f13.net

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=68032

What am I supposed to take from this?

I guess I'd have to have some background.

I've had an account there for eight years and never felt the need to make a single post.  That's a pretty epic admin tantrum though.

Nothing really, it's just an admin behaving like an idiot in the giant circlejerk that is Q23. Q23 is like FoH, except somehow less relevant with worse in-jokes than the ones that Reddit steals from 4chan.

They did have the epic Hatoful Boyfriend thread though, so there's that.

I didn't even know that site existed, nor do I know now even what it is remotely about.

I don't like to shit on people I don't know much about, but that admin guy seems rather... I don't know.  Sort of like I want to offer him a few nails to go with that cross he's flaunting about.

What kind of a fucking moron unbans everyone and just lets people run completely wild and is then surprised at how bad it gets? ON THE INTERNETZ of all places?  :headscratch:

I'll probably get banned, for posterity though:

Epic QQ.

e- heh


I thought I had an unused account set up there, but I don't see my name in the users. Now I feel left out!

Like the image :awesome_for_real:

Lum has post up about it too.

The Quarter To Three Refugee Camp (http://www.brokentoys.org/2012/01/04/the-quarter-to-three-refugee-camp/)

Here's a PR Release for you:

It is not the official position of f13 to adopt users from circlejerks such as Q23 no matter how hard Tom Chick wants to fall on his own knife.

How did Lum form his own Banned from LtM?

A finely honed sense of irony.

I was just about to post how reading a few pages of that felt eerily familiar.  Heh.

I do not miss ye olde forum drama of old.

This could have happened back when I was off work for the holidays, but no.  Thanks, Tom.  I'll not be reading 20+ pages of "wut" just to distill some good old forum drama.  Not today, at least.

 :hello_kitty_2:

Is this the same guy that writes the Chick Tracts ?

He seems the same.

I'm Confused. But that's OK. Its my normal state.

Tom Chick is not Jack Chick.

But he's close to as crazy.

The Tl:dr is that Qt3 is another Lum diaspora site that, for the last few years has been run by Tom Chick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Chick). Tom is the only moderator on the site and has strenuously resisted calls to either share the burden or allow a more egalitarian regime depending on how you want to frame it.

Back in August Tom posted a poll (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=66299) on whether to allow avatars on the site which many people construed as being a passive-aggressive swipe at some recent threads suggesting things like spoiler tags and smileys be added. Everytone is taken somewhat aback and there are a few pages of people alternately taking Tom seriously and assuming it's all somekind of prank when, on page 5 (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=66299&page=5) it all blows up and Tom flames out, bans himself, unbans everyone else he's ever banned and disappears into the desert for forty days and nights before returning to post the thread that Schild linked upthread.

Qt3 is a diaspora site? Never knew that, probably the only site where I've never had an account.

Sounds like pretty standard "hate it but too invested to quit so is going to lash out."  Like me and DAoC at the end.

Well, didn't you ban WUA?   :oh_i_see:  And Sand?  

 :grin:

Edit:  I'm honestly amazed at how bent out of shape and serious people can get about their internets.  Some of these idiots probably sit at home with a gun to their head after a negative interaction. 

He didn't ban WUA. Trippy did.  WUA pretty much banned himself.   Sand's was a ban avoidance ban, which doesn't count for anything.

That situation was too convoluted for me to dissect.  That post should probably be greener than it might appear. 

Read thread, see Brad Wardell post, get mad about Elemental all over again. Good times.

 :awesome_for_real:

WUA is banned?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHA
PKed off f13.

Dude. It's been fucking months (closer to a year). Do try to keep up. I was barely reading my own site because I'd want to talk and couldn't and even I knew about that.

Eh, whatever. Only time I noticed WUA was when he'd try to troll me into a PK/trammel slap fight. He was mostly background noise to me otherwise.

Now, Sand must be a recent one...

Slayerik, Here is some background. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21696.0) I was in the same boat re: WUA until I read that thread.

To be fair, the reason people are in the dark about the WUA ban, and others, is because - ahem, we're not Tom Chick.

Now we're full circle. Let's go back to laughing about that train wreck.

OMG Lum stole my avatar that I stole from Qt3!

It's pretty funny that Sinij was the first responder in the comments of Lums assessment of the Q23 situation. 

Schadenfreude?

Where else would Sinij go? Broughden is too stupid to know another site exists for the children we eat, so Lum may be spared of that one.

I didn't mean for that to come off as a complaint. Learning that WUA was ragequit/banned was an aha! moment for me, and I was sharing in the discovery.

Didn't actually take it as a complain. No worries.

Your avatar is calming (yes, I've seen the full image).

Yeah.  They banned finally Matt Gallant (and his wife) and his alts for the trolling I thought. I've had an account there maybe 6-7 years?  Same kind of activity as AP.

Quick, everyone provoke schild into a genocidal bannination and we can all reunite the diaspora on Lum's new blog/forum/thing!

Wait, was his wife Angie Gallant? She was the one who posted the best thread on that forum!  :ye_gods:

Yeah her content was the only content there I bothered with. Invite her here, what's the worst that could happen.  :why_so_serious:

Nah, we're good. She's already peaked.

She would upset our carefully cultivated 9.7 male-to-female ratio. And if she is straight it would REALLY screw things up.

It's that high?  Which of you guys are masquerading as dudes, then?

People sometimes think I'm a dude, does that count?

9.7 seems low, not high.
We have a counter to you, but I'm not going to call him out on it.

No, Paelos isn't a girl.   :oh_i_see:

Now, now- it is just a strange coincidence that Furiously never plays male characters in MMOGs.

Someone should worship Tom Chick to see if they get mazed.

I hope it's Kildorn!

The perfect way to throw people off is by having "Man" right in your name.

You also don't grow a mustache like Muffin unless you are a really hot chick.  

Edit:  back on topic a bit-  Chick should really get some moderators that he trusts.  The people here do a good job and probably save you a lot of headaches, schild. 

 :angryfist:

Not any more, at any rate.

I notice Schild is now banned over there. Nice last post, though.

Not only a bad admin, but an unfun one. I always put reasons when applicable.

I bet he doesn't even look at usernames when he's on banning sprees.

He desperately needs staff. I could have posted a thousand dicks a thousand different times and driven his entire userbase away over the course of a day. One man can not run a community alone, I don't care what size it is.

I was tempted to see if I could get banned with my first post, something fairly bland like a "hey guys what's going on in this thread" image, but resisted the impulse as the guy does seem to be having some kind of breakdown.  Also he signs his posts which I've always been very suspicious about.

1st rate drama though.

He's not having a breakdown. He's always been a sort of ego-driven self-interested douchey. As such, I'm fairly sure this is the constant state of his clearly 1st-world-agonizing sort of life.

You said it.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

A lot of old Usenet people have that post-signing tic, since the format of that often didn't easily identify you, but dude... it is 2011.

It's a common habit for people who started out with Usenet in the early 90's.  Back then, the conventions were those of a correspondence, rather than a conversation.  And once you've gotten in that habit, it's not easy to break (nor does there seem to be much of a point).

--Dave

Apart from pissing everyone else off.

 :mob:

No it isn't.  :why_so_serious:

Q23 is an online community, not an episode of "Family Ties".

"Be civil" is about as good as it gets, particularly if you let people talk about controversial issues such as politics, abortion or tanks versus mechs.

"I made this thread about the topic of my moderation.  If you post in this thread about my moderation using language that isn't over-the-top pandering, I will shoot you.  By the way, this is totally not a honeypot."

 :oh_i_see:

Tom Chick has been around a while, and possibly his most famous mis-step (that I'm aware of) was giving Deus Ex a low score when he reviewed it at launch (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/29/tom-chick-the-man-who-hated-deus-ex/).

Other than that, he's been a reasonable writer when I've looked at his work, but in this particular event he has let the Drama consume him rather than getting some extra admins in to keep things clean.

There's also an utter failure to recognize that the value of an online community is mostly down to the content generated by, and the interaction between the members of said community, and he's now got a lot of that value walking out the door.

All of my many annoying mannerisms, and *that* is the one that tickles your ragey bone?

--Dave

The Elemental thread there is beyond epic and worthy of shoving into a time capsule.

Do they have a bloodbowl league and if so can we have a tournament between us and them?

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1143749/BrokenForum.jpg)

 :awesome_for_real:

Either that, or his definition of irreconcilable differences is "I really, really, want to ban that person."  Thanks guys, this shit is comedy gold!

That is delicious. I mean I get the not wanting people to post FOR other people once they've been banned, because that is obnoxious, but it's still funny to read.

You could look at it as I've gotten in the habit of making fun of it since the Century of the Fruitbat and it's not easy to break  :why_so_serious:

It's obnoxious here, but here you normally need to be retarded, ignore whichever mod it is threatening to pull the car over until you get temp banned, and then log on as a sockpuppet to call Trippy a faggot to actually get permabanned, and at that point not many are going to be rushing to your defense because you very blatantly dug the fucking hole you're in.

Qt3, on the other hand appears to be a complete fucking shitshow orchestrated by one man who fancies himself to be far more magnanimous than he actually is.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1143749/AP_First_Post.jpg)

 :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, that got me too.  It's like AP had planned this YEARS ago.

He should have signed it  :awesome_for_real:

The response made it for me.

No comment. ;D

This is getting me through the SWTOR downtime, thanks a lot for that. I have 5 tabs open trying to piece together the whole story and fail badly. But it is great entertainment.

I hate you, because I didn't think of it.  He still might ban me though.

Tom Chick has always struck me as somewhat deranged. IIRC he hated No More Heroes - ok, whatever, that's his prerogative. But the reason why he hated it was that he was INCREDIBLY OFFENDED that the game made fun of gamers. (In his mind)

Like, super super offended. Now, it's obvious to any sane human being that the people who made No More Heroes are in fact video game developers making a game for video game players and probably don't hate video games and their players. The game poked a little good-natured fun at gamers and Otakus in a way that was really self-deprecating humor given that the makers are those same gamers and Otakus. It takes an incredibly humorless and warped person to be incredibly offended by that.

