Why is Guldorand so unpopular?

[Zavandar]

When Mythal was still a thing Myon went through multiple prolonged periods of ghost town state.
For me it's the quintessential failed settlement of Arelith when I look back.

Its transition to Guldorand* seemed like a promise of improvement, but in essence it still retained the two major traits that made it not work in the first place - racial exclusivity (less mechanically enforced this time around, but still) and plot armor.

And there's no reason for any comparisons here as I don't see any players asking "why is Bendir/Brog so unpopular", do you?




*by falling from the sky, so I guess the crashing imagery might be taken in a literal sense here too!

wait so is myon stagnant or a ghost town?

either way i didn't think it was either and i've played w/ it plenty both before after the change (and i've always been a proponent for removing the mythal anyway)

but anyway someone did compare things to bendir/brog and again you alluded to them being inactive, not stagnant.

[Edens_Fall]

+1

This issue isn't Myon being only for elves, it's more the fact that the design team wanted Guldorand and Myon to co-exist without giving either side incentive to do so. Myon still acts like Myon and retreats into the Elf city after kicking the hornet's nest. There is literally no reason for them to care about working with Guldorand or being involved in the Fortress City. The same is partly true of Guldorand whose players can get frustrated with the mess and just retreat to Westcliff. Thus the cycle repeats itself and new Guldorand remains empty.

If the Design team wants the elves to have their own settlement then that's great, but if they wanted the two settlements to be one (Which I think is a great idea for RP and Story creation), then I would like to see everyone go all in. The one leg in, one leg out really doesn't do either side any favors in my opinion.

Heck, even combining Brog and Bendir might be a good idea.

I was not going to post here because this is the same useless argument that is happening time and again, but here goes.

Design wants Myon and Guldorand to mingle, yet there is no system for the extradition of criminals from Guldorand to Myon (or at least the relegating of such people to the Freeport). Guldorand gets to exile its criminals all it wants and be comfy in their space, but if Myon ever goes into Guldorand to socialize/do business they see "known drow lover and spy #7453" who is exiled from their side of the city, and things naturally get spicy. It's easier then to just stay on the elven side of town, because no one is willing to make any efforts whatsoever to make Myon people comfortable on the Guldorand side, preferring instead to just stubbornly continue the cycle that has been going on for years rather than showing any contrition or responsibility.

Anyway, I think this thread should probably be locked since it's getting awfully finger-pointy and pot-kettle in here.

I might point out that in order to mingle and work together both sides have to have incentive to do so. It is a two way street. From my own experience with Guldorand politics I might start with the simple advice that myon enforcers don't kill "known drow lover and spy #7453 in the city proper when they are there to visit or shop. Nor should they flee back to the elf district to escape the very limited jurisdiction of the City Watch in order to avoid the consequences for their very public murder.

It a rather tired cycle at this point. If Myon was seperate then they could return to their valued self isolation OR if they were forced to interact with Guldorand on equal terms with just as much at stake then that would be fine. There is already an elf on the council thus an opening for RP there.

A more Andunor approach might be interesting as well, with the elf district, upper district, and freeport each being their own minor settlements. Thus forcing all the factions into a council of sorts with the founders and removing both parties hide away Bolt holes.

The possibilities are near endless, but as it stands there is little IG incentive for any side to interact with honorable intentions.

[The GrumpyCat]

I suppose one could argue that as Myon's been under the same leadership for a while- and has kept a very similar style for a while now, it has some stagnation.

But I wouldn't do that personally. I actually agree that Myon is pretty boppin', from my experience.

I also would argue that Guld isn't that unpopular, nowadays its often rather busy. That being said - I do think that there's a lot of really good points to be made here, and some of which are already being worked on.

[2d6 emotional damage]

Im going to try a different approach. These are the reasons I go to Guldorand.

The people. You have Myon and Guldorand administrations. Already, you can be going to Guldorand just because of its proximity to Guldorand if you're an elf. Elf-ness is baked into the city. Some people in the Guldorand sphere are cool too. I'm excited to see them on and hope to run into them, and I know they hang out there, so I go there too.

The atmposhere. There's a church of bane here. And a thayan enclave. If I had a character that was related to either of those factions I'd be moving in. Don't forget the Kelemvor and Jergal themed buildings. The Freeport is also pretty much torgua, exiles don't carry there, and unless you're violating the charter, you can't be exiled from freeport either, so if I'm a pirate, that's probably where I'll go to get some socializing in or meeting people.

also some of the shops maintained by players are pretty good.

