Conquest of the Horde

• The cave is destroyed. Yesterday, after a number of dramatic events involving the Elemental, several packs of explosives were planted about the cave. When detonated, they blew the guardhouse, the barricades and several of the pillars holding the ceiling up. It started to crack and the guards and prisoners were all forced to flee to not be buried under the falling rocks.
  
• Island is free to explore. Because of the above mentioned event, you can no longer safely visit the cave. Captives have been released and are now free to wander the island alongside their guards.
  
• The collars are still active. All who had collars previously still have them on. That hasn't changed with the explosion in the cave.
  
• Additional casualties: 5. Faceless (blew up inside her armour), Therai (killed in Faceless' explosion), Aroes (killed by the Elemental's rune), Generic (crushed by falling rocks in the cave) and Valan (crushed by falling rocks in the cave). This brings the total death toll up to 6, including Py.
  
• Naneth and Kinta are nowhere to be seen. No one saw them following the escape from the cave. It's unclear if they were buried inside it or escaped prior.
  
• All NPC guards were buried inside the cave. Except Standard. But everyone who were there yesterday already know this. The rest of them, however, are buried inside.
  
• Vienne has disappeared. As a random result of one of the Elemental's runes, Vienne has been teleported off the island and to safety, effectively leaving the event to roam freely out in the world. Good luck, Vienne, and good for you!
  
• Daring the mists: From now on, when a DM is online and someone walks out into the mists on their own or without significant company, they may be passed under a Character Warning. For one, you may get lost. And secondly, there may just be dangers lurking out there inside the thick mists.

Oh, and Vienne - a character made specifically for this event - was the ONLY character to get safely teleported out of the cave by the elemental's rune.

Vienne should arrive on Saturday with a fleet of Stormwind's finest ships to liberate us from the island!

THERAAAAAAAI NOOOOOOOO! AROESSSS WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


NOOOOOOOOO!


I is distraught. T_T I hope you two get rezed.... those were like two of my favorite player chars.

Due to real life, I shall sadly be missing the finale on Saturday. le sigh.

Depending on the timing of it, I have the same possibility as well. :P

Xavier's agenda.


1. Figure out a way to get Barry out of the area once everything it done.

2. Not stop calling that one elf Stumpy, despite the fact he now has his limbs back.

3. Write down his "Elf to Common" translations, see if he can get them published when able to return home.

4. Find some delicious pastries, eat them before anyone can befoul them.

5. Get in one or two more fights, see if he can't get Stumpy to inevitably try to kill him again.

6. Count how many "Barry's" are now in the area, mourn the Barry's lost in the collapse.

7. Butcher Reigen's name even more.

8. Keep up on rationing supplies.

9. Get those who can be armed, armed.

10. Find if there are truly gorillas in the mist or if that was just a wild but fantastic food dream.

11. Find any pirate treasure he can.

12. Perfect the Fist of a Million Suns punch, which is Fist of a Thousand Sons but with spikes on his knuckles.

13. Find out of the elemental is female.

14. Find out the elemental's taste in men.

15. Pursue the hot lady elemental if applicable.

16. Treat any possible limb-removal from said attempt, steal one of Stumpy's arms as Stumps don't need arms.


Edit: Any and all differences in words, typing style, and such, such as Son's Vs. Suns, TOTALLY INTENTIONAL.

So, I ran around and took a few screenshots during downtime. Edited one into something of a banner.

This grave needs some groove.

Great scenery.

Banner! Thing.

So...I'm really not sure how to open this feedback. I will say that the majority of it won't be “good”. I'll offer the usual statements of thanks that RP was attempted and an event was done. Maybe I'm biased since this was my first Kidnapped, and I don't have anything else to relate to. I think I contributed what I could to the event, to make things happen.

I'm going to write stuff out in list form. Might could be more organized, but this is the best I could do.

• The interviews/fear conflict. I'm sure you had social experiment-type conflict planned with these. Figuring out our characters' weaknesses and quirks and using them against others. Where did it go? Why wasn't this used? A lot of the fear I had built up in my character was based on this. This is why she was hiding her feelings for Corlmitz, and in a way, it sort of cheapened the development these two got because there ended up being no fear. It started with a real fear of dieing, he even begged her to either kill him for her own survival, or leave him behind. But it just sputtered out. Utterly.
  
• The runes. While fun in effect, they ultimately ended up being a little pointless. Was there a larger pattern to them that we missed? They seemed like the start of something to get stuff going, but I can't see what we could have done with them. Why would anyone willingly venture on to them with such hazards? Krona sat about them for hours and days trying to determine their nature, with no results. That I could see.
  
• Waiting. There was a lot of it. The players, at least on the prisoners side, were stuck in one area. With nothing going on. With no sense of suspense, or drama, or suspicion. I ended up getting so frustrated that I just logged off and asked people to Skype me if something happened. I wanted to participate, but I can't/don't want to stay on all day for a chance of plot. I understand, and appreciate, that you laid out the event to allow for more time for more participants. I think I heard that people felt the last one was way too crowded and rushed. But, it seems like it got turned on its head. Too much waiting, with events tossed in that had little to do with anything. To build on that...
  