It's like if Abagadro was all "Parks and Recreations is the worst TV show of all time and I find it's depiction of government highly offensive on a personal level!"

And of course Chick has no problem blasting the hell out of things he doesn't like. Very typical fragile-egoed bully.

Forum moderators are mostly high-tech school bus drivers. They wield incredibly inconsequential power like petty dictators.

Edit: It's kind of like the old saying that fights in academics are so bitter because the stakes are so low.

I knew it!  :why_so_serious:


Is the crazy still going over there? I would look but I have to take my cat to the vet in a few minutes.

How many "I have dropped a glass of water on the floor" posts have there been in that thread so far?

I don't know, based on the surprise in the community over who was banned (also history) I could conclude that he does look, if only to check if it's someone inside his circle.


I agree with your analysis.

He got banned for that, I guess.  He isn't in the member list any more.

I get this image in my head when I hear an admin bitching about bannings:

I get this one:

So that's what all you guys look like......  :oh_i_see:

Why, you smelling lucrative dental work contracts ?

 :why_so_serious:

I never really think of the admins here as admins. not in the traditional sense.  Most forum admins are like the Q23 guy where they will come down and smite like a wrathful god. Green names here are more like grouchy bartenders whose main rule is "Don't be a complete cockbag" and will generally be easy going about things.

Granted I've never actually tried trolling here(laugh it up! my posts are all genuine, even if they might seem otherwise) but it takes a good amount of effort to get banned here, where other forums  ^ I've seen people banned for literally saying "I don't think this site is as good as it used to be" and other such nonsense.

btw whatever happened to boog?

I think Boog was banned in like the first week of F13.

Took two posts, I was going to leave it, but he really did seem to be in danger of disappearing up his own arse.

Its hard for me to grasp how someone would want to moderate a forum while simultaneously not wanting to participate in the forum.

Boog wasn't banned until 2009, if ever.  http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=profile;u=217

He just thought Schild was a douche and wanted no part of things when Joe handed-off the site.  He disappeared off the internet for a while in 2008, prompting Pika to actually call his house wondering if he was OK.   He went back to corp for a while then disappeared again, only to come out of retirement for Lum's forums for a whopping 7 posts.  http://brokenforum.com/index.php?members/boogaleeboo.247/

If you really want to find him, he's probably still in the #hate IRC channel, as that's what that crew were really about.   The forums were only used when a member wasn't able to get to IRC but had 'net access.

For crying out loud, just shut the damned things down if you don't want to foot the bill for a bitchfest and you're thin-skinned.  Turning baiting you into a sport only works if you're getting paid for it (see SA).

--Dave

I wonder if Schild has ever thought of F13 as his living room?

He wishes his living room had us to class it up.

Oh man that thread was fucking hilarious. I loved Boog but completely agreed with Schild's ban, he was trolling 90% of his posts even if he was funny with it. He was funny but he wasn't really a constructive poster and when half your posts are about the new people running the site, well... I had never bothered to read Q23 at all and this guy's position seems to boil down to, "Well so-and-so was a reasonable poster with valid points but ultimately they voiced criticisms of me so they had to go." He sounds like the kind of dick that invites a bunch of people over to his house for drinks and then stands up and screams that one of his friend's of friend's has to get out now because they made a joke about how Stella's a crappy beer to be serving people. Yeah it's your house and some guy's making jokes/criticisms about your generosity but if they're not being a dick doing it then, even if it's your right to kick them out, it doesn't stop you being a cunt for making a scene over it.

Sadly I don't think he can ban me from a site I've never been to, maybe I should register and repost this so he can feel better?

Checking a few of Boog's posts on Lum's forums brought me to this particularly interesting conjunction of posters.

(http://i.imgur.com/K7tLF.jpg)

LOL.  Surprised whatever server farm hosts Lum's site didnt dissapear into a black hole shortly after that one.

That is goddamned horrifying.

Lum, are you trying to get him to ban you?

Eh, I guess I came in slightly after most of them were douching it up here - I only know DV from his terrible F13 UT2004 play.  :oh_i_see:

You had more restraint than I would. I'd have started with the Goatman and gone from there.  :awesome_for_real:

Man, I don't even know Geldon and seeing anything he posts makes my eye twitch. It's very weird.

On the other hand he's got a fucking spot on Avatar.

All you need to know about Geldon is he forecast WoW would crash and burn because it was too casual.  If you want to stare into the abyss an old repost is located at this link. (http://www.mycodedontstink.com/solutions/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5305)

I mean, I vaguely know OF Geldon. But I've only read a handful of things he's written (and I will probably go to your link, and then hate myself for it, but KEEP READING IT), and each and every one has made me sort of wish I could smack someone through the internet. It's amazing.

The best part of this Q23 stuff is how he adopts this incredibly passive-aggressive attitude of either asking people to leave or banning them then wailing about how said he was that he just had to ban them for the terrible crime of pointing out that he just banned 3 other people for no real reason. Trying to put an extremely logical and understanding veneer over actions that obviously stem from emotional retardation.

I've read a couple forums like this where the moderation is set up to encourage sycophancy, usually getting banned myself at some point.

I don't really get the appeal of the guy in the first place. Most of his stuff is pure click-bait and most reviews he does are specifically given to him by people who want a game savaged since that's kind of his schtick. And most of his negative reviews these days are just variations on "I'm too dumb to grasp this game."

The "Oh God, why? Why do they keep making me do this? When I love them so much?" aspect is my favorite part.

If you really want it all I've still got all of his forum postings and stories from many years gone by archived.

Someone needs to throw a GLaDOS image with pithy comment into the thread.  It would fit so well.

*walks into thread for the first time, reads up on the last four pages of stuff*

Man, this Internet thing is weird.   :popcorn:

*walks out*

All you need to know about Geldon is in that one line on Lum's.

"Hey guys lol at everything! We should all talk about me for a bit! I'm probably the most important poster in this thread now."

Wait is Geldon also Hyu? I forget but aside from lacking "my girlfriend is a hawt asian," That seems to sum him up.

No, though both use other people's forums as their personal blogs.

Do you have any of mine? There are some law and games bits that I no longer possess. At one point, Bartle was using one as a reading assignment for a class. I have been meaning to spam him with other stuff in that vein.

Naw, Geldon is more of the self-aware self-loathing type with a lot of self-importance/I am a smart guy, really! added in. I used to troll the shit out of him for assuming he was an expert on a subject because he had read an article/book on it. Man, I was a real asshole to him at times. I almost feel bad about it, but lolinternet, I guess.

Hyu is mediocre or telemediocrity or some variation of that.  He's more of a troll who likes to get a rise out of people, and forum trolling is his entertainment.


Geldon is a sad, sad person.  He was the guy that got canned from a CSR job for posting on a forum too much, and just all around seems to be the stereotypical internet shut in type with limited social skills.  He used to be just annoying, but he turned into writing long winded posts about anything that were essentially the blog posts of a sad person....  and also posting immediately, then editing whatever folderol he posted after a few people had responded to him.

I found the guy exceptionally annoying, but you also feel kind of sorry for him.

Bathroom maybe?   :grin:

I have everything from the last 10 years of fora\sites I worked for.  If you want I can dig it all out and get your articles for you.

Brad Wardell is a staggeringly awesome shitposter.

How is Lum not banned on that forum yet?  :why_so_serious:

He cleverly orchestrated this all to steal all of the Q23 notables for his own forum projects, of course he would escape the backlash.

A ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Man...good one.

I finally got around to looking at that.  Holy shit.

I feels like I'm participating in some weird kind of experiment in forumology or whatever.

A forum you frequent where people you know and like is disintegrating because the person who technically owns it was secretly a douchebag waiting to settle a number of old grudges, real or imagined, all along.  So yeah, the weird vibes you're getting is entirely understandable.

I laugh because I don't have a dog in this fight, with the occasional twinge of feeling sorry for you poor bastards who have been kicked out or forced to choose.  You?  I bet the entire fucking thing makes you sick to your stomach.

I really just don't get it.


A forum is a community. You don't own a community. At best, you own the recreation center where the community gathers.

I've danced on the razor's edge a couple times and finally just gave up on trying to explain to Tom how he is making people feel.


Now I'd just settle for an end to unseemly gloating and attacks on posters no longer present to defend themselves.

This is the internet, we trample the corpses after they are dead.

Hey, when someone flames out or ragequits, there should probably be a mandatory mocking period.


When the admin returns from a ragequit with an inaccurate hit list and sweeps out a whole chunk of folks...that's different.

Except not so secret. Like being a douchebag is kind of his whole gimmick.

This is a guy who banned people over and argument over The Hurt Locker lol.

I thought you were referring to Brad Wardell.  Who, as an excellent specimen of the common internet cumbucket, is indeed trampling the dead.

Tom Chick?  Yeah, I've got no explanation.  I can't even get my own life sorted out, but I'm pretty sure if I suffered in exile a three month rage boner for someone that upon my eventual return I'd go completely fucking night of the long knives on the right fucking people.

I've become too used to things here, because that forum? Nothing like this one. That way lies the wasteland man.

I didn't see any need to be a complete ass about it.

He left you wide open for that joke.

Good lord no, why would I want to subject myself to that?  I didn't read Grimwell's site when it was live because of him, why would I want to attempt it now?

Now this, this is a fine piece of English right here.

I can't stand passive aggressive pussies sensitive New Age guys. The sucking up, the favoritism and the shit stirring are very entertaining. Who gets banned? Let's spin the wheel and find out!

I liked Entrepreneur but when did Brad Wardell become Serek Dmart?




(haha! I see what you did there, very clever - I had always thought that was done manually.)

I never knew we had wordfilters here on F13.  :awesome_for_real:

Have to for some key words.  Otherwise peoples google alerts will go off like an air raid siren and a scorched earth policy would have to be instituted.