I like the hub and different nooks. the hub is the city square, so it's nice that even when passing through I can see people and maybe meet someone new or get involved in something. And I like all the secret alleys, theres so many secret routes to get around the city, I love exploring them or taking people on dramatic walks.

Its not that Guldorand is unpopular or so and so peed in the pool. I think it's on the individual player to go there and make something of it. It's not a dead town. Right now, there are many active, public stories going on you can get involved with or read about or ask about. Complaining and pointing fingers is really toxic and unfair to your fellow players. Just go out there and touch stuff.

[-XXX-]

but anyway someone did compare things to bendir/brog and again you alluded to them being inactive, not stagnant.

I didn't.

[FallenDabus]

I believe the problem with Guldorand is that it has the set up to be a proper Forgotten Realms like city but it never implemented what is necessary for it to be able to function like one for the players. There are a great many incentives for the "factions" to be constantly at one another's throat, but very little to encourage them to work together because it is of benefit to everyone.

I feel a much better way for Guldorand to have been setup would be that the Founder-Council each have a faction that players can gain "citizenship" through, and if those factions are successful they unlock a worthwhile benefit to the city.

If the Iron Throne type faction is very successful, it lowers the effective tax rate on shops by 2.5% for Guldorand and Myon. So the city can get a 5% on a 2.5% tax rate. Trade flourishes and the populace reaps the benefit of the great wealth of ill-gotten goods.

Perhaps tie in Sencliff by allowing the ranking PC member of the Iron Throne a way to offer privateer contracts.

If the Thayan faction is very successful, it unlocks an additional NPC shop with some neat magic item consumables that can only be gotten there and the Guldorand flagship gets that arcane cannon thingy.

If the Flaming Fist is very successful, the city unlocks cool additional mercenary henchmen that can be hired and the High Sherrif can exile three additional characters for free.

Instead of the Shields just have the Flaming Fist faction be the player & npc army of Guldorand. That way players have an additional purpose next to the city watch. I believe Baldur's Gate has that exact setup where their main military is a mercenary faction.

Zhents could unlock that the High Sherrif can give a candidate in another settlement 3 votes.

Myon could get some mythal activity that blocks divination from piercing inside Myon (but allow it in the Elven Quarter) and perhaps opens a neat location of imported evermeet fineries in the city.

These are also just ideas from the top of my head, but I feel like that would create a far more interesting dynamic. Suddenly doing the "right thing" by driving out yer adversaries is costly, and allowing unpalatable neighbors to succeed gets you a benefit.

Could even be for one faction to unlock its benefits, at least three other factions need to hit the requirement as well. Just to really incentives how the success of the city is dependant on it all working.

[Spriggan Bride]

It's so weird much of the Arelith playerbase wants its cities run like a gated community where any undesirables aren't allowed. That's not how big cities work in real life, in history for the most part and in D&D. You have large groups and factions who may be at odds with each other culturally, politically, racially, whatever but you all manage to get through life living next to each other (maybe with an occasional flare up or worse).

The thinking behind keeping players from excluding their perceived enemies in Guld is solid because it's abused elsewhere. Forgotten Realms cities are supposed to be melting pots of adventurers and yes some of them are dangerous and scary and worship evil gods but that's what makes urban RP exciting, you never know what's going on behind closed doors. Cordor doesn't have that, the racial settlements don't (and are the only ones who have good reason not to), Westcliff doesn't. That's the potential of Guld and I wish it would be looked at favorably instead of as a problem. Yeah your paladin might have to talk to or even temporarily work with a Banite, that's what D&D is about!

[Distant Relation]

It's so weird much of the Arelith playerbase wants its cities run like a gated community where any undesirables aren't allowed. That's not how big cities work in real life, in history for the most part and in D&D. You have large groups and factions who may be at odds with each other culturally, politically, racially, whatever but you all manage to get through life living next to each other (maybe with an occasional flare up or worse).

The thinking behind keeping players from excluding their perceived enemies in Guld is solid because it's abused elsewhere. Forgotten Realms cities are supposed to be melting pots of adventurers and yes some of them are dangerous and scary and worship evil gods but that's what makes urban RP exciting, you never know what's going on behind closed doors. Cordor doesn't have that, the racial settlements don't (and are the only ones who have good reason not to), Westcliff doesn't. That's the potential of Guld and I wish it would be looked at favorably instead of as a problem. Yeah your paladin might have to talk to or even temporarily work with a Banite, that's what D&D is about!

