The Rune Knights Protest?!

Alright, as the title states, the majority of the Rune Knights are completely against or infuriated with the revoking of a player based faction of the Rune Knights. Here is the announcement as following:

Spoiler:

Let me highlight particular things stated in this announcement. "Due to a severe lack of inactivity and interest from a majority of the populace..." I don't understand where this came from. The Rune Knight playerbase is tight knit, I admit, but though tight knit, we are active. It take a very ignorant person to call us inactive, seeing as if someone would pay attention to such a faction, it isn't at all inactive. Evidence shall be given later on in the discussion. As for the lack of popularity, allow me to elaborate: Lamia Scale, Pharoh's Call, and Laughing Coffin. All of these guilds meet the criteria that the Rune Knights made when they were shut down to PCs. All of these guilds lack popularity and populous, but none of them are closed or invite only. However, they do have dedicated and loyal members, like the RK, so why are they one only one to get shut down?

Moving on, another highlight for that statement is: "If you have made a post in the last month, In Character, please PM me and we will give you 50k jewels on top of the free character change option."

Let me be blunt. 50k is NOT enough to repay the dedicated, loyal members of the RK, for royally fucking up their plots, characters, and plans. I will tell you this, no one in the RK was unharmed from this announcement. Fifty thousand jewels is pocket money for destroying people's characters.

"If you were a Rune Knight, and your character is ruined by this change on site, you may have a free character change that does not count towards the maximum character changes per account." By saying this, staff agrees that they have divinely destroyed many characters, so badly that it was assumed that the playerbase would be willing to scrap them entirely. And you seriously think, KNOWING that, that 50k is enough?

Another point to this is that none of the previous RK members were warned of this change. By warning them, members could've prepared accordingly for such a impacting change. Don't kick people out of a faction without letting them know until it's already done.

Continuing off of that, staff has failed to get the input of members before this change. Let me provide insight, my plans for the Rune Knights was to become Field Marshall. I had the support of the Rune Knights and even began preparing events, socials, topics, and edits to the system. Other members had critical plots with the Rune Knights, and others had also planned to revive it and get it active. However, all of these people were denied those chances without warnings, when all of these things could've solved the issue.

What I, or rather, WE request:
- Granted a chance to revive the Rune Knights, reopen it to the public.
- If we are not granted a chance to revive it again, we request the following guilds to be considered being shut down in the near, near future: Sleeping Forrest, Pharoh's Call, Lamia Scale, and Laughing Coffin.
- We request over half a million jewels to repent for the loss of character plots, characters, socials, and other roleplaying, IC/OOC content. As well as player choice with items and OOC bonuses to scale up to the user's value. (Lacrimas, Glows, Custom lineages, etc) However, members can only pick one or two, depending on the item.

Please add on within reasonable boundaries.

Agree with everything said here. Nothing to add at the moment, but I agree with Isaac in full.

Where I agree that you are entitled to the fact you should have been warned, your demands are rather outrageous to be honest with you. Sure, they had gone and fucked up a bit, but you're getting a little out of hand with trying to say you deserve some things like that. That's going above and beyond anything that you could try to get for it. If you were REALLY creative, you could work out and around it, but I'm not simply saying to ignore what happened to you guys. I agree it's wrong and I've had it happen to me before on another site (LITERALLY THE SAME FACTION XD) so believe when I say I'm not against you. However, I will say you are getting close to a line you don't really need to cross. Let the admins mull over any other (if at all) compensations on the matter and just try to relax.

What the RK deserves right now is another chance

I was shocked to find out today that a faction that had been around since my first day was shut down.Closing a player base without a warning or chance is WRONG, especially when the Rune Knights are not the only faction that may have been lacking in activity. Every playerbase can come back. I've been here since 2013. I've seen every guild/playerbase at its high and at its low. They all come back given the chance to be nursed. It is agreeable that The Rune Knights is a faction which deserved to be recovered. As someone who's grown a guild from 2 in and out members to an active eight plus, these are my two cents. All and all We can make the RK great again~

I may not have a lot to add to this but I wanted to state that I 100% agree with EVERYTHING stated in this post, even the compensation. Closing down a faction with dedicated members, though not many, without warning is downright wrong. Now, The RK has NEVER been the most active party on the site in fact its pretty much always been the least but even though it has never really been active, it always has four or five dedicated members in it.