Its glorious in its destruction.   :cthulu:

There have been times when I have been tempted to either invoke He Who Must Not Be Named, or track down where he's currently manifested, just so I could have the Mother Of All Flame Wars with him.  Just tempted, then I hit myself in the head with a hammer and the urge goes away.

--Dave

I would have suggested taunting Brad Wardell but he just got temp-banned for his little Stardock Supernova last night/this morning.

He certainly seemed vengeful and ragetastic enough for a bit there, lol.

No matter how crazy that Tom guy is, you have to laugh at the faithful stroking his ego in that thread through their own free will.  "oh this must have been so stressful for you Tom, here, have a pealed grape, please don't ban me".

I'm guessing we can't register now over there just to call him a cock-knocker?

I think he's vetting new accounts now. Or again, depending on your perspective.

Not entirely sure that that has been implemented though.

He was also supposed to be implementing an infractions system but has encountered technical difficulties.

I'd have suggested making sure it works before returning with the terrible swift banhammer and announcing it. ~shrug~

I particularly enjoyed the part where he warned you, Xerapis, while the shit stirrers continued with free rein (although I felt bad for you).

What a big load of crazy that place has become. Well, it beats boring at least.

I came extremely close to exploding at that point.

The bias is just infuriating.


Just like with Brad Wardell BLATANTLY instigating later in the thread and suddenly Tom is doing 3-day bans instead and tosses in two other posters.

~smh~

It is rather odd that he's acting like he's shooting Ole Yellar everytime he bans someone.

He doesn't want to ban people, he just absolutely has to. Because, you know, mumble mumble!

To be honest, the whole way he expresses himself about banning people can come across as a little creepy sometimes.


Like a parent spanking a child and saying "this hurts me more than it hurts you" or something.


And banning people who announce they're leaving...yeesh. I get what he means from a practical standpoint but there is just no way in hell it ain't being perceived as petty and vindictive.

More abusive boyfriend to me, personally. Where he loves them SO MUCH, why do they have to make him hit them?!

So I think it's conclusive.  Tom Chick likes to beat on women.  It should be a meme.  

So wait, this is the same Tom Chick who appeared in West Wing and other shitty roles?  And he finally upgraded to that shitty forum as admin?  Holy fuck, batman.

The era of forums like these is... diminishing.

Soon we'll all sail over the sea.

Looks to be so.

You can take that either way, but rather than clarifying the matter, I'll leave it as-is.

I'm not getting on any boats with elves.

Xerapis why are you spending so much effort carefully arguing with someone who is clearly deranged?

Tom Chick is a straight up crazy douche. And not only that but he's a bad writer who has been totally irrelevant for years. (Note: his "new job" is no job at all lol)

It boggles my mind why anyone would want to come to any sort of understanding with such a person. Were I you I would either go out in an awesome blaze of glory or just ignore his highness and talk to the people on his forum actually worth talking to. Your "can't we all just get along" attitude is a little odd given that you are trying to get along with an emotionally retarded vindictive dunce.

Maybe I'm just an asshole but I don't see why everybody needs to be friends with everyone else completely regardless of merit.

I think you nailed the issue on you'd approach it differently.  :grin:

Yeah, I didn't know he was gone until the Steam thread. I thought he just took some time off.

Schild - I have to give you credit there - great post on Q23

I misread your post as "ruin".

 :drill:

It seems like Tom has been nutso on moderation before all this blew up.  Edit to be clear, nutso, as in selectively editing, deleting posts and lying about it, I don't care about him banning anyone he wants to.

Archive post  (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/archive/index.php/t-65837.html)from a well spoken guy in August.

Wait, he's having trouble implementing an infractions system that's built into vBulletin?  Seriously?

This is a guy who banned someone because their name was similar to another person who annoyed him, and a guy who in most reviews complains that he can't understand the game he is reviewing. So this should be of little surprise.

Meh.  Chick may be crazy, but it sounds as if they are just having a long overdue dump of their Politics board fanatics.  Not that we have any of those around here......  :oh_i_see:

We have a politics board?

It whiles away the time during Shit Game Releases.

So nonstop?

Lately, yes.

Though Batman AC was good and so was Skyrim.  Just over too soon.

I'm still working on both of those.  So far Skyrim hasn't deleted any NPCs that I require for the main quest.

I do feel bad for the people whose community was lost over at Q23, same as I do for people whose riverside house floods after a torrential rain.  Maybe move into the hills, away from Tom.

So I guess I'll thank Schild for not being a raging admin dick.

Also, I send him money for serverz yearly so we can have nice things. You all should too. Especially you lurker types.

Wait sinij is banned? That made this year's contribution worth it. :grin:

Just caught up on the last few days, and holy shit the Brad Wardell stuff is  :awesome_for_real:.

The asylum is in good hands people, just don't look him directly in the eye, it upsets him.

No, that's really not what's happening here. A lot of people banned never really posted much in P&R, many of the more excitable P&R posters aren't banned.

StGabe (http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/islands-of-misfit-toys-the-qt3-diaspora.245/page-22#post-12179)

I almost responded there and then thought, I'm more interested in what people here think.  It would be nice to see some new posters here, any plans for the front page?

Edited to remove a sentence that annoys Margalis.

99% of the time moderation works in favor of cliques rather than against, especially on sites that are centered on sycophancy and a cult of personality.

The idea that Tom Chick banning people because they disagree with his opinion on The Hurt Locker somehow fights against cliquishness is more than a little odd.

Well I think StGabe is a little odd, but I was more interested in the first two sentences than the third, which was why I focused on new blood rather than the relativity low level of banning events here.

There, edited it out.  

edit 2 Ah ok, I honestly hadn't read his last posts here, if I had I wouldn't have brought this up.

There is an element of truth to what he says. It's probably not apparent to most of the long-term posters here because you're used to it, but the level of actual debate between people with differing viewpoints here is extremely low, and mostly consists of opposing camps attempting to browbeat each other and treating conflicting views as if they are a foreign language.

However, that doesn't stop f13 from being mostly entertaining, often informative and rarely offensive, which isn't a combination found in many other online communites that I've frequented.

Man, Good Old Hanzii.  I wondered where he went ! 

Good to see he's still alive.

God, I don't even remember some of that stuff.

Schild said what needed to be said about StGabe in particular.

As to the other bits, yes we do treat new posters a bit rough, (or did, things have mellowed in the last 5 years.)  Gabe was run-off in Dec 2006 - 5 years ago.  Here's the Profile link to peruse his/her postings. http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=profile;u=884;sa=showPosts

Rather than confess to being wrong, finding something to back-up their points and support their argument or simply saying "meh, whatever guys" he ran off.   The usual fragile-egoed response to being unable to back your shit up.  We don't hate new people we just want them to back it up with valid arguments.  Given the .edu address at the time Gabe was one of the first of the "participation trophy" generation who upon being actually challenged chose to protect their ego rather than examine their argument. 

The fact that the community HAS added many more people to replace the ones who have left in that 5 year period is the best refutation of the 'no new memberz!' line Gabe is trying to push.   Unless I somehow missed Sojfn, Ingmar, etc on previous boards.   The last 18 months has seen a dearth of actual posters, but I attribute that to web forums dying as Facebook & Twitter take over more than our particular brand of fire and brimstone.   It'd be like an old Usenet group bitching that nobody new reads their feeds.

There's definitely a point to be made, check the posters in this thread, then check the last two years worth of members by registration date on the member list, while glancing at their post counts.  But as I quoted someone who's a bit odd, I wouldn't be off to a good start making it here, I'm just not sure we could get past that.

Besides, there's always the chance that people prefer things how they are.

I could easily defend the view that expressing an opinion might get everyone to gang up and shout you down, and I challenge everyone to call me on that one  :why_so_serious:

I tried to drop it because I could easily see how Margalis might think I was having a dig at him, when Gabe's last thread was just a fluke and I wasn't.

I did look at the list, which is why I said the last 18 months of reg. were pretty bleak.  I gave my own explanation for it up above.

That said, yes, there are some topics which the community groupthink has decided are done and will shout-down naysayers about.  Or old topics that don't need to be rehashed just because a fresh-faced person thinks they have a new idea which then turns out to be one of the points already ground into pate. That's the baggage of being an old community.

I think we could.

When I eventually go out I hope it's over something better than me claiming that Lost introduced some sort of amazing and new character-driven story structure that makes all older fiction and writing techniques pale by comparison.


Why would I consider you quoting a dude on another forum who did not mention me a dig at me? Maybe I am "popular posters"?  :awesome_for_real: Like, I don't even get how I could possibly see that as a dig.

Communities ossify, especially when there isn't a good way to attract new people. (IIRC I started reading Waterthread after seeing a link on Slashdot) I would also say that Waterthread originally was centered around MMOs, but MMOs are no longer the exciting new frontier they once were.

Well, you are approaching 10,000.

I like this place for the rough edges. If that is a barrier to some people then it is also appealing to others. The "stacks on" thing can be misplaced sometimes, but mostly it's not; it's just the more experienced and mature members of the forum poking those who step out of line so that there doesn't need to be draconian moderation.

I would be interested to see if forums generally are dying. I would be surprised if that was the case, but then I really dislike Facebook and don't have a clue what is going on over in that realm of the social Internet.

The fact people aren't coming here as much as before might be due to the origins of the site, the lack of any big Warhammer-like events raising awareness around other parts, and no frontpage stuff. Also schild not being here as much in recent times.

Indeed. In ye olde days of yore, we attracted a fair amount of attention (and people) via our journalistic integrity and no-holds-barred exclusives, like the Vanguard thing. Since then, we've mostly attracted people by referral through F13-affiliated gaming groups.

Over the past two years, fewer MMO groups have formed through the site and fewer still have lasted very long. Take a look at the Gaming Graveyard, if you will.

I wonder if he would say the same now.

