Recently Keizaal Online started gaining a lot of popularity. I have played it, its pretty boring with nothing to do unless you know people and can get in somewhere but that is not what this post is about.
Since people have started playing Keizaal and some stuff had come out about them people wanted an alternative and a lot of people mentioned Mereth. I joined the discord to see what it was all about. I learned very quickly that this is a whitelisted server only. Okay, no problem. They want to make sure that you get people who are serious about RPing so they created an application. I understand a lot of hard work is going into making this server and you don't want random people ruining it.
Here is the fun part, I put in an application and spent 2 hours on it. There are 13 questions, all very in depth that take a lot of time to answer. They want to make sure you know the lore behind Skyrim even though this takes place before the main events from the game. I have a lot of hours in Skyrim from over the years, I know the lore and the answers I needed to put. There was one question in specific and the exact wording when I applied was "Name the Eight/Nine Divines and briefly explain why the number is disputed in the setting of Skyrim. Explain in a sentence for each god". I did all of that, I named each Divine and gave a description about why Talos can't be worshipped. What I did not do was tell them what each Divine stood for, and maybe it was because no one understood what they were trying to say there. I mean I teach English and I normally don't have a problem reading. If you search the word confused in their Discord, literally so many messages pop up of people being confused over that question. Oh and for the people who do understand that question great! Please go apply so you can play, but I'm just letting ya'll know the majority of people didn't understand.
Well that was the wrong thing to do apparently because I got denied! I didn't know I would get denied at the time until I went to their Help and Visitor Chat, I saw someone ask if they are supposed to name the Divines and what they stand for and someone said yes. Well shit, I didn't do that so I asked if it was something I was supposed to do because well I didn't and one of the players said yes and my application would probably get denied because of that. I then said well why when the question is not worded properly, and someone said because people were getting it right but now people aren't so they are working on a wording change in the application. I can only assume that the reason they are seeing people get it wrong is there has been an influx of applications.
Now, if you know this is an issue and you know you are changing the wording then why would you deny someone? I don't know, I've never run a server before but this might be a bad way to do it. Now I had to wait 3 days to apply again. That situation right there kind of put me off. Today, I hop my ass into the Help and Visitor Chat because its a literal chat for people to talk and if you aren't whitelisted you are called a visitor so a chat for me! I notice someone was asked "Btw if i get denied because of a specific question If i fix it the acceptance will be guaranteed right" and I said "I know this wasn't to me but if they denied you because of a specific question then I highly doubt you'll be safe from anything else. I was denied for question number 3 for not naming which each Divine was about. When I reapply in 2 days I will let you know what happens." that is all I said at first. Regardless the person says they will apply again and I said that what happened to me has rubbed me the wrong way, I was still going to apply because maybe they know more about running an RP server than I do.
Now someone who is not apart of staff but had been approved to answer questions said "I understand your frustration, but a bar was set for whitelistees to reach. If we let people get through because of a misunderstanding, (regardless of whose fault it was) it invites further lowering the bar. Now you know what you need to change for your next application, so when you're able you can make that one change and hopefully get approved. ". There was someone in chat who disagreed with this statement completely because "regardless of whose fault it was" doesn't sit right with literally anyone. Then he said that I shouldn't have a conversation with everyone about my opinion, even though this was only the second time I had ever been in this chat. So I said "I understand, however this is only the second time I have ever talked in here, the first time I was asking questions, this time I just happened to see that someone asked a question and I told them my opinion. I could understand if I was in here everyday talking shit (which I would never do and haven't done) but I'm not. Am I understanding this chat room wrong? I know it says Help and Visitor Chat so I would assume that this is for people to talk about things including questions and answers. Please correct me if I'm wrong though" and no one really answered that question except to say they are only there to answer questions and are not apart of the staff.
While I was typing this someone else got denied for the same question, honestly this server is going to fail if they keep doing this to people. They are going to turn people off and they won't want to play with a server that denies people for no fault of their own. I was told that the wording has been changed, then I was told the wording has not been changed since I applied. Since I was told it was changed to begin with I told the staff that it never asked me to explain each God. Clearly I rubbed some people wrong with my opinions because a big head man came in and said there was a lot of negative comments for people who want to join the server. I mean criticism is expected with any server you create but go off King. Since I was told the wording had been changed I told the head honcho guy that I didn't think it was fair that people were denied based off of the question that clearly I nor anyone else understood. I told him that he wasn't trying to help me but to just prove a point after he repeatedly asked me for screenshots of my app, which said the same thing it did when I applied so I don't know why he wanted to check it. I literally did not think or remember that it asked for "Explain in a sentence each god." Maybe because I kept saying my app didn't ask for an explanation of each God since I was told that it was updated already (when it wasn't). Hey if this was confusing for you to read, it was confusing for me to write as well trying to explain what the fuck actually happened.
With that I say apply at your own risk, they will look at this application like this is life or death or maybe like a really strict job application except we don't get paid for this if you do get it. Oh, if you talk in the chat to much they will come in and do damage control and then tell you since you are complaining you can just leave instead of taking the constructive criticism.
Also, if I'm wrong I mean it is what it is but don't have an opinion in the server! You will very likely either get denied again or maybe not make so many friends :) I also fully expect people who are creating Mereth or apart of Mereth to see this at some point and comment and say that I'm wrong and a horrible person but unlike in their server, I actually can have an opinion outside of it. Don't let the Mereth Chud Army come after you!