Enweil & Ally vs Riombara

[Zakilevo]

Good to see the end of Enweil gotta say.

That realm has lost its purpose on the continent. Too weak to do anything.

[jaune]

About AA, Rio did not participate attacks on AA while monsters and undeads were there. Rio later helped to create Thalmarkin on the previous Ar Agyr lands, which were led by Julma Jaune previous Ar Agyr King. Until Evil Enweiler Duke killed IMMORTAL Julma Jaune, who just had gotten enlightment that he was semi god.

So, mainly OO & AA are at Enweil cause of the crimes before Guillame had even got off from diapers... but like said, murder never gets old and same goes with Genocide(Except genocide of realm which made genocide! :D ).

-jaune

[Chenier]

The whole Chénier saga on BT seems to be approaching a closure. It's been dragging on for a while, and I guess it could still, but little is expected to change between now and then. Inspired me to do a short recap of the key events to it, which explain much of their stances, their relations to others, and how they got to this point.

2006: it all begins. Louis-Joseph and Jean-Olivier migrate to Beluaterra, their homeland being Atamara. They are led there by someone I played another game with, who long ago stopped playing, I don't recall who that was. I bring a few friends with me. Everybody's in Fronen.

A bit later, Louis-Joseph's liege and duke schemes for a monarchist reform. LJ follows his liege, and JO is swayed to monarchist ideology. A rebellion starts and succeeds, then the counter-rebellion succeeds as well. Rebels are cast out. This is where the Chéniers split into two parallel paths for what will be most of their history. LJ goes to Khthon, where the family gets their first title (banker), and eventually follows the call of religion, founding The Blood Cult. Being a newb, he would close down a temple before doing so, not expecting retribution, and his church gets destroyed within a week and he'll be cast out. Meanwhile, Jean-Olivier gets a little nut. After a suicide attack against a neighbor, he leaves for Outer Tilog, only returns to BT a while later to join Fwuvoghor.

In Fwuvoghor, just like in Fronen, there is a monarchist/republican split. Jean-Olivier joins up with the monarchists, who gain a fragile dominance in the realm over the republicans. Fwuvoghor is also a member of the ceded city alliance.

Riombarans are not friendly to the monarchist leaders, and Fwuvoghor is federated with their own seceded realm, Irombrozia. Both factions in Fwuvoghor seek foreign support for their cause. The republicans court the Riombarans, while the monarchists end up with little choice but to go courting Enweil, which Fwuvoghor had betrayed by seceding.

Turmoil in Fwuvoghor increases. Jean-Olivier claims power by rebellion and reforms into an absolute monarchy. His reign is short, however, as he is killed in an insignificant battle with rogues, which allows the republicans to take over and enact their own reforms.

Meanwhile, Louis-Joseph refounded the Blood Cult, and has been spreading it in central and northern BT. Jean-Olivier had not been a part of it, as he was a follower of the Church of Teros, as were almost all monarchists. With the death of Jean-Olivier and the rise of the republicans, The Blood Cult eventually absorbed the Church of Teros, though I do not recall precisely when.

All during which, Riombara regularily threatens Fwuvoghor. While more conceding to republican leaders, there are tensions over ownership of a few rurals just South of the capital. Riombara and her allies had also declared war on Fwuvoghor, but feigned an attack, attacking Enweil instead.

Eventually, Nicolas joins up Fhwughor, with a relatively clean slate (in his mind). He is immediately ostracized by the republicans, despite his attempts for a fresh start, while gaining unsought support from the monarchist remnants. He is eventually swayed to launch a rebellion, but the republicans had been hoarding gold for quite some time, and the rebellion was crushed. Nicolas was forced into exile, without knowing where to go. Enweil, as the main party having kept Riombara in check, had been seen as mildly friendly, or at least not wholly hostile. He contacts them to see if he could go there. He almost didn't get a response, and was seeking alternative escape solutions. Eventually, they ended up accepting him, and so he joined up with them along with a few other monarchists.

By this time, the Blood Cult was actually decently strong. I had recruited a few more friends and some people from IRC, and everyone was pretty active. The Church was controversial, but getting things going, established a good information network and actually managed decent damage when they organized against a common foe. Nicolas and Louis-Joseph were working together, though LJ's objectives were primarily ecclesiastic, while Nicolas's were political.

