WoN ain't the wave

I just wanted to have fun playing magical pixel ninja with people I love and people I hate.

Most of my thoughts were already conveyed here and I'd rather not explain the full rundown of why WoN started declining because it goes a while back, but rest assured that it's not a 1-group fuckup, it's a collective mess brought by admins, players, eventmins, developers and community alike. Ideas of old and people being afraid of reaching late-game power spikes both as an admin team and a community is mostly responsible for the very tail-end of this decline. People complaining about ECs who (should be) obviously present to show that you can reach that level too only gives less incentive for the community and staff to push for that level.

Instead of dwelling on the mistakes of the past and whatever else you may have against me, I'll explain a few things that may or may not make you want to see this wipe to the end of its story at the very least, even if at an accelerated pace.

There were 2 arcs left that were (loosely) written.

The next arc was about the fivefold, Zero and his goons, it had buildup from a long time ago and was Darwin's original idea of an end-game last/second to last arc. The BBEG of that group has a backstory was was scattered left and right, though the people who learned about it are all dead at this point in the wipe, but trust me the guy isn't just Darwin being (100%) retarded. As for the group themselves, since people may feel oppressed by their presence, I'm going to be open about their strength:

They are A- in grade, possess 1 unique and maybe 1 semi and are much weaker than anyone who would be A- is. They have glaring weaknesses and can all be taken down in a 1v1 by anyone who'll reach A-.

Of course people who drive/write the plot aren't in control of progression and power. With how things were going Nick and I thought that people would have B+ 7 weeks ago. We never accounted for the top day 1s to leave and die so quickly nor did we expect the point disparity to be so high due to a lack of actual gen 2 (in Konoha at least). Zao grew to have the most points a bit before the first timeskip, the only person competing with him being Moon's character as the both of us were getting 7s and 8s on our checks each week ever since week 1. Zao's point total from when he died a month ago is still higher than anyone else's who's alive right now. Basically the point I'm trying to make is that we thought people would rank up faster and actively encouraged people to go apply for things when they'd sit there and not put down apps. I personally told about every admin on the team that people should be ranked up and ever since Christmas week I pushed for people to get B+ alongside raising up others who were not where they should be (like Akihiro being C+ back then despite having 100pp and doing a lot). Sure, that's a bad example because I'm talking about my friend, but I didn't really interact with a lot of people from Amegakure at that time and, as Raz could tell you, I also pushed people who I didn't really talk to to apply for stuff, actually thinking that they deserved it.

This was a long sidetrack and I'll stop there, but the tl;dr of it is that we (nick and I) thought that the power would keep rising at a swift rate and expected much more. Dropping people who are A- when people are B+ only makes them a possible goal. Regardless, the balance of those ECs remains the same and if we do reach A-, you'll most definitely understand how soft of an A- they are.

For the arc that follows this one the idea was to have it start after this timeskip with the fivefold dying beforehand. Regardless, what shall henceforth be dubbed the last arc is one deeply rooted in morality, values and thoughts. It requires no rank or power to play a part in and would, in its own way, make the tremendous power people have earned over the course of the wipe almost pointless. It's about change and adapting, or the opposite. It also can really only end with 2 different ways which would both split off into their own setup for a possible next wipe.

I'll be honestly bummed if we can't play this one out. I like it a lot. Of course most minute detail of an arc that was constructed over the entire wipe can be missed by just about everyone, but even if you hate the idea completely this arc lets you express that in its own way.

All in all, this post that was supposed to be 2 sentence long ends here. My final words are as follows:


I'm going to keep playing the game and hold on to what remains. I'll keep on running events and give my best to have a satisfying ending. I know that WoN may not be the wave, but you can ride more than just waves. 😎

There's a question I've been meaning to ask. Transparency keeps getting brought up -- what exactly do you guys mean? I don't see how we could be more transparent than we already are, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you're trying to get across. Please remember: I am fuckin stupid sometimes

Guess I was wrong about the 'truer words' thing, huh?

I've been part of a lot of admin teams in the past, and I've played a lot of games in the past. Sadly, Naruto RP games are fraught with the exact same issues that they've had in prior incarnations. I've made a lot of posts like these, and I guess I'm going to make another one. This is what I've noticed across lots of RP games, not all of this will be applicable to WoN probably. 

Bad preparation
From the start, games are so unprepared, half the systems are being procrastinated on while people go through the academy/C rank and it typically reaches the point where you try to get something and have to wait 2 weeks so people can actually get together to flesh it out. Maps are typically unfinished, and remain that way until the game dies. 


