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by Jacob Montanez Happy Birthday War Mill! It's been one year (as of March) since the War Mill was created by Innate Mak to relieve the Rumor Mill of those who were considered to be spamming it with conversation during the lulls between expansion sets, the time when nothing happens there anyway. The War Mill arose from the Atog Wars, as alluded to in the Beyond Dominia Sideboard. To give a brief recapitulation, the Atog War in question was actually the second one in six months, the first occurring in October 1996. The first Atog War was started and named by myself in opposition to the creation of the Foratog, which I believed at the time to be inferior to the normal Atog (I have a thing for atogs, so forgive me). It was at this time that pseudo-roleplaying was experimented with. The second Atog War (also named by me) happened in February 1997, when several people (myself included) began discussing the then-new Reprint policy that WotC had instituted, and it grew to include such topics as T1 tournament structure versus T2 tournament structure (now known as Classic and Standard), and the viability/need for both. Here, several people formed ‘armies' and in a sense battled and ‘warred' according to their beliefs on the matter. Unfortunately, the serious aspect was forgotten when the aspect chosen by others to be detrimental to all was the roleplaying. The demand that we (us warmongers) be relocated was so great that Innate Mak chose to create a new mill specifically for the purpose of letting us roam there, out of the way of the ‘serious' people in the Rumor Mill. And so, in March, 1997, the War Mill came into being. In anticipation for its imminent creation, several of the ‘warmongers' decided to form guild structures, in which people of similar thought banded together to better defend their positions and ideas. They ranged from serious: KAAT'N, the House of Oor-Tael, the Arrangers of Disorder; to the less serious: The Minions of Elf Girl, the Kobold Guild. Many guilds were formed, but most disbanded after a short time due to lack of leadership or membership. A massive problem arose with the guild system, and that was member recruitment. Perhaps the most infamous example was that of Telim'Tor, who recruited upwards of thirty members to the Minions of Elf Girl. Guilds degenerated into a fight about who was the biggest guild. The glaring problem was that these members never showed up in the War Mill, and many were recruited outside of Beyond Dominia itself, and didn't know what the whole guild ‘thing' was about. I recently met one of these people, Iao, in the chatroom, and confronted him off-hand about being a member of the Minions of Elf Girl. By his own admission, he had forgotten about it completely, but remembered it when I mentioned it. It was this breakdown that prompted the creation of the War Mill Reconstruction Board sometime in May/June, for the purpose of finding a way to make the guild structure work, or to find some other viable method of operation. Several plans were constructed, and implemented, but all fell into disuse. A council was formed to monitor guild actions, but the council fell apart as well due to either lack of time or lack of commitment. Among those who sought to help, Sage Advisor, Prism, myself, and others were conscripted either to form the council or to put out ideas, and the lack of usefulness in implementing the drafted plans forced the belief that the War Mill could not be put to order under any rigid set of rules; someone would always do their best to undermine the most well-thought out plans. With the virtual demise of the War Mill Reconstruction Board, things continued on in the degenerating method that passed before the attempts at reform. Of certain note, the War Mill became the first Mill not under the command of Innate Mak. He petitioned for replacement maintainers, and both Coag and I were put in charge. Later, Cup would be added when I (in a state of disillusionment, read further for an explanation) decided to leave, though I later changed that opinion and returned. Several people realized the horrid condition that the War Mill was in, but could do nothing to help fix it. In October, my friend Coag and I launched Atog War 3, an ill-fated attempt at recreating both the roleplaying manner introduced in Atog War 1, and the thought provoking debate that was the success of Atog War 2. Our position was that the guild system, as it was, could no longer continue in the fashion that it dominated. I resurrected my old persona, Jake the Atog God, the villain of both Atog War 1 and 2, and set him the purpose of destroying guilds. I continued also with my current persona at the time, of Elrohir, in the hopes of finding some means of reform for guilds. I've heard it told that I was playing both sides of the war, but few recognized it for what it was: I wanted change, and would have it any way that I could. Destruction or reform are both drastic changes in themselves. To keep the guild system in its current state was the opposition. In the end, I got what I wanted: the weakening of guilds and the ultimate uprising of roleplaying as the form of structure. No longer was the mill populated by numerous guilds, it stabilized at around four or five. Some old favorites were destroyed, some at my hands. One statement was made that upset me, and that was ‘These guilds were destroyed because of your influence, Elrohir. People did it because of their reverence for you.' In short, they were implying that because I wanted this deed done, people did it because I told them to, and they respected that. To me, that comes across as: ‘Well, you whined for it, you got it.' Displeased at this light they put me in as the true villain, I decided to leave. An exodus followed my departure, with many old-timers calling it quits. The War Mill is more seductive than I anticipated, however, and it continues to pull me back despite how many attempts I've made (and there have been several) to leave it. It was during this new war that perhaps the most insidious poison of the War Mill's history made its first appearance: Egotism. As I just related, people did things because I asked them to, and I took it to my head. I have the belief, that, rightfully held or not, I am the ultimate reason why the War Mill exists (since, after all, I did name the Atog Wars, and the War Mill was created to relieve the Atog Wars, and so since I was responsible for the Atog Wars, I am responsible for the creation, ultimately, of the War Mill.) Anyway, I paraded this around for so long that my ‘public opinion' rating dropped among several members of the War Mill community. People still had respect for me due to my position as both maintainer and as one of the oldest members of Beyond Dominia, but I felt that if they (anyone, regardless of