Almost a Month Later, Goodbye, Relevant Info
Mar 19, 2023 17:16:27 GMT -5
delerak, mehtastic, and 2 more like this
Post by bebop on Mar 19, 2023 17:16:27 GMT -5
This is probably going to be my final post on this board, or Armageddon’s GDB. I thought I would post one final thing to wrap things up here before signing off from this community and (likely) from any other MUDs in the future. I am very much enjoying FF14, looking forward to Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and working on other things that --- omg, aren’t gaming! I wanted to give a recap of what’s happened since I came forward and where we (or at least I) go from here.
Thank you so much to everyone who has advocated for me to be unbanned, taken staff to task for their retaliation against me and spoken out for me and my experience since I could not do so for myself on the game’s official medium.
What’s Happened Since My Post
In light of my post here are a few things that have happened:
-The GBD was shut down temporarily
-Many people were banned from the Discord, GDB and the game without warning or notice
-There was retaliation against not only the whistleblowers but major dissenters while others were allowed to keep their posting abilities
-Armageddon (finally, after years of me advocating for this) became an 18+ mature rated game
-A player moderation team was formed
-Halaster issued an apology, and Brokkr issued an explanation of how my complaint, and the complaint of another player was handled (posting my complaint)
-Brokkr said that my complaint did not address sexual harassment, I then posted PDFs of the complaint in full showing that it very much detailed sexual harassment and thoroughly so
-The feedback thread was closed
-Halaster posted an outline of the feedback thread as staff understood it with no promises of what (if anything) would be worked on
-The moderation team posted the would be lifting bans
-Bans were still left in place for the whistleblowers and Oleptua denied requests to be unbanned and shut down very old player special apps and requests snarkily replying to anyone who vaguely dissented even if they still wanted to play therefore nullifying the moderation team
-Multiple staff have been deactivated on Discord, leading to rumors that they have stepped down from staff
-I posted several logs backing up not only my claims that I was harassed by staff for years, but documenting Shalooonsh’s staff avatar character cheating and generally being horrible
Unban Bebop? My thoughts on playing again.
First of all, I want to point out that I am not the only one banned. Delirium and Ender had their characters force stored by Shabago. Then Ender (Sleep’s) work on the mul outpost was appropriated by the same person after they made complaints about Shalooonsh’s harassment. They requested not to work with him and were retaliated against with storage, all while being told they weren’t being force stored as they were force stored. These cornerstone players have now vowed never to return to Armageddon. Ender played many notable characters such as Elithan, Hasan and Sleep. Artwork of Delirium’s character Shatuka is featured on the Armageddon website. The game lost these two because they didn’t want to be harassed.
Hazel recently played Rehema Borsail, one of my favorite nobles in a while. She was sidelined by Shalooonsh’s avatar Kitanius at every turn until she was relegated to feeling like a glorified event planner and she stored. She was banned from all channels and the game when she outed another staff avatar - Rika, who was being given a minor merchant house and benefiting from her position as staff.
Reiloth is another cornerstone player, giving us legendary characters like Menkaura and Muradim. He was banned abruptly with no notice or communication. One assumes, simply for association with people dissenting about the state of the game. His story of how Shalooonsh hopped into a northern templar and forbade Menkaura from assassination his PC (Kitanius) is telling.
Then there’s me. Who was harassed by staff for multiple years. Stalked. My character was harassed and killed by Shalooonsh’s clans with actions that his PC put into motion after staff forced me into actions I didn’t want to take. I put in a complaint, and I was uncomfortable with staff handling this all quietly and I came out about it. I was banned along with my husband who was playing Dealer Iyl Sekh in the Akai Sjirr. The staff, on a whim, tossed over half a dozen senior players overboard because they didn’t want to be harassed or silenced.
If you advocate for me to be unbanned you need to continue to advocate for all of these players to have staff do right by them and do right by others in the future. The fact that all of these people have continued to be retaliated against makes any apology ring hollow.
