Them.

[Snarky]

4 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

was this ghost written by @Ukase? 😛

It would be much, much, much longer

[Techwright]

10 hours ago, Luminara said:

As ever,

Your Evil Overlord

Allow me to offer a helpful guide.  While it lacks notes on Antarctica and mangos, it definitely offers substantial advise on planning and, um, well, monologuing.  Have you a 5-year old child on retainer for consultation yet?

 

Peter's Evil Overlord List

[Xiddo]

“Buffing ToT baddies is part of a psyop by Architect Entertainment to drum up share prices. Burn the building, the public will love us.”

[Luminara]

7 hours ago, Techwright said:

Allow me to offer a helpful guide.  While it lacks notes on Antarctica and mangos, it definitely offers substantial advise on planning and, um, well, monologuing.  Have you a 5-year old child on retainer for consultation yet?

 

Peter's Evil Overlord List

 

I have copies saved on the laptop, tablet and phone, just in case!

 

...

 

However, lacking adequate access to small children, I've been forced to use cats to appraise our plans.  We're working on a ball of string plot at the moment, one which they've assured me will permit total domination on a global scale.

[tidge]

15 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

That's a different organization.  Evil Organization is the one that put the "EEE!  AYIE!  EEE!  AYIE!  OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!" in Old MacDonald.

 

My uncle is the CIEIEO of Old MacDonald's farm.

[srmalloy]

18 hours ago, Luminara said:

That's a different organization.  Evil Organization is the one that put the "EEE!  AYIE!  EEE!  AYIE!  OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!" in Old MacDonald.

Ecce Macdonaldus senex

Qui fundum habet.

E-I-E-I-O

Et in hoc fundo

Nonnulles boves domesticas habet.

E-I-E-I-O

Cum "moo, moo" hic.

Cum "moo, moo" ibi.

Hic una moo, ibi una moo.

Ubique una "moo, moo".

Ecce Macdonaldus senex

Qui fundum habet. 

E-I-E-I-O

[Glacier Peak]

Another 'us vs. them' cancer has metastasized over here! Our plan is coming together! 😁

  

And here!

 

 

[High_Beam]

Only the French would bill Edmund Gwenn, Pat Medfords science father who has a sum total of maybe 7-8 minutes of screen time over the three main actors, two of which are in damn near every frame of the film.

[shatterpoint]

“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.” - Pratchett

[Mopery]

 

[Luminara]

32 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Another 'us vs. them' cancer has metastasized over here! Our plan is coming together! 😁

  

And here!

 

 

 

 

[UltraAlt]

49 minutes ago, Mopery said:

 

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by UltraAlt

[Redletter]

On 10/12/2022 at 8:45 AM, Luminara said:

Worry not, my fellow conspirators, I've taken steps to ensure that they cannot read this.  We may speak freely.  Now, down to business.

 

As you will all recall, some years ago, a concern about undesirable elements was raised, that they might disrupt our plans for a New World Order.  After prolonged discussion, we agreed that the best approach would be to welcome them, embrace them like brothers and sisters, and make them feel comfortable in our regime... only to lower their guards so we could implement a years-long insidious plot to drive them away.  It would require patience, perseverance, cunning and deception the likes of which many cannot imagine possible, but nothing which was not within our capabilities.

 

From the outset, we would adopt and maintain identities as "the HC team", each of us posing as different members of a fictional development organization, so none of what we were doing could be traced back to us.  Under the guise of "the HC team", we would garner "donations", which we would pocket (faith, comrades, in another century or two, we'll all be millionaires).  We would implement minute adjustments and alterations to the game, specifically targeted at them, designed to frustrate and anger them, to make their experience in the game, their approaches to playing, so infuriating that they would leave.

 

My loyal friends, I am pleased to report that the plan about which I just diabolically monologued is working.  They are displeased.  In another decade or three, they will all become so irritated that they will abandon the game, spending the rest of their lives wishing they had never picked it up again.

 

However, some have asked why we did not simply refuse their petitions to join us.  Why we did not take the expedient route of shutting off all XP and inf* in  Architect content and implement timers to everything which could be farmed.  Why we could not just as easily make badges unobtainable.  Why we bothered to create a thriving and stable economy when we could have turned it into a hyper-inflated mess right away.  Why we improve powers and sets when we should be nerfing.  Why, essentially, we did not make them unwelcome in the first place, ban them, destroy what they loved and deny them the happiness they sought, rather than bother with a plan which would take decades to reach culmination and take up so much of our infinitely valuable free time.

 

Well, the people who asked those questions are buried in our mango grove in Antarctica, because they were stupid questions.  We are an Evil Organization, we use obscenely intricate plans with numerous failure points to create schemes which otherwise would only exist in fiction.  This is how we do things.  Remember that, or you, too, will disappear to become mango mulch.

