Lore, Demotivation, & Feedback

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Get ready for huge grammatical errors.

I've been on MassiveCraft for quite a while now, I've familiarized myself with the lore during 2016-2017 and I took a long break and now I don't have any motivation to even go through that same phase again, I've lost interest in studying the lore because when you learn it, it changes.

Like the vampire plugin, it went from 3 types of vampires to a whole confusing mess of paths you can choose from now, it's like every time I stop playing for a month or a few weeks the lore completely changes and it demotivates me to study long paragraphs of lore over and over again.

I feel like this constant change in Regalia and the lore is making MassiveCraft die; like for example, when MonMarty reset the faction world that made people quit the server because all of their work they've spent on is wasted.

It's the same for roleplay; why are there constant changes and no fixing outdated pages of the lore, or why does it take so long for the outdated lore to be removed? The proficiencies have been changed at least three times or somewhere around there and every time they switch to a new system it confuses me and it takes like 30 minutes to learn how it works, whilst 30 minutes isn't a lot, it is a lot when you continue to change the vampire lore, noble systems, & other things. I know some people enjoy these constant changes in the lore but I can assume other people don't. It's like changing a restaurant's menu, every time you come back it's different and you start to lose interest in the restaurant because they don't have what you are familiar with. Sometimes changes are good but when you keep doing them when there is already outdated lore in the wiki; like I've gotten confused over the Chi'en-Ji rewrite because are they suppose to be birds or not? Is it a new race that has another race connected to that race? It confuses me to the point where MassiveCraft doesn't seem like it's the same anymore. Once I've started to understand the nobility system you guys change it and make it so you can't have noble assemblies, but now you guys have started it again?

With the Regalian Statistics Spreadsheet, what happened to it? Why are there a bunch of noble families and now there are only a few?

Whilst these lore-related questions can be answered by people who've continued to study the lore, I am not looking for those answer but more why are you changing it constantly?

I've completely lost interest in this server and I am not wanting to come back, but I'd like staff to understand that I don't think these changes are fixing and helping massivecraft. These changes are simply making people like myself do not want to be a part of this community.

My feedback is when you are planning on changing something make it so easy that it only takes a few re-reads to understand it, not where you bring math into proficiencies. You guys need to update the lore and give a reason why you're changing it rather than "We don't think this race is played enough so we're just going to completely change it" While it sounds like a perfect reason to change something; it isn't when you change it & there are still parts of the wiki that still list that part of the race exists or contradicts it. The players shouldn't be having to update the outdated parts of the lore & having staff add things to the lore.

Is it because you guys rush through projects or is it because you think if it's good enough for the wiki, you'll add it even though there are pages that are outdated.

Why hasn't the Ch'ien-Ji lore page hasn't been updated in like a year now. I thought there was a change to it or is that discontinued or postponed right now? Or I just haven't found it yet?

My point here is to be blunt and honest as possible & show that you don't need to change the lore to keep MassiveCraft relevant. Am I the only one that feels like these constant changes are harming MassiveCraft?

I think the "If it's not broken, don't fix it" really matters here, just saying.

Before you reply please read this: Everything I say here is in my opinion & I honestly have no clue how you guys feel about the constant changes in the lore. I am just giving feedback over how I feel whether you agree or disagree. I have also done a post somewhat like this but that was mainly steered by hate; this isn't and just me implying how I feel and give the best feedback before I transition from being an inactive player to eventually quitting, permanently.
 
reset the faction world that made people quit the server because all of their work they've spent on is wasted.
The server reset was not planned, and staff made the best of a shitty situation. Everyone got to move a chest of memories over to the new map. Massive changed owners and servers.

Regalian Statistics Spreadsheet, what happened to it? Why are there a bunch of noble families and now there are only a few?
The Statistics Spreadsheet hasn't been used in possibly 5 months. Once the server changed owners, it became player driven rp, until it became necessary for a DM to exist again to engage. As for nobility, I'd argue there are a lot more faces in the scene, many of whom are brand new and making large strides in the scene. There are at least a dozen families actively played at present, with more coming in as time progresses.

I've read through the rest of the post and it all ends up being "Lore XYZ changes and now I'm confused." Nothing has been 100% changed from the original material, and usually follows the original draft fairly well. If a major change happens, such as a proficiency update, then a thread is created where players are able to ask questions in order to understand everything. But even in the example I provided, the system itself hardly changed.

I guess I don't really understand why minor quality of life changes to lore lead to complete disenfranchisement in rp. My only suggestion is to do what I do in terms of lore: don't read the articles that have zero impact in your day to day rp. I've never read the alchemy lore because I don't play an alchemist. I never read most Elven lore because I play a Regalian Ailor who could care less. I stuck to my own little bubble of Regalian Empire military lore and once I became comfortable with it I passively read other wiki pages out of random curiosity. I don't know most of the lore, and that's ok. No character Rp'd will know everything either. That gives a reason to "Find out IC."

I'm going to stop posting since I've said my point in more words than I hoped. RP for RP's sake. Worry about the lore later.
 
The lore is written to be understandable at a base level for an average American 14 year old High School user. The lore is parsed in such a way that all publications are checked over by multiple authors to ensure the information is understandable. There's initial apprehension to some of the system implementations because change is uncomfortable, but we've received almost universal and unanimous acclaim for making the character designing systems feel more creative, simpler, and more free. The only ones who argued against it (which I've seen only one or two besides this post) were the ones who were not immersed in the community.

If you have trouble because you experience these changes as uncomfortable, and therefor cannot see the factual simplicity of it, there's tonnes of staff members, ticket systems and helpful players willing to help out with every small little detail for both newcomers and old players either on the forums, the servers, or even the rp community discord.

The lore and rp community are a collective effort. We complete what we can remember on our end, but please also remember that our lore is more comprehensive than more established AAA titles like Guild Wars, and as such, for unpaid employees, we're doing what we can.
 
I think the "If it's not broken, don't fix it" really matters here, just saying.
Broken is subjective with writing to an extent. The aim of the server shift subtly over time and things need to change to reflect the new aim and what is needed. Vampirism before it was 3 lines like say at the beginning, was about 14, then 1, then 3, then 1, now its back to a more flexible system thats still, in comparison, so so so cut down and simplified, because Vampirism was a mess before, then it got power gamed, or became stale, then after proficiencies were added to reflect character skill and talent in a numbers system, (to reduce powergaming and make progression work easier etc) it was too complex to calculate points with vampirism, so it got simplified again.