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

But his behavior really isn’t immature if you think about it. He’s not throwing a fit. He’s making very specific things happen. Bannings, deletions, cover ups, posts. He’s being as methodical as he can. I personally think that’s signs of intent, malice, and forethought instead of immauturity.

Going by my experience with Cujo and his game, you’re exactly right. Cujo does throw fits and rage at players, but some time after that? That’s when very deliberate things happen to the people he’s just been screaming at and about.

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

What is Mando Pizza??

Well, I’ve only heard of it once, and it was in a log sent to me by a fellow player I knew when Hadrix/Bors decided to cheat once.

-(OOC)- Bors Thul says, “Hey - Anessa, RL is calling at me. The wife needs my assistance with some stuff that requires me being a big dumb brute who can move things around the house and to-from the truck. To fill the gap, can I pull in a ringer to take my place? They know Aryn and Ban well and would have come running at their request, even if getting to Delaya late because of circumstance.”
Bors Thul goes IC.
Bors Thul has left.
Hadrix Kora arrives from RP Suites armed with a Modified E-11 - 16571.
Hadrix Kora has arrived.
Gripper (15024) has arrived.
Gofor BB-G04R (BB-Series 17085) has arrived.
-(OOC)- Hadrix Kora says, “Hello. I was informed that House Panteer ordered a Mando Pizza”

If you’re thinking that Hadrix-player swapped out his wimpy Alderaanian pilot alt for his twinky Mando alt for a combat scene, you’re exactly right. If you’re thinking that he did so by faking an RL situation and pretending Hadrix was played by an entirely different player, you’re also right. BTW, alts are not allowed to be in the same scenes as each other, and they are not allowed to help each other in any way, ever. Cujo even flew off the handle when one or two people used alts to +nom people they’d RPed with when they ran out of +noms on their main. But then again, Cujo only enforces rules on people he doesn’t like. Predictably, this blatant cheating went unchallenged by staff, as often happens when people staff likes blatantly cheat.

Also, Hadrix-player was insufferable before. When staff didn’t call him on this, he got worse in a hurry. But that’s what happens when you reward unethical behavior by unethical people. Then again, maybe Cujo just likes unethical, toxic people. After all, he’s had Banshee on staff for years.

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

The game now is essentially run by Sumi/Aryn/Poe (Yes that Poe)/@eddie and whatever other character she has that may not be as well known. Some of your assumptions as to who she was is correct. While there are admirable things about her in real life, her conduct in the game on an OOC level is mostly Toxic. Along with Hadrix/Bors/Koof/Reverberate and Nerys/Amal/Tamsin/Discordia. Aryn doesn’t have a staff bit yet, but I’m sure she will soon now that there isn’t anyone around to do Cujo’s job. How else will he be able to walk down the street and eat his Wendys?

This is Aryn’s MO, and I’ve seen it elsewhere as well: Join a game, slowly create alts everywhere so as to influence activity all over the game, run events to build up a power base, kiss staff asses whenever necessary, and essentially take over the game by being one of the primary sources of plot activity. With lazy owners and staff, this trick works fast. Cujo’s the laziest owner I’ve ever seen.

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

I can confirm that if they like you, they will take you in. They will give you things. They will make sure you have ALL the stuff. If you start talking about or having different ideas, they are quick to mark you as an outcast. Shut you down with gaslighting or bullying, make up rules, and deny your requests out of spite or fear of competition. I had this experience with Reverberate and more recently Discordia. They will try to groom you but if you have a strong mind it doesn’t take, they’ll talk shit behind your back and start drama. Especially Aryn. She LOVES to tell people how much she hates drama… then will page you out of the blue and talk utter shit about someone you just interacted with.

Another part of Aryn’s MO is to build up a small cadre of sycophants like Hadrix, because Aryn hates most players. Along with all of the above, she’ll host huge events that sound amazing.

But all they are is huge coded fights. Out in the open. With no way to take cover, use stealth or ambushes, bring anti-armor weapons if you’re fighting gang-piloted walkers (yes, you read that right), set up sniper hides, or in any way fight smart. Why? Because if you’re not one of her little sycophants, you’re only there to be shot at by coded NPCs that you have to kill so they stop shooting at you. At standard difficulty, because she’s not even reading your poses. She’s only reading the poses of her sycophantic clique, and they’re the only ones who’ll ever do anything of any consequence at all, ever, in her events. You’re just there to ooh and ah at how utterly awesome she and her friends are.

Oh, and to throw +noms at herself and the clique. That’s the important part. And you’d better throw +noms at them, no matter how utterly awful the event is, or she’ll find some way to sic her pet Cujo on you.

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

The sex pest problem will continue. Barduur has been reported multiple times, by a couple of people I know, and nothing was done. Banshee, Cujo’s best friend and resident lurker, has also been known to creep on the ladies from time to time, some of them my friends.

Banshee, like Cujo, could have an entire thread here at BMW if anyone wanted to dig into their log files. If anything, he hates players even more than Cujo. He also thinks having help files tells players far too much information about the game’s systems. Not because the players will game the mechanics, but because they just might be better at it than he is.

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

They allow a player named Bizz and Lofty to be a troll and makes dumb comments both OOC and Public.

He’s also known as Oozlevort, a Gand. I suspect Cujo only puts up with him because he’s a dinosaur, and that means he’s loyal to the game.

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

I’ve not played on AoA but I used to RP on SW:TOR, and there was maybe one Mandalorian that wasn’t insufferable in some fashion, I may be projecting.

