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Post by anoobarak on Nov 22, 2014 23:50:29 GMT -5
By Special Sue I mean Mary Sue and by Mary Sue I mean the Hillmen. Not everything is directed to you.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2014 4:17:55 GMT -5
The bizarre thing isn't even that Mary Sue wanted to do that, as the player behind it is known to have a ridiculous superiority complex and a need to be the game's special snowflake, but the fact that staff bought it hook, line and sinker. They just completely fell for it and essentially devoted the entire game to that Mary Sue clan, which killed it.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Dec 4, 2014 10:50:55 GMT -5
Lol
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2014 15:02:28 GMT -5
Hi. I am your special Snowflake Mary Sue, ruinator of your fun.
I'm also responsible for the combat balance of SOI, the design of all of its mobs and mob AI (at least, until recently), the majority of its lore documentation wikipedia, the fixing of a number of its crafts, the writing of many of its dynamic scripts, the fixing of a number of its bugs. I also gifted the administration the engine that it runs on (that comes from Atonement), as their previous coder had destroyed the old SOI engine with their ineptitude, causing SOI to shut down for two years. I did all of these things as a player trying to help the game, without any admin back-end access.
I wasn't the leader of the "Hillmen", though I did write their lore. I was, ultimately, the Beorning Barbarian, Bjarndyr, and I did fall into clan leadership position when there was no one else to do it. I always saw the clan as a temporary story (like I tend to see all stories worth telling) - a player-created and player-driven plot, a group of rugged and strange outsiders, for Utterby to deal with. I received no "favoritism" from staff. In fact, I had to work and fight rather hard (both IC and OOC) to keep them from wiping the clan out a number of times. The fort that we built was the benchmark that the staff now use to allow for players to create their own buildings (which is currently available to everyone).
Sure, I could've played a nobody hunter. I could've played a hard-nosed, drunkard Armor-Smith. I've played those roles before. Everyone else is playing those roles now (because there is a lack of variety in the roles, a design problem with the game). Creating a story for the Beornings and the Hillmen of The Misty Mountains was more interesting to me. So, I did a shit-load of writing and work, and I played a Beorning Barbarian, a character unlike others I'd played before. And, for whatever reason, my character drew well-developed and pro-active characters in the human sphere to him. Meanwhile, the detractors of this clan and myself, did nothing. Besides the staff throwing a plague at us in an effort to try to push us back into Utterby (which was never a realistic option for a clan of, largely, barbarians and naturalists), we didn't receive any more plot early on than anyone else did. We CREATED plots, while others spam-crafted and sold firewood.
Beyond that, the staff is struggling, obviously. They're trying to find a direction to go in and take the game there, but the heart and story that old spheres of SOI had hasn't really been found in the struggle.
I'm sorry for what Mike went through with his character. I'm old friends with Nimrod, and when I likened what happened to my character/the clan to the Native Americans, he stopped talking to me. Obviously he feels very strongly that that's not what happened. I don't have a problem with what happened, because greedy men do kill to take land, to conquer, to dominate. I like my Tolkien gritty, and I liked the end of the Hillmen/Free People storyline (the only consistent storyline SOI3's had at all), even if the "evil" of it wasn't intentional on the part of the staff.
Unfortunately, there are few of the old, experienced, proactive, inspiring old players left now. Hopefully future expansions and improvements to the state of the game bring them back.
<3
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
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Post by Jeshin on Dec 14, 2014 15:42:50 GMT -5
In defense of the Hillmen and special snowflake and as someone who was involved with staff in this time period I will say something that I refrained from saying at the time. Mostly because I felt it went against the confidence put in my as I tried to fix the woefully horrible economy of SOI and review the crafts that had wildly different values and rewards. Anyway...
The Hillmen problem would not have been a problem if Frigga had not permitted it and to a lesser extent Icarus. In our conversations I pointed out the issue isn't that the Hillmen existed it is that they existed when staff said something like them wouldn't be allowed! Thus we have poor communication, double-standards, and inconsistency. You can't blame players for playing their concept and you can't blame them for taking a mile when they're given an inch. That is what players do because getting that inch is often so difficult. The fault lies with the staff of that time period saying one thing in public and another in private because they were convinced it was reasonable.
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delerak
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"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
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Post by delerak on Dec 14, 2014 21:17:58 GMT -5
Nobody really cares to be honest.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2014 22:19:43 GMT -5
Well, to be fair, Delerak, the many pages pertaining to misconceptions and allegations here, and even moreso on the correlating SOI Forum thread, suggested that some people did care. I just thought that, with my setting the record straight no longer being an issue of affecting IC storylines, I'd just go ahead and set that record straight.