When Nicolas joined up with Enweil, it was a rather inactive realm, without any apparent ambition, and seemed like it had lost its imperialist streak a while ago. Hoping to get revenge against the republicans, and reclaim JO's throne, Nicolas spared no effort to mobilize the nobles back into a more warrior mode and demonize Fwuvoghor. The efforts were mostly unfruitful for a considerable amount of time.

Then another invasion came, during which republican Fwuvoghor used daimons against Avalon (to be fair, monarchist Fwuvoghor, under JO, had done the exact same thing before), which acted as the catalyst for Enweilian intervention. Enweil came to Avalon's defense, and put an end to the conflict. Later, when things calmed, Nicolas was able to convince the realm to punish Fwuvoghor for its crimes against Avalon. They voted for war, and Nicolas, having since become a well-respected military leader, led the attack. Riombara came to defend Fwuvoghor, and declared war on Enweil, but were too late. They were defeated, and Fwuvoghor was annexed. The republicans fled to Hetland, which they had formed strong ties with and were the second greatest opponents to the Blood Cult.

War between Enweil and Riombara raged on, Irombrozia and Avalon joined in, while Alluran sided with Riombara, and significant damage was dealt. The allied forces had even stamped on Rines, with the intent of taking it over, but following the attack sympathy was too low for a CTO, and thus a short-lived colony was attempted in Athol Margos instead (home of the Chénier family since!). In-between these events, Riombara had swayed all of the western realms to come sneak attack Enweil, pretty much, which forced a stalemate until I went on vacation, leaving the realm's military paralyzed and starting a losing streak, forcing Enweil to seek peace with many of the nations that then turned to attack other northern realms.

Some time around there, the Blood Cult started to decline. A lot of leaders had been executed, and the players did not bring new ones back. A bunch of my friends stopped playing BM. Those that remained a while longer became inactive. I deleted LJ when it became clear it was all going nowhere, and created Guillaume, who would take leadership of the Blood Cult, somewhat, for a while.

The the fourth invasion came, and that was the beginning of the end. Mortality was enabled, and Enweil was hit by monsters while the west was hit by daimons and the north by undead. However, the latter two dealt damage in a way that was much more likely to wound, much less likely to kill. Not so for the monsters. 27 Enweilian nobles were killed by the monsters, in a few weeks at most, before mortality was disabled. Enweil never recovered from that blow. Activity and noble count never returned to the levels preceding that loss. I seem to recall only about 5 or so nobles were killed, during the same period, in all of the other realms combined, a few being heroes anyways. This is when Guillaume went to Heen, to beg the daimons to revive Nicolas, who was killed defending Fengen. The daimons said they couldn't. As he preached for The Blood Cult in the desert, he is beat up by angry mobs of daimon worshippers, while mortality was still on. The screen actually said "dead" for many days. When mortality was deactivated, and through what might have been a bug, his status changed back to seriously wounded for another week or two before starting to really heal. He'd end up trying to step up and fill the void left by Nicolas, closing the inactive Blood Cult once and for all.

Meanwhile, Alluran had surrendered to the monsters, who promised to form a new colony for them. Their ruler, Annaej, was even leading monster troops. They all joined Riombara to do so. Enweil had had pretty much all cities attacked and sacked by the daimons. While Riombara's Chamberlain had negotiated a deal with the monsters to spare Riombara. Eventually, they hold a referendum to either join or fight the monsters. 46% of Riombara's nobles vote in favor of siding with the monsters. Failing to get their majority, they just secede to form Meridian Republic instead, and the monsters give them Fwuvoghor. Riombara is then paralyzed, and Meridian Republic strikes Avalon with the monsters, annexing some of their lands and blighting the rest, killing the realm. Meridian Republic feeds its own peasants to increase monster troops, which also keep attacking Enweil, nearly killing the realm on many occasions.

Then, a lame deus ex machina occurs. Three temples of light are created to fight the invaders. They chose "pure" realm, Riombara, who nearly allied with the monsters and helped create a colony for them, Sint, who had openly worshipped the daimons, and Hetland. Enweil's three greatest enemies. And this was chosen, arbitrarily, by a GM who also happened to rule one of these realms: Riombara. Regardless of what Timothy's intents may have been, this pissed off people a lot, making a few of Enweil's players quit, making others less active. It also helped preserved the strength of Enweil's enemies, while Enweil was getting constantly bled.