It's funny reading that old thread, I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about the difference in design between games now and games of the past, and I'm pretty sure I could point to many ways in which modern design sensibilities have changed for the worse. (Exhibit A: preponderence of kill rooms)

Quick, someone make StGabe come back so I can argue with him some more.  :awesome_for_real:

Edit: Guys, you know I hate to self-aggrandize but check this out:


NAILED IT!

Edit2: Oh my god, reading that old thread I picked out that exact same line about Lost and even bolded the same words! Scary. Great minds think alike!

Edit3: Ha forgive me, it's 5 AM my time, I have that late night crazyness thing.

I think you just did.

I'm going to go with lol.

Useless aside as this topic's gone offrails.. wtf is up with the Lost references in the last 24h.  Rerun of Locke's first Hawaii 5-0 appearance, Woot & now Margalis dredging up the old argument. Weird coincidences are weird.

You are actually the victim of a 1987 plane crash and the references you are seeing to Lost is your brain starting to put together the pieces as you emerge from your coma.

Elements of Lost will increasingly permeate your existence, until finally you rewatch the pilot episode and recognize yourself sitting on the plane.

The worst bit will be seeing the numbers 7, 21 & 51 everywhere.

I'd be ok with that if I get to do Penny.

As an old Usenet hand who wrangled a (originally EQ-related) web forum for years, this is pretty much it.  Most of the people who frequented that old site wandered off to Real Life, other cliques, and other forms of social media.   The vast majority of web forums in general that remain these days seem to be clique-oriented, targeted very narrow in scope (and thus attract no one), or attract a very heavy 16-22 crowd.

Despite being through a representative sample of the Lum diaspora sites over the years, I've never heard of this Chick guy, nor have frequented this specific forum - but his actions and antics are far from novel in the realm of moderating sites likes these.  Beware ye olde admin flameout.

Three years ago I got a job that kept me from writing about games in any capacity. That job turned into a bigger job with even more restrictions. Now I have no restrictions but I have absolutely no desire to write about shit because the gaming industry is full of man-babies. Unmarketable swaths of idiots that provide simply no entertainment to me anymore. When I hear about a game company being successful now, I'm more surprised by that than if one of their executives decided to go on a cocaine binge during GDC (this example was made up).

Many bloggers and dramatic types never got bored of the gaming industry. This is either due to their lack of exposure to the gaming industry or being part of the problem. Normal is on the fringe.

I've toyed around with writing exclusively about super indie shit, but I stepped back from it because there isn't much of a story to "I made this, people liked it." Creative people doing good things is good for the industry. Creative people doing good things on their own is even better for the industry. Unfortunately it makes for super uninteresting conversation. I've no desire to talk about games as art. That conversation is annoying as any conversation can be. I've also no desire to interview these people. Interviews without a massive dose of insanity are just PR and fall under "doing this would be a waste of my time" when categorized in my head.

In other words, I won't be writing about games in the near future. Nor will I ask any of the mods/writers to do that either. There will never be another executive as dumb or frothing mad as Brad McQuaid, so you likely won't see any interviews either. The frontpage will languish as a relic to a time that once was - and I will continue to deal with PR in my inbox with the "Mark as Spam" button. Upon the time we no longer receive enough donations to keep the forums going, it's at that time we'll decide how to proceed with the website. I've no desire to shut it down though, since I care a great deal about the majority of you. We will keep our strict enforcement of rules that we make up on the fly.

tl;dr: Tom Chick is still a fucko who doesn't deserve a community. f13 in its current state is likely f13 in its future state. I like games, but the industry that makes them has a great deal of maturing to do.

Addendum: To address some points above - Lum can have all those posters. The vast majority of them strike me as awful people as they were able to tolerate Q23 for so long. I'm sure they'll mix in well with the people who were banned over here years ago. I wonder how oil interacts with internet down syndrome juice.

I could interview Iain for the front page. I would do it in a Bond villain character and only really talk about painting minis, saying "No, I expect you to PAINT, Mr. Compton."

Then I could interview Raph about alternate tunings.

We could have a whole new life as a website that interviews developers but never about games or the industry.

No, wait. I'm lazy. Never mind.

I was thinking more of Haemish's Lineage 2 review, reposted after a find/replace of "Lineage 2" with "Lineage 3" and the character images updated with dinosaur heads.

But I was secretly hoping for a Tom Chick interview.

Interviewing Tom Chick would be boring and not with my, or anyone's time. He has no insight to provide, isn't important to the gaming industry in any fashion, and offers nothing of value.

Basically, no. Interviewing one of the Austin 6th Street hobos would be more interesting.

We still aren't doing green?

Interviewing Hobos would be good.  You could provide tea and chocolate biscuits during the interview and call it Hobnobs with Hobos.

Winner.

And think of the aftereffects. The Q-band will find the article, parse through Chick's responses in search of new inconsistencies, register dozens of new user accounts, and proceed to shit up the accompanying News thread into an epic spiral of interlocking martyrdom and recrimination.

Which might sound like fun, but I've attempted to read Q23 and the new Lum forum. Blech. They've already provided us with a train wreck to gawk at, let's leave it at that.

The lack of front page updates or any sort of "buzz-generating" stories is a good part of what has kept new users out of here. A lot of the newbies that come and stay come as a result of being linked here like any other site on the web that doesn't really market itself at all. We haven't had a good asspolsion in a while. The Warhammer starfucking was the last big one I can remember. Since then, there really hasn't been a lot of "scandal-worthy" stories to post about in gaming, and most of the devs people might have come to the site for are no longer the hot rock star devs of the MMOG or gaming community. Raph barely posts and I don't think many people even know what he's working on, Mark Jacobs rightly fucked off to Facebook games because he couldn't take having cratered so badly with a sure hit franchise in Warhammer, Lum has his own site, and Curt Schilling fucked off to friendlier climes and hasn't released a damn game anyway. We are fossilizing. It's ok, everybody gets old.  :why_so_serious:

I love this idea!  You'll never know what you end up with, perform a community service, and we end up with possible entertainment.

Maybe do some kind of spin-off where we see how people living on the streets can design better games than most of the current industry.

A game designed by hobos would be pretty awesome.

We could be frontrunners of a new industry turning point.

I think this would be pretty cool actually. Not so much the interviewing me part but talking to game people about stuff that is interesting rather than stuff they'd normally be expected to talk about. Reminds me of the time I sat in the guest lounge at GamesDay UK and chatted with Brian May about infra-red astronomy.

I think we were all waiting for that one last MMO to unite us all, hearkening back to the days of EQ, UO, AO, etc. It never happened, and it has dawned on us that its never going to happen, so like a doomsday cult awaiting the end of days after the umpteeth failed prediction of the Second Coming MMO, we sit about in angstful chit chat about anything and everything.

By now its a way of life, so routine we do not know what else to do with ourselves. There may be one last hurrah down the line, or a series of decent communal experiences like DA and Skyrim, but that sense of being in it together in something entirely new to the world is lost. We're pioneers that found the last known border of space.

We're like Menelaus, telling Telemakhos of the golden days of war, and how he misses Odysseus. Schild is like the patient weaving Penelope, accosted by suitors yet rejecting all, awaiting the return of Odysseus, although hope dwindles with every passing month.

So poetic, Engels.

Really we're just a collection of bored geeks in various industries with a penchant for grousing on the 'net when we should be working.  There isn't even a common hobby that unites everyone here anymore, much less a common game.  It's all about 'the community.'

Fuck me, how times change.

I'm just here for the complete sentences and lack of wank.

You don't browse the T&A thread ?

Ironically, that thread has the most wank and not the fun kind. Lots of knees to sharp and all that going on there.


-edit- There's also The Hobbit thread, where I wonder how half of you go on breathing.  :why_so_serious:

Can't top EQ's player-run economy being designed by a three-legged mule drunk on cheap scotch.   :oh_i_see:

I'm really only here because Fordel kept linking me posts with news about this game or that game and eventually I replied to something and just stayed. I have no connection at all to the old EQ Lum diaspora nonsense, I came from the VN Boards for DAOC more than anything else really.  :why_so_serious:

I never felt the OH GOD NEW POSTER MUST PILE ON effect. I did post in Politics too much at first, though.

You were given a pass because you brought Sjofn along with you and this community needs a husband and wife posting team at all times.  :grin:

That, and you're now a creepy, murderous bird. And we were short one of those to balance out the various cats and token red panda.

Through only the mouth more than likely...  :why_so_serious:

I think I came here during the Vanguard nonsense, I'm not sure. A bit of new blood might be nice, but erring on keeping old blood seems nicer.

Schild is welcome to interview me about epidemiology/evolutionary dynamics if he wants, although I'm not sure what sort of people that would bring to the site. I liked IW's hobnobs idea though.

Also, does this thread mean that kildorn is a girl?

10 year old avatars ftw

Some post on Planetside brought me here.

Now I'm confused. I though Sjofn wore the pants?

I wandered in because of Fordel too, mostly! I lurked for a little while, I didn't actually register until Vanguard provided such a lovely trainwreck. I stayed because you're all so lovable.  :why_so_serious:

I came to Waterthread because Star Wars Galaxies led me there, and the site wasn't blocked by the filters at my internship.  :awesome_for_real:

I ended up at Waterthread via Player2Player.net.  I think I followed Grimwell or something, but I liked what I read and stayed around, even if I didn't know anything about the "dropped my water on the floor" joke because I was never part of the Lum Diaspora.  I was an AC player and had no clue who he was, lol!

Since we seem to be doing this: I have no idea how or when I ended up in here.

I came after the story on Brad McQuaid's classy "take everyone at Sigil to the parking lot and fire them". Thus I know nothing about anything or anyone pre-then. But I was in need of a forum to hang out at, as the forums I had hung out on were either very Chicago specific (and I no longer lived there) or lost their pizzazz as people got older/moved on.

I was a silent part (outside of the spam forums at a couple of sites) of the Lum Diaspora and just landed here and stayed.

I originally started off at the Cackling Klacknak's site (EQ humor along these lines (https://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.everquest/browse_thread/thread/1e8bcdb3a11de952/044546d1f80ad803?lnk=gst&q=inside+the+developer%27s+studio#044546d1f80ad803)), and also started following Lum's around the same time.

