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[quote] On 03-08-2008 18:30, Armand wrote: Ok, lots of points to respond to, so please bear with me. I have little interest in getting myself involved in a public heated dispute between ii and .com players (this never being my intention) so hopefully we'll be able to lay this to rest. Apologies in advance if I ramble too much. I am also aware that I am up against a player who can quote directly from server logs whilst I have no such ability. I hope said player will keep to his promise of not abusing this position. It is all too easy to quote an isolated piece of conversation or event, and use it to paint a person in a bad light, so this is a direction I am going to try to avoid taking myself (although I will attempt to fill in some of the context I feel is missing where I've been quoted or my actions have been described). [b]1. Poaching.[/b] Firstly, the event which is the root cause of all this. What some are referring to as "poaching". As some people will know, I've been playing BL for 13 years on-and-off, and MUD2 for about 9 or 10 years on-and-off (although I didn't get into the game properly until about 18 months ago). I've played on Compuserve, Wireplay, mud2.com, and mudii.co.uk. On my most recent bout of playing, I've been on .com for about 6 months. During that time I've seen many novices/guests come and go. I've nearly always said nothing, and nearly always never seen the player again. If I was on mud2.com to poach players, I would have spoken to every single one of them. In reality I spoke to around 4 or 5 during that 6 months. Most of those 4 or 5 players DID stick around (sometimes even on both servers) for at least a few weeks, and at least one of them who I shall not name is now a regular MUD2 player. I'd rather see a newbie playing mud2 *somewhere* than not at all, and this has been my logic on the few occasions I've spoken to players I came across who I thought would disappear for good. I have never attempted to "poach" someone who is already a mud2.com regular, and furthermore have had many conversations with players who have played on both (including at least one .com wiz), during which we've discussed the two servers (yes, we've discussed the pros/cons of .com in the ii.co.uk tearoom!). I didn't think to save a copy of Viktor's message the other day, but I recall something to the effect that I was "oozing with appreciation" for his efforts. I feel it only fair to mention the parts of my conversation that were left out. Like when I said (paraphrasing) "I think what you did for BL was great as well as what you did for MUD2 in the past, but I think that currently having two servers is causing the game to lose players". I still stand by that, and in fact one of the main things I felt after this conversation (and especially after seeing his message) was guilt at the possibility that I hurt his feelings. I would have gone on to say more to him, but unfortunately at that moment he lost his temper and shut down the game while I was mid sentence, and deleted my account, so I never had an opportunity to say any more. I composed an email to him in which I attempted to make amends, but being a person who likes to sleep on such things (its too easy to say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment), I woke up to see that things had moved to a point where my email didn't seem relevant anymore, so it was never sent. The other issues I see as being largely irrelevant to the main topic here (and I find it a bit tacky that they're even mentioned in this thread). I will try to stick to as condensed a version of my side as possible, because frankly there is a lot of backstory which has been left out, and I am not in the business of assassinating people's character. Those who know me well know will know that I had justified reasons for doing some of the things I did. So, in order of when the points were raised in this thread: [b]2. Bullying / wiz cheating.[/b] In my experience of the game over the years, this sort of accusation occurs on a regular basis. Players see things happen in-game which they can't explain, and some are inclined to assume wiz cheating. Or players reach a high level (warlock/mage in mud2, legend in BL) and react badly to the fact that they are much more of a target than they used to be. These sorts of players are quick to label the pkers as "bullies" or worse. With one exception (the keg incident which I will come to later) I do not believe myself to have ever engaged in "bullying" tactics. Yes, I have attacked a certain player with great frequency, but that player also has a habit of going to extreme lengths to avoid all contact with other players as soon as he reaches warlock/mage. I have also been known to attack this player's lowbies, but this was during a time when the player was bringing on armies of personae to drink at the spring and contract me in the next reset. I explained to him that I would leave him alone if he left me alone, and indeed this has not occured for some time. I have also been told by this player (during an attempt on my part to foster some kind of friendly, or at least tolerant, relationship with him) that the main reason he plays MUD2 is to harass and wind up pkers (when asked why, he told me because he enjoys it). As said by Angkor earlier in this thread "I could also give a list of things that I've done myself to try the patience of Wizzes and opponents". I will be fair to Angkor and also quote his next sentence: "none of that would alter the events that I attempted to describe in my original post". So if Angkor is happy to drop this particular line of discussion, I will also, and I will not attempt to enumerate his "list" for him. In fact the subject of my entire paragraph here is never one I would have brought up, but since it has been, I have attempted to show that there are two sides to it. [b]3. Looby (Tethys's post).