Honest Opinions.

[Jeff]

My whole take on the whole who is better than who thing is simply this: a fatal strike will kill anyone. A knife, bullet, sword, hammer, axe, arrow, or what have you will not care whether you're a reknown Felsworn or a helpless peasant. If it can bleed, it can die. Even David could kill Goliath. I think that's enough ways to state "anyone can kill anyone. It is a matter of how you go about it or engage them."

No +'s to dice rolls. No auto-resolve victories in trust battles. No being a snob about who is better than who as a prestiege. None of that. A pikeman didn't always kill a knight, an archer doesn't always kill the light infantry, a Roman Legionnaire didn't always take out a hoplite, etc, etc. I wish people had this mentality about combat RP, but it seems like everyone wants to RP to win now.

[TwilightDisciple]

Each time I try to send, someone makes a new post!
Good post.
About 2 years ago, I was pretty much in the same boat as you, OP; getting mad at CotH and ranting about it. I've been at CotH longer than my join date implies, so I seen some stuff. (I don't even remember my old forum name...) Changes in my life had me finally pick up and leave, and a mix of curiosity, free time, and boredom (another RP server I was hanging out at got the old C&D; how I miss it!) urged me to peek back in.

I have been in some good RPs with some awesome people, and I'm grateful for that. But I've also seen people who are afraid to just improvise, relax, and have fun. It seems like people are too preoccupied with things and are afraid to break the mold or get out of their comfort zone once in a while. Why? It's just a game.

I agree with the bit about Prestige; I see it bought up a lot in general discussion, and the roles, by several, seem to be treated more like a major accomplishment to show off to this little sliver of the world, and reduced to modifiers in /roll, instead of a new aspect of your character to explore and new limits to push with them in RP.

But, your last point, #4, is the strongest for me. It's the reason why I haven't been able to log in lately. There have been times where I've gotten on and dove right into RP, especially when I put a character who "has no reason to be there" in that exact place just to see how they'll react to being out of their element. If it's not that, people nitpick. But, most of the time, I just have hardly any spirit. I've had events and storylines in mind, but, for the exact reasons you have stated, I just don't have it in me to put up the effort. It feels like there's the most fruitless competition going on. I'm getting tired of trying to find fun.

What about priorities? Aren't we all here to RP?
I'll be blunt: there's several people in the community who I don't care for. I'm sure we all have people like that, and I'm quite sure there's people who don't like me! :twisted: But, when I'm IG and RPing, I don't really care who they are as long as they're roleplaying. I have enough drama IRL, why would I want more of it on a server?

Some people here bring their OOC feelings in ICly far too often for the most selfish reasons. All some care about is winning. Some dismiss logic when it means they'll come out on top, but will otherwise argue it until they're blue in the face. They forget or lack the ability to be emphatic with the other side.
But, again, good post.

Yet, I can't help but feel it's a bit futile...

[SpiralLateralus]

In my opinion (which may be wrong), I think a lot of this stems down to people not getting what they want. Especially, say, with the the prestige system, which I think should be completely done away with. I don't mean to be harsh, but I also think everyone who's characters have been made prestiges should have their prestige retconned. GM's should be the only people who can have special characters, because I think they are the only people who are less likely to abuse them. To be fair to everyone with a prestige, I haven't seen anyone abuse their power.

The main problem is that everyone on here is human, and humans are imperfect. We will always find things to dislike, things to like, things to argue about, and things to cry about. It is in our nature. You can't change human nature, and at the end of the day, I say, why try? We are what we are, and we are but dust in the wind.

I have a suggestion, though. We should have a council of players, maybe ten is a good number, that meet at least once a week. Have half this council be GM's, and the other half be players. Every month we should hold elections on for this council. And this council should decide on the fate of the server.

[Lynoa06]

...There has been wrong people and wrong doings. But I am somehow thinking you are dramatizing everything. Yes, there has been such bad drops, and some caused me to leave. Yes, there's been disrespectful people. But why don't we guys stop whining and look at the bright side? A whole game world awaits, and if we were to stop squabbles, perhaps we would already go a step up.

It's been one year since my first roleplay here (and it was great, Nahele! I still pretty remember everything), so while not being so much of a vet I've seen stuff. So don't get me wrong, there IS something going down - but it's just a trend, just like there's been trends for slave RP, for Outland RP, for Booty Bay, which turned to AC, which turned to Ratchet Arena, and so on. If we were to stop bringing the bad points in focus, maybe we could already enjoy ourselves more.

