Sexual Double Standards

Another note:

Kailer was NOT burglarizing much at all, and in all of my burglars, even Nilazi ones, I have been very respectful and have never taken more than a modicum of items. 


It should also be notes that mansa was helping me but had zero karma removed, making it seem even more like I was singled out because Vanth was still butthurt about me rejecting her. 

There is some sexist shit going on with how people perceive unwanted sexual advances towards men ...   Doubt things would really go much better by switching genders, there's sexist shit going on towards everyone when it comes to sexual harassment, but it does go on very differently. My sympathies for what happened, it is shitty.

An apology would definitely be good, you're just going against the bit where sometimes an entity/organization/person who thinks they are that gets the idea in their head they can't ever outright admit they did anything wrong enough to warrant an apology...

I bet the staff really regret having brought Vanth aboard.

She's basically responsible for both anaiah and I being here in the capacity that we are, Nyrffrey aside.

It should also be noticed that the first IC reaction received by my character came in the form of multiple half-giant NPCs trying to gang rape a half-elf Nilazi with 80 something hit points and a human burglar.

There were no echoes beforehand, not environmental clues to not be there, nothing to help me as a player realize that they didn't want me doing that, until half-giants, and when that failed, karma removal.

Kronibas, it may have been your style of rejection that caused you to pop an emotional cap in Vanth's buttocks. Not saying that gives her the right to retaliate using game mechanics (although I'm also not saying I accept your story at face value either, because you never know). It pays to know how to temper another person's emotions adroitly. Seldom will you find real diplomacy in this game, and before you think it's only the staffers who lack this important attribute, I'd say that this discussion board is a clear example that the guilt also falls on the players' shoulders as well.



Before I elaborate, let me make absolutely clear that I think the majority of staffers in Arm, past and present, have about as much maturity as the average teenager doped up on 42 ounces of Mountain Dew does. I've stated before that if all I knew about Nyr were his GDB posts alone, I would still find him outrageously offensive and rude (having worked with him on staff, I know that it's far worse than just his public posts). It shocks me to the core that Talia defended him recently, trying to paint him as a complete stand up guy who is merely taking the brunt of the playerbase's frustrations as if none of it were his fault. It shocks me to the core that she would try for one moment to pretend his posts aren't anything but the seething, contempt-filled cognitive dissonance they so clearly are. You guys really don't need a thread collecting his posts as evidence here, just go to the GDB and read his history of posts. The dirty laundry is there for all to see. He's a mean-spirited little prick and it shows. The only real credit you can give much of today's staff is that they at least try to hide their dust under the carpet and feign innocence. It was far, far worse when Sanvean and Nessalin led the charge with their pseudo good-cop/bad-cop paradigm. In those days, when they supported the likes of Halaster, Bahgarva, or Zagren, their cheating was so blatant they all but said "We can do whatever we want and you just have to take it". The bulk of yesterday and today's Arm staff really should be ashamed of themselves.



So there, I said it. If you think you have issues with the staff of this MUD, you're preaching to the choir, my friends. But never forget, staffers ARE players. Or, depending how you choose to define the term, they once were players, equipped with all the very same faults as each and every one of us here has. Do you know what my biggest beef was with players when I worked on staff? The sheer number of requests from those who didn't have the patience to keep their character alive longer than a single week. I can't tell you the number of times I would wade through pages and pages of requests from people who had a history of suiciding the very next day and pretending it was an accident. I don't know about my former "colleagues", to use the term since it's become a fad among staff to describe their position as unpaid work, but I for one always felt it wasn't what the players were requesting (you want a unique walking stick for your noble, fine, you want a stat increase for RPing running around the Byn yard a hundred times, ok) it was the impatience, the pushiness, and the real sentiment of entitlement that I got every time I was asked to do something. Really, I know a lot of staff are jerks, but so are a lot of players!



There's so much talk here of giving power back to the players and that we should be able to run our own clans without interference from the staff, that there will never be another Thrain Ironsword in today's game because staff are so all controlling, etc. A lot of which may be partially true. Speaking only for myself, all I wanted to see when I was deep into the game and played with gusto and enthusiasm was for the players to realize that if you want something, you have to show you want it. Don't die the next day because you couldn't wait a single week to get what you wanted. If you don't want to last long in a given role, that's fine, no one is saying you have to, but then play the game with the tools you are immediately given, don't ask for added goodies that you will throw away in three days' time, and definitely don't ask for them like it is your god given right to have. Don't cry that there is no real revolution in the game when everyone plays this game like it is their own private MUD with little or no interest in cooperating with others. Everyone wants to start their own mercenary group, their own brothel, their own merchant house, and it has to be theirs and not yours in any part. Sometimes players can be so damned focused on being utterly independent that they don't realize they are the cause of their own inability to get their own thing going. If as little as five of you on here made a character and marched down to Red Storm to start your own clan. And if you did it without asking for any special coded little goodies what so ever, if you kept all five of you alive and did something productively, behaved as a clan without worrying about not having the coded advantages of one from day one, I bet you dollars to donuts that even Cognitive Dissonyr and his posse of sycophants would eventually come round to give you a helping hand. But you have to be patient and dedicated and you have to be polite and limit your number of requests as little as possible. And, yes, because many of their egos are inflated you should probably double up on the polite part. Expect to have them throw you a few curve balls along the way, because this is Zalanthas and it's a harsh world and starting your own empire is supposed to be rare and hard to do. Making the game difficult doesn't always mean staff are being twats: there were times I was happy to throw players a bone, but I had to make it clear it wouldn't come easy, or that it would come with strings attached, because, yes, harsh world. But I have yet to see anyone willing to cooperate long enough for their dreams to be realized, you guys.



