I'll go over this is greater detail tonight and even show everyone what happened and why things ended up how they did. For now, im using my phone and cant log on to pull all the reqired stuff. Rwst assured, the current Emperor is who actually won the vote if it had not bugged to high hell.

The clarification occurred in a new thread due to clutter in this one. You can find it here:

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=63501&mesg_id=63501&page=

For what it is worth. It was pretty obvious somewhere things got seriously screwed up. Maybe the automation of some things isn't the best

Twitter Feed - Rodicar Emperor

Online before reboot Leaders showed:
Darv - Emperor
Golth - War Master
No divine
No black
Tiiga - Shadow

Online after reboot Leaders showed:
Darv - Emperor
Rodicar - War Master
No divine
No black
Tiiga - Shadow

And incase you are wondering. Rodicar did seem to have Blade Sect stuff (At a minimum Tactics)

The players who want to believe the Imms are cheating will claim it's so the Imms can make the decision alone. Likewise, if it's automated and doesn't work perfectly, they'll believe the same thing.

These players just need to learn that if they see something that doesn't look "right", ask first - without insinuations. Sometimes #### just doesn't work right. It ####ing happens.

Spouting off about everything as some evil manipulation by the staff just disheartens those of us who love the game, and I'm positive it disheartens the staff who are investing time and making an effort to make the game better. Lack of players isn't killing CF. Lunatic players with grudges are, and you're likely driving new players off as well.

If I read half the #### I see on this forum on another game forum that I was visiting, I wouldn't play either.

and Matrikian* post** trolling the guy who thought that the staff had conspired to rig the vote, because honestly, it was a massive knee-jerk (over)reaction.

Anyway, have a good shift Dest. And to the Dios guy: please take a deep breath and stop jumping to conclusions.

Please. Just. Stop. Before you jade the remaining staff who contribute and turn them full-Zulg (edit: ie: "Contribution no longer enjoyable, not worth my time.")

*Yes, Matrik now has his own verb.
**It included a Wall Street backer for a Mud Client, and requiring fingerprints and social security numbers from players. Then I remembered I should probably be responsible and stuff.

Or are you trying to perfect cheap shot?

I'm not involved in the moderation of this forum. If he has an issue he can email me and vent (Dios guy that is, as I've already recommended that Matrik email the IMPs/senior staff. Not much that I can do for him.)

Obviously there have been periods of a fundamental breakdown in trust between the staff and players in the past. This current staff have tried to distance themselves from that issue.

When you repeatedly extend an olive branch and (some) people keep responding with a slap, it just becomes more time efficient to lock threads. We can debate/argue whether this is the right response. But PR is a time sink that detracts from other things (like fixing the bug that caused the upset in the first place.)

Edit: If the cheap-shot was about the "Matrikian" thing, I was involved in the correspondence with giving him access to the Officials Wiki and there's no ill-will on my side. It's not a cheap shot. It's probably something Matrik would come out with himself.

Even if a player is 1000 times wrong, it is never a good idea to tell him to #### himself. It's just destructive for the game, community and imm - players relations. I've led plenty of communities, and I had the same urge a lot of times, but when I controlled myself and been polite and understanding, often trolls/haters been converted into a loyal and devoted community members. On one conference there were even a lecture called something like "how to turn trolls on you side".

ADD: in our project's community I ban players only when they are insulting each other. When they are being rude toward administration, I am trying to communicate and convert, sometimes it works. Also, community defends administration (us) in clashes like this one.

I'm actually okay with Umi's response there. It wasn't unprovoked and it has nothing to do with policy enforcement. Treating adults like adults doesn't mean being a toilet for verbal abuse without retaliation. It just means not acting like a grade-school teacher when you enforce policy.

edit: I'm not saying you're wrong. I've never tried being a sycophant so I don't know if that works. It wasn't necessary in the past though, and is a bit degrading. I wouldn't be uninterested if you elaborated more though, because there may be something to take away from it.

