Improving the Arelith Community.

[Cerk Evermoore]

viewtopic.php?f=23&p=186438#p186438

Having read over this thread and witnessed several interesting discord conversations and even screenshots of personal messages. I can certainly understand why a policy change like this took place, after all. DMs are volunteers and if they are just trying to do their job you shouldn't be anything but respectful to them. However as a player who would never want to intentionally violate the rules, but has mistakes in the past which the DM coaching has helped address. I find this policy update scary, because I worry that now I will be on extremely thin ice.

However I don't think whining about it will really accomplish much. I think we should just examine some facts.

1. Arelith has grown greatly.
2. Discord is on the rise, which is increasing the amounts of toxicity on the server.
3. PvP incidents without adequate storyline or character interaction is taking place at a higher rate.
4. OOC cliques are becoming more and more common.

It is in my opinion that if we are to correct this problem, we as a community should look to ourselves. The discord servers we are involved in and the communities our characters interact with. I think we should as a community encouraging people to start to make a conscious effort to reach out and interact with people you haven't met before. Invite your enemies into your discord server. Join a different faction of totally new people.

I used to think the people from Guldorand were kinda weird until the player of Ezekiel invited me to his discord server, then I got to know them and found out I was right! (Just kidding Guldorand you people are actually really cool so I figured It'd be alright to reference you guys ) and you know. OOCly I think of Guldorand and everyone in that discord channel completely differently know.

I think the problem comes from the community being so much bigger, it's a lot of people to try and meet everyone and have a general idea of what they're all about. I think if people OOCly reached out to their enemies more often on discord and just had a chat about the storyline and what direction they'd like to take it. A lot of problems and disputes wouldn't ever happen, it's just when so much raw emotion is involved I guess people just don't think like that in the heat of the moment.

That's my feelings on how we as individuals could help break down some of the barriers that seem to exist between some of the Arelith communities OOCly. I'd like to hear the communities feedback / input aswell. Am I wrong in even assuming there is a problem that needs to be fixed?

[Richørd]

Well, I'll gladly join you on the "I feel like I'm on super thin ice now" front.
The way it's been put there and considering how some of my interactions with DMs went it feels like anything I do wrong could lead to a quick drop of the perma-banhammer now.

About improving the community? I feel like the biggest problem right now are groups of players that stick to their own little group of players too hard and to anything in their power to not only OOC benefit them but also benefit them IC due to OOC reasons.

Whenever I see people on Discord ranting (or whenever I myself ranted) it was usually due to witnessing something in game that made no sense. So much so that people can only explain some character's actions in game by pointing at OOC reasons or if, even worse, it's absolutely blatant metagaming.

[Sartain]

One thing I don't understand is that, as far as I can tell, DMs/Admins aren't necessarily too impressed by the use of OOC communication channels and it has been implied so many times (IMO correctly) that these have a tendency to precipitate cliques and general insular behaviour yet there seems to be little initiative to do anything about it other than telling people not to.
It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine but as a new player let me tell you that this server seems designed for clique-ishness. If it wasn't that both DM team and Irongron himself had spoken out against it I would think it was intended.

My feeling is that when everything is FOIG it causes the hoarding of information, which leads to veterans finding some status is having said information, and divisiveness between said veterans as they develop different philosophies about said information.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of times when FOIG is pretty cool but when it extends to pretty much all information there is about what is happening on the server including the real of public history of kingdoms, factions, events and such, PvP between disagreeing groups also becomes an information war. With no Out-of-game base to build narratives together, as players instead of as our characters, all in-game information becomes weaponised and general attitude of the server becomes toxic or apathetic, or both.
Since new players have no way of accessing information OOC'LY all veterans with an axe to grind will want to paint their own particular group in the best light possible while demonizing their opponents as much as possible, and new players will basically have to adopt whatever particular vendettas are pushed on them if they want to join factions.

As I see it:
- When our only way of discovering or driving a narrative is In-character only, our Out-of-game reactions also tend to follow our In-character views. I'm sure even the best of us can recognise having had an IC conflict bleed into OOC, or the other way around.

-Without any sort of OOC documentation on factions and events (say, a forum where faction members can post about their particular group) all information becomes potential fake news and nothing is held to any sort of standard.

