Celtic Heroes

The main server I play on currently has a griefing problem. It's had this problem for around three months now and has become so severe, people are leaving for others servers or straight up quitting the game. It's possible that over one hundred reports have been sent until now, but no more than an occasional 24-72h ban handed out to offending toons (that will then re-offend the following day). To abide by forum rules, clan or server names will be redacted.

Three months since the dominant clan's [DOM] first Dhiothu kill, it remains killed only 4 times due to rampant griefing. The competition clan [COMP] has campers positioned at Dhiothu almost 24 hours a day, waiting for DOM to attempt to kill it. They will then call members of their clan to assist in healing Dhiothu, in killing members of the raiding party via negative energy and in dragging around 5* mobs to make them explode and wipe DOM. All this through spamming their clanmates with messages via third-party apps. Great lengths to go to for a griefing roll call. Truly fun for all the family.

As a result of COMP's griefing over the last three months and the lack of bans/action to prevent it, DOM has resorted to full retaliation as of around three weeks ago. DOM will now reset bosses on COMP whenever possible, to attempt to force peace on the server. This includes Necro, Snorri and Unox primarily, but is possible at every raid except Mordris. It is believed DOM use "hacked devices" to do this. They do not. It is a brutal tactic, that has acheived nothing thus far in the way of negotiation between DOM and COMP clan.

Prior to the retalitation from DOM, many weeks ago, negotiations were attempted between leaders. COMP requested that DOM give up one quater of all raid bosses on the server as ransom for allowing DOM to kill Dhiothu. Considering DOM have killed 100% of all Bloothorn/Gelebrons and 80% of Necro/Mordris over the last three months (COMP lack the firepower to even kill Bloodthorn), this was never going to be accepted. DOM countered the offer with allowing each clan alternating days to attempt Dhiothu; something previously requested by COMP. COMP rejected this, along with an offer of 50/50 mordris/necro kills that was presented to them. They wanted 25% of all raids and nothing else. No agreement was made.

This is an unfortunate situation that arose from a misunderstand. COMP believed DOM had agreed on alternating allocated days for Dhiothu attempts - they had not. From that moment onwards, Dhiothu was griefed. Spirits were dragged onto DOM at necro. Tanks at all DOM raids were calmed by COMP druids. Purposefully 'set' roots at Bloodthorn were killed, causing raids to wipe entirely. And so, DOM now resorts to resetting COMP bosses. There were however two Dhiothu kills secretly pulled off by DOM but those have led to a great deal more eyes watching Lir's Reach since. It is now impossible.

The offer from DOM to COMP is currently this - stop griefing us and we will stop griefing you. We will alternate days for Dhiothu attempts but nothing more. DOM has killed Dhiothu with 22 characters. COMP can do the same with a little practice - something we know you have been planning in secrecy but can't allow in the current climate. If COMP wish to negotioate something more (and they have been offered more in the past), accept these initial terms and contact leadership to put your offer forward. We are reasonable people, believe it or not. COMP has a new Chieftain as of this week so maybe he can see sense?

To the reader - what would you do? If these terms are not accepted, what choice is there but to continue a grief war nobody enjoys? We will not offer free raids as a reward for the griefing we have received. The bans simply don't come quick enough. Proof of everything here can be provided, but would break forum rules if posted publically.

Please abide by forum rules. No naming/shaming unless it's on yourself.

Ah classic server wars. Stuff like this was common back in the day, at least from my own experiences... before people became super sensitive and rules were being thrown left and right. I wouldn’t call a lot of the cases “griefing”. Griefing to me would be something like intentionally gaining aggro on 160 dl for example and then bringing it to a bugged spot behind the rock resetting the entire fight, because an exploit was used.

Stuff like dragging adds, healing bosses, calming the tank, ksing on lixs, etc... is just a very extreme form of competition (usually frowned upon and considered dirty) which imo is not a good bannable offense. Abusing exploits on the other hand would make it griefing and a bannable offense (possibly perma ban).

