[Poruku]

In current-day Sigrogana legends 2, there are three ways to play:
- Casual RP
- Producing Content
- Consuming Content

Those who are content with everyday slice-of-life discussion and minor interactions may enjoy some casual RP in the various public hubs of Korvara, or perhaps by meeting up with people in a private group, or by joining an LFG. This is a core part of the SL2 experience, but it's very rare for anything interesting to happen during this, except perhaps relationship RP and all related activities.

However, if one wants something of substance in this game, they need to participate in the content-based economy that permeates the game. Either by waiting for something to happen, or by making something happen themselves.

What is Content?
You may have noticed that Events are the lifeblood of this game. However, there's much more I consider "Content".
- Eventmin Events
- Player-ran national events such as festivals.
- Player-ran storylines, such as personal stories, which might involve EM Events but don't fully rely on them.
- Player Antagonists
- Disruptive characters (soft antags). Characters that cause issues and destabilize things without causing high-stake conflict.
- Player groups that band together to roleplay in a specific context. Like the Azai slavery or Crow's nest.
- Other various things that make people RP.

As you can see, it's a very vague definition. And we've seen posts in the past discussing this at length. However, I don't just want to define Content. I also want to point out why this is a huge issue at the core of SL2. But first let's talk about what isn't considered Content.

The Core SL2 Experience: Grinding
Sigrogana Legends 2 is a video game. In most games, the players are able to enjoy playing the game in some way without needing the input of other players. This is true in SL2, you can just focus on grinding ad infinitam, however you won't really get much out of it. In order to gain something meaningful, you must interact with other people. In fact, the PvE of SL2 is essentially completely separate from the roleplay. There's almost nothing you can do with the game systems that will affect the RP in any way, except for PvP.

PvP
A long-hated part of SL2, the PvP system is nonetheless quite enjoyable in many cases. In any game with conflict, having a strong PvP system is necessary. However, many people dislike it for various reasons, mainly that there's a huge divide between the "good" PvPers and the general populace. This is even more true when evade is involved, creating "feast or famine" gameplay. Without PvP, we wouldn't have any way to determine the outcome of minor conflicts, and we'd be truly fucked if that was the case. Let's take a moment to appreciate that we actually do have a solid system to fight on a small scale. Though some may bemoan the fact "sweatlords" can theoretically impose their will on others using this, in reality thanks to the consent-based system, PvP victory or defeat is not that important, and it's only possible on a tiny scale with consenting parties. For these reasons, I think this system is doing its job just fine.

What's Left?
Now we arrive to the crux of the matter. Aside from Grinding and PvE, there are no systems in place in SL2. Everything else is either external or player-ran. Eventmins are not part of the game; those are also players believe it or not. They have great tools to do that, yes, but just because they've got more power and are willing to help, it doesn't change the core dynamic: people creating content for other people. In many cases, EM powers aren't necessary, except to instantiate a map (something that we had in G6 without needing EMs by the way), and creating battles against custom monsters.

Point is, almost everything else is created by people in the community. We're talking lore, we're talking nations, politics, conflicts, crime and suffering, etc etc. Everything exciting that people are enthusiastic about is made by players. You could say that's simply the nature of RP, and you'd be somewhat correct. However, this creates a problem.

The Problem
Each day, I log onto SL2 and wonder what I should do. How can I have fun with this game? Perhaps I can check the ping channels to see if something's happening. Perhaps I can look if there's any events going on today. Perhaps I can log on with one of my favorite characters and seek out LFGs or public areas, to see if anyone's there. Perhaps I'm going to get into a conversation, or afk for a long time while tabbed out. Perhaps I'll do some meaningless spars to have a bit of fun, or go do some grinding to kill time and progress.

But unless I happen to hop into an exciting thing such as a player-ran event, or get attacked by an antag, nothing among those options is particularly interesting. What about the fun stuff? The blood-pumping action, the tear-jerking stories, the heart-wrenching conflict? In order to participate in any of those things, unless I happen to be extremely lucky, I need to make it happen myself. Oh boy, here we go again...

