[Fern]

Hello, it's me. Fern. I'm someone that has played Sigrogana Legend 2 (SL2 for short) for like... 7 years now, give or take, very actively until recent times where my activity has dropped some. Somewhere around that... I was around when Double Dao + Claret Call was considered broken, haha.

So you might be wondering where I'm going with this thread. I'll be upfront and say that I haven't really taken the time to format it in a much professional manner, so I apologize for that. But I have noticed several concerns that I share to an extent, about the current state of SL2. I don't mean this strictly in the balance department, or the PVE area, or PVP... I mean this generally, going off what I've seen, experienced and came to conclusion out of my own accord.

I merely want to voice my opinion on the matter and find out how many other people want to speak their feelings about it as well. There isn't a guaranteed chance that I'll respond to every post, or any, but I wanted to put this somewhere out there.

I think that Sigrogana Legend 2 has been growing very, very stale overtime. Maybe a bit of hyperbole in my statement, but that's how I feel about it.
 

Of course, I won't just say "it's stale" and then not explain why. Currently, it feels like this is the standard to-do for playing SL2 after you're done sorting out your character's necessary stuff:
 
-Try to find engaging RP (can be pretty hard more often than you'd think I'd say)
-Go to an event, run by a player or Event Staff

-Test builds or fight OOCly for some fun (or ICly if you happen to stumble upon the opportunity and feel like it)

You might have noticed that I've not really mentioned "do dungeons, look for materials, look for more equipment" or something along the line in that list. It's because I think most people just seem to be content with wrapping up their character's build and then not trying to get anything else. After all, if you've got what you've needed and you don't plan on opening up a big project (I.E, adventurer guild, trading company, district RP hub...) then why would you ever have to go to a dungeon again? What do you need Murai for if you don't have a need for more items? You could use it for repairing weapons and healing up your character in in the Inn if you're the type to PVP a lot (like me!) I guess.
 
Obviously, this can change when there's updates that involve rolling out new stuff you'd want to get your hands on. New items, new resources, what have you. Or if you're a new player! New players like to toy around with stuff from what I've seen, but after a while people can run out of things to do in the game. While I wouldn't imagine a video game to ALWAYS have something to do, I feel it's a bit too easy to run out of things to carry out in SL2 particularly.

I mentioned earlier that finding engaging RP can be harder than you'd expect. I'll get to that.
 

Finding roleplay or making things progress on that front, tends to be difficult, because a significant amount of the community tends to be OOC or mainly reactive.

 
Beginning with the OOC part, you might be thinking... "but Fern you're OOC at times too." And you would be right! I am. I used to be very, very active on the roleplay front but now I'm not so active... I still do it on occasion, though, even if it sometimes may happen in a place you may not easily see it (I.E isolated game area, such as Karaten, the Cellsvich forest, player houses, etc.) And I do think I sometimes make an effort to muster motivation and head out there in the more public areas like I used to.

I don't think people should be forbidden from being OOC. Sometimes, people just want to do the gamey part of the game. Sometimes, they just want to chill with their friends in some place. Sometimes, people just want to screw around with character builds in OOC PVP, so on and so on.
 
But for a while, there has been such a thing called the "OOC Corner" by the community. It's a particular spot in the Badlands Arena where people who are OOC gather to socialize or mess around in fights. This one in particular:


 
I stopped by real quick to make a screenshot while writing this thread. I do hang out there occasionally, that's undeniable. I think the OOC Corner is a thing because:

-People from any social circle can meet in this easily publically accesible area, no matter what ""clique"" or group they're from. It's easy to start community interaction in this place, even if it's usually OOC.
-It has an Inn and a Blacksmith right next to each other. That's a godsend to anyone wanting to test builds with other people. And guess how many people like fighting? A lot. Guess how many people group up in the OOC Corner? Usually a good bunch, sometimes a few, sometimes a massive amount and other times no one at all!

-Humans are social creatures. We do like having or making friends. Usually...

