People seem to think I am talking out my ass when I bash arowaine, but I am actually speaking as someone that has grown more and more disappointed by him the longer I have know and worked with him. He spent nearly all of strat 4 either running away or stabbing people that were to weak to mount any reasonable resistance. Bonsai is the only reason LCO really did anything of note in strat 4 at all, he was the driving force behind keeping LCO alive in the days of the siege, and he continually provided amazing logistical and trade support for LCO once VE caved. To my knowledge bonsai is not actively participating in the leadership of LCO this strat (whereas arowaine is) , and they have in fact, done nothing of note.
Haha what? I don't remember you doing a thing in Strat 4 except being a sub par performer in battles, unfunny comments in chat, and that's probably it to be honest. Have you ever led a strat faction? Its so shitty. You have to really like the people you are playing with to actually act in a remotely cohesive matter and maintain the resources and organization to do anything more than a couple weeks of a "campaign" every few months. Even that ends up becoming exhausting and unfun at times. I fought in dozens and dozens of Occitan strat battles last strat, enjoyed them all, war with TKoV was great, I was friendly with both sides but allied with Occitan, everyone got along, primetime battles on weekends and sometimes during the week.. really great jobs by both factions. And Hero Party + Occitan were pretty terrified of a horde of TKoV + FCC shit wiping us out of the game and made us turtle (while still sending out armies to new clans to get into war with because we figured it was us vs the entire map so why not), because Veluca Empire was massive, and FCC had Kesh's multiaccounts (and the most seasoned Strat dot movers in any clan) causing logistic nightmares wherever they showed up. Occitan was actually wiped out of EU (despite being allied to the apparently invincible game ruining UIF slav horde) and I got them hooked up to restart their organization in NA by proudly wiping out the last LLJK heretics who were pretenders to the desert in BIRD clan, to cement my claim to Afghoonistan. All of that shit was pretty awesome.
Thing is behind the scenes there you have both sides being forced to sperg on pulling gear out, deleting duplicates, avoiding item bombs, roster role calls, upkeep gold, resupplies, not getting ganked, begging for mercs, yelling at clan members for nighttime, the Diplomacy forums, and in most cases an ever posting Kesh being hyper critical of everything you say or do (which is admittedly hilarious). You get a couple hours of fun out of Strat battles, which when done well are really brilliant and imo the biggest accomplishment of the cRPG devs, and some of the best gameplay I've had in any game. But there is SO MUCH shit required to get it going, its exhausting, and now we see Strat is dying for NA and dead on EU and a wipe or reboot won't change anything without a major mechanics overhaul. People are sick of the bs.
It is so wrong to blame the players of the game, when obviously many of us really try to have the most fun we can out of it. I've worked with Occitan (later LCO) which was never just Arowaine mind you, through almost all of Strat 4, along with many other factions. Its all collective efforts to have fun, plot stupid shit, and get enough people in a faction motivated enough by the Sweet Battles and Teamspeak/forum rage. I was a faction leader in Strat 3 and 4, and both times I got completely burnt out halfway, cuz its so shit. Only reason to put up with it is for the fun battles and the sense of teamwork you get out of the Metagame with clans and players you get along with.
Also why the rage against DRZ and Grey is so misguided.. two clans filled with people who obviously like each other, share a teamspeak, have basically a "game community" where they play tons of other games too, and have fun doing all the stupid Strat shit together. Only reason their alliance is so tight is cuz they are friendly, and the sheer bullshit and annoyances of almost all Strat mechanics makes it so you really have to fucking hate the people you are fighting to make it feel worthwhile, or have gimmick token XP battles that don't have the drama and flair of a proper sandbox MMO type campaign that Strategus is at its best.
What the devs should probably focus most on is seeing all the ways Strat has failed, while we should also focus on reminding them all the ways it has been (and maybe could still be) successful, and maybe they can hit something special in a few years with Melee: Epic (lmao what a shit name if thats still it) the Strategus part of Melee: Battlegrounds. There's a lot to like, but the economy system and interface management would be the first (and probably most important) part to take a long hard look at. I'd go so far as suggesting for Strat 6 (if it happens) you should remove most of it, and basically start over adding and tuning crap so the community can give feedback before too much interconnected shit is added that makes the whole damn game terrible. Perhaps some Strat 2 code is around somewhere..
Haha I forgot why I started writing this but oh yeah. You suck Sparvico, for a name I see often enough you are remarkably unmemorable. Arowaine was a great Strat buddy and Occitan was always a sure bet as friend or foe to actually do shit, win or lose. Restocking and defending castles for weeks straight isn't the fucking AFK joke in Strat that people like Kesh make it out to be, and they know it. But I don't think you know a thing about playing Strat. Cuz if you did, maybe you wouldn't be retarded enough to post anything but "Strat is a bad game." in this thread.