This times a thousand.

Its a real shame that so many other settlements in Arelith seem to be utterly unchanging on the long term, and with anyone who thinks or acts different being quickly isolated and/or killbashed to oblivion.

If your idea of why Guldorand is bad is because it isn't an unchanging slice-of-life sitcom of you and your four best friends having the same predictable adventures where you don't have to deal with those *other people*, then yea, you're missing the point.

If your idea of why Guldorand is bad is because you can't just killbash anyone who isn't in your corner of the alignment grid over and over until they are forced to retreat to Sencliff or Andunor just to be able to play, then yea, you're missing the point.

[-XXX-]

wait so is myon stagnant or a ghost town?

Myon used to be a ghost town back when it was a mechanically enforced racially exclusive city with a plot armor. It shouldn't go back there.
Myon is stagnant today, because even despite player activity, repetitive RP themes and political plays can get a little tiresome - I see Myon going the way of Benwick* presently.


And I agree with Edens_Fall here: how's elves murdering people in the Fortress City and then running to hide in the elven quarter any different from them murdering people in Cordor and then running to hide behind Mythal?



*Benwick had a sizable and active PC population. The RP just became too repetitive with no room for innovation, so it had to go

[Zavandar]

wait so is myon stagnant or a ghost town?

Myon used to be a ghost town back when it was a mechanically enforced racially exclusive city with a plot armor. It shouldn't go back there.
Myon is stagnant today, because even despite player activity, repetitive RP themes and political plays can get a little tiresome - I see Myon going the way of Benwick* presently.



*Benwick had a sizable and active PC population. The RP just became too repetitive with no room for innovation, so it had to go

Were you playing when benwick happened?

also maybe the "repetitive rp themes" have to do with having repetitive problems. the administrations of bendir, guldorand, and brog haven't changed very much and neither have their policies. do you think myon is like them, too? and have you tried to meaningfully interact on more than one character?

i have to give props to Cordor for changing hands and rules frequently.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

It's so weird much of the Arelith playerbase wants its cities run like a gated community where any undesirables aren't allowed. That's not how big cities work in real life, in history for the most part and in D&D. You have large groups and factions who may be at odds with each other culturally, politically, racially, whatever but you all manage to get through life living next to each other (maybe with an occasional flare up or worse).

The thinking behind keeping players from excluding their perceived enemies in Guld is solid because it's abused elsewhere. Forgotten Realms cities are supposed to be melting pots of adventurers and yes some of them are dangerous and scary and worship evil gods but that's what makes urban RP exciting, you never know what's going on behind closed doors. Cordor doesn't have that, the racial settlements don't (and are the only ones who have good reason not to), Westcliff doesn't. That's the potential of Guld and I wish it would be looked at favorably instead of as a problem. Yeah your paladin might have to talk to or even temporarily work with a Banite, that's what D&D is about!

While this is a great point about most human cities in the forgotten realms its actually not exactly accurate when talking about cities with a large population of elves and a decent to large population of other races, of which there have only been two. Myth Drannor, which was run by elves and followed what was known as the code of the people ("What happens to one happens to all") as a rule of law. Evil was not going to thrive there. And now you have Silverymoon, which often prides itself as the new Myth Drannor. And while they do have a human ruler in Alustriel Silverhand, they are more elven than elves themselves, being a daughter of mystra and immortal. Again, not a city you would want to try and build a balanced setting around. Beyond that you would be hard pressed to find a city in the forgotten realms with an elven population that breaks 10% or so, and most of those elves more than likely chose to live among the humans as a novelty, something to brag about as they get older. "I spent my entire 100s drunk in Suzail!"

Does that mean there was no room in this design space to make it work as intended? No, it's just a game and there could be a gazillion reasons why the elves have to tolerate living in guldorand with it not being just as they would expect given the nature of their race, and a big one in the elven artifacts in the wells already exists. But just to talk about the flip side of the coin, elves that feel their way is the best and flighty humans don't know what they are doing is pretty much cannon for the forgotten realms.

[-XXX-]

Were you playing when benwick happened?

also maybe the "repetitive rp themes" have to do with having repetitive problems. the administrations of bendir, guldorand, and brog haven't changed very much and neither have their policies. do you think myon is like them, too? and have you tried to meaningfully interact on more than one character?

i have to give props to Cordor for changing hands and rules frequently.

I have, yes.

