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Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo
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I have played on AOA for a while and it doesn’t bring me happiness to say this, but it needs to be said.
Hadrix on Age of Alliances (he was Strozza on Arx as well) is a sex pest/bully and head staff Cujo is doing nothing to stop it. In fact it’s the opposite, as he recently promoted Hadrix to a staff bit called Reverberate.
Recently a friend of mine (will call her Player 1) who no longer plays on AOA revealed that Hadrix had harassed her in RP, posing unwelcome “sexy” content toward her character and making unwanted OOC remarks. This player did everything she could:
- She told him ooc to stop it. He said that he was “joking” and the behavior continued.
- She reported the harassment to headwiz Cujo. He said “Just don’t rp with him then.” The behavior continued.
- She reported the harassment to Cujo a second time. This time he only said “Noted.” The behavior continued.
There were several reasons why she stopped playing the game but zero response to the harassment complaints was one of the reasons. I know of many similar experiences from others who do not know her:
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Player 2 was harassed by Hadrix OOC about her body and about being unwelcome in scenes. Again he said he was “joking” and when she reported it, Cujo said she was over-reacting/being emotional.
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Player 3 also reported Hadrix for making unwelcome OOC sexual comments. Hadrix said he was “joking.” Cujo again did nothing and advised “Just don’t talk to him.”
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Player 4, unrelated to any of the above, quit the game because Hadrix and another player were “too mean.”
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Several players have disengaged from/left Hadrix’s IC group after describing his interactions as toxic.
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Several players were upset about Hadrix’s use of his ‘Reverberate’ admin bit to ban an entire IC group from the game’s main RP hub.
There is a continuing theme here:
- Hadrix harasses or bullies people and if called out on it, says he’s joking.
Then one of two things happens:
- They quit the game or group rather than put up with it.
- They report it to Cujo, who tells them to ignore it, says they’re overreacting, says it’s their own fault, or says nothing at all.
Cujo’s position is that Hadrix is “popular,” and that he wouldn’t be popular if he was doing something wrong. The guy does run PRPs and can be very charismatic if you’re on his good side, but “creating activity” is not an excuse to harass and abuse other players to the point of distress and quitting. It is especially not the type of player to promote to a staff position.
Consider the warning issued: If you play this game and you have a problem with this guy, headwiz will not have your back, will not do anything to help you, and will tell you it’s your fault you don’t get along with him.
If the parties named read this: You need to do better. People have tried to tell you there is a problem. Do better.
It’s a place with a lot of potential, but if leadership is in hands of known bullies, it’s unfortunately going nowhere good.
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@kopecup said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
“creating activity” is not an excuse to harass and abuse other players to the point of distress and quitting.
Absolutely true.
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@kopecup My memories of Cujo are that he was generally pretty awful, and would allow bad behaviour if the person was popular/getting stuff done (because Cujo liked to be popular, I mean, that’s a pretty common human thing) - but that was 20 years ago.
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@kopecup I am one of the players mentioned. Kopecup posted about my experience with permission from me. I don’t really engage with the MU-ing community at large but in the interest of keeping this community fun and safe, I feel like I need to. I can confirm it happened. I have receipts if that becomes necessary. I will put my name out if necessary. This behavior is beyond the pale and it needs to be called out and corrected, or at least a fair warning for the community at large.
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I haven’t been to Age of Alliances since shortly after the game died/was resurrected for TFA. And AoA was one of the first games I frequented back when I was a baby MUer. So hearing about this sucks.
Let’s see if we can give it the CoH treatment… by which I mean ‘open several alternatives so people who only play there because it is the only place to Star War have alternate options’
… which should probably be its own thread, so maybe I’ll start one of those, and explain the second secret to AoA’s success, after being the only game around (that I have seen): SPACE ZOOMIES!
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Thank you for coming forward to warn people, kopecup. I hope the people who left that game are doing well, and that the people who were thinking of joining have given it serious thought.
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I’ve been on AoA for some years now and this is beyond unsurprising. The game has a huge sex pest problem, to the point where I rarely see open pickup RP because one or more of these pests is roaming the grid looking for females to TS at. It’s disgusting.
In all my time there, only one player has been banned for it, and it took him sending another player porn for the complaints, of which there were many, to finally be acknowledged. The banned player drove away many fantastic GMs, as has Hadrix. So if you’re wondering why Hadrix is one of the only active GMs, well, everyone else is gone. The other ones are either male, or the women who didn’t say no to him.
There is at least one more player that I know of (that may be in the above list), who didn’t put up with Hadrix’s multiple attempts at pursuing her and paid the price for it, when his “just joking” justification fell on deaf ears, she was ostracized everywhere he could reach.
It’s not isolated to Hadrix, and the sex pests aren’t always men. I know a male on there who was harassed by a female player who was banned, then unbanned because “she was active when she was around”.
The fact that it’s not only ignored but enabled is… also unsurprising. Cujo ignores anything he doesn’t want to deal with, and enables the loudest, noisiest, and most arrogant players on that grid.
I just didn’t think it was this horrible.
@Narson Nothing’s changed. He’s huge about his image, and his snapback to something he doesn’t want to do is always along the lines of “what would people think?”
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@Das-Auto said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
Nothing’s changed. He’s huge about his image, and his snapback to something he doesn’t want to do is always along the lines of “what would people think?”
I don’t know this game or its staff.
What I do know is the type of person you’re describing tend to just love getting their dirty laundry exposed over mediums they can’t control.