 

Regarding the 'reactive' part, a lot of the community seems to prefer being approached rather than beginning the approach themselves. There is a big slew of different reasons for why people can feel this way, and it varies from person to person. From what I have seen and experienced even while I was very active on the RP front, there is not much of an incentive to create or lure in others for roleplay. There are some people out there that like to create things for people to gather in, but as far as I have seen and know, they're not the majority of the community.

 

I would like to note that I'm not trying to throw shade on shy people either. I understand that people have different personalities and not everyone is comfortable with being an extrovert ball of joy. It is perfectly okay to be your own person. I do think there's a way this one could be perhaps slightly alleviated without the need to force people to create roleplay, but I'll get to that later down this post.

 

Moving onto a different point of interest, relevant to what I was mentioning earlier!

 

Player motivation across the community seems to be fairly low, as of late.
 

I will make a quick note that, from all the time I've played SL2, I think that this is one of those things that come and go with the community. There's time periods where SL2 is very, very active... and then there's time periods where it feels like it's dead in a lot of places. And I don't just mean specific days, I mean literal months worth of time in some cases. Frankly I'd argue that this is a thing that happens with any game on occasion, but with SL2 in particular it feels more noticeable when people don't just want to bother with it. I know I sometimes have that phase myself, I don't think it's TOO often on my end but I do have it sometimes. (Shout out to the friends I've made in the game that help me keep my spirits up!)
 
Currently it feels, from my perspective, that the game has entered a phase where it feels much, much more dead than alive. Slight exaggeration but I do really think it's a thing at the moment. It has felt this way for about... 2 months nearly, give or take.  I'm not entirely sure how many people agree or disagree with me, merely just saying but...

It feels like there's very little interest in making things better, mainly from the community.

I'm not trying to say that people are apathetic, heartless monsters or anything like that. But I've frequently seen and heard people go, "well it's a hopeless case and I doubt things will improve anytime soon so why should I bother caring?"
 
And I honestly can't blame you for not caring. It's generally not your responsibility to try and force changes in a community. Heck, it's not MY responsibility to try and reach out in the forums like this and I know it, but I felt like doing it anyway. I wouldn't expect you or anyone else to magically do something about it, this thread isn't particularly meant to do that. It's a voice of opinion, nothing more nothing less.

 

Why are you trying to bring all of this up now of all times, if it's been an issue for a while?

I feel as if it has been getting worse and I do feel love for SL2 because it has unironically helped me grow as a person. I've met very fantastic people in it, and I've had equally fantastic experiences in it. It would sadden me to see it be left to rot, if the gist of things I mentioned are indeed a popular opinion and they manage to get worse. Like I said, I wanted to put something out there to see if anyone felt the same or very much opposed to how I felt on the matter. Or if anyone felt similar but not entirely - that sort of thing.
 
I could be wrong in some things, or I could be wrong entirely. I'd hope to be wrong, personally, but either way I wrote down my general concerns and I didn't feel like I wanted to stay quiet.
 

You mentioned something about an idea for slightly alleviating the roleplay problem, what do you have in mind?
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, most events are currently private, rather than public. I don't want to burden the Event Staff, but I'd like to hear (if they are willing) their opinion on the idea of creating more public events people can partake in. It won't solve the problem in its entirety and I don't expect anything to 100% fix it, but I think it would promote the idea of people gathering up and socializing with new faces more often, and in turn promote a more entertaining environment for the game. I'm no problem solver magician, but it's an idea I want to throw out there.
 

Final words

 
I will be blunt and say I don't much expect this to be of use, nor do I expect anyone to add to this (people aren't obligated to post, of course) but if you have some thoughts on the matter you want to share, then I say that you are more than welcome to express your opinions in this thread. I don't have a TL;DR for everything I wrote, and I honestly don't want to give it one I feel!
 
If you read what I said, I just want to say thank you for listening to me, whether I am right or wrong.