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Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo
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@junipersky I’m very sorry that happened to you.
I do think having your RP affected by a predator is different from not having a potential IC romantic relationship work out, though. I think my point is that if it’s about the IC then it’s not wasted – it becomes “wasted” when it becomes about the OOC. Abuse is a completely valid reason, but “losing” an IC partner is not a valid reason to be OOC big mad.
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At the end of the day, it comes down to staff. Do you trust staff to handle this sort of thing fair and reasonably? Then trust that they’re seeing things you aren’t; additional testimony, logs, personal experience, interaction with the accused, etc etc. This is not me saying that staff trying their best don’t still make the wrong call at times, or that their rulings should be taken as the end all be all in all circumstances, but when you boil everything else away, that’s what it’s about.
If you can’t or don’t or won’t trust staff with this kind of thing, then I don’t think it’s likely to help if staff air all the dirty laundry out for everyone to pick over. Everyone is not staff. These are not things decided by popular vote (at least, in every game I’ve ever heard of, they’re not). And it also discourages people who would report abuse but are afraid or embarrassed to have it made public. It’s very hard for a lot of players to reveal it even in private to staff they do trust, it’s often a struggle to convince folks (or convince yourself) to go to staff with issues like this. Every. Single. Time. that we have banned people from Arx during my tenure as staff, someone, and usually more than one, will immediately pipe up to say it was happening to them too, or they were getting strange vibes that they didn’t quite think was worth reporting. It is extremely rare for these folks to target only one person. Even when we pre-emptively banned someone, a bunch of folks talked about how they were already seeing red flags from him.
In this case, from my understanding, the person being accused is staff, and the person who could do something about it refuses to do so. This post is, therefore, a warning to the community, because that’s about the only thing that can be done to try to keep other folks from being victimized.
Do people make posts like this out of malice? Absolutely, I’ve seen it happen. But that’s rare, and the truth tends to out, because the sorts of folks who make up that kind of shit are also usually not targeting just one person.
This idea that someone needs a full court jury of their peers to determine whether they are, in fact, a sexpest/manipulative asshole/general piece of shit is silly. That can’t and will never happen. We aren’t calling witnesses to the stand or doing internet fingerprinting or whatever, there aren’t cops waiting to haul the guilty away or a singular judge with the power and authority to send you to internet jail. All that does is serve to protect abusers with layers of obstacles that victims have to hop through and the insistence that private things be dragged into the public for hobby randos to pick over. This is why demanding receipts in this fashion just doesn’t work. What counts as receipts? What counts as receipts that can’t just be waved off as not good enough?
It sounds like staff can’t be trusted on this game, and at least one is actively causing harm. That’s the point I’d say you’re best off leaving the game, but that’s a lot easier said than done. We get attached to games, to stories, to people. But it’s worth knowing that one can expect no help in this regard, and worth the victims being able to find support and assurance that they are not simply blowing things out of proportion.
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To add: People coming to a conclusion or general agreement on a singular issue (or even multiple issues) is not an echo chamber, just like people who are good friends are not a clique. Context matters, and in that regard, there are forum regulars disagreeing in this very thread.
Oh yeah, bouncing onto a thread to go WOW YOU ALL SUCK LOL is also not an argument that deserves fair consideration. Like what goofy ass logic is that? You want to debate something, maybe try providing something to actually discuss. Something less boring than “but what if bitches be lyin’ tho.”
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I know it’s not gonna be popular, but Cujo sounds to me like your classic Geek Social Fallacy carrier. GSF #1 in particular, but with a side of #4.
https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/
They just want everyone to get along, so the game can thrive. They hate it when something happens that would force them to make choices, because they think having to make choices like that is wrong.
So they try to hedge, and hem, and haw, and just wish everyone would ‘get over it’ and play.
Not defending it. But possibly explaining it.
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
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.
Did you really just use the term ROI when talking about spending time building a story with someone?
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Some of the comments in this thread are wearing a fedora and screaming at me that it’s a goddamn trilby.
