Now, as I said, I have heard the cries of "Discord is ruining the game" for some time, but very rarely in reference to specific instances (and on the occasions when it was in reference to specific instances, they have almost invariably been provably false). Could you articulate for me some specific incidents that you believe were caused or exacerbated by Discord, and why?
All too often it does become a requirement to play on the "highly-active" tier.
Current vitriol against the player of the Ketchum family is absurd and if he is truly game-breaking like they say, should be reported to the titans. Instead Nivemus is blacklisted and at least a dozen characters suddenly believe their life goal is to depose Brock - hence the founding of a colony in Nivemus lands. So many ways to go about it such as "these people are suffering and neglected" etc, but they go with the the meta-game "you are not dense enough give me your lands" because that is a discord opinion.
The flip of bruck was by a player/character who was bored, which is fine, but growing discontent was never known outside of discord. The player actively asked for someone to give their character IC motivation so they could flip a region. That level of planning occuring outside of BM, if I recall, was always forbidden or at least highly discouraged but occurs.
The entire Alexandria colony attempt has been planned OOC on discord to fit meta-game concepts, that Nivemus isn't dense enough so we should put a colony there and enliven it. This is also an example of the close-minded echo bubble I encountered. I asked why did they demand two cities from a realm when they could have subverted Nivemus, they could found their realm and actually fight for their lands, so many options but I was decried as "the problem" and "protecting bad players".
Those are three, specific, current examples. There are less tenuous ones and older ones - ooc spreading of IC information being used IC, highly active players have always had the ears of admins etc when Indirik no less asked for West dwilight rogue spawn to be dialled down after astrum moved into the north west coast. I won't go down a rabbit hole of what has always been apparent, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but you can put a survey link or more obvious contact options on our account pages.
As I said in discord, if somebody presents as "bitter" or as concerned as I am from outside the bubble of discord, how many other players feel as embattled? What context and environment has led to this? Is this ever an acceptable outcome?
