Post
by Tarkus the dog » Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:25 am
Honesty being one of the traits I value the most, I'm going to pour some of it in my post and hope that community doesn't hang me for it:
I have been avoiding posting serious posts in the OOC section for some time now for a few reasons most people can figure out on their own, but seeing as artifacts are the latest trend and they are one of the major reasons why I have been playing this game for this long - I feel compelled to make a post about it and hope that somebody takes notice, seeing as if the team decides to remove them entirely it may led to me quitting ( which I would hate to do, for a few reasons that now with the EE update involve other people ) or to find other reasons to play.
But yes, it is true. Getting the best artifacts or equipment has been one of the major OOC 'goals' in the game for me for some time now, and believe it or not it led to some interesting roleplay paths that my character ended up regret taking later on. This is because having played it non-stop I quickly grew bored of the server and I needed something 'new' to become a good chunk of my motivation to play. I understand that each and every one of us has a reason for playing this game, and this has been one of mine. Past term, because I have a character that is stacked on them and "artifact hunting" has lost it's charm for obvious reasons. In comparison to most players, I have not been playing Arelith for that long. Meager two years, or a year and 11 months to be exact. The problem is that I have been playing it constantly, until recently where most of the people I have played with decided to focus on other things or to leave the place ( and with the school being a thing now ) I can't really play as often as before, and I have little will left( for the reasons I just started + all the new updates that are making Arelith's future very uncertain ). And thus, I have seen much of the content. Both the IC and the OOC, the good and the bad. And the ugly. It's no surprise that a game loses it's 'touch' over time, especially if you grind the hell out of it and I have reached that point in meager two years. It may also be that I'm not creative enough and that I play similar characters with similar ideas, goals, personalities and wishes - or it may be something entirely else, but it is what it is. The current character that I play I do enjoy, and I do not feel like rolling her any time soon or if ever. Every time I would get something done, it always feels as if 'that is not it'. As if it's just a smaller part of a larger story that I haven't even discovered yet. Now, since I made it sound as if "Getting OP" has been my single reason for playing Arelith for the past few months ( and while I am tempted to make an elven sexy elven fun times meme in a serious post )... I think that I'm free to claim that there is a lot more to Arelith than farming strong items, and I have not been ignorant of these opportunities. Since the character in question is the one that is 'loaded' on artifacts, let's quickly get back to the topic.
By removing the system you have essentially already removed the artifacts. It will take time, and believe it or not eventually they will be rooted out and the few that do remain will actually become true to their name. Yes and, sadly so, OOC is a huge factor on Arelith and these items will be passed on for as long as they can be passed on. But, I dislike repeating other people's points here - People do get lazy, and people do forget to pass them over, people shelf their characters and never unshelf them and people get banned. That is what is going to be their bane, and that is how they will fade away.
I don't deny that characters who have them are stronger than those who don't, but more often than not it doesn't really matter. I, to some degree, know ( thanks to the people I have been pestering for the past two years to explain to me why X is not Y, and why are clerics OP ( they are, and then they are not... but then they are again? ) how the NWN and Arelith work. That said I'm nothing special when it comes to PvP, and I have lost some matches ( If I may call them such on a RP server ) purely because I'm bad, while otherwise I could have easily won if I used my brain properly. What does this mean to those of you who dislike some characters being more powerful than the other? It means that, if you really, really care about that, you can beat the artifact-stacked Jim if you are better at the game than him. This is because, at least in my opinion, skill > gear ( at least on Arelith ). Indeed, in some situations this does not matter and - indeed, some players are already 'skill' capped, if I may say so... RP gods forgive me for using this term. I should probably add that I'm a huge p when it comes to PvP. Anyone who knows me better can confirm this. I would never get in a fight with my character if there isn't some essential reason behind it, and a third of my fights have been people ganging up on her. The other third was her following orders, the obsessed follower that she was, and the last 1/3 was when it simply wouldn't make sense if she did not otherwise engage. I can also count down all of these situations down in my two hands, which should further prove that PvP and I don't really get along because I hate feeling like a nervous wreck.
On the decision to remove artifact system:
It is good, but it is also bad... and it also... kind of for the best? It's strange like that. Why? Because Arelith keeps following the trend of removing things they may or may not find a solution for later in the future. The system was strange, and some change was indeed in order for a very long time now. And while it has been somewhat flawed, it wasn't really... Unbearable. I'm not on the team, and I can't speak for any of the members, if it was my trigger to pull I would have come up with a solution first before hitting some members of the community ( especially fragile me ) with the "for now" statement. What does that mean, for now? Are you going to, eventually, entirely remove everything both myself and my character has worked for? To remove her artifacts ( or reshape them) would be a strange thing to do, considering they are ( surprise surprise ) a part of her. And I don't mean... they are in her inventory and she has them equipped, but that she has made some questionable decisions to get the job done and I would hate to discover that all of that was for nothing, or some twisted version of it that would make no sense at all. I seriously dislike publicly discussing any of the characters I play ( or to write their descriptions. If you encounter one of mine and examine them you can notice that I tend to include only what is not visible in the game (partially because I'm terrible at descriptions) ) but seeing as I will need to, in order to further prove my point - It changed her. It changed the person that she was and it led her to a path she may not have taken if these "shiny, pretty things" were not on display for 'free'. Because they weren't for free. It may not be entirely visible, but she is mentally scarred because of these 'overpowered' things. They came with a price, and I may be a moron for having roleplayed that 'price' for all this time now. And while a single item did cost a considerable amount of gold ( which I worked her Snuggybear off in character to create the said money ), I don't speak about the coin.
So with my character's future ( and my own, at least on Arelith ) being in the hands of a team now, having made this obnoxiously long post on how I feel about the current topic, one thing I believe I have the right to ask of the team, as a player, is to be very considerate. Without implying that you have been doing the opposite in the past. I had pleasant experience with the DM team ( and a single dev at the time, I believe.) on an occasion or two where they had every right to screw me over, but they didn't. Because it wasn't the correct thing to do, and I'm still thankful for that. If it may not be too greedy or rude of me to ask for the similar treatment again to but thoughtfully consider what this may mean to a few of us that don't see artifacts only as means to mechanical power, but something more than that, or simply because we like and prefer them as they are. It's not a hard thing to elaborate.
I think that I, to some level, understand those of you who are advocating that the current ones become removed as well. Of you I ask, if that I can, that you consider whether our loss will become your gain. It sounds a little bit edgy, but this not being my first tongue I'm somewhat limited here. I hope that I made my point, and I'm thankful to those who actually took their time to read this.