There are elements of the Thrain Ironsword style of character that simply won't exist any longer, that is true. And you may as well expect from the get go that staff will respond with pettiness and jealousy if your character even halfway approaches that level of fame. But before you point your finger that it's the staff's faults, make certain you have the dedication to be a Thrain in the first place. You know what that guy's most successful quality was that caused even the real petty, small staffers to help him out? He got people involved. Which is a far cry from the constant talk I hear about wanting to do it alone and not be connected with anyone else. He got out there, he presented a cause to players and they followed. Can you do that? Can you really? Maybe Thrain won't be reincarnated because staff TPS reports, but maybe he also won't because players. I remember a player years ago who sadly disappeared one day halfway through his role. He played a Rinth elf whose virtual family was obsessed with collecting shoes. I forget the reason why, but it was really nicely written in his background. I don't know how this kid did it, but he convinced quite a few of the other elves (back when more people played them) to help his cause. There must have been about six people running all over Nak at one point trying to steal people's shoes for him. Mostly it meant shadowing them and stealing it when they sleep after a spar or a hunt for faster regen, but it still made me chuckle. It could have been something important like stealing anakore-claw gloves, or wrist sheathes, but nope. He just wanted people's shoes and nothing else. Not even their money! He didn't even keep the shoes as far as I could tell, he just junked them, RPing handing them out to his relatives. And that's the sort of inspiration that's needed in this game. Someone who doesn't need the code and is willing to work around the code's limitations, someone who can come up with an IC need, even if it doesn't provide any coded benefit. That's the kind of player I would want to empower as a staffer. And that's what defines real independence to me, not this wish to simply not be involved in anyone else's shit and to do it yourself. As I see it, it doesn't entirely matter if all the things you say about the staffers are true. What are the players doing to compensate? So you didn't get your curtain in the Folley turned into a door. So what? I know it sucks, but can you try and think up a goal that is more player oriented?



I don't know. I realize this is a huge digression from the original point of the Vanth and Kronibas dalliance But I guess what I'm saying is sometimes you have to roll with the punches and accept what happened. So you kicked a woman in the heart and she got snippy with you, maybe she did something unprofessional even. I hope the feminazis will pardon the expression, but be a man about it, dude. Keep that sort of incident to yourself, you only tarnish your own reputation by sharing it publicly. Worry about your own integrity and not anyone else's, and show everyone here that you really are the stand up guy that you are. I'm not saying this to be accusatory, but rather brotherly. You're a solid player. I was wildly impressed with your Tan Muark hijack of the Kadian wagon back in the day, and I was fairly certain you were a really young kid back then too, which makes it even more impressive. It was classic Armageddon MUD. I also liked your style of play with the Kadian agent. He was a real persona in my eyes, siting behind his desk, giving out orders to his minions. I could write oodles more, but most of it would give away my identity. And, yes, I may care to return to staff some day (beware, Cognitive Dissonyr!) In closing I'll just say there really are two sides to the story. If you know already the people you are dealing with are likely to be petty, why give them that chance to exercise their infancy? You don't have to be an asskisser to be extra polite. I'm out of the loop these days with who's who, so I can't exactly tell you that this staffer or that staffer is one of the good guys. But I know they're out there. I'm writing all this to say how I saw things and what sort of actions from the players would motivate me to want to get involved with their story rather than the 100 other players who also want something. And I can't stress enough the point that got me writing all this in the first place: diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy. And just so it's said, when I stress this, guys, I'm also talking to you, staffers who are surely listening.

I am going to go out on a limb here.... The TLDR to Kronibas' entire complaint is thus... The staff poisoned the well and it's never tasted right since and no one has ever acknowledged what happened either.

Arguably, Nyr tried to, but his bias against me prevented him from going to full monty. 

He already didn't like me at that point, though, so for him to recognize that /anything/ was fucked up means that he plainly saw that I was treated unfairly... He just did not want to fully remove the screws.