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@Arkandel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@Das-Auto said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
Nothing’s changed. He’s huge about his image, and his snapback to something he doesn’t want to do is always along the lines of “what would people think?”
I don’t know this game or its staff.
What I do know is the type of person you’re describing tend to just love getting their dirty laundry exposed over mediums they can’t control.
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@Jackaltrade said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@kopecup I am one of the players mentioned. Kopecup posted about my experience with permission from me. I don’t really engage with the MU-ing community at large but in the interest of keeping this community fun and safe, I feel like I need to. I can confirm it happened. I have receipts if that becomes necessary. I will put my name out if necessary. This behavior is beyond the pale and it needs to be called out and corrected, or at least a fair warning for the community at large.
I would like to see receipts, and I would ask anytime we (as a community) run into this behavior that just becomes the norm. It’ll save anyone the trouble of being doubted or other parties to scheme, etc.
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I have had run-ins with this person on another game. I have heard similar stories from that game.
I’ve also heard stories from people I’ve known who played on AoA.So, uh, I believe what is being reported here 100%.
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Hey, just throwing this out there… how hard would it be to edit the Ares Star Wars code to go full AoR/EotE/F&D, instead of just Genesys Core? Maybe throw in some space trucking?
Asking for no particular reason.
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@Lurrr I’m not saying anything about Jackaltrade because they freely offered to out themselves by providing their information, but I would like to normalize not showing receipts. It’s occasionally traumatizing to relive that kind of thing, it’s almost always humiliating to show yourself getting degraded, and it’s very likely to result in retaliation from the accused who want to show receipts of how actually she totally asked for it. Let people give the amount of information they feel safe giving, and let the people who receive these kinds of freely-offered warnings either take the warning or not. I don’t think it’s fair to take the experience these people have gone through and add to it a burden of accepting responsibility for meeting the standards strangers need to be convinced.
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I’m not downplaying the experience, and I certainly wouldn’t want someone to be in such a shitty position. But, I feel putting people on blast should be done with a tremendous amount of solid blast.
Again, I’m not trying to downplay, merely express it how I, myself, experience it. If my eyes are treated with something solid, I’m not hearing it from you, Jack, John, Joe and Sally. I’m seeing it, as it’s presented, from the source. I’m not a fan of the telephone game.
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@Lurrr Why would a victim want to identify and out oneself, opening themselves up to any potential danger or revenge that comes with it, without good reason? The post read “if necessary” in terms of providing receipts. If there are admin who want to verify receipts to take action, great. But outing oneself publicly just to satisfy curiosity? That can be legitimately dangerous. There is a time to share that information and that evidence, but it isn’t something that is obligated to satisfy just anyone’s curiosity. Posts like these are not made lightly. As someone who has had very real RL repercussions from animosity on MU, anonymity is the standard until no other options remain.
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@Lurrr said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@Jackaltrade said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@kopecup I am one of the players mentioned. Kopecup posted about my experience with permission from me. I don’t really engage with the MU-ing community at large but in the interest of keeping this community fun and safe, I feel like I need to. I can confirm it happened. I have receipts if that becomes necessary. I will put my name out if necessary. This behavior is beyond the pale and it needs to be called out and corrected, or at least a fair warning for the community at large.
I would like to see receipts, and I would ask anytime we (as a community) run into this behavior that just becomes the norm. It’ll save anyone the trouble of being doubted or other parties to scheme, etc.
Lurrr
Joined about 3 hours agoAnd how are you related to the situation?
Clearly you made the account to comment on this, and not to just muse on ways we (as a community) should handle things.fr fr
(she/her) -
As said by pretty much every single abusive asshole ever.
Which one of the people mentioned are you?
eta: even if they did show their receipts, it wouldn’t be good enough. then it would be time to nitpick, gaslight, go after the character of the witness, explain how they asked for and/or deserved it, or how they were fine with it right up until they posted and–and every other silencing tactic you can think of to possibly throw at it. We know your game. We don’t play it here.
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Just gonna put it out there that I believe the OP and the players’ experiences they’re talking about 100%. It’s been a minute since I was there and I wasn’t on AoA for very long, but that is one game with a particularly bizarre staff culture and game culture, and Hadrix just had that vibe. If you’re looking for a Star Wars experience, I’d recommend you look elsewhere.
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Obviously, receipts are handy but they’re not a requirement. And I’d (speaking only for myself, though with a polite nod in the direction of that Admin tag) rather not make posting every shred of evidence possible the expectation here.
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I may not know Kopecup from a bar of soap, but I’ve lurked long enough to see familiar names I trust saying “Yeah, this checks out in my own experience.” I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me that’s kinda all I need to know.
If someone says “I saw this bird at the lake and it walked and talked and looked like a duck. And I just wanted to make sure you all knew it was a duck”, and people I trust are saying “Yeah I’ve been to that lake, I know that bird you mean and it definitely seemed like a duck to me” then I’m going to happily assume it’s a duck.
And if by some unlikely twist of fate it turns out to be a pigeon and not a duck and aaaaall those people just happened to be making shit up for no good reason? Well, this isn’t a court of law and the pigeon isn’t going to end up in duck prison so I’d prefer to assume the far more likely scenario that the victims are in fact victims rather than create an environment where they are too scared to speak up because they feel like nobody’s going to believe them unless they publicize a bunch of embarrassing and uncomfortable receipts.
ETA: Missed the opportunity to try add a ‘fowl’ pun in there somewhere… :C
