Some reasons that I quit I can’t share with you, as they refer to things I learned behind the scenes that I feel would be betraying Zulg’s confidence (who I heart – and you should too) to share. I had intended to leave without writing this, but since Twist decided to take the credit for my deletion (which I think is a talented PR move on his part trying to dismiss it as an emotional decision), I wanted to set the record straight. I will share some of the CF trends that have become evident to me that ultimately led to the decision.

***
*** I have the log of our most recent IM conversation and am willing to post it if you do not mind.
*** It should explain quite clearly why I presumed that I was the straw that broke the camel's back.
***

***
*** Edited to add: The log will not be posted.
***

Mortals – You’re Not Playing on an Even Playing Ground
For summer break, a couple of years ago, I rolled Venphoria. I hadn’t ever really needed to mess with wands before, but I found my shield easily. My immortal patron, who did NOT have IP checking powers and at the time obviously had no idea he was dealing with a senior imm (yet), told me where my barrier was without me even asking about it. I was OOC horrified and talked to one of the only active imps. Supposedly the imp suggested to this imm that wasn’t kosher. Nor was telling your followers where their victims had teleported away to (a service I also got in the name of unsolicited “RP” from this patron god). I talked to my mortal friends and found out this was normal behavior for this imm.

***
*** You were told your barrier wand was "to the north" as a RP reward, as far as I know.
*** You then brought the rest to my attention and I discussed it with the Imm in question.
*** To the best of my knowledge, nothing similar has occured with that immortal since.
***


I have access to history and reward trails (though many, like the above example, aren’t even documented), and if you follow the right immortal, your character has a vastly different experience than other characters. There’s also a reasonable chance that imm has many of their followers on IM. It puts the non-cheerleading immortals in a pickle. Do we over-reward to keep up? Let another level-sitting, over-rewarded Maran beat the snot out of our kid again? It’s an unpleasant arms-race I don’t know what to do with.

I especially hate this arms-race playing a mortal. I wish I could tell you your conspiracy theories are bogus. Sadly…many of them are not bogus.

One day after Venphoria, when complaining about not wanting to roll a mage char because of the wand searching chores, I got a spreadsheet emailed to me. It seems that mid-ranked imms (some of the imms that first compiled the list have atrophied away, some have not) had been using the policing echo code (a channel that helps us catch cheaters) creatively to compile a list of wand locations. By noting which characters picked them up and what their numeric wand value is, immortals of fairly low rank (not your heroimms) are able to know where most character’s wands are if they make their own notes or have this spreadsheet. This is how the immortal in the first paragraph of this sub-section even knew where to tell me to go. Wands are broken.

We’re a Player-Centered instead of a Character-Centered Culture
If I had to pick one reason that I’m unhappy with CF…this is it. Only immortals rank 56 and higher can see IP addresses. Only immortals 59 and over can easily link characters together (oh, this guy plays X, Y, and Z). It’s a necessary evil that some of us can see IP addresses in order to enforce cheating rules. However, several active staff members see the player before they see the character. Had three successful paladins in this religion already? Come on down! Acted like a jackass with your last several chars? Well, we already put a history comment in there with your forum handle on your rank 20 char. Are you a polite “on my side” mortal player? Well…email me your character idea (that can’t currently be rolled in game) in advance and I’ll pave the way!

***
*** To be fair, the last part of this portion of your discourse was openly mentioned on the gameplay
*** forum, to generally excited/mixed reviews by the playerbase. You were not enthused, as I recall.
***

My philosophy with mortal followers was I wouldn’t even discuss the religion in abstract form by email. I wanted in game to be IN game. I wouldn’t vet a creative RP spin or an alignment change plan in advance. You roll the character and we’ll see where the game takes us. I tried really hard to NOT follow IP addresses or forum handles. For the most part I was successful (Why else would I call out imm’s mortals on their history?...I probably wouldn’t have done that if I’d *known* it was Twist at the time.) However, a very active, high ranking, staff member constantly spouts player identity in the common immortal room, in front of immortals of all ranks (including heroimms). You can’t so much as say, ‘Man, Jimmy sure does die a lot’ without getting, ‘Well, that’s ForumDudeX, and he rode the short-bus to PK school’ or something along that lines. So, even if most of your staff would prefer not to be player-centered, the culture is overwhelmingly against them.

***
*** I think this should be addressed. I regret not taking you seriously enough about it. I do think that labeling a char
*** based on their Forum personality (to some degree) has some merit, but it probably has gotten out of hand.
***

I have incredibly strong player-centered vs. character-centered feelings, and I felt like the crazy old person shaking their fist in vane trying to get the attention of the imps. This problem is compounded with the smaller playerbase, imo.