I don’t regret what I did
I feel like Bokkr’s post about how staff took action with my complaint highlights far more problems than solutions. I don’t regret for one instant coming out with this information even though it’s cost me access to a hobby I’ve held on and off for nearly twenty years.
Because of what I’ve done, policies have been put into place to protect minors. Something sorely needed. I could elaborate as to why, but I won’t. I’ll just say I’m glad this has been done and that enough time has passed that I’ve seen the results of hypersexual men that can’t engage in reality due to engaging heavily in their developmental years. That change alone was worth it to me. I’ll take that as a W.
It’s obvious to me that the staff were going to handle all of this quietly under the table. Initially, I admit, I thought that was sufficient. At the time I filed the request, I really did not want an entire debacle. I had a different perspective of the game, and wanted to retain trust in staff.
However, multiple players came forward after I played Altair and messaged me the horrible experiences they were having as female players. It genuinely upset me and things hit a wall when I kept feeling hounded by staff during the two month interim they had placed on me before giving me my next templar, which I would have to start from scratch. I ended up in tears, and I began to contemplate how systematically abusive the game was set up to be.
The more I thought about things from different perspectives the more I began to grow truly concerned that newer, younger players or more women might get lulled into a false sense of safety and ease that might gate way into more victimization. I realized how deep the cheating went. It bothered me (a lot) and I felt complicit in minimizing the abuse that was happening around the game and inside of the game. I felt the need to stay something succinctly and loudly in a way that would not be able to be shut down, erased, or relegated to a one-sided request tool.
I will not get to enjoy the fruits of what I did (if there are any in a culture change) but that’s okay with me.
The (Cult)ure of the Game
Since I’ve come out with all of this, things have been minimized as being the subject of some sort of creepy behavior, to “woke culture is ruining Armageddon,” to airing our personal matters, even though I’ve had no personal contact with Shalooonsh aside from the game in almost ten years. Staff seem a lot more willing to work with players who hold conservative beliefs. They’ll ban someone for criticizing them instantly but completely overlook players posting sexist and transphobic memes in their Discord.
I was pleasantly surprised by the strong language selected by the moderation team regarding discrimination and I applaud them on that - truly. However, it’s also clear that staff members like Oleptua don’t intend to actually defer power to this team. She is keeping bans in place and being petty and passive aggressive to anyone she’s even got a whiff of not being on the bandwagon.
There’s really no place for this cult-like behavior in 2023. You can run your game. You can’t police everything your players say on every medium on the Internet. It’s gross and part of that “harassment is fine” culture that enabled Shalooonsh for years.
A safe, welcoming and genuinely collaborative gaming community is possible. There are tons of them. I remember my Overwatch 2 gaming group during my dad’s death sent me a care package. A lovely group of people I had never met had my back. I still have a handmade necklace one of them made for me. It was so beautiful and meaningful. Just like I still have a necklace made from Val, or a painting from Ourla - who I’ve been told unfortunately is still in camp Shalooonsh.
It’s possible for the game to be a safe space where you can make friends and support each other. But not with this weird cult-like jealous lover mentality more interested in punishing people for every infraction or speaking out against abuse. Coincidence some dude I was with for a year ten years ago felt comfy harassing me using the game as a medium? I think not.
Until staff unban people, give back their karma and their characters (if they want them) I will feel that their apologies and attempts to take accountability are insincere. At this point, I don’t know that I’d ever feel safe participating in this community again but at least these actions would show staff were serious about their failures in protecting players from abuse --- or at the very least treating them with respect.
I’m grateful Halaster was attempting to take my complaints seriously, however I think for obvious reasons, if I hadn’t come out to inform players of the full scope of this matter they would have never known.
Purging my Demons
Most of you probably don’t care, but on a personal level taking action has really been cathartic for me. Years ago my life was forever changed by a staff member abusing staff knowledge and finding my personal information and grooming me, and the other young people around me to believe he was a good guy being victimized. So many of us fell for that and are living with the consequences of a dude twelve years our senior twiddling with our lives in our formative years.