When the invaders left, Enweil was left without Iato and with Ete blighted, thus had taken a huge hit to its economy, to its noble count, and to its noble activity. Meanwhile, Meridian Republic folded back into Riombara, only the ex-ruler being banned while the others kept their lordships and eventually got government positions of their own in Riombara. Riombara was thus left with more land than before, including the key strategic chokepoint of Fwuvoghor and lands from Alluran and Irombrozia, while also gaining many of their nobles, as well as some nobles from Hetland. Enweil's allies, on the other hand, were either bled as bad as Enweil or, in Avalon's case, wholly destroyed, only some of their nobles joining Enweil, most seeming to have either left the continent or deleted.

Being in a pitiful state, Enweil made overtures of good will towards Riombara. It was instead met with a renewed Riombaran invasion. And again, Riombara somehow managed to play the victim and get allies on its side.

Following the long-held aspiration to form an independant realm, and hoping to be able to achieve more without the restrains of Enweil's traditional resistance to change and initiative, Iato was seceded with most of Enweil's most active nobles. It was hoped that someone in Enweil would finally step up to put things in order, thus increasing the number of active people in the federation. It didn't, and was a huge mistake. Enweil's military performances declined severely, and the defeats got worse and worse.

When news of new invaders came, Guillaume, then Hetman of Fheuv'n, called for global peace. Riombara, being on a winning streak, refused, at least until huge daimon forces started appearing. The daimons offered an ultimatum: serve or die, last to respond will be the first attacked. Enweil being left with a semi-active leader, they ended up last. Guillaume was the first to publicly answer this ultimatum, trying to stay true to his stance against them. In hindsight, this was a mistake. If both Fheuv'n and Enweil hadn't replied, who knows what would have happened? Likely, they'd both have been attacked and it wouldn't have changed much, as that's what happened anyways, but still.

The daimons attacked Enweil, Fheuv'n accepted to end hatred with Sint to allow for a continental alliance. We tried to participate, but, being surrounded by blight and having but a tiny army to fend for ourselves, we kept getting whacked. Looking at records, it was an average of one battle per day against inhumans, mostly rogue undead units, but after Enweil was wholly destroyed and forced into submission, Fheuv'n got hit by huge daimon units repeatedly too. We tried our best to TO as many daimon regions as possible, afraid to get surrounded by blight and blighted ourselves, but were attacked every time we did so, forced into rebuilding our forces completely every time. When we took Fheuvenem from the daimons, they immediately came and blighted Iato. Riombara's ruler and judge, at that time, are nutcases that would eventually be ousted by Riombara. However, while they are there, Riombaran infils and priests continuously harass Fheuv'n. Because of this, and because of Riombara's attack on the Enweilian leftovers forces in Lopa to break Enweil's TO and TO it themselves, Fheuv'n and Riombara were at each other's threats. Then Fheuv'n gets attacked by a large daimon unit, and Riombara says it will come to "aid". Suspecting an invasion, Guillaume tells Riombara to screw off and that war would be declared on them should they be spotted approaching. Riombara comes anyways, without Fheuv'n being made aware of their movements. The daimons end up abandoning their takeover, and disappear into the blight. Just as Riombara arrives close to Fheuv'n, the daimons arrive in Fwuvoghor, taking it over and blighting it while forcing Riombara to retreat. Guillaume had no knowledge of this, and honestly expected that army to attack Fheuvenem, not aid it, but was blamed for it anyways. Later, a daimon priest shows up in Fheuvenem, giving 500 gold to Guillaume for his "good services". The letter is shared, figuring it was better to be transparant and inform the others of the falsehood, while ordering the arrest and execution of the daimon priest, which was then common practice. Miroslav Chénier was there with troops, and as such did the arrest. Marec, who was up till then Guillaume's right hand and judge, failed to make the execution. The gold was used to rebuild the army that had just been destroyed once more in order to go takeover more netherworld regions. But the daimons came back. This time, they didn't just loot, and they took over the regions of all those who supported Guillaume, leaving the votes almost wholly in the hands of Marec and the few who supported him, as all votes were held by lords as representatives. Marec made himself ruler, and turned on Guillaume before the daimons came in to finish the job. Almost all nobles move to friendly realms, namely Enweil, while Marec and two or three others join Riombara. At this point, Guillaume was so pissed off of being betrayed by Marec, who would believe a daimon more than himself or might have actually been collaborating with daimons to get power, that he actually did go out, for the first time, and offered to aid the daimons in order to get his revenge on Marec, but the daimons declined.

