Posted By Sleep at 12:14 PM - Fri Aug 23 2019

snip

1. The monarchs agree.

2. 2 days later caspian tells them that he won’t be able to deliver all of the metadata for kingdoms and essentially none of the metadata for the duchies.

3. The monarchs agree to continue anyway so as to not disappoint the coe community with more delays.

As of the moment they agreed to continue anyway, any agreement is amended...that's what agreeing means.

Adam and D can't claim the moral high ground here if they agree to a change, then later revoke their consent and declare the other party are liars for not sticking to the original terms...completely ignoring their agreement to change terms.

That's pretty dishonest.

1. 1 or 2 days before the dukes were to pick their duchies, sbs tells the monarchs ‘sorry, the maps won’t be ready in time.

2. According to adam(post #13 in this thread,) after monarchs picked and there was a delay, he brought up that they should be allowed to repick due to the delay; “From that point forward they were ghosts in that discord not uttering a word;” adam also tried to address the issue via support ticket, pms, and forum threads, receiving no response. according to dleatherus(post #26 in this thread,) repicks were brought up to developers back in may.

Are we now whitewashing history to ignore all that was going on at the time? Does no one remember the general chaos of Discord and the shear amount of vitriol being thrown at SbS?

What sort of self-involvement does it take to consider them "ghosting" to be about yourself, and not to be a perfectly normal and healthy response to the bombardment they were under at the time?

You cannot with a straight face claim to be approaching this subject honestly if you ignore the context of the April initial delay period.

1. 4 months later, August 2019, caspian says no monarch has approached the studio yet to start a conversation about re-picking, and such a conversation would be premature before seeing the final maps.

For all we know, the requests SbS did see, and I think D shared one with Vye that was clearly seen, did not get communicated to Caspian. Unless you can prove he was aware, his comment is merely wrong, not dishonest. And they have been pretty busy these past 4 months...it is not hard to imagine this slipping through the cracks. As much as the kings would like to think they are SbS top priority, I'd put decent money that's not true. Nor should it be.

1. maps site/tool with metadata is released. Tribal distributions and resource distributions are very very different from what the monarchs were previously shown when they made their kingdom picks.

RC10, the live map, has very good alignment with the information shown to the kings before their pick. Any disagreement on previous RCs is both under NDA and irrelevant to the current situation.

All of these allegations are open to scrutiny and dispute. There might be more to the picture than all of this. I am willing to consider counter-allegations, corrections, and other evidences. If the above allegations are indeed true and accurate, then I'm in agreement with adam and dleatherus about how this matter should be addressed by caspian.

Was it always expected that for dss, monarchs and all aristocracy would get to make their picks based on the same metadata? even if the studio might make changes to that metadata after the picks, is it not reasonable and fair that the monarchs and all aristocracy should at least get to make their picks based on the same metadata, thereby putting them in the same boat? like what Drudge said above(post #109:) “but for simple consistency why would we not want the Momarchs to pick from the same maps and data as everyone else. It wouldn’t cause a delay. It could be done over a single weekend. “ - even if it did cause a delay, i think we've waited long enough; let's be willing to wait a little longer to do what's fair. then again, we obviously don't all agree that an offer of repicks from caspian would be fair.

in my opinion, even if caspian doesn't offer repicks(which i think he should based on what i've seen,) he should at least address this issue, and not avoid or hide from it. some people(even those that think caspian did wrong,) think that he should stay silent on this matter, and that such behavior is fine in business because it might in some way be practical, reasonable, or smart business-wise, perhaps for the sake of general public perception, or perhaps legally smart(maybe advised by retained attorneys;) but by my estimation, regardless of the consequences legally or business-wise, such behavior is pathetic and childish, immoral, unethical, unjust, unfair, dishonorable, wrong, lacking integrity, or any other simile.

And we end with name calling...fun.

The Kings of Luna agreed to their kingdoms back in November. The communities beneath them planned accordingly. Counts moved duchies, kingdoms even. I'm sorry if they feel offended that Caspian hasn't talked to them 1:1 enough or made formally apologies to them directly for the delays...but SbS has already apologized for the long delay, already explained satisfactorily the reasons for it, and has produced a map that reflects the info provided to the Kings in April. Their hurt feelings are no reason to allow them to blow up the plans of everyone beneath them, who was working on the expectation that the Kings would keep their word...an expectation that your own points 1-3 makes clear is perhaps unfounded.

Posted By Gunnlang at 07:38 AM - Fri Aug 23 2019

Posted By 1mmaculateDeception at 11:37 PM - Fri Aug 23 2019

There are Dukes that have dumped more into this project than most Monarchs.

Not sure why you quoted me, with that reply. I didn't say kings were the highest backers. Just implied from dumping so much, they may feel they are owed more.

It wasnt a shot. I was just quoting yours as context for my post. I wasnt trying to pick apart anything you said. If anything, just adding a little more to it?