We just need to educate the few people who cause bits of drama. But come on. You'll still admit. We're STILL the greatest RP server around, and we're TENFOLDS better than the best retail RP guild shall ever maintain. CotH is venerable, so let's take her with her good and bad sides.

It's just a game, indeed, and it's made for us to have fun. What I want to say (and I'm mighty drowsy) is, respect your fellow, have fun, nod at Rensin's departure - and let the ship CotH is move on. And have fun as she flows. I'm not putting a blindfold on - elsehow I'd not quote Rensin in my sig - but I believe it is high time we stopped squabbling because there is that and that problem in the community, and let's focus the spots on its strengths and boasts.


In other words. Let's just sit back and enjoy the game.

[FlyingSquirrel]

In my opinion (which may be wrong), I think a lot of this stems down to people not getting what they want. Especially, say, with the the prestige system, which I think should be completely done away with. I don't mean to be harsh, but I also think everyone who's characters have been made prestiges should have their prestige retconned. GM's should be the only people who can have special characters, because I think they are the only people who are less likely to abuse them. To be fair to everyone with a prestige, I haven't seen anyone abuse their power.

The main problem is that everyone on here is human, and humans are imperfect. We will always find things to dislike, things to like, things to argue about, and things to cry about. It is in our nature. You can't change human nature, and at the end of the day, I say, why try? We are what we are, and we are but dust in the wind.

I have a suggestion, though. We should have a council of players, maybe ten is a good number, that meet at least once a week. Have half this council be GM's, and the other half be players. Every month we should hold elections on for this council. And this council should decide on the fate of the server.

I disagree with the "all non-GMs can't have Prestiges". Players can be trustworthy, sometimes even more so, then the GM team. To take away their prestiges would just be... bad. People would be okay with retconning theirs, including myself, but taking everybodies for a fews actions is just bad.

[Jason]

I would just like to say thank you, Esthrunil, for this post. It was much better than Rensin's, to be sure. Virtually the entire post sums up what I've been thinking the past weeks or so.

And, once more, it's a pain to see you go. Maybe you can give me some contact information sometime so you don't completely disappear on me. : 3

[TwilightDisciple]

I would just like to say thank you, Esthrunil, for this post. It was much better than Rensin's, to be sure. Virtually the entire post sums up what I've been thinking the past weeks or so.

And, once more, it's a pain to see you go. Maybe you can give me some contact information sometime so you don't completely disappear on me. : 3

I am terribly sorry, but I could not resist. :wink:
Thread, carry on.

[Miah]

Honest opinion though? Im sad to say i've encountered a lot of arrogance, nastiness and people being very self important in recent weeks. Honestly considering taking a break for a while, as sadly, my recreational activity of playing here has started to cause me more headaches than real life. I don't want to get frustrated, and end up havign a go ingame, as I just don't want to come across like that. It's only a select few, but its enough for me to get upset over, and i've logged off more than once for it, something that I couldnt dream of for the first few months I was here

[Lynoa06]

Tina, this is...just..awesome. XD

[Psychyn]

My whole take on the whole who is better than who thing is simply this: a fatal strike will kill anyone. A knife, bullet, sword, hammer, axe, arrow, or what have you will not care whether you're a reknown Felsworn or a helpless peasant. If it can bleed, it can die. Even David could kill Goliath. I think that's enough ways to state "anyone can kill anyone. It is a matter of how you go about it or engage them."

No +'s to dice rolls. No auto-resolve victories in trust battles. No being a snob about who is better than who as a prestiege. None of that. A pikeman didn't always kill a knight, an archer doesn't always kill the light infantry, a Roman Legionnaire didn't always take out a hoplite, etc, etc. I wish people had this mentality about combat RP, but it seems like everyone wants to RP to win now.

I personally think this would cut at least a quarter away of the prestige drama. Make everyone equal, as the (perhaps) mainly used point of "I'm going prestige because I want to be stronger." is removed and it comes down to character development. Something nice for the history, giving people a reason to respond with x or y differently then before.

Perhaps we should simply all be more polite when we talk about others, or maybe even when we criticize the characters of others. If you're going to tell someone that they're wrong, then hey, do it respectfully. Don't turn it into an argument. Just... be nice. I'm sure you wouldn't like someone raining down on you with a flurry of 'YOU CAN'T DO THIS STOP DOING THIS YOU ARE WRONG'. That's an exaggeration, mind you. But sometimes it feels like that. Even if people aren't saying it outright.