The shutting down the guilds thing. I have nothing against these guilds but Issac does have a point here. Sleeping Forrest, Pharoh's Call, Lamia Scale, and Laughing Coffin, they all have very few members but they are dedicated so whats the point in keeping them around if we get rid of the RK who were in the EXACT same situation as them.

Also as Issac stated: this ruined so many peoples plots, even outside of the Rune Knights. Legal Mages and Dark mages alike all had plots connecting to Rune Knight characters or the Rune Knights themselves. Shutting them down has fucked up so many peoples plots, not just the RK characters.

As Famine said: The RK have been around since I first joined back in 2013. Hell, I have even had a RK character at a point in time. They are a solid part of the site, however active they may be, this one statement will not change.

I usually can keep quiet and choose to keep quiet about things like this. But this I cannot.

It was absolutely wrong and deplorable.  I've been a Rune Knight three times before,  I would still be if Earth Demon wasn't taken when I came back from a threeish month break and had to remake my character.

You can't just rip a whole faction out from under someone.   It's like the MC all over again,  but even less sensible.   Getting rid of the Rune Knights is like getting rid of Guildless,  as far as role is concerned.  You're either a Knight,  Guildless,  or Guilded.     

And just after I was talking with Shuhei about how Eris and Nimbus might interact...


Hooray for more displays of staff/admin overreach.

Please list the rune Knights that were active and the "majority" that you speak of. Please show me how they were also active with their character, doing rune knight stuff. I'm really sick of people protesting against everything the staff does. Everybody asks for the site to be "fixed" or "changed" and when we do, there's so much resistance. You guys want change, but when change is given, you're all against it. Yes, this change is quite important. I, myself created the Rune Knights. Literally one day, spent hours making a system for the rune Knights and a rank system for their own use. It's been three years and the faction has never been active. It's insulting to me that even though we have compensated with an apology and jewels for inconvenient FOR something that will benefit the community and the site, there are players so strongly against it. We need to strengthen the core of our community and it would be pointless to continue and wait along to see guilds or factions that promise activity or say they'll pick up more players, when we don't know if it would ever happen. It's disrespectful to me to have to deal with hatred for changes we make when they will benefit the site in the long run. Yes, I get it. It's not a great decision and it doesn't sound great all, but it's a tough one that will strengthen the sites future and so we can maximize our focus on building existing active guilds. There is no point in having 20 different guilds with very few players in each one. That's honestly not what guilds are about, not on this site, or in the anime/manga this site is based on. Yes, I'm sorry you were one of the FEW active rune Knights that has to put up with this decision, but don't be selfish and ask for more. I honestly don't think anybody on this site is entitled to anything, and if they are, I will 100% back them up and provide them with what they deserve. Just don't promise me activity and that the players will make the great change that we all wanted to see, when after five years of hopes and promises that a lot of you have promised to me and the site, have failed in keeping it. I'm not angry, I am incredibly disappointed though.

Princess Natsu wrote:Seijin, I understand you're disappointed— but this is just entirely unfair. I'd give you a list of people that have been active, but the RK section has been deleted, and the group has too, so it's frankly impossible for me to dig up a few people and show you. But, I do know a few people that have been active, I've seen them talk about it on skype, come up with brilliant ideas, work really hard to form some cool plots. And the fact that they had no warning at all before this was just, swiped away from them with a few jewels as an apology, is quite shallow. It hurts my feelings actually that this even happened when there are so many other guilds that have a few members active, perhaps even less than the RK's did.

Yes, the RK's have been on and off for a really long time. I've seen that myself. But they were planning to get active again— even I was going to join and help out because I truly think they are an important part to the site. There should've been a warning to get their activity up, same to all the other guilds like SF, LC and LS. Just like how you're supposed to warn people to get active when they have a slayer position— the same thing should've happened with this. Its just... really unfair that this happened to them and not the few other guilds that I haven't even seen for almost months now. I'm agreeing with everything Isaac said as-well. They definitely should be re-opened again so everyone that had such brilliant ideas with this faction, can go through with them. I'd hate to see such lovely people leave because their plots have been destroyed because of this.