You’re not. Sumi Kora and her Kora Clan are murderous bullies. They’d reflect even worse on the already bad Mandalorian player image if they could decide if they’re actually Mandalorians or just Mandalorian imitators (despite being listed as a Mandalorian clan in the Mandalorian cultural group). Which they are changes by the hour, depending on which one of them you’re unlucky enough to talk to.

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

Update:
Myself and (possibly) other users have been wiped from the Wiki page. I’m not sure if my own removal is because I blasted the link to this forum on +pub or because I included the link on my Wiki page with a short message about how much I’ve loved this game and the stories I’ve told, but that a moral boundary has been crossed.
I had already left the game over this, but now all those logs, my character page, art - all gone.
They are actively blasting people who dissent, and anyone who tries to speak with Cujo about this situation get “well you can leave.”
They’re wiping characters, removing staff, and doing their best to silence discussion, discredit this medium, and discredit those speaking out.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

And utterly predictable. But they can’t stop the signal at this point. People know who they are, what they’re doing, and in some cases who they’re protecting. They can yank the bag’s drawstring all they want, but the cat’s long since out.

Hopefully this means we’ll see some new Star Wars MUs to catch the refugees fleeing the dumpster fire. AoA almost died between Episodes VII and VIII because Cujo decided to wait two years after starting the game so more information on the setting would be available. The only thing that saved it was several long-standing but decaying Star Wars MUSHes finally going belly-up during those two years. Refugee players from those ended up on AoA, bolstering the WHO (Cujo’s only real yardstick of success) and generating a little activity. But that same phenomenon can happen again.

Someone pointed this thread out to me a couple days ago. At the time, I was sympathetic to the OP and their friends (no condolences can ever be enough), but was busy with work. Also, thinking about this place brings up bad memories. But I can offer a little insight from my own dealings with Cujo and AoA in general. Sorry if this is rambling: I just got home from work and I’m beat.

@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.

It’s a kind thought, but definitely not the case. More below.

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

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.

This is entirely correct. Cujo does not care about RP or activity, other than their role in keeping the WHO list full. Cujo does not care about players, seeing them as a source of endless work that he doesn’t want to do, but without players you don’t have a big WHO list. Cujo wants to be important and cool, but he’s too self-absorbed and lazy to ever be either of those things (outside of being the owner of a crappy MUSH, where he is all-powerful). So he ties himself to people he thinks are cool, hoping some of that coolness will rub off on him. Trouble is, most of those people aren’t cool, either: He admires strength, intelligence, and knowledge, and they’re know-it-alls and cheap bullies. I’m speaking of longtime staff, and of the cliquish players who really run the game at this point (two of whom are staff).

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

So Cujo fires a bunch of staff for what I assume is pushing him to do something about Hadrix and/or the crime of saying “hey you know those posters have a point”, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the original post was accurate.
This is a great object lesson for those who are always demanding logs/proof. The truth will come out without them.

Sometimes. This doesn’t prove it so much as hang a neon sign over the fact that something is going on there, and there’s likely sexual harassment involved. I hope some of Zephyr’s comments were public. It’ll get other players thinking.

Another point: Cujo can’t get rid of staff, because they do the work he doesn’t want to do (code, processing +noms, running events, etc.). So he’ll put up with anything they do, up to a point. Zephyr just discovered that point. It’s likely he’d have had to get rid of more staff (and possibly some players as well) if he’d gone after the problem staffers, meaning more work left over, so he got rid of the one who thought their behavior was a problem instead. He also puts up with all the immature, toxic crap on Pub, when he’s not actively contributing to it (which he often is). On more reasonable games, some of that stuff would result in jail time or bans. He has also instituted bans on criticizing his favorite people on group channels, with jail for those who ignore the bans. Pub’s not the only channel with a climate of fear.

For these and other reasons, there are a lot of players on the game who’ve made a habit of avoiding dealing with staff unless it’s absolutely necessary, and just have fun with their friends. That list has been slowly shrinking for some time now, but there aren’t a lot of alternatives for roleplaying Star Wars unless you want to join a guild on the SWTOR MMORPG.

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

But also, thanks for the offer. I may still take you up on it, even if not using it, to try and rip apart bits to cobble back together into something else. I am hyper-focused on figuring out who to annoy to program FFG with some kind of Ares-like async web portal but also like… items.

If it’s any help, WEG’s SWRPG is still an option. Plenty of books and conversions are available on D6 Holocron. There’s also a PbtA game that is decently workable, though it does have the drawbacks of a PbtA game.

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

For Serenity - it does take simliar tones at AoA. I remember being annoyed and talking to a friend there I was tight with elsemu. I said something like F Mal and his wife (Inara) at the time via page. He came at me and banned me for it. The player never said anything and I was close enough I believed him. Things others have said give me no doubt he had everyone as suspect, or was parsing logs for his or Inara’s name, etc. Seems like it was common for him. Nothing was private on that game.

On AoA, Cujo & Creeps also listen in on pages. They also have the habit of quietly removing players’ ability to speak on the Public and Newbie channels. I know of several people who had this happen after they spoke up on something Cujo didn’t want to hear about (a subject Cujo himself brought up in one case, and in another case giving chargen advice on DSS), or said something that made him look stupid or uncool (which was only pulling off his mask). If you’re still on that game, don’t say anything in pages you don’t want them to hear. They will.

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

As a person who just left that game, I completely believe you. Cujo talks a big game about not tolerating harassment, but his refusal to actually address it anywhere shows you who he is. He doesn’t address it because he doesn’t think it’s wrong. Every ban he did enforce has been someone he was personally mad at, no ban has ever been because they mistreated other players. He’s a sad little king on an angry little hill.

This is also true. The Players’ Bill of Rights is a sham. When it comes to players, the only good about them Cujo sees is names on WHO. Everything else is a big open mouth that’s either eating up his database space with objects, or yowling about some problem he doesn’t care about because it’s not his.

