The Game, the Cabal, and You

[egreir]

And just because I like repeating myself - player ran cabals ended in I believe very early 3.0 when we still had 30-50 people online and the problem was that LARGE OOC circles were inducting/promoting their friends. I remember vividly the reasons why it was taken away, I had multiple characters in the same cabal at times, as early as lvl 15 and barely ever had a cabal promotion turned down lol   Those problems no longer exist, the pbase is MUCH easier to watch, and we have NEVER tried going back to that. We are such a more closer-knit community than ever before and we hold ourselves much more accountable these days it's almost a no brainer to me to let players run cabals again. But it's like asking a politician to step down, that control will never be let go of. Getting off track here because I'm really not even advocating for player ran cabals.

Player run cabals is a much harder to swallow thing for most players so I gave up that hope and instead focused on ideas that would give players clear-cut standard routes for promotion while still allowing the IMMs to oversee/veto anything they saw fit to do so. But that still isn't/wasn't good enough, the IMMs still want to make you earn their favor through their own whims and timeline, there's no good reason other than selfishness honestly.  If you still have the power to stop it, then what's wrong with giving static routes to get something like cabal T while still maintaining complete control over E and L? Worried players will just recycle their characters? That shit already happens in droves. The arguments against making things more clear cut and accessible that I've seen are so weak it's mind boggling to me.

There's so much in this game that should be and is still REALLY worth working for.  No one remembers cabal Ts.....we remember Es and Ls though. We remember players with Tats and Titles. So tell me why again T is treated like it's gold? Because you said so? Cool....

This game has a history of treating the players like puppets instead of the game being our puppet, which is what fantasy RPG is all about, players creating and controlling a narrative while a GM is there to guide them along...that's not what FL is anymore, it's an environment where to really achieve anything, you must please some other person who doesn't give two craps about you or your time. You're on THEIR time and if they don't believe you deserve something, you won't get it. End of story, don't let the door hit  ya where the good lord split ya, right? Have fun guys, that's all I can say. What's it like to log in as an wizi'd IMM and see 0 players online? Then come to the forum and see plenty of players asking for change, for years....but we don't deserve it.

I only grow more and more bitter and resentful as I read this and think about it all, which is funny because, again, I think I'm one of the more successful players here. I've had multiple cabal leaders and elders, I've had titles, a boat load of qraces, custom items, etc etc.  I don't have any REAL reason to be upset, my characters for the most part get what they are after....but to watch people like Seviks, or the person I referenced in my post before this waiting almost 3 weeks for a cabal promotion...it just makes me wonder why any of us still continue to be treated this way while the staff is just so completely unmoved by it and act like we're children crying over spilled milk. I'm a 33 year old man with a family, and I'll be damned if I continue to play a game where in order to continue to progress my character, I have to please some other person who knows nothing about me personally and doesn't care that I'm willing to log in and give this game my time and effort.

With that being said, please ban my forum account or take away my ability to post here anymore, I don't want to continue this toxicity. Believe it or not I do respect the fact that this is not my game and I don't make the rules, you all do, and if we want to play here, we have to follow them. I'd ask you to ban me from the game also, but I have too many IPs to make that happen I think.

[Celerity]

@egreir At a certain point you just have to take a step back. The posts feel profound when you write them, but in reality you are just spiraling downward in a hole. I know because I've been there too.

You are invested emotionally and you honestly care about seeing a positive result. This gives you a moral imperative to push your ideas. It is hard to step back, but you have to do it sometimes because if you don't, you start to alienate people and maybe even the idea itself. It becomes counterproductive. The more you over push, the more chance you have to kill your idea.

Push your ideas, but you have to be political about it. It is a terrible word, yet it is true. Plant your posts, make sure they are a good reference for the future, and before you know it, you'll have x threads with y players and z posts to back up your statements. Force them to address your ideas, not your tone -- don't give them that easy way out. Give it enough weight that it can't be ignored. Then you can get stuff done.

Even if the idea is strong, well-documented, and glaringly obvious, it may not be considered seriously, much less implemented. It is immensely frustrating when they don't understand the problem, much less the solution, but all you can do is work towards the future.

Even if that means backing off for a time. Just don't burn your bridges.

At the end of the day, it isn't your problem. People make poor decisions all the time. You don't have to join them.

[Wade]

The compromise as far as I see from both sides would be this. 

The staff allows one cabal to be player run but @egreir has to play in it.

If it crashes and burns then we get to cast eternal shame on him but if it works out then maybe a promise is made to reevaluate the cabal system. 

Worst case scenario is this trashes a cabal for a certain amount of time but I don't think that's an issue as savant was allowed to be vacant for quite some time without intervention. 

