Brightrim's Hiatus

[Brightrim]

Hello Illarionites.

This is not an easy choice for me but after today's update, I will be taking a step back from the games development and taking a hiatus. I will detail more on why below. I will still be available from time to time in case of any severe game breaking bugs, but that will be it for the foreseeable future.

I've been a player since 2007, began learning how to code for the game in 2020 and officially joined the team in 2021. In these 19 years, be it as a player or as a developer, Illarion has meant a lot to me.

I've had a lot of fun playing it and in recent years coding for it. There are many players I consider myself blessed to have made the acquaintance of and I am also grateful to those who have shown encouragement and appreciation for the work I have done in this time. I've loved seeing people make use of the various systems I put in like magic, been amazed by the houses I've seen built through the housing system and downright baffled by how good of a use some people are able to make of a music system I thought would only be good for 8-bit type music, and so much more.

Alas, where there is an upside there is also a downside. I've witnessed the game grow stagnant over the years with an inactive GM. I've designed tools for player leaders to use to give players more autonomy, only for the role to be gatekept and none to ever get elected and the tools never be used - and not for the lack of trying among players. I've witnessed severe rule breaks go unpunished, some gross violations that have even gone unpunished for over a year now. Seen people leave the game because they felt oppressed, felt things were boring, that plots dragged on too long with no resolution in sight and more. I've seen blatant bias in defending the rule violations of some, or of town leaders meeting with some but not others. I've witnessed a poor team culture internally, without proper communication, documentation or accountability.

Over the years I voiced concerns to Slightly about his management of the game. I was afraid of stepping Slightly's on toes, so I took no drastic actions. Mostly I experienced being ignored. Like I was expected to behave like a good little code monkey and stay in my corner. Throughout 2025 I tried contacting Estralis about it all, but he never had time. His general message to me was always that he trusted me to do what was best for the game in his absence and that he would get back to me but he never did, while telling the team the same that he trusted us to make decisions together. Yet anytime Slightly has been opposed to something, it has not felt like it has been a "team" or "together".

Eventually I decided that if I was to continue developing for this game, things had to change. At first I applied to be GM. Estralis was positive towards this, but said he had no time to deal with it at that moment - then went unresponsive for months. Capswick and Seeja as the other active members of the team at the time were also in favour, with only Slightly speaking against.

At the start of this year, with Estralis still not having gotten back to me, I spoke to Seeja about it all. He did not want to lose me, so he tried to contact Estralis himself before he in the end opted to give me access to the GM tools - not a huge change, as I already had a high level of access as a developer to begin with which included a GM character. I asked him to hold off on giving me a red forum name however, as I did not want to ambush the team with this and wanted them on board. After all, I already had a majority of the team supporting me and I didn't want it to look like some coup just because waiting for Estralis was no longer reasonable after such a long time. So I gave them two months of time to react, discuss and make comments before I would step up.

At the same time I pitched a framework of accountability to ensure the problems I saw with the games management would not happen again. This included ways to hold GMs accountable, including myself as I never intended to be above anyone but their equal, for their actions through documentation and transparent communication within our already small team and a way for other team members to step in should a GM be inactive and unable to for instance progress a long term main quest, enforce the rules or play town leaders to put players into player leader roles.

Of course, I've always advocated for autonomy for players and would have liked better a system like in old illa where players governed themselves, with no player leader roles and no town leader npcs. A good example of this is how for housing I wanted it to be fully automated, and wanted it to be possible to buy houses not just rent, but Slightly opposed wanting to ensure power remained in GM and player leader hands - or in other words his hands, since he never put in a player leader since and the only player leader character is his own rank 10 character that has supplanted the Don in Galmair.

I tried to work within the existing framework and pushing for player leaders to be put into place was thus one of my agendas, as it seemed more realistic than a no town leader one realm approach. Sadly leaving it solely for the players to choose who leads and governs is an unrealistic goal so long as there are town leaders, and so long as there are player leader tools that a staff member must assign access rights to - in the end, there will with such a system always be a point where a team member has to decide which players get a say, what determines that a player qualifies and how to determine whether that player has the support of other players or not; simply because one of us has to click the button to make them a player leader and make it official, which makes the choice default to the team. I wanted to ensure this happened as a team, with proper reasoning and documentation, to remove room for favouritism and bias and also that it would be better communicated to players how to achieve this and for GMs to give better guidance there.

Slightly speaks empty rhetoric about it being a players choice, not the team. That if players can come up with a tenable form of government, they can lead. Yet if team doesnt decide, who decides if it is tenable? If the players decide, who decides whether the players have decided and enough player support is shown? The argument does not hold up unless his true agenda is to keep power to himself as a GM without team input. Further reinforced by how in Galmair, three patricians came together with the support of citizen to form a government in his inactivity and he shut it down as Oxi and OOC on discord. He also claims anyone can ask for elections in Galmair, yet refuses to inform players of this and ignored it when Bernie as a patrician made a request of the Don to do just that. Why, because it was not the right player making the choice? There are more examples like this in the other realms, but I think I've gotten my point across here.