Bad admin team composition/ownership/bias when it comes to admin choices/decision-making/listening
Lack of communication that stems from a lack of defined roles/schedules/bad admin choices/lack of hierarchy. Sometimes you know someone is a bad choice, you know they will be lazy on the admin team and not do anything but they're still hired. Typically though, a lot of admins actually want to do things but they don't know what to do because there aren't any defined roles. It's the bystander effect, really. There's something that needs to be done and there's 6 people on to do it, but it's either no one's job...or everyone's job. So nobody does it, or one person steps up, resentful that the others didn't. This typically creates a rift on admin teams imo. Admin distribution among villages is important too, I've seen it happen so many times where the village with the admin team on it is doing absolutely fantastic in terms of story, player satisfaction, progression, etc while the other one is basically ignored and begins to drag the game down. 

For instance, Hiazi may not have been appointed official log checker but he's the only admin dumb(?) enough to take it upon himself to do log checks every single weekend, to the point that I originally thought that he was the official log checker. Since I joined this game (again), I've never had any issues with log checks in the slightest, whereas in the past, I used to sometimes have to wait until like the next log check to get the last one. In a game where a lot of things are failing/falling behind/going unanswered, this is one thing that seems to be going pretty damn well. He's filling a role, and fulfilling a responsibility, making the game better in the process. Yeah he's super dumb. 
Roles/assigned tasks matter. 

Accountability matters. To be honest the worst mistake an admin team can make is not admitting that they made a mistake, and sticking to their guns no matter the consequences. 

TRIBALISM/BIAS
Alright, this is the crux of what makes these games fall in my opinion. They descend into tribalism very quickly on an OOC level, where admin teams adopt the position that if their decisions are questioned they must destroy the people who questioned them with impunity and tarnish their credibility/reputation. You see it all the time, especially when someone has been caught being biased or doing something shady, or in a plain mistake. When people have a complaint or inquiry about something that is happening on another group they just get memed on, told to stop being a little bitch, jealous, entitled, etc. Sometimes, even when they're just asking so they can form a better understanding on what it is that they should do better, or so they get a better idea of what happened before they immediately assume that it's grotesque bias.

Honestly, there will always be a light degree of bias. Bias cannot be completely eradicated, but it does not have to reach toxic levels. If you're my friend, I -will- notice your accomplishments more than others. So it is important for an admin to not immediately shut people down when something is brought up, and to be extra vigilant of other people that they may not like as much in my opinion. Unfortunately, across these games when people try to ask about progression or why they didn't get X they typically get told something like... " Shut the fuck up and RP. Don't think about others. " Not in those exact words, really, they just get silenced, or distracted, deflected, it's turned back on them, etc.

I've seen this happen many times, especially when there's very clear, grotesque bias at play. 

It's clear that some people got much more than what their effort merited. The reality is that admin friends have a lower threshold of effort to get cool shit, and it's always been that way in these games. They have people that are willing to argue more for them in the admin team, especially considering that typically admin teams are stingy with power, so they get their stuff quicker for the sole virtue that someone was on the fence but said no, then someone else got that one extra push in to turn it into a yes while the other person was forgotten. In Naruto RP, that can be weeks of waiting. 

In WoN this wipe, tribalism presented itself as conflict between like two cliques that were in control of different aspects of the game, who didn't come together to actually resolve anything and kinda' just let resentment fester and went "fuck those guys", or so i hear. But this isn't special. This shit has happened across like every single Naruto RP game. People just quit faster now because they've grown tired of it. It's always the same thing. A particular group of players gets given things that are super powerful, but another group of players gets shafted when asking for things that aren't anywhere near as strong. It creates a sense of hopelessness, not that your effort doesn't matter at all, but that you just have to output so much more of it than a certain set of players to even have a shot at being on their playing field. That the admin team doesn't really care about you as a player, that you're only along for the ride so a certain other group of people can have fun, sometimes at your expense. This has honestly been the case in the past multiple times, as well. A small group wants to have fun and they know they can't really have fun RPing on a dead game, so they do enough to keep players around while prioritizing their friends/their own interests.

Nobody wants to spend their hours being in a situation like that. Especially when tribalism descends to the point that ppl stop seeing individual players and just start seeing groups. " who that? oh he part of x clique? fuck em they dont do shit " " who that? oh they part of x clique? fuck em they grimy.  " etc. This is very detrimental to the game because it actually makes people cling a lot more to their groups of friends than they otherwise would have, imo and they start getting defensive and more concerned with proving the other group wrong/the actions of the other group than with having fun and roleplaying their characters. 

Tribalism has ways of dragging toxicity out of even the most chill, coolest players.