@Das-Auto said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Update.
The alts, and only the alts for a number of departed players have been @nuked. Mains have been left intact. Reasons unknown but appears to be retaliation. Interestingly, this includes players who have not posted in this thread, nor announced their departure.

Probably people he was already pissed at. Considering this got out (if only because Cujo has no control over the narrative here), he’s furiously flailing and apparently doesn’t realize word of that will get out too, and not just here. Gains are slow and hard to make on AoA. Removing somebody’s work just for spite is no way to make them come running back.

Speaking of which, controlling the narrative is incredibly important to Cujo. Aside from removing bboard posts that he doesn’t like, he started a Discord channel several years back as a way for players to keep track of the game and events without logging in. It was equally heavily controlled; post something he didn’t like, and it’d vanish fast. Another player had one for a group on the game, which Cujo didn’t like (because of that lack of control) but couldn’t take down because he didn’t own it. He did ask the player to take it down. No dice. A couple years later, it did get taken down when that player left the MUSH.

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

Sure, it seems a little silly, but who is this hurting?

Anybody who lacks the XP to take the feat, or lacks the credits to get the treatments after, most of whom are likely not in staff’s circle of special people. It’s an example of Cujo’s decision-making process in action.

The biggest thing on-game lately has been the promised timejump of 15 years so the Sith can win the game, and presumably a resistance of some kind can batter themselves bloody trying to dethrone them. While you can somehow opt out of 5-15 years of the timejump if you don’t want your character to age (Star Wars has the technology for this, and coded aging and the side effects of it is a thing on AoA), you miss out on the XP you’d get for it. Now players can have their cake and eat it, too, if they can get staff to approve it.

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

I’m very uneasy with a game of sexpests having rules that allow people to stay young and conventionally fuckable. Maybe I’m talking out of my ass on that one.

You are not. The thought is disgusting enough by itself, but this reeks of being aimed at the Koras and all of Aryn’s other cliques. Including Hadrix and his alts, who likely aren’t opting out of the aging process.

@Istus In short, the gap between tadpoles and dinosaurs is about to get even wider. Again.

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

Pulling out all the stops to retain/bring in new players. Even though all these types of rewards were suggested a million times by people such as myself and others. Only to be ignored, brushed aside, or hee-hawed at.

Yes. Very much yes. For years now, even suggesting that plot-runners get something for their efforts, or suggesting rewards for players in plots (even just looting the bad guys), has been absolute heresy to Cujo. If you even thought anyone should be running events for anything other than the satisfaction of telling a good story (or just +noms from all attendees, like Aryn/Sumi/Poe and Hadrix/Reverberate), you deserved to be cast out into utter darkness, with all the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

How things change when people start abandoning your game because you actively support sex pests. Well, most sex pests.

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

I was always running up against Hads stuff anyways like you were (which were org specific mind you… except for those select few people they decided to let come on the down-low).

While the sexual harassment thing going public is recent, Reverberate has been on staff for a few years now. One of his first actions as staff was to have some Hutt, who apparently ran the long-dead Hutt faction, ban the Array Consortium from Nar Shaddaa for not supporting the Hutts against their enemies (who were enemies for maybe 30 seconds).

The action was IC, but the IC reasons were pure bullshit. Supposely it was because the AC didn’t fire up their flagship (a Guardian-class light cruiser) and try to fight off an FO Star Destroyer that bombarded and destroyed Corestar Spaceport in the space equivalent of a drive-by shooting (yes, this actually happened: the First Order destroyed a starport to kill one smuggler, and in the end they didn’t even get him). The problems with this are that a) the Hutts were allies with the First Order at the time, despite how little sense that ever made ICly, b) the Hutts themselves never fired a shot at that same Star Destroyer despite having their own warship in orbit at the time, and c) this was years IRL after that ill-considered bombardment.

The real reason: The Array Consortium was competition for the Koras in signing on new PCs fresh out of chargen. New fish wouldn’t know about the Koras’ horrible reputation ICly or OOCly, and would be more likely to sign on with them and give them +noms for bad events (and possibly be harassed by Hadrix). Get the AC off Nar Shaddaa, they’re a lot less of competition.

I ran into Adhar Gann and his group several times, and they struck me as a good bunch. Adhar really gave a damn about his players and their characters and supported their efforts until RL landed on him, hard. Well, that and the vicious gossip Aryn and Hadrix were always spreading about him. OOC (and occasionally IC) backstabbing is something neither one has ever had a problem with, if you’re a bother for them in any way.

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

This should be more than enough evidence for mu* staff to take this shit seriously. To take people’s desire to play in a healthy sandbox, where they are treated as human beings first, and WHO padding second, seriously.

Evidence or no evidence, AoA’s staff will never take this seriously, aside from banning people who publicly speak up about it. The poisonous staff culture is too deep-set at this point. Even if it wasn’t, Cujo is far too self-absorbed to care what people think about the people who keep his WHO list stable. He’s put 20+ years of ego into AoA and it’s sticking around, no matter how bad it gets.

(EDIT: An adjustment to terminology.)

While we’re on the subject of fine print:

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

Pay out is negotiable if you have an idea that you get staff-approval from.

Translation: You have to get approval from Cujo to run any scene for any payment. Anybody he doesn’t like, don’t bother. And even if you do get approval, that’s no guarantee of the payment you wanted, or payment at all.

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

First time in 5 years they offer anything for running.

Closer to six years. Shortly after the Episode VII reboot, they did offer stuff to players and GMs for events. This didn’t last beyond a couple months because it involved a lot of effort on staff’s part.

