[Egil]

Hello! I’d appreciate it if only Dev, the GMs, and those directly involved with this incident (Sarah, Psych, etc) replied to what I have to say here. If said people would like to clarify/correct anything that I say, feel free to. I have no qualms with irrelevant replies (or replies made by irrelevant people) being deleted.

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Firstly, I’d like to make it clear that I misunderstood the nature of Romek’s ban from sparring at the arena. From what I understood, the ban disallowed Romek from sparring within the arena (as in, with NPCs). Since that warning was given, I have not used Tarson to fight within the arena. There were multiple times where I took fights away from the arena, and it was to avoid triggering certain guards that IC’ly have a poor relationship with Romek or whom Romek thought would watch eagerly for anything that could be construed as an illegal act and arrest him- not because I thought that I was banned from fighting on arena grounds. There were also a plethora of times where, since the warning, Romek sparred on arena grounds and infront of player guards that knew of the warning that didn’t say anything to him. Off the top of my head, the guards that left Romek alone to spar on arena grounds include Sarah, Kameron, Diz, and Spo. There were other times where guards asked him to take his fights elsewhere or otherwise leave, and I assumed that they were simply unwilling to deal with a potential mess created by a spar with Romek and I obeyed not because I understood the warning as a ban from fighting at all near the arena, but as a ban from arena fighting.

That is why Romek was going around and asking for a fight at 3 AM on a Saturday- not for the sake of ignoring NPC guards or just waiting until no guards were online, but because I genuinely did not think I was doing something wrong OOC’ly. From there, Sarah’s non-guard character, Remiel, accepted the invitation to a spar and we began. Unfortunately, I also misunderstood another aspect of SL2- perhaps because I’ve only been playing for a few months and haven’t been told otherwise by anyone- that damage done in PvP has no bearing on what occurs in IC. I thought that the 600 damage Overloads being thrown by Remiel were dangerous because of the damage being inflicted when, in actuality, they were relatively harmless since Remiel never RP’d them being something that could cause serious injury. This misunderstanding is also why Romek’s spar-ending shot involved an emote where he shot Remiel in the face. Not only was the damage minimal (39, iirc) but I had not emoted it as a headshot or a killing blow or anything disfiguring, and I had seen similar situations where characters had their backs broken or eyes attacked or what have you at the arena and guards did nothing. Thus, I thought there was nothing wrong with the emote. Remiel proceeding to Silvermist back to full health reinforced the idea that Romek had not inflicted any serious damage, especially since I had never intended for him to do so.

Psych, who was there on his non-guard alt Tobias, emoted about seeing the NPC guards calling for backup- basically, RPing for the NPC guards since no GM was around to do so. Remiel charges to attack Romek- at this point, it’s not a spar. It’s her trying to commit assault/murder. However, neither Psych nor Spo, who are both player guards there on non-guard characters, emote that the NPC guards attempt to stop Remiel’s attack. Thus, Romek engages (because he is not the sort to run away from people trying to kill him) and Remiel ends up one-shotting Romek with an Overload and PvP ends again. At that point, because he was being attacked and no one was coming to his aid, Romek struggles back to his feet and sarcastically asks for a third round, which she was not eager to oblige. A third round of PvP starts anyway, where Romek is attempting to take down Remiel- not kill, but merely knock out for good. Right before Romek is about land the final shot, however, Psych approaches on his guard alt, Rowen, and asks for the participants to cease and desist.

I flee the PvP and turn to face Rowen. Remiel leaves the arena, no one stopping her from doing so. Rowen explains to Romek that he isn’t supposed to be fighting at the arena and declares that he is going to be arrested. While Romek and Rowen are arguing, Sarah returns to the arena on her guard-alt. At that point, Romek is verbally resisting arrest, saying that he isn’t going. He calls them out on how they let Remiel leave after she, in his eye(s), tried to kill him, which prompts Rowen to declare that she will also be arrested. Thus, when Rowen asks for Sarah’s guard to commence with the arrest, Romek is taken in without a fight or an attempt to run.

At that point, I was uncomfortable with how things had gone, seeing as how I believed that Romek was not barred from fighting around the arena (which is the reason that Rowen IC’ly stated was why Romek was being arrested) and that, because of the low damage and intent of the faceshot, nothing he did towards Remiel warranted an arrest. So, after chatting with Spo about it and them getting confirmation from Chaos that the situation could be omitted as long as Sarah agreed to it, a skype chat was established between the three of us. There, Sarah was adamant about not wanting to omit, and when I asked her why, she explained that she wanted Romek to die.