For years, I have been sad and ashamed about what happened to me. I was deeply troubled at the people victimized in real life.
After that whole debacle, old staff like Sanvean reached out to me, and we had a great humanizing and healing conversation. I know she had no further desire to work with him after his actions towards me. It’s sad that such an amazing feminist powerhouse is no longer behind the wheel. It’s sad such humanity was not exercised here. I’m a human and recreational player, not an employee.
I have fretted over and over again about others being harmed by this person but I wanted to assume good intent and change over the years. However, it suddenly became very obvious to me after my character was killed that things were very much not okay both in game and out. I am so glad minors will no longer be encouraged to engage in role play with adults in a game that’s themes are basically sex, drugs and murder. It was never appropriate. I’m glad that the person that abused people in and out of the game has been deplatformed. I am resting easier at night because of all of this.
That's a glimpse of the more personal side of this matter. You can huff at it, take it or leave it, but there it is. Abuse has real life impacts on people. I share to contextualize. You can (per Hestia) say that it’s irrelevant but she also referred to non-binary people like myself as "its." So there’s a good chance she’s wrong. Staff told me it's not my job to advocate for other players, I disagree.
Conclusion - Goodbye
That’s about all I have to say really. I just wanted to let anyone who's still following this know that staff really haven’t done right by the players they alienated through their actions. Staff actions still appear to be at odds with the commitments they’re announcing and making on the GDB like giving moderators actual agency and authority.
Because of this, I feel like staff, as a collective, have shown me who they really are. I do not want to engage in a community policed by these people. I do not want to play a game that opens me up to abuse by some kind of weird monolith that take half a month to scrape together an apology.
I have made lifelong friends from this community. This community has forever impacted my life in a net positive way. I don’t regret being a part of it. But I frankly feel that it’s reached a point that it either needs to die or transform entirely. The level of red tape and bureaucracy isn’t equal to the amount of people playing and running a small niche, retro game on the Internet. The response hasn’t been adequate towards those that were hurt. There are dozens of players, not thousands. This should have never escalated this far.
I was genuinely hoping to see something different or for my experience and voice to consult staff or give feedback so that this won’t happen again. Ironically, they are reading my correspondence here and taking my former suggestions while leaving me banned. Whatever works I guess. Whatever protects minors from not being reared around a bunch of middle aged people role-playing out sex, drugs and violence. The fact that multiple people like Shabago were condoning the presence of minor players in this game is a red flag. I feel like any adult would feel highly uncomfortable doing things with mature themes around teenagers. I never understood why that was kosher.
Anyway, I’m starting to digress and cycle through my points now. Short story long, it’s best for me to not let all of this occupy anymore emotional or mental bandwidth.
So I’ll just say thank you to those of you that gave me a space to say what I needed to here. Thank you to those that supported me. Thank you for the memes and laughs. It was really top tier. Thank you for all of the messages validating me. Thank you to those of you advocating for my “freedom” from the ban prison. Thank you to those hoping to keep staff accountable in my absence. Thank you for all of the great, unforgettable role play scenes over the years before the game became “rouge-like with RP elements.” Thanks for growing up with me through the years.
Thank you for everything.
I am going to leave up my posts and points below should you ever need them as my final contribution. Feel free to use them to think over how you feel about all of this and whether or not you want to continue on yourself. I think I’ve said everything I need to say and provided the "receipts" I needed to provide to detail the horrible experience I had on Armageddon despite my best efforts.