Also, the rewards generally weren’t worth it. I ran into a few players who did some scavenging on Jakku and dug up an old Imperial assault shuttle that took an engine hit and augered in before it could make its troop drop. Their net reward was one Tier 1-2 mod each and one nothing-special blaster pistol.

The shuttle in question carried a complement of pilot, copilot, and 12 Imperial Stormtroopers. Standard equipment for Stormies includes a relatively good set of armor, a utility belt full of fun toys, an E-11 rifle, and a blaster pistol as sidearm. Out of all that, you’d think at least one rifle and more than one pistol would’ve survived in working (or at least repairable) shape! But then again, Cujo didn’t like the player who ran the event. At least one group involved in a similar event received decent weapons for running and attending.

The player herself said frankly that she left because of constantly being treated like shit by staff, despite trying to encourage and provide activity on their game.

So… some things never change. Not until staff gets desperate. Even then, they’ll still treat non-pets like shit.

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

Seeing how easy it was to set up a game similar to how AoA was back in the hay day made me realize banshee isn’t that brilliant, Cujo is a manipulative self aggrandizing hack, and anyone can copy and paste or troubleshoot errors in code with the right know how.

That’s putting it mildly in both cases.

I ran across this bboard chain in my logs the other day, and it made me think of this thread. I’ve been unfortunately busy of late, or I might’ve thrown it out sooner. Anyway, for your amusement:

=======================<* 11: Game Suggestions - 67 *>=======================
Message: 11/67 Posted Author
Armor color categories Dec 04 2020 David Ironside

I think it’d be great if we could have an additional category to color armors with, specifically for Decals. Like, if you take a basic clone trooper armor, you can set it to Primary (White), Secondary (Black), Trim (<just any color>) and Decals (Republic Decals). That way you don’t sacrifice your trim for an alliance identifier. Like a first glance type thing.
===================< Comment 1 - Added Jan 31 11:09PM GMT >===================
David Ironside Commented:
Bumping this to gauge interest.
===================< Comment 2 - Added Jan 31 11:09PM GMT >===================
Nubri Commented:
Seconded. Good idea.
===================< Comment 3 - Added Jan 31 11:11PM GMT >===================
Cujo Commented:
This system was one of the last things I was able to get out of Yeti before he was taken away by RL responsibilities.

It’s not entirely what the two of us hoped it would be, but it does get the general purpose of what we hoped out there.

That said, I can rename individual categories on anything, to whatever I want them to be. So I can theoretically do that for anyone who wants it, but…

I can also just sit here and laugh at cat videos all day too.
===================< Comment 4 - Added Jan 31 11:12PM GMT >===================
Cujo Commented:
What I mean, ultimately…

We don’t currently have a dedicated coder on the game.

So asking us to do a lot right now, code wise, isn’t really in our ability.
------------------------------< +bbread 11/67 >-------------------------------

And there you have it. Some thoughts of mine:

1. The fact that coded armor color changes are a thing will tell you how ridiculously overcoded the item system on this game is.

2. The last Cujo post is PR damage control: He just realized that the next to last post does not make him look hip and edgy. It makes him look like the lazy, self-absorbed prick he is. So he trots out the worn-out ‘no dedicated coder’ excuse, because actually enacting this idea might require work on his part.

3. Cujo hated Dave, mostly because Dave frequently clashed with Aryn/Sumi/Poe about her cliquishness and bullshit. So this idea was doomed from the start. So, usually, is any idea pitched by a player who isn’t one of his Chosen Ones.

4. Remember, this is Cujo being helpful. He was so helpful, it took him nearly two months before he bothered to post on the idea. That ought to make plain his view of player suggestions/opinions in general.

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

@Anony-Mouse Yep. Only anti-armor weapons players can get are a pair of missile launchers that use Artillery, which is a barely used skill…

Actually, that was yet another problem with AoA. Counting in all the languages and knowledge skills (AKA, the stuff you always needed but couldn’t afford because they didn’t help you stay alive), there were over 300 of them, all rated from 1 to 100. And use of them was pretty obscure, when it made any sense at all (not often). Like, having to have the Surveillance skill to look through a pair of macrobinoculars. Lacking it meant you couldn’t see a thing. And no, you couldn’t just roll Perception to look through them. You had the right skill or you had nothing.

Then there was languages, which made equally little sense. It also kept the numbers of species that could understand Basic but couldn’t speak it (like Wookiees) down, because virtually nobody took language skills. There were some translator droids that came and went with Cujo’s moods, but they didn’t solve the problem. Most species like that couldn’t communicate with everyone else, and players who played them either had friends who spoke their language or idled out. And the translating system was garbage: You had the language at 100 or you misunderstood at least one thing in every pose, usually the most important thing.

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

Went back and forth with @Roadspike on this whole thing, whether or not I should say something. It was a while ago, but then I realized I was talking myself into excusing behavior that might persistent into the present.

Events would suggest that your concerns were entirely founded. It has persisted into the present, and looks likely to persist into the future to boot, being protected all the way.

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

@Jennkryst
Speaking of 15 years in appearance. Cujo is completely okay, on a sex pest and TS-ridden game such as AoA, with allowing underage Characters to exist.
I’ll let your imagination ruminate over that one.
Zephyr was the only one who within recent memory would not stand for such shinanigans and corrected past approved characters who were under the age of 18.

I distinctly recall one player who played a former slave who was possibly a prostitute for some time before she escaped. While she was a teenager. Yes, this can happen IRL, but it’s really a bad thing to have on a game people mostly play to get away from RL for a while. I don’t know who reported her because she brought this up during RP, but she never was banned that I know of. She might’ve had to rewrite her backstory, which had previously been approved by staff (likely Cujo, as it predates Hadrix’s staffification).

