Quantifying the loss of experienced players.

To me it was another example of the consistent lack of trust in the players. A lack of trust in players to make their own fun and to create fun for others. Also a lack of trust in players to play within the confines of the IC world.

There was a bunch of reasons and thinking about the issue. Mainly it was a clash of virtual versus non-virtual. If the initiative was directed towards non-virtual, that ment a group of ranger indies/gemmed from the south would go north and start killing off PCs. Most of whom would probably be indie grebbers, newbs, and whomever else is not traveling in packs.

If it was targeted to virtual, then no Templar possesses the amount of money to pay for so many virtual hands.

But it boiled down to lack of trust to players. Because in reality, the initiative was awesome, and the players would take it and use reasonable amount of personal judgement and fair play to make running with that initiative to be a fun thing for both sides. Alas, they didnt trust the playerbase enough to let it run on.

My specific problem is not directly related to staff, though it is related. The way the roles are laid out, the documentation, who gets what role (I had karma range for a Krathi and spec-apped it, I was informed that, due to my unpredictable tendencies, that I was not trusted enough to play a rogue Krathi, I could either play a gemmed Krathi, or a rogue Rukkian of Vivaduan, this kind of upset me), encourage and reward specific personality types and traits, as well as methods of thinking, and discourage others. I think you can see with my account notes they've been kinder and more professional to me than many of you would be, it just so happens that what they "want" to see from me is not something I'm capable of... this leads to some players feeling discouraged, not caring to put in the effort anymore, not rolling up zany, wacky fun PCs, but very much stoic, outwardly boring people who don't take a chance on anything, though the character in question may have a very rich inner world I can't see.

But that doesn't matter, you can play out that inner world by yourself in fricking notepad. The reason you're not, and maybe making a little money selling said story if you're lucky, is because you came here to write a STORY with other PEOPLE. Chances are, you're not the only one, I think it'd be safe to say that the majority of players put all this time and effort into making a character to interact with you, among others... while there is the occasional player who likes to stir up soap-opera style drama (just, ew), and there is the occasional player who likes to play out in the wilds like it's an FPS, teabagging dead gortoks and players alike while exclaiming, "lol newb lern plai", I think these players are somewhat rare in the setting, just based on my experience, and hopefully grow out of it.

My problem is with other players. I'm not saying other players are somehow bad, I'm saying some of them are allowed far too much leeway with PKing, such as ignoring the virtual environment and setting like the previously mentioned ranger, or ignoring the OOC considerations of what it does to other players and their plots... while I can, count the number of times I've tried to kill another character on one hand, and the number of characters of mine who've had a murderous bone in their entire body on two fingers (please, no jokes about half-giant dongs being murderous bones. because then I'd have to change it to three fingers, which doesn't help my case. Pretty much I've only had two characters who have ever intentionally turned mercy off and stabbed another), I think it's safe to say there was some OTHER reason my Krathi wasn't approved than the fear that I'd have marched into Red's and roasted all the nobles, Templars and aides without warning. Yep, you guessed it, I'm thinking they were worried about rangz and strange alliances they couldn't control.

And, lastly, I did begin to feel that someone, not sure who, on staff, was targeting me, specifically, there for a bit. I'm really not sure but, yeah, sneaking, paranoid suspicion, though they approved my last spec app without hassle. I stopped asking for account notes after my karma got docked, don't think I even bothered to complain about it, since no one was going to respond well to it anyway, didn't really care anymore. The last time I sent in regular character reports was with Chuckem. Some of my replies, then seeing the account notes, felt a bit discouraging. I was like, well, I tried to explain what was happening, but no one would listen. When reading the documentation for half-giants on Darksun: Ressurection, I noticed that Chuckem's behavior would have been COMPLETELY in line with those docs. In fact, I approve more of the documentation on the races there, because it's less designed like hard limitations on what sort of character you might want to play, less designed to generate "conflict" as part of racial roleplay, and more designed to provide guidelines without stifling interactions or turning the whole gameworld into some sort of kill-crazy bloodbath.

The game seems less-restricted as a whole, with more options open from the beginning, rather than simply saying "you can't do this", or "you must do this", more worded "Here are reasons you might not do it, and there you go".

EDIT: Jkarr, I think you misinterpret my wording. It's not that I think staff should interfere in player conflicts, I just think if the docs were worded differently, behaviors would shift, as requirements would change. I don't approve of the current behavior. When Htaniya's Red Hunt was at the tail end, I was in Luir's at the time, and got accused of some heavy shit involving raiding on the trade routes... I was, actually, somewhat involved, just, the incident in question was not something I was responsible for. More like, while in Red Storm I was supplying some of the hunters (one of whom, had VERY good reason to be participating) with gear, weaponry, arrows and bows. In Kurac I was helping them get in touch with the Merchants and Agents to buy more equipment and sell off some of the things they brought in to Kurac.

Malrith knew who some of the more active Red Hunters were, and told no one, and in fact, provided via the way, conversation, moral support, and silly jests to keep them inspired, entertained, and generally in good spirits.

response to grumbles edit: no i didnt misread it, i responded to this

But these here had some nasty fallout, and it's been something I've had to keep in mind since. My other long-lived characters have had less inclination to murder their enemies because, truth be told, they could cut them down in seconds, even a long-lived assassin would have been afraid of them. A c-elf merchant rogue cannot bank on that, they would have to eliminate a potential threat at the earliest available opportunity. If you'll notice in my account notes, Malrith is criticized for having traveled the known, which is unheard of for a city elf, living a very nomadic lifestyle, but he had to, because people would act like some crazed supervillian had walked into town if he stayed for more than a few weeks. I think once, thinking the heat was off, I had him go back to Allanak, and, before the day was out contacts were warning him that militia and Templars were stomping the streets, screaming his name and words like "Audacity!" and "Arena!". I'm sorry, c-elves may be afraid of the sands, I RPed that out, he was terrified of them, but he was more terrified of the Templars and soldiers.