Timeline and Links to by Discussion Points:
My Original Post:
armageddonmud.boards.net/thread/1154/bebops-message-another-armageddon-catastrophe
How to Quit Armageddon by Bebop:
armageddonmud.boards.net/thread/1177/quit-armageddon-mud-free-99
The Timeline of Shalooonsh Harassing Me for NINE YEARS since a one year relationship:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/41876/thread
Copies of my Complaints to Staff:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/42362/thread
Logs of Kitanius:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/42171/thread Kitanius Thryzn
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/42049/thread Kitanius Sorcerer
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/41383/thread Rapey IG comments
Another Player Noticing my Character was Tortured Without Consent which staff told me was no big:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/41734/thread
Thank you so much to everyone who has advocated for me to be unbanned, taken staff to task for their retaliation against me and spoken out for me and my experience since I could not do so for myself on the game’s official medium.
What’s Happened Since My Post
In light of my post here are a few things that have happened:
-The GBD was shut down temporarily
-Many people were banned from the Discord, GDB and the game without warning or notice
-There was retaliation against not only the whistleblowers but major dissenters while others were allowed to keep their posting abilities
-Armageddon (finally, after years of me advocating for this) became an 18+ mature rated game
-A player moderation team was formed
-Halaster issued an apology, and Brokkr issued an explanation of how my complaint, and the complaint of another player was handled (posting my complaint)
-Brokkr said that my complaint did not address sexual harassment, I then posted PDFs of the complaint in full showing that it very much detailed sexual harassment and thoroughly so
-The feedback thread was closed
-Halaster posted an outline of the feedback thread as staff understood it with no promises of what (if anything) would be worked on
-The moderation team posted the would be lifting bans
-Bans were still left in place for the whistleblowers and Oleptua denied requests to be unbanned and shut down very old player special apps and requests snarkily replying to anyone who vaguely dissented even if they still wanted to play therefore nullifying the moderation team
-Multiple staff have been deactivated on Discord, leading to rumors that they have stepped down from staff
-I posted several logs backing up not only my claims that I was harassed by staff for years, but documenting Shalooonsh’s staff avatar character cheating and generally being horrible
Unban Bebop? My thoughts on playing again.
First of all, I want to point out that I am not the only one banned. Delirium and Ender had their characters force stored by Shabago. Then Ender (Sleep’s) work on the mul outpost was appropriated by the same person after they made complaints about Shalooonsh’s harassment. They requested not to work with him and were retaliated against with storage, all while being told they weren’t being force stored as they were force stored. These cornerstone players have now vowed never to return to Armageddon. Ender played many notable characters such as Elithan, Hasan and Sleep. Artwork of Delirium’s character Shatuka is featured on the Armageddon website. The game lost these two because they didn’t want to be harassed.
Hazel recently played Rehema Borsail, one of my favorite nobles in a while. She was sidelined by Shalooonsh’s avatar Kitanius at every turn until she was relegated to feeling like a glorified event planner and she stored. She was banned from all channels and the game when she outed another staff avatar - Rika, who was being given a minor merchant house and benefiting from her position as staff.
Reiloth is another cornerstone player, giving us legendary characters like Menkaura and Muradim. He was banned abruptly with no notice or communication. One assumes, simply for association with people dissenting about the state of the game. His story of how Shalooonsh hopped into a northern templar and forbade Menkaura from assassination his PC (Kitanius) is telling.
Then there’s me. Who was harassed by staff for multiple years. Stalked. My character was harassed and killed by Shalooonsh’s clans with actions that his PC put into motion after staff forced me into actions I didn’t want to take. I put in a complaint, and I was uncomfortable with staff handling this all quietly and I came out about it. I was banned along with my husband who was playing Dealer Iyl Sekh in the Akai Sjirr. The staff, on a whim, tossed over half a dozen senior players overboard because they didn’t want to be harassed or silenced.
If you advocate for me to be unbanned you need to continue to advocate for all of these players to have staff do right by them and do right by others in the future. The fact that all of these people have continued to be retaliated against makes any apology ring hollow.
I don’t regret what I did
I feel like Bokkr’s post about how staff took action with my complaint highlights far more problems than solutions. I don’t regret for one instant coming out with this information even though it’s cost me access to a hobby I’ve held on and off for nearly twenty years.