And now Zephyr’s gone. The floodgates have truly been flung wide.

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

As usual Cujo is making up reasons after the fact because he knows he did something he shouldn’t have and it looks bad.

As usual, indeed. Cujo is good at making bad decisions, and bad at lying about it after. Call it a hobby of his.

Here’s the latest bad decision, sent to me by a friend: A brand-new feat characters can take post-timejump. Typical Cujo spelling and grammar mistakes have been left in for your amusement.

After decades of research, and experiments, in the field of Human Replica Droids, the genetic industry of the Core Worlds is finally offering Human Replica Organs, or Human Replacement Organs, to those with the credits to afford such radical medical therapies.
With the intention of curing ailments, reducing the effects of aging, and promoting general Human longevity, HRO Treatments are an option for the wealthy to preserve vanity, if not prlong life itself.

Treatments:
Every organ costs different amounts of credits, ranging from 500 thousand to 5 million, but the benefits are growing in believe to outweigh the costs.
These treatments are becoming more wide spread on worlds such as Coruscant, and Empress Teta, with the rich socialites spreading how wonderful they feel after receiving their first HRO session.
Though the replacement organs are marketed as being for Humans only, some Doctors are willing to create organs specific for other species who are willing to pay the lofty prices asked for.
From HRO hearts, to livers, to stomachs, to eyes, to the entire skin covering one’s body… this radical medical therapy is gaining traction in the Core Worlds.

OOC:
HRO Treatment is for those who wish to maintain their characcter’s youthful beauty, health, and longevity, while having a feat to prove that they paid for it.

If you are interested in buying HRO Treatments then send a +request to staff to buy this feat with credits to show that you have had the medical treatments done ICly, the price can be negotiated to achieve the goal desired with Staff in these +requests.
The point of this Feat is to help someone lower their character’s Apparent Age versus their character’s biological age.
The service is only available to Humans and Near-Human species.

Yup, you read that right: If you’ve got the credits and the XP, and staff approves your +req, you can entirely avoid the effects of aging while still getting your 500 XP for aging!

I can guess which players this is aimed at, particularly since Hadrix is now on staff. Which is yet another Bad Cujo Decision.

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

And yup. I mean, comparing it to a MUD, which had a functional weight system… yeah. Even if I had to have the weight system open on an external utility to see how weighed down I was, they were transparent about how it worked. On AoA it is random guesses, frankly.

Bear in mind that Banshee is of the opinion that even help files are telling players too much. Actually helping them understand how things work has never been a priority of staff here. Small wonder this mess of a weight system goes unexplained.

Another Cujo being dumb moment from the logs, this time on the subject of everyone’s favorite source of time-wasting boredom: Hyperspace travel times!

Now, hyperspace travel times, according to Cujo, were put in place for two reasons: To prevent people from abusing the trading system, and to prevent twinks from showing up in scenes they had no reason to be in, especially at certain times. Three players weigh in on both reasons. This was not long after the last economy was pulled out, and it was quite a while before another was coded up and put into action.

<* Star Wars: Age of Alliances BBS - Game Suggestions *>
Message: 9/43 (No System Timeout) Posted Author
Transit times Sep 18 2017 Aurra Sing

So with the Market system disabled, Trade or Smuggling runs are regulated by scene Events and RP. Is there any constructive reason to keep the hyperspace transit times the way they are? Even with a fast ship it still takes an hour of RL time to get to some systems. When people log in for RP, they don’t want to sit in a room watching the clock run down.

Yes, keep some distinction between hyperspace routes. After all, there has to be a reason to pay for that X1 hyperdrive upgrade, right? But maybe it would add to RP if the base jump times were simply cut in half?

Less time in the cockpit means more time in RP.
--------------------< Comment 1 - Added Sep 18 12:05PM EDT >--------------------
Navi Kryze Commented:
I agree wholeheartedly that the transit times as they presently exist are too long, contribute absolutely nothing to RP, and are generally pointless without a trade system. On the other hand, shorter or absent transit times would actually aid RP, partly by providing more time in which to do it and partly by removing a habitual aversion to leaving Nar Shaddaa just to avoid the annoying transit times (whether by ship or shuttle). Frankly, they’re redundant at best. Why not just get rid of them, or at least shorten them by half or more?

And while I’m sure someone will point to the ‘simulation value’ of transit times for the space system, let’s be honest here… not once in any Star Wars film or novel do you ever see anyone flying a ship by typing alphanumeric commands on a keyboard and staring at a static screen full of text and the occasional prompt. Instead, you see starfields full of planets and ships, a few targeting screens, and control yokes or joysticks. Things you definitely won’t find here, and nobody’s imagination really needs keyboard prompts to conjure up images of a souped-up Corellian freighter or heavily-armed Resistance cruiser hurtling across the stars. If you really, truly want to fly a Star Wars spaceship, there are far, far better (and more fun!) simulations out there.

And for those of you thinking these things contribute to twink control, I very much doubt that. I’m sure there are far simpler and more effective means of eliminating twink run-ins during scenes than transit times, and they likely don’t need the upkeep necessitated by a space system. And given how long the vast majority of combat scenes take, the transit times are all but meaningless anyway; with or without them, you’re most likely going to be calling for a staffer to deal with Tommy Twinksalot and his Twinkie-Toting Trio. Why deal with a frequent hassle aimed at solving an occasional problem that it doesn’t even solve?
--------------------< Comment 2 - Added Sep 18 03:44PM EDT >--------------------
Triz Dermout Commented:
I also agree with the above. With the removal of the Trading function there is no real reason to have such long times for travel. As it is folks will go to the RP rooms and RP they are on a planet rather than actually travel to go there. If you do travel then you can spend, in some cases, an hour doing absolutely nothing other than chatting on an @channel or pages or going away from the screen all together. When you add in the time to go through all the steps: prep the ship, set a heading, set a speed, wait till you leave atmo, then set the speed again, wait till you leave the gravity well, then the hyperspace travel time, set an intercept course, set your speed, then enter the orbit, set your speed, intercept course to where ever it is you are going, land, shut down…well it provides no RP what so ever and is overly taxing on the player.

