[Shujin]

Its not nessecairly grudges either, I would say. It the fear of having your stories interrupted.
I have played SL2 on and off for I think nearly 5 or 6 years now (Time flies, I know I tested the early alphas and a bit of SL1 and have been around since). From my experience SL2s "RP Focus" simply changes with the time and it has different "Phases". Some eras went like that, the others were mirror images of that.

I felt early on people were MUCH more content with not being maxed out, just writing out their characters and dip in it. Write their stories and interact on that without nessecairly worrying too much about builds.

One huge shift in RP mentally followed the great reckoning were everything became more "Convieniant", more simple. While we got a lot more tools to play with it also became its own little contest of SL2 mechanic rocket science to find the most fun and effective builds and everyone was more "Even" to the lack of RNG in level up rolls. As good as that was it came with a side effect of accomplishments being reduced by a lot and now every 12 year old kid is secretly a hidden pro warrior.

Then people started to flock to PvP as a resolver of most IC conflicts, and as much fun SL2 is if you play it right? Using PvP as its only way to resolve a conflict has some massive flaws as you can easily cheese a build just for Power and everyone who plays a character that just fits their IC is (And that doesn't feel rewarding to stick to your guns in an RP just to suffer that.)....Pretty much screwed as they can't compete. This fear a lot of people have be it just because they do not feel confident in building or just do not want to have their RP shattered by try hards with Meta builds is a persistent one which is very visible in the current state of the game.->

The balance is heavily shifted in favor on one specific play style. Doing anything big in public that is not Slice of life and basic Arena doodleing can quickly end up with someone popping up flexing their meta build and...Boop. GG guys! Was fun working out this 8 stage story, aye? Glad that random guy(/s) showed us that cookie cutter build and cut us off at stage 2. (And don't get me started on the guard system and people metagaming across their 43 characters.)
So obviously people enjoy both RP and the Combat far more if its within their own supervision with more fun and various build and the "meta builds" reversed for challenging "boss fights".

I am not saying everyone is doing that, but the fear that just ONE does it and can cancel all your hard work is enough for people to go certain to not public that stuff...So what have we created? A world were people play all their own lores and Stories, away from everyone but their own friend circle because not a single one of the systems in place gives you a reason to engage with the world, because the world is Stale. Period. Never once did anything happen in the world that left a lasting impact.
(Cellsvich doesn't count. It was convienitely did that way because we had a new map, not because it was worked towards it and even that just gave a little bit to chat about. The other "big" thing was bloeden trying to go for the Emporer and that got us a nice little speech followed by bloeden execution..Hardly any big events that most people do not even know of)
And the system in place just punish you OOCly for doing it (See guard system. Not saying they shouldn't be there but its one heavy weight on a scale that has no counter part)


So I stick to what I have said for years. SL2 is a game you play either Casually for slice of life with alitte combat. (which just isn't everyone cup of tea if that's all to it) Or a game you play within a friendcircle that's already established that you grow into (which can be hard in and on itself. I have seen lots of newbies give up trying that, cause they didn't get "in" quickly enough and felt lost in the game. While I did try to pick some by the hand and lead them somewhere many just drop in and out under the radar too.))

To me the world feels dead, outside of the stories I do myself. But I do not need to play SL2 to make my stories even though I love the game, its more restricting than helping and the RP is flat out better in Discord. But that's just how the current "Era" is. I am positive that changes once the Combat is fixed again or when stuff is added that makes you feel more important or interacting with the game world/Lore....
SL2 has one big issue that it had from the very start-> The story was never about you(general you), you are just someone tapping along and watching from outside making you feel insignificant while the world builds veeeeeeery slowly. (Heck black bleasts are still attacking and the church keeps playing cards at Risus for a couple of in game decades now.) So you never feel the story having anything to do with you. its just kinda there.

Thats the main difference I notice with SL2 and other more popular Byond RPs.

