Penned by former Archemperor of Unknown, Gerzam, in order to open discussion regarding gameplay ethics and the continuously-evolving roles professed by raiders and defenders. Submitted by Koth to TRRHS in 2024. Thanks, Koth.
Region crashing, invading, conquering, raiding. All terms for the act of storming a region, claiming its delegacy and, in most cases, fighting to hold it from defenders.
Region Crashers, invaders, conquerors, farkers, raiders. All term for those who commit the act of storming a region, claiming its delegacy and, in most cases, fighting to hold it from defenders.
Looking upon these actions of these people, we must stand and question the ethics behind raiding. Why do they do it? Is it acceptable game conduct? Are they really a problem?
To begin the examination of the practice, let us first look at the ethics of raiding and raiders:
One common reason is that one simply enjoys doing it. Taking this and engaging it upon another issue, to give perspective, would be to look at a murderer. If that murderer were to say that he killed as he wanted to, would that really be a legitimate justification for his or her actions? I think not. The same applies for raiders and the act of raiding. I am not attempting to insinuate that raiding is like murder, simply how illogical the justification. But that stated, one of the arguments of raiders is that they realize that there is no true justification for their raids and that they admit to being oriented towards what the public would define a someone on the Dark Side, evil side, etc. In doing this, it effectively establishes a truth. This truth is indeed that most raids have little or no justification, but that this does not play any role in the raiding community's willingness to keep raiding. An unmistakable point is therefore made: that raiders are, in many ways, ethically wrong, and defenders, by definition, are ethically correct. The commonly said phrase "raiders are scum" is therefore correct, if our world were black and white.
As stated above, raiding is certainly not, by the general public's accepted margin of ethical standards, ethically sound, and most (though not all) raiders agree with that judgment, at least conditionally (which will be explained as we carry on). That said, is it acceptable game conduct? According to the game rules, it indeed is. That said, many actions taken over the coarse of its prominent existence have not been acceptable game conduct, many of these were so due to the rules, though some others, which are game legal, but poor in "sportsmanship", have plagued the game. One major practice which even I am guilty of having committed is the idea of actually destroying a region utterly. That said, defenders and defender aligned natives of regions regularly make this seem far more common than it truly is. An Example would be to look at my region, Unknown, and its spiritual predecessor, The Brotherhood of Blood. I have seen accusations that my region has strangled numerous regions to death using the password tactic. To my recollection, I can state that to date, we have done this to a grand total of 4 regions. These regions are, in order of this action being committed, Federal Defense Forces, The Minority, Unknown and Prussia Reborn. The first region was near dead when the action was committed, the second remains intact (though many of its members, due to their own inactivity, have died of inactivity and our password remains up) so it is debatable as to whether it really counts, the third, Unknown, is now a bustling region after we refounded it and the last is a colony of the third. Numerous other regions, such as Marklarg, Sea Land and others were either regions we raided (in the case of Marklarg) or enemy regions (in the case of Sea Land) which, after they died long after we invaded them or ceased fighting with them, we refounded. Therefore, the accusations that my region has committed, which even I will say is extra harmful conduct to regions, a large number of these invade, password and kill actions to regions is a falsehood. We have indeed committed the action, but not anywhere near as much as we have been accused of. Regardless, the point stating that makes is that, despite claims to the contrary, that today's raiders do not simply kill every region they go to. The Majority of raids are short, have little true or irreversibly damage to the region and are often focused simply on engaging defenders in battle. Raids like those in France or Belgium are far less common than lightning raids or occupations, which do next to no harm.
All of this said, I beleive that the practice of passwording a region and leaving it like that is harmful. It would be preferable to either refound it after passwording, or let the natives have it back after the raid is complete. The former of the two is, to the non-raider community, mostly viewed as undesirable, however it is admittedly a better result than simply leaving a region to be forgotten as a passworded carcass.
Another horrid form of conduct displayed by some raiders, manly young and immature and/or newb raiders, is the bragging and taunting. This is truly a disgrace and only aggravates things further. preferably, it would be best if raiders did not post at all on their target's RMBs, as to allow for natives to continue as if things were relatively normal. The idea is that raiders should aim to be like an relatively peaceful occupying force, firm enough to hold the region until they pull out, but avoid as much other interference with native lives as possible, rather than the regrettably current activity which resembles a group of barbarians storming a region and burning down Native houses and the like. The Defenders, when they directly control the delegacy, tend to be good about this practice (though admittedly I have noted that on numerous occasions, the presence of the defenders is as if the region were being raided again), which demonstrates that raiders, if they are, as many of them beleive, better than the defenders, should be capable of treating the natives the same.