I think that everyone can understand that stating one’s desire for another’s character to die does not confirm metagrudging. It, however, does bring it onto the table as a possibility. And once that’s a valid possibility, GMs should be brought in to handle the situation and it shouldn’t be solely discussed amongst players. However, Chaos did not respond to any of my messages about the situation. I thought, at first, that he was merely offline/busy, but I confirmed with others who were messaging him about other things and getting responses that he was simply ignoring me. Why? I still do not know. However, since I thought at that time that Chaos was solely responsible for the guards, I did not want to run to another GM with the issue and make it seem as if I was trying to play them against one another.

So, instead, I took a screenshot of where Sarah stated that she did not want to omit at all because she wanted Romek dead, boxed out all the names except for mentions of Romek, and then sent it to a few people to get some advice on how to move forward. From there, Nuke decided to make a post in the salt threads of the SL2 discord chat (which I left a long while before this happened) in order to try and garner Chaos’ attention. No names were mentioned, and there was a request given for no names to be mentioned. However, Psych proceeded to give out names in his response to Nuke, and the shitstorm that erupted from there was completely not what I had wanted or nor had sought to instigate.

Sawrock ended up speaking to me about the situation and, after reviewing everything, he explained that there were very few guards on at the time, so Sarah interacting with Romek on her guard after their spar wasn’t proof of metagrudging. Since neither I nor anyone else could produce logs of the ingame happenings, it became my word against their’s- and, apparently, everyone except me that had been present was repeating this narrative:

- Romek started the first fight with the lethal intent
- At the end of that first fight, Romek attempted to murder Remiel
- Remiel asked for a second spar, Romek accepted
- Romek got KO’d in said second spar
- Romek got up and attacked Remiel in a non-consented third spar
- Romek was arrested for trespassing/attempted murder only by Rowen, not Sarah’s guard

That’s the gist of the argument made against me, which include many differences to the story I am telling. However, without ingame logs, I couldn’t do anything except wait for Sawrock to deliberate with the other GMs about it.

At this point, many people were messaging me about the situation. Some were supportive while others simply had questions, but the majority were expressing two things- either that they were either angry with me because they thought that I was spreading bullshit about Sarah in order to make her lose friends or that they also wanted Romek dead… or both. This is also around the time that Dyst contacted me with questions about the specifics of what had went on and, during that discussion, I lost my cool and expressed to her (and Fern, in a private DM) that I wanted Sarah removed from the guardship for the perceived metagrudging and abuse of guard powers. Regardless of what led up to me being angry, it was wrong for me to say that- not only because that wouldn’t be up to me in the slightest, but because it took away from what was most important to me; as in, Romek’s fate. The GMs were clear that Romek would either be executed publicly in Cellsvich or shipped off to Chaturanga where he’d be executed in private- avoiding that is infinitely more important to me than whatever is done (or not done) to Sarah.

However, as soon as I had made the declaration that Sarah should be removed from the guardship, the nature of the conversation changed. I was no longer a possible victim of misunderstandings/metagrudging that simply didn’t want to die over said misunderstandings/metagrudging, but a sleezy asshole that was trying to slander Sarah in order to avoid consequences. People pointed to the topic where I complained of GMs enabling people to escape consequences, and called me a hypocrite for essentially wanting the same thing to happen here for myself. The GMs were unwilling to believe that I had misunderstood the arena ban or the relationship between damage in PvP, intent, and what actually occurs in roleplay, citing my desire towards Sarah’s status as a guard player as evidence of me being dishonest with them. They determined that I was lying, grasping at straws, and that no wrongdoing had occurred, so no omit will be occurring. I then gave my word that I would not argue with the GMs further about their decision, and left it at that.

I do not hold it against Sarah. Her wanting Romek dead is not an unpopular opinion, and her desire to make that happen for Fern’s sake is not a terribly evil one. In my eyes, friends should bring issues like this to one another instead of doing what she did, but then, it isn’t her fault for betraying a friend. It’s my fault for not recognizing that we were not friends in the first place.

I do not hold it against Psych. He is either misremembering what occurred or simply interpreted it all a different way. I do not believe that he is maliciously lying for the sake of getting Romek killed. He is just speaking about what he feels actually happened.

