I admit the pessimism is exhausting to fight through, and I find myself doing it a lot. Maybe its a trick of the community and a common trait a lot of us share - I have to consciously be aware of it myself and try to either ignore it or deny it. But fighting it in others is often a very, very difficult uphill battle, and I find I have to do it continuously. But my own efforts are not enough and will never be, they need some backup as it were. But I will reiterate a previous point - apply, apply, apply. Be it CC or DM's.
That said, I think it needs to be made clear and people need to remember that our current DM team and our current CC are not in any way doing a 'bad job'. As has been noted, they've been considerate, they've been kind, they've put in enormous amounts of effort and work on their free time (and it is vastly more than what we perceive here and in game, that much is a certainty), and they've received nothing for it. Negativity does absolutely nothing to help that, it doesn't encourage anyone, and it doesn't do anything except make hard working people feel undervalued, and we need to stop that.
If there's to be a CC election, it shouldn't even be considered that the current members aren't 'good' at it - they're great, they have enormous knowledge and have helped keep the ship steady against a barrage of issues for an age now. In truth I don't even think its a question that most if not all of them remain, but adding some others to help wouldn't hurt. Same with the DM team as well. Hence the call to apply. Don't wait for change, don't call for a revolution, don't be a negative nancy about it - help. You may not succeed but nobody will achieve anything at all if nobody puts their hand up and volunteer. Of course folks will be rejected. Don't take it personal. Be there to support the ones that make it.
Also in regards to the 'paladin jihad' callout - the correct term is 'Crusade'. But more succinctly, since it was formed one thing can be made clear - no one has died (or more accurately, died and been corpse hidden) since its creation. Not a single PC, despite ample opportunities to do so presenting themselves. Conflict can exist, should exist, and unless evil characters are in fact players who don't accept consequences and simply want a sandbox to do what they want (which I know is not true) then I fail to see how creating a threat on a player level (and accepting threat in return) is a bad thing. But this is getting off topic. Let me be clear and transparent - the 'Paladin Jihad' hasn't corpse hidden anyone, has raised everyone they've killed afterwards (a grand total of one character in fact), and exists to provide like minded characters a venue to channel their playing style, while operating with -very- strict rules in regards to what we should do with low level PC's. Namely, leave them alone as much as possible, while providing IC conflict without simply resorting to PvP immediately. Anyone saying otherwise is frankly wrong, and this sounds like the very sort of negativity and rumour mongering that has previously in this thread been addressed as something that needs to stop.
You're actually one of the more restrained groups which is why I'm less afraid to call you guys out. The others I kept conspicuously absent because it'd be too flame-y to give them a name with such egregious examples laid out.
I called you guys out though because you are part of this server's make-up and you do have a say in how the current server's atmosphere is run simply through the sheer potency of your group. Fortunately, as previously stated, you guys are a lot more restrained than earlier examples forever etched in my mind of other good guy characters. I also don't envy you guys because you're so high level and I imagine a lot of your stuff is being stuck in the mist camp out of fear of being those guys.
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Can I just say its a monumental relief to hear someone on the so called 'other side' gets it? You've hit the nail on the head, it 'is' mostly what we do. None of us want to stomp on anyones story, no one wants to be 'that' guy.
Thank you for that, I appreciate it, we almost certainly all do. I know you play very antagonist characters yourself, and you've got a better perspective than us on what its like on the other side. There 'has' to be a good balance to let both sides have fun while remaining true to the character, and hitting that is fraught with all kinds of opportunities for things going pear shaped. Understanding is a huge part of that and hearing that is a huge relief.
Call out accepted, and call out away. And I very much appreciate the clarification.
And that's the rub, isn't it? You already mentioned that you're reluctant to do anything crazy like take on Strahd and I fully understand that, you've probably grandfathered gear, definitely some serious levels, and enchanted gear. You already ran the full gambit and doing that all over again sounds like proverbial hell, which I'm sure you can easily echo trying to regear your other alt.
Do you want to closure something that took years to play? I sure as hell wouldn't, but at the same time if I had something so powerful I'd wonder what I could do and what would be welcomed that isn't going to absolutely, under no any other circumstance, lead to death. Also if you died now and had to respawn for whatever reason, be it PvP, or otherwise did you know at your current level (20) you'd lose FIVE levels? How would that make you feel?
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A thing about leveling, I'm not sure I could ever go back to the POTM style of things after running the Arelith circle grind(tm) and seeing my exp, not being throttled, and having ready access to info. When I see other people, I don't get pissed off that they're demolishing the spawn, or annoyed at an AMPC/DM for interjecting (I feel guilty I feel angry at them) on a rare good spawn, and more often than not ask if they're doing the same writ (quest) and we do some circle grind with some roleplay along the way. By the end of an hours work, depending on level, you could get useful loot and somewhere in between 1k - 100k worth of gold depending on your level.
The later sounds abhorrent but they all eventually got to a gold sink, be it enchanting, trade (which still has value despite it being based on level), or your 50 gp - 3k a week pad that you have that acts as storage, or bribing lowbies in their basic politic systems. Bear in mind, I did this on the surface (the 'good' side) as a CE demon-dealing warlock and some, not all, people had a say about something so blatantly horrible and I barely hid it beyond at towns.
I'm not saying I'm quitting POTM forever (tm), but the current system would probably just lead me to level a guy on the side for the unnamed amount of months, leveling when the cap is gone, before I even think roleplaying and engaging the community beyond a, 'hey, want to grind?' level with my friends until I reach a point I feel able to touch an enchanted player with my own enchanted gear. I'm surprised a level system could do that, but I'm not sure if I'm alone and I'm a legitimately horrible player or if people would lead to similar conclusions. I know a few people do similar things but that's not a reliable source at all.
I'm not at all advocating for a 1:1 copy from Arelith because I'm aware of the context of this server after playing here for a long time. But there's redundant, frustrating systems in place like having a spawn system, a soft exp cap, AND a role-play exp throttle while going off of vague estimates of where you could be at all that only punishes the people that don't no-life their way within a few months.
They also have an epic sacrifice system where you delete your character and roll for another bonus of varying degrees on another character after 16+. That's how casual closuring is over there.