In short:
-Convienance, laziness from the players, Win mentality , lack of interaction/response of the world made this game less and less attractive for people that plan to stick a lot of time in it.
Slice of life can be fun, but when its the only viable thing to do while you have such a cool lore and stuff to play with, is quickly making you lose interest and only pink tinted googles/friends really keep you there.

[Radioaction]

I was told (for some reason) to give my opinion.

As little as I care about the game nowadays, I'll still share my thoughts.

Players have little to no impact, unless you are in a clique. Many people deny this, but it's how it goes. You cannot take a random person who joins the game, RPs good, and tell them to make a difference. It won't happen, unless they beg for favoritism.

That brings me to the next entry.

Favoritism is how the game goes 'round. Depending on your dicksucking skills, you can become a God of everything. For example, how Fern was given a sword with .. what was it again? 9999 power? Sure, they aren't allowed to use it. But they have it, and get to wave it around like a trophy.

For what purpose? Who knows, probably to show everyone that they're 'better', or 'more liked'.

The game's been dying for a very long time, and my personal view on it is because no matter what, it will always stay the same. No matter who dies, the world will not change. It will continue going around, and the guards will still be a shitpost.

This next part is going to be basically a 'Fuck you, Dev' shot, so here we go.

You add these classes, you add these changes, balancing, whatever else. It changes the game, sure. Great. The problem is, you're putting a bandaid on a wound that needs stitches. The wound got infected, here we are. Instead of directly fixing the problem, you just ignored it blatantly or brushed it under the rug. How do I know that? Because if you didn't, it'd be fixed. You're a damn good coder, and hell you're smart. But at the same time, you either don't give a damn, or you're much more daft than I thought.

So I'm leaning towards the former. You don't care.
You're making money off people for a game you threw together. And rather than seeing such game thrive by giving players the ability to influence the world, and sitting back to watch the miracles of what happens when the human minds collaberate?

You're too consumed in keeping this perfect snowglobe you call SL2 intact, as it suffocates and dies. The money will stop flowing.

So in a short tl;dr.

Apemins (admins) together strong.
Dev suck.
Players irrelevent without suck dick of admin/eventmin.
Join clique get relevancy.
Anger wrong person get outcasted for existence.

Ook ook game bad, SL2 sucky sucky dick.

[Fern]

Favoritism is how the game goes 'round. Depending on your dicksucking skills, you can become a God of everything. For example, how Fern was given a sword with .. what was it again? 9999 power? Sure, they aren't allowed to use it. But they have it, and get to wave it around like a trophy.

For what purpose? Who knows, probably to show everyone that they're 'better', or 'more liked'.

I'm not sure what sparked the idea that I had received a "9999 Power Sword" when none of my characters have something like that. I received approval for having an Echorite weapon on a character, that's the one thing I had been "given" and that's not a godly blade either, not to mention it has no impact in gameplay. So this sounds like something that was out of context and misinterpreted, or slander.

[Snake]

He means the sword you lost in Mark's event after trying to swing it against an enemy with plot armor. Echorite op, I should get one of those to hang on my wall.

[Shujin]

For a second I thought he meant that one fake screenshot of your "Fan made" weapon, that you showed dev and he said "weak" to.

That aside, there is one more thing I have seen no one point out (I only read the first three pages, to be fair, I read the rest up, promise.) And this is certainly an issue of the community and something people too need to work on.

People want Eventmins to make Events. On paper thats fine and dandy but...What is it that you can provide to someone who makes events for you? Be it eventmin or player?
The answer to this is fairly simple. You give them interesting RP, and for most? That is enough. I certainly know it always has been enough for me.
NOW, the issue is... SL2 community has a certain mentallity that is very, very...Not interesting at all, which makes GMing events for people super unsatisfying. I didn't want to post this originally cause I thought it might just have been me, but I had a conversation with someone today, that I know for a fact is a good RPer and well accepted in the community having the EXACT same issues and being so burnt out and bored of it that they do not want to do it anymore either.