With today’s population of RP’ers in today’s MU* worlds the chances for folks twinking to get somewhere when they shouldn’t be are slim to none due to their experience and should it happen that can be easily handled with a one to one basis. No need to punish everyone that may not even be a problem.

Anything more than 15 minutes is just wasting the players time and chance to RP, in my opinion.
--------------------< Comment 3 - Added Sep 18 03:50PM EDT >--------------------
Cujo Commented:
We’re not going to drop hyperspace times, because we intend to have a new Market System someday. We just don’t have it right now.

RP Rooms over travel?

We’re fine with that. IF you want to go to an RP Room to say that you’re on Corellia, rather than fly your ship TO Corellia… go for it. No real harm in that at all.

Someday we hope to get a new Mission System up that will inspire people to actually travel the hyperspace lanes again.

Its just not right this moment.

• Cujo

The players raise some good points: There’s no trading to regulate. And combat scenes are, in fact, so long that transit times really wouldn’t make any difference to twinks. They’d be there by the second round, even with the one-hour transit times. And transit times on AoA were excessive by most standards, which meant that wasting time in hyperspace was wasting a lot of time in hyperspace.

Cujo’s Reasoning: We’re supposed to get a new market system someday, if I can get a coder worth having, and changing transit times now means I’d have to change them back once we get that system, and I don’t want to do actual work once, let alone twice. No, I don’t care that transit times waste huge amounts of potential RP time for people who don’t trade. Who cares about players, anyway?

It’s not hard to tell that this guy doesn’t RP. If he’d really wanted to address trade abuse, he could’ve upped the loading lockdown times. Long hyperspace times punish anyone who travels, regardless of whether they trade or not.

Using RP Rooms instead of traveling?

Cujo’s Reasoning: Despite the fact that I really want players to jump through the hoops of using the enormous grid that only exists for the sake of the bragging rights of having the largest grid out there, I realize that there’s really nothing I can do to stop you, other than badmouth you to staff and my Chosen Ones.

Transit times were actually so long and wasted so much time that people regularly used the RP Rooms to avoid travel, particularly for pick-up scenes. And this was before ship wear and fuel made flying a ship anywhere a serious pain in the wallet. And pointless waiting when it came to travel didn’t confine itself to hyperspace: There was a tram system on Coruscant that made you pay for the privelege of pointlessly waiting 3 minutes per trip to go anywhere on the planet. The First Order’s flagship, supposedly the first starship on the grid and which was too sacred to be changed, ever, had over 30 rooms, complete with decks connected by turbolifts that also took three minutes to use. This flying maze was so confusing that FO players, who early on were stuck on the ship, would RP in the same few rooms for weeks on end to avoid getting lost in it, which would mean wasting even more time trying to find everyone again.

Speaking of huge wastes of space? Yeah, Cujo really did try to put nearly every world that appeared anywhere on this grid, especially if he could dragoon someone else into descing it for him. Many of those off-the-beaten-path worlds consisted of a grand total of one room. Less than 5 percent of this overblown grid was used on a regular basis. I suspect there’s some of it that’s never been used at all to this day.

And staff definitely was not okay with players using the RP Rooms to avoid travel, particularly to locations that actually existed on the grid. It was something that caught plenty of bitching on Public. This was despite the fact that almost nobody would log on early (or the day before) to fly to wherever the next event was going to be, which meant holding up the event by 30-60 minutes almost every time for players to fly to the location.

But Cujo doesn’t RP, so nobody important was being inconvenienced. Who cares about players, anyway?

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

Seems like Cujo is just very much This is done, move on.

‘The lying, repeatedly-banned, horrible people talking about the repeated and rampant sexual harassment on this game are lying about everything you’ve personally witnessed or heard about concerning the repeated and rampant sexual harassment on this game. I’m not lying, promise!’

As said by… pretty much every crooked authority figure when word of their dealings got out. We’ll see who does their research and discovers Cujo is, in fact, lying.

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

Those that choose to play there without being part of the primary cliques may be able to continue to ignore the transgressions of the administration for some time. It’s hard to let go if you’ve been playing there for years. That said, with Cujo’s frequent attempts to quell the situation with on-grid announcements, it’s going to be very hard to keep turning a blind eye to the division.

A lot of non-Aryn-clique characters are used to avoiding staff and their troublemaking ways, so they might not know anything aside from some players being taken out of action. If they seriously look, though, they might realize that none of them was even close to the day count to be removed. It’s a subtle detail, though, especially if you weren’t playing with them.

Cujo does control the official narrative there, which is where a lot of people are getting their information if they’re not reading this thread. Right now he’s in full damage control mode. Don’t want people to leave the game and drop the WHO count without having the courtesy to get banned first, after all!

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

A pretty decent number of players seem to be in the process of leaving, just doing it on their own terms. Star Wars MUSH appears to be where they’re going, it’s had a huge spike in logins.

So some folks are looking into what happened, and voting with their feet. Good on them!

I don’t know if SW1 is an improvement, but it likely can’t be any worse than AoA, especially if there have been some staff overturns in the last decade or so.