• Disconnection. Why was Faceless tossed in to be killed? What does Naneth have to do with anything? Vienne and Cinder were awesome plot points, but nothing came of them. While I'm, of course, not blaming either player, as they do have their own IRL stuff to tend to, it seems their plot points were just abandoned. The background of the island's story seemed very interesting, but I cannot figure out what it had to do with anything. The larger plot of Meadowrest and Faceless was squandered, and I'm really uncertain about the resolution of the event now.
  
• The Elemental. I love this guy's potential, I really do. But, it seemed squandered. I caught onto the sympathy that was trying to be portrayed (the grave's protection, the emotional outbursts, on and on), but...I don't understand how anything could have been done with it. Did we miss some huge thing that would make him approachable? I tried to work with him on Orvisha, but with so many other people all either trying to make him mad, or work with him as well, it...just ended up a big mess. He went from a sympathetic antagonist to a boogie-man.
  
• The mist and the island in general. Great idea, but again...I really, really wanted to check the island out, learn its history. But, how can I when it seems like its chosen at random who gets to learn and not. How can I when I'm threatened with death for moving beyond the safe house? I get, and appreciate, trying to add some fear. But, the monsters in the mist seemed so very random. Like, when Fendrin (seemingly) brought back that geist? I got so excited that, hey! Maybe we'll have a rush of these dudes, and then we can go investigate their source and history. Maybe our safe house would be ruined, and we'd have to move. Nope. One cackled on a roof, then vanished. What did the illusions have to do with anything? I wanted to be threatened, and scared, but I couldn't since nothing came of it or anything before. Besides Elemental smashing and limb-tearing.

So...yeah. That's my general mess of thoughts and feedback for the event. Might be kinda early, considering it hasn't ended yet. Maybe everything'll come together, and I'll have to edit this into a spoiler and go, whew! I'll probably end up editing this either way, but yeah. Had to get some stuff out.

Again, appreciation for all the effort. And I'm sure this has been frustrating for you as well.

To comment on the elemental, seeing as I am the only one who puppets it.

-It was originally intended to just be a temporary guard to explain why people couldn't 'just leave the cell'. I decided to take it up a notch later.
-It does have a plot to it. There is a way to calm it down. But most people just start insulting and belittling it, and it doesn't tolerate that crud. (You do have a lute).
-The reason it's become a boogeyman is mostly because it keeps being provoked.
-As far as the runes are concerned? It is curious about how creatures of flesh and bone act in certain situations, and wants to test them. Or for it to take out its anger upon them. I did not want to really do anything that would interfere with Loxxy's event.

It is on the kidnapped side? No.

Is it on the guard's side? No.

It's on a side that belongs to only itself.

Well, thanks for that elaboration. ;p I do agree it only became such because of people acting like...well, you know what. Unfortunately, Orvisha never took the lute. She was (hesitantly) convinced to leave it at the house. Disappointing.

Psh. Well it didn't forbid people from going to the grave. Just disturbing it.

My big problem with the Elemental was there didn't seem to be any -apparent- way of approaching it. Never mind people kept pissing it off, the Elemental himself came off as not wanting to be bothered by us lesser mortal people things. You mention the lute, but for the whole duration of the event, I've yet to have seen any connection between music and the elemental. If you want a sympathetic implacable protagonist, that's awesome, but you gotta give some hints or leeway, otherwise characters just get afraid and angry at it and will either avoid it entirely, or foolhardily stand up to it.

To add on to the general feedback of the event, while I did enjoy it more than I didn't, I feel it sorta suffered the opposite of the last Kidnapped. Whereas Kidnapped 4 was WAY TOO FAST PACED and if you weren't ALWAYS LOGGED ON you would miss SOMETHING, this one seemed waaaaay too dragged out. Not so much because it lasted two weeks, but because those two weeks weren't used very well. Storytelling could have been more frequently paced, and better advertised, as opposed to the "wait for people to log on" method. You did correct this some by the end with Skype adverts and forum posts, and that was good! And while I can asusme you want to encourage idle RP amongst the victims of the event, just waiting for enough of us to log on doesn't seem too wise. I would maybe suggest you get one or two extra GMs to help with storytelling! Like, real in-the-know storytelling, they know what the story of the event is, how it starts and how it will end, and can in your absense help forward the plot. Get GMs from different time zones and you maximize RP across all hours, and everyone gets a little bit of everything.

Now, because I can't be a negative nancy, I will say some positive things! Namely, when the storyline WAS making tracks, I was hooked and excited. When the elemental flipped out on Matherand, that was cool. When Faceless asplorded, even if it could've used a lot more buildup (Really Faceless should've had a bigger presense all around), it was exciting. When we were getting interveiwed, that was great. But these were strung out between looooong periods of nothing going on and nothing to do, and RPing out cabin fever only keeps its charm for so long.

But hey, you tried new things, and its through new things we get better and make improvements! If there's a Kidnapped 6, I'll still be there, and will be waiting to see what new stuff you bring out.