Petition to Revert Vaurca Lore

[incognitojesus]

Some two months ago, the Vaurca lore was reworked, and quite a few community members spoke up regarding this change and how they were not pleased with it. The rewrite that isn't a rewrite was given a ton of feedback, and rather than having it reverted or altered, the Vaurca loredev instead elected to say that he would resign his post if fifteen people supported it, to which I responded there aren't fifteen Vaurca players.

The Vaurca changes disrupted what was an original race native to Aurora (which has since been taken and altered what made people want to play the race, and that was the simplicity of it, and how it was something unique that had risen up organically within our lore. The chief complaint that I receive from former Vaurca players as well as those who were interested in the lore is that they've become something convoluted and people no longer want to read or understand the new changes. In fact, the only thing that I can think of that wasn't touched by the complete rewrite is the relationship between Vaurcae and the rest of the galaxy's powers. Even then, the interpersonal relationships between Vaurcae and the crew members has since now we have Vaurca-Human relationships that seem to be budding, and people either outright ignore the Vaurcae or just ignore the changes. Some gems I've read from people are that it seems like there is a "MILF fetish" within the species, or the infamous saying from one of the Vaurca, whom I won't out for this, but.

 

Pleaze grow that greenizh-brown magik, the food of the dreambugz, our zweet mama'z milk, the dawn and duzk and all that good zort of nutriment, hey? Guide my voize, oh Muzez, for I zpeak of kourze - of the kois.

 

Which brings me to something the Vaurca loredev said in staff_lobby which leads me to writing this post.

 

 

They have further stated that they would rather resign than revert the Vaurca lore. I would not resort to this if it were not the case. While I understand the effort one puts forward towards their work, at the end of the day, it still needs to be something that people are interested in and are willing to play.

I asked Arrow for the number of rounds started wherein people played Vaurca, and what I found was surprising, and shocking, honestly.

This is the number of rounds started as a Vaurca mob (note: this excludes rounds when people have queued to start but ended up as a Mercenary, Cyborg, Space Wizard, or AI).

Duration is from 05/01/2017 to 06/14/2017 (approx. when Chev took over as loredev and the rewrite began), so forty-five days.

 

 

As compared to after Chev took over and the rewrites were initiated.

Duration is from 06/14/2017 to 07/28/2017 with the same stipulations as before:

 

 

What we can see here is that, while Bygone may have made up the difference for the number of rounds played (which stayed around the same, 246 before vs 219 after), the overall number of players who are actively playing the species has dropped, with the notable Pikl drastically reducing the number of rounds he's played. Furthermore, I'd like to really stress this point that in the month and a half leading up to the rewrite, Chevalier only played the species he's now a loredev for four rounds which I believe may be the cause of the frustration people who were legitimately interested in Vaurca lore before and Chevalier.

So, if you're interested in having Vaurca reverted, or would like to contribute to the discussion, please say so below. It would result in the Vaurca loredev resigning, but he doesn't seem interested in cooperating with his own playerbase, so that would be an unfortunate, but necessary change.

[lilahnovi]

I enjoy the lore changes, and think the lore is really interesting and a fun read. As well, my own character has enjoyed some development thanks to said lore. I was considering making a Vaurca myself.

[pickled_tomato]

I'm adding to the petition for resignation.

It's not personal towards Chev, it's a product of a few observations I've made recently.

+1

[Pacmandevil]

I support the revert. the old lore was more interesting to me for numerous reasons.

[tmmytbbt]

I've been waiting on the Loredev to respond to my Bound Vaurca app for 5 days now but reading through the new and old lore respectively I realise that reverting would not change my App at all and also that the old lore seems to just make more sense. Its not as longwinded as new lore but the new lore just seems less thematically unified and more "lets make bug hippies"

[MoondancerPony]

I'm going to be withholding a vote until Lilah and/or Pemander say something, if they choose to do so. I'd be interested in hearing what some of the very vocal supporters of new Vaurca lore have to say about it.

[Scheveningen]

Do note that Chev has already stated that he has no intention of reverting the lore, he would rather RESIGN than REVERT.

Supporting the petition of resignation. It comes as a surprise that a lore dev would rather resign than listen to feedback, but then again, perhaps not.

