Dominion Dissolution, Mistral Lake (it's staying), and also moving away from CvC focus aspirations

[Rias]

As many are already aware due to in-game events and documents, the Mistveil Dominion has been dissolved. This was a tough decision because I love a lot about the Dominion, but after much discussion with the GM team I decided it would be for the best to move on from it. Some of the reasons:

- It was a consistent issue that people were envisioning the Dominion as larger and grander than it actually was, in many ways. Luxury, population, territory, resources, military power, etc. A lot of this likely stemmed from its concept of being a multi-territory entity rather than a single settlement. There was that nebulous off-screen "northern territories" that everyone was imagining their own way. I felt it was significantly impacting the feel of the game's overall setting, watering down the sense of a struggle for survival in a dangerous and unforgiving ruined land.
- The Dominion being so extremely hierarchical and reliant on dispensing information only-as-necessary (or via propaganda) made it frustrating trying to play to that while also trying to find a believable way to keep players informed or involved without feeling like it was playing favorites and feeling overall elite and exclusive. The result would often make players/PCs feel a significant level of detachment from their faction and government, as well as each other. It also encouraged faction members to fight among one another to establish themselves in the hierarchy or prove their loyalty over others, and that felt icky.
- It never felt good when propaganda was taken for truth and then players felt foolish for buying into the propaganda. This was another potential cause for bickering and fighting among players of the same faction over what the truth of a matter was, which was again, icky. The propaganda also exacerbated the issue of people imagining the Dominion as more than it actually was.
- Due I'm sure largely to my own insistence on "nuance", a prevailing opinion had seemed to settle in that the Dominion shouldn't actually do anything that could be considered "bad" or "evil". I should have taken care to insist that nuance does not equate to a lack of some things being fairly obviously smacking of "good" or "evil" from time to time.
- We're doing away with the aspiration of faction CvC being a major part of the game. It just had too many issues, between splitting the playerbase and setting everyone against each other (and the whole slew of potential issues that can come from that), doubling many content, event, and mechanics efforts to try and keep both feeling on equal footing, and other issues besides. I should have taken a lesson from World of Warcraft: Making faction conflict a core part of a game more or less ensures you will always have a significant portion of the playerbase who are unhappy because there will always be one side or the other feeling like they're the losing side.
- It just wasn't much fun for us as staff to play with.

So, where does that leave Mistral Lake? I considered just closing it entirely for a bit, but quickly realized that this was probably not a great idea. So, where it's going to end up is essentially where it was before the rise of the Dominion: That sleepy fog-shrouded lake-town with some spooky undertones where not a whole lot happens (that's not to say nothing will ever happen there). It won't be a mirror image of Shadgard in regard to opportunities and amenities. It's that place you go when you want a change of scenery, some of their unique shop wares, or you just prefer its vibe over that of Shadgard. They won't be returning to the aggressive expansionism; that died with the Council of Nine and the Dominion. They wouldn't have the resources to get back to that anytime soon even if they wanted to (which they do not - see all the recent protests and riots over the matter).

We aren't abandoning the idea of faction conflict completely, but it will mostly be involving NPC factions as the agressors and baddies rather than Shadgard or Mistral Lake. I want to shift the feel and focus of the game to one of unification and survival against the odds in the post-apocalyptic and extremely dangerous Lost Lands. And sure, the occasional PC will be able to throw in with some of these aggressive factions serving as baddies (likely suffering reputation/banishment woes in the "nice" factions as a result), knowing full well that they're joining "the bad guys" and so they're probably not going to see the lion's share of victories in the overall narrative.

[Serity]

It won't be a mirror image of Shadgard in regard to opportunities and amenities. It's that place you go when you want a change of scenery, some of their unique shop wares, or you just prefer its vibe over that of Shadgard.

Given the winding down of oppositional player factions and the above quote, do you have anything to share right now about the Citizenship system in general? I believe Mistral's Citizens' Hall is still closed, which locks all that up for the time being. Is the intent for Shadgard to be the "main town"? And if yes, that goes back to concerns about things for those who are banned from Shadgard and so on.