[Fool_Hardy]

Glad your looking for compromise.

[mya]

I wouldn't mind a single cabal being Player run. As long it's not heralds or Warmaster newbie central. Tribunal might also be a bad idea because, frankly not everyone can fit inside the Tribunal RP. Thinking better, Warmaster might even be the ideal one, as long a Neutral RP is enforced.

Foxx is right, what you guys are mad about is not knowing what you must do to get T.  Some imms tell this kind of stuff if you ask, but having it placed in the cabal help files or somewhere only acessible to the cabal would be interesting. Like the Tribunal code of conduct thingy.
In my opinion you all want T because of the added PK power, but I could be wrong. I still don't understand how Trusted is so important to Kys or EGreir char.
 

[egreir]

Don’t give me a cabal to run. I hate proving people wrong. 

[Ulmusdorn]

1 hour ago, Wade said:

The compromise as far as I see from both sides would be this. 

The staff allows one cabal to be player run but @egreir has to play in it.

If it crashes and burns then we get to cast eternal shame on him but if it works out then maybe a promise is made to reevaluate the cabal system. 

Worst case scenario is this trashes a cabal for a certain amount of time but I don't think that's an issue as savant was allowed to be vacant for quite some time without intervention. 

Rofl. Roll a Herald please @egreir

[egreir]

Wouldn't be my first

[Ulmusdorn]

BTW my cabal is player run. Wuggo is in complete control - unless I think he is sleeping and someone is actually waiting. 

Which happened for a couple of people in my clan recently seeing as he wasn't around. 

@egreir you're also going way over the top - no where did I or any other staff membery say 'thems the rules'. I'm all for cutting down wait times. Hence people in my cabal don't wait. Unless, they actually do nothing I'm not rewarding that shit. 

Giath is a great example. He's keen as a bean to try anything and die in that attempt. That gets a quick promo to T for me, lets keep him interested in learning his class until he owns you all with it. 

 

['tarako]

First rage deleted herald t minus 11 days

['tarako]

Side note.  Giath gets so much respect from me. I've noticed logging off is pretty standard pk lately. And this dude gets super excited to run headfirst into super decked qraces. I wish we could all go back to that.

[egreir]

9 minutes ago, Ulmusdorn said:

BTW my cabal is player run. Wuggo is in complete control - unless I think he is sleeping and someone is actually waiting. 

Which happened for a couple of people in my clan recently seeing as he wasn't around. 

@egreir you're also going way over the top - no where did I or any other staff membery say 'thems the rules'. I'm all for cutting down wait times. Hence people in my cabal don't wait. Unless, they actually do nothing I'm not rewarding that shit. 

Giath is a great example. He's keen as a bean to try anything and die in that attempt. That gets a quick promo to T for me, lets keep him interested in learning his class until he owns you all with it. 

 

While I appreciate both your examples, they are again, very much the exception. Giath, god bless him and I love him, is a newb and was fast tracked to T because of that. He has no better or worse RP than the person waiting in Savant for T for almost 3 weeks now, and his PK is average at best, so he was given it because he NEEDED it, which is OOC if you can stand to be honest with yourself. He didn't earn that any more than other people have deserved it for time spent and effort in the game. I'm in no way shape or form saying he doesn't deserve it, he does....but so have countless others, perhaps even moreso.

Again, not a knock on Giath, but that's a weak argument to make about how promos to T are just fine.

Also, this isn't for player run cabals, I only brought that up because there continues to be some misinformation from players and staff alike about the history of player ran cabals. This is simply about making the path to T, just T, more common practice, standardized, and just more accessible to everyone. E/L and all that comes with that should definitely be treated as something special, but T is not some game breaking achievement that needs to be given out like a perfect score on an exam. Maintain control by allowing IMMs to veto a vote that is automatically created after X amount of hours and RP that is gained, hell even make it wait a full 5 days before it passes, regardless if it has the required votes, that way the cabal IMM has a exceptional chance at seeing it.  That makes T, even for the most addicted player, at least a 6 day wait from V (10 hours in one day + 5 day wait on the vote) and for a more casual player it's still probably gonna be more like 10-14 days. Which is LIGHTYEARS better than 3-7 weeks as is often the case. 

[Twinblades713]

I haven’t noticed an issue with getting to T in cabals in the last year or two and I’ve had several characters. Sometimes it takes a little while but never disappointingly long. In fact I’ve been surprised with what I considered early promos more often than not. Not sure what the issue is but I don’t see the big deal is. I’m not dominant in PK usually but I do put an effort into my story, and it tends to pay off in ways that are rewarding enough for me. (And hopefully other players)

[Lloth]

The standard has always been that if you feel like you deserve something, but don't have it, post on prayer asking. We will tell you flat out. What we won't do is post about it publicly. Seeing as you didn't ask in prayer, you don't really know the reasons. Hence this post. 