Negativity Complaints
Torak’s head-asploding BFF that freaked out over his (accurate) history comments put a stat out like the last 25 comments I posted on histories were negative. So, I read them. First, they weren’t. Some might have been sarcastic compliments (example: I loved Raast and thought it was hilarious he whipped through the Tribunal guardians before checking that he already HAD the scales). However, probably more than half were negative RP observations. When I see someone doing something positive or if I switch into a mob and RP and reward them…I use the xpadd command which grants immortal experience. I tried to give xp for RP a couple of times every day I logged in, but they show up as anonymous on PBFs. In contrast, just to find 25 comments on the premium battlefield that are accredited to Cyradia, you have to go back to July 2010. I’d say I’m affecting a lot more of you in a positive way than a negative. Credit for the positive used to not matter…we didn’t have to accredit every improvement to the game, every positive comment, etc. It was a team environment and the staff stood together. That’s not the culture any more.

***
*** The irony here is that one of the things you told me that I did that made you want to delete was NOT banning
*** Torak (from the CF forums) due to the diatribe he posted on Dio's. I still stand by that decision, but I'm
*** still sorry it pushed you further over the edge.
***


On the rumor that I destroy heroimms: I stepped away from heroimm area process most recently because I observed the rank 59 immortal in charge telling me one thing and the heroimm we were “dealing” with another more than once. The two-facedness of course made me seem like the bad guy, her the good guy, and stirred staff-fighting a little more. I can’t stand being in charge of something without the authority to fix it and I got sick of being the bulldog-for-hire that then got thrown under the buss as a reward.

However, I will say from the days I was in charge of it and running it with Valg, there are two ways to handle the heroimm vetting progress. You can be honest and transparent and tell a heroimm where they’re lacking and what their hard deadlines are, or, you can notice that the work is inferior and beat-around-the-bush and not tell the heroimm and wait them out until they delete in frustration. I do not have the success statistics for you about which way yields more successful immortal staff, but I do have a strong opinion about which way I’d want to be treated. I treated heroimms kinder than I was treated by my mentors and exactly how I’d want to be treated in their place – which is honestly and bluntly. This does NOT involve a lot of “boost your self-esteem” pillow-talk. If you think writing an area which is 100’s of pages of work is thankless, try tirelessly proofing other people’s areas (and having 3-5 in your queue at any time). I’m not going to try to come up with 5 compliments for every 1 criticism. Sorry. The compliment is I believe in the area and your chances of contributing to the staff enough to waste my entire Saturday writing you up a detailed report of what you need to do next. To the heroimms that ran home crying saying I was mean…let me just say that you’re damn glad you weren’t handled by Pico and Cador. The new-age softness makes me sad.

The argument of, ‘why are you even wasting your time enforcing X, when you could be adding positive immteractions or features’ is one that’s been used by nearly every petty cheater. It’s been said to me many times by the guy that multi-chars gear to his lowbie, and most recently by a vocal minority that thought ripping off descriptions was ok. My first thought is to dismiss it. The dissenters are right – it in no way, shape, or form, improves my playing experience. It’s unpleasant and I don’t enjoy it, despite what you read about me on the bathroom stall graffiti. The new “take it to the forums for public judgment” is even more excruciating pain from the staff’s point of view. However, is it good for the community if nobody polices it? The community that “plays the forums” paints the picture it’s unappreciated, so I decided that it’s foolish to make us both miserable. I guess you’ll have your chance to see what happens when few people police the rules now.

Twist
Twist was an utter ass to me the last few weeks, despite being a fun guy to discuss CF mortal ideas with on most days. However, that was just the last straw. It stung because I had thought he was a neutral staff member that could be counted on as an imp voice to moderate things. However, his comments made me realize I am truly alone and I am boxed out of things I want to do to enjoy the game and that transparency is not on the staff’s agenda. He just made it easy to push the button, but he’s flattering himself to think he caused the decision.

***
*** Again, the IM conversation (the last time you spoke to me, btw), is what made me assume that I caused
*** the decision. I will post it if you have no objections.
*** (I'll wait a bit, email me if you'd rather I don't post it.)
***
*** At the end of the day, this is probably a good thing. Your post may enact some change on CF that will
*** move us more toward a "character-centric" mud (to steal your terminology) and quite clearly, you have
*** had enough. Hopefully your deletion, once it is no longer a raw, open wound, will make you feel better
*** about things. I do wish you the best as you (and I) move forward.
***