What I think might help:
- Give the players an OOC venue on the forums for promoting factions and groups, and documenting big in-game events. Encourage the use of this, and cooperative efforts from both sides of a given conflict. Have a DM or two give this project some extra attention as with the current toxicity of the server, some people might need a bit of handholding

- A full server wipe

[vaclavc]

Just to add to this: I prefer playing and enjoying Arelith without using any outside communication channels, except this forum. Recent trend is that every faction/group has its own discord channel, which makes me feel very old
I do not think using such external communication platforms is bad per se, provided staying out does not prevent players from participation in faction play and -UNLESS- they are used to trash-talk about players, IC events, forums posters, DMs, etc.

-V-

[xanrael]

Unless you login with the purpose of ruining someone's day (whether you think they "deserve" it or just being a sociopath) or your standard communication with DMs is:

DM: Hey I'm looking into a PvP that happened yesterday.
Player: Screw off.

I doubt you have to worry.

[Lady Astray]

About improving the community? I feel like the biggest problem right now are groups of players that stick to their own little group of players too hard and to anything in their power to not only OOC benefit them but also benefit them IC due to OOC reasons.

Whenever I see people on Discord ranting (or whenever I myself ranted) it was usually due to witnessing something in game that made no sense. So much so that people can only explain some character's actions in game by pointing at OOC reasons or if, even worse, it's absolutely blatant metagaming.

I agree with this entirely, and it is a large part of why I've already taken my role play to another server where the community seems much more inclusive.

Another thing that majorly repulsed me was how little the outcome of PVP actually matters. People will go around posting on every board about how they won a battle even after they lost badly. Someone God-emoted my character's death with no RP or PVP by renaming a fixture. Still don't know who it was or if they were punished, the DM's wouldn't even tell me if the fixture was removed after I asked multiple times. I understand the DM's policy about not telling the reporting player about any disciplinary actions taken, but in that case it would have saved me a lot of stress and worrying to get a simple, "Yes." in response to my question.

The major cliques are so insular and well-established that having any kind of dispute with any of their members essentially black-lists you from participating in any kind of meaningful RP anywhere on the server, even when you and/or your character are clearly in the right. I've seen so many characters being displaced IC and gotten so many private messages from players telling me how they felt cyber-bullied by these cliques that I have grown to genuinely resent certain players or at least some of their actions. I know that sounds mean and probably isn't in the "spirit of friendship" but it is how I feel and I don't think some forced positivity is gonna fix it at this point. Forcing team good and team evil to have tea-parties and hug fests together IC also creates a pretty dumb narrative.

I might try Arelith again in like, two real life years or so. It will at least be interesting to see how things change. Good luck to all of you but for now I quit.

[Queen Titania]

I want to correct Lady Astray on one thing, we are trying/it is policy for us to tell you when a case is closed. Please do not ask us about disciplinary actions taken, or who it was, but we will tell you when we have finished our investigation. If we forget you can ask if we have looked into it, though I would give us a week before prodding.

Unless you login with the purpose of ruining someone's day (whether you think they "deserve" it or just being a sociopath) or your standard communication with DMs is:

DM: Hey I'm looking into a PvP that happened yesterday.
Player: Screw off.

I doubt you have to worry.

This is really how it goes. I might go in it with a thought of having this action on the table for actions taken, but a listening/good attitude pretty much throws everything out and just has a warning delivered, so long as it isn't Time #3.

No one's perfect, I expect someone people to make minor mistakes. Only malicious players and Unseelie and their followers should be afraid.

[RandomhouseAudio]

I want to correct Lady Astray on one thing, we are trying/it is policy for us to tell you when a case is closed. Please do not ask us about disciplinary actions taken, or who it was, but we will tell you when we have finished our investigation. If we forget you can ask if we have looked into it, though I would give us a week before prodding.

Unless you login with the purpose of ruining someone's day (whether you think they "deserve" it or just being a sociopath) or your standard communication with DMs is:

DM: Hey I'm looking into a PvP that happened yesterday.
Player: Screw off.

I doubt you have to worry.

This is really how it goes. I might go in it with a thought of having this action on the table for actions taken, but a listening/good attitude pretty much throws everything out and just has a warning delivered, so long as it isn't Time #3.

