To previous members of Chubbs and AD

[Illidan Stormrage]

It would bother me to run into, say, a Ganondorf with 20,000 OM when I have 10,000, despite both of us starting in The Scramble.

Why should that bother you? At least from an IC perspective, someone being stronger than you is a good thing. I know that sounds weird, because this is also a game, but the only reason people read books and stories is because they want to see someone overcome something. If there's nothing in their way, there's no tension, there's no reason to improve, there's no drama, and there's no reward. That makes a story very bland.

The best writing comes from characters constantly under the pump, dealing with one bad turn after another. Because that's what makes them interesting and sympathetic; we all have troubles, and we all want to overcome them, and seeing how they do (or try to) is the excitement of reading.

However, if you're looking at this from a purely game perspective, then yes, but that could be said for WoW, for example. If you started playing today with someone else and they ended up further in level than you because they were playing more than you, you'd accept that they'll kick your arse in PvP. I don't see how that should be any different here.

I've always found this position unusual and it bothered me a shit tonne being staff on Chubbs. People wanted to have sagas (ie. story run competitions run by the staff) but they wouldn't often join (especially towards the end) because there were people who had been on the site longer and therefore stronger than them, so they had no chance of winning. Because a writing based site is all about winning, amirite?

So there'd be no saga (or a weakly populated one) and activity would go out the window.

I hope I go up against Ganondorf at some stage and he smashes the shit out of me. Because that would make fantastic writing fodder and a great opportunity for character development.

I apologise if this sounds snarky (because I can't tell), doubly because you're new to this sort of thing and you're entitled to that opinion, but coming from the position of someone who's been casually writing for the past ten years on similar sites, it bothers me.