I've followed many various Lum Diaspora sites around over the years, but have mainly been a lurker on all of them.  This site and TMDC are likely my favorites among those thus far.

I used to read Lum's original site back in the late '90s but wasn't one for forums particularly apart from a couple of specific clan forums where I was playing far too much Diablo II. A few years ago, a friend of mine who used to read f13 but I don't think ever posted suggested I should join in here so I lurked for a bit then started posting as part of my WAR related work before going native.

I came here looking for people to talk to about flight simulators.

Did you find any?

I followed the cynicism.

Still looking. One of these days, one of you is going to come out to me.

I wandered in to Lum's place in 1999.  It was after an Evercrest comic (who else remembers those?!) spoofed and argument between Lum and a female blogger.  Said blogger felt he was the most sexist man on the internet for posting the cosplay pics of some Japanese girl who'd sent them to him.   I'm still not clear on the controversy, even after all these years.

Hah I remember that episode. IIRC, the whole thing was a scam put on by Arcadian Del Sol. He found a picture of some pretty Japanese cosplay girl and gave her a name and totally stereotypical character. What did he call her? Tamuki or something like that?

I was orphaned as a young boy when my mother and father were killed by Orcs... Oh wait. Wrong thread.

I was star-fuckin' Raph at Waterthread and have been around ever since.

I've lurked since 2000 when I came across a link to Lum's from Dr. Twister's site, I think. Only site I had over 10 posts at was The Morlocks because spamming is too much fun.

I also followed Raph and another red name (not Galenite, I forget who) also from SWG to Waterthread.  Funny ole world!

I followed a link to LtM for some UO rant. I *think* it was pre-EQ but that was a long time ago.

I wouldn't mind writing something for the front page.

Maybe a review of a Bioware game, or of the latest WOW expansion.  :awesome_for_real:

I could write a lot about FFXIV, but then I'd probably get sued. Doesn't seem worth it.

As I mentioned earlier I have been thinking a lot about the differences between old school and new school design and could write some stuff about that, not sure how interesting it would be though, it's approaching inside baseball territory. For example the fairly recent idea that games are centered around a repetitive "core gamplay loop", the shift from enemies that are essentially environmental obstacles to enemies you are you are strongly incentivized or forced to kill every last one of, various health systems over time, etc.

Writing about FFXIV wouldn't make it worth playing or worth talking about  :sad:

I set off the chain of events that resulted in the LtM diaspora (helped get Scott hired at Mythic).  I think I started on LtM back in the UO days, and wound up here by way of Slow News Day and Waterthread.

--Dave

Possibly.. I wasn't aware of the names and personnas at the time so it all blended together into a blur of "hey this site isn't half bad."

Founds Lum's site sometime in 2000 when it looked like this (http://web.archive.org/web/20001019012114/http://lumthemad.net/) and the forums like this (http://web.archive.org/web/200012060947/http://boards.xrgaming.net/forums/list.php?f=93), sometimes it had several major front page updates a day, great site, I even learnt to enjoy reading about EQ. 

Lum was always my favourite writer there, very funny, he had terrible choice in games though.

I don't remember how I ended up here but it had something to do with player2player.net blowing up and then waterthread disappearing. I don't think I posted at either place, or at corpnews or at afkgamer or at any of the other sites I lurked at. Was not part of LtM and didn't even know who he was until he was hired by Mythic. I think I was here for a few years before posting anything at all. I vaguely remember different names but have always been relatively unaware of forum drama and who's being a douchebag.

I can't remember what first lead me to Waterthread, but I'm sure it was dark and twisted and not of this world.

I think I was linked here from HRose's blog, which I had browsed occasionally for lulz after he leaked the new races for TBC. I didn't start posting until Hellgate came out, and I stuck around because sometimes I want to post/read something that isn't 4chan (the only other forum I frequent).

Thats ones easy for me. Haemish posted a series on the maturity of the modern MMOG. Most of which as one was reading was easy to see would never happen. Still damn fine writing though.

My brother was a lurker on Waterthread, and then a lurker here. I followed him here as a lurker for awhile, then started posting. Never did WT myself.

I remember reading the Stratics U-Hauler board and people were posting about this witty guy who wrote about it.  That was Lum, and it was like July\August of 1999 or something like that if I recall correctly.  And then the site changes, the implosions, the forums, the drama, the habits I couldn't break of enjoying witty banter (at times).  I still have all of those damn auto-update emails that Lum set up to email updates of his site out archived in my email folders.  And yeah, 12 year old avatars for the win, mostly because I'm too lazy to find another one.

One thing I've learned over the years at these various sites is don't take it all too seriously.

And forums for certain subjects are booming.  My automotive forums and my music boards tend to continuously bring new blood in.

Oh man, is this now the "how I found jesusf13" thread? I'm also a longtime ltm lurker -- found it in 99/2000 or so when I was searching for UO info. I don't remember what the actual article was, but I do remember that there was an animgif of some chick with big boobs from a fighting game at the bottom. :awesome_for_real: Checked back from time to time for amusement (Lumcorp, Dawn, WW2OL, that crazy flash app Lum made with AYB in it) and to keep up with the implosions/drama leading to snd, p2p, waterthread and f13/corp. Good times and whatnot.

Ohh yes, snd. I'd forgotten about that one. I read but never posted at Lum's (being an AC player), then it was snd/p2p/waterthread. Haven't the faintest clue any more what brought me to Lum's place but I do remember the waterthread!

For Arthur's question earlier, I for one would be positive towards seeing some new people posting here. Ifthe community becomes static, as we pretty much are now, natural attrition (and rare bannings) will continue to deplete the regular posters.

FWIW, my main minis wargaming forums are still packed to the gills.

Well I think schild made his position very clear, I was more interested in the subject rather than trying to influence or rock the boat.

/shrug. You asked what people think. I replied. attrition will continue to knock out the regulars here one at a time.

 :ye_gods:

They still make those ? And there are people playing them ?

Last time I fired up a flight simulatior might have been Eurofighter Typhoon or something like that. I think flight sims are what brought me to pc gaming in the first place.

And I think I google search brought me to waterthread. A few weeks later my link brought me to f13.net .

edit: Wow. EF Typhoon was released in 2001 ? Now I feel old.  :ye_gods:

There aren't to tons of flightsims being made, but there are a few still making them, and some of them even have something approaching realism.

Unlike driving games.

I joined up at Waterthread.org at some point before the switch to F13.net. I probably joined after laughing at numerous posts mocking devs for their poor design decisions.

A decade or so on and posts are still being made mocking exactly the same poor design decisions. I laugh, but the laugh has a sharper edge to it.

I don't even laugh anymore. I just want them all to quit being hired, over and over again.

I found f13 following a link to that you made on our old guild's forums.

Someone I don't remember linked a post from here in response to something on the SWG forums.  I remember none of the details.  Only that it was funny and snarky and that I enjoy those qualities.  So I started lurking here instead.  I have no fucking clue what a 'Lum Diaspora' is.  Did a bunch of people flee from Lum, or to Rum?  I'm still not entirely sure.  Both?

Like Hitler in a post-WWI Germany power vaccuum (http://web.archive.org/web/20051026201856/http://mu.ranter.net/misc/endofsnd.html)

It's like interviewing witnesses after a bad car accident, only 10 years later, the above is probably as close to accurate as, well, anything else I guess.

Thank you. I keep thinking I want to repost that series on my blog and reexamine it a decade on, like carrion scavenging through entrails. There actually have been some things that have happened out of that series. I remember seeing the music making part of APB and thinking "Someone's been reading my work... and screwing the pooch."

This all makes me feel like some sort of moldy ancient. 

"Sit down young ones, and let me tell you the tale of when I was grief titled on LTM.  I went by a different name in those days and wandered the land of Sosaria.. "

Thought this was interesting enough to repost (http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/perspective-on-qt3.368/page-12#post-14038) (there's a lot of just plain crap over there).


Forum wars, the best wars, win win on the politics front.

Yeah.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

I know I am easily amused, but I found this particular pos (http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/so-what-did-you-get-banned-for.320/page-36#post-13851)t amusing

For the record, it wasn't for him being contrarian. In addition, the admins didn't "get together" on it. He was simply a waste of flesh that deserved to mingle among the likes of Hyu, Geldon, and Grunk.

Thanks BW, didn't know about that one. I'm more drawn to WW2 flight sims, but a majestic flight sim trumps all others. We'll have to see if MS has stopped being lazy about their graphics (fat chance of that).

I was a LtM reader back in the late 90s, but had no interest in entering the forum forays, which seemed a cry for help and despair after Lum stopped writing articles.

I started reading F13 in the final days of EQ and the rise of WoW. The community funded Morell-Thule server boards had gone to shit in a arid maelstrom of disinterest, with only their political forums surviving on pure infusions of libertarian scrotum slinging, so I needed a new home.

F13 seemed fertile ground, so I thought I'd introduce myself by asking about flight sims, at which point I was nearly denned. I was saved from being run out on a pole by name dropping Num's name and saying that I once spent stupid amounts of time with her in Kunark. Somehow, mostly through an innocently favorable comment by Signe, I wasn't totally jeered into silence.

From the Down in Flames link:Lum the Mad history correction needed:

This is completely incorrect on many levels, as the forum uproar over the BT3025 article had absolutely nothing to do with Poppin. It was me who wrote an article about BT3025, which I posted to the forums, and then 2 weeks after Arcadian made this into front page news as little more than a snippet/link. This was also previous to Sept 11th, and it becoming SND, and was in the period when Arc and Myschief were soliciting "writers".

Teirlap was actually added on as an EQ correspondant then, which was fine with me, but Arc made it more than clear on the forum uproar that he thought I was upset with this decision. I actually liked Teirlap and had numerous PM conversations with him, plus he had an enjoyable comedic talent I admired. The actual uproar at SND started because of Snowspinner, who along with being a total ass, knew nothing first hand about EQ and was the equivalent of a forum troll . I definitely didn't restrain my opinion of him on the forums, which was why Arc banned me from SND the week it disappeared.