how widespread the belief actually was) felt I was egotistical, the best thing to do was recognize that yes, I was being egotistical, and to leave and re-evaluate how I did things. But I've gotten off topic and spoken too much of myself. Roleplaying took charge in the wake of Atog War 3. Participation was much less, due to the exodus of people, but stories began to take place, and a world evolved to the point that Thrakkiss was able to construct a map of the territories concerned with the War Mill. But the War Mill was plagued now with even worse egotism than the guild structure accommodated. Whereas groups of people had ‘pride' in their organization, those groups were now splintered, and each individual began to think of how powerful they were. Several new-order ‘gods' arose, always claiming to be there to destroy the War Mill, how they were going to attack everyone, how nothing could hurt them, how they could affect everybody, etc. Power became such an issue that the new roleplaying situation became referred to by some as ‘rollplaying', the over-emphasis on how many people they could kill, things they could destroy, etc., dominating over the purpose of character growth and development. The War Mill withered considerably during Christmas break of 1997, and with February looming soon on the horizon, the lack of activity in January caused many to believe that the War Mill had ultimately died at last. But true to its indomitable spirit, the War Mill would not die. Grublet attempted to start up a story that promised to be sweeping and epic, but the lack of interest caused it to fail. I and my friend Livonya started a series of stories meant for the purpose of character growth and enrichment of the War Mill environment, but we were plagued by people doing their best to force their way into our story, and so we ended it with the deaths of our characters and the destruction of Deep Shadow, one of the defining landmarks of the War Mill world. Towards the end of February, I decided to call it quits for good, and Livonya and I set about to end our story as soon as possible. True roleplaying had not been embraced, and we were chastised horribly for our exclusion of all people to our story. I was directly accused of egotism, and my nickname became ‘Egohir' in the chat room, something I resented horribly due in part to my recognition that it was true, and the fact that I did not like being referred to as an egotist (something that I believe probably only increased the problem in itself). In leaving, I relinquished sole control of the War Mill to Cup, and so he was the only maintainer of the War Mill. This brings us up to the current day situation of the War Mill. In the wake of my departure, Thrakkiss and Cup launched a new story, using several of Cup's older characters and a few new ones in order to spark some activity in the War Mill, which at that time got only 3-4 new posts a day, on a good day. The War Mill seemed to pick up, until you actually go through and realize that many of the posts are actually written by the same people under numerous aliases. From the early days, where it was counted on that maybe as many as 20-30 people at least had some hand in what was going on, participation had dropped to about 12, and usually no more than 6 or 7 people actually posted on a regular basis. Much of this information came from Serra and Sage Advisor, two friends from KAAT'N who were kind enough to share what was going on with me through e-mails and late night chats. I decided to check out for myself what the situation was, and after reading through several posts I realized that Thrakkiss and Cup were just as guilty as I was at ‘egotism', something that upset me greatly, as they were the biggest people against my egotism, and they had fallen into it themselves unwittingly. I watched as they forced Sage Advisor to change the story to their whim, because it ‘didn't flow' with the way they wanted the story to go. They took away Sage and Serra's chances of action, negating what they wished at whim. And they complained about ME being exclusive. I confronted Cup and had several violent words with him on the subject. Maybe I made him see what was going on, maybe I didn't, but it doesn't matter. From what I can tell, the War Mill is only postponing its demise. Participation has dropped off precipitously. Roleplaying doesn't keep the interest that guilds did, guilds didn't ever do anything constructive. The War Mill struggled for six months with guilds. The fix, role playing, lasted only about three months before stagnating. Two months of relatively nothing happened in the over-all scheme of things. The last month witnessed the resurgence of roleplaying that quickly began to stumble over its own feet. Sometimes I wonder why I never did hit the delete button that would end it all. I hope, in spite of all the rifts I've created between my friends, that the War Mill goes on for another year, but from what I've seen in over a year of association with it, the War Mill is on its last legs and may not live long enough to see its second birthday. And what a sad ending for something that once showed so much promise that it was at one time the second most visited mill next to the Rumor Mill. ***Author's miscellaneous notes : I've tried to be as fair in my assessment of the War Mill situation as I could be. I admit that I did write a more than a bit about myself in the segment, but due to what I feel was my deep connection to and long association with the War Mill, I can only call it as I see it, and I'm quite sure there are others whose opinions differ quite a bit from my own. As such, there is a lot of stress on my own involvement in the War Mill (yet another thing I can be accused of being egotistical about), and I welcome any response from fellow War Mill patrons, past or present, who wish to communicate their feelings about it, either via e-mail or through a commentary piece such as this one.*** (Editor's Note -- Actually, Jacob is slightly incorrect in a few things here... the War Mill still is one of the top three mills in Beyond Dominia. The other two are the Type 2 Mill and, of course, the classic Rumor Mill. Also, we estimate that there's between at least 30 people who visit the War Mill every day with at least another 50-100 people who visit on occasion. Here's a more statistical note : the War Mill has a medium level of poster to lurker ratio; the Type II Mill has the best. In other words, the Type II Mill has an estimated 1 poster for every 3 lurkers, while the War Mill has an estimated 1 poster for 8 lurkers. The Rumor Mill fluctuates wildly (depends on what's happening), but it generally stands at 1 poster for every 19 lurkers. -- IM) All commentaries are the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Beyond Dominia
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