We responded in the forum to Elysium’s claims. This is all part of lore and nation-building in our gaming experience. We are old D&D’ers, so our early game-play was all paper-based and we are quite accustomed to generating diplomatic missives, maps, nation newspapers, etc. This design element to gaming can add a lot of interest and we thought there might be potential there to really expand our gaming possibilities with other players. Obviously, it did not go as intended.
Now Atlas, we have been ribbing you for awhile about your unclaimed land, and I think fairly. You are an experienced player and an excellent builder and as fellow players, I think we have a right to give you a hard time about your apparent reticence to get your hands dirty mining. This was all meant to be good-natured. Elysium’s land claim statements made us feel we wanted to make the point a bit more loudly. I actually had no intention of claiming any land in the mountains but only to make the point that you were blatantly breaking our treaty. Banter ensued. Then things got out of hand. There were loud and aggressive statements made about Elysium’s ‘rights’. I responded IN-GAME by claiming a few plots. I intended to follow this with a statement to Elysium that I was DEMONSTRATING the proper and legal way to claim land, and that I would be relinquishing the land, but events progressed so quickly that I did not have this opportunity.
I have already admitted that we are unaccustomed to the fast pace of online play. We are paper geeks from a bygone era. Now perhaps everything just happened too fast or perhaps the whole thing should have been discussed more in the forum before it appeared in-play but within minutes, communication between players stated to break down and misunderstandings began to pile up. It became very difficult to know who was talking in character and who was talking as a player. Some players made a strong effort to indicate that their comments were their character talking and we appreciated that. We tried to maintain the in-character discussion but things were escalating.
Other players became involved in the conversation and seemed genuinely upset and/or confrontational. Atlas confronted me in the mountains and brandished his sword at me, although I thank him for using restraint and not attacking. Bobz came to my location to provide protection as I was being threatened. This left him vulnerable to attack and, in fact, he was shot by 3 arrows and knocked off a cliff by danny. Now that was kinda upsetting, because this point about pvp has been brought up before both in chat and forum and we felt that everyone was in agreement that duelling should be by mutual consent in appropriate locations.
Meanwhile, Atlas started claiming plots to ‘defend’ against us, since we still had not been able to make the point that this was a diplomatic demonstration. Atlas, I even pm’d you at least twice telling you I was acting in-game, would unclaim the land and that we were not trying to interfere with your build, but I accept that you may not have seen them in all the action or perhaps did not believe me.
Anyhow, by this point there didn’t seem to be any hope of reviving the proper spirit of the exchange and we could only hope to end the conflict which was occurring and get the hell outta there. I unclaimed the land, as I had always intended, and gifted Atlas with a stack of gold. I had planned to give you some gold all along, Atlas. I was going to suggest that you use it to legally and properly claim the land that did NOT violate our treaty agreement, as per my demonstration of land-claim procedures.
There are probably a lot of other nitpicky details that could be included but really, I just want to present to our fellow-players our perspective on these events. Because regardless of our future participation or lack thereof, gaming is important to everyone here, else why would this conversation be taking place? It’s important for any game that the players understand each other, have clear communications and understand the shared guidelines of the game environment. If you witnessed or participated in the events I am discussing here, and thought we were being total assholes, I would invite you to use this opportunity to consider how differently a situation can appear from another perspective, and why good communication is so vitally important. As I said at the beginning of this increasingly-long rant, I do not believe that ANYONE signed on to the server last week intending to cause harm.
This brings me to: Rules of Engagement.
IRL, there are detailed and specific rules of engagement adhered to by nations. This is largely to prevent misunderstandings and over-reactions. This topic is what started this thread, in fact, because we wanted to be sure that we were not misunderstanding the rules-of-engagement of our fellow players. I would suggest that this issue is still unclear and is contributing to this kind of misunderstanding. IRL, historically speaking, when nations have made claims to unoccupied land, other nations push back and frequently place their own claims or defend said land.
For the benefit of all players, I would love to see more clearly defined rules and terms-of-engagement. I know it is a lot of work to write up that sort of thing and that it must evolve somewhat naturally as problems arise. Perhaps this is a chance to address, in the rules, some of the points which contributed to these events.
On a side note, I also want to mention the issues of spawn point and town/nation memberships, very briefly. My opinion; town spawn should not be in ANY individual players town. I could make an argument for having it in Amberton, but I really think it should be a neutral place. Atlas, you claim that it would not give you an advantage with new players to have the spawn in Elysium but I must respectfully disagree. To a new player (inexperienced on servers), it is implied that the place you appear in the game is a safe haven and many will set up there simply because they do not know what other options are available. You also claim that you are picky and do not solicit new members to join your town but I have personally witnessed you doing so; I am sorry to have to contradict you but that is my truthful observation. Even if that were not the case, there is still an implied pressure to join you if the spawn is in Elysium, in my opinion.
As far as town/nation memberships, I want to address the role of admins and mods. I am not familiar with how this issue is handled on servers in general, so I apologize if my understanding of this issue is incomplete. However, it seems to me that membership in player towns/nations puts mods in a conflict of interest. I haven’t really pondered the point long enough to break down all the details of my thoughts on it, but I am wondering if anyone else sees this as a problem, or what the mods think about it? I am not questioning anyone’s ability to play more than one role, but mods are already required to play both as mods and players; membership in a player state adds a third dimension. Something to consider.
We have learned a TON of stuff from the time we have spent on the server, and have had some excellent play sessions and many laughs. For that, I thank all of our fellow players. At this point, I do not know if and when we will return. We are in danger of appearing to be “rules cops” and making our fellow players uncomfortable atm. As far as formal complaints, I thank you for the suggestion, Tim, but I don’t want to have to police my fellow players. If I can’t play without having to report people, then I don’t want to play with those people. I want fellow players who are mature enough to monitor their own actions, with or without the presence of mods/admins.
Regardless of future events, we wish all of our fellow players the very best in your gaming and also in your real-life endeavors. As I say, we have learned a lot and had some really fun sessions with you, which we will always appreciate.
Best Regards,
Colleen (Twinnie)