TW musings (and some Hikari history).

As an officer in this faction, I feel like it's one of my duties to help ensure that we all get along and try to understand each other. I dislike it when people just say to themselves, "oh, that's just how Person X works, you gotta just deal with it or gtfo." Often, small differences are left to simmer and turn into faction "drama" later on, because one or both parties just decided it "wasn't worth dealing with" earlier. Communication is an extremely useful tool for preventing these things. Therefore, since some of you appear to be mystified as to my opinions on (or my related actions in) TW, I will sum them up here.



A refresher course in Hikari history

Many newbies do not know this, but Hikari originally aspired to be a TW faction. This was in the early days of PWI, and "before my time" in the faction. By the time I had joined, packs and pack gear were ubiquitous, high refines were obtainable, and Rising Tide was around the corner. A few months later, Decus passed the leadership torch to Val because he was going on hiatus in Hong Kong. At this point, Val asked the existing members for ideas on Hikari's direction. Having seen what sins were capable of by this point, and aware of the emergence of new, even more broken game mechanics like 5.0 aps, I felt like any dream of being a serious TW faction was unrealistic for us. Casual TW might still be possible, but the map was already swallowed up by 4-5 large factions at that point in time, and getting on to the map at all would mean defeating one of them, with our tiny membership and less-than-"pro" gear.

With that in mind, I advised (here on the forums) that we shift away from a serious PVP mentality, which I believed was stagnating the faction. Val took some of this to heart, and we tried to rebrand ourselves as a PVE-based faction (with free reign to participate in PVP if we so chose). Recruitment was never good, but we were at least pursuing goals that were realistic.



The Genesis reset

When I heard about the map reset with Genesis, my first thought was "huh, TW's actually going to be interesting to watch again!" Then of course, my second thought was "wouldn't it be hilarious to kill some mobs and hold a land for a week?" That's just what we did, and it was a fun (if pitifully easy) experience.

After taking Ancient Wall, I remember talking with some of you about our neighbors. It seemed likely, to me, that Enrage would take our land because of our relative status as "pushovers by comparison." Knowing what I did about the character of some Enrage members (essentially, trolls), I was pretty set in the idea that we shouldn't show up to defend against them.



DimSum and Progress

Most of us remember DimSum and that experience. I remember having fun in the first half of it or so, when the outcome was ambiguous and we were both damaging each others' crystals. Then the tables turned quickly and we ended up getting kill-farmed before Val gave the order to get out of there. Next day, we found out they were Enrage/GD alts.

Progress was different. I had a lot of fun "spying" on the Progress meeting in South Archosaur, sizing them up, seeing what they might be capable of, and reporting all that back to you guys in guild chat and TS. If they were total pushovers, I wouldn't have had fun. In the end, I was only a tiny bit disappointed with the outcome, because Progress clearly had enough firepower to last longer than they did. _Flux_ (the leader) later admitted to me that it was their first TW. In the end, I enjoyed the Progress TW more not because we won, but because Progress was an independent faction, which seemed to be made up of nice folks "just giving their all" (unlike some of the DimSum guys). I would have loved the opportunity to fight against Progress again after they'd come up with new strategies... y'know, really make it a challenge for us. But that wasn't going to be possible with the system the way it is.



Of Trolls, Honor, and Map Resets

Most likely, another map reset needed to happen so that we might bid close to Progress next time around. And I got to thinking, why not have map resets more often? There seemed to be no downside to it, other than Enrage wouldn't be allowed to control the entire map again (and despite any opinion to the contrary, I will never consider that a downside).

So I made a thread on the PWI forums, reminiscing about DimSum and Progress, and calling for a semi-annual map reset. It met with good reviews early on before being set upon by a few trolls (Evanera among them) as well as, I'll admit, some legitimate counter-points. Many of you were aware of this thread when I spoke of it in guild chat. The trolls had already begun their "work" by this time.

Maybe you remember me being uneasy that day... and that's because I was. But it wasn't because some people didn't like the idea, or even because of who our neighbors were. I was more worried that, by drawing those peoples' attention to my idea, that I'd inadvertently doomed Hikari to relentless in-game mocking and trolling during the following week's attack, due to my actions.