No one's perfect, I expect someone people to make minor mistakes. Only malicious players and Unseelie and their followers should be afraid.

All Feypact Warlocks are now on notice. Hide.

[DM Atropos]

I want to correct Lady Astray on one thing, we are trying/it is policy for us to tell you when a case is closed. Please do not ask us about disciplinary actions taken, or who it was, but we will tell you when we have finished our investigation. If we forget you can ask if we have looked into it, though I would give us a week before prodding.

Unless you login with the purpose of ruining someone's day (whether you think they "deserve" it or just being a sociopath) or your standard communication with DMs is:

DM: Hey I'm looking into a PvP that happened yesterday.
Player: Screw off.

I doubt you have to worry.

This is really how it goes. I might go in it with a thought of having this action on the table for actions taken, but a listening/good attitude pretty much throws everything out and just has a warning delivered, so long as it isn't Time #3.

No one's perfect, I expect someone people to make minor mistakes. Only malicious players and Unseelie and their followers should be afraid.

All Feypact Warlocks are now on notice. Hide.

You can't make me hide!

Also, guys. Please be aware, if you're following the rules, and being a decent player (even if your character is a total jerkwad), you shouldn't be concerned. Mistakes happen, and we are aware of that. Trouble will come if you're out to "win" at the expense of others' fun. This is not meant to make the average player walk on tenterhooks. This is to make people aware that the history of having a bunch of talking-tos when things are not changing is over.

[ImWithThisGuy]

I agree with OP. Though, as pointed put by DM's, reasonable players need not be worried. Regardless, I just wanted to point something elsr out, though it is only indirectly related.

On the matter of reporting other players; the change in ban policy might encourage some players to report less, or not at all. (or worse, more, in an attempt to get others banned) And I just eanted to add that reporting in all manners is another fantasic way to help improve Arelith, its been said many times, but with the growth in recent time, there is simply too much for DM's to handle on their own.

Reporting should be a constant feedback to the DM's, in both a positive light, and a negative, because it keeps them in the loop, and helps keep things as civil as possible.

[Sartain]

Is there perhaps a handy FAQ somewhere regarding the how's and why's of reporting players (and should the Team maybe update it due to this policy change)?

[Queen Titania]

There is a reporting template here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=40

There's no FAQ on what to report. We listen to just about everything, so send whatever concern you have.

And to respond to ImWithThisGuy, we can tell when another player is maliciously trying to report someone just to get them removed. It has never worked.

[Durvayas]

You can never overreport. The DM team does its job, and if a report turns out to be nothing, its nothing. Arelith's report system is a community watch. The community is only as good as we make it. The DMs can't be everywhere. If a friend is doing sketchy stuff(exploiting, muling, etc) and you don't want them banned, convince them not to do that anymore. If they won't stop, it is your civic duty to report them.

I for one welcome the change in Arelith's policy, and applaud the harder stance on repeat offenders. We all know who the worst ones are. We've all been baffled for years that these particular individuals have kept being let back into the server on appeals only to get banned again, to get let back in again, repetio ad nauseum. The DM team has, for as long as I've been playing, always had a reputation as being overly lax and punishment being a revolving door. There was a time where arelith was hurting for players enough that we couldn't really afford to be harsh and permaban people. EE has changed that, with a glut of new blood.

This era of DMs with kid gloves is finally ending, and I can't be any more enthusiastic for the change for the better.

[DM Axis]

To build on the "if you're following the rules you have nothing to worry about",
Even if you do make a mistake, even if you do step out of line,
this really shouldn't need saying but hence why we're here.

Be respectful towards the DMs.

Pulling seniority, arguing past a reasonable point, innately hostile attitudes are something I as one of the newest DMs is rather baffled by. These are private messages, we don't really do public shaming. There is literally no reason to be hostile towards us.

If we are speaking to you, if we reach out to address something, this should become a priority, not an afterthought.
Ignoring us does not work, being combative doesn't work.

While we have this updated policy, we do wish to still coach where it is possible to do so. Please work with us. Those that ignore our words and go out of their way to break rules repeatedly are the only people who should be more aware of this policy update.