I followed the forum posters from Lum onto a bunch of different iterations, including the Morlocks, whatever Myschyf/Delusion's site was, and P2P.

Thinking about the history makes me feel old. I stumbled on Lum from browsing the rpg newsgroup? (shit, been so long I don't remember what things were called in Usenet, groups?) in the days of UO. Roughly Seige Perilous launch I think. Browsed the frontpage of LtM for several months before realizing there were forums beyond the comments thread for the frontpage articles.

I only ran across the news announcement a few days ago. Never reported because I didn't think anyone cared. But a new MS flight sim could be fun. As i understand, its to be DLC'd. So you may get your WWII stuff :)

Engels, I assume you've seen This (http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-digital-combat-simulator-a-10c-warthog/17-5490/).

I came from UO/drtwister where I was eager to learn how to drop my recall rune under people's staircase trick to break into people's houses and steal their stuff. Basically, I was an *internet sociopath* that started posting on LTM a few months before all the shit went down. I went over to furrytastic P2P for a while and hung out in the chat channel and then came here.

Also, it seems I grew up at some point, like a lot of others here. Glancing at that "what did you do to get banned" thread of the new site, I have no real interest going back.

Ooh, I can say I am part of a clique now?

So he admits he was simply trolling then thinks that he was banned because most sane rational people didn't agree with him?

/wobble

"So, did Rasix return the wayward daughter of King Osric to her home. And having no further concern, he and his companions sought adventure in the West. Many flame-wars and feuds did Rasix fight. Honor and fear were heaped upon his name and, in time, he became a mod by his own hand... And this story shall also be told"

It's not like they were even good trolls. He'd post stuff that people went 'Umm, are you high?' and then try to ignore. OVER AND OVER.

And I, like Bunk, sourced from Rec.Games.Computer.Ultima.Online (I think it was, whatever the newsgroup was back in the creaky years) Then followed another of that group (GreatBob) through his various writing gigs. Ending up here, where everybody knows your name, and secretly thinks you're batshit insane.

It is very odd to me that many people think the admins get together and PLOT.  We don't get together and do anything.  Trust me, even when we do sort of agree it might be neat to do something, and that something isn't even terribly hard, we don't follow through.  Because we're not a clique, not a band of anything, just a host of regular posters with non-internet lives who happen to have the ability to edit other people's posts.  In that way, yes we do moan about how sinij is off his nut, but that's generally the extent.  If we were more of an organized clique with an agenda, Sand would have disappeared a long time ago.

I lurked on LtM's site early on, then lurked at Waterthread, then lurked here.

Then I started posting here for some reason.

I like to pretend you all respect my authority. But your post is closer to the truth.

Okay I'll spill it - we all plot but we just leave Yegolev out of it because man that guy is LuuuuhhhuhhayyyyZEEE

I think it can be said that good moderators/admins don't plot, or for that matter get personal or paranoid either directly or indirectly. The first week of this place when Joe and H20 left, plus the QT3 fiasco we ware witnessing are proof of this.

The background discussion on every forum I've written for was mainly about front page articles, which since this one is kind of dormant probably leaves little to discuss on moderator only forums.

Tireflap Canoe was definitely amusing at times, but he generated a lot of admin headaches as well.

Carooe ?

His official name was Tierlap Carooe.  He earned the name I used from another CK poster (DPTwisted, I think).

...and it's been so many years that I misspelled "Klaknak" on the last page.  CK and the gang would sooooo give me grief over that.   :uhrr:

I'm quite happy with a stable forum. There's no shortage of places to find idiots to argue with, finding somewhere where people are more laid back is the trick.

I left you and Trippy out of the equation.  As far as I know, we all like you.  Even better, you don't have anything we want but we still hang around, so it's got to be real, right? :some_sort_of_smiley:

I'm not lazy.  I'm slow and don't put any effort into F13, but I'm not lazy.

It's true.  I like Trippy.

^^This.  While 'the hate' was interesting for a little when I was younger, finding an island of civility in the ocean of stupid is worth far more to me.  I really can't understand the need to turn every conversation into a battle other than some people are just starved for attention I guess.

This is going to culminate in a group hug, isn't it?

Fuck you, real men don't hug. They stab each other with rusty railroad spikes.

























Lantyssa and Sjofn might hug.

Sjofn is a hugger, it's true.

I think my time here started with getting a link to the EVE war thread from somewhere, I've no idea where, and I ended up staying.

What happened to the red name who claimed he was a former SEAL or something, spoke several Asian languages, and hated COM objects or something?   I think he threw down with WUA over something military. Odd. That was odd.

Wasn't that St. Gabe? Or the Instant Action guy?

Didn't Zepp have a few altercations with, well, everybody over military stuff?

That's the one, Stephen Zepp. He and Shockeye had history from Shadowbane, but it was later that Zepp went full Sgt. Sperg.

Your post would have been done faster if you had only used Torque.

We need a secret handshake.

We'll hug so you manly men can feel secure in not doing so.

And we can think thoughts. :grin:

I'm not even sure WHO the admins are on this site and what the fancy colour names mean.

Except Schild. When he's around. Sometimes.

Blue can't be important, since Paelos is blue.

Pink is the important color. And anyone with a green name is being sarcastic. The brighter green, the more sarcastic.

&blowme

Totally not why we want to see you hug.  But you knew that.

XPlane 10 just came out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Plane_(simulator)

How much did Cheddar pay you to say that ?

I sincerely appreciate the continued inclusion of flight simulator references in a thread devoted to the downfall of a forum!

I had not seen that interminably hilarious A-10 warthog video. I regret that I had to stop watching it after the 20 minute mark after too much continuous wincing.

I'm stoked about XPlane 10!

Unless memory fails me, Cheddar once purchased a license plate reading "F13".  He's special.

Lies and slander!


I'll totally hug Lantyssa, though. C'MERE LANTY.

Nope, that was him.

"From Lum to Rum" would be a great name for Lum's autobiography chronicling his time in the game industry.

I thought about fixing that, but with the way you guys talk about the Diaspora, I figure it's unintentionally accurate.

(http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f27/taolurker/LumGone.jpg)

Now there's a missed poster that F13 is worse without.

I liked the way she tried to trick new people into making introduction threads.

I miss her avatars of the week.  :heartbreak:

I miss the way she used to send me graphic sexual PMs.

Share.  :why_so_serious:

I totally agree, I enjoyed her stories about her cats. Because I am one of Those People.

I am saddened at the loss of any good uses for the :vv: smiley.

And it would be 100% accurate!

</thread>

And would "Rum to Lum" be the story of your conception?

I can not stress enough how boring the story of a developer in the gaming industry would be from day 1 to day X unless it was 99% fictional.

And there I thought I was the only one.  :crying_panda:

Now I'm jealous.  And sad.  :sad_red_panda:

Most of it would be dull, but you can compress the interesting parts some have experienced into something more entertaining.

You could totally do a "Shit my designer says" type thing. The fantastic one-liners coming out of people's mouths on a day-to-day basis must be amazing.

Not 1/1000th as interesting as you might think that is, I promise.

It'd be worth the read just for the bits about hiring hookers so they could have an idea on how to do romantic dialogue. :oh_i_see:

If only it were that interesting.

The only book that comes to mind (and I haven't read) is Rick Dakan's "Geek Mafia" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0977264904/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0TT729353D51M3B5K13R&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846). Dakan was the original lead dev on City of Heroes, but replaced by Jack Emmert before the game launched when it looked like CoH was going to be vapourware under his watch.

However, apparently even there he's felt the need to add organised crime and 'geeks getting the girl' to keep things interesting.

You could do an interesting book out of the idea of being in the game design industry, but you'd need to compress the last 20 years of anecdotes into one individual story. It couldn't be "I spent today debugging 8 000 lines of code that no-one had properly documented. It turns out it wasn't working because someone used a ; instead of an : on line 3452. Wow, what a crazy day!"; it would be "The lead designers on drugs and has been found stealing aspirin out of my desk, the investor wants more pink unicorns added to a game titled 'Death Knights of Gore', I've just spent the last 3 weeks in crunch mode and my last paycheque bounced because the producer's ex-wife skipped out with the payroll". You'd make it completely true anecdotes all happening in a completely fictional company.

I'm at least interested in it enough to consider writing the introduction, maybe the first chapter, if anyone else is interested in the idea.

I actually have an amazing idea for a story about the gaming industry, but it pokes way too much fun at stuff I'm way too close to - as such I'd be sued before it hit the first store. As such, it sits in a folder right now, partially written, never to be let into the public until certain things happen.

Use a pen name. I suggest Serek Sdmart.

I know of one studio that actually did spend all the investment money on hookers and blow then, when the IP holders were scheduled to come in and look at the progress being made, they would literally pull people in off the streets to sit in front of workstations to make it look as though they were fully staffed.

Duke Nukem Forever?   :awesome_for_real:

Warhammer would be my guess.

The original Warhammer online is probably the correct answer.

If he wanted to say what studio it was, he would've. Stop trying to guess.

In addition, it just further makes my point: What you just read is pretty much the whole story. It can't fill a book and it's probably one of maybe 3-4 interesting things that ever happened there. Eight page books don't sell well.

Haven't you read Twilight?

I was just kidding with my faux guess because that seemed to be the rampant rumor about Duke Nukem's team.  I personally don't give a shit who it was. 

Well, I know I'm weird about this, but this actually makes for pretty interesting reading.

I was a pretty attentive lurker all the way back to the fairly early Lum the Mad days, followed to Waterthread. I think it was only here that I actually started posting. (I lurk at Broken Toys and Qt3 but haven't ever really posted there.) But I think I have much weaker face-to-face links to any of the little clusters of people that know each other in this sort of connected world of posters, so it's just interesting to me which folks (good and bad) I feel like I have a really long-term sense of as people.