Whenever I've heard someone talking about quitting, or feeling pushed away, it's been related to what people felt was either an abuse of or disrespectful use of authority. This isn't that.

If he wants to tell the guy to #### off in a forum post, I don't see the harm, it's a personal matter.

>Whenever I've heard someone talking about quitting, or feeling pushed away, it's been related to what people felt was either an abuse of or disrespectful use of authority.

For every time I've felt slighted by the staff there are ten instances where the playerbase has made me feel like quitting or has led to me feeling pushed away from the game.

Granted, I tend to play leader-y or elder-y type characters and those tend to come with a certain amount of accountability when it comes to said playerbase that your average throwaway doesn't have, but still, you guys can be exhausting and frustrating just from a leader POV.

Negative comments from imms in my PBF make me feel crappy, but do you know what makes me want to not play this game? Killing a guy and having him tell me that I must have had an IMM tell me where he was or the thinly veiled accusation that I somehow lagged his connection (both of which I've been accused of.)

What else? Being approached by an applicant and basically told "I'm ready for my induction now" within a few hours of pledging.

What else? Seeing forum posts that out just how emotionally disturbed some of us are. It is spooky, the speed with which these people jump to the worst-case-scenario conclusion.

It makes me wonder if they think the chef is out to get them when a waiter brings them the wrong food at a restaurant. It's pathological.

So yeah, I've never felt abused, but for every "disrespectful use of authority" I've run into, there are likely ten instances when the playerbase has made me feel equally crappy.

Just some food for thought.

I think you misunderstand my position a bit. I actually can't think of an instance where I have felt slighted by the staff. I've strictly been talking about policy enforcement and keeping it impersonal. You know, just be polite, lay down expectations, enforce them and keep your feelings out of it. Maybe I'm crazy, but in my experience, in the real world the first word out of your mouth is never "Enough." to anyone but children. Fun nazi'ing the newbie channel rubs me wrong too but I've never known anyone to quit over it.

But yeah, WHILE you are enforcing. For example, I love Umiron's reply, except locking the thread after, to whoever that is because he isn't "punishing" the guy, isn't related to anything like it or even Umi directly, and the post he is replying to is retarded.

The people who feel entitled to sycophantic behavior, peppy imm comments, rewards and titles are overgrown children (okay maybe you can tell them "enough"). Empowerment depends on the effort they made in advance to make sure it should work.

Maybe it helps that I don't play for anyone's approval, but if I got a negative imm comment I'd just laugh. I don't like leadership positions and don't go for them, I can see how that sets us up for a different experience, but I've very rarely felt a loss of desire to play over any player interactions. Usually it's difficult people (jerro) in the same cabal, so I'm sure leadership can be a pain in the ass when you deal with those people.

For me the thing about the player base is I can usually just PK them, I love the people I hate in CF.

We tried that policy, and I still adhere to it, mostly. I'm strongly of the opinion that insulting people general does nothing positive. Which goes for both sides, but it wasn't unprovoked.

With respect to our community, we tried to draw a line in the sand, we tried to engage people, we tried the "water under the bridge"/"new sheriff is in town" approach.

We got the same response from a handful of players as before:
- General conspiracy theories.
- General accusation of cheating.
- General accusation of abuses of power.
- Some folks harking back to things that happened 5 or 10 years ago.

(And yes we can beat that dead horse over transparency etc. etc. here but I'd rather not get into it.)

Eventually if you have two or three active guys doing most of the work, they don't want to bother with policing forums all day and being the referee on a field where all sides are slugging it out over (effectively) nothing constantly. It's a time sink. It detracts from other more important things.. like earning a living, or focusing on code stuff, game critical stuff etc.

Some people actually tried really hard to bridge the player/staff divide, and people tried to abuse less explicitly authoritative approach for personal gain. Those folks (the dovish staff) threw their hands up in the air because honestly seeing 1 or 2 folks undo months of PR work makes people want to not bother. That's how it works, really.