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

It sounds like half the reason this place thrives is that it’s so miserable to grind towards something playable and enjoyable (in the face of the Favorites who have a much easier time of it and I’m sure rub it in people’s faces)

Pretty much. Also, since good equipment and mods that aren’t junk are nearly impossible to find, there’s the thrill of getting that oh-so-rare bit of good gear and finally closing a little of the gap between Newb and Dinosaur and Favorite. If you really look at the game system, you realize it’s pointless even to try. The gap is just too big, and growing with every day and bad staff decision, but some people really get into the search.

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

this is just them wishing that if only everyone could get along the game would be big and successful.
They think that if only they could moderate and get everyone to get along, things would be peachy keen.

That’s not at all what this is. They’re sheltering at least one sexual predator purely because he runs events, and events draw players, and they’re either ignoring the victims or telling them they’re overly sensitive about ‘jokes’. There’s nothing resembling any attempt at getting along, or helping people to get along.

They don’t care about people getting along. They care about making people shut the Hell up so their game will stop shedding players left and right.

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

While the game has many faults, I think that the conversation at hand is more about this and player safety than it is about xp.

The two subjects ended up in the same conversation because staff decided to shovel XP at players (triple the previously offered 500 for the timejump) to try to persuade them not to leave over the issue of widespread sexual harassment. Throwing XP and stuff at players has been an approach that has worked in the past, though not consistently.

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

I was always running up against Hads stuff anyways like you were (which were org specific mind you… except for those select few people they decided to let come on the down-low).

The Clique protects The Clique. But for a while, they did try to bring in other people purely for the +noms. For example:

===================< 21: RP Recruit / Group Ads - 137 >====================
Message: 21/137 Posted Author
The New Republic wants you! Feb 24 2021 Jessika Pava

The New Republic wants you!

Player characters are important in the game. They’re an investment of time and dedication. They’re not mere cannon fodder. They exist to tell the story in the long-term. Unfortunately, that also leads to a situation where there’s usually no death! Failure is infrequent, and often player characters escape odds just like the canon characters of the movies do.

Have you ever wanted to get in on the story of a war faction, but never wanted to dedicate the time, suffer from the restrictions, or sacrifice the alt slot to do so? The New Republic is offering you a chance to get in on the action with no strings attached.

So, what are we looking for? Cannon fodder! We’ve got troops and starfighters and capital ships that sit around doing nothing! NPCs ripe for the picking! The New Republic is offering anyone the chance to come play an NPC during our events, where death is likely! The best part is that you get all the noms and experience for the character of your choice!

If you see a New Republic event up on the events board being run by Poe Dameron, Jessika Pava, Rose Tico, or Aryn Cortess, please feel free to reach out to the GM of the scene and inquire about playing an NPC! In the coming future, we’re also looking at running events entirely based around NPCs, which means everyone can die and failure could be imminent! This also provides people without the character archetype or sheet to come try out and enjoy combat without having to spend experience they don’t want to.
------------------------------< +bbread 21/137 >------------------------------
=================<* New Republic - 3: Republic <OOC> - 12 *>=================
Message: NR3/12 Posted Author
NPCs in events. Feb 24 2021 Jessika Pava

We’re starting an initiative where we’re inviting other players outside of the New Republic to come and play NPCs in the events using the NPC assets that we have. If you’re interested in allowing individuals to come to your events, please let me know so that I can add your name to the post that’s been put up on Board 21. Thanks!
------------------------------< +bbread NR3/12 >------------------------------

Small problem with the quote command aside, that was one way they tried to get around the faction-specific ban on non-faction characters. One has to wonder if attendance for Poe’s/Aryn’s/Sumi’s events had dropped so low that they felt this was necessary. At any rate, no change in Aryn’s behavior was necessary: She could continue to disregard the efforts of every non-Clique player and just have nameless NPCs shoot at them every round. I have no doubt that was a requirement for the policy.

For anybody who doesn’t know The Clique, Jessika was the Resistance/Republic FC alt of a player who has an alt in every one of Aryn’s faction-specific groups. She’s not hard to recognize, as she’s usually only there to RP with Poe/Aryn/Sumi. She virtually ignores everyone else. I’m pretty sure she was Tahni in the Jedi. And that annoying Human Replica Droid of the Koras’, who was destroyed multiple times and always somehow managed to download herself into the CPU of some nearby mundane object to preserve her memories and personality (and most importantly, attribute and skill levels). Though why anybody’d want to keep a personality that murderously abhorrent is beyond me. Another mystery is where they kept getting HRD bodies for this twinky character to inhabit; they’re supposed to be vanishingly rare.

But in CujoWorld, I guess anything’s possible if you kiss the ass of the person kissing Cujo’s ass the most.

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

Anony Mouse knows more about this than me, so I’ll leave the details to them.

You summed it up pretty well, but I can supply a little extra.

<First Order> Kylo Ren says, “While tbere’s a bunch of you here”
<First Order> Kylo Ren says, “Someone requested we do posts to give orders and objectives and what-not.”
<First Order> Kylo Ren says, “Can you guys not see the motd?”

A little background here: Kylo/Banshee was fachead of the First Order, and insisted on doing the faction’s overall plotting. Trouble was, he wanted everyone else in the faction to do all the event-running, and without telling anyone what he had in mind. Not even an overview. Sure, there was the MotD as he said, but this was the MotD:

       . o O Org MOTDs O o .                             