Integrity is important to me. It was important to me when I championed against the previous SOI Administration, it was important to me when I created Atonement, and it's important to me now.
The current SOI staff has their problems, IMO mostly in regards to role design and storytelling, but favoritism is not one of them. I'm most definitely not a favorite of the SOI Administration, and I haven't been since I revolted against it five years ago.
That's all. I do hope that, as time goes on, the new team there will figure out how to capitalize on a concept that really does have quite a bit of promise. I wish'em the best.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
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Posts: 389
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Dec 15, 2014 9:52:55 GMT -5
They won't and you know it.
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mike
staff puppet account
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Post by mike on Dec 15, 2014 12:45:20 GMT -5
Thanks! I too wasn't upset that this particular storyline happened. What so upset me was the OOC pressure that quickly turned into inappropriate IC pressure to force my character to ignore that it was wrong/evil in a Tolkien-based world.
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andy
staff puppet account
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Post by andy on Jan 4, 2015 14:36:23 GMT -5
Wonder if "iamjacob" actually realizes that a large part of the reason Shadows of Isildur is now circling the drain is because people left in droves due to him hijacking the game for his own clique and using influence with staff to get a bunch of ridiculous privileges, most of which were completely at odds with the rules that other players had to abide.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2015 15:34:41 GMT -5
Wonder if "iamjacob" actually realizes that a large part of the reason Shadows of Isildur is now circling the drain is because people left in droves due to him hijacking the game for his own clique and using influence with staff to get a bunch of ridiculous privileges, most of which were completely at odds with the rules that other players had to abide. A silly notion. My relationship with the SOI staff is not good, and has not been good for five years. What I accomplished was almost in spite of the new staff, who opened the game very conservatively. I doubt that any other player was/is under as much scrutiny as I was. A small number of mostly unproductive, entitled players left SOI, but not because of me. I was playing a Guardsman at the time that they left; they left, because they didn't get chosen to run the Guard. I didn't run the Guard either, and even agreed that the staff chose the wrong characters to run it. Yes, the players that left may have complained on the forums about my Beorning, but they had quit playing well before I rolled him. They were just logging into the SOI forum (and this one) to troll, like people do. The game achieved its most consistent, high-activity times, while I was playing my Beorning (a coincidence, mostly). I suspect that the large drop-off in popularity had a lot more to do with the two month disappearance of the RPA staff, and the simultaneous dropping of all game-wide plots, than anything else. It affected the activity in my clan, as well. Onward, and as I've stated elsewhere, I was the major proponent of the staff making positive changes to the game, because I never felt comfortable that they made exceptions for us that they didn't extend to other players. Because of this: 1) You can now build forts and structures, the rules governing which were drafted based on my clan's fort that we built. Improvement. 2) You can now create your own clans, a result of myself (and Krelm on the orc-side) having done just that, and proven how successful player-created clans can be when there is passion behind their design. Improvement. 3) You now have a much larger area of the world that your characters are allowed to come from, extra towns whose lore was written by me to be used by other players for background, and over a dozen "new" roles that you can app into, based on the roles that I designed and campaigned for, for my clan. Improvement. I never wanted there to be disparity. These are all things that older versions of SOI had as options, and they should have been universally present from the opening of SOI3. I wanted there to be more options for players (something SOI could still improve upon). I campaigned for that, not just for my clan, but for the entire game. The core of the whining really has more to do with entitled players feeling jealous, but being unwilling to be proactive enough to make something happen themselves. Why should hard work, creativity, and a desire to improve game-wide systems be lambasted? Hating on proactive players is a very unproductive way to be a part of an RPI Community. RPIs demand pro-active players to survive. Water under the bridge, though, really. My advice? Be proactive, and don't invent conspiracies and enemies where they don't exist. You'll simply never be happy playing any game with that mindset.
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delerak
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"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,656
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Post by delerak on Jan 4, 2015 16:36:27 GMT -5
Tur Edendor forever.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Jan 4, 2015 23:51:08 GMT -5
Huh. delerak, it appears you may have a spirtual brother.
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delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,656
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Post by delerak on Jan 4, 2015 23:57:29 GMT -5
Huh?
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
this account will go inactive once I hit 420 posts
Posts: 389
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Jan 4, 2015 23:57:38 GMT -5
woo thanks for all the new features on this dead rpi with meh staff
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