We tried the carrot, it failed. Other people are happy to apply the stick- mainly as a time-efficient solution to a problem. I'm indifferent at this stage. I have my own personal issues and problems to focus on, and I'm neither in a position to criticize nor contribute (I wouldn't criticize BECAUSE I don't contribute in that arena*.)

So it is what it is.

Edit: Of course the majority of our players/community have always been reasonable, and many have/had legitimate issues. But a few folks are just ruining for the majority (the people who not only expect perfection from a volunteer-run free game, but cannot step outside themselves/their playstyle and put themselves in other player's/moderator's shoes for a second.) The fact is, quite often legitimate issues are brought up and the threads are hijacked to make political statements, or to voice old grudges.

As a game-mod you cannot keep 100% of the people happy all of the time (or indeed ever, except in rare instances.)

PPS: I can tell you one thing- based on my (limited) experiences with CF modding I will never, ever, ever, ever work for a non-profit, or a government.

*In fact, I don't contribute very much at all right now, aside from logging in occasionally to make sure Herald is interacted with. That's about all I can manage right now.

Not disagreeing with most of your post, just casually chattering about some of it.

The conspiracy theorists were always there. Why are they a problem now?

Also why police the forums at all, apart from spam and things like quest lists? Serious question. It's a forum, lighten up and have fun. If the policing people aren't enjoying it, they sure had me fooled. Though I understand it's the tradition to keep it kind of tame on these forums, maybe it's an image thing, maybe it matters.

Dios should be the fun containment board but it's still too uptight with Dur gone for an unofficial forum, they should probably make an alert box popup when you to post to remind you that there's no fun allowed.

Anyway if it's really distressing, some kind of containment board might not be a bad idea. What happened to "Ask an Immortal?" I think that is where a lot of the gripes used to go. At least the gameplay forum wouldn't be cluttered up with it.

>The conspiracy theorists were always there. Why are they a problem now?

The issue is more one of staff becoming demoralized and jaded by constantly having to shovel ####.

>Also why police the forums at all, apart from spam and things like quest lists? Serious question. It's a forum, lighten up and have fun. If the policing people aren't enjoying it, they sure had me fooled. Though I understand it's the tradition to keep it kind of tame on these forums, maybe it's an image thing, maybe it matters.

So, the Gameplay Forum needs to be policed for obvious reasons (those being the general purpose of this forum.) It is here as a suggestion/brainstorming/mechanics question type forum. It would be disingenuous to the people who want to be heard to let it turn into a big free-for-all, as well as inefficient for us to muck through.

Should we set up a light-touch dumping ground for venting etc.? Maybe. I leave that decision up to the people who have to muck through these posts. I'd be happy to mod it, if they decided it was necessary to take PR work and the generally negative nonsense off their hands.

It's one of those things that is a fine line though. We have some people who just melt down and go haywire, some who legitimately do hold serious personal grudges against staff members and so on. So again, it probably will not happen.

I wouldn't make a "Personal Grievances" board because that is a bit weird/might encourage people to use whoever is modding it to be a free target for temper tantrums. Psychiatrists or whatever get paid a lot of money to do that.

But since it appears to be happening anyway, having a more appropriate place for these kinds of topics probably makes sense.

"I'm angry at the imms" fell under the umbrella of "Talk to imms about something" and I think people mostly respected that at least. Think of how /jp/ was actually just (and still is) mostly a touhou containment board but has other uses as well.

Even if the only imm response was exclusively "#### off" (edit: and even if you just continue locking them) it'd probably still be better. I think most people just want to use/browse the gameplay board without digging through it, but I think deleting too much stuff also has a negative effect. Then if they don't want to run the risk of having their mood soured by noticing it, they just have to not click "Ask an Immortal".

It doesn't fix much, but just a thought.

nt

nt

Give us three Emperors and let the strongest wins!

I doubt this hack of an emperor is a true Theran.