You can never overreport.

100% Accurate, please let us know if you see something. We will investigate and act only if we see a rulebreak.

[Zed]

Myself and several players I know have been involved multiple times in being pulled aside with the DM teams and are all worried about the vagueness of the new policy.

Personally I do not feel like censoring myself when speaking with the DMs does anything but not get the proper messages to them, speaking politically seems to be (from what I can tell) becoming the norm because people will be worried speaking candidly can get them banned.

I understand if that is not the case, but ive been told I have been a "negative influence" before because I tend to speak my mind. But have never broken any rules.

Is there any way of getting to clarify what this means for people who do not feel like they are part of the *in* group that feel like they have now become, or feel they have become atleast in part, targets for this set of vague new justifications to lay down permanent bans?

[Kreydis]

I'm going to come on a little strong but I think it's necessary.

Discord is simply a poison. All OOC methods really are. By it's very nature it is an insular group, even with open invites. Which requires heavy policing from the people who run it to make sure that there's nothing fishy going on inside of them. Not everyone has that time. Not everyone is able to catch everything. And even if they do catch something, what if the players take it to private messages? Make their own little off shoot for their own personal anger hub. (Some ranting is fine here and there, just don't act on it. We're humans, we all get mad.)

I disagree that discord is necessary, I also disagree that it's helped in any capacity outside of maybe getting easier scheduling for events.

Secondly, there's a bigger issue at heart that we need to stop pretending isn't there. Spyre said something along the lines, during the server wide meeting, that he hoped that people's faith and trust in the DM team was still going strong. (I wish I could find it, I tried looking for it in the logs for a few minutes.) But I think that there is a (As one player during the meeting stated, please search the logs for more context, because this example is slightly misused.)

[21:26:09] Lorelei (--- (magistrasa))[Shout]: Right now there's a lot of ongoing faction strife in the Underdark, and as it's a point of congregation, the Hub is where it often comes to a head. "Street justice," however, has been a part of UD culture ever since the Udos days by my understanding, and stems in part from a mistrust of the DM team

This mistrust is a terror inducing beast where I think the majority of the communities problems are stemming from. They feel that certain players get away with doing things that no one else can. (I'm not an exception in this case.) To far more extreme accusations.

I've fallen into the pit of mistrusting the DM team on occasion, but overall I try to ease people's concerns over this matter. Saying that if you see something that is wrong, or think is wrong, you should report it. A lot of people even saying that they feel like their reports don't matter vs certain players again. So they've stopped bothering reporting. Or never have in the first place. Which is kind of. . . silly if you ask me. But the point is that the sentiment is there.

The DM team by it's nature is forgiving in the sense that, no other player will usually pick up on any punishment given to you, without you saying it happened. I respect that, and I also think it's the correct path. But when we feel like something is wrong, and we don't see anything changing, it of course leads to 'it doesn't matter' feelings. It's partly why I don't really like PvPing with anyone unless I can talk oocly to them about it first. It's impossible to make any narrative come from PvP I feel, without a lot of prior trust beforehand, and communication to make sure things are done fairly, and smoothly.

While I can't pretend to have any solutions. Or wipe my hands and say I've never been apart of this crowd. We will get nowhere without acknowledging that fact that it exists. This rule to those players reads as a warning, justifying their feelings, wrong or not.

[MarkingOfTime]

I think one problem that has been building over time has been due to the DM keeping the results of reports private.

Before I say the following, I wish to be clear that I believe they SHOULD be private, but wish to perhaps shed some light to those not sure where all this toxic behaviour in the community is coming from. Let me be clear, this is not meant as an attack on the DM team who already do a very hard job.

I would say the private nature of reports is likely a significant part of why there is a perception of DM favouritism within the community among certain groups. The reason for this being we as players have no idea what happened in that report. Were they punished? Were they warned? Were they genuinely repentant? Did the DM team even speak to the player and just disregard the report? The reporting player has no idea about this. So they paint their own narrative, they speculate among themselves on discord or other communication platforms. Over time this builds and builds.

