[Soul_Hacker]

Hello, all. Apologies if I get any formatting wrong, I'm certainly not used to making a post like this.

To be honest, dozens of little things have been bugging me ever since I rejoined SL2 to play Korvara. Korvara was touted as different, it was touted as a place for player-driven RP and progress, rather than the relatively stale state of the Great Six that can only ever have 'change' with the intervention of GMs or Eventmins. A place where players made the story of the world, and not just their own stories within said world. This is what brought me back to SL2 after a multiple year hiatus, and what also brought swarms and swarms of new players, eager to see if Korvara could live up to its promises.

Most of those new players have now left. Of those who have not, many are considering it. Korvara is not in the state it was advertised as- or rather, the rules are not in a proper state to allow Korvara to be in the state it was advertised as. SL2 and conflict have always been at odds with each-other, for good and for bad. The mainland did not often allow for organic conflict that truly felt organic, whether it be miles of red tape in the way between you and anything close to an 'event' for your character occurring, the lackadaisical rules allowing for many such matters to descend into little more than carnivals for onlookers who would deride your character's story into little more than funny quips, or simply the stagnant world around them, where the Onigan war always happened x years ago. All of these issues, and more, kept Sigrogana's conflict from ever truly feeling organic.


Korvara was the solution, or- at least, it seemed to be. No more player housing-districts, where most would hide away to do private rp, away from the stagnant world around them. No more would said stagnant world seep into every aspect of roleplay. The players were the rulers, the players the lore-writers, the players the drivers of conflict. This was exciting, this brought plenty of people disillusioned with the state of Sigrogana back to the game, and plenty of people who had never given Sigrogana a chance, a way to see the game at its (hopeful) best.


Things have not turned out this way. Korvara is, in all honesty, a mess. The Rules for Conflict, even as they have been recently revised, are not tight enough to offer the conflict and player-driven roleplay that was offered. My main points of contention come down to the ever-prevailing presence of the mystical non-player-characters, as well as the forewarning afforded (or not afforded) to players for significant moments of RP that their characters should reasonably be around for.

To begin with, the presence of NPCs, while sensible, does little to nothing to enrich the roleplaying experience. In the Great Six? I can make the concession that they are necessary. Players are the adventurers, the trouble-makers, and the leaders are so far above everyone that the mere mention of the Guard Captain would leave criminals wary, the idea of facing waves after waves of mobs to dissuade trouble in major cities, while perhaps not the most entertaining prospect, was one that undeniably made sense in a world that players were little more than onlookers in.

It does not make sense in a world where players are those leaders. Where the head of the Guards is not a mystical level 90 creature meant to come in the most dire of circumstances to stomp out any troublemakers, where the head of the Guard is a man named Clement, a player, with his own backstory, his own ambitions, goals, traits- his own place in the world. The presence of NPCs undermines this. It undermines the efforts the player characters make to change this supposedly changeable world, to mold it, to have a place, as they were promised. Some cases are understandable, of course. Prisons must be guarded, whether a player is there or not, along with many other examples.

However, simply using them as a hand-waving excuse for every little issue or conflict, is stale. Player characters efforts can be undermined with the simple knowledge that no matter what they do, the NPCs outnumber them. Realistically? The solution to this problem is doubtless a complicated one, but I feel it's certainly one to be discussed.

Secondly, the forewarning (or lack thereof) to groups dealing with things they should realistically be aware of is horrendous. Getting a bit more personal here, it is TWICE that Beggar's Hole has been encroached upon by Geladynian forces without forewarning given OOCly to appropriate parties, and this is not only terrible for every person playing at Beggar's Hole, but terrible for the state of conflict as a whole. If Korvara is meant to be a conflict, roleplay driven continent, Geladyne's current conflict with Meiaquar and Beggar's Hole is the most action it has seen on this front. To undermine it with acts like unannounced conflict, while other players have to go through loopholes including at least 24 hour forewarnings to GMs and pleading their cases to make such moves on 'bigger' settlements/nations, due to- again- NPCs, it seems downright mean-spirited to not afford a player-run faction at least some OOC notice so their players can prepare. This is not the only such case of such a thing occurring, either. With a GM's permission, Geladyne's jail was raided while Beggar's Hole and Geladyne were in mild conflict, and many took to the Discord chat to discuss how such matters were unacceptable, and air their ire with the perpetrators that Geladyne was not given proper forewarning. Many of these were the same people who had come to Beggar's Hole with much the same warning: none.

None of my gripes are against the playerbase, nor the GMs, nor the Developer. They're simply against how conflict has been handled thus far, and I post this only in the hopes that it will go more smoothly in the future, and to invite discussion as to how it may do so. If you read all of this, thank you for your time.

TL;DR: Conflict in its current state has proven to be a messy endeavor, and strives should be made to ensure it is smoother in the future, on both an OOC and IC scale.