For the record, the administrative in Brog changed relatively recently, but that's beside the point as IMO the repetition isn't necessarily tied to the longetivity of leadership figures.
In the end, a good leader enables their people to do what they want. It's when they want to do the same thing over and over again, issues become more apparent.

[Svrtr]

(stuff)

Back to the topic, why is Westcliff called Westcliff when it's on the ... east coast? This alludes me greatly.

(More Stuff)

Just wanted to say, its on the east coat, to its east is a coast.

To its west are the cliffs

Ok answer and pun aside, yea Ill just add the way it is setup is interesting politically, and has sort of internal struggle reminiscent of presidential democratic systems, it does make it strange in a game where you can't easily, say, invest tax funds into building schools or ships or sick wards. It has approximately three general interests groups in each of the districts that are competing, and the elven district did always seem kind of strange in its presence and setup. There is definitely a lack of identity and firm direction.

Ill say though, as a lover of playing dwarves and duergar I do love that duergar are expressly permitted in the charter to live. I would even be interested to see it expanded to allow place for them to stay and run for political offices more easily (if only because I want to see a proper surface duergar presence for a bit of fun tension, and also of course systems for settlement wars even if that would be a year or two down the line project)

[-XXX-]

To its west are the cliffs

I think it's west of the cliffs actually

[Zavandar]

Were you playing when benwick happened?

also maybe the "repetitive rp themes" have to do with having repetitive problems. the administrations of bendir, guldorand, and brog haven't changed very much and neither have their policies. do you think myon is like them, too? and have you tried to meaningfully interact on more than one character?

i have to give props to Cordor for changing hands and rules frequently.

I have, yes.

For the record, the administrative in Brog changed relatively recently, but that's beside the point as IMO the repetition isn't necessarily tied to the longetivity of leadership figures.
In the end, a good leader enables their people to do what they want. It's when they want to do the same thing over and over again, issues become more apparent.

it changed after how long and remained pretty well in-house, still. don't be dishonest now.

as far as good leaders go, we agree.

[2d6 emotional damage]

wait so is myon stagnant or a ghost town?

Myon used to be a ghost town back when it was a mechanically enforced racially exclusive city with a plot armor. It shouldn't go back there.
Myon is stagnant today, because even despite player activity, repetitive RP themes and political plays can get a little tiresome - I see Myon going the way of Benwick* presently.


And I agree with Edens_Fall here: how's elves murdering people in the Fortress City and then running to hide in the elven quarter any different from them murdering people in Cordor and then running to hide behind Mythal?



*Benwick had a sizable and active PC population. The RP just became too repetitive with no room for innovation, so it had to go

you can enter myon as a non elf. including their special elf only zone in the trees. you don't need to sneak in or anything to do it either. you're just allowed to go through. i don't know how they are hiding behind any mythal.

[Edens_Fall]

The former Mthyal is gone but now they are protected by the Charter, which makes the elf district an extension of the Myon settlement. Sure you can walk in there but you can't enforce any laws.

In short you can kill whoever you like as an elf and run to the district to escape any consequences. No surface settlement can war with another, thus there is no political pressure any other settlement can impose on Myon.

I'd also point out the there are only two ways into myon proper, both of which can be easly defended unlike every other settlement in Arelith. This makes it even harder to go in a dig out an offender unless the Myon leaders want them out, which generally elves always defend elves no matter what.

[Xarge VI]

I actually disagree. A good leader in real life empowers people to do what is meaningful to them. But in rp setting a good leader creates a story.

In an RP setting a prideful, short tempered, short sighted, bull headed etc. Etc. Leader is a good leader. And I think a lot of stagnation is caused by leadership that enables people to do what they want because that causes characters and groups chase their own things and interact with the power structures only superficially.

Some level of frustration is good for the story. Opposition creates meaning and the knight needs a dragon to slay- Or you know.. an unbending bureaucrat who punishes the knight for improper spelling in a patrol report.

With goodly and neutral leaders being embodiments of wisdom, charitability and enablement who empowers everyone to pursue their goals it leaves only Evil characters to be the glue that makes characters deeply engaged. This causes the change in leadership style to be short lived as understandably good aligned and most neutral characters don't want the known diabolist in charge.

In short my request for all the world leaders: Be worse at your jobs.