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@Pax Trilbies suck, fedoras rule. Bogart and Indy wear fedoras, basement-dwelling neck-bearded ‘nice guys’ wear trilbies.
(Although wow, in today’s lens, most fedora-wearing characters are not okay.)
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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@Roadspike I mean, I wear a fedora. And I sit in a dark internal room most of the work day that could well be a basement…
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@Polk said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
I know it’s not gonna be popular, but Cujo sounds to me like your classic Geek Social Fallacy carrier. GSF #1 in particular, but with a side of #4.
https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/
They just want everyone to get along, so the game can thrive. They hate it when something happens that would force them to make choices, because they think having to make choices like that is wrong.
So they try to hedge, and hem, and haw, and just wish everyone would ‘get over it’ and play.
Not defending it. But possibly explaining it.
Sorry for double post! But. Wanted to add, this wouldn’t be my experience of Cujo of old. He might have changed in those years, I know I have, but similar behaviour then came from a very different motivation.
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@Narson What was that motivation? Just 'cause I’m morbidly curious…
FWIW, not a fan of AoA, and likely never will be. Even if the subject of this board weren’t an issue (which I’m sure it is), there are too many sketchy things and flying monkeys for my taste, and too many good players run off by blatant favoritism, and a slightly less blatant habit of ignoring their efforts to contribute to the game. Who could blame them? If nothing you do is ever allowed to have any effect/meaning, why stay?
Skipping ahead 15 IC years and letting the Sith Empire have the galaxy, ostensibly to get the game back to ‘Star Wars’s best vibe, rebels vs. the empire’ is just the most recent sketchy decision, and I still wonder if it’s not another attempt to create A Game of Thrones IN SPACE. I also wonder which Sith Empire staff alt decided they wanted to win the game…
But I digress. The ones who have quit have the right (and healthiest) idea.
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@kalakh Okay, I’m just gonna say that my 75 year old father wore that exact same hat to my wedding in October and he looked fucking dapper as fuck. I think it works far better on older folks.
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@Warlander said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@Narson What was that motivation? Just 'cause I’m morbidly curious…
As I’ve said, it is about 20 years out of date, and everyone is 20 years older, but back then certainly Cujo gave the vibe that he was about Cujo. The game was a means to an end of making Cujo cool/important/the man, rather than everything being in service of the smooth running of the game.
Of course, mileage may vary a lot, I was stupidly young when AoA started up (or young and stupid), but that was my impression.
When someone shows you who they are, over and over again? Believe them.
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@Narson said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
and everyone is 20 years older
Am not. Do not suggest this.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Narson Going by my own experiences, I doubt Cujo has changed much, if any.
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From my perspective, the majority of the players are great to play with.
I would not recommend the grid to new players.
There is a sex pest problem. It’s severe enough that I worry about who I play with. Although they are not the majority, they are there and it makes life difficult. Select members of staff have been publicly hostile towards players in the past.
Yes. I have been harassed.
Yes. I know other players who have been harassed.
Yes. I have notified staff.
No. I don’t feel like anything was ever done.
Yes. I have stopped making reports because I am worried about retaliation.she/her
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@Pavel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@Narson said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
and everyone is 20 years older
Am not. Do not suggest this.
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@TooManyCharacter said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
I would not recommend the grid to new players.
I dunno if it’s so much the case anymore, but when I tried it out about a year or so ago it also had one of the nastiest and most actively unpleasant attitudes towards actually-new people I think I’d seen in a looooong time. Not only sex pests, but there were a few players who were constantly blatantly rude on the newbie channel any time someone had a question, trying to make them sound stupid for asking. I saw it happen several times while I was there and nobody on staff stopped them in any way I could see, and those same players made the public channel pretty miserable as well.
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@Wizz This also meshes with my own experiences there, up to the present day. Hadrix Kora is a heavy contributor to the uncomfortableness on Pub, as is the general clique he belongs to that basically seems to control the game.
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Update.
Cujo has just fired the only staffer on the game that put any effort into combating sexual harassment.
It looks like two other promoted-RPAs have also been canned, reasons unknown.
