Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo

[SpaceKhomeini]

This is probably a cheap shot and a pile-on, but when I got back into MU*ing this year this was one of the first places I tried.

So I figured, hey, I have a character idea in this setting that isn’t particularly speshul, has plenty of examples in the canon, and can probably generate a lot of cool factional/cross-factional RP hooks (if you must know, it was an ex-Imperial/First Order/whatever turncoat who was like “I sure am tir ed of these Star Warcrimes”).

So I log on, read some help and setting files. Ok, this is goofy and some of it doesn’t make any sense. But I did what I usually do and ask a staffer about it. That staffer was Cujo.

Cujo goes on a bizarre and self-conflicting tirade about how this isn’t possible because nobody knows anything about the First Order, a faction that has been on the grid for years apparently and is well-known within the setting because “Disney hasn’t published any backstory on it.” Which is confusing, weird, and contradictory to the whole setting and then some additional unnecessary greasy fanboy ranting bullshit about how it’s all terrible.

Bro. BRO. It’s your game. You know you can write theme, right? And maybe you can update help files to be less opaque. Or maybe if you hate this setting so much maybe you should run a setting you actually don’t hate, or retcon shit to somewhat make sense?

Anyway, after a confusing 15-20 minutes of talking to this guy I decided he was a fucking herb and logged off.

[Third Eye]

Does any other Star Wars game exist/have the players there tried to create an alternative during the (to me baffling but there’s a sucker born every minute to pay server fees I guess) long time of this place’s existence?

I’d expect an alterna MU to have popped up by now given all…this (also the accusations against Cujo and Hadrix seem credible/consistent and that response channel by Hadrix was a big yikes, but such has been said).

[RightMeow]

Not about specifics in this game but personal reflection on generic ask for receipts - I should know, etc. Read at your own risk
.
There have been two times that I was falsely accused of something. I knew they were false, the people involved did not. Let me explain how that was handled.

I was accused openly here around DWOPP (sorry to drop that name again). I said I did not do thing. I left it there. The community when on the other forum all went – this doesn’t track. However, I never asked for posts and pages, etc to prove why they would accuse me. I just calmly (I think maybe I was calm) stated I was not doing the thing. Then I avoided the person out of wait for it … RESPECT … to that person. Came out I was innocent (as it does when you are). Moved on. I didn’t hold the other person that accused me in ill will.

The other one (and it shook me) was claiming something against a very core belief of mine. Like my RL core belief. It hit me out of no where and I was very very upset about it. I’m still a bit upset over it. I did not do it and did not hold the belief that was being placed upon me for many reasons. When staff followed up with me (as they should) I was not upset at staff. I was upset at being accused, but not at the people involved. I was also horrified that something could be perceived that way. I NEVER asked for names of the accused. I NEVER asked for receipts of the the complaint. I only asked that the staff please tell the accusers that it was not what I meant and I was deeply sorry to make them feel this way. It came out there was another manipulation/whisper/etc from someone else and people that accused me apologized. I have NEVER held any of them in ill will nor would I.

So… cool story bro but point?

If you are innocent. You tend to state Not ME!, which is of course what you are going to do. You leave the people alone that are uncomfortable. You know the people that know you, know the truth and you wait for it to get sorted. So when people come in hot and start blaming other people that X did this. Y hit on this person. Z misunderstood. G should have told me it was a line crossed. W never… I tend to (perhaps wrongly) see this as rationalization of guilt.

I just want to put that out there.

That said. If you’ve ever had a bad thought about me you found out was un-justified and you are sitting in that feeling please know, I don’t hold your perceptions to what you are given against you. We base a lot on people we trust and some times those people don’t have our best interests at heart (also I have odd humor). Know you are fully forgiven as I don’t see a thing to forgive you for.

So… be kind and strive to do better. Truth always comes out. Maybe not in that moment, but it comes out.

[Pavel]

I know I sort-of started it, but could we continue the future-maybe-possibly-potentially Star Wars game talk elsewhere? Thanks bunches.

ETA: Happy to split out posts for that purpose, too.

[Jennkryst]

@Pavel Totally.

[Roadspike]

@eddie I was going to go off on a bunch of your earlier points, but several others already got there with very similar things to what I was going to say. Plus… Woah… I just got to this post:

@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Truth of the matter is…

And I’m pretty sure that your own story tells us everything we need to know about you. You “invested” time, effort, and in-game currency into something and didn’t get the attention of a player you were interested in, the attention that you felt was your due.