I agree entirely with this entirely. Nothing to add.

The Rune Knights have been more active than ever lately and only getting more active. 

This came absolutely out of nowhere,  even if it was just a warning and not a random takedown.

Rune Knights are NOT the same as a normal guild.  It's an important function and an outlet for players desiring a more sort of "Official" theme.  Just as the Magic Council was.  Taking the Rune Knights leaves no options left for people to play a large number of themes.  

As I said,  it's comparable to taking away Guildless, which is to say the option not to be a guild member.   It cuts away so much possibility and character concepts.  As did taking away the Magic Council.   But the Rune Knights on top of that?  How extreme can you get, barring ALL official IC-State positions from access.

This isn't good for the community at all.

The whole update changes nothing,  just takes,  and makes things more strict.

So we are removing the RK on the premise that it's making it harder for existing guilds to expand and spreads players out to thin? Now I won't question this because truth be told I see reason from both sides, but I did had a idea for another system that could solve this and other problems, sub-factions. By starting up the idea of sub-factions you can continue to introduce new organizations(like the RK) while not having it impact the guilds. Now I say this for a couple of reasons that are below:

1.Sub-factions are like smaller guilds but bigger teams, they have a idea that they can stand up for or goal to go along with.

2.Depending on the sub-factions goals, then we could have guild members become faction members. For the example of the RK if it was made a sub-faction, we could have it so that only those from legal or neutral/guildess guilds join up. Heck they wouldn't even need tattoos like the guilds do.

Now I know, "So what would be the difference between guilds and sub-factions?" Well I have those listed below too.

1. Sub-factions would have limited resources and this would be shown as they could have a limited amount of members(say ten), they can only have one ace, only one guild powered spell, and their expansions of their guild would be limited.

2. Subfactions would not recieve jewels from the season job pot, and even if they do place first would not recieve the pot(it would be carried over to the next season).

But here's another thing about this, with this we can also have it so that subfactions can be guilds while guilds can be lowered to subfactions. My idea for this is to look at the job scoring at the end of each season. If a sub-faction ends up on the top three of the scoreboard then they qualify to switch places with a guild. Now the subfaction and guild must both have the same moral alignment(illegal, legal, neutral), and the guild that would be cycled out must have significantly less activity than the subfaction. I think this would also give us more competition to the guilds, more reason for people to do more jobs when under a faction so they can become a guild, or vice versa. I think if we try to implement this idea we can answer a few problems, including this one involving the RK. Now of course the system I wrote is not perfect as I don't have everything figured out, but if this sounds good enough then maybe we can work on it together?

I'm not gonna lie, the Rune Knights were active about...  4 years ago.  The site has been around for about 5 years, so I've been here a fair amount.  I'm assuming the Rune Knights were a fairly decently sized group even before I joined, because they had a fair amount of members and my first character was also a Rune Knight.  That being said, I left the Rune Knights just a month or so later because there was basically nothing going on with it.

Not so much that you couldn't do anything within it, but rather, there were nearly no members.  Since then, there have been some people in the Rune Knights but I could never count past 5 a majority of the time.  Honestly, it was nothing short of dead.  I really do mean it when I say sorry that this isn't too swell for you, but...  It's just something that was going to happen sooner or later, same thing with a lot of the inactive guilds because there's literally no point in keeping dead/nearly dead factions.  They just take up space.  Before it was shut down this time, I'm fairly certain we had 2-3 Rune Knights before it shut down, but I could be wrong.  I'm fairly certain it wasn't over 5 again, because I'm almost 100% sure I would've been aware of that and even those that were in the RK, if I recall, weren't doing much if anything IC with their characters.  I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just saying what I recall.

Ideas are good and all and so are promises, but when there's nothing to back them up or anything being done, they basically go up in the wind just as they always have for both the Rune Knights and the Magic Council all these years; countless promises and ideas were forged, none ever to really come to light.  Fact of the matter is, nothing was happening.  So yeah, we did have some members in the faction, but nowhere near enough to justify what they were supposed to be and do.  Again, sorry it doesn't really work or sit well with you, but it had to happen.