Alas, nothing is ever easy. I experienced being ignored and opposed by Slightly and the team attempted to mediate. An amended proposal was made by Seeja, seen here https://illarion.rl-tools.de/team/, for a framework to work under in hopes we could come to an agreement as a team that Slightly could also agree to. Amendments were put forth to change some key details of it (though that site does not reflect said changes), but in the end we had come to an agreement. Goals were set to address the concerns I had brought up, and a new date was set 2.5 months later to meet and review. Both Slightly and I had behaved in a manner the team viewed as hostile towards each other and as such they requested we mutually apologize, as seen at the bottom of that page. I apologized, Slightly did not.

During the 2.5 months, there was little to no communication in the team. The few times there was, I experienced being met with hostility by Slightly. Promises by Slightly to hold GM talks between him and Capswick in a new GM forum that was to be opened, as opposed to doing it in DMs where the team could not partake, were not kept. In a later team meeting he also walked back on things he had agreed to during the previous discussion about the framework.

Once the 2.5 months were up, at the start of this month, we reconvened for another meeting. There had been no substantial progress on any of the concerns I raised, aside from some brief documentation on the Letma questline with vague impossible to verify steps being taken to progress it and no timeline for how long we can expect this over a decade long quest to take to conclude despite one being requested.

Due to the lack of progress, I once more brought up officially putting me into place as a GM. I made clear my intent, that I have sufficient spare time to deal with oustanding matters and that I would adhere to the framework and put everything up to a GM vote internally before taking action, to work as a team without one individual dictating anything; This way Slightly and Capswick could sit back and let me handle things while still having a say, when they are too busy to GM themselves. All according to a framework of mutual accountability.

The result was Capswick, Seeja and myself in favour and the previous instance of Estralis being in favour of it. Then Slightly and Evie in opposition. In other words, I had a majority on my side.

Later Seeja and Capswick resigned, while Slightly as the only active member that remains who can give me the red GM name - the only thing I do not have - is refusing to adhere to the majority vote. I personally asked him to assign the role to me in his capacity as an admin to show that it is still possible to cooperate, which he is not only refusing to do but he is refusing to even acknowledge the request - which is nothing new from him, ignoring what I write to the team is the norm with him. I know he has read it and I know he has had ample time to respond, he is choosing not to.

So as things stand I am left in a hostile environment of a so called "team" with just me, Slightly and Evie with no one to hold Slightly accountable for his actions and choices as a GM. A less than ideal state.

I could've fought some long drawn out fight against Slightly by forcefully stepping up as GM, red name or not, if I wanted to. After all, I have all the access I would need to, access I have never abused and that Capswick has vouched for me not abusing. However I have no interest in some prolonged war of attrition and open hostility against Slightly and his way of doing things, I see no good coming of that and while he is clearly willing to stand his ground without budging even if it means burning everything down around him, I am not.

I've tried my best, I tried to change things and bring in a conscientious framework of mutual accountability that would prevent the game stagnating, prevent potential abuse of power and ensure fairness in the game when things like rule breaks happen. I have obviously failed.

I am tired. Tired of fighting for accountability. Tired of fighting for a framework a team can work under. Tired of fighting for a framework where the game can thrive and not be subject to the mercy and whims of one individual and his limited time schedule and gatekeeping tendencies. And so, the only reasonable thing I find for myself to do is to step away and take a break.

I've done my best to tie up loose ends. Released one final update albeit a bit rushed.

So with that, I am taking a step back from Illarion. I do not know when I will return, I can make no promises that I even will - I will have to revisit that idea in the future when I feel I have more energy. All I can say is I will poke my head in once in a while to ensure the server is running and no game breaking bugs are ruining everyone's fun, so long as I still have developer access anyways.

I do not want this to devolve into back-and-forth argument, personal attacks, or further hostility between players and staff, so I have locked this thread.

I understand that some of what I have written here may come across as harsh or personal. That was never my intention. I have spent years trying to address these concerns privately, quietly, and through internal discussion in hopes of avoiding this exact situation. I did not arrive at this decision impulsively, nor did I wish for matters to become public.

But at a certain point, I felt I could no longer step away without being honest about why and how deeply this hurts me.

This post is not meant to rally people against anyone, nor to start a crusade. It is simply my perspective on the problems I believe exist within the game and its administration, and the reasons why I no longer feel healthy remaining involved under the current circumstances.

I sincerely hope Illarion succeeds in the future. Despite everything, I still care deeply about the game and the community surrounding it.

~Brightrim