07-25-2016, 05:34 PM
The past several months have been... taxing, to say the least. I've spent the greater portion of my spare time just recovering from RL events and relaxing rather than actually having much of any spare time for Disco or any of my, or my faction's active RPs. This has left a lot laying by the wayside, and a number of projects left un-done as I'm certain several people can attest.
My RP has suffered for it, and my faction has suffered for it, and the latter is by far the larger of those two casualties.
On the whole, Cross has more or less been in a state of vegetative limbo since late 2015- back when we had the major server crash, there were upwards of 6 major RP and backstory projects and pages that were the culmination of months worth of work on the part of myself and a few others that ultimately got scattered to the wind with the forum-crash. There was efforts to recover everything but a good number of those that worked on it, either up and left due to that ever-so-lovely capfleet sanction we received after being told by an admin on an admin ship that everything was fine (not still salty, honest), or just stopped playing due to RL reasons- so it fell to me to try to recover them all. Efforts were made, but as aforementioned a bazillion times; I'm a busy human being. I make mistakes, and I missed a lot. Ultimately this led to a number of our pages and RPs being so woefully out of date as to be misrepresentative of the faction as a whole. This led to misunderstandings about the faction and it's role and goals within Malta which caused a great deal of uproar on the part of several individuals, namely Divine.
Now, ordinarily I wouldn't directly namecall like that, but I do so now because Divine and I have been getting along alright in the past few months- once the actual goals and intentions of the faction were clarified, Divine became a pretty good guy to have around and talk to about issues, and it should always be welcome news when two people in this community can manage to be civil despite past grievances. However, Divine is just one person- and there's a lot of misinformation about Cross on our RP and faction write-up pages that I simply don't have the time to fix.
Ultimately it comes down to this: Cross is more or less done in it's current form. Over the next couple of days- sweeping changes are going to be put into place to scavenge the RP, characters and assets of those involved and to put to rest the concept of the religious-crusader faction.
That is however, something I did want to talk about though: the concept behind Cross and if it worked or not.
Disco is no stranger to adversity to change- something I think is rather well-felt by just about everyone in the community. Theres an overwhealming push for things to remain as they were while simultaneously an overwhelming push for change- a dichotomy reflected with rather regular frequency throughout most interpersonal social communities. Cross was the brainchild of myself, Drrobe and Vulkhard Muller waaaaaay back in my earliest days of Discovery- back when most people were unaware of the salt-lord that now posts in blue. It was meant as a major shake-up to the generic formula of Outcast roleplay, a change that would enliven the environment and allow for different character possibilities for those that would partake in it. Over time, the backstory of the faction began to borrow narrative elements from all over; drawing inspiration from things like the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40k, the Kushan of Homeworld, and even World of Warcraft (Scarlet Crusade anybody?) as a means of enriching what was hoped to become a new avenue of character development. It was an attempt in change, but ultimately I came to realize that conventions and ideas that have been around for a while typically stick around for a reason. The Theology behind it all, the end-goals of the faction, the actual roles the nomads played, the opinions of the relics everywhere around sirius- all of these are things I just didn't have the time or drive to fully flesh-out, and it severely hampered the experience of the faction; after all, you can't well play D&D without a DM actually telling you about the world or anything in it.
As is often the case, the dream differed greatly from the reality. Soon after the faction made it's way into existence, Finn had a number of RL concerns that drew him away from the community, and Vulk disappeared for a time- basically leaving the inexperienced newbie to fend for himself. We made officialdom with the help of several others that came along the way, and continued to prosper for a while. Individuals like Annie, Shiki and Loki were a great help in forwarding our Roleplay- while the likes of Tomas, Radion and a returning Vulk helped on and off maintain our activity and ensure we had a presence in-game. I did what I could, but I've basically never-not been a busy person; other factors ate away at my freetime, and as the months went on, I was becoming more and more weary of even participating due to the stresses and annoyances of faction leadership. Numerous times I came back and tried working more and more on the faction; every time with mixed results. There are several unfinished google documents laying around with potential RP expansions and story-threads for Cross- some of which I'll come back at some point and affix where needbe, others will stay by the wayside as little more than relics.
Which leads me to the final hurdle: what comes next, and where do we go from here? Shiki, as most of you recognize as the current National Council leader has come forth and offered to assist with the future of the characters and RP of the Cross, something I'm unsure I can provide anymore. That being the case, I'll be transferring leadership to him, and will be taking... well it won't exactly be a back-seat role, but I certainly won't be the one driving. What exactly becomes of the faction, and it what form it remains will be fleshed out properly here over the next few days, though those with imagination won't find it too hard to figure out exactly what is planned. My goal over the next few days is to finish the RP necessary to connect this change and the upcomming one to the RP environment- something I'm hoping I can at least get some major steps completed before my day ends.
Discovery and the Cross have taught me a lot. Not a lot of people are exactly going to miss this malnourished mess of a faction but I certainly will, which is part of why this transfer is so difficult for me. I've learned a lot about Roleplay, about interpersonal group politics, I've learned to better temper myself, I've made friends, enemies, rivals, allies, I've laughed, lost and burned, I've made friends that I'll likely stay that way for years to come, I've more than doubled my Skype block-list, and I've really come to know myself as both a roleplayer, and as a leader through it all. It's been fun, but really- trying to push a concept any further that isn't working and would require mountains more time that I can provide is a lesson in futility.
So anyway, thats whats happening. I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing me blither on about some crappy faction only I cared about but I felt the need to get this off my chest. Comments or questions can be posted here, or to my Skype. Any returning faction members in-future need only contact me on skype to be brought up to speed as to the goings-on. As I said, I'm taking a step back but not disappearing. I never truly go away.