Then the blight daimons came, and much of the South was unblighted as the invasion ended. However, each and every one of Enweil's regions had been seriously depopulated by the blight and the looting. The realm was barely holding together, and history repeated itself. Riombara was left larger than ever, Enweil made peace overtures, Riombara went for war anyways. Guillaume, then being Enweil's Supreme Chancellor, went out to Jidington to seek an armistice. Knowing full well that Riombara is a republic where nobles choose according to whatever information its leadership decides to share with them, he sought to speak to as many of their nobles as possible, instead of just a war-mongering ruler who would cherry-pick the words and letters shared. This was largely successful, and after being forced to say a bunch of humiliating half-true admittances of sin and leave Enweil for Riombara, peace was secured. Temporarily... Miroslav, during that time, had left for Nothoi, hoping to start anew. Instead he was banned, captured, and executed.

Because as Guillaume now had access to what was being said in Riombara, it became clear the treaty wasn't worth much. Riombarans were looking for excuses to declare war on Enweil again, and as such Guillaume shared these letters with Enweil's ruler and advised him as to the best ways to proceed to delay and avoid war, to buy a bit more time to rebuild. Eventually I misclicked and sent a report back to Riombara's ruler instead of Enweil's, and was thus banished from Riombara, where Guillaume left for Melhed, not wanting to give Riombara an excuse to attack Enweil.

But the Riombarans got bored, and broke the treaty to attack Enweil, again, anyways. Guillaume was outraged, and tried to mobilize Melhed against them. As Melhed had just lost a great deal of land in their lost war with Thalmarkin, the idea of a colony in Riombaran lands was proposed. The idea gained significant support, but in the end the leadership decided to attack Fronen instead, Enweil's sole remaining ally. Guillaume wanted to part of it, and thus stepped down as banker and switched allegiance of his region to Fronen, before moving back to Enweil. Meanwhile, Nothoi had been swayed to come to Enweil's aid, allowing for the realm to slow Riombara's advances and buy a bit more time. But it was in vain. Riombara had become the continent's most powerful military, while Enweil had but a tiny fraction of the economy, nobles, and activity it once had. Defeat was inevitable. And as the inevitable approached, more and more nobles quite the game, autopaused, or changed realm, further sealing the realm's fate. We dwindled down to four nobles or so, Gabriella, Guillaume, Nhoc, and Marinus. Guillaume tried to reform Enweil in order to give it a new purpose, as it was clear it would never become what it once was. Despite all of the overtures to Marinus, who had been in Enweil for a long time but almost all of it as an adventurer, such as giving him lordships and even voting for him in elections, the latter decided to start protesting Guillaume over anything he said or did, no matter how ridiculous, until he decided to simply do so every turn no matter what. In a 4 noble realm, that meant that Guillaume's prestige was quickly completely drained, preventing him from running for rulership again or even from investing in the city. They decided to try to take a few regions to feed Fheuvenem, as the city was starving, but doing so took away the tax tolerance of 25% to something much lower, which caused serious hits in morale and production while also forcing a tax cut, dramatically reducing the city's income (and Guillaume unable to invest to fix it). Ultimately, this meant that Guillaume couldn't continue to increase militia, which stagnated at about 10000CS, allowing Riombara, Ar Agyr, and Melhed to mop the floor with their combined 20000CS.

And that's mostly it. As you can see, Riombara always went out of its way to be hostile to the Chénier family, no matter what the Chénier family did, and even back when the Chénier were inconsequential nobodies. If Enweil hadn't been !@#$ed over and over by the invasions, and if Riombara hadn't been left stronger and stronger after each one, the current situation would be quite different. In the end, GMs killed Enweil, not Riombara, Ar Agyr, and Melhed. Enweil took on larger coalitions and thrived regardless before. The controversies of the Chénier family, and the strategic mistakes they did, would not have mattered. Even when doing outright human sacrifices, they still managed to get enough supporters to avoid persecution in most realms, save for the few who were hostile to Enweil anyways. Where they resided, Chéniers usually had the majority of realm-mates on their side. They weren't the same kind of villains you find in some other families. They didn't go out of their way to antagonize everyone. Rather, they were mostly chauvinistic. Extremely hostile to those who threaten their nations (or religions), but willing to accept great personal sacrifices for the  sake of their peers.