 

Also, don't knock Giath down a peg or two just because he isn't a PK powerhouse. He makes the effort in PK and invests a great deal into his RP, and does everything a T in Watcher should do. He's been doing it since I. Belittling his promotion by saying its because hes a noob with lower standards of performance is not only wildly incorrect, it's super insulting. Adding that you love Giath doesn't make it ok to do that.

 

Plenty of imms, myself included, have given the guidelines to being promoted in their cabals. Some of us, again myself included, actively test their cabal members for promotion several times. 

[Ulmusdorn]

No you're wrong. Giath was promoted because he was willing to try kill the big bad asses. 

He doesn't flee the lands when he has a bounty and deakon is around. Or run into any undead/demon even if they are decked out the arse.

Don't take away from Giath because he is a newer/less experience PK player. It has 0% to do with that and 100% to do with attitude. And you make yourself look like a pompous arse suggesting it @egreir. #mommabear #leavemycubalone

 

 

 

 

['tarako]

It's pretty shitty to beat around the pity promo bush, and you should be fuckin ashamed that youd knock the hardest working char in the game. Giath shouldn't even be able to fly with balls that big. And he's got depth to his character. Things that make him giath not just stalker blm. He's 100% the attitude I wish everyone had. #biiiiiiiiiirdman

[egreir]

Okay, so the rest/majority of us don't try to kill the big bad asses? I wasn't fighting Dranthos/Keshan often at the same time by my own choice as uncabaled and inductee? The person waiting for Savant T hasn't been willing to fight them?  Again, these arguments are just super weak and im not tryign to make it personal but hell I was fighting/attacking 2-3 people in the same area and make it a common practice on my characters. Not making this about me, and again, I'm saying Giath DOES deserve T, but PLENTY of people have had the right attitude and still get made to wait. 

I am in no way shape or form trying to take anything from Giath, but you can't use him as an example if I can't point out the fact that everything you're saying about why he got fast tracked to T applies to soooooo many other characters who were made to wait exponentially longer

[egreir]

i fully expected to get jumped on for the giath thing, but that's yall being babies, not me.  the dude absolutely deserves everything he's been given in the game, no one is denying that, but you have to have fallen off the turnip wagon 2 ticks ago if you honestly think you're gonna get fast tracked to T for being willing to fight the big baddies and not log off vs tough enemies.  There's plenty of toons that do that all the time. Hell there's characters who single handedly turn a whole cabal war upside down and then still wait much much longer than Giath....so explain that?  or dont. any argumenet you bring up that i counter just turns into trying to make me look like some crybaby or asshole when that's simply not the case.

 

 

[Lloth]

If ANY of you feel like you're not getting a promo you deserve, post about in on prayer so we can discuss it with you.

 

We want to reward players. The notion that we play gatekeeper as a means of being arbitrary jackasses is flat out incorrect.

[egreir]

And Lloth I didn't send a prayer because this isn't about my toons. Teshix got T in a very reasonable amount of time.  As I said before, I personally have no real reason to be upset about this, it's just irritating to see such hole-filled arguments being passed around as law.

['tarako]

How can you honestly sit there and complain about a player busting their ass and call us babies? Give me a character with bigger balls than Giath

[egreir]

How can you honestly not understand the point?

For the 100th time, as backed up by the shoutouts I have posted towards Giath, he totally deserves T.  But to say he deserves it MORE, or QUICKER, than other players that have done the same if not more....that's just pussyfooting and trying to bait me, it's a lose-lose argument from my end.  I can respect and admire and cheer Giath on while at the same time realizing that a character who walks into a 3v6 cabal war and single handedly turns it into a 6v3 cabal war and has good RP while doing it deserves it more by that very same logic. That's not taking anything away from Giath, that's just showing how there is no standard path to T and he can't be used as an example like "Just do what Giath does."

[Lloth]

Those other characters haven't posted on prayer about it either. Hence the bolded, capitalized "any"

[Ulmusdorn]

Lol I have no idea what he is even complaining about. He got promoted... 

Maybe you should teach seviks something? Or whoever else you're talking about?

I have 0 opposition to Automating T in Cabals. However if someone aint doing their duty they can be demoted to V and have to wait for a E/L to promote them.

[egreir]

That's a whole separate argument that i just don't have the energy to get into. Why do players have to go out of their way to go to a OOC channel to ask about their characters progression? Isn't that why we have cabal IMMs and RP in the first place? If someone is waiting at V for 3 weeks and has had virtually no IMM interaction, the system has failed them. And that happens all too often.