Making Content
So I don't feel like being bored today. I want to truly enjoy playing SL2. To do this, I need to start something of my own. Now the world is truly my oyster, right? I could play a bad guy, and attack people. I could start a storyline, get people involved. Maybe start a group, and ping my group, and show up to do an activity that I planned out. Maybe I can even start some larger scale conflict and get many people involved.

The Content Planning
I first need to put out the bait, and for people to take it. I put up a post, in the LFG, in game and discord, I put up a big "looking for players" post in the discord forum, and talk to people giving them more details. I wait for people to join. Perhaps I DM some friends and get them to join. Okay, maybe after all this effort I only got like 2 people in. We can do something with just 2, but it's also not really enough. We wait and wait, maybe one drops out when another joins in. The project is forgotten, effort wasted. Or maybe not! Maybe we actually get like 4+ people.

Alright, well, I need to start dealing with scheduling first. Make a discord group, or a new server. Okay, I also need to make sure everyone is on the same page. Write rules etc. If I'm some kind of aggressor, I need to walk on eggshells and make sure everyone involved is perfectly ok with what's going on. If I'm interacting with a nation, or any group, I need to DM people to make sure they're ok with me doing the thing. I also need to make sure there's no disagreements, or perhaps even secret disagreement and resentment.

Even if we're not doing conflict, everyone comes in with their own expectations and things they want out of it. They expect me, the Content Creator, to give them content that suits their taste. It's only fair, I asked them to join me, right? I, the organizer, am here to please. Time and time again, I've accepted this responsibility, and I will continue to do so. This is how it works.

The Content
Now that everything is ready, perhaps we'll do something. I finally scheduled something so that we got like 3 people able to join in. Perhaps it's one-on-one as well, and we can just meet. I kidnap them, I get killed by them, I cut their hair, I mow their lawn. Anything's good, anything's content. We have a wonderful interaction, a proper scene with a context. A real moment of RP where there's a clear goal, parties with their own goals and motivations, perhaps even a clash and a great conflict of both steel and ideals.

Or maybe it sucks, and we all wasted our time. But that doesn't matter, it's important to keep trying to get those great moments. If we stop trying, we'll never get the Good RP™.

The Resolution
If I'm lucky enough for it to go well, then it's over as soon as it started. Any problem in SL2 is, of course, made to be resolved. We soon enough will return to the status Quo where everything is perfect. If there is a bad guy, they must be removed. If a character has a personal problem, it must be solved. These things not happening may make people lose interest over time, fall off the content, because like I mentioned earlier, everyone has their own expectations when going into something. If you dangle meat before the player, and then you tell them they can't eat it, they may mentally disengage from your content. Thus, you need to satisfy everyone. And people in this game love for everything to be ok. I do too, because of course. We're so starved for content that we'll immediately devour any morsel. We'll push and push and roleplay our heart out, seeking the right path that will let us see a Good End.

The Burn-Out
Well, it's all over now... What did I get out of this? Really, as the event runner, the content maker, I can't help but shake this feeling... That all I got from this whole experience is that other people have enjoyed it. In some cases, I was so busy making sure everyone was happy and that it went smoothly, that I barely got to enjoy it myself. But that's fine, it's my responsibility... Well, what about the times it didn't go so well? Everyone blames me, or others, or has bitter memories of the thing I've built due to drama or something they didn't like happening IC.

If I ran this as an Eventmin, it's an even stronger feeling. It's like playing chess with myself. Everything I planned, happened. I wrote a book, and people read it front to back...

The Slums
It's a story I've been through countless times. The Marauders, The Greilland homonculi, The Dead Drop Punks. When the slums dropped, I was so excited. I created like 7 characters, some lore, and a whole gangster group. I gathered my people, wrote the things on discord, organized it, and then I roleplayed. I created events, and interacted with people in the world too. I invited people and they came to join me.