[Chenier]

About AA, Rio did not participate attacks on AA while monsters and undeads were there. Rio later helped to create Thalmarkin on the previous Ar Agyr lands, which were led by Julma Jaune previous Ar Agyr King. Until Evil Enweiler Duke killed IMMORTAL Julma Jaune, who just had gotten enlightment that he was semi god.

So, mainly OO & AA are at Enweil cause of the crimes before Guillame had even got off from diapers... but like said, murder never gets old and same goes with Genocide(Except genocide of realm which made genocide! :D ).

-jaune

But Rio participated in attacks on Enweil while daimons were there. So they didn't do it against AA, but they still did the same thing that Enweil is hated for by yourself.

[Chenier]

I would like to point out, though, that BT might actually give us a lesson of caution relating to other continents...

On BT, the continent was blighted more and more as the result of GM actions (over which players had limited control). Theoretically, this should have led to increased densities. But it did not. It just made a whole lot more nobles quit, and a ton more nobles become less active.

The actions being taken with the ice and monsters on other continents is likely to have a similar result. Barca already claimed to be losing nobles because of it. Was Dwilight big and sparsely populated? Sure... but that's always what drove people there to begin with. If you had just copied Atamara again, and placed the exact same realms over, you wouldn't have had the migrations towards this new continent as you had with Dwilight. The large geography was part of the continent's appeal, a continent which, at least until now, had the best ratings for player retention.

[Bhranthan]

One is always more likely to complain then to cheer on the internet.
People actively expressing their opinion on the forum are more likely doing so because they dislike something.

Also, if your realm is losing nobles(not saying that realms lose nobles to ice necessarily; Fallangard is still gaining more nobles), it is no argument at all to support the assumption that players are leaving.
Maybe they paused and created a new char, or just moved their char somewhere else in the game.
Both examples are a desired effect of these events, to increase overall noble per region density.

I definitely agree that most people seem to dislike it, in fact that would be logical.
Yet it doesn't say if these actions are good or not.
Perhaps in due time it will either improve the general experience of the game or even create a lot of fun int he future thanks to these radical changes.

We don't know if where losing players over this, and if we do, then perhaps we still improve the game with it.
(Call me mad, but i do believe so)

[Chenier]

One is always more likely to complain then to cheer on the internet.
People actively expressing their opinion on the forum are more likely doing so because they dislike something.

Also, if your realm is losing nobles(not saying that realms lose nobles to ice necessarily; Fallangard is still gaining more nobles), it is no argument at all to support the assumption that players are leaving.
Maybe they paused and created a new char, or just moved their char somewhere else in the game.
Both examples are a desired effect of these events, to increase overall noble per region density.

I definitely agree that most people seem to dislike it, in fact that would be logical.
Yet it doesn't say if these actions are good or not.
Perhaps in due time it will either improve the general experience of the game or even create a lot of fun int he future thanks to these radical changes.

We don't know if where losing players over this, and if we do, then perhaps we still improve the game with it.
(Call me mad, but i do believe so)

The result may differ, but there really isn't much reason to believe so. BT's decline, and massive shrinkage, did not alleviate the density problems on BT, nor prevent it elsewhere. There were a lot of cases of people simply autopausing and never coming back. These people aren't recreating a character elsewhere. For the most part, almost none of them came to the forums either. Those who talk about it are usually among the few who remain.

[Anaris]

The changes to BT were rather different than the changes happening to other continents. BT lost cities quite disproportionately, and a large chunk of land was cut right out of the middle of the continent.

Additionally, if you'll recall, another important change happened to BT at the same time: the announcement that there would be no more invasions there. In other words, removing the main draw of BT as an island.

I don't think it's fair to directly compare what happened to BT to what is happening to the EC, FEI, and AT. It is, of course, not impossible that the results will end up being similar, but there's definitely insufficient evidence to claim that it's likely to logically follow.

[Chenier]

The changes to BT were rather different than the changes happening to other continents. BT lost cities quite disproportionately, and a large chunk of land was cut right out of the middle of the continent.

