At the risk of escalating any "drama":
0) It's easy to make a competition like this into a drama-fest. I know I've had a lot of trouble stomaching what's happened the past few "Days" and remaining neutral about it. Outside of WoE, none of us (I would hope) are enemies. I want to emphasize that I think the world of a lot of these people, not least of which are Raving, Essence, and ddevans -- who I still think of as "legends" from when I was just a beginner to this game. A lot of what you've done has helped me learn how to play this game, and for that I'll always be grateful.
That said, I sincerely hope this game (and it's just a game, people!) doesn't ruin that and destroy any rapport that existed among us before these events. Whatever your actions are -- whether you think it's "righteous justice" for our perceived antagonism towards the UW, or "backstabbing" which many of us believe -- I urge both teams (and UW as well) to remember this isn't real. This shouldn't translate into our friendships (or lack of) in the larger Elements community. I know I'm not an Elements vet or a legend, so I may not qualify to ask this of everyone, but please, let's not remove the fun from WoE, yeah?
Anyway:
1) The Town is my responsibility to apologize for. It was my idea to put it there, mostly due to my already being on that hex which conveniently met the geographic requirements for building one. It was not meant as a statement or warning on our part. I perfectly understand why you would've interpreted it that way, though to be fair if that had happened to us, our first move would've been to have our diplomat contact the other team and ask for a clarification.
2) "Backstabbing". Again, something I have to apologize for, if only to be stupid enough to trust the word of Jappert -- twice. But we understand your reasons for what you did, and we're willng3 willing (I'm willing at least) to leave that behind us. Again, in our defense, all good relations between "nations" (which we all sort of are) start with diplomacy first, then war. Or, failing diplomacy, at least communication. Water (IMO) failed in that aspect -- if your motive for "backstabbing" us was that we placed a Town next to your border, the proper thing to do would've been to ask us if that was an act of aggression on our part (it wasn't). We would've been happy to clarify.
Of course, I most probably don't qualify to say what's "proper" and what's not -- Water's preemptive move to deceive us was, practically, the right thing to to, and something we would do well to learn.
3) UW. It wouldn't hurt to apologize to you (the team and morningstar specifically) again, but, well, sorry. For what it's worth, in our defense, we acted properly in our opinion with the attack. While we didn't give you prior warning (which would've given you a chance to escape anyway, like Jappert himself used as justification wrt Gocubbies), we also didn't actively lie to you about being friendly or seeking no conflict. In that respect, though, perhaps Water was right and we should've been more deceptive in our relations to other teams instead of being so trusting. Lesson learned?
One PvP match in our opinion (which was how many had occurred before you started calling us out about it) is not the same as a declaration of war. A coordinated series of attacks (as Water has done) is. We're more than happy to discuss this with you, morningstar and the UW team, if you still think we can be trusted. But if you've already written us off as your enemies, then we're more than happy to oblige, too. It's your call.