If things are still in the works and you can't talk about much yet, quite understandable, this is a major shift.

[Tessa]

Rias,
Thank you for shedding some insight to these matters! I will say I feel a tad uncertain as to how to move forward. I speak, of course, in regards to incidents that are relatively recent, including Twofalls. I can imagine the intent of wanting for good, but I also don't know if simply moving past it and forgiving the actions feels exactly natural.

I could, of course, also be way overthinking this, and need to take a nap in the duck shelter. Either way, thank you! <3

[adresin]

Okay, so my initial, and possibly unpopular reaction? Thank you thank you thank you!

More seriously though, I'm relieved, as one who isn't a big fan of PVP especially when it's kind of expected and not due to individual actions as much. That said, I know this couldn't have been an easy decision. I also know some players won't be happy about it and you might catch some criticism from that. My hope is that those players who do enjoy the more conflict heavy side of roleplay will find their ways of having that still, and there is certainly opportunity for that, but having the potential to avoid it is reassuring for those of us that just want to survive, as you mentioned.

I hope this will open up more opportunities for cooperation between citizens of the two, while I expect there will still be residual mistrust and animocity for others. It'll be interesting to see how everything unfolds.

[artus]

In a way, I love the decision because of a few reasons that made the experience around slightly tense for a while.

- Permits being a market thing means the south can't buy anything from the north while the north can come down here and hoard everything they want back. We Shadgardians couldn't hoard ours back from that market.
- The recent fighting for territory between the dominion thingy in the mine made minine experience quite a nervous one and I didn't want to go mine at all until the focus was shifted elsewhere because I had no idea if I'd run into anyone or anything getting major about it at any point during my mining which sometimes I wanted to be peace and solitude for myself. Due to cvc being cvc and tension ic being high, it almost felt worthless going to any mines at that point because I had no idea if it would happen. There was no cvc rule preventing resources from being stolen, right? It could happen. It died down a bit and I can comfortably go mine again now. Tension is at least lifted somewhat. I guess I don't mind dealing with the rest. This is speaking from someone who tried to steer clear of that particular conflict because I mined and I didn't want any trouble there.

I await to see what comes next for Mistral. I love the approach here already. And staff, please take care of your health too. We love you as much as in game events.

[Firerose]

(I meant Mistral the first time I posted this, so sorry for any confusion.)

From the time Mistral first opened up, I've always gotten this sense that it was Mistral vs. Shadgard, and i've hated every second of that.
When I saw the title of this thread, my heart leapt, and it was like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.
Regardless of how vehemently I, the player, don't like conflict, I worried about balance, CVC stuff, even PVP stuff OOCly. It's felt like a divided game, and I didn't know how you, the team, would manage keeping up both towns, without making one feel somehow favored and the other somehow lesser.
There are people who will always like CVC over romanticized ideas of what could be. I get it, on an intellectual level. However, here, it didn't seem to work. On some games it does work, if there are long-standing systems in play, and a larger team to enforce them. Sometimes, it could even be fun. But not here, not for me. I won't speak for anyone else here--if they choose to share, that's up to them.
I'm glad you've made this decision, and completely understand why you were concerned, and why certain things just felt bad. I commend you for taking the plunge, as it were, and I sincerely hope the playerbase at large will be okay in this new, more unified (characters versus the world) game.

[Jilliana]

Thank you for the clarification and insight.

I am looking forward to see what stories/RP come out of these events.

The first thing I thought of when this all started going down was, "Now Mistral Lake can be a starter town..." The way it was structured made it basically impossible to be a newbie.

Many people built their character's identities around the dominion and its activities. It will be interesting to see player RP evolve and shift along with everything else.

[Maina]

I'm pleased at the loss of focus on CvC.