If they continue to see the same players around that they have reported and perceive at toxic, this leads to they themselves becoming toxic and angry toward not just those players but the DM team as well. That or apathetic. They stop reporting, they accept how things are and stick to their little corner of the server, hoping that they don't have to deal with the players or the DMs they perceive as part of the problem. All of this is terrible for the community, but that is what I see happening as I talk to more and more people.

I hope, I really do, that this new stance helps to remedy this, as we see certain players removed or they finally make a genuine effort to be better and start treating players outside their personal social circle as human beings.

There is a lot of healing to be done. To those players who feel wronged at what they perceive has been happening, I hope you can give the DM team a chance to prove that this announcement is actually a good thing for them and the health of the server. Not a vendetta against them personally.

[Durvayas]

Secondly, there's a bigger issue at heart that we need to stop pretending isn't there. Spyre said something along the lines, during the server wide meeting, that he hoped that people's faith and trust in the DM team was still going strong. (I wish I could find it, I tried looking for it in the logs for a few minutes.) But I think that there is a (As one player during the meeting stated, please search the logs for more context, because this example is slightly misused.)

[21:26:09] Lorelei (--- (magistrasa))[Shout]: Right now there's a lot of ongoing faction strife in the Underdark, and as it's a point of congregation, the Hub is where it often comes to a head. "Street justice," however, has been a part of UD culture ever since the Udos days by my understanding, and stems in part from a mistrust of the DM team

This mistrust is a terror inducing beast where I think the majority of the communities problems are stemming from. They feel that certain players get away with doing things that no one else can. (I'm not an exception in this case.) To far more extreme accusations.

I've fallen into the pit of mistrusting the DM team on occasion, but overall I try to ease people's concerns over this matter. Saying that if you see something that is wrong, or think is wrong, you should report it. A lot of people even saying that they feel like their reports don't matter vs certain players again. So they've stopped bothering reporting. Or never have in the first place. Which is kind of. . . silly if you ask me. But the point is that the sentiment is there.

Part of this comes from overall neglect on the part of the UD by the staff back during the pit town days. We were basically left to our own devices and it was impossible to find a DM unless we went to the surface or cordor servers of the time. We had a griefer running rampant for over a month at one point, and most of the time we were left entirely to our own devices to enforce the rules in the UD communally. "Street justice" As magistrasa said. This has been a cultural thing in the UD for a long time that is slowly going away. Its definitely not gone yet, but its dissapating.

However...
A large part of the distrust in the DM team comes from the fact that the DM team has had obvious leaks in the recent past. I'm STILL getting grief over some reporting I did a couple years ago. Reports which would never have been possible for a third party to know were my doing without being told so by a DM. And who was told? The parties I reported. This has not happened to just me, and the leaks have eroded some of the confidence in the DM team to be objective, because we know that at least one DM fed information to the problem people outside.

Personally, after that happened, I would go to nobody in the DM team except straight to Noxt from that point on.
When noxt moved on, my experiences with Titania, Spyre, and Grumpycat have shown them to be (to the best I can tell) objective and fair, so when people come to me like "Durv, I saw X. And I want to report it." I tell them to go to those three, because at least those three I'm confident won't leak. If its something as general as a PvP violation and the logs will be easy to see, I'll send to the DM team in general, but for serious breaches(especially dealing with griefers), I personally go to the DMs I trust.

[Zed]

I think one problem that has been building over time has been due to the DM keeping the results of reports private.

Before I say the following, I wish to be clear that I believe they SHOULD be private, but wish to perhaps shed some light to those not sure where all this toxic behaviour in the community is coming from. Let me be clear, this is not meant as an attack on the DM team who already do a very hard job.

I would say the private nature of reports is likely a significant part of why there is a perception of DM favouritism within the community among certain groups. The reason for this being we as players have no idea what happened in that report. Were they punished? Were they warned? Were they genuinely repentant? Did the DM team even speak to the player and just disregard the report? The reporting player has no idea about this. So they paint their own narrative, they speculate among themselves on discord or other communication platforms. Over time this builds and builds.

If they continue to see the same players around that they have reported and perceive at toxic, this leads to they themselves becoming toxic and angry toward not just those players but the DM team as well. That or apathetic. They stop reporting, they accept how things are and stick to their little corner of the server, hoping that they don't have to deal with the players or the DMs they perceive as part of the problem. All of this is terrible for the community, but that is what I see happening as I talk to more and more people.

