08-13-2024, 12:07 AM
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.
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.
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