I am, admittedly, more than a little upset that all the work players have tried to put into Mistral Lake and the Dominion seems to have been rewarded by being forgotten, wiped away, and having our home that we've put a lot of investment into being turned into a... I don't know. Not a home anymore. Just a place to go "for a change of scenery."

Not everyone did or had to, but I put... months into the roleplay to get into and be a part of ML. We all sacrificed a lot of time and items and put a lot of RP into it. To watch that all fall apart without any community discussion was heartbreaking. To hear that it's just going to be a setpiece going forward is...

Combined with the last post about your plans going forward, it makes me wonder how much more RP and character goals are going to just be rendered irrelevant, out of the blue, without any kind of warning or ability to try to find a way to cope with it. You said you wanted to make design decisions without feeling beholden to the playerbase, or something to that effect. I didn't think that would include removing cornerstones of the game that a lot of people poured their hearts and souls into. For over a year; this isn't some new, fresh feature.

I'm just flabbergasted.

I am pleased that CvC will no longer be a planned focus. I hope you reconsider on a few points here, too. For me, ML was never about the focus on CvC and I never liked the idea of CvC. But ML did represent a home for my character that a lot of effort went into.

[sapphire]

As someone who didn't like what I was seeing as a new player just playing for two weeks this is good. I hope though that some how the players that are upset with this change can discuss with the gm team on some sort of compromise, so their hard work doesn't go to a complete waste.
I think it will be great for new players who want to start in Mistral Lake to be able to do so, without prior knowledge. That was the first thing I thought when I started and saw Mistral Lake was this isn't for a beginner character.

[Prism]

So, I'll freely admit that I'm of two minds about this.

As a person who wasn't against the idea of a CvC centered faction system that planned a sort of ongoing war-- I'll admit, I'm a bit sad to see the concept of such a system go. But, simultaneously? It needs be said that I feel like a lot of folks didn't want to be the spark that ignited the powder, as it were. I think that's why there was a lot of hesitance around the idea of the conflict in general. A lot of us weren't really sure when it would be, "safe" or "acceptable" to go out and do some more faction-heavy retaliatory or instigation-relative things. At least, that was the impression I seemed to get.

The point i'm making altogether is that it'll be sad to see the idea of it go-- But it's simultaneously a bit of a relief, if for only to see what the future holds in it's place. If the faction conflictss themselves are a more NPC driven affair that players can voluntarily throw their hat in with, as it was in the past, maybe we'll see less hesitance from people in the manner I mentiond above. It's hard to say, it's hard to say. We won't know until we see things moving and groving.

If I can express anything with my rambling thoughts here, it's that the idea of a huge, all-encompassing conflict like that is enticing, though. A war, or a disaster, or an invasion, or something of some sort. Everything that went on lately in the north has just been.. -CAPTIVATING-. I want MOOOOOOOORE. Not necesarily more of that line of plot-- but more of that level of intensity. It was glorious to see/hear about.

At any rate, I do hope that those of us who have sort of found a home in Mistral Lake will still be welcome to keep building our home there, and pushing toward what goals we have for ourselves there, Dominion withstanding. All signs seem to indicate this being the case, but I wanted to communicate my hopes for such, regardless.

Even though I'm not quite sure how to feel (not in a bad way, specifically, just in an. Uh. I don't know sort of way) I'm eager as always to see where this brings things on the next horizon.

High hopes for the future, and high hopes for everyone's interests and desires to come to fruition game-side, however that may be. We'll all make this the best place we can make it, as we already have. I'm doubtless in the idea of that continuing to be the case.


EDIT: Quick update to this.

I know it might be weird for the guy who's character who was very hesitant to start a war to be sad about losing the concept of the war-- But you have to understand. I didn't feel that way OOC. My character, however, just has a background that, though predisposed to success in a war-like environment, made him sort of the quiet objector, as it were. The plan was to be the guy who was fighting because he had to, not because he wanted to. But that's neither here or there presently. Just wanted to be transparent for the folks that might be confused by my stance.