+1

[veradox]

i dont like posting on the forums but

oppressed bug men to mammalia space hippies whose only lore relevance now is cultural shitposting with "muh home" in the backlight is kinda lame

[Pemander]

I wasn't really around for the Vaurca pre-revert (and thus don't have much of a basis for comparison between new and old), but I did rather enjoy the new lore and was strongly considering making a Vaurca character in the near future. Long-winded as the lore may be, I think that the current lore does a fairly good job of giving the Vaurca a unique identity among the Aurora's various xeno races. They're poets, warriors, and philosophers, and their highly scholastic culture and wonderful-seeming dreamland brain upload technology (that's a mouthful) contrast heavily with their past of bitter war and planet-ruining mistakes. The Vaurca as they are now strike me as a species that is currently in a sort of... ideological war. They're split into factions that all have a different idea of what's going to save the soul of their race, and are just barely managing to function on the same page using the social hacks of Discipline and Consensus. Overall, I actually really like them.

Disclaimer: whether what I see in them actually matches up with what's there on the page is up for debate. Also, I can imagine that a lot of people would feel a bit overwhelmed by how dense the new lore is.

Edit: Read the old Vaurca lore and it seems really bare bones compared to the new stuff. Not a lot to go on, doesn't really seem to have much of an established identity to it besides bugmen who really like VR a lot.

Double edit: How many budding Vaurca-Human relationships are there on the station? The only one I was aware of was Lilah/Kzaya, and that was actually specifically going to come to a dead end (as far as I understood) because they were fundamentally incompatible.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Guest

[Alberyk]

This is the lore before the changes; https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Vaurca&oldid=5354 if not everyone was aware of it.

[MoondancerPony]

I feel like Pemander and Lilah's perception/view of new Vaurca lore is a bit generous. I absolutely love the idea in theory, but in practice what I've seen of the new lore, both from Chev's characters and others, tends to fall flat. I'd be all for a rework of the rework instead of just a plain revert, but Chev seems to have settled on either keeping it exactly as it is or resigning.

Lots of people have addressed their grievances with them, and they seem to not care what the playerbase thinks. It's a shame, too, because their lore does have its good points, but the few easily-addressed issues that the players have seem to be entirely ignored.

EDIT: I'm actually voting no, which surprised me, given that I was one of the people pushing for it to be reverted. But I'd like to at least see if Chevalier will attempt to fix it instead of resigning/reverting it.

[Alberyk]

As someone that followed most of the changes, lore and code-wise, of the vaurca species since Lord Fowl was their manager. I am not really supportive of such big changes, it was really drastic and caused plently of confusion upon what was already stabilished on our universe as whole. Such as the Queen being mostly erased, while they were a really important part of the lore, or the Lii'dra that were a menace following the vaurca after taking down their home world to being just a mystery. One of my main issues is how most of what was build upon ends clashing with the new lore and I find myself confused, in character and outside of it, trying to understand if it was canon or not.

[CakeIsOssim]

Disgusting. Absolutely deplorable.

While I don't really have any problem with the lore itself, I have a problem with stuck-up lore devs who are so full of themselves, they would rather resign than to suck it up and accept the feedback from their players. Not taking these things into account because "it doesn't fit into my vision" is absolutely ridiculous, and while it is true that you alone are responsible for your species, you must remember that it is not just you who you are affecting. And, even if you still had no intention of changing anything after accepting feedback, your reasoning for such could at least be better than "nope, mine, sorry."

I think it is undeniably selfish to do such things, and I would not even begin to doubt that your only intention on the lore team was to change the species to how you saw fit, and not care about anyone else. I do wish for you to prove me wrong. The lore is not about controlling something (that did not even start as your original idea, no less) with an iron fist. You need to be fluid, accepting of other opinions, and not assume a position of power over it.

All in all, you are not a very good example of a lore developer, and I am appalled by the sheer amount of incongruence and lack of community cooperation. No, I don't expect the lore to be a perfect communion of developer and player, but stonewalling all of it for the one reason I've already stated is absolutely mind boggling. I do hope that you don't go back on your word and resign, because I don't think I can stand to work with you on any project whatsoever.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

It is not surprising at all that someone would want to resign rather than be told to delete all of their work and continue the project they wanted to change in the first place. If I was just a loredev and was told to delete all the work I put into Unathi in order to make them cowboys with a lisp or otherwise completely change my entire vision of them, I would resign too.

If I told any of my devs to delete their work, revert it, and do what they didn't want to do, they'd resign. You included, Cake.

This is volunteer work, and we stop when it stops being fulfilling for us.

[Garnascus]

I can understand being passionate about this topic but thats no excuse to get mean. I do not care if either party deserves it. Keep it civil.