@quintero - i appreciate your above post. i'd like to see even more people trying to better flesh this thing out(all sides of the story, context, ec.) your points are very interesting and worth consideration. i'd also like to see caspian weigh in on this with his side of the story.

to be clear, the timeline i posted was the testimony of dleatherus and adam, not my own thoughts on the matter. and the last part of my post was my opinion of developers who ignore alleged serious issues raised by their community; i didn't mean those words as name-calling, just a harsh judgement.

edit: also to be clear, i love this game and want to see it and the studio succeed.

You can't expect a studio -- any studio -- to be able to address that level of individualized requests and deliver on their end goal properly at the same time.

People should get what they backed for, no more or no less. It's not because I bought 3 duchies that I should get anything different than the guy who only got one duchy... just three times as many.

There were never guarantees of equality or fairness, actually the opposite was said. So I say what is picked is picked, and now let's move on.

If everyone will be claiming individual/selfish stuff, we'll never get to building Elyria together -- just tear it apart.

Posted By HolyAvengerOne at 12:59 PM - Sat Aug 24 2019

You can't expect a studio -- any studio -- to be able to address that level of individualized requests and deliver on their end goal properly at the same time.

People should get what they backed for, no more or no less. It's not because I bought 3 duchies that I should get anything different than the guy who only got one duchy... just three times as many.

There were never guarantees of equality or fairness, actually the opposite was said. So I say what is picked is picked, and now let's move on.

If everyone will be claiming individual/selfish stuff, we'll never get to building Elyria together -- just tear it apart.

yeaaaaa but that's not the situation. a response would be easy and they actually already have responded.....by lying and claiming no one has contacted them about it despite some of the biggest pillars of the community trying to contact them for weeks. The studio can't respond to all community members, but seeing as how the kings directly represent their community (i.e nearly everyone in the community) it seems reasonable to expect the studio to at least not completely ignore and lie to those individuals

Posted By Adam Burrfoot at 6:19 PM - Wed Aug 21 2019

I also have no desire to repick due to any of the parameters of advantage or disadvantage. That has nothing to do with it, even the changes have nothing to do with it.

This is about us picking based upon an agreement made with the studio based on parameters that were not met by the studio and therefore they can either acknowledge they didnt meet the parameters, apologize and allow things to move on or they should allow the monarchs to repick since the parameters they agreed to do their picks on were not met.

I can't believe that you seem to be surprised and unnaccepting. It was written in the sky that some decisions SBS wouldn't please everyone and that some of them would not please most players. You were warned and it was foretold and yet here we are.

And if you think this is the last time they take a decision you don't agree with, it's but the first of many, many things that you won't agree on and wasn't what you were expecting.

Given how the game built on expectations for 4+ years now, largely immaterial design journals and blogs, and given Vye's explanation post/meaculpa last week (i.e. there's so much they didn't know and have yet to learn, yet they've grown a lot), things are bound to be different than anyone expected it, in the end.

You need to come to terms with that.

Posted By Tulloch at 5:31 PM - Sat Aug 24 2019

Posted By HolyAvengerOne at 12:59 PM - Sat Aug 24 2019

You can't expect a studio -- any studio -- to be able to address that level of individualized requests and deliver on their end goal properly at the same time.

People should get what they backed for, no more or no less. It's not because I bought 3 duchies that I should get anything different than the guy who only got one duchy... just three times as many.

There were never guarantees of equality or fairness, actually the opposite was said. So I say what is picked is picked, and now let's move on.

If everyone will be claiming individual/selfish stuff, we'll never get to building Elyria together -- just tear it apart.

yeaaaaa but that's not the situation. a response would be easy and they actually already have responded.....by lying and claiming no one has contacted them about it despite some of the biggest pillars of the community trying to contact them for weeks. The studio can't respond to all community members, but seeing as how the kings directly represent their community (i.e nearly everyone in the community) it seems reasonable to expect the studio to at least not completely ignore and lie to those individuals

Lie is never acceptable, but there are other things that could explain the break in communications. Also, if both sides have different stories and diverging interests, it can also get hard to gauge.

That being said, no, SBS doesn't have to listen or pay heed to its "kings" (some would say "whales" ;)) or whoever backer more than another, beyond what was pledged for. Just as a director needs to listen to their employees, but to a point. Same of a parent with their kid.

These are all situations in which the person making the decision has a moral commitment and sometimes need to make the tough, unpopular, yet needed call for the greater good of the game/organization/person, etc. The day a parent starts to bow to the whim of their kids, or the boss let the company be run by all of its employees, it's the beginning of the end.

Let's not forget also that the ones with the most data to make such a call are the devs themselves, not the monarchs, nor anyone else. Each and everyone involved has their own unique perspective, for sure, but someone's has precedence and it needs to be the game's creator if it's going to live at all.