That's about all there is to it.

You simply can't argue with me and state that there were plans for you and other players to make rune Knights active after it gets disbanded. I've waited years for it to be active,reworked the system twice, advocated for more rune Knights. You can't promise me something none of you guys can keep - activity. It's as simple as that, I've given years waiting for guilds and factions to grow, I've spent literally days of my life trying to help expand each and every single one of your guilds. Ive given millions of jewels to players indirectly, and many of you see it as a right. It seems very few are seeing this as a whole and are only seeing it on a case by case basis. Dozens of you tell me "oh hey, I'm going to be active again" and very few of you I actually see fulfill it. The staff are delivering what we need to do to make the site stronger, inactive factions and guilds will only bring the community down. This doesn't mean that something like the rune Knights will never exist in the site, but that right now it shouldn't exist when none of you are actively taking advantage of the group. It's insulting to me when literally the majority of you take for granted what I've provided, I never even ask for a thanks, and when I do provide indirectly or directly, many of you go inactive and I MAYBE see you in a couple months or years. Since the beginning of the site, I've done nothing but help all of you. The least you guys could do is see the entire picture as a whole and understand that these big decisions are meant to help the site, and when we feel it is necessary in the future, we will expand. But we simply can't expand if our foundation is weak. Right now, it's fragile and we need to strengthen and maximize our focus on our foundation.

The way I see it, Isaac.
If you want the Rune Knights back...
Create your own guild similar to the Rune Knights.

You did have plans on making a guild, so why not realize it by creating something akin to the RK. Perhaps make it part of your story of the disbanded Rune Knights creating an organization or something.

I don't honestly see the removal of the RK as a big problem. Right now we have an issue with people being spread to thin across the guilds, so it's reasonable to cull the inactive ones (which the Rune Knights were). Should they have been given a warning? I think so, but it's too late for that now. They were made by Seijin, so no one is losing out on any major work investments besides him, so that's not a huge problem. If it were LC that had been disbanded, then the people who donated should've been compensated what they paid to start the guild, but again, with the RK that's not a problem.

Here's the kicker as to why I don't see it as a problem: They can come back. All it takes is enough people getting together and putting the jewel investment in to have them come back. Honestly, that might be what they need in order to come back and stay a relevant guild, since starting a guild from scratch requires a lot bigger investment than joining one already existing. With their work of making it and putting the jewels in, people will be more likely to stick with it.

Now, onto my issue with this change: how sudden it was. Seijin, you always talk about how people complain about change, which they certainly do. Change can be hard sometimes, but making sudden, unannounced changes makes it much worse. Bringing up your plans for these sorts of changes to the community to see their input and suggestions will make everyone a little more relaxed about changes. Getting everyone more involved and giving them more of a voice in what you guys do can also lead to new ideas popping up that you might not have considered.

Chaotic Rumble wrote:I'm not gonna lie, the Rune Knights were active about...  4 years ago.  The site has been around for about 5 years, so I've been here a fair amount.  I'm assuming the Rune Knights were a fairly decently sized group even before I joined, because they had a fair amount of members and my first character was also a Rune Knight.  That being said, I left the Rune Knights just a month or so later because there was basically nothing going on with it.

Not so much that you couldn't do anything within it, but rather, there were nearly no members.  Since then, there have been some people in the Rune Knights but I could never count past 5 a majority of the time.  Honestly, it was nothing short of dead.  I really do mean it when I say sorry that this isn't too swell for you, but...  It's just something that was going to happen sooner or later, same thing with a lot of the inactive guilds because there's literally no point in keeping dead/nearly dead factions.  They just take up space.  Before it was shut down this time, I'm fairly certain we had 2-3 Rune Knights before it shut down, but I could be wrong.  I'm fairly certain it wasn't over 5 again, because I'm almost 100% sure I would've been aware of that and even those that were in the RK, if I recall, weren't doing much if anything IC with their characters.  I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just saying what I recall.