You realize that putting in time, effort, and money into another person without a business deal involved is called “being a friend,” right? And that you aren’t owed anything for it? Particularly not anything of a sexual nature? There is no ROI on being a friend to someone, you do what you do because they’re your friend, not because you’re going to get something out of it.

[tsar]

@Roadspike said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@eddie I was going to go off on a bunch of your earlier points, but several others already got there with very similar things to what I was going to say. Plus… Woah… I just got to this post:

@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Truth of the matter is…

And I’m pretty sure that your own story tells us everything we need to know about you. You “invested” time, effort, and in-game currency into something and didn’t get the attention of a player you were interested in, the attention that you felt was your due.

You realize that putting in time, effort, and money into another person without a business deal involved is called “being a friend,” right? And that you aren’t owed anything for it? Particularly not anything of a sexual nature? There is no ROI on being a friend to someone, you do what you do because they’re your friend, not because you’re going to get something out of it.

Thank you for writing this. When I read that one statement originally it really nagged.

[Pavel]

@Roadspike said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

And I’m pretty sure that your own story tells us everything we need to know about you. You “invested” time, effort, and in-game currency into something and didn’t get the attention of a player you were interested in, the attention that you felt was your due.

To read this another way, however generous it might be, it is entirely possible that he was lead on by this other player into investing said time, effort, and resources for which they were promised - implied or explicit - certain privileges.

Without details and knowledge of the situation we shouldn’t jump to the immediate conclusion that fits our narrative.

[Jumpscare]

I was going to let Eddie’s story go ignored so as to not dogpile, but I have to respectfully disagree with you, @Pavel. What Eddie described is typical “nice guy” behavior.

I’m going to quote the full story again, because it’s worded in a rather roundabout way. Then I’ll unravel it.

@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

I was mislead into believing that my rp would equate to something of a strong story between one character and my own, for instance, and devoted a lot of time and effort into the development of that narrative. That included in-game currency, assets you have to travel around, find and buy, and modifications to make those assets function more efficiently when they are used.
I invested those things into the person I was playing opposite of only to have them pit me against another player to compete for their attention. Not just the intimate rp, but story we had spent hours developing and writing out. It all got thrown away in an instant, and the assets I invested with walked away with no ROI because I refused to compete, on an OOC level, with another player for something I felt I had earned and put the time into to warrant.

Here’s the story according to Eddie:

• Eddie worked with another player to plot out a storyline for their characters that involved some degree of romance or ERP. Eddie gave a lot of in-game stuff to this other character in support of this. Cool.
• A third character assumedly did the same thing with the same goal. Cool.
• The player of the character in the middle decided to resolve who would get their RP spoons via an OOC competition of some sort. What this entails is vague, and there’s not enough information to determine whether it’s ok. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume whatever method used was manipulative and not ok.
• Eddie decided not to engage in this and walked away. Cool. Good for Eddie.
• Except…
• Eddie complained to us that the investment of pretend assets didn’t pay out for Eddie in the form of additional romance/ERP and storyline, directly referencing those things as a continued return on his investment. Not cool. Just because consent for intimate RP was given once, that doesn’t promise consent for future intimate RP. This is the typical creepy “nice guy” behavior. It’s like the kind of guy who offers to buy you dinner and expects sex in return for his “investment,” but on a smaller stakes scale. That doesn’t make it any less creepy behavior.

It’s that last bullet point that turns this story from something that sucked for Eddie into a larger issue of Eddie subscribing to a transactional method of entitlement towards someone’s availability to engage in story RP and intimate RP with Eddie.

Regardless of whether the other two people in this story are also in the wrong, Eddie’s expectation of what he was owed from the player in the middle isn’t cool.

He may have never voiced this expectation to the other parties, but he’s voicing it to us, and that’s what matters in this situation.

[Pavel]

@Jumpscare said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

What Eddie described is typical “nice guy” behavior.

Yes. I know.

And I’m aware I’m being, perhaps, exceptionally generous. But I’m going to assume good faith until proven otherwise.