Also- Why can't surface settlements go to war against one another? I wasn't aware of a ruling like that.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

It is my experience that the people who play in Guldorand love it, but that it tends to be a much less populous crowd. (Mind you, my experience is very dated). You touched on a lot of the reasons in your OP, but I think it's not so much that it's unpopular as it is unpopulated, and I think this mostly comes down to the level range of monsters around it. Walk south one transition, and you immediately get charged by ogres and/or hill giants, and less than half a screen from there wyverns will literally start a fight off by landing on you with a knockdown attempt. Leave the city north instead, and you find epic casters and near-epic magical spiders that will absolutely wreck your face if you go near them before level tween+.

This always made me view Guldorand as a strategic gathering point for cross-realm conflict (underdark vs. surface) and an ideal launching point for any truly epic adventures.

Granted, you can just hop multiple ships from Cordor to get there at level two, but at level two, you have far better things to do with your gold than travel somewhere where you can't adventure to make more gold to replace it.

Guldorand is essentially the only place on the server where a character isn't realistically spending a significant amount of time within even at least four transitions of unless they're past their Tweens or being personally given a tour of the island by someone much higher level, and it generally has nothing other than the presence of high level characters to RP/make connections with that qualifies as any kind of worthwhile net gain for lower level characters.

To fully frame this perspective, afaik, it's the only settlement on the server you can choose to spend an award at to start at level 15 in that location. While I believe this was done to ameliorate the perceived population problem, I suspect it more-so highlights the reason for the population problem in the first place.

We joke/snark about the idea of "RP begins at level 30," but in my experience this is untrue far more frequently than it's true, and on any given high server population day, any of the starting settlements will have a handful of lower level characters running around and doing tasks that make our higher level characters wax nostalgic, and offer their assistance. It has been my experience that this is actually a decently large representative interaction of higher level characters and lower level characters when it happens, and that building these connections reinforces the desire to continue playing in the location where it happened.

These things don't happen frequently in Guldorand unless a higher level character 'adopts' a lower level character for the otherwise entirely unprofitable (or certainly lethal) journey from another settlement.

[Edens_Fall]

Guldorands charter prohibits war without council (DM) approval.

Also since the end of the servers War system, any active surface conflict between settlements is quickly smashed by King Edward or some other such NPC figure. The idea being, we don't want the "old way" of things returning. IE all the settlement wars and Wharftown.

That's my understanding of things anyway. I could be totally off the mark.

[Marsi]

I used to be all "destroy the mythal! force the elves out!" but I've seen Myon become a bastion of great roleplay even with the Mythal intact.

It's only reinforced my opinion that what makes a settlement awesome or terrible has more to do with the players than the design or mechanical realities.

I think people are too quick to form a judgement about a place and too slow to ever change it. I remember getting involved in Cordorian politics in 2017 and thinking the city was in a bloom of revival, a renaissance. Still, you'd see that basic "hurr cordor bad" take parroted all the way up to the Wharftown war, after which everyone began trying to retroactively insert themselves.

Also, Benwick wasn't just removed because it was "stagnant". The player dynamics were grotesque. The castle was the familial property of a tight-knit group of veteran players, and anyone else on the outside was a prole not worth roleplaying with. Even Myon at its worst welcomed new elf players - it just didn't tolerate dissent from the dreadfully boring social paradigm. Benwick, on the other hand, was suspicious and insular even towards its own; those who weren't among the "originals" were always second citizens. Usually a settlement/faction sucks because it isn't worth the trouble of changing it. This was not the case with Benwick. Many, many very public and well-roleplayed attempts had been made to change or shake-up Benwick, and they were always too easily thwarted by a largely AFK gentry.

[RedGiant]

After reading a few more pages, I've decided to be more blunt in my opinion on this.

My problem with Guldorland is the cyclical nature of the settlement within the settlement conflict.

Much of the early-era UD problems centered around the narrow view players brought to Drow RP. No one wanted Drow to stop being Drow, but I think there was a general acknowledgement that what was desired from the playerbase was more the Drow of Skullport, which could prove a much richer mine for concepts, than say the Drow of Menzoberranzan. And so we have Andunor.

Here too, I don't think anyone wants elves to stop being elves, but on the Surface we have Menzoberranzan and Skullport existing at the same time (analogously that is, in Myon and Guldorand). I'm not one who wants to see either wiped off the map, but I do think the setting would benefit from some sort of line being drawn between the two. You want high elven culture, Coronals, and lacy shirts? Fine, go to Myon. You want a harper elven wizardesses who fall for a Zhentarim wizard clones of Manshoon?*** Try Guldorand.