Ideas are good and all and so are promises, but when there's nothing to back them up or anything being done, they basically go up in the wind just as they always have for both the Rune Knights and the Magic Council all these years; countless promises and ideas were forged, none ever to really come to light.  Fact of the matter is, nothing was happening.  So yeah, we did have some members in the faction, but nowhere near enough to justify what they were supposed to be and do.  Again, sorry it doesn't really work or sit well with you, but it had to happen.

That's about all there is to it.

Agreeing with this 100% + demands seem way too much despite sudden change.

I'm going to have to side with Seijin here...

None of the RK received a warning because it has been a yearly phenomenon. The warnings given to limited positions or other generally characters who require activity checks is short-term; this one is long-term. You guys should come to realize that Seijin has actually given you a great opportunity - not even a guild is necessary. Another phenomenon here is the fact that people are offering to RP with each other without any price, so why do you have to argue against the disband of the RK when an opportunity stands right in front of you? Make your own assembly that seeks justice in Fiore, or even the continent! If this disband honestly destroyed your plot, then use your incredible minds to start anew!

There's no way in hell that every Rune Knight was made to resort to something like suicide if the faction ever fell apart. Rebuild! Use your creativity! This is the end of Seijin's Rune Knights, not the council you all are capable of making! Isaac, it didn't take you long to resort to Fairy Tail after the RK was lost, did it? Enforce the Justice your character sought as a former RK, and emphasize the Justice Legal Guilds should work towards! The human brain holds endless potential, so with the compensation Seijin gave you, use it to the fullest!

I'm fighting against this point (though I applaud the emotion behind it) on behalf of Seijin because just as I see some incredible possibilities from each and every single one of you, I bet he does too. I can also say the same for the entire staff team. As if they don't make these decisions because they don't care about you, or don't see you recuperating from the decisions they make.

Now, enough of my thoughts about this decision. Drama here is also horrifying. I've hardly been here, and when I saw how many people were losing their marbles and refusing to stop, I debated leaving the site. This is a PG-13 community, meaning all of us must have at a mind developed enough to know how to be mature. Frankly, we tend to disregard this part of our minds, and fight with each other instead. We must realize that drama is pointless. I don't know a single person who feels good about drama. It's dumb, unnecessary, and only leads to hatred. Is that what you people want on this site? If so, it's not the site that should be welcoming you, but rather a door leading elsewhere, because we're not here for such trouble. Seijin has had enough, the staff team has had enough, and I've had enough. If drama is really the path we intend to walk down, then as opposed to this whole "few" issue we're on about, I know the majority of this site - and will happily ask the yes or no question to verify this - will want to get the hell out of here. This is Fairy Tail RP, where everyone is meant to share their hobby of role-play until more important calls come. Let us not forget this.


I hope all who really care about the thoughts given in this thread also read this message because I know it'll brighten you all up, knowing there is an alternative to everything. If you cannot see an alternative to change on this site, then perhaps this isn't the place for you.

Sadly while i am miffed about its disolusion the RK have never been super active and they were very much a joke as few of the dark guilders would let the RK jump in threads with them. And most of the darks claim they are these super bad evil people that would never get caught, then say know when a someone wanted to go after them. Lets use the Invasion system as a example.

The Darks wanted it, so it was made, but it was made so that the RK can invade too, which makes sense right? Now yes the Invasion system was flawed, but it was the one time the RK had some real power to do something and everyone hated it. Anyways if we want a RK guild we can just make it.

I have a question here:

What is the big deal with a faction being inactive or not? If there are even a few members willing to RP in that faction then that faction should be allowed to exist.


Let's look at benefits of the factions:


Guild spells (not sure if RKs ever get that)
Guild bonus for jobs with guilds
A colour at the bottom
Some boards to post in where others can't.

Oh and access to the guild scoreboard.


So how about rather than shutting down groups and basically screwing over members....how about we allow those factions to remain open but instead only allow access to certain 'benefits' if the guild has a number of active members.


Just an idea. 

This encourages guilds to be active in order to gain the benefits rather than just being 'yeah your a guild so you get all this, but drop below this amount and we'll just remove your guild oocly and screw your ic plot'

I get the whole we want to encourage activity thing and I get the whole you're fed up of complaints, but this came out of nowhere and you've basically either a. ruined people's plots, b. ruined people's characters entirely or c. both.

