Dear Readers of Avonmora. As promised, I bring you a frank, honest interview with a man who has sailed the sea's and Leader of one of the most successful Guilds ever seen in Avonmora.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you,
His MAjesty, The Pirate King.
I hope you enjoy it
Me: Today I have His Majesty, The Pirate King here live
Me: Welcome to you Sir
The: Thank you.Me: I am sorry, I have to change my font color
Me: You have been around this game for a while. What is it you enjoy the most about it ?
The: It's hard to say actually. To be honest, I'm very unhappy with enormous portions of the game. However, I have several sincere friends of many years in this game, people I've cared about for several years now, and so long as they prefer this game to others, here I stay.Me: There have been some big changes to the game as of recent I am told. Do you not approve?
The: You'll need to be more specific, virtually anything can be categorized as a change.Me: Fair enough. The introduction of the Herald is a recent development. What do you like or dislike about it?
The: I think the concept itself is incredible, and stands to contribute alot to the game. I am however disconcerted with the manner in which our accomplishments are marginalized, while our losses are celebrated in virtually all content attached to a member of my nation or guild. Obviously it speaks to the individuals creating the content, but it certainly suggests institutional bias when viewed on the whole.Me: I will not argue that point with you. I believe you are correct
The: That We are.Me: There have been other big changes as well for example the Hideout feature. What do you think of that ?
The: There is a serious problem with several of these features. I would like to emphasize that Administration appears to be coding their hearts out, and are well aware of these issues I'm about to discuss. However, the issues are firmly entrenched and may well become a large problem for the game later on.Me: can you give me some more examples ?
The: Captain Jack for example has referenced Banks as potential 'treasure hives.' And that isn't far from the truth. Just in Our guild, right now, We can hide several hundred million gold. We did this during the Binding of Zuzik. Several hundred million gold became untouchable within seconds of Our capture of his ships. We might enjoy this in the case of that particular action, but the larger accounts are dissapearing ever more larger amounts of gold from trade, gold bars, etc, which, if invested in the same structure, only makes it more viable to continue the upward spiral. Essentially, this makes them billionaires without recourse for their opposition. It's all well and good for the nicer half of them, but the others like to rub their invulnerability in the faces of their enemies, and this is a potential disaster for player retention.Me: Administration has hinted at abilities to destroy hideout buildings in future versions of the game. Maybe they have considered your concerns
The: Similarly, the goldsmith feature is very problematic. This feature is establishing players who were only recently hiding in the 25 fame loophole. Now, they do not need to maintain a large, liable fleet to maintain their wealth and status within the game....Me: Lets talk a little about Midway Islands. Can we?
The: Alright, we can move on then.Me: As you know, the King has befallen troubling events. Do you act in the Kings absence being next highest influence holder ?
The: We feel the leadership of ZomB and Midway are very poorly understood by outsiders, and attempts at clarification aren't just futile, they would be counter productive.Me: I understand that National and guild issues sometimes appear to conflict.
damn the torpedos has joined the chatroomThe: We can however answer the second half of that last sentence to your question.
The: Influence is incredibly arbitrary, cheap to purchase and destroy. It is deeply flawed to measure strength or weakness by something that has been purchased, especially on the cheap.Me: You are not the first pirate to make that observation.
Me: Midway seems to find itself in a majority of conflicts lately. Do you feel smaller nations are ganging up on Midway ?
Me: I also see Spain has taken over a port in Midway. Has there been any clue to why ?
The: That's really not even a question in any reasonable dispute. It has always been us vs them, that's just the way it is.Me: Are you referring to them as all other nations or Spain proper ?
The: There is no guild or nation in the game which is not at least partially hostile to us.Me: As you are also the guildmaster of ZomB, do you find it more of a challenge running a multi-national guild?
The: The degree to which they collude is less then certain, but can obviously been inferred. For example a player is actively recruiting players to oppose us from within HELM, while we certainly aren't invited to do the same.Me: So, you are saying members of HELM are actively recruiting for warriors to fight against ZomB or Midway ? Helm is a multi-national guild as well.
The: The major difference between uni and multi nation guilds is the leadership structure, We lack the blind obedience that seems to correlate with the personality-cult structure which comes with uni-nation guilds, but We also don't crumble if a single player is removed from the game.
The: One member, and yes. Fortunately, he's rather bad at it.Me: The zomB guild has held the first place position in guilds since I have started. It is also the largest guild in the game. What do you attribute to that success ?
The: Fame, like influence is arbitrary. Most players who obsessively pursue fame end up losing it en masse-as having more entails losing more, or just abandoning the quest for its general futility-brownie points with a horrible exchange rate with game currencies. We have a large variety of players and objectives, as such it piles up over time. It is consistent, and good governance which has kept Our house resilient to the non-stop aggression of other guilds.