What do I think of the situation? Well as I said before it’s just a very extreme form of competition that has been sparked as a result of your (I assume) clans dominance. They obviously don’t like it so have gone to the extreme to combat you guys, and seeing that some of you are leaving or quitting goes to show the success they’re having. In terms of what you guys have done, you retaliating makes you just as bad as they are and the situation will never improve. You guys basically initiated what has been known as a server war, so buckle up and prepare for a long and annoying fight... running to the admins generally won’t help unless if exploits are being used to grief or players get out of hand with the harassment (VR are like the referees lmao).

They could argue that the dom clan is ruining their gaming experience by being dominant, while you guys could argue that they are ruining your gaming experience by taking competition to the extreme... in the end it’s the dominance that sparks the conflict and the attitude of the competition that gets caught on fire because of the spark, and the fire does nothing but spread. So, it goes both ways.

...and seeing that some of you are leaving or quitting goes to show the success they’re having.

I should clarify this was in reference to the non-dominant clan. Sorry for the confusion.

I agree some tactics are dirtier than others and labelling it as an "extreme form of competition" isn't wrong. Regardless of what we're going to call what either side is doing, it's creating a negative environment for both parties. That, as far as I can tell, nobody is enjoying right now. It's largely a game of "he said, she said" but with a reasonable and fair proposition, to make people happier, I mainly wonder why the offer is not accepted.

I am slightly confused however that you insinuate things will never improve, by "initiating what has been known as a server war". It can't possibly make them any worse considering the enemy was already doing everything possible to mess with us. They can however be pressured into accepting a reasonable and fair agreement, and those of them that do get banned in the meantime definitely improve our situation. If we are now "as bad as they are" I hope you're not suggesting we allow them to continue 'extremely competing' with us, doing nothing about it. Alas, I am open to alternative suggestions.

That is the intention of this post. What would you do? Am i right in thinking your post reads "They hit you for months without consequences and now you're hitting back, but continue hitting eachother because why not"? Perfectly reasonable if so.

Provide us alternatives so we don't have to grief for the opposition to see sense.

I think it’s great that you guys are trying to negotiate with them. I was simply implying that both sides can be blamed for the conflict, as it’s not just the comp clans fault (summarized by my last paragraph). There’s a reason behind everything. I said things will never improve because while you may be successful with the negotiations, both sides will be on thin lines for a while, considering both sides went to the extreme. Think of it like the United States and North Korea. Both were at war with each other, a ceasefire was made, and now they’re both on very thin lines.. no negotiation could change that. Once the damage is done it’s done.

I personally would suggest your server to go free as it’s the best way to relieve that tension. But since I know that won’t happen I suggest you simply look at both sides as the ones at fault. If you negotiate and continue to put blame on them nothing will ever get better. So you need to look at where you and your clan were at fault, acknowledge it, and improve upon it. Also look into the root cause of the tension, look below the surface, find the root of the problem and fix it. I already gave you most of the answers in my first post.

If the negotiations fail and your clan fails to fix the root of the issue then you can either fight against them or choose to be the mature ones. Either way, one side will eventually burn themselves out resulting in the end of the conflict, but both sides will remain on thin lines as mentioned previously. So really your only option that will see improvement is fixing the root of the problem.

Again, thank you for the input Zkills.

We can say both sides are at fault for entertaining a server war, and both clans I'm sure do take responsibility for the part they've played. I fail to see a root cause other than one clan being dominant and another suffering as a result. This is something the opposition hasn't taken lightly I know. They were dominant for over 6 years before we came along this summer and now own the vast majority of raids. They own quest bosses from Sreng to Unox for the most part (we're not interested in these), with 1 or 2 Proteus' per week and an occasional raid, mainly if we aren't camping them. I have no problem offering them Mordris and Necro kills personally. However, Gelebron and Bloodthorn they currently cannot kill, so we will not be offering them the 8h they requested to attempt them - this does not seem unreasonable. If they get their playerbase active again through the offered raids then sure, they could absolutely kill Gelebron and we could talk about it then. Alas, they rejected this offer.

