I'd mainly say: Take a deep breath, lay back, have a cuppa tea and take things less seriously. You are in a different time zone, to start with, and if you have to get up at 3 a.m. just to please others, while it is no fun for you and not even rewarding - drop it, stop it. You're here to have fun. So have fun.
I remember on Leanon I once left work to rush to the computer to help fighting for the Karavaneers saving an OP, and then returned to work. Was it worth it? It was an experience. But then the alliance we had at that time worked rather smoothly, although the Argo Navis mainly profited in the way of RP from it (I have to say the Alliance of Honor, now a Marauder guild, then Karavaneers, always insisted on us taking OP mats afterwards when we/I helped them). Still, if that would have become a rule, I would have stopped it, out of sheer will for survival. Also, one single soldier cannot really decide a war on a battlefield.
There are many ways to work for Matia and for the belief in Jena. Just do the things you want to do, not the things others want you to do. Do things with your guild. Never take things too serious said in a chat. I never take them seriously - only if said "officially" in a roleplay situation, for then it gives me something to use in RP, and then only on an abstract, fictional level. I, as a player, am not touched, nor hurt by it. If someone tries to harass or insult me as a player, I smile and tell him to sod off in my own, very charming way. ;)
So go on, play the game the way you like it. If it feels like work, you do something wrong. Have another cuppa then, or a nap, and then tackle it more relaxed. But don't stop playing the game because of the behaviour of a few. =)
I remember on Leanon I once left work to rush to the computer to help fighting for the Karavaneers saving an OP, and then returned to work. Was it worth it? It was an experience. But then the alliance we had at that time worked rather smoothly, although the Argo Navis mainly profited in the way of RP from it (I have to say the Alliance of Honor, now a Marauder guild, then Karavaneers, always insisted on us taking OP mats afterwards when we/I helped them). Still, if that would have become a rule, I would have stopped it, out of sheer will for survival. Also, one single soldier cannot really decide a war on a battlefield.
There are many ways to work for Matia and for the belief in Jena. Just do the things you want to do, not the things others want you to do. Do things with your guild. Never take things too serious said in a chat. I never take them seriously - only if said "officially" in a roleplay situation, for then it gives me something to use in RP, and then only on an abstract, fictional level. I, as a player, am not touched, nor hurt by it. If someone tries to harass or insult me as a player, I smile and tell him to sod off in my own, very charming way. ;)
So go on, play the game the way you like it. If it feels like work, you do something wrong. Have another cuppa then, or a nap, and then tackle it more relaxed. But don't stop playing the game because of the behaviour of a few. =)
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Salazar CaradiniFilira Matia
Royal Historian
Member of the Royal Academy of Yrkanis
First Seraph of the Order of the Argo Navis