Because of what I’ve done, policies have been put into place to protect minors. Something sorely needed. I could elaborate as to why, but I won’t. I’ll just say I’m glad this has been done and that enough time has passed that I’ve seen the results of hypersexual men that can’t engage in reality due to engaging heavily in their developmental years. That change alone was worth it to me. I’ll take that as a W.
It’s obvious to me that the staff were going to handle all of this quietly under the table. Initially, I admit, I thought that was sufficient. At the time I filed the request, I really did not want an entire debacle. I had a different perspective of the game, and wanted to retain trust in staff.
However, multiple players came forward after I played Altair and messaged me the horrible experiences they were having as female players. It genuinely upset me and things hit a wall when I kept feeling hounded by staff during the two month interim they had placed on me before giving me my next templar, which I would have to start from scratch. I ended up in tears, and I began to contemplate how systematically abusive the game was set up to be.
The more I thought about things from different perspectives the more I began to grow truly concerned that newer, younger players or more women might get lulled into a false sense of safety and ease that might gate way into more victimization. I realized how deep the cheating went. It bothered me (a lot) and I felt complicit in minimizing the abuse that was happening around the game and inside of the game. I felt the need to stay something succinctly and loudly in a way that would not be able to be shut down, erased, or relegated to a one-sided request tool.
I will not get to enjoy the fruits of what I did (if there are any in a culture change) but that’s okay with me.
The (Cult)ure of the Game
Since I’ve come out with all of this, things have been minimized as being the subject of some sort of creepy behavior, to “woke culture is ruining Armageddon,” to airing our personal matters, even though I’ve had no personal contact with Shalooonsh aside from the game in almost ten years. Staff seem a lot more willing to work with players who hold conservative beliefs. They’ll ban someone for criticizing them instantly but completely overlook players posting sexist and transphobic memes in their Discord.
I was pleasantly surprised by the strong language selected by the moderation team regarding discrimination and I applaud them on that - truly. However, it’s also clear that staff members like Oleptua don’t intend to actually defer power to this team. She is keeping bans in place and being petty and passive aggressive to anyone she’s even got a whiff of not being on the bandwagon.
There’s really no place for this cult-like behavior in 2023. You can run your game. You can’t police everything your players say on every medium on the Internet. It’s gross and part of that “harassment is fine” culture that enabled Shalooonsh for years.
A safe, welcoming and genuinely collaborative gaming community is possible. There are tons of them. I remember my Overwatch 2 gaming group during my dad’s death sent me a care package. A lovely group of people I had never met had my back. I still have a handmade necklace one of them made for me. It was so beautiful and meaningful. Just like I still have a necklace made from Val, or a painting from Ourla - who I’ve been told unfortunately is still in camp Shalooonsh.
It’s possible for the game to be a safe space where you can make friends and support each other. But not with this weird cult-like jealous lover mentality more interested in punishing people for every infraction or speaking out against abuse. Coincidence some dude I was with for a year ten years ago felt comfy harassing me using the game as a medium? I think not.
Until staff unban people, give back their karma and their characters (if they want them) I will feel that their apologies and attempts to take accountability are insincere. At this point, I don’t know that I’d ever feel safe participating in this community again but at least these actions would show staff were serious about their failures in protecting players from abuse --- or at the very least treating them with respect.
I’m grateful Halaster was attempting to take my complaints seriously, however I think for obvious reasons, if I hadn’t come out to inform players of the full scope of this matter they would have never known.
Purging my Demons
Most of you probably don’t care, but on a personal level taking action has really been cathartic for me. Years ago my life was forever changed by a staff member abusing staff knowledge and finding my personal information and grooming me, and the other young people around me to believe he was a good guy being victimized. So many of us fell for that and are living with the consequences of a dude twelve years our senior twiddling with our lives in our formative years.
For years, I have been sad and ashamed about what happened to me. I was deeply troubled at the people victimized in real life.