[Jumpscare]

Originally, that sentence you quoted wasn’t at the top of my post. I added it at the end of composing my reply so that I wouldn’t bury the lede. I was, however, worried you’d read that line and stop there. You may not have intended it to come off that way, but quoting the introductory sentence comes off as if you hadn’t read the rest. Eddie provided his own proof, and that post was my effort to show you such.

Regardless, I don’t fault you for that, nor do I fault you for your exceptional generosity.

[Pavel]

@Jumpscare I did read the whole thing. While I know it wasn’t your intention, it did come across to me and me alone as somewhat condescending and/or patronising. I can read, interpret, and understand what someone writes without someone else having to explain it to me.

[Ashen-Shugar]

@Warma-Sheen said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@mangosplitz said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

The sorts of people who need to get Red Flagged are also generally the sort of people who are VERY good at manipulating, and so they will have counter receipts anyway and sometimes those are more damaging than the initial offense. So receipts are a very tricky subject.

As Jethro Gibbs would say, “trust but verify”. It doesn’t have to be public to all, but if games don’t substantiate claims, it will allow accusations to be weaponized for any type of grievance. It only takes one false accusation to be acted on to break down the trust of an entire community in all directions and destroy the environment.

Trust but verify.

This.

This is the reason why RhostMUSH has @snoop.

Yes, it can be abused.
Yes, it can be an invasion of privacy.
But system logs are the end all be all of truth.

No more ‘he said, she said.’
No more ‘it was misinterpreted.’
No more ‘s(he) is just emotional and taking it out of proporton.’
No more ‘they’re just emo and are jealous.’
No more.

Player logs can be modfied, and again goes to a he says, she says.
System logs can’t. Sure, the system admins can be douchebags and modify them themselves, but if that’s the case it’s a mud waving a red flag on ‘don’t play here’.

To be blunt, I wish more codebases had @snoop.

[GoodInnit]

This post is deleted!

[Pavel]

@Ashen-Shugar said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

To be blunt, I wish more codebases had @snoop.

Penn and TinyMUX have similar capacity, at least, with the SUSPECT flag. Assuming logs are configured suitably in the latter’s case.

[Ashen-Shugar]

@Pavel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Ashen-Shugar said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

To be blunt, I wish more codebases had @snoop.

Penn and TinyMUX have similar capacity, at least, with the SUSPECT flag. Assuming logs are configured suitably in the latter’s case.

Correct.

However, the SUSPECT flag tends to send all suspects to a singular log, @snoop is unique in that it lets you do logs by dbref# so it allows separation which makes it easier to review.

Well, ‘unique’ in feature. To be honest LPMud and DikuMUD’s had it before we did.

[GoodInnit]

@Ashen-Shugar said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

To be blunt, I wish more codebases had @snoop.

I know Penn has a command to do something to that effect. The catch is that on Age of Alliances it requires Cujo to do something about problems, and that is anathema to him. His preferred method is to avoid problems at all costs and his inaction enables the abusers. You don’t need to dole out consequences if you refuse to look at the problem.

[Ashen-Shugar]

@GoodInnit said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Ashen-Shugar said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

To be blunt, I wish more codebases had @snoop.

I know Penn has a command to do something to that effect. The catch is that on Age of Alliances it requires Cujo to do something about problems, and that is anathema to him. His preferred method is to avoid problems at all costs and his inaction enables the abusers. You don’t need to dole out consequences if you refuse to look at the problem.

Reminds me a lot of places ran by Elsa/Zero.

Pity that.

[Jennkryst]

@GoodInnit said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Ashen-Shugar said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

To be blunt, I wish more codebases had @snoop.

I know Penn has a command to do something to that effect. The catch is that on Age of Alliances it requires Cujo to do something about problems, and that is anathema to him. His preferred method is to avoid problems at all costs and his inaction enables the abusers. You don’t need to dole out consequences if you refuse to look at the problem.

This is why I quoted their +policy in one of my posts above. By Cujo’s own rules, he is required to investigate. Players have to agree to +policy to play. The fact that he doesn’t should be a red flag to every player on the game, because it means all rules can now be violated.

[GF]

@Ashen-Shugar said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

No more ‘it was misinterpreted.’
No more ‘s(he) is just emotional and taking it out of proportion.’
No more ‘they’re just emo and are jealous.’

I get what you’re saying but this seems overly optimistic, in my experience.