Matt wrote:Special roles... Shooting characters... It's blatant favoritism.
I didn't edit your post in my quote to make trouble, it's simply for my purposes, to simplify the issues you are trying to make as I understand them.
I'm taking these out of order, let's do the 'shooting characters' first and how you are confused by how I continue to justify my actions.
To begin, I heard you the first time about not appreciating being shot by an invisible foe. I took that to heart and said that I'd avoid it in the future. Next, this singular instance that you just can't seem to let go of happened what? 5... 6 months ago? Your complaining like it happens every day, let's put it in to perspective.
Also, referring to the whole incident as me 'saving the elf' isn't quite the truth either... If you read the log, you'll see, as I've pointed out before, that within seconds of stopping the action to allow roleplay after the orc came in and immediately hit the elf, that the orc was having none of my interference and immediately hit the elf again, engaging him. So... in the end, my 'saving the elf' is a bit far-fetched. He was at 5 stars and ended up having to flee and twink away anyway to avoid the twinking attacks he was enduring.
It's a no-win situation with you on this one, Matt. On one hand you want staff interaction and rpts, and then on the other when I do try to provide some interaction with an elf for the orcs you cry foul.
I stand by the scene to this day, with the regret of shooting a single arrow at an orc (though I did always make sure to nerf down my skill levels so as not to kill anyone, so the point you made about max skills earlier is moot as well.)
... Blatant Favoritism.
Okay... you see it as blatant favoritism, I get that. I also understand that my words are most likely going to fall on deaf ears, but I'll do my best to explain myself.
Yes. There is a lot of favoritism shown here at Shadows of Isildur. We are guilty of it every time we award an rpp three times, or help someone make a minor modification to their character, send a pecho, modify their strength, resurrect them multiple times, set them up with special roles, trans them because they have to leave and don't want to get left out in the wilderness, load an ingot that you claim to have lost, load a lathe for you, or planishing table, and countless other things.
Amazingly enough... all of this favoritism was shown towards you, Matt. The two resurrections were performed without my knowledge and a previous admin that is no longer on staff performed them without noting your account as to why.
So... it looks like it boils down to how -much- favoritism you receive and the fact that you may feel like someone else may be getting something that you're not. That's what it looks like from this end anyway.
In the end, I think it's 'biased favoritism' that you're claiming, and I will have to vehemently deny any biased favoritism.
Special Roles. Yep. We have them... some are posted and open to anyone with the RPP to claim them. A very few are available by invitation only.
Why by invitation? Because we're confident that the person we choose for such a role will be able to fill it in the manner we expect.
The Elf was invited, by me, to take a role as an elf within our game in order to provide a bit of color in a manner that we were just unable to at the time due to time restrictions, and let's face it... skill. All of our original Elder Staffers agreed to this, so we moved forward over the course of a couple of months working with the player. The player was responsible for doing a ton of research and presenting a very detailed background, which was picked apart by us to ensure the concept fit in with what we, as staff, were striving for as a whole game.
We have invited a few other players to take roles as well and have worked with each, one at a time, to make sure they fit in to our gameworld. These roles are not just something you whip up in a few hours, like most of the more detailed backgrounds we see in chargen. Many times it has literally taken months to flesh everything out so it's all just right.
Will we continue to invite specific players to take a role? Yes.
Why weren't you asked to play our elf? Let's face it, playing an elf, in the manner we wish them played, is simply above 99.9% of our players. I've only seen two players in all my time at SoI that could properly play an elf, and the player we chose was one of them.
Don't feel slighted... I would personally never consider trying to play an elf or dwarf myself. I wouldn't even consider playing a Beorning either, it's just not in me to play them. Why? Because I'm not a Tolkien scholar and it takes one to play these roles correctly. I know a significant amount of Tolkien, but several on staff and many players put me to shame. I do not enter in to debate with these people on Tolkien Lore. I happily listen to them on these issues and am happy they are on my side.
Want to play a special role? Sadly you can't vote yourself in to the 'by invite only' roles, those are few and far between, but we do allow folks to submit ideas for roles that they are interested in playing.
So... in closing, you can trust me or not, Matt. I'm not going to lose any sleep over how you feel about it or any vitriolic venom you spew my way. I know, and staff know that I do my best to be as straight-forward as possible and go to great lengths to avoid any type of biased favoritism.
You're more than welcome to continue playing this game. I'll continue to show you favoritism when it's called for. You're even welcome to continue to distrust me and prattle on about it with all of your ooc contacts. Feel free. But I'm not going to wilt under the assault. I know in my heart that I do not dole out any favors to the handful of friends that I have in the ooc network. Ask them if you like... I'm probably much meaner to them than someone that's not my friend.
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.