Not from what "people are saying" exactly. I'm just tired of taking full responsibility for a clan that is virtually non-existent. The last time you can identify a case of me jumping into the shogun's palace while there were people in the dojo was at least a week ago. Also Elsie has nothing to do with RL. I played with Miyu and Elsie because they were the only people who got on daily and we decided to RP other things at the time. It has been over a week since I've even seen an officer in the TS. The only person who joins is Soultaker, and sure enough, he is one of the only people I've been able to speak to about my stance on leading RL. But since, again, none of us can be bothered to join TS once every other day or so I'll go ahead and spend my time writing a full explanation on here for everyone to see.
I started this clan with a handful of close friends. Me, Mori, Zylorage, and Muki were pretty much the solid founders. Those are the people I decided I wanted to make a clan with. My first legitimate crpg clan. All of these founders are now scarcely active or no longer in the clan. From the loss of each one, I felt less and less interested in this clan.
Before RL, I never used TS or anything like it. I didn't much care to talk to people outside of text. I had to get use to that. Mori would get on me daily about not being in TS until finally I made it a habit. Ironically, now that it is a habit almost no one is ever in it other than Miyu and Elsie (both of which have little to no interest in RL) and Soultaker who joined RL recently. The most active of the three, being Elsie who has been on everyday since we met.
And now about strategus. I put more time in strategus for RL than any three members combined. I spent so much time trying to organize strategus I hardly had any time to actually play the game. The last days, before I had to suddenly take care of irl things, I spent hours a day dealing with pretty much every clan on the map in NA. I was close to receiving two fiefs for pretty much free. Believe it or not, getting two fiefs for free in the middle of a series of wars takes a lot of talking. Most of the members didn't much care for strategus. I didn't really have anyone to make big decisions with. Mori didn't much care what we did, zylo had quit, muki was no longer with us, and everyone else either never played strategus or had no idea what has already been done. You know who I went to for strategus help? Other clan leaders. I couldn't really tell them everything as it would jeopardize our clan, but I couldn't do all of the planning on my own either.
As we all know, I had to retire from crpg for a while. Needless to say all of that work and effort was lost within days. Before I left, I had a half dozen officers. When I got back, I didn't have a single active officer. Not a single one. Only two informed me that they attempted to hold the clan together, and out of those two, one of them quit RL before I ever got back. I'm not even completely sure why "holding together" needed to be done. I hadn't realized that 25 people couldn't play together in the absence of a single guy. But hey, who knows, maybe everyone else had irl stuff to take care of too.
When I got back, I didn't know for sure if I wanted to start completely over with RL. To make that decision, I wanted to know I had some officers behind me. I wanted to know that my closest friends were still going to be active. Pretty much all that was left was my newer friends and a bunch of recruits, some of which I had never met myself. After a while of trying to contact old officers and waiting for more active members, I decided to just take what I had and work off of that. I was not willing to recruit any new members without restoring the backbone of the clan. I ended up promoting Vaynes and RedArrows and explained to them both that I did not wish to lead this clan on my own, and I did not wish to have full responsibility for every detail in this clan. We had recruits to take care of, we had ranks to re-write, rosters to update, rules to set, pretty much starting completely over aside from the name and the banner. Pretty sure I told RedArrows that he had to be more active in the forums and TS with his rank, and yet he hasn't posted anything in forums, and hasn't been in TS since then lol (that I know about). The task of reforming the ranks was also given to Red, I'm not sure if I asked Vaynes to help with that. Anyways I made it clear that I wasn't doing everything this time, and yet it appears nothing is going to get done unless I do everything.
A recruit messaged me the other day about joining RL. Normally I would handle that, but I wasn't even sure if I was willing to lead this clan or if this would even be a clan within the next week. So I sent him on to Vaynes. Days later the recruit posts about how he is still waiting to join. x.X Not sure why it would take so long. I don't even know who is going to be away for a few days unless they tell me. In fact, I don't know anything about any of the members because none of them are in TS and none of them keep me up to date, other than Earthdforce who explained his situation.
The summery of all this pretty much is, I do not wish to lead a clan on my own. Those who started the clan with me are all gone for the most part. Those who are currently in the clan aren't active enough to lead it, or refuse to hold the responsibility. On top of that, I have people talking about how I'M the one not doing stuff lol. The only reason this clan isn't disbanded is because I understand that most of the members are now just casual players. They just get on and want to have fun as samurai, with or without a clan. If other people want to share their banner and their roleplay then the more the merrier. That is all RL is now. It is just a banner for people to play together as samurai with. If someone wants to organize a clan, get back into strategus, start barking orders and tactics, fix the roster, set new rules, re-write the ranks, polish the gear restrictions, develop a new recruitment structure, set up training sessions and tournaments, encourage members to get on at specific times, deal with politics and diplomacy with every other NA clan, moderate the RL thread, get everyone in TS, micromanage everyone's build, micromanage every step in strategus, and take the blame for everything that goes wrong in the clan, by all means go for it. Don't let me get in your way. Which is why I'm stepping down. To make room for whoever IS willing to do all of that work alone. If RL is just going to be a pub clan, then I'm fine with that too. I'll just be a samurai and play with you guys sometimes, no big deal.
Also, I will add, since ppl like to bring up my alts. Before RL, all I did was use alts. Anyone who knows me knows I have dozens of alts. I like variety. It wasn't until about a year of playing crpg that I finally dedicated a character as a main, and I only did that because I wanted to use the market, otherwise I wouldn't have. For the entirety of RL, I dedicated to one character. Now I'm just having fun like everyone else, playing the way I want to play with friends who happen to be online when I am. Hopefully this clears up any confusion or misunderstandings regarding the Red Lotus, its members, and myself.
It isn't like I'm going anywhere (that I know about lol), whoever has the time and is willing to take over will have my full attention until they have the means to do so.