I hope, I really do, that this new stance helps to remedy this, as we see certain players removed or they finally make a genuine effort to be better and start treating players outside their personal social circle as human beings.

There is a lot of healing to be done. To those players who feel wronged at what they perceive has been happening, I hope you can give the DM team a chance to prove that this announcement is actually a good thing for them and the health of the server. Not a vendetta against them personally.

-Not meaning to derail the thread but some groups feel like there is favoritism not just because they percieve an asymmetrical enforcement of the rules, but that certain groups, regardless of their faction or characters always seem to be the ones that are given in game support or a larger, higher quality amount of events compared to other groups or players, which I believe also gives the perception of favoritism.

In another note I hope it does stem the tide, but personally cannot help think that in the back of my head it will only exasterbate the current feeling of the server in the public eye.

[Richørd]

I think people need to stop trashing Discord so damn much.

Of course there exist echo-chambers for some very bad reasons. True, true ...


... but that should not completely delegitimize how much fun and how awesome Discord can be for OOC communication, community building, event organizing and other stuff.
While I get that sometimes, even in the nicest of places, there can still be quite some ranting going on I think it's better for the ranting to happen at times and to let people vent off some steam instead of it collecting and exploding in game some day.
Speaking from personal experience : It only leads to bad situations.

Either way, Discord's positive sides should not be glanced over just to trash on it. I'd even go as far as to say that it seems like it's mostly Arelith veterans that despise it due to being "new and unnecessary".

[ExperimentAlpha]

I think one problem that has been building over time has been due to the DM keeping the results of reports private.

Before I say the following, I wish to be clear that I believe they SHOULD be private, but wish to perhaps shed some light to those not sure where all this toxic behaviour in the community is coming from. Let me be clear, this is not meant as an attack on the DM team who already do a very hard job.

I would say the private nature of reports is likely a significant part of why there is a perception of DM favouritism within the community among certain groups. The reason for this being we as players have no idea what happened in that report. Were they punished? Were they warned? Were they genuinely repentant? Did the DM team even speak to the player and just disregard the report? The reporting player has no idea about this. So they paint their own narrative, they speculate among themselves on discord or other communication platforms. Over time this builds and builds.

If they continue to see the same players around that they have reported and perceive at toxic, this leads to they themselves becoming toxic and angry toward not just those players but the DM team as well. That or apathetic. They stop reporting, they accept how things are and stick to their little corner of the server, hoping that they don't have to deal with the players or the DMs they perceive as part of the problem. All of this is terrible for the community, but that is what I see happening as I talk to more and more people.

I hope, I really do, that this new stance helps to remedy this, as we see certain players removed or they finally make a genuine effort to be better and start treating players outside their personal social circle as human beings.

There is a lot of healing to be done. To those players who feel wronged at what they perceive has been happening, I hope you can give the DM team a chance to prove that this announcement is actually a good thing for them and the health of the server. Not a vendetta against them personally.

-Not meaning to derail the thread but some groups feel like there is favoritism not just because they percieve an asymmetrical enforcement of the rules, but that certain groups, regardless of their faction or characters always seem to be the ones that are given in game support or a larger, higher quality amount of events compared to other groups or players, which I believe also gives the perception of favoritism.

In another note I hope it does stem the tide, but personally cannot help think that in the back of my head it will only exasterbate the current feeling of the server in the public eye.

This is exactly the sentiment I brought up in the server meeting. It feels like the established guilds are too entrenched into the server to ever see change, and have been 'around' long enough that they get a free pass. It is really unfortunate as someone who wants to start an IC guild that the best I can hope for in terms of housing is maybe a small quarter in the corner of a slum somewhere. Not once have I seen a guildhall available for rent in my entire playtime on the server, and I expect that even with changes things will remain effectively the same. Yes, likely the current Arcane Tower residency will simply have each of the archmages own the separate guildhalls. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To re-rail the thread: I seem to have been dealt a raw hand by fate and found myself guilty by association in most cases. Put quite frankly, my introduction to the game of Arelith was a friend giving me a cdkey and asking if I wanted to rig an election. It was not until after I stuck around that I realized Arelith was a game worth playing and is now my 'fallback' game that I go to and play regularly. The friends I played with all got banned for various reasons... and yet I still find myself on the raw side of DM attention.