^ Would in my opinion, also solve a lot of unneeded hassle. We are all here for RP, so what if someone screws up the lore either in-game, ooc or in flagrsp? Each day is a new day to learn, for all of us. No need to get chippy. ^.~

As for:

I have a suggestion, though. We should have a council of players, maybe ten is a good number, that meet at least once a week. Have half this council be GM's, and the other half be players. Every month we should hold elections on for this council. And this council should decide on the fate of the server.

A good idea on paper, but who is there to say that the players won't vote for the people they enjoy the most? To me, it comes over as "friend-politics" where people vote on who they like instead on people with good ideas. I may be wrong, but couldn't help but wonder. "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine."

[Hawk]

Number 3: Plans and GMs.

I've seen these arguments before. A person posts up their entire plan of action for a MAJOR event, or a MAJOR anything, and all of the players around them begin to pine over it. The only thing is, this person didn't submit it to the GMs for approval, and if they had, the GMs are still talking it over. When it comes to the time that the GMs have finally finished their verdict on the event/anything, they're going to be crucified by the public because the opinion they now need to speak against has been seen by everyone. Trust me, I've been one of those GMs, and it's not right at all.

When you get someone's hopes up about something, and there's another person who has to pull the plug on that something, you're making it needlessly difficult to do that. You're not helping anyone, because it's going to be denied at any rate, in this specific case, and having more people back your opinions up is not going to prevent that. All you really did was cause people to rally up against the inevitable and cause major stress for both sides of the argument.

What you should have done is spoken it over with the GMs, because some ideas, while awesome to those who hear them, are nigh-impossible to implement correctly (I'm the king of those ideas.) If you speak to the GMs separately, they can help you with these ideas without getting anyone's hopes up for the impossible. Trust me, as a former GM, they're not there to step on your head as you try to come up with ideas. They're not going to automatically deny EVERYTHING. They're there to help you and the server get the most out of your ideas.

Dear God, for the love of all that is holy, THIS. I'm sick of being skewered by ragespikes everytime I have to make a bad decision, when a lot of the time it's not even our fault to begin with.

[Guest]

I've seen a lot of this from just lurking here. It seems like this place is too small for it's own good, as a lot of people seem to feel comfortable enough in small cliques to berate eachother, or even people that are new. There are a lot of posts that are hard to understand, overly complicated, and purely intimidating.

I also see a lot of this post points to players, but isn't this a community run by people who were players too? So doesn't a lot of this load fall on GMs as well?

The GMs and planning I can understand, but from a separate point of view, shouldn't the GMs not give the impression that they are going to help if they can't?

My opinion probably matters litte, but I thought I'd add.

[Anski]

Trust me, it's expanding every day. There's no such thing as the cliques as there used to be by any means.

[BountyHunter]

As part of the Evening Crowd on CotH, I don't actually see too many bad people. But, even when I do, I just don't try to debate against them unless I'd enjoy it and sometimes it actually is pretty fun, in my opinion. As someone who doesn't do well at making large posts and what-not, I'll simply say I see where people are coming from, I understand how it works and I'll simply stay here in CotH and tell myself 'Things change' because they do, better or worse. Not going to stop it, might as well aid people as best as I can to make people happy, one person at a time.

[JosieNoelle]

Esthrunil, I do want to at least point out that if you had no care for the server whatsoever, you likely would not have taken the time to share with us your feelings as to why you had to sever your relationship. Certainly there is a measure of concern for the future of the server just in that and for this I do thank you.

Having only been a part of CotH since November and approaching it from the standpoint of someone who is hanging precariously close to the edge of 30 years old, I see it in different eyes. When I say this, I mean absolutely no disrespect whatsoever, so please do not misunderstand me, server members. But much of what I view in the way of extreme drama and disrespect is largely tied to youthful ambition, zeal and carelessness. From my perspective, maturity is usually lacking among those who start fires they are not emotionally or mentally prepared to put out due to a lack of interpersonal skills that tend to come with a bit more life experience. Again, I cushion this by saying that I have been pleasantly surprised by some of our teens as they are able to handle turn-about, loss, defeat, and some of the other aspects of game-play well.

But, alas, when I see someone holding a match, I do not tend to offer up my flammable wear.

Think we'd all do well to not allow ourselves to be incited by those who are ruining the entertainment aspect of the game for us. Nothing puts out a fire better.