[/b] There are two separate events here, which have been (incorrectly) mixed into one. In fact the "Joe" of the first event, is not the "Joe" of the second. They were two different players. I'll deal with them one at a time: (a) I absolutely deny that I had a "wiz accomplice" in the first event. From memory (having no logs available), here is what I remember happening: I killed Joe's warrior as stated. The warrior then attempted to avenge himself by attacking me with persona after persona, including a mage (remember, I'm a swordy here). When the mage logged on, I was instructed by an invisible wiz to "let him attack you", presumably in order to reveal the cheating which was about to occur. This was in no way a preplanned thing (how can you plan to kill someone and have them looby to reattack you?) and that instruction was my first contact with the wiz in question, whose identity I did not even know. Ok, so I probably shouldn't have done the "k door" thing (my logic at the time I think was to attempt to restore myself to where I was in the first fight), but there was essentially nothing wrong with what happened (other than the mage's actions, for which the FOD seemed appropriate). I have to wonder, if there was something wrong with it, why was nothing done (or even talked about) by an arch-wizard at the time, and why is this being brought up (for the first time) 5 months later on a mudii.co.uk forum, other than in some kind of attempt to discredit me? And what about the loobying actions of the mage, am I to understand that this sort of thing is condoned over there? (b) Here's what happened, again from (rusty) memory. I played my second persona with the objective of making the set harder for the mage (for those who have played a mage, you probably know what I'm talking about here, I'm not going to reveal any game secrets). In the process I came across a keg that I had dropped from my previous persona who had been in the same set. I used this against the mage. Whilst this does not in any way excuse what I did, I did not deliberately pre-plan to hoard the keg with my first persona (its not like the keg is hard to reach anyway), but when I came across it with my second persona I made a stupid spur-of-the-moment choice. Being normally a rule-abiding player I fully accepted the blame for this at the time, and even sent a mudmail to Tethys saying that docking me to sorc was too lenient a punishment. I also told the mage in question that I agreed what I did was wrong. So why is this being brought up now? The only possible reason is to try to discredit me. I would also note that the two players from (a) and (b) have loobied against me on numerous occassions, and mostly my reaction has been to do nothing about it, other than attempt to engage in fights with them. As mentioned above, I have attempted to engage in friendly conversation with the aforementioned player, but been met with hostility. I like to think I am generally an easy going person who tries to get along with people, but unfortunately this does not always work due to the way that I play the game (I am a pvp-oriented player, and some players are very anti-pvp). It is always my hope that people can separate game from friendship, but the reality is not always ideal in this regard. As a final point under this header, I would like to question the appropriateness of referring to me as Armand (not a name I even use on mud2.com! I have to wonder how the link was made..) whilst protecting the cheating player's identity ("Joe"). [b]4. "Announcing it the way that he did certainly adds to the sense of drama".[/b] I'll try not to lower this into petty character attacks, if you agree to do the same. Yesterday I worked a 14 hour shift with a 2 hour break, from 11am until 1am and had no time to type this long post, as I explained. I announced it early because I felt I had been quiet for too long and didn't want people to think I was ignoring the issue. [b]5. Concluding thoughts.[/b] So there we have it. Not as short as I would have liked, but I have cut out as much as I felt possible. It is my opinion that the main thing of relevance here is the poaching, for which I hope I have effectively conveyed my side of things. I am not at all keen to pursue anything involving other events on mud2.com (and hope that the players in question feel the same), but if they really insist on pursuing it then I will certainly continue to add my side. I would like to take the opportunity to extend an apology to Viktor for giving the impression that I have no regard for the work and effort he has put in to MUD1 / MUD2. On the contrary, I do appreciate the effort he has made for the game. I have my opinions as to MUD2's already small playerbase being split across two servers (and by the way Tethys once told me that he at least partially agrees with my viewpoint here), but this in no way detracts from what Viktor has done for the game. When Viktor spoke to me on mud2.com the other day, the atmosphere and tone of the conversation was not conducive to a reasoned and calm discussion. It is my hope that I may be able to have such a conversation with him in the future, but I understand that this may not be something that has a realistic chance of happening. EDIT: fixed minor spelling and layout mistakes
[ This Message was edited by: Armand on 03-08-2008 22:57 ]
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