Last but not least, the kings/monarchs/whales (sorry guys) are NOT representing the majority of the players of CoE. They certainly are the larger/more involved communities at present time, but they don't speak for every player that will be involved over the 10-year story arc, nor do they represent or were elected by anyone in the current community.

i don't understand the people saying that d and adam are acting on a whim or unfairly trying to flex their muscles here. it might in fact be true, but i've seen no evidence for it. at the same time, i think they have made a strong case for that not being the case. i'd like to see evidences put forth to support such a position if it is indeed true.

as for the argument that a studio doesn't have time to address every little issue that people raise... i think the allegations here do not represent a small issue, in my opinion, they represent a very important issue. based on the allegations this is(at least in part,) a matter of the studio or simply caspian himself making promises to his patrons that he didn't know if he could keep, or maybe even that he knew he couldn't keep.

Posted By Sleep at 2:07 PM - Sun Aug 25 2019

i don't understand the people saying that d and adam are acting on a whim or unfairly trying to flex their muscles here. it might in fact be true, but i've seen no evidence for it. at the same time, i think they have made a strong case for that not being the case. i'd like to see evidences put forth to support such a position if it is indeed true.

as for the argument that a studio doesn't have time to address every little issue that people raise... i think the allegations here do not represent a small issue, in my opinion, they represent a very important issue. based on the allegations this is(at least in part,) a matter of the studio or simply caspian himself making promises to his patrons that he didn't know if he could keep, or maybe even that he knew he couldn't keep.

Dear Sleep,

it is the responsibility of the accusers to prove their case. SBS or the larger community do not need to prove anything to you. And SBS has the right to be treated as not guilty until the accusers make their case. However, based on the down- and upvotes, I would guess that the accusers have not convinced the community of their case.

And honestly I do not want to be mean, but at this point some people should ask themselves why they have failed to convince the community.

Best wishes, Kant

If people don't want to watch the livestream and comments made and understand the evidence that has been presented, that's on them. Truth is not a popularity contest.

Does anyone feel like this whole situation could be resolved with a good old-fashioned duel? Or, maybe a new age duel, but still. Dueling for the win! Just imagine, boxing gloves in a room full of ice sculptures with two moderately out of shape men who are shirtless, going all out.

Posted By fierywind at 11:44 PM - Sat Aug 24 2019

If people don't want to watch the livestream and comments made and understand the evidence that has been presented, that's on them. Truth is not a popularity contest.

No but people often mistaken their own opinion for the absolute truth.

Posted By 1mmaculateDeception at 09:10 AM - Sun Aug 25 2019

Posted By fierywind at 11:44 PM - Sat Aug 24 2019

If people don't want to watch the livestream and comments made and understand the evidence that has been presented, that's on them. Truth is not a popularity contest.

No but people often mistaken their own opinion for the absolute truth.

True!

... or was that only your opinion? ;)

Posted By Elorion at 06:55 AM - Sun Aug 25 2019

Does anyone feel like this whole situation could be resolved with a good old-fashioned duel? Or, maybe a new age duel, but still. Dueling for the win! Just imagine, boxing gloves in a room full of ice sculptures with two moderately out of shape men who are shirtless, going all out.

Live stream duel in the game client. Dare to the devs!

Posted By Kant at 01:24 AM - Sun Aug 25 2019

And honestly I do not want to be mean, but at this point some people should ask themselves why they have failed to convince the community.

Honestly the thought of a re-pick horrifies some of the community because monarchs on some of the servers will intentionally displace other kingdoms just for funzies.. those that know that are fighting hard against this and others are happy with the dice roll they got. Great!

Now that we know it's never going to happen why are we still laser focused on the issue and not the cause? As recently as this past week RO maps were announced to be released that day when they were not ready and we stayed up until 2am (my local time) for them to put the finishing polish on the release of RO.

SbS recently accepted our position on dates and stopped giving hard dates. This was an excellent step in the right direction but many in the community still have concerns. The meme during 4 months of map delays was "only a couple more days" which went on for weeks.

The cause of the issue that started this "repick" debate is still prevalent as recently as this week, announcing/hinting at a deliverable that is still in an undeliverable state.

I honestly wish this thread would die because I agree it's never going to happen (and for more reasons than not it shouldn't) but as a community I think the resounding message here could be that we still need realistic expectations conveyed and overall better communication from the studio.

*Edit: And let the down voting begin lol.. SbS has to at some point stop looking at what we're saying and try to understand "WHY we're saying it". Have fun with this thread.

I am going ahead and locking this thread. It is a passionate topic with strong opinions for both sides. Both sides opinions have been stated and replied to many times. The thread is just rehashing the same two sides and is only fueling the anger. It will remain up for viewing so everyone can read the comments to help them work through any issues they have with this topic. Thank you for your understanding.