And it's not like you couldn't play a REAL elf in Guldorand or an off-concept in Myon, but each of these individuals should feel at least generally discouraged by the setting of ever changing one into the other.

(***Not...making...this...up. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ashemmi)

[Morgy]

It's so weird much of the Arelith playerbase wants its cities run like a gated community where any undesirables aren't allowed. That's not how big cities work in real life, in history for the most part and in D&D. You have large groups and factions who may be at odds with each other culturally, politically, racially, whatever but you all manage to get through life living next to each other (maybe with an occasional flare up or worse).

The thinking behind keeping players from excluding their perceived enemies in Guld is solid because it's abused elsewhere. Forgotten Realms cities are supposed to be melting pots of adventurers and yes some of them are dangerous and scary and worship evil gods but that's what makes urban RP exciting, you never know what's going on behind closed doors. Cordor doesn't have that, the racial settlements don't (and are the only ones who have good reason not to), Westcliff doesn't. That's the potential of Guld and I wish it would be looked at favorably instead of as a problem. Yeah your paladin might have to talk to or even temporarily work with a Banite, that's what D&D is about!

I think often a lot of players try a bit too hard to make their cities as stable and controlled as possible. This of course makes sense from a real life/ooc perspective! But IG this generally leads to much less internal conflict/growth for controversial factions. The opposite argument is that you really only have one tool to permanently defeat your internal opponents, and that is exile (killing each other often only being acknowledged for 24hrs), and conflict becomes stale without resolution.

I like Guldorand’s varies inhabitants certainly, but the city still has a lot of adjustments that need to be made for it to feel less rigid.

[Paint]

To me, it feels like Guldorand's been coming back alive as of late. There's people there congregating almost every time I go there now, which is definitely a welcome change. I can't say exactly when it shifted, but I'm not complaining that it did. I can compare that to Cordor, which I've been spending more time at, which goes through similar cycles of activity and inactivity depending on the time of day and day of the week. They're pretty comparable.

I used to complain a lot that Brogendenstein is a ghost town and vacant all the time, and I got a lot of pushback from that too, actually. I never really bothered to investigate it until I was dragged into Brog RP by someone else's rather charismatic RP, and what I found was that Brog's pretty lively at very specific hours of the day. Bendir has the same vibe.

Guld, however, seems to have varying levels of activity at all times of the day now. It's not always RP that I feel like I can wedge one of my characters into, and that's fine, but the RP is definitely there now, and if you were skeptical of Guld, I'd say go check it out and see if you can't invest some time into it now, because you might get a lot out of it.

I'm not going to speak on the IC politics of Guld because I don't think I have anything meaningful to add to the conversation right now, but I will at least say that I think the lore of Guldorand is interesting enough to create a great situation for political intrigue and subterfuge.

Edit: I'm running the risk of cheerleading here, considering I haven't said anything meaningful. I have critiques of Guldorand, but I think other people've said what I wanted to say on the subject already better than I have, and I'll leave it at that.

[Rei_Jin]

I don't believe Guldorand needs to be unpopular as things stand.

My own experience (I played Tom the Wand Merchant), after time to reflect, is this.

There are three main "endgame" playstyles on Arelith; PvP, Politics, and Simslife.

Cities naturally offer potential for all three of these playstyles.

The issues come when there is conflict with people who have different playstyles who aren't willing/able to really engage across that divide.

PvPers do not do conflict the same way as Politicians, Politicians don't do it the same as Simslife folks... etc.

When Guldorand launched, most people (myself included) thought it was a beautiful city, with so much potential, and so we invested ourselves into it.

And then came the conflict between folk with different playstyles.

It felt like Guldorand became a punching bag between factions, and a lot of folk burnt out.

Now, that could simply be new town nerves which will/have settle(d) over time, and it is a year this weekend since the city launched.

Are there issues with the way that the Charter is written and enforced? IMO, yes.

Could things have been done better at different points? Always, and that is the case with everything.

Does the Guldorand server need more "stuff" to do, and does the Deep Wells need some attention? Absolutely, and I believe such things are a work in progress.

But, my experience with Tom, and with my new PC, has shown me that I really, really don't like the PvP or politics endgame playstyle, and I instead love the simslife, and so I am making choices more in line with that.

It's working a lot better for me, and I would encourage others to work out what it is they enjoy, and to make choices that help them do that.

TLDR: Guldorand isn't perfect and things can always be worked on, but we as players have a responsibility to do what will improve our own experiences. Know what your own playstyle is, and work towards that; it helps.