Hey all,
I’d like to start off by telling you guys a story, about a young college aged guy who moved to a new city and was trying hard to fit in. Moving away from your hometown and being away from your friends and family can be scary and hard. And let me tell you that finding friends can be intimidating.
I spent weeks alone and searching for a group of friends to call my own, until suddenly I met one of my still best friends named Silence Sei (Calvin) while applying for jobs. He to this day was the greatest buddy I think I ever had and when he mentioned that he played on a role playing website I was Skeptical at first. I thought he must have been a nut, or at least had a screw loose or something. But the more and more he talked about it and encouraged me to log on and look around the more and more I felt like a part of the community and that I was embraced with open arms. Thanks to Althanas and Calvin I felt at home in a new city and away from my safety net. All this is to say that I love this website like I love my best friends and don’t want anything to happen to this very special corner of the internet.
Above I have read through the changes coming on March 1st and have more than a few comments to make but I believe that the current admin staff have every right to do what they see as the right move going forward. To everyone reading this I’m here to say that without change our precious escape is in jeopardy of crumbling. We as a group have always had the mentality that real life comes first and I’m sure everyone one can agree with this, but now isn’t the time for that. It’s time to come together as a group, reach out to everyone, and bring this wonderful community back together. These changes are a great way to breath fresh air back into Althanas.
If I were to alter one thing from the plan moving forward would be to limit the power creep that has always been present here. I love the freedom we will be allowing moving forward but see it as an easily exploitable system with minimal checks and balances. How do we stop players, myself included, from creating stupidly powerful characters period? If I want to play a character with realism I will not write with a player who is so absurdly powerful that there is no competition. I understand that the ability to “win†is based on your writing and being judged but come on. The power levels were allowed to be too high already and this will only exacerbate the issue in my mind. Not only has this been an intimidating thing to deal with in the past these changes will make it easier to be done.
I’d like to see upper limits established somehow for competitions.
I’d like to see a warm and welcoming community like it was in the old days where people thought about you as a friend and kept in touch outside the game, some of us have.
I’d like to see Guilds to make a major comeback, at least in some regard other than fleeting mentions in threads here and there.
But mostly I’d like for everyone to reach out to anyone you can, not only to check in, but inform them of these changes. The last two years have been the worst time of my life as Ive had some close calls. I cannot be the only props on that a curtesy call could change their lives. Whether you like the changes or not (I Do Not) they are coming, and we have to deal with em. But that doesn’t mean others don’t have the right to know and it’s our responsibilities to do it. And if we are making these great changes to the system let’s make changes in ourselves too and only do what’s right from here on out.
To anyone reading this… do your part spread the word. For good or bad we owe it to those who have come before us.
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