Hi folks,

I think it's time we talk about attitudes a bit, especially as it pertains to conflict events or PK scenarios. Aetolia is an RP game and PK game and good conflict is essential to both. Without it, none of the events we have matter, nothing has any stakes, and the world becomes a stale, boring, safe haven with everyone in harmony. This isn't what the game was founded on and isn't the direction we've been taking it since I took over.

PK remains the pre-eminent method of conflict resolution between players. There's never going to be a city org vs city org event where there isn't some sort of PvP involved in it. That's just the nature of the game. If your org isn't in a position to back up their RP responsibilities with the required action to do so, that is a problem with the org that needs to be solved, it's not a flaw in the game or event design.

We've put a great deal of time and effort this year into bolstering org identity and themes and that work will continue. These sorts of high stakes, tense scenarios are important parts of that, and acting like you're being persecuted, bullied, mistreated, or griefed (we've heard all of these in the last 48 hours or so) is the wrong attitude to have, especially if you're in leadership or another position of responsibility. That attitude trickles down to the rest of the players in your org and actively dissuades others from participating in things.

In what is intended to be a grim dark / horror themed environment, expecting to be safe or otherwise indifferent to the perils of the world at large is not reasonable. Disaster is going to strike. Bad things are going to occur to your characters that are often outside of your control. Sometimes you are going to lose. When you join an organisation, you are making a choice to buy in to their themes, motives, goals, and ideals. That character choice is always in effect, not only when it's easy, and these difficult-choice situations are rare enough that it's not something that has to be dealt with or endured every single day.

If you have a problem with an event, another player, or an admin, then esteem is not the venue for your complaint. I am. The whole team sees these and if the extent of your feedback is to tell the people going out of their way to create content for you that they're wasting their time, then you can send it to me instead.

This post isn't only aimed at the current events in Sterion, and it should be pointed out that this event was entirely player initiated. We chose to facilitate that conflict with mechanical and RP support. I've noticed this prevailing attitude across the board from all orgs when it comes to conflict, and I want to go on the record now and remind you that it's immensely discouraging to everyone on my team when people treat these situations like they're some sort of conspiracy to ruin the game experience. They're not.


Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 11th of Midsummer, in the year 503 MA.
Discuss this post on our forums:
https://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/4430/announce-post-3377-conflict-events-attitudes