I think we can all agree that good sportsmanship is crucial to the fun in things like TW, right? Well, knowing who some people in Enrage / DimSum were, I wasn't holding out for much of that sportsmanship if they attacked us. That is why I practically begged you guys not to defend against them.

The word "bully" was tossed around a lot, mostly by people other than me. And yes... some bullies want you to back down, want to win without a fight, because they're scared they won't win otherwise. Other bullies don't get their satisfaction from that... other bullies want you to try, and then fail. People like that aren't moved by your "sense of honor..." they know they're going to win, so it doesn't give them any thrills to win. What gives them thrills is the knowledge that you wanted to win, too, and that they managed to trample on those dreams... those emotional investments.

I was honestly scared for you guys. I didn't want that to happen to any of you. I care about you all as friends and guildies, and the thought of you investing part of yourselves into this TW effort only to be trampled down was unacceptable to me. Even more so because I felt guilt over inadvertantly provoking them with my thread.

To your credit... those of you who were there that day... you did manage to convince me that you weren't that emotionally invested in the TW... that you knew about the trolls and their ways, and were prepared well enough to be immune to them.



TheLegend

When TheLegend bid on us, I was happy. I thought for sure it was going to be DimSum, because they hadn't bid on Etherblade like I originally thought... and there were two bids registered against us. I can only hope it was DimSum, and them being outbid by TheLegend was just an example of karma at work. At the very least, I could sleep easier knowing that the probable loss of our land wouldn't be at the hands of trolls.

But there was one problem with our fight against TheLegend, and that was the timing. In my time zone, the first fight fell on Saturday at 5 PM. I had made prior plans for Saturday, weeks in advance. These plans required me to be upwards of 100 miles away from home, and involved myself and Suki meeting with some friends of mine, one of which I hadn't seen in about seven years. I hope you all understand that, even if we were serious about TW, real life comes first. Real life situations like that should always come first.

We got home at about 10 PM that night and Val updated me about how the TW had gone. I was sad that you guys had to put up with a 42-vs-8 battle. I'd still have gone if I could, but let's face it: there was no intrigue in that scenario. We knew who was going to win.

Now, that being said... intrigue makes it fun for me, but even a losing battle can still be a good experience provided our opponents are sportsmanlike. And from what Val told me, they were good sports on Saturday. So I planned to attend the defense on Sunday night (last night).



The defense

Suki and I stayed up late on Saturday night with unrelated things. When I woke up the next morning, I was still exhausted and nursing a few various aches and pains which were brought on by the activities of the night before (these were not related to drinking or anything, as I don't drink... PM me later if you really have some burning desire for the specifics). Throughout all of Sunday I had to operate in a semi-restful state, and although this didn't prohibit me from getting on PWI, I did not feel like I had the mental energy for an activity as serious as TW. Had I gone, it could not possibly have been fun for me, because I simply didn't have the energy to enjoy it. That alone should have been reason enough.

At first, I was worried about what you guys would say to me if I tried to explain this. Do you think that's weird? I did care about your opinions and I didn't want to seem like I only wanted to win. But in the end, I decided that, seeing as we weren't a serious TW faction and my presence there would not have tipped the scales enough, that I shouldn't strain myself just because of what people thought of me. I hoped that you guys would understand my choice.

I was deeply saddened by some of your reactions. Most of you just expressed confusion or mild frustration, which was understandable... after all, I couldn't really explain the whole thing right there in guild chat. But a couple of you - I won't name names - didn't even seem interested in the reason. I wasn't going to show, and so to these people, I may as well have been a spoiled little kid who only cared about winning, instead of having fun. As if I didn't have a good reason. As if I couldn't possibly have a good reason. As if I would openly lie to my entire faction about my intent to defend on Sunday night.

I was online (although half-afk) for the duration of the fight. When it ended, I remember Val saying something about being killfarmed. Did TheLegend really do that? They didn't do it on Saturday, so this confused me a lot. :-/ I logged shortly after, because I was going to do so anyway.