I do not hold it against the GMs. They’re performing a duty, even if some would argue that they aren’t performing it correctly or justly. In their shoes and with these circumstances, I may have come to the same conclusion as them. I can’t hold myself up on a moral pedestal with that being the case.

I do not hold it against you, Dev. Your decision to uphold what the GMs decided is not something that makes me angry. It’s miraculous that you involved yourself in this matter in the first place, and I’m grateful for that alone.

At the end of the day, I can only blame myself for blowing up while speaking to GMs and for not being more careful with a character that I care about…

… And, yet, I also do not hold anything against those that have spoken up in defense of me. The oldbies with their own grievances that see this as the turning point for change. The true friends I have that don’t want to see me meekly accept what they also perceive to be an injustice. The folks that feel as if there are systematic issues that need to be addressed beyond the problems with this very situation. Everyone that is on ‘my side’ have their own reasons for being here, and I do not believe that any of them are wrong. This isn’t to say that the majority should get what they want, or that a proposed outcome must occur if enough people scream about it. However, the fact that over twenty individual people are not content with what happened and desire that it be re-addressed should not be taken lightly, either.

If you actually do have access to the ingame logs of that morning, Dev, then you can confirm/deny most, if not all, of the claims and rumors within this situation. Everything, from:

- Did Romek start the fight?
- Did Romek start the fight with lethal intent?
- Did Remiel declare lethal intent?
- Did Romek try to kill Romek with the face-shot?
- Was the second fight consensual?
- Was the third fight consensual?
- Did NPC guards react to all unlawful acts performed, or just Romek’s?
- Did Sarah’s guard come very quickly behind Rowen?
- Did Sarah’s guard participate in the arrest?
- Did the guards involved have the intention of arresting Remiel before Romek spoke up about them?

… Would be cleared up, along with other things. With that, it can be made clear whether the situation was sketchy/messed up enough to warrant something being done about it (Ie an omit) or if I’m lying and nothing should change. I know that the easiest choice is to do nothing and just let what is going to happen, happen- and the easiest choice is not necessarily the worst choice in all cases. I also understand that many players, including a GM, OOC’ly want Romek to die or for me to no longer play SL2 in general. Thus, if you allow Romek to live on, they are going to be unhappy with you, Dev- either way, there are going to be people who don’t agree with your decision here. So, you can only do what you feel is best and proper in this case, after considering all the variables. Ultimately, Dev, it is in your hands- and, just like with how I said I would not argue with the GMs after their final judgement, I will not argue with you once your final judgement is given.

If you choose to not look into it further and nothing changes, I will understand.

If you look into it and nothing changes, I will understand.

If you look into it and changes I don’t like occur, I will understand.

At the very least, if you look into it, then regardless of the outcome, I will be grateful to you for taking time away from improving upon the mechanics of SL2 in order to address a serious concern that has to do with the roleplay portions of SL2. An open mind makes you more respectable in my eyes.

I want this to be resolved in a way that satisfies the most people as possible, and I believe that that will include a future for the community in which metagaming/godmodding/etc is handled in the moment instead of days later, and that guards are clearer with their intentions and that the arena has rules listed out for anyone to see, and that GMs do not pick sides or play favorites and simply looks at the facts available, and that roleplayers do not antagonize eachother for OOC reasons and, instead, discuss these issues openly with one another in order to make an enjoyable experience for everyone, and that people no longer avoid events simply because they feel that GMs railroad or only look out for their OOC friends in them, and that fun is the focus of the community instead of petty drama. I believe that this future is possible even if Romek ends up executed for this and it is concluded that no metagrudging occurred.

The other issues that people have that are beyond this situation… I don’t know enough to comment on. I can only say that those are the problems of other people, and that it is up to them to make their own cases for those issues.

I won’t be angry if you disregard this entire post and myself, Dev, even if others will be. I did not handle this situation perfectly. I made mistakes. I was not careful with a character that I cared about. These are things I cannot deny.

No matter what, I am happy about the fun moments I had in SL2, the good friends I made because of SL2, and the opportunity to enjoy the universe you crafted within SL2, Dev.

To all those that I was rude to when I got angry during this debacle, regardless of how deserved it may or may not have been- I am sorry.

Thank you, everyone, for your time and patience.