RBP16 IT and Confession Thread

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I don't know how I feel about that...

I know how I feel about this. I don't like it at all, particularly in a setup that was looking pretty green until this point (no offense intended to any players who had signed up prior to "Mike" and later "Gore" joining the game). Gavagai has since proven his mettle (no more greens games for you, friend, you've graduated!), but at the time, he was looking like the toughest opponent based on previous play (and again, forgive me others if I've missed a game you did well in, I don't read everything). Once Noble/Gaspar and 7 had joined, I can understand Commodore piling on a bit better, but even so, an honest entry would have been better at the time than a mea culpa afterwards.

I do not personally have any hard feelings toward either of you, but I think it is unfortunate for the other players in the game, especially for the newer/greener players who either got sharked or would have been had geography set up differently. If I had been a player in this game and had invested a lot of time and effort (and if the map had been a bit different too and an early opponent elimination had not made it obvious we'd all be losing to Seven very soon) and had afterwards found out that I had been beaten by an established player's sock puppet, regardless of that player's well-meaning reason, I would probably be very justifiably upset.

I'm not annoyed because my team didn't win, Gaspar and Noble will be just fine. I'm annoyed for the loss of competitive balance in a game that otherwise would have been better suited to the relative newcomers. Competitive balance was already an issue when Noble/Gaspar and Seven signed up, but at least the other players knew what they were getting with those guys and could adjust plans accordingly, or enlist lurker support to balance the playing field somewhat, within reason. Most of all, if they didn't like these vets being in the game, they could have opted out and waited for a more suitable game and not wasted their time getting noob bashed. In practice that didn't happen as much as it could have, but that's largely a matter of luck and the map. This should not discount the effect of the act at the time.

I don't want anyone to take this personally, but we really shouldn't do this anymore. If you want to be an anonymous player, start a sock puppet game where everyone knows up front what's coming. I'd love to play a game like that, and I have a couple sock puppets that I have used for thread banter lying around that I'd be happy to loan you if that's a game you would enjoy. Please, no more of this stuff.

[Gaspar]

Well, I honestly can say I felt bad about joining this game when I did. We were the first established players into the game and I really didn't like the idea of noob bashing. But we really wanted a game and everything that had been starting around this time was RB Mod, which I didn't want to play. Noble sort of pushed me into because we had been wanting to find a game for a while. Afterwards, when Seven joined, I considered quitting because frankly, I'm tired of losing to him, but decided to stick it out because anything can happen in a large game and anyway, I had "sharked" the field a bit myself, so I was getting what I deserved.

The sockpuppets - I mean really, get over yourselves. I don't want to piss on Commodore because I think his confession was pretty clean and heartfelt and it looks like he learned his lesson. But your reputation is what you make it. There are players here who have way more outsized reputations - Seven, Krill and mackoti immediately jump to mind and they always put their name on their performances. I'm not going to get to the specifics but I just thinks it is pretty awful as a community if we need to start IP checking every new player who signs up for a game.

Reputation matters - you earn it, by your actions. If you feel the need to run from it, you should look in a mirror and think about what you're doing that causes you to want to hide from your actions. That's all I have to say on the matter.

To everyone - good game, I had a good time and would be happy to compete against any of you again.

[Ceiliazul]

agree with boldly

[Krill]

To everyone - good game, I had a good time and would be happy to compete against any of you again.

So, new RB mod game Gaspar?

[Gaspar]

To everyone - good game, I had a good time and would be happy to compete against any of you again.

So, new RB mod game Gaspar?

Is that an offer to dedlurk?

[Krill]

Last 5 months of a degree, don't have too much time atm so sure, I'll ded lurk you

On a serious note, I don't want to sign up to a game when I might not have a stable internet connect towards the end of such a game. I think the next game I can solo play will be in November at the earliest, but at that point in time I may also be searching for a new house to buy. I think you begin to see why I'm being cautious.

[Gaspar]

Last 5 months of a degree, don't have too much time atm so sure, I'll ded lurk you

On a serious note, I don't want to sign up to a game when I might not have a stable internet connect towards the end of such a game. I think the next game I can solo play will be in November at the earliest, but at that point in time I may also be searching for a new house to buy. I think you begin to see why I'm being cautious.

Ok, now we just need to make it a non-RB Mod game and I'm in.

[sunrise089]

Serdoa had a smurf game?

I asked this immediately in chat
_

I don't think there's anything I can say to make people not do this nonsense in the future. I'm hardly the type to hold some insane anger grudge and not talk to the smurfing players, but I find the whole situation very unfortunate. Should I ever play in another pitboss/pbem game I think the best solution for my enjoyment is just to ask for promises of no smurfing before the game or only play with known players. Not the end of the world...

[Krill]

I don't know of any way to enforce a no smurf rule. Try to ban them, and people can just use proxies and whatever to hide IP, even from the game host (whom can see in the pitboss server the IP of the connecting players). I don't even see the point in trying.

Ultimately, I am not the sort of player that loses from these problems. I am happy to play against anyone, a new player or mackoti, in a PB game. The players that lose out are the new players, the greens, who want to play a new game against people and not get crushed, so they can learn. If smurfing stops new people from joining, and stops the progression of people improving and becoming more challenging players to play against, then as a community we'll begin to lose out, stagnate, and fall apart. I think the majority of the community can accept that.

As a member of the community, I accept Commodore's post and embrace it: Commodore, it's understandable why you did that, and thank you for your candidness in your reasoning why you will not do it in the future.

[SevenSpirits]

Good morni- oh.

...

oh.

...

Huh?