That said, butchering a region is acceptable if there is some sort of personal vendetta. For example, if Region A invaded Region B, who had spammed Region A and/or caused numerous issues and the like, Region A is within its rights, if it is capable of successfully raiding Reion B, to destroy Region B.
Another point is that if natives are truly afraid of their community being destroyed by raiders, they should move to another region with a founder (either one that one of them founds, or another region as refugees) or accept the reality that their region is fair game for raiders, and rightfully so. That said, raiders should still show mercy when no legitimate reason is existent to justify killing a region, but outraged natives also should accept the reality that their region was vulnerable and they had an opportunity to move before any potential harm could be inflicted upon them, should the raiders act cruelly. The basic point is, in effect, this: If you didn't want your community to be destroyed, why did you stay in a vulnerable region when you could easily create another one and move there? Numerous answers will of coarse be given to that, but next to none can truly defeat the argument, only the rarest of circumstances would this point be invalid.
Examining the defenders: as stated earlier, these people, the defenders, are, by definition, ethically correct. This is true, as stated, by definition. But what about in actual practice? To answer this, let us take a little analysis of the defender.
To their credit, many are more intelligent, or at least more mature, than many raiders. This is largely due to age differences, but as we all know there are plenty of young raiders and defenders, and plenty of older raiders and defenders, this is not an absolute, neither is the notion of greater mental intelligence and maturity, though defenders, on a general scale, appear more mature than raiders, which has to be influenced by the age. Many raiders are younger as raiding is more appealing to younger players than defending and, in parallel, defending is the more popular choice for players of an older age (not necessarily old, as in elderly, but of an older average than the raider crowd). This is not an absolute, as stated above, which is why you can find some extremely mature and intelligent raiders and some extremely dumb and immature defenders, but the reality is that the defenders tend to be of a higher age on average than raiders.
The issue with defenders is the notion that they carry that they are the saviors of the world, the uncorrupted, the pure, the light aligned, etc. This righteous attitude is directly or indirectly based on the reality that the position of a defender is ethical, whilst a raiders is unethical in comparison.
But looking at defenders, we must understand something: They are only marginally better, if not equal, to raiders with regards to their "goodness".
Defenders have, on more than one occasion, prolonged the Warzone like climate of invaded regions. They have also planted delegates loyal to their cause in regions in the past as well. They also have the best intelligence network in the world, often used to create paranoia, resulting in ruined friendships, and direct and indirect destruction of a region's community from the inside, a far more painful experience than any raid could truly inflict on a community. Many of them take open pleasure to doing this, just like a raider raiding his region. If raiders are sadistic, defenders are as well. Though the spying is a regular and necessary part to gathering intel of planned raids in hopes of advanced preparation for prevention, defenders have regularly gone above (or should I say, bellow) and beyond this to inflict emotional pain, create paranoia and destroy (as stated above, indirectly or directly) communities. This could be viewed as a form of retribution for raids, though it certainly is not the conduct of the White Knights in which defenders (and others) seem to beleive they are. This is not stating that defenders are worse than raiders, but it is a reality that they truly are little better, if better at all.
Something both raiders and defenders can and should do, however, is turn their rivalry from a hatred into a friendly rivalry.
In conclusion, though I am certain there are flaws in the arguments and some other ethical debates have been left out, this is my general opinion on Raiding and the Raider-Defender world.
To truly conclude, let us revisit a statement quoted above: "Raiders are Scum". Now, let us Expand upon it in a black and white world: "Raiders are scum, Defenders are scum, Natives unwilling to accept the reality that the supposed destruction of their communities' could have easily been prevented by themselves by moving out of a founderless region into one with a founder are idiots, and uninvolved Neutrals are good". Now, let us give a true rendering of this statement: "Some Raiders are scum, Some Defenders are scum, Most Natives unwilling to accept the reality that the supposed destruction of their communities' could have easily been prevented by themselves by moving out of a founderless region into one with a founder are generally idiots, and uninvolved Neutrals are generally preferable, with exceptions."
This concludes my Ramblings on the Ethics of Raiding.
Gerzam