As someone who does not have the ability to examine the Man Behind the Curtain, i can only conclude that this is because I have no interest in joining with the established cliques, preferring to organize with other players organically and bolster underdog factions in various ways. Unfortunately when these underdog factions run afoul of someone who is established - or, god forbid, they succeed where their goals are in opposition to the established faction - the level of DM scrutiny I feel is as if the burden of Sysiphus, forced to push a boulder uphill while everyone watches and waits for me to slip up before being crucified on the mountain of 'unfriendly attitude'.

Yes, I come off as callous often. I cannot account for that my brain was wired as it is, being autistic isn't a choice. It is not my fault that I see logical holes and try to help others see them. Yes I have tried to help DMs understand where a ruling could be improved in the last and tried to help them come to conclusions that would lead to better play experiences - because the way I am wired I will absolutely see the flaws in a statement as they are seen by the worst of us, as holes to be abused and manipulated for personal gain. Because that is just how my brain is wired.


Needless to say, I worry to no end that my 'problematic behaviors' and guilt by association are going to be the death of me. It's been fun.

[Kreydis]

I think people need to stop trashing Discord so damn much.

Of course there exist echo-chambers for some very bad reasons. True, true ...

You're correct that discord can have a positive influence. It's just that I don't believe the costs outweigh the benefits anymore. But if you're having a good experience that's great

[Alyxnia]

After coming to the realization that most settlement leaders are part of the same clique, and seeing that their friends are given what is apparently a free pass on several severe instances of rulebreaking i know was reported, I have lost most of my drive to play the server.

What little I had left vanished when I realized that my wish to form a new guild would in effect never be realized due to the fact that desirable property and quarters is just cycled amongst OOC friends and organized via third party chat programs.

Even reporting the latter, with extensive screenshots as proof and including some rather vile OOC harassment of another player that drove him from the server, seems to have had little to no effect.

Maybe something was done, maybe not, but the opacity of the report process and the apparent lack of consequences for certain groups of players, has led to the server not being worth playing in it's current state. I say this as someone playing on and off on Arelith for 15+ years.

[Lady Astray]

In my experience, the people who seem to hate Discord most seem to be the same people I and many others have had to report multiple times for metagaming and other rules infractions. Yet they are still on Discord, and quick to run us (the dissenters) out of channels with insults and accusations whenever our venting sheds light on the shady things they are doing. And yes, a lot of these players are what you'd call "veterans." My advice would be, if your actions are causing players to become distressed to the point they feel the need to vent and complain OOCly, maybe you should point the finger at yourself instead of them. Yes, you're allowed to play a jerk IC or be evil, but when your actions come at the expense of the enjoyment of anyone outside your group, you're part of the problem.

However, I've noticed a lot of victim-blaming tends to occur whenever new players feel slighted and complain about it. Also a disturbing mentality that it's okay to bully people who report actual rule breaking. Even a DM in this thread called people "malicious" for filing reports that were in all likelihood just pointing out actual violations of the rules. It seems highly unlikely to me someone would file a report saying something like, "Ban this person because I don't like them." In fact people on this server seem very hesitant to report unless something shady is actually going on. When the DM's put negative labels on you for reporting and dismiss your concerns entirely then why bother? The fact Duravayas still gets flak for a report that happened years ago speaks volumes.

I do hope that this changes eventually. For now I'm bowing out and seeking my fun elsewhere.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Even a DM in this thread called people "malicious" for filing reports that were in all likelihood just pointing out actual violations of the rules. It seems highly unlikely to me someone would file a report saying something like, "Ban this person because I don't like them." In fact people on this server seem very hesitant to report unless something shady is actually going on. When the DM's put negative labels on you for reporting and dismiss your concerns entirely then why bother? The fact Duravayas still gets flak for a report that happened years ago speaks volumes.

I do hope that this changes eventually. For now I'm bowing out and seeking my fun elsewhere.

Using OOC communication to coordinate mass reporting of a single individual is definitely a thing and it puts serious pressure on the DM team to ban that said single individual.