And I continued to ask; who wants to do something with me? People propped up occasionally, but then I realized something. When someone answers the call for Content, they have the mindset of a participant. This is the missing link in my enjoyment of SL2.

I made a group, and ran events. I had my people do things with my NPCs, crimes or conflicts. I had people interact with my other, more evil gang, I even kidnapped people to establish them in the greater picture.

But after everything is all said and done... Why am I left with a desert? I intended to plant seeds, to create a movement, and interact with people. But in the end, I only made people interact with me. Because there's nobody else to interact with. All the leads dried up, all the other groups, the gangs and NPCs, everything was lost.

I realized that I was the only person who created content. This is why I gave up yet again, like I've done countless times in the past.

The Conclusion
And despite this, I'll keep going. For some reason, I always seem to come back to SL2 despite my innumerable failures. Although many people seem to appreciate what I've done, I can't shake the feeling like I don't have a true belonging. Every time I try to start something, it takes so much effort, unless I'm doing it all on my own. And if I am, like making a bandit and just ganking people, it's easier sure, but it's even more random and ephemeral. And if I use my eventmin powers to make events, it's even more impersonal, even though it's often fun.

The more I play this god-forsaken beloved game of mine, the more I understand why people just retreat to their cliques and rp with their friends. Shit, I wish I had one of those so I could have some fun. Or better yet, why so many people I love have left the game for good. I feel so isolated playing this game sometimes. But then what do I do with the friends I do have? It's the same charade of having to create something... I sometimes feel like everyone is in some kind of bubble, either with friends or of their own making.

The Way Forward
To bring it back, I want to say there is hope for SL2. I believe that to make this game better, we need our beloved Dev, Nef Miyama, to make some real decisions and improve the core experience to involve more roleplay and opportunities for conflict and problems to happen organically in the world. SL2 Korvara is a woefully stagnant world, where each attempt to shake things up is punished. I believe the only way to move forward is not to blame players, leaders, and EMs, but rather to enjoy what we have, and ask for some real change. We have enough items, dungeons, and mobs. Shit, bring back player housing. What good has this done? We need to look at what Korvara failed to accomplish, and revisit it.

We need Dev to make this game into a roleplaying game. I am done blaming the community. Having fun playing a game shouldn't be the player's responsibility. It shouldn't be a job.

I will also say that Content isn't bad in itself. It's the over-reliance on it that has sucked the life out of this game for me. In fact, this wasn't a problem 5 years ago. But perhaps I was naive then. Or perhaps things have changed.

Thanks for reading.

[Pocky]

The more I play this god-forsaken beloved game of mine, the more I understand why people just retreat to their cliques and rp with their friends. Shit, I wish I had one of those so I could have some fun. Or better yet, why so many people I love have left the game for good. I feel so isolated playing this game sometimes. But then what do I do with the friends I do have? It's the same charade of having to create something... I sometimes feel like everyone is in some kind of bubble, either with friends or of their own making.

this is not gonna be more than a bump cause i have stuff to do but just wanted to say i really relate to this part of the post
i'm lucky to have established connections and know a few handfuls of people that i really enjoy writing with,
but still, everything does feel just very tight knit and hard to get in edgewise at times
cool post and hope more substantial discussion follows my little reply x

[Trexmaster]

I'd equate SL2 in its current state more to a game like RPUnlimited, where there might be some sort of overarching background to base your characters off of and lore to abide by within the same universe, but nothing really forces all the active players to exist in the same environment. It's more of a hub for roleplay rather than a collective roleplay that all players participate in by playing on the server.

I once defended Korvara v G6. Nowadays I cannot in good faith tell you that there is a distinguishable difference in the roleplay you will get on Korvara versus G6. All that's different is what you refer to the cities as and some specifics details on race lore that many choose to ignore, then there's all the barriers involved when it comes to organizing anything on Korvara.

Events are the primary and perhaps only avenue by which impactful scenes occur on Korvara due to the heavy restrictions imposed upon players compared to G6. They must consult not only a nation leader but ensure what they're doing is kosher by the standards of Korvara lore. Even if ultimately almost everyone not involved with the event line will ever know it even happened nor have any impact on the environment outside of it.