I.. ow...  :sad:

I started at Lum around the Whamadoodles time and mostly lurked until shit hit the fan over there. Someone I knew through MMOs tipped me off to WT saying it was just like Lum, so I signed up the first week it was up and have been around since.

I still can't remember how the hell I got to know Schild, but it sure has been interesting. If not for these online communities, I wouldn't have been able to go to E3 2003 all inclusive.

You're only really sarcastic when you have the mustache.   :why_so_serious:

Had to go there, didn't you?

You go that far back? What were you, 11 years old?

This is the only internet message board I've ever lurked or posted on.  I'm not sure what it is about this place that keeps me around, but I'm rarely interested in the discussions that I do happen to come across on other boards.  You guys got me with the Warhammer Online crowd, and I'm sure you're damned happy that I stuck around.   :awesome_for_real:

Edit:  Particularly Ironwood.   :grin:

 :ye_gods: :facepalm: :cry:

Look what you've fucking done.

I loves me some Ironwood.  Thankfully, he loves me back (in his surly, drunken, Scottish way).

Sorry, I was aghast at Rasix.  I still think I'm 21.  Reality disagrees.

Oh.  :oh_i_see:

This is fantastic because I still think I have the coordination to win Blaster Master.

Further actually, I have my timeline wrong. I started at Lum while I was playing UO, which is apparently very far back from Whamadoodles. So, yeah, I'm going to go off of when Lum got hired by Mythic for a date, which was 2001. I would have been 16 then.

With save states, you do! I beat it again a few years ago because it's still my favorite game on the NES.

/brofist

 :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

It's ok. You exude a youthful aura!

It's his eloquent use of the word "cunt".   :why_so_serious:

Seriously, do a search.  I don't say it that much !

It's a relative comparison.  Percentage-wise, you own that word on F13.

 :awesome_for_real:

114 results.

That's not too bad. Averages out to 14 cunts per year over 8 years. :awesome_for_real:

I can't have that.  I'm married.

I didn't say it was the voluminous use of the word "cunt", I said it was the eloquent use of the word "cunt".   :grin:

Then why did you pick that name?

Um, ?  Do you mean Ironwood ?

I was Ironwood long before I met her.   :why_so_serious:

Maybe you should change it then.  You can't relive the past forever.   :oh_i_see:

My current Lords of Midnight playthrough disagrees with you.

Besides, what am I gonna change it to ?  Ironalittlebitwiltedbuthonestlypillswillsortthatoutlassieyoujustdropem ?

Bit of a mouthful.

Apparently not.

 :rimshot:

You could just shorten it to Limpiron 

Ironsplints

Nah, no-one gets points for making a joke of a single entendre.

I've never taken the rimshot as giving someone points. More like giving them a participation ribbon for being in the math olympics.

I have one of those for a computer science competition somewhere when I attempted to program in TurboPascal.

That was the day I realized I liked numbers better than coding.

Well of course you do..... :awesome_for_real:

That actually seems about the right rate of cunt possession for marriage.

Plus its already been done. The office did pretty well.

Who is our economist?

The insufferable one.  Clearly.

That doesn't really narrow it down much around here does it? We're all sort of insufferable!  :why_so_serious:

I'm guessing you probably missed the little chunk of text wedged under the picture, I'm going to have to fix that.  As I recall Goumimdong has said he's got a masters degree.

EDIT: Yep. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20467.msg900794#msg900794)

Thought he was at UW working on a Masters. 

I naturally assumed he was lying.

I always ended up on Goum's side because Broughden was on the other one. Je ne regrette rien

It's compelling logic.

There are sides?  I just thought it was a continual free for all.

He must post in politics. He didn't even register on my radar as insufferable.

I first learned of Gou from very angry and funny posts made at him on our Eve board.  His econ notes I though were actually useful.  At least his rants were restrained.

Can we stop proxy-defending someone because Broughden said something?

(http://www.code-muse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/df20021001.jpg)

Yeah, he's in that group that doesn't post anywhere else but politics.

We should ban those people on principle.

No argument from me there.  Most of the brouhaha that happens on this board is due to nonsense stemming form the politics board. 

Stop talking about the politics board outside of the politics board. Thanks.

The first tule of Politics Club is that you dont talk about Politics Club.

I referenced St Gabe earlier before knowing much about him, anyway, funny qt3 thread here, (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=62000) which I found as a result a slightly funny lum one here (http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/moderate-behavior-not-content.1039/).

Ignore if you don't find this kind of thing amusing.

Guy is a serious asshole.

We need a wiki on the banned and departed.  I remember the name StGabe and have a visceral, negative reaction to it but forget why.

Well, you could check Arthur's link for a quick refresher, maybe. All I know is that now *I* hate him.

I did have an amused chuckle at the names on Vetarnias' list in the Lum thread.  It's not so much that those people are driven off for dissenting viewpoints but for being such raging douchebags.  Which is what happens when you argue from "gut" and anecdote instead of fact.

I assume the "St" in his name is because he can't get off that damn cross.

The back and forth about him not understanding density was quite hilarious.

An argument over density.  Funny, my first rant here was a back and forth with Roarq over density.

I remember George McFly was my density.

I thought Lorraine was his density?  :headscratch:

http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/has-anything-of-interest-happened-to-you-recently.346/page-13

Sand update, for those who care.  He advised Obama recently.

Must be tough to do all that running around and volunteer work with his colostomy.   :awesome_for_real:

Hard part is advising the Governor and Mayor while running his own business.

We need someone to stalk him through the internet.

But who would be brave enough to attempt such a task..... :oh_i_see:

I was more making fun of Cheddar (http://brokenforum.com/index.php?posts/61697/)... but if you want to be a stalker go ahead.

No, I think I'll leave you boys to it.   :grin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I go to Lums forums every once in awhile and happen to run across it.

It amused me.  I posted to see what number I was (277!).

Good job getting them worked up.  I forgot I had even posted in that thread.   :grin:

 :facepalm:

Sand/Broughden really is out and out delusional isn't he? I'd never seen him that bad before.

They seemed to be buying it.  :ye_gods:

The level of childish lying is actually a little shocking.

It's well past normal internet bragging into crazy time territory.

TLDR for those who did not follow the link:

Mr. Sand was visiting the gubberment in an advisor capacity and had the honor of speaking to Mr. Obama.  Unfortunately, it almost made him miss his flight- luckily there was a TLC reality show going on and he was able to act like a crazy person (his words) and get onto the flight and thus was able to help the Red Cross disperse much needed supplies to tornado victims.

true story. :why_so_serious:

And he has a colostomy.   :awesome_for_real:

Thanks for making me google that...  :oh_i_see:

You should do an image search, just to make sure it's clear.

If it's clear it's probably in the wrong hole.

*sniff

I left because Signes graphic sexual PMs just became too much...

 :rimshot:

Awkward.

This is really setting off my Deja Vu.

Trippy ?

Yes?

I've had this conversation before, no ?

Wow, you are alive!  I'd assumed you were eaten by a bear.

Can't remember and searching on posts related to you or Broughden/Sand is incredibly difficult cause you both have quotes in people's sigs.

Actually, I was talking more of a discussion of Signe and her sexual PM's, but it may be the medication making my brain work wrong.

And by medication, I mean constant years of abuse.

You mentioned it a few pages back.

 :uhrr:

I'm going to bed.

I just caught up on the last two pages of this thread.  Thanks for the lulz before I head off to work  :awesome_for_real:

Somebody mentioned f13, I decided to look how the place was doing, saw a thread about an "event" I was somewhat involved in (albeit not by my own choosing) and read through it. When you mentioned my name, I only felt it right to quote yourself from a few pages back. I wasn't trying to mess with your head. To my knowledge Signe has never sent me a PM.

That's a relief.  For a minute I was feeling left out.

Now I'm also sad.

So Hanzii... Can we rely on you to go back to Lum's and mock Sand about his Clinton story as he so richly deserves?

I've missed you enormously.  Come post more.

I think he was asking you to send him the sexy PMs.

Could be problematic.

Why is it someone was wondering if I had registered there yet? Its it some sort of supper secret F13 alt site?

Its not like I want to repeat myself more than I already do.

Probably not, since I know nothing about the guys previous history. But I'll be wary.

You could read some of his work.  It's pretty spectacular.

That's too kind. Missed you too *manhug*. I won't say I left, buy at some point I just forgot to return, no conscious decision, but contrary to Schilds description I just found QT3 less insular and I've always been a lazy one forum kinda guy.
... and I honestly didn't think anyone would notice.

But that's almost like homework... he haven't bothered me enough to look through his garbage on another forum. Feel free to feed me highlights, though. Nothing like some good forum drama (that you aren't involved in yourself).

He saw a man bit in two by a shark once.

I wouldn't advise it, really.  You've probably read the same shit at Q23 or wherever else. 

...once...

I saw a man bit in once by a shark two.

I punched a shark in the nose.  Down he went.  Like Liston.

I am fairly certain that it was Sand who bit a man in half while being chased by two sharks.  He was on some assassination mission in Uzbekistan.  You know, the one he was on just before all the work he did helping the Tsunami victims in SE Asia with Angelina Jolie.

And then he kicked Chuck Norris' ass. Twice.

If you look back up the thread, I'm not making fun of you Sand, so I'd like to be left out of it.

He still posts here under other accounts?  Wicked fun!

And it is never any one story of his that is unbelievable.  It is the sum total of them.  If his life was any more interesting, he'd be filming commercials for Dos Equis.

(for the record, I still found him entertaining and even somewhat useful sometimes and wish he weren't banned).

I agree.  He was kind of like a court jester. 

Apart from the times* when he was spouting hastily Wikipedia'd arguments against people who actually knew wtf they were talking about and wouldn't admit he was wrong ever, even when he totally, obviously, painfully was.


*These times were all of the times.

Do you really take your message boarding so seriously that you can't look at someone like that and laugh? 

