources, that give you anything that other people might want as well. No new shops/businesses or other enterprises, that could cause non-political Full RP conflict.

SL2 certainly could do with lots of things that enrich roleplay...I love new classes as much as the next guy, but I think we have more pressing problems.
So I am certainly also looking forward to what Dev is cooking on the backburner.