This is no attack, by the way, simple an attempt to inspire players to be more creative which in turn makes GMing more rewarding. But to the issue!
1.) Many SL2 player have a very specific mindset of how to solve RP, its something that many RPers that come from more interactive platforms, be it Pen and Paper or simply more indepth RP where more skills matter than simple combat skills or the luck of a dice roll frown upon as it demotivates them. This mindset is that if you see something, you attack it. A good GM is putting alot of thought into their story and the interaction and nothing makes them happier than you using their story to interact with it in creative ways. So instead of trying to solve everything with combat, try to be sneaky? Talk your way our of it? Drop a chandelier on your Opponents at the very least! Creativity from the players, make the GM more engaged and in turn more invested in the story he provides when he feels like the people he provides them to, are not railroading themselves to only one encounter.
If the GM feels like they basically just create punching bags for you to kill, you are doing no one a favour and the hard work they put into it feels unnessecarry.

I think this is mostly a problem because people aren't used to the idea that they can do more in SL2...Or generally mayhaps only have very little to no experience with games like D&D. There are some good Videos on Youtube, I feel people that genuinely want to become better players can lookthat up. Search something like "how to be a better player for my GM". I feel that is the least one can do, to attempt and "give something back".

2.) Another trap thats easy to fall into, and I myself am sometimes guilty of (especially when the group is too big, I always preferred small groups of like 4ish at most as both GM and Player.) is that people obtain a sudden strange tunnel vision to the "Quest" at hand. While sometimes the events are designed in a way which leaves little opportunity for in-character interaction or are awkwardly a way top big crowd that having focus on such is not feasible, when a GM is handcatering a small group...Please do not ignore each other and only interact with the NPCs. Its RP, its supposed to give you moments to ICly bound over, to give you stories together, to give you a feeling of being actually together doing something. Most GMs, if not all, will feel way more accomplished when they see you interact naturally with each other, while playing the setting they give you. And if you play with people you do not really know well yet, use that to get to know them.
Its reaaaaally fun from a GM standpoint to see dynamics like that unfold! Heck I easily would give people boni for doing that, if that encoruages you not to tunnel vision the objective and race it. Thats not why people GM stuff for you, I don't think any GM will say "please rush this story I spend a couple of hours to properly work out for you!"

There is probably more, but this is what the conversation I had today resulted in. People basically doing that above making GMing unsatisfying for them, which in turn makes you have less events. So don't cut into your own flesh by A.) boring your GM to death B.) not properly use the chance you have in an event to play and fool around in and enjoy yourself a bit.

Good GMs will support this and appreciate it even, because against popular belief...GMing isn't inevitably a hassle...It can be alot of fun for the person GMing and helps them as a writer as well, when their group is doing a bit out of the box stuff and plays as group together with that he throws at you.

Another thing I see people not really touching upon but is certainly a big issue in the community and a very much prominent one. You are one heck of a thankless lot. Whenever it is someone mapping you a new Map like new Clessvich, is icly creating you a place to RP in and enjoy yourselves or just GMing. The majority of you, always nags about something. Even if it doesn't directly benefit you? How about just shutting up if you have nothing nice to say in those moments and let other people that MIGHT enjoy it enjoy it, instead of shit talkign them to the point that they never want to do anything for the game anymore.

Its certainly not all of you, but big chunk of the "Vocal Minority", which is ruining the game for everyone else...Just...no stop, bad people. And I do not mean just thanking Dev and the GMs. There are alot more people that put blood and tears into this game to make it enjoyable for as many people as possible, certainly more than any of those "complainers" have ever contributed to the game.
Some honorable mentions of those, even when this certainly isn't everyone cup of tea and people may have personals gripes with them are: Spo(even though you ruined mah sogensara, big mood), LatentSparrow, Fern, Whoever made the Dormeho district, Whoever provided Icons in the submissions, Sawrock, Kunai, Kameron and many more.

The game is visually much more appealing because alot of these people put their time and effort into it because they secretly want everyone to enjoy it more. Till the moment you ruin it for them and make them regret ever having done something positive for the game and wasting their time and money for it.