For me its not about taking a message board seriously or not, but just whether someone contributes in a positive way or if you just internally groan and scroll past his junk and all replies to his junk. To me, he wasn't so funny, even inadvertently. It always turned into a conversation about HIM, which is always his intention. Look at us now, still talking about the raging douche. Happy?

Yeah it was more eye-crossingly annoying than funny, although I found his Sand personality usually much less douchey than the Broughden one. Except for that whole "I'll tell girls when they've been sexually harrassed, dammit!" thing.

That was a truly amusing conversation. 

There are very few posters whose post I will ignore based on who is posting. With Sand, I came to realize if his post was longer than about 2 paragraphs AND/OR he was quoting someone else, it was likely a good idea to just whistle as I scrolled past.

The only people I tend to ignore are the message board bully types, which we only seem to have in Politics.  Otherwise I can laugh at almost anyone, even myself.   :awesome_for_real:

Can you laugh at the fact that you seem incapable of not talking about that sub forum, even though you were politely asked not to, just two pages ago?  :why_so_serious:

Sure, why not?   :awesome_for_real: 

If it's that big of a deal that we can't even mention it then why do we even have it?  It's the ugly fucking stepsister around here (and a big part of why Sand/Broughden/anyone gets banned). 

Shut the fuck up.

 :facepalm:

 :oh_i_see:

At the risk of admin wrath:
The Politics sub forum is a container. With a see-through but otherwise well-bolted-on lid. If it wasn't there, then its contents would infest the entire forum.
(more than they already do)

It's also like the fight club and illuminati and stock trading tips subforums...

 :popcorn:

(http://i43.tinypic.com/b64n5f.jpg)

The F13 Court Jester was grunk, as far as I know.

(http://i.imgur.com/PveSR.jpg)

There should be a live action film of Charlie Brown starring Karl Pilkington.

Dude!?  Why are you talking about those?

The MJ-12 sub-forum is way better than the Illuminati sub-forum anyways.

I much prefer the Cannibalism Apocalypse sub-forum.

I want a NSFW sub-forum.

You don't have access to...

Oh.. oh... yeah, a NSFW sub-forum would be great!

Wait...there's more forums here that I can't see? 

Eh, probably for the best  :awesome_for_real:

:facepalm:

Yes, it is for the best.

There are a couple.

Fuck Broughden. I'm anti banning just about anybody but fuck that stupid shitfuck Broughden. He was the worst poster f13 has ever had in the years I've been here.

He once killed a man, just to watch him die. This was shortly before he saw a man being bitten in half by a shark.

edit - fixed my quote.

Why is A_P posting a picture of himself arguing with Sand, then saying he wants to be left out of it?

I'm confused.

Don't start with me again, bored with it.

I thought he played more the role of the jolly town drunk.

It was a genuine question.

You posted a picture of yourself arguing with someone along with text saying you didn't want to be part of an argument. That's...kind of weird. I figured I was missing something, like someone else used your name in that picture.

Here's a tip: if you don't want to argue with someone then don't. I posted the above and literally 15 seconds later here you are clearly trying to start something. You really cannot be more transparent. There's pretty much no better way to start something than "DON'T YOU GO STARTIN' SUMTHIN' WITH ME AGAIN!" and I'm sure you know that.

Lulz.

You should send him several PMs about it.

I will.

Balanced individuals, the lot of you.

I was honestly just asking, because it seemed weird.

:why_so_serious:

I'm barely holding on to the fact that it's worse when your admin isn't me.

Hehe if you ran your own forum, you would be the only poster left in it, and I am pretty sure you would be close to banning yourself for getting on your last nerve.

Um, not 'me' me, but thread title me me.

If you follow.

If he does, I would recommend reposting them here so we can see what happened.

Well I ain't heard from him as yet.   :why_so_serious:

It's a three way conversation weird thing you can do on Lum's forum if you check the screenshot so it's not like I was posting a pm lightly, he wrote it to respond to Cheddar from what I gather.  Message was to show him I'm cross posting only once.

I backed away.  Slowly.

Can we get Nerf involved in this somehow? 

whatever happened to Nerf and Herself (apologies forget her handle).  Did they get sued or something?

No, but stop asking. It's his story to tell, so PM him or something. It's one of the eternal mysteries, never to be solved...

He said he was going to give us an update some day.  He's just not been around much to do so.

If you played Rift with us, you'd know.. IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL.   :uhrr:

<detects a surge in RIFT free-trials as f13 looks for closure>

Did the dog make it? I HAVE TO KNOW!

That was delightfully awkward, yes.  :why_so_serious:

Nerf and Falc are good examples of reasons to avoid buying mmo via Steam.

Why is it any different than simply buying at Wal Mart or Amazon?

I wasn't aware any of you people even played MMOs outside of Eve since I think the last 2-3 bat companies I bothered joining had like 3 people on at most whenever I'd log in.

edit: Bat Country, whatever. Tired.

Your problem might have been that you were joining Bat Company, I don't know who they are.

Unless you're playing within the first month of release, three people online at a time sounds about right for BC.

I think Bat Company is the new Glen Cook series.

Wal-Mart and Amazon don't track hours played.  :ye_gods:

After seeing how retail companies track the buying habits of people, I wouldn't be too sure of that...

Ah.  I gotcha.   :awesome_for_real:

Hell, the displaying hours played thing is almost a reason not to buy anything through Steam. Everyone knows my DA:O shame, when it should be a private shame.

Tee heee.

 :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods:

You'll use any excuse to post that!  :heartbreak:


EDIT: Up to 317 hours on DA2 by the way.  :why_so_serious:

736 hours on Crusader Kings 2. :uhrr:

Has that game even been out for 736 hours?

It has been out for 1,056 hours.

What in the 9 fucks.

It's like people don't believe me when I say I play the everliving fuck out of games I like.

I believe you, but there isn't that much content in those games, so it makes no sense. Any Bethesda game, sure, I can see that. Those?
No.

<shrug> I liked playing through it.

There are enough permutations. I've done replays over answering yes at hour 30 in games that are 70-80 hours long.

We all have embarrassing MMO /played totals.  Lately, a conservative estimate of my LoL time would be somewhere north of 200 hours.  Hell, I knew a guy in EQ that had played the game for a 400+ days total when it was less than 3 years old.

edit: Sorry for the ribbing.  I didn't know the pillorying would commence in earnest.   

I've got a lot of time into the two recent Fallouts, but nothing like that.   :ye_gods:

(http://i.imgur.com/tYeYX.jpg)

Man I'm only at like ~350 for Legendary + Dark Elves edition combined.

125 for Blood Bowl, but I was a late bloomer on that one.

I've only got 114 hours in Blood Bowl, but I didn't play in earnest until the Legendary edition and I haven't been playing as many feeder league games as some of you guys.

I've got maybe 55 hours in BB...would probably have a lot more if it weren't for non-f13 ringers in the league  :why_so_serious:

This feels like the start of a great new thread.  "Post your gaming shame" or something similar.  :oh_i_see:

I think we did this before.  Wasn't terribly popular.

Someone posted a "f13 top 10" thread or some such, where they added up our hours to see our collective top games. That's when Rasix first showed proof I was crazy.

My actual play times are way less than the hours shown, pause game to use restroom, forget about game, come back 6 hours later...

Ouch.  Seek Medical Help.

Well geez, I guess things tend to get backed up during a 20 hour Skyrim marathon.

Not if a Daedra suddenly appears behind you.

The Ubisoft games with the uPlay thing that doesn't close when you close the game are bad for this - my 23 hours in Assassin's Creed 2 is actually 30 minutes followed by me not closing the uPlay window for a weekend.

Sand banned over at Broken Forum. That didn't take long.

So where will he pop up next I wonder? Perhaps Q23 will appreciate him.

Lum bans people!?

Is there going to be a banned of the banned of the banned community soon?

It takes a hell of a lot.  Which is why I wonder how the hell Sand got banzored so damn quickly.

For being an incredible douchebag.

You may, should you wish, find out the details for yourself.  It will not come as any surprise to you.

Me, I'd nuke this thread from orbit.  Far, far, far, too self obsessed.

Yeah.  I am totally not touching this one with a ten foot pole.   :ye_gods:

You're self-obsessed but I'm not telling you to nuke yourself from orbit.

Sick burn.

I guess that explains all the kids.

Did he think Lum was too dumb to know that Gypsum is a type of Sand?  There's the old Broughden shining through again.

Technically it's not sand, in can be though.

Yes, yes. And knowing that people couldn't possibly have just let it pass I should have pointed that out in an extended coda to my original one line post.

To be fair to the rest of us, Sheepherder isn't an actual person.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Ernest_Martin_Hennings_-_The_Sheep_Herder.jpg)

Hmm, my origins are murky.  I came here from Waterthread, which I went to after LtM.  But what led me to LtM?  Or did I even exist before that?  Maybe I'm the vengeful spirit of the Internet!

Nah, I'm just some dood who got hooked with UO, went to EQ and somehow found LtM. 

Fun Fact!  I was yelled at by Lum as a WW2OL fanboi just after his "Taxi to Victory" post.  But when he joined Mythic he stopped with LtM (I think) and I lost interest in stalking him.  I rarely go to his new site, it's rarely updated. 

Now I haunt f13 relentlessly.  Whenever a snarky comment is called for I burst into action!  Like the vengeful spirit of the internet!

Sorry, long day, dog tired.  Honestly, I enjoy this site because I enjoy discussing topics with sharp folks who share my passions for gaming and other areas.  This is a fine community with merciful and gracious moderators.  :grin:

He would have wanted it this way.

I'm wondering if he tried that argument on Lum.

Lum has been banned on Qt3 for telling Brian Koontz that he needed professional help after posting a long-winded defence of Anders Brevik (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=3105512&postcount=513).

That post. Shit. I only watched day one of the trial, but I'd like to tear Breivik limb from limb with my bare hands for killing Norwegian hot chicks. For starters.

:ye_gods:

It's very disturbing