Additionally, if you'll recall, another important change happened to BT at the same time: the announcement that there would be no more invasions there. In other words, removing the main draw of BT as an island.

I don't think it's fair to directly compare what happened to BT to what is happening to the EC, FEI, and AT. It is, of course, not impossible that the results will end up being similar, but there's definitely insufficient evidence to claim that it's likely to logically follow.

I don't really agree. The invasions had lost a lot of their appeal. In the last invasions, some realms were left completely untouched and they went on as if there was no invasion. The third invasion had some novelty at first, and honestly credit is to be given in all of the work they put there, but then activity decreased and GM-led invasions went downhill from there. Lore was inconsistent between invasions. Even intra-invasion, the lore didn't match as some GMs went with a bizarre sci-fi feel that did not correspond to the RP of others within even the same faction. GM leaders went AFK on a regular basis, to be replaced by new leaders that had no idea of the RP of their predecessors. The direction of the invasions felt incredibly rail-roaded, the key to surviving was no longer to fight well, but to manage to be ignored long enough for the others to take the brunt of the damage. Invasions weren't won: again and again, a weird new deus ex machina solution would appear after the invasion had run its course. In the third invasion, monsters and undead just bailed out randomly without any apparent IG actions by any significant portion of the playerbase. Then the daimons just AFKed and people went back to their stuff. Then there was stuff like the temples of light, blight demons which all came out of the blue and which OOC were obviously just thrown there to allow an end to the invasion. The more the invasions progressed, too, the less they left room for new entities. In the early invasions, lots of nations would die, and lots of new nations would rise. In the last invasions, though, nations would usually not leave much room for anything to grow back in their stead, rather the survivors just always got bigger, but as the player base declined, this this not create any additional pressure for positions or secessions. New realms that did occur were mostly just old realms being remade on the same lands.

BT's invasions had appeal, in the start, because they would create large voids where the creation of new political entities was possible. Much like Dwilight's early days, really. Same appeal. An appeal which was lost as the wild lands were claimed on Dwi, but on BT, it wasn't just when it was said there wouldn't be any GM-led invasions anymore, but before that, when the invasions stopped causing major resets and started just destroying two realms or three and smashing a few more while leaving many mostly or totally intact.

[Chenier]

As for defeats of the Chénier family, a great deal of them were the direct result of myself trying to share the power and be conciliating. The defeat of the monarchists in Fwuvoghor? Jean-Olivier could have banned his main opponents, but chose not to. Furthermore, he made one of them banker with the desire to bring everyone together, instead that allowed the republicans to embezzle gold and eventually overthrow the monarchists and throw them out. Louis-Joseph gave up the comforts in Melhed to help others create a colony he had no intent of living in, which left everyone pretty much homeless when the daimon militia took it over. Guillaume created a colony in Iato instead of trying to transform Enweil so as to be able to create a realm with a new flavor and create a different kind of entity on the continent, which led to the division of their forces and ultimately the defeat of both. Guillaume lost control of Fheuv'n when he got betrayed by the man he trusted as his right-hand man, but he never actually needed a right-hand man, it was really just to share positions around. Guillaume lost Enweil again by trying to appease a vocal discontent noble, which instead ended up with him taking advantage of the royal status he earned to protest all the prestige out of Guillaume.

Had I cared just for power and victory, a lot of different choices would have been made, and a lot of their greatest defeats would have been avoided. It was never my desire to hog all of the spotlight: I'm not much of a single-player games person. Always sought challenges with an end result being more interesting for everyone. Even my most controversial characters were team players. Sometimes it was more a religion than a realm, though, or sometimes it was more a foreign realm than the current one (while making this conflict of allegiance obvious through repeated claims of nationality and calls for support of said nation). The betrayals were all either not of their own initiative (such as the first Fronen rebellion) or made explicitly obvious beforehand (such as the betrayal of Melhed).

The loss of Enweil has put an end to that "team", though, and the general shift of mentality and overall lowered noble activity and density means there is no apparent future for the Chénier family on BT. All of the realms grew large, and few, and as such all realms not currently in a war are looking for one and would be able to throw large forces anywhere on the continent. And if wars on BT often tended to even themselves out, this is no longer the case, lopsided battles becoming the standard.

Probably won't be any more Chéniers on BT soon enough.