After that whole debacle, old staff like Sanvean reached out to me, and we had a great humanizing and healing conversation. I know she had no further desire to work with him after his actions towards me. It’s sad that such an amazing feminist powerhouse is no longer behind the wheel. It’s sad such humanity was not exercised here. I’m a human and recreational player, not an employee.
I have fretted over and over again about others being harmed by this person but I wanted to assume good intent and change over the years. However, it suddenly became very obvious to me after my character was killed that things were very much not okay both in game and out. I am so glad minors will no longer be encouraged to engage in role play with adults in a game that’s themes are basically sex, drugs and murder. It was never appropriate. I’m glad that the person that abused people in and out of the game has been deplatformed. I am resting easier at night because of all of this.
That's a glimpse of the more personal side of this matter. You can huff at it, take it or leave it, but there it is. Abuse has real life impacts on people. I share to contextualize. You can (per Hestia) say that it’s irrelevant but she also referred to non-binary people like myself as "its." So there’s a good chance she’s wrong. Staff told me it's not my job to advocate for other players, I disagree.
Conclusion - Goodbye
That’s about all I have to say really. I just wanted to let anyone who's still following this know that staff really haven’t done right by the players they alienated through their actions. Staff actions still appear to be at odds with the commitments they’re announcing and making on the GDB like giving moderators actual agency and authority.
Because of this, I feel like staff, as a collective, have shown me who they really are. I do not want to engage in a community policed by these people. I do not want to play a game that opens me up to abuse by some kind of weird monolith that take half a month to scrape together an apology.
I have made lifelong friends from this community. This community has forever impacted my life in a net positive way. I don’t regret being a part of it. But I frankly feel that it’s reached a point that it either needs to die or transform entirely. The level of red tape and bureaucracy isn’t equal to the amount of people playing and running a small niche, retro game on the Internet. The response hasn’t been adequate towards those that were hurt. There are dozens of players, not thousands. This should have never escalated this far.
I was genuinely hoping to see something different or for my experience and voice to consult staff or give feedback so that this won’t happen again. Ironically, they are reading my correspondence here and taking my former suggestions while leaving me banned. Whatever works I guess. Whatever protects minors from not being reared around a bunch of middle aged people role-playing out sex, drugs and violence. The fact that multiple people like Shabago were condoning the presence of minor players in this game is a red flag. I feel like any adult would feel highly uncomfortable doing things with mature themes around teenagers. I never understood why that was kosher.
Anyway, I’m starting to digress and cycle through my points now. Short story long, it’s best for me to not let all of this occupy anymore emotional or mental bandwidth.
So I’ll just say thank you to those of you that gave me a space to say what I needed to here. Thank you to those that supported me. Thank you for the memes and laughs. It was really top tier. Thank you for all of the messages validating me. Thank you to those of you advocating for my “freedom” from the ban prison. Thank you to those hoping to keep staff accountable in my absence. Thank you for all of the great, unforgettable role play scenes over the years before the game became “rouge-like with RP elements.” Thanks for growing up with me through the years.
Thank you for everything.
I am going to leave up my posts and points below should you ever need them as my final contribution. Feel free to use them to think over how you feel about all of this and whether or not you want to continue on yourself. I think I’ve said everything I need to say and provided the "receipts" I needed to provide to detail the horrible experience I had on Armageddon despite my best efforts.
Timeline and Links to by Discussion Points:
My Original Post:
armageddonmud.boards.net/thread/1154/bebops-message-another-armageddon-catastrophe
How to Quit Armageddon by Bebop:
armageddonmud.boards.net/thread/1177/quit-armageddon-mud-free-99
The Timeline of Shalooonsh Harassing Me for NINE YEARS since a one year relationship:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/41876/thread
Copies of my Complaints to Staff:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/42362/thread
Logs of Kitanius:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/42171/thread Kitanius Thryzn
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/42049/thread Kitanius Sorcerer
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/41383/thread Rapey IG comments
Another Player Noticing my Character was Tortured Without Consent which staff told me was no big:
armageddonmud.boards.net/post/41734/thread