Glory be to Malta, Glory be to the Light.
My RP has suffered for it, and my faction has suffered for it, and the latter is by far the larger of those two casualties.
On the whole, Cross has more or less been in a state of vegetative limbo since late 2015- back when we had the major server crash, there were upwards of 6 major RP and backstory projects and pages that were the culmination of months worth of work on the part of myself and a few others that ultimately got scattered to the wind with the forum-crash. There was efforts to recover everything but a good number of those that worked on it, either up and left due to that ever-so-lovely capfleet sanction we received after being told by an admin on an admin ship that everything was fine (not still salty, honest), or just stopped playing due to RL reasons- so it fell to me to try to recover them all. Efforts were made, but as aforementioned a bazillion times; I'm a busy human being. I make mistakes, and I missed a lot. Ultimately this led to a number of our pages and RPs being so woefully out of date as to be misrepresentative of the faction as a whole. This led to misunderstandings about the faction and it's role and goals within Malta which caused a great deal of uproar on the part of several individuals, namely Divine.
Now, ordinarily I wouldn't directly namecall like that, but I do so now because Divine and I have been getting along alright in the past few months- once the actual goals and intentions of the faction were clarified, Divine became a pretty good guy to have around and talk to about issues, and it should always be welcome news when two people in this community can manage to be civil despite past grievances. However, Divine is just one person- and there's a lot of misinformation about Cross on our RP and faction write-up pages that I simply don't have the time to fix.
Ultimately it comes down to this: Cross is more or less done in it's current form. Over the next couple of days- sweeping changes are going to be put into place to scavenge the RP, characters and assets of those involved and to put to rest the concept of the religious-crusader faction.
That is however, something I did want to talk about though: the concept behind Cross and if it worked or not.
Disco is no stranger to adversity to change- something I think is rather well-felt by just about everyone in the community. Theres an overwhealming push for things to remain as they were while simultaneously an overwhelming push for change- a dichotomy reflected with rather regular frequency throughout most interpersonal social communities. Cross was the brainchild of myself, Drrobe and Vulkhard Muller waaaaaay back in my earliest days of Discovery- back when most people were unaware of the salt-lord that now posts in blue. It was meant as a major shake-up to the generic formula of Outcast roleplay, a change that would enliven the environment and allow for different character possibilities for those that would partake in it. Over time, the backstory of the faction began to borrow narrative elements from all over; drawing inspiration from things like the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40k, the Kushan of Homeworld, and even World of Warcraft (Scarlet Crusade anybody?) as a means of enriching what was hoped to become a new avenue of character development. It was an attempt in change, but ultimately I came to realize that conventions and ideas that have been around for a while typically stick around for a reason. The Theology behind it all, the end-goals of the faction, the actual roles the nomads played, the opinions of the relics everywhere around sirius- all of these are things I just didn't have the time or drive to fully flesh-out, and it severely hampered the experience of the faction; after all, you can't well play D&D without a DM actually telling you about the world or anything in it.
As is often the case, the dream differed greatly from the reality. Soon after the faction made it's way into existence, Finn had a number of RL concerns that drew him away from the community, and Vulk disappeared for a time- basically leaving the inexperienced newbie to fend for himself. We made officialdom with the help of several others that came along the way, and continued to prosper for a while. Individuals like Annie, Shiki and Loki were a great help in forwarding our Roleplay- while the likes of Tomas, Radion and a returning Vulk helped on and off maintain our activity and ensure we had a presence in-game. I did what I could, but I've basically never-not been a busy person; other factors ate away at my freetime, and as the months went on, I was becoming more and more weary of even participating due to the stresses and annoyances of faction leadership. Numerous times I came back and tried working more and more on the faction; every time with mixed results. There are several unfinished google documents laying around with potential RP expansions and story-threads for Cross- some of which I'll come back at some point and affix where needbe, others will stay by the wayside as little more than relics.
Which leads me to the final hurdle: what comes next, and where do we go from here? Shiki, as most of you recognize as the current National Council leader has come forth and offered to assist with the future of the characters and RP of the Cross, something I'm unsure I can provide anymore. That being the case, I'll be transferring leadership to him, and will be taking... well it won't exactly be a back-seat role, but I certainly won't be the one driving. What exactly becomes of the faction, and it what form it remains will be fleshed out properly here over the next few days, though those with imagination won't find it too hard to figure out exactly what is planned. My goal over the next few days is to finish the RP necessary to connect this change and the upcomming one to the RP environment- something I'm hoping I can at least get some major steps completed before my day ends.
Discovery and the Cross have taught me a lot. Not a lot of people are exactly going to miss this malnourished mess of a faction but I certainly will, which is part of why this transfer is so difficult for me. I've learned a lot about Roleplay, about interpersonal group politics, I've learned to better temper myself, I've made friends, enemies, rivals, allies, I've laughed, lost and burned, I've made friends that I'll likely stay that way for years to come, I've more than doubled my Skype block-list, and I've really come to know myself as both a roleplayer, and as a leader through it all. It's been fun, but really- trying to push a concept any further that isn't working and would require mountains more time that I can provide is a lesson in futility.
So anyway, thats whats happening. I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing me blither on about some crappy faction only I cared about but I felt the need to get this off my chest. Comments or questions can be posted here, or to my Skype. Any returning faction members in-future need only contact me on skype to be brought up to speed as to the goings-on. As I said, I'm taking a step back but not disappearing. I never truly go away.
Glory be to Malta, Glory be to the Light.