Sat Jul 12 22:45:16 2014

At 7 o'clock AM, Day of the Bull, 29th of the Month of the Winter Wolf
on the Theran calendar Auchee perished, never to return.

1. As I read the description, it was an attempt to inject some levity into the game. Based on the comments by the staff and other players, the majority view that sort of thing as an attempt at trolling, which it may, or may not have been.

2. Players tend to value their anonymity in game for the reason that negative (or positive) biases can arise if other players, or game administrators know who they are. I also personally fall into this camp. Your writing style in your description (and, I am told in your role) more or less "out" you instantaneously.

It is/was a classic case of nobody really caring about who plays who, but player tells really betraying the underlying player. This was one of the most overt examples of this sort of phenomena that I can think of.

If you enjoy the game and really wish to contribute to other players enjoying their time, and value your anonymity as a player, this is probably something to consider in future: it might make more sense to conform to the typical norms and standards within the game so as to remain as another face in the crowd. There are many other less overt ways to inject levity into the game that are not so telling.

But perhaps it is still the right word to use.

Just so you know, Mendos, much of this post isn't directed at *just* you, and some parts aren't directed at you at all.

As I told you and Nythos (or maybe it was just you at that point), I was not making an attempt to make the lives of the IMMs harder with my description. The characters I roll in CF always share a common purpose in interaction: to give the players of the other characters a smile or a laugh, while being fun for me.

As I entered my initial description, I knew I'd be pulled in to the desc room because my desc said "Jesus Christ". I wasn't going to fight any of you guys on that, I knew it would have to go (I would maintain that I didn't fight you on changing my description at all, just that it took me abnormally long to produce one that you were okay with defending for me. However, as my multiple disconnects may have hinted towards, a lot of my time spent in the desc room was me taking care of something IRL as well).

I want to make it clear to you, Nythos, and any IMM which thinks it may have been trolling, that I simply do not create characters with the purpose of making the IMMs mad (I told "An Immortal" they were not being helpful because you and Nythos were being kind and patient, which genuinely made me want to cooperate, while "An Immortal" came in acting like a strict mother saying "You have to stay at the table until you finish your green beans" and then leaving the table herself so as to not hear why I did not want green beans). I know you guys can spot me from a mile away, and I also know that you guys control IMM exp. I LIKE to get IMM exp. I'm not going to try and jeopardize that by doing something so minute as "trolling" with a bad description. Again, that was for the other players. Some have said it took away from their immersion. I hope the desc I left that room with didn't take away from their immersion, while still giving a good smile to other players. If it still took away from their immersion, tough luck. I still want to have fun with my character.

I would like to further reinforce that I don't play to upset the IMMs by pointing out that I bring all of my grievances on the boards. I've voiced my thoughts to you guys when there was an issue that bothered me enough for me to actually address it. I *have* purposefully tried to get a rise out of some IMMs on the officials in the past (namely Daev, if I remember correctly), but even then I stated why. I haven't done that anywhere close to recently, because I realize that you guys are completely ignoring me when I do. This is bad, because sometimes I think the staff ought to consider what I'm saying (I realize that I'm fighting an uphill battle in which I've placed myself at the bottom of the hill, don't worry).

I am sure that there are a good bit of IMMs that do not like me. That's fine; I don't like some of the IMMs. Rayihn is a great example. I really do not care for her based off of how I've seen her post, and some logs I've read (which I do not fully hold against her, since the IMM is usually "An Immortal" in the logs, so I do not definitely know it is Rayihn). Even not liking her, I tried to give her, as a person and not a character, laughs in game when I played as Juudsnelf (remember the missive I sent out about how Imm-names were developed? It was not a knock at the Imms, it was me attempting to give IMMs and players alike a laugh at something absurd).

When any IMM bothers to RP with me (I think this has happened a total of 4 times across all my characters...Scarab came down and turned me in to a frog once , an IMM took over a mob and talked to me a long time ago, and the couple times when I was spoken to over cabal chat in a non-dismissive way), I try and RP right back. Any personal vendetta against a player or an IMM is thrown out the window in character for me; my character will only dislike characters that they have a reason to dislike.

The truth about me having anonymity in game is that I simply will not have it. Some of the most influential IMMs will always know who I am, even if I write "more serious" roles (my roles are plenty serious and often tragic, even when written in a humorous way). The thing is, I don't like to be absolutely or mostly serious about my role, or about my description. I was hooked with CF as Stevers because you guys let me write such a fantastically crazy role, role play it, and goof around in game as long as it was in character. That's why I rolled another character after Stevers.

I don't mind if the IMMs know who I am, really. I don't even mind if some players pick me out. I just wish that the other players who don't already do this, would -- leave your bias about all characters' players at the Skull. I do it for you because it makes sense in an IC way (I've interacted with characters whose players I can't stand on the boards and had a great time, either knowing it was them or not).

I would like to conclude this giant "be nice to me" post by addressing the only other issue associated with my name that I can think of, FSV. When that forum was initialized, someone was posting under my Stevers handle. It was not me. I have been asked by CFers "is so-and-so really you?", referring to some non-Stevers handle on FSV.

None of those handles were mine. I created a handle in the first few days of the forum being active to see what was going on there, and I think I posted in a thread calling everybody there "stupid" for even starting the forum (actually, I believe I made that post about the FSV patrons on dios and not on FSV). I never went back to that website. If there are/were people claiming to be me and doing/saying things that caused any vitriol towards me, this is me publicly saying that I took no part in it.

I'm here to have fun playing CF, and to try and make everybody else have fun, too. Some people will never be pleased, but I don't think that I've done anything to harbor their hatred of the game itself, nor would I.

I think the IMM team needs to be, in general, more light-hearted. Often times, you guys shoot down suggestions in an unnecessarily negative way (you don't have to sugar coat anything, but there's no reason to be ####s right off the bat in a thread with a genuine suggestion). I don't see you guys apologize to players for hardly anything (this is a big deal when you wrong a player in game, but then say nothing about it afterwards).

Finally, know that I know some players have to be handled with extreme caution because the state of CF is soured as a whole otherwise (kov kov spamming the newbie channel, for example).

TL;DR:
Everyone needs to shut their mouths about how important RP is if they are harboring grudges against characters in game because they think they know who the player is.

"As I entered my initial description, I knew I'd be pulled in to the desc room because my desc said "Jesus Christ". I wasn't going to fight any of you guys on that, I knew it would have to go"

Yet you say you aren't trolling.

WHOOPS.

It wasn't to troll. It was for the opposite, actually.

Seriously, you couldn't have wrote "Sweet Knickers of Rayihn, will you look at this Centaur!?".

Edit: Which by the way would have made me laugh a lot harder than your actual description.

The secret to how I write roles and descriptions is that I lay down the first idea that comes to mind and stick with it. If I get stuck, I will take a minute or so for a break then sit back down and start writing down whatever comes to mind. "Jesus Christ" was in my head while writing the description, because I was in player-mode and not character-mode while writing it (a character would have defaulted to an in-game god).

I do not sit around and think "heh, I know how I'm going to break the rules this time!!", and I find it hard to look at my character history and consider the position of "Stevers breaks the rules" or "Stevers wants to give IMMs a hard time" valid. I included two words in my description which I took care of when asked, without resisting. That is not trolling.