cauda_draconis wrote:So, you dicided to leave after all?
I was pretty sure, that you will calm down and return... So it seems i was mistaken.
NNN isn't the only reason why I left. Many things came together. This just being another nail in the coffin.
It is very time consuming to basically run a big town or the biggest town with a very small group. It can be very frustrating too. People tend to forget that the town which is giving them protection is not some magical entity that will supply this protection out of thin air, but needs to be worked on and supported by everyone. Often there have been public projects that had to be done and when you asked for help nobody would answer, all of a sudden people are just afking on their plots, those plots they invest hours and hours everyday in, but when a wall needs to be built or a patrol to be done they suddenly disappear. So it falls back on this same small group again and at some point one just gets sick of the constant yelling (unless one is Avu, he runs on it).
The group of leaders had become pretty small too, because many old time players already quit some time ago because of the lack of development and the abuse of hearthvaults. I didn't want to abandon Pande, so I stepped up and took over. Not only did I have to manage many of the inner affairs (although I am pretty sure the essential workload was still done more by Ramo and Lil than me), but I am practically the face of Pande too if I want to or not. So all PMs, complaints, suggestions, questions and what not were adressed to me. An average day ended for me with having like 20 channels in skype, game, irc and whatever opened where people wanted to talk to me and at the same time I tried to fullfill requests in the actual game. At some point every new person writing me became an annoyance even when some weeks or months ago I always was excited to talk to said person, ask what's up in their lives etc. Now it was usually a "Sorry I couldn't answer you any earlier" I started my conversations with, while thinking "Oh, can you please leave me alone..."
The war vs NNN actually gave me a little additional power and I want to mention once again that organizing the major raids together with Valten was among the greatest experiences I had in HnH so far. Having an army of 20-30 people at your disposal every single day, setting up rams, keeping your enemies under constant pressure was pretty great. The hearthvaults made the experience very frustrating too though. With such an army and such an amount of effort and some of the best minds considering combat among your men there should be some successes and not only shoot outs where some pieces of armor were damaged and nothing else. So the summon bot (don't even start on this again please, the excuses about it were pretty lame) was just such a frustrating experience. I had put up with the fact of fighting an uphill battle against hv abuse, but this shit pushed me over the edge.
Don't get me wrong Pande is stil a great town and has supplied me with a unique experience, because never since the early Sodom days have I actually been the leader of "my" towns. There was always someone else in charge, no matter if it was a group or a person I put there myself.
I would like to try something else in the game actually. I could imagine rolling with the Ainran crew for a while. Despite their public image and the fact of them being pretty relentless PKers they are great guys and not many in this game know so well what they are doing. I also could imagine living a simple life in a small town...but you know I am a power gamer. I would still want to have the best clay, soil, metal. That would make me search for ways to get it which would probably make me expand my town and get more people in it. Some that own good clay, some that own good soil. You see where I am going. I would end up with another Pande and besides I already have a very nice Pande right here. It is just too much work and I realized I again put rl tasks aside for in game tasks like i had done before in w2/3. That should better not happen again.
I will maybe be back in w5, probably only if something in the organization structures of Pande changes though and the workload becomes a lot smaller for myself. I will hopefully see some guys here around in Salem, I will definitely stick to the forums. I recently tried out Wakfu (feel free to hook me up there. Name Diaspora on the Remington server) and read their forums a bit. They try some form of political system there, some form of environmental system where player actions have consequences when at the same time PvP has 0 consequences. The game itself is fun to play and kill some mobs etc, but I also pretty quickly realized how special HnH is. Nowhere else you have such in depth content and despite all the balancing issues at hand one balance is pretty good: You can't have a sanboxy world with lasting consequences and then at the same time not make PvP matter. Permadeath is a must!
Wow, this is longer than I wanted it to be, but I guess I felt the need to write it down
Nobody ever leaves HnH completely, so I will be back at one point or the other and I promise to be responsible for some form of drama then whatever that may be. I heard Koya tries to assemble an all russian army btw to siege and conquer Pande. That true? Would be fun to watch I guess.
by barracuda546 » Wed Sep 07, 2011 3:54 pm 
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Maybe I should do the same now. But only after a complete HnH break, cannot imagine building up something from the start at the moment.