Final musings

I really want to thank you guys for participating in the TWs. The straight-up zeal most of you showed was amazing, and in some ways I felt like it brought us closer as a group, in spite of everything.

What surprised me the most was the strong attitudes some of you displayed about it all. You convinced me of your willingness to stand against anyone and not be trolled, even by Enrage (and it takes a lot to convince me of anything). But for some of you, there was a seriousness that felt out of place in a casually-TWing faction.

Nowhere was that more obvious than with Jay (_Jaysun_ / Illasuard) and his wife (River_ / Stoli). I've had several lengthy discussions with this couple, particularly Jay, on many topics... not the least of which was Enrage, and his personal vendetta against them. I was floored by some of this. I thought they had a simply fascinating perspective and I was really glad to have them with us. But at the same time, their perspective was clearly having trouble matching up with our way of doing things in Hikari. On more than one occasion I remember them getting angry over seeminly trivial things. River once told me that she was (somewhat) confused and borderline offended by people who don't show up to TW, and asked me "why would we be a TW faction" if we didn't.

I tried my best to avoid angering them, but it didn't matter in the end. They both quit Hikari in the space of five minutes (for much of which, my back was turned to that screen)... and for reasons that didn't seem related to TW at all. But I knew that trying to get them back would mean facing their stinging criticism of us not being a TW faction, so I did not pursue it (unlike xHAILEEx, who many of us miss and who I am still talking to). At the end of the day, good people though they were, Jay and River were not a good fit for Hikari... they had goals that we could not seriously help them acheive.

I think it's worth repeating that Hikari is not a serious TW faction, and we never will be. We do not have the numbers for it and even if we did, the PVP system is too drastically broken for us to stand up against those who exploit it. But more importantly, serious TW is fundamentally at odds with the idea of a casual, social faction. Just look at Radiance, GoldDigrz, Dominus, or Enrage. The amount of time, energy, and often money that they put into planning, preparation, strategy, gear acquisition, squad management, and financial matters simply dwarfs anything that Hikari is interested in as a family. Those guys make it their lives. And they hopefully have fun with it - if not, why would they do it? - but it's not our thing.

And if you truly desire that kind of thing in-game, well... I'll be honest, I don't envy you. But I encourage you to reach for the stars nonetheless. We try to be an understanding family, and if you need to join a big faction to acheive your goals, well, we'll miss you, but we'll understand. You will not be the first dedicated TW player to have gotten their start in Hikari. In fact, some of the TW intel and advice we used in our battles was directly contributed by ex-Hikaris such as ChocoFox.

But I don't think many of you are after that kind of existance. I think we all understand that, since real life gets in the way of such aspirations, they aren't realistic. At the end of the day, real life is still more important than a video game. And even though real life drains us and exhausts us, we're still here to play and help whenever we can... or just to joke in faction chat about strangling Val for getting so many damn Ecstacy Cards. ;[

We made about 15 million coins (after TW expenses) from holding Ancient Wall. I don't want to rule out future bidding, but I am strongly pleading with Val to distribute most of that money out to you guys. You deserve it. I know that the experience and the fun we had are more important, but I want you guys to walk away from this with a little more than just "a speech about friendship." ;]

As for future battles... well, that's what my thread at PWI forum was all about. With regular resets, that could become a reality. I do hope we have more some fun fights against good folks like Progress and (I presume) TheLegend in the future... in one way or another. It's a shame that the current system doesn't really support such a thing (although some of us still hold out hope that the Guild Bases will help with this)... but whether or not that changes, we can still continue to hope, and in the meantime continue to just have fun with each other in the Hikari family.



Thanks for reading... I know I'm a shameless tl;dr offender, but I really do appreciate your time.

very good post!!!! you should be a writer [quote]Suki and I stayed up late on Saturday night with unrelated things. When I woke up the next morning, I was still exhausted and nursing a few various aches and pains which were brought on by the activities of the night before (these were not related to drinking or anything, as I don't drink... PM me later if you really have some burning desire for the specifics). best part