Many people have expressed dissatisfaction with the rolepoint system,
myself included. It allows only for punishment, not reward. It only
takes into account the opinions of the gods. It only recognizes loud
behavior visible to the gods. In short, it sucks.

Today, I'm abolishing rolepoints in favor of esteem. Esteem represents
the same concepts rolepoints were meant to, except now YOU get to
participate. Each player now has an opportunity to speak up and
recognize excellent roleplay (or, hopefully less frequently, abysmal
refusals to roleplay). It is now in large part up to each one of you to
recognize those players among us who, on a day to day basis, improve the
game world with their exemplary behavior and adherence to the context of
the game world. It is also in large part up to each of you to mark those
players who, by ignorance or by malice, detract from the immersive
environment with their out of character behavior and refusals to act as
part of the game world.

There is quite a lot of information about esteem in HELP ESTEEM. Please
read it in its entirety to make sure you understand the purpose and
appropriate use of esteem. Remember that you can and will be held
accountable by the gods for your use of this new power, so please treat
it with responsibility.

Finally, a note: this is a very ambitious system the likes of which has
never been attempted before in a multiplayer game world of this size, to
my knowledge. I expect to need to make some tweaks before it functions
completely as expected. If you experience problems with esteem, please
don't panic or go off on a rant, but know that I am interested in your
feedback to improve esteem and make it truly useful to all players who
are interested in seeing Aetolia develop as a rich, immersive world. I
can be reached by message or at varian@aetolia.com.

-Varian

Penned by my hand on the 5th of Arios, in the year 115 MA.