You could of at least made it an IC event with the current ones being fired because the magic council doesn't deem the suitable anymore or something....


---------------------

In regards to complaints I do see Heero's point (that he made against me several times) that member input is important. A slight change to a rule around slayer magic is one thing, but removing an entire faction (even if it had five members) is ridiculous. Especially when some people JUST made rune knights.

Having guild bonuses unlock when you reach x members is only going to encourage growth in the guilds that have members, not the ones that don't.

Now my question to all this is this: I remember there being a post on a Rune Knights "rework" that had last been posted in May. Now was that a rework admin were doing? Because if so why did they just scrap it in general? And if it was meant to be done by its members, then why did there not seem to be any support at all?

I understand there wasn't much being done inside the Rune Knights, but at the same time there didn't really seem to be much effort to make sure it was better or at least different to other guilds.

Nao wrote:Having guild bonuses unlock when you reach x members is only going to encourage growth in the guilds that have members, not the ones that don't.

Now my question to all this is this: I remember there being a post on a Rune Knights "rework" that had last been posted in May. Now was that a rework admin were doing? Because if so why did they just scrap it in general? And if it was meant to be done by its members, then why did there not seem to be any support at all?

I understand there wasn't much being done inside the Rune Knights, but at the same time there didn't really seem to be much effort to make sure it was better or at least different to other guilds.

If you really think that then you really didn't understand what rune Knights had as features. It originally had about a dozen ranks, three divisions and three positions. Ranks were then simplified cause nobody would join and the armory shop for rune Knights was hardly used. I've catered to many rune Knights in the past and supported it since I created it.

Nao wrote:Having guild bonuses unlock when you reach x members is only going to encourage growth in the guilds that have members, not the ones that don't.

Now my question to all this is this: I remember there being a post on a Rune Knights "rework" that had last been posted in May. Now was that a rework admin were doing? Because if so why did they just scrap it in general? And if it was meant to be done by its members, then why did there not seem to be any support at all?

I understand there wasn't much being done inside the Rune Knights, but at the same time there didn't really seem to be much effort to make sure it was better or at least different to other guilds.

It will encourage growth though, even if its only some guilds. If the others don't grow they don't get the benefits but they can be a small guild. So Guild for plot rather than guild for benefits.

We shouldn't need benefits for EVERYTHING. The site seems so entitled 'we want rewards for this and this and this'

Speed Demon Zack wrote:

Nao wrote:Having guild bonuses unlock when you reach x members is only going to encourage growth in the guilds that have members, not the ones that don't.

Now my question to all this is this: I remember there being a post on a Rune Knights "rework" that had last been posted in May. Now was that a rework admin were doing? Because if so why did they just scrap it in general? And if it was meant to be done by its members, then why did there not seem to be any support at all?

I understand there wasn't much being done inside the Rune Knights, but at the same time there didn't really seem to be much effort to make sure it was better or at least different to other guilds.

It will encourage growth though, even if its only some guilds. If the others don't grow they don't get the benefits but they can be a small guild. So Guild for plot rather than guild for benefits.

We shouldn't need benefits for EVERYTHING. The site seems so entitled 'we want rewards for this and this and this'

*Claps* I agree that a majority of us are acting like a bunch of millennials...

Simply going to state. This change is done ^^ It's been done. Why dwell on it, look to the future instead! Hopefully this is a wake up call to current inactive guilds to get to posting and lets take this time to appreciate why we are on this site in the first place. To make stories. If you can't adjust your character to fit the site, well perhaps we can work together to figure out something else.

In conclusion. Just accept what had happened, doesn't matter if it was justified or not in your opinion because Staff decided on it for good reasons. I agree that members are spread too thin as is. Can't have fun major plots with guilds via guilds or even Site Events if we have to compensate for the 12 different factions we have.

I will make a suggestion here to have a max amount of "guilds (factions) that can be created at a time"

To be honest, considering the low participation with main characters (and for the most part, how alts are generally ignored)....
I would personally think..
4 Legal Guilds
3 Neutral Guilds
3 Dark Guilds

should be what's allowed.
The only reason I gave the leg-up with the Legal Guilds is the propensity of people more inclined to be the good-guys instead of the bad guys.