See the above as a reaction to the root cause of the conflict. Grudges held between certain players will probably never solve themselves, so this seems the easier way.

As a side note though, in reference to your analogy, we had something similar happen before. Two clans on the server were 'in conflict' for years. As of recently, they have now merged and are best of friends, fighting against us. Granted though, their leaders weren't really comparable to nice Mr Kim.

Please let us know about the offer, [redacted clan name].

The clan suffering as a result of the dominant clan never take it well. Of course some are better than others but usually they will resist the dominant clan. That is where the obvious issue lies and is the root of most server conflicts. Those in the dominant clan usually never see themselves as the root of the issue, most likely because of egotistical reasons, “I’m on top so therefor I’m right”. Doesn’t matter if you won dominance over another clan, whoever gains dominance will more than likely gain that mind set and naturally people on the outside will see that and resist, even if they were once on top. It always creates a rather toxic environment and within that toxic environment toxic players are made.

I was once apart of a comp clan before being recruited to the dom clan and I had different views for both sides. After I started realizing how bad things were (and challenging rules as well as predicting a decline which did end up happening) I slowly started to go solo after concluding that neither side was right, and once I was solo I was able to take both my view points and combine them which allows me to see from just about all perspectives. Dominance is the issue, and there will always be an issue on your server as long as there is dominance.

Well starting this post wasn't the right move, history always repeats itself even if it was innocent.

Zkills already said everything I was thinking so all that's left to say is, merge clans? 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing

Well starting this post wasn't the right move, history always repeats itself even if it was innocent.

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I follow how making this post was the wrong move. It may or may not garner a solution, though I did doubt it heavily. If it doesn't, it harms nobody. History sure does repeat itself but I'm not sure what you're trying to add. I do, however, agree that 50% is greater than 0%.

Sadly, the opposition Chief has this morning reiterated they will not be negotiating with us and are continuing to interfere with our clan. More of their members will be jumping ship in the coming weeks and unfortunately competition is almost dead on the server. All could have been avoided if people set aside their pride.

It should be an interesting event this weekend.

Well starting this post wasn't the right move, history always repeats itself even if it was innocent.

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I follow how making this post was the wrong move. It may or may not garner a solution, though I did doubt it heavily. If it doesn't, it harms nobody. History sure does repeat itself but I'm not sure what you're trying to add. I do, however, agree that 50% is greater than 0%.

Sadly, the opposition Chief has this morning reiterated they will not be negotiating with us and are continuing to interfere with our clan. More of their members will be jumping ship in the coming weeks and unfortunately competition is almost dead on the server. All could have been avoided if people set aside their pride.

It should be an interesting event this weekend.

yeah I can. What I mean is when this kind of post has come up in the past the other clan members see it and things get blown up even more than they was, starts an aggument.
Guess there's nothing u can do now. You'll have to come up with new strategies to kill these bosses. Ik when grieving was a thing in arawn, when bosses were dragged to be reset we would use skewer and roots to counter it. U could also use this with ads being dragged. Always a way around it dude

Well starting this post wasn't the right move, history always repeats itself even if it was innocent.

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I follow how making this post was the wrong move. It may or may not garner a solution, though I did doubt it heavily. If it doesn't, it harms nobody. History sure does repeat itself but I'm not sure what you're trying to add. I do, however, agree that 50% is greater than 0%.

Sadly, the opposition Chief has this morning reiterated they will not be negotiating with us and are continuing to interfere with our clan. More of their members will be jumping ship in the coming weeks and unfortunately competition is almost dead on the server. All could have been avoided if people set aside their pride.

It should be an interesting event this weekend.

Server war begins, people start to leave/quit as a result, competition will die or severely weaken, dominant clan will eventually get bored, more people leave/quit, economy goes to the trash, more people leave/quit, and now you’re left with a really bad server that not many want to play on and people are still left with a bad taste in their mouths after everything.

Get rid of dominance on the server and you’ll see all your problems disappear like magic.