This is a combination of the aforementioned restrictions on event scope and the amount of red tape involved in ultimately approving an event. Giving great incentive for players to simply eschew going through public channels and creating the roleplay they wish to have with those they trust, as the end result is effectively the same, except now they get to do what they wanted to do in the first place without jumping through unnecessary hoops.

Why do I say unnecessary? Because generally when you have these restrictions it is with the understanding that they are in place to enforce a collective agreement to the state of the roleplay environment. That everyone can agree to what is currently happening in the roleplay world, thus conforming to the collectively accepted canon. When you have these restrictions but do not have it so that the events in questions have any tangible impact on the environment...there is no point in gatekeeping them. If an event happens and it leaves no impact, did it ever really happen?

I do not inherently have issue with allowing people to have whatever events they want without affecting the overall roleplay environment. It's when nearly every single event ever run has been effectively its own universe to how little if at all they've reached beyond the scope of their own plot, that I have to question what we're all even doing here. It has been impressed that anything affecting the world at large is 'unrealistic', thus events akin to the Watcher/Haunted Trails are very unlikely to be green lit again (please correct me if I'm wrong). This makes things very difficult in attempting to tie the world together, resulting in the phenomenon observed in which every nation, every subgroup, slowly becomes its own RP bubble that seldom reaches out due to the plethora of hurdles in doing so.

While I do have plans and have been patiently waiting for over three years at this point to execute any of them, as the OP stated, we alone cannot fix the issues present in the game.

I believe one of the most fundamental problems we face is SL2 struggling over whether it wishes to be an MMO or a roleplaying game. Leaving people who like the game dissatisfied as attention drifts from adding more to play with/content to run mechanically, and leaving people who want to roleplay dissatisfied as they're ultimately given little to work with and nothing to strive for to progress their story bar essentially writing their own roleplay environment, as the public roleplay sphere has all but collapsed in the wake of Yokoshura's release.

I still hold the opinion that Yokoshura should not have been player operated, and have been application based to have players make in the nation, if it was to serve its purpose as an antagonist to the rest of Korvara. Instead what we got was it effectively siphoning all the activity from the rest of Korvara to a place that's largely isolationist or otherwise outright hostile to other nations, making interaction extremely difficult with a community adverse to conflict, in a game that offers no proper guidance to resolving conflict. I cannot help but side eye anyone OOCly saying 'why wouldn't people want to come to Yokoshura?' when it's effectively common knowledge now thanks to some serial yappers that Yokoshura actively desires the blood of outsiders. Even if some outsiders are............generous.......................enough to offer their own blood.

I like the concept, and Dev clearly put a lot of work into fleshing out the lore for Yokoshura. I just think it wasn't a great idea for the health of the game in general when we struggled to make active most other nations aside from Geladyne, and now even they're struggling.

I'd go so far as to suggest a complete reboot of Korvara, if not a similar project, and carry forward the lessons learned to try and make a more cohesive environment. I'd go with one nation next time, maybe two. As it stands with how spread out players are it's difficult to have the roleplay environment feel like everyone's actually involved in the same world when we're all so far apart.

If our goal is to try and fix what Korvara is still, we need to decide if we're going to even try to have anything to tie the various subgroups/nations together. Since as it stands almost no one wants to actually interact with the other groups for one reason or another. I'm more than happy to attempt to make the bridge myself, I just need to know if it's something that will be ordained at all or even desired by the playerbase at large. To have something that gets multiple nations/subgroups to interact more frequently, that is.

I know I didn't exactly directly address the points listed in the OP but I get the message. Without a unified direction for the game everyone goes off on their own path, creating all these circles we've come to know, with little to tie them all together. Making it difficult for those outside to find a place in the roleplay environment as the more accessible avenues dry up. All you can do is put yourself out there, or take a break if you're not enjoying yourself with the time spent on the game.