[Indirik]

Lore was inconsistent between invasions. Even intra-invasion, the lore didn't match as some GMs went with a bizarre sci-fi feel that did not correspond to the RP of others within even the same faction. GM leaders went AFK on a regular basis, to be replaced by new leaders that had no idea of the RP of their predecessors.

Unfortunately, that is true. Several of the GMs quit due to the abuse they were receiving from the player base. Why bother putting in time if they were only going to be reviled for it? The new GMs that picked up didn't have any of the inside info. This is true both between invasions, and and within individual invasions.

I do agree with some of your points, though. Not trashing enough realms left some realms too powerfully intact, thus able to dominate the post-invasion climate.

[Chenier]

Unfortunately, that is true. Several of the GMs quit due to the abuse they were receiving from the player base. Why bother putting in time if they were only going to be reviled for it? The new GMs that picked up didn't have any of the inside info. This is true both between invasions, and and within individual invasions.

I do agree with some of your points, though. Not trashing enough realms left some realms too powerfully intact, thus able to dominate the post-invasion climate.

The trashing of the GMs, imo, came mostly in the fourth invasion, and both inter-invasion periods around it. Not all of it was around specific GMs, either, but a lot was around general mechanics (such as being able to teleport, mortality, the timing, the placement, and so on), and some of the critics were pertinent enough for Tom to step in and say that indeed the GM tools had been abused. They were the target of unjustified criticism as well, but again, I don't recall this being the case during the third invasion up until when undead randomly bailed out and the monsters too pretty much at the same time. Undead were saying something about being betrayed which allowed the daimons to take over their home base in the netherworld, I think, while the monsters claimed we somehow betrayed them and allowed the daimons to go find their homeland and scorch it. Go figure why both factions could take on the daimons pretty well "on-screen" but both be instantly and simultaneously wiped off "off-screen". I can only recall the invasion criticism starting about then, due to this event, but also due to the daimon invaders eventually just AFKing with random bouts of activity.

And whether the criticism about the GMs was justified or not, it was certainly understandable. Everything about the invaders was arbitrary. How many invaders? How strong? Where are they? Who will they side with? Who will they attack? They obviously were there to attack someone, and thus obviously someone had to be attacked, but it became extremely easy for those unlucky people to feel persecuted. Especially since in the fourth and fifth invasion, the targets seemed a lot more targeted. The fact that players with heavy vested interests in how the invasions turned out were also leading GMs added to the mistrust.

But again, I don't recall any of that negative vibe with the third invasion, which's only faults were the random KOs of two of the faction and the fact that it dragged on forever after it was pretty much over. Might have been the novelty: hard to contradict prior lore, when there wasn't really much lore to contradict, for example. But I do feel like those GMs went out of their way to really interact with a lot of people and in meaningful ways. They didn't just go "cower before me, slaves, bwahahahaha!" They passed themselves as gods to be worshipped, they had players go about to open new portals or close existing ones, they mingled in several player religions, they brought back someone from the dead, they presented rich lore, they collaborated with player endeavors, etc. All of these things by different actors. The story did not appear linear. It did not appear predetermined. It blended in with local lore, with the RP established by the players. The third invasion based itself on what the continent was, and enriched it, while the other invasions just imposed foreign material onto it.

[Indirik]

My memories of the third invasion are kinda fuzzy. That was quite a while ago. I do remember a lot of the story lines kind of fizzled out. Something odd did happen when the undead/monster factions disappeared. I don't think any of us really did figure out what happened there. Some vague claims of being betrayed, or something.

[Anaris]

My memories of the third invasion are kinda fuzzy. That was quite a while ago. I do remember a lot of the story lines kind of fizzled out. Something odd did happen when the undead/monster factions disappeared. I don't think any of us really did figure out what happened there. Some vague claims of being betrayed, or something.

I don't remember the name (I think it began with an A?), but there was a particular Undead NPC who appeared around that time and was warning us of Dire Things if the Daimons got to whatever McGuffin he was wailing about. Then the Daimons, who had been mainly in the northwest, cut a swath of destruction all the way across the continent to Grehk in the southeast, and he wailed that they'd gotten their McGuffin, and everything was doomed.

[Indirik]

Now that you mention it, I do remember the defense of Grehk. Quite the series of battles. Lots of fun.