.—< First Order (FO) >-----------------------------------------------------.
| Kylo Ren(#4588) @ Sat Jan 02 01:53:17 2016: |
| Chapter 1: War on Serenno |
| |
| Current Objectives: |
| |
| Stormtroopers: Eliminate 6 Militia checkpoints (4/6 complete). |
| Naval: Eliminate/Subdue 7 Airbases (2/2 Militia, 0/5 Civilian complete). |
| Politics: Subvert/Eliminate radical efforts within House J’Kar. |
| |
| Questions? Contact the following (order preference listed): |
| |
| Stormtroopers: Captain Phasma -> General Hux -> Kylo Ren. |
| Naval/Air: General Hux |
| Politics: General Hux -> Kylo Ren. |
| |
‘-==========================================================================-’

Aside from the near-total lack of useful information, note the contact list in order of preference: Phasma, Hux, then Kylo. In short, Kylo/Banshee did not want to be bothered about the plot arcs that he was in charge of. And trying to run events based on the MotD was a complete waste of time. Also noteworthy was that the MotD almost never changed, and not just because the coded commands were hard to find and cumbersome even when you did find them.

On top of that, members of the faction were expected to keep the faction rosters updated and plot events based on no information at all. Not the leaders, the members. While the fachead did no facheading whatsoever, content to ignore his own faction, and the leadership did no leading.

Those requirements were dropped on everyone a few weeks after the First Order started getting interested players, mostly Stormtroopers. Since nobody’d bargained for any of this, the faction all but emptied out within the next month. Bad leadership squandered a large pool of interested talent. This happens a lot on AoA.

Over the next couple months, staff deigned to notice.

Message: 12/1 Posted Author
First Order & Leadership Roles Sat Feb 20 Kylo Ren

When the First Order was conceived as an organization, it was built in a very particular way. Limited types of players, limited roles, and a, ‘You can only play a trigger-puller’ kind of attitude. The ranks filled much faster than anticipated and it became apparent we would need to fill the ranks with appropriately ranked individuals to help IC and OOCly with managing, running and encouraging RP within the org. You might be asking yourself why I’m posting this here, but, I want to make sure everyone see’s it in case they have FO alts they don’t frequent. I also want to make sure any new leaders that wish to app in the wake of the coming vacancies have a full understanding of what is expected of a Leader in the First Order.

IC: Different IC leadership roles have different expectations. The Lieutenant is responsible for Company-wide RP in the form of logistics, inspections, deskwork, and the like. This role is intended to be Phasma’s Enforcer (not that she needs one). Every mistake made by individual troopers, the Lieutenant answers for. Other roles are more aligned towards Dorn Squadron and the active military role it plays. Exciting scenes and stories about the members of Dorn.

OOC: OOCly, all leadership roles are responsible for a few things. Making sure the roster is fleshed out (+org/roster afo and nfo) with all fields filled in appropriately. Making sure the MOTD has the most up-to-date information regarding current plots and storylines (+org/motd afo and nfo). I don’t expect you to run a scene every week, but every “few” weeks is not an unfair expectation. These OOC expectations amount to a small amount of time, and I do not feel that with 9 leaders in the Org we should continue to have a blank roster.

-Very Important- We will be looking at current leaders to determine compliance with these expectations. -Very Important-

==============================================================================

Unfortunately, Banshee remained as clueless as ever. That, or he refused to believe his complete and total lack of effort was the cause of the faction depopulating almost entirely within a month. Leaders, in the context of the post, referred to officers and NCOs within the faction, not the actual faction leadership, which remained as useless as ever. Also, there were slightly more than nine total players in the FO at the time, not counting Kylo/Banshee. Unsurprisingly, activity sank to almost nil.

After a few months of near-total inactivity, another message came along, probably posted by Cujo:

Message: 19/1 Posted Author
Snoke Is Watching Wed Aug 31 Snoke

RK-8801 46d 16h
DZ-1141 42d 1h
FN-4126 19d 8h
Oozlevort 6d 20h
PR-3742 6d 17h
EM-1710 6d 13h
Mara Jade 6d 6h
FN-2432 5d 6h
Aurra Sing 5d 6h
FN-2187 2d 17h
HM-8668 23h 28m
Kylo Ren 22h 5m
FZ-4792 1h 41m

The abovce is the current roster of active/inactive players in the First Order.

Mostly, you’re all ‘here’ in some capacity. However. based on my observations, one of the major underlying issues is a connect/almost-instantly-disconnect mentality.

This does not help this org flourish. If you’re connecting simply to see if ‘others are doing things’ and then immediately disconnecting, then you’re essentially propogating a ‘ghost town’ experience for all.

Please, if you have the ability, log in and do not immediately leave. If you’re playing on other (more active) games, then consider leaving this game open in the background and checking in on it frequently to chat with other members of the org to help inspire new and fun ideas.

Only with this sort of effort, can this org make it.

There is leadership, but it needs your hot bodies around in order to continue the story.

-Snoke is Watching You

By this point, nobody really cared about being part of the First Order. Virtually no one shared a schedule, and most players had lost all interest in a faction that was just a lot of work for no fun at all. And as usual, staff (mostly Banshee) continued to push the obviously-untrue line that the faction was dying because of lazy players, not incompetent leadership (his). The idea that ‘there is leadership’ was frankly laughable.

Months later, Cujo gave the Kylo Ren character bit and leadership of the First Order to another player. The other FC leaders had long since idled out or surrendered their bits, and the faction was nearly vacant. It took another recruitment drive (and knowledge that there was a different Kylo Ren) to undo some of the damage, but the faction never again saw its initial levels of membership and enthusiasm.

Banshee got a super-powerful Darksider Force bit. I suspect it was a bribe to get him to give up Kylo, the most powerful Force User on the grid.

This pattern has echoed in perpetuity with Banshee: Cujo will give him a faction, and said faction will rot out from under him because he won’t do anything with it. Lather, rinse, repeat.