Bad handling of DRs/Uniques/Jinchuuriki

Badly handled uniques kill games. It's not just about whether someone got the unique in a biased manner or not, but also just how powerful that unique is. Sometimes bias can be so grotesquely obvious that you know that if you had earned that unique, it would be much weaker than what the current player has. It's about the fact that when you give something to your friends you do not display self-restraint, and act in accordance to what your friends want and not in their best interests/the best interests of the game.

Nick and Jumpy did a lot for the game, no one has questioned it. But their progression was badly handled. Jinchuuriki is one of those things where you have to actually exercise self-restraint, because they're ludicrously strong and practically give you main character status the moment you get them. A lot of people have issues with this, including myself. Yes, they got B- too early. I'm not pinning the entirety of the blame on them however, because there needed to be that one admin that had the self-restraint/vision/care about other players to say... " No guys. You did a lot for the game, that's why your previous characters were stupidly OP and you were allowed to plan a DR into the first two Jinchuuriki. No, you do not get to be stronger than 95% of the Pbase outside of your Jinchuuriki forms right from the start. That sucks for everyone, including you." It's important to understand that Jinchuuriki is different from other uniques. 

Not all DRs should be the same. For a game that was encumbered with so many old ideas from EoTS, it's surprising that they didn't catch onto this one. Back then, if your DR was an extremely powerful unique, you did not also get the points to make your character extremely powerful right off the bat without it, as well.

They're there so when you lost, you didn't really lose. So you can fight people above your level when the situation demands it, at first. The Bijuu are shown all throughout canon to not want to give you power for the most part, but they do not want their hosts to die. Initially, they're there to bail you out of tough situations, they get you on par with the strongest characters in the game when you're not supposed to be able to do that.  We could have had really cool fights with the Jinchuuriki, fights where they surprise people, where there's suspense, actual development on a macro level where people learn just how powerful being a Jinchuuriki makes you ICly, even if you're not the strongest ninja. More leniency with Jinchuuriki forms, as they would need them while their characters attain bigger and bigger opponents/goals and exhibit growth as ninja. 

Instead, what do we have?

You already know these new characters cannot be defeated unless you're the Hokage or someone of comparable power... Before V1, two weeks in.  

The Jinchuuriki are close to being the strongest characters in the game without using their Bijuu right off the bat (dont say 'lmao we dont have uniques we need b- and more points than everyone' because that's not true, t4 chakra is a thing, so is healing factors and boil). Not only are they very difficult to beat without their Bijuu without much build up, but if by any chance they manage to lose(which i guess ppl dont want them to be in danger of losing?), they get back up stronger. And stronger. Dont' say "well we're not letting them use their bijuu just because they lost..." because then it's like...what's the point of being a jinchuuriki then? you wanna just let them die? How do you justify it when they attain mastered initial despite being so ludicrously strong that very few people pose a threat to them? How do you justify mastered V1? I for one, thought it would have been a cool moment to see a Jinchuuriki going V1 after a tough fight, maybe after fighting me(i think a lot of us share this tbh). "Oh we'll nerf them and make their forms not shit! "Then the entire game suffers, because Jinchuuriki are cool. And you're cheapening them.

But that can't happen, because no one poses a threat to them, no one that isn't a super old character/kage level, that is. 

Which excludes a large amount of people from being able to actually RP with them/fight them/have cool shit with them, especially when the admin team tries to hold other people back from achieving ranks, or overlooks them. 

Tbh I don't think a lot of this can be rectified. The tribalism already colored the wipe, and people are already sick of each other. I also probably ranted and tbh I lost my train of thought more than a few times cuz' there is just sooooooo much I could have talked about, however, I think that the tribalism and bias are the biggest issues any game can have. I could have spent a lot of time talking about empty maps, bad ryo system, bad reception to suggestions, bad admin systems, lack of automation, and a shitload of other things that could be made better but if the biggest issues that everyone cares about aren't fixed, that won't matter. Also...

If you do not alienate your playerbase and everyone's motivated/getting along, they're very, very doable and fixable. People are receptive to changes, criticism, etc. The overall experience is better for everyone and a lot more can get done when bias/cliques/tribalism take a backseat to actually wanting to improve the gaming experience for everyone and people seeing things from that point of view instead of taking denials/criticism as attacks on their being.

I just hope that the next game/next wipe, people don't repeat the exact same mistakes that have been repeated 10 times before. 

I agree w/ most of your points, JC. The only one I won't agree with is the assigned duties/responsibilities. That was attempted last wipe and also on MoS. The issue comes down to.....

If people assigned to say, log checking, fail on their duty, and the other admins who are willing to step in and do it don't have access to the tools they need to do it, then that presents a problem.