 

It has, however, come to my attention that some of them have begun to see through our clever plot and question the validity of our fictional personas, their motives and, surprisingly, even suspect that there might be a secret organization behind all of their misery.  Go out, then, and sow discord amongst them.  Keep them rattled by comforting and reassuring them, even as you scheme and plot behind their backs.  Shake the very foundations of their belief in reality, so they may never know our true sinister purpose.

 

Stay the course.

 

And if anyone blabs, I'll eat your babies.

 

As ever,

Your Evil Overlord

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

 

[Nurvus]

Checking back here after taking a break, I kind of get the complaints? It's probably something that's happened gradually and might not be apparent if you're a forum regular, but it's kind of passive-aggressively mean around here now. There's no secret plot to drive people off, but like... it's not a united community at all. There is an *us* and *them* and one side isn't completely innocent while the other is a bunch of crazies. Just look at how people react to posts: You'll notice a handful of regulars will react positively to posts from people within their group, and mostly negatively to those outside of it. Almost never positively. If you notice this, it can start to feel like you're on the outside of something. 

 

This post is well-written and clever, but I guess maybe consider doing some introspection? Some really solid community members have left; I was really bummed to see that BillZ was chased off. I'm not even sure if I want to pick up the game again after viewing the forums for awhile. 

[Glacier Peak]

29 minutes ago, Nurvus said:

Checking back here after taking a break, I kind of get the complaints? It's probably something that's happened gradually and might not be apparent if you're a forum regular, but it's kind of passive-aggressively mean around here now. There's no secret plot to drive people off, but like... it's not a united community at all. There is an *us* and *them* and one side isn't completely innocent while the other is a bunch of crazies. Just look at how people react to posts: You'll notice a handful of regulars will react positively to posts from people within their group, and mostly negatively to those outside of it. Almost never positively. If you notice this, it can start to feel like you're on the outside of something. 

 

This post is well-written and clever, but I guess maybe consider doing some introspection? Some really solid community members have left; I was really bummed to see that BillZ was chased off. I'm not even sure if I want to pick up the game again after viewing the forums for awhile. 

 

Hello! I don't know you, so I want to have a positive introduction - I appreciate your post and your perspective. Contrary to what others may say, I am confident everyone wants a strong and welcoming community to play this game with. 

 

I can also guarantee to you that there are posters who no longer play this game and want to post because they like coming here. Even when they say they don't or indicate they don't like the direction the server has been going for the past three years. I think that is because the sense of community. 

[TalonBlue]

I feel like my vacation was taken at the correct time.

[Troo]

57 minutes ago, Nurvus said:

This post is well-written and clever, but..

 

exactly

[Xiddo]

The less time I spend on the forum often correlates to me wanting to spend more in-game tbh. I rarely see names I recognise from the forum in the game. It is easy to forget that there are so many more Homecomers just… playing, and it’s so much more than this space.

 

For me, the ‘community’ I loved was in the game, not the OG/these forums. I’ve only really started to use it more as I’ve developed friendships inside HC and we just use it to message about other stuff. So sometimes I struggle to understand how people can get so upset over stuff here. But I know everyone’s situation is different and for some this might be one of their few outlets in life.

Regardless, I’m sad that it’s gotten to the point where people log off ‘for good’. I’ve posted the odd stupid thing, many have. We can all agree that it’s getting a bit prickly around here. Maybe the odd break is good for people? Both from the forum and the game, so we come back fresh. I quite often have to remind myself that we wouldn’t interact this way in person, the internet makes us communicate weirdly with none of the cues of every day life. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Nurvus said:

Checking back here after taking a break, I kind of get the complaints? It's probably something that's happened gradually and might not be apparent if you're a forum regular, but it's kind of passive-aggressively mean around here now. There's no secret plot to drive people off, but like... it's not a united community at all. There is an *us* and *them* and one side isn't completely innocent while the other is a bunch of crazies. Just look at how people react to posts: You'll notice a handful of regulars will react positively to posts from people within their group, and mostly negatively to those outside of it. Almost never positively. If you notice this, it can start to feel like you're on the outside of something. 

 

This post is well-written and clever, but I guess maybe consider doing some introspection? Some really solid community members have left; I was really bummed to see that BillZ was chased off. I'm not even sure if I want to pick up the game again after viewing the forums for awhile. 

Before I respond directly to this...

 

Do you group me in the "not completely innocent" or with the "bunch of crazies"

 

Be warned.  I've worked hard and deserve my title!!!

[Luminara]

38 minutes ago, Nurvus said:

Checking back here after taking a break, I kind of get the complaints? It's probably something that's happened gradually and might not be apparent if you're a forum regular, but it's kind of passive-aggressively mean around here now. There's no secret plot to drive people off, but like... it's not a united community at all. There is an *us* and *them* and one side isn't completely innocent while the other is a bunch of crazies. Just look at how people react to posts: You'll notice a handful of regulars will react positively to posts from people within their group, and mostly negatively to those outside of it. Almost never positively. If you notice this, it can start to feel like you're on the outside of something. 