The: and it's pronounced The Pirate Kings, not ZomB, and definitely not zombMe: There are 2 guilds that share the same name. Care to tell us why that is?
The: The civil war was a brutal event, it lasted for roughly eight months, and it ended almost a year ago. The other guild was the house in which We rested while the guild was reclaimed from usurpers.Me: It sounds like a terrible event in The Pirate Kings history
The: You read alot into it for so few sentences.Me: An 8 month civil war can be a pleasant experience ?
The: Take a look at the guild please, you'll notice it is The Original guild. Guild 1 in the game Pirates Glory. Reclaiming it was a rather large, and cruel ordeal.Me: I cannot think it would be anything but
Me: So, where is The Pirate Kings headed in the future and will Midway play a major part in its goals ?
The: I'd like to go back to the current conflict.
The: We fight, it's just what We do here. Whenever we try to go about matters in a peaceable manner, someone attacks us out of left field.Me: by all means I am having difficulty in keeping midway issues and the Pirate Kings issues apart
The: The nation layout is very factional.Me: Is the Pirate Kings at war or is it Midway Islands at war ?
The: Both are under attack, We are defending ourselves to the best of our ability.Me: Where, in Midways eyes, does the greatest threat appear to come from ?
The: You ever watch Breaking Bad?Me: I have seen attacks from England, Cuba and Spain.
damn the torpedos has left the chatroomMe: No, sorry I have not watched that but have heard enough to know it is a most popular television series. Something that will be invented 500 years after the printing press
The: Look, all of these groups are inherently dangerous, and their-at least-tacit collusion is absolutely disconcerting.
The: We are the Danger.
The: Actually a partial rephrase might be in order.Me: What is Midways relationship with Bermuda? They have steady been climbing in power and influence
The: The biggest threat for sure is harassment. Children evading block lists to convey profanity laced insults, over and over again makes this game an undesirable experience.
The: This isn't WW2, not a matter of life and death. This is a game, and in chess for example, when the player at the other side of the table begins shouting vulgarities about one's mother, the intelligent response isn't to persevere, and in our example purchase newer better game pieces, it's to just stop playing, and pursue a game with a healthier game dynamic.
The: remind me, and we can talk about Bermuda when we've covered this thoroughly.Me: Very good. This seems to be a point you would like to expand on.
Me: As I am not privy to private conversations, you have the floor keeping in mind the laid out rules before we began
Me: this interview.
The: There are alot of examples of toxicity in gaming if you look through the literature, not just on the subject, game journalism in general.
The: Call of Duty players screaming racial slurs at one another, all sorts of sexism is observable in many game settings, just for example.Me: You may paraphrase conversations if you would like to however the actual threats need both parties approval to be published
The: We once had a player who just ranted non stop about the inferiority of blacks for example.Me: That point of view is silly unfortunately, still all too prevalent in the world.
The: Whereas we banished him, and have gone to great lengths to censor unacceptable dialogue on the part of our players, others have taken it upon itself to evade block lists, and pour as much profanity as possible towards players in private messages, tavern posts, even player identy profiles.
The: The community here is different.Me: Fortunately this game does not work along race lines. It is quite acceptable however to throw dirt at nationals within the game.
The: As far as I can tell, we are the only guild maintaining constant upkeep of our players conduct in public, at least in terms of "you're too far past the line, get out"Me: The Pirate Kings have had some expulsions as of late. Were they from racist comments/issues ?
The: I've seen dirt, as you call it, which would have gotten a player banned outright from a Microsoft or Disney property, accepted without even a warning from the game here, and it's disturbing.
The: No. One player was banished for being verbally abusive to guild members above and beyond acceptable limits, the rest were banished for reasons much more pragmatic in nature. Zuzik for example was on the cusp of losing hundreds of millions of gold in ships to outsiders, so we took them first.Me: I. unfortunately, have some other things to attend to. I would like to thank you for being so candid.
The: We can resume this later if you would care toMe: Other than the corrections marked with *, is there anything you would like to not see printed ?
The: been here a long time, have quite alot to say.
The: it'll take awhile to review all this
The: ill hit u upMe: Perhaps we can get together again sometime ?
The: yup
The: be well new guy, nice talking to uMe: I will not submit until later today or tomorrow so there is time to delete any answers you may wish to.
Me: Thank You again for your time
His Majesty, The Pirate King.
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After a rather lengthy interview with His Majesty, The Pirate King, It seems to raise more questions than it answered.
Was the King of Midway overlooking the shoulder of The Pirate King as he spoke ?
The Pirate King has agreed to continue this interview in another session where hopefully, we can get more answers to the many questions that arose from our conversation.
What would YOU, the reader like to ask The King of Pirate's ?
Now is your chance to pose a question and in our next installment, hopefully we can get an answer for you.
For now, this is
WILLIAM CAXTON saying goodbye and hopefully all your news is good !
Posted: Wed May 13, 2015 12:52 pm