[Scheveningen]

If I told any of my devs to delete their work, revert it, and do what they didn't want to do, they'd resign. You included, Cake.

 

Actually, they'd have the right to say, "Screw you", because not even you can intimidate your own staff into resigning just because of that. You do not lord over them. Your own subordinates could easily tell you to heck off and stop bugging them and still keep their position.

[CakeIsOssim]

It is not surprising at all that someone would want to resign rather than be told to delete all of their work and continue the project they wanted to change in the first place. If I was just a loredev and was told to delete all the work I put into Unathi in order to make them cowboys with a lisp or otherwise completely change my entire vision of them, I would resign too.

If I told any of my devs to delete their work, revert it, and do what they didn't want to do, they'd resign. You included, Cake.

This is volunteer work, and we stop when it stops being fulfilling for us.

 

Except, this is not what Chev promised when they applied. They pulled a 180, changed just about everything, and they don't even have to "delete all of their work" to make changes and satisfy the negative feedback.

[lilahnovi]

I'm going to add that Chev was interested in the feedback that Pemander and I wanted to give and actively sought it out multiple times and hoped for our input in order to expand or improve said lore. We LIKED what he had and wanted to play with it, and he was very kind and open to our interest, as well as changes or suggestions we would have. So, to frame him as someone COMPLETELY UNWILLING to listen to any sort of feedback is absurd.

[MoondancerPony]

He outright refused to listen to criticism in group chats and the staff Discord, though. This isn't just framing him, it's something he actually said. I'm all for giving him a chance for change, but when he's actually refused it, what more can we do...?

[Scheveningen]

Yell at him to get a clue, hoping he'll actually listen and do meaningful changes for the future and reverting any of the weird mom kink lore, hopefully to reintroduce some of the old features into the new designs so as to not shoehorn the idea that every Vaurca is a binging K'ois addict with serious manic depressive issues, to at least allow for more unique character concepts than what I mentioned?

But I mean we tried, he still didn't care to hear us.

[ToasterStrudel]

I will be honest, and mean no disrespect to you Chav.

A while ago, Vaurca was on my list for races I wanted to whitelist for, Myself and many others enjoyed the lore that was there originally. When a VAST amount of lore changes came in, in such a sort time, people felt uncomfortable (Again myself included). Most of the people who didn't have 100% interest in Vaurca became completely disinterested, and the people who where avid Vaurca members even felt the need to speak out of the changes. Despite the LARGE amount of negative feedback, the changes kept coming and coming to the point where your races players just stopped playing Vaurca.

I really don't like seeing people resign because of things like this, but when a majority of the community disagrees with the change, things get complicated.

[Pemander]

Yell at him to get a clue, hoping he'll actually listen and do meaningful changes for the future and reverting any of the weird mom kink lore, hopefully to reintroduce some of the old features into the new designs so as to not shoehorn the idea that every Vaurca is a binging K'ois addict with serious manic depressive issues, to at least allow for more unique character concepts than what I mentioned?

But I mean we tried, he still didn't care to hear us.

 

I have to say I have no idea where the characterization of the new lore as "weird mom kink" or the business about binging k'ois addicts with manic depressive issues are coming from. Maybe I'm missing something, but I only saw the (admittedly strange) k'ois meme prayer referred to as an example, and that doesn't seem supported by the lore at all. It kind of seems like there's a disconnect between the way current Vaurca players are enacting the lore and what the lore actually says.

[Lohikar]

The majority of the complaints about the rewrite of the lore were summed up in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i4yuk3oRuX6Jbi2c15ZI0RkNkHPWW--lQ1B79raS2cw

CMF's response is here: https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=8288&start=10#p79671

I don't know if this actually lead to any changes however.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Guest

[incognitojesus]

The majority of the complaints about the old lore were summed up in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i4yuk3oRuX6Jbi2c15ZI0RkNkHPWW--lQ1B79raS2cw

CMF's response is here: https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=8288&start=10#p79671

I don't know if this actually lead to any changes however.

 

I'd reword that a touch. Those complaints were about the rewrite.

[Lohikar]

The majority of the complaints about the old lore were summed up in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i4yuk3oRuX6Jbi2c15ZI0RkNkHPWW--lQ1B79raS2cw

CMF's response is here: https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=8288&start=10#p79671

I don't know if this actually lead to any changes however.

 

I'd reword that a touch. Those complaints were about the rewrite.

My bad, post corrected.