 

This post is well-written and clever, but I guess maybe consider doing some introspection?

 

I've been watching this trend develop, the accusations of conspiracy, the speculation that game changes are explicitly intended to force people out, that bug fixes are done exclusively for the purpose of ruining a few peoples' approach to playing, the unerring belief by the people making these statements that they are so incredibly important that everything just has to be targeted at them, that the only reason X change was made was to hurt them.  Not for any other reason, but as an attack on them, personally, to drive them away.

 

It makes absolutely no sense to anyone who spends a femtosecond pondering what's being said.  Why would the developers spend three years making small changes to force anyone out when they could just make one change to nuke an activity or play style?  Why would they have permitted those activities and play styles at all if they only intended to erode and destroy them over the course of years?  How is it even possible to believe they're that sadistic and that good at planning out something that would take years to achieve, that they would do all of this in their free time, sacrifice their other hobbies and time with their families, just to rain on a few peoples' parades?  Why would the closed beta be considered a huge secret, the foundation of a massive conspiracy to conduct development behind players backs, when the information on how to access it has been available since day 1, or anyone who wanted in could have just sent a PM to a developer?  Why would anyone think that the people in the closed beta are rigging the vote, so to speak, to get these servers tuned to their preferences when they already have a server set up for their clique and don't want to play here?

 

The HC team does something that benefits the majority of players, some of the few who aren't benefitted dump toxic shit on their lawns.  The developers make a change which wouldn't even be known or noticed unless it's in the patch notes, self-proclaimed experts insult their intelligence and question their motives.  The developers add something, some people who wanted something else go ape-shit.  The moderators step in to pull a thread back on track or quell an argument and they're reviled, accused of supporting a hidden agenda, made scapegoats of those wild conspiracy theories.  And anyone who tries to reason with these people is treated similarly.  That's where the division in the community is coming from, the people who post as though they're certain that the members of the Homecoming staff and development team are "out to get them".

 

"You only did this to kill farming!"
"You deliberately made it impossible for me to get this MacGuffin!"
"You want to stop me from playing my favorite content!"
"You realigned the delta quadrifibrilator to synchronize with the lambda sequencer just to ruin my favorite power!"

 

It's nonsense.  Irrational nonsense coming from people who believe they deserve special dispensation.  That they should be granted exemptions from changes to the game, and if they can't get that, the game should never change.  That the game should never change at all, except the parts they want to be changed.  That this game should be run, that development should proceed, that everything done should be in accord with their desires.  That is what's causing problems within the community.  That overwhelming attitude of entitlement.  The freak-outs when a change to the game as a whole is regarded as a specifically targeted change to torment or ostracize them.  The complete lack of compassion from the people who rail at the developers and moderators over shit in a video game, as though they weren't human beings, and then disappear without so much as a faintly muttered apology for over-reacting, until the next patch, when they come storming out to start lambasting everyone again, in an endless cycle of arrogance and abuse.

 

That is not behavior appropriate of members of a community.  Members of a community have to care about more than their own self-interest.  To place others on the same footing they place themselves.  To be willing to promote the well-being and happiness of all and take satisfaction in being part of something greater than themselves, even if their own gratification is delayed.  People who lash out when they aren't given priority, who attack others when they don't get exactly what they want, who refuse to acknowledge that the developers and moderators can't satisfy everyone all the time and are doing their best, who take every fucking thing that the HC team does as a personal affront, those aren't members of a community, they're bad neighbors.

I don't need to do any soul-searching.  My conscience is clean.  I'm not the one behaving like a spoiled adolescent, and I have no qualms about emphasizing the absurdity of that behavior.

 

And it was hilarious.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Hello! I don't know you, so I want to have a positive introduction - I appreciate your post and your perspective. Contrary to what others may say, I am confident everyone wants a strong and welcoming community to play this game with. 

 

I can also guarantee to you that there are posters who no longer play this game and want to post because they like coming here. Even when they say they don't or indicate they don't like the direction the server has been going for the past three years. I think that is because the sense of community. 

 

You're not wrong but that just makes it worse.

 

Why, yes, I'd love to be part of the community I've enjoyed and missed since 2004. Too bad it became such a shitshow.

 

And no, @Luminara it wasn't due to some conspiracy or cabal. No need to assign malice when other normal human failings are to blame.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Lines]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

Do you group me in the "not completely innocent" or with the "bunch of crazies"

 

Uninnocently crazy.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Lines

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

Before I respond directly to this...

 

Do you group me in the "not completely innocent" or with the "bunch of crazies"

 

Be warned.  I've worked hard and deserve my title!!!

Innocent of not a bunch of completely crazy?

[MistressOhm]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

"not completely innocent" or with the "bunch of crazies"

 

This calls to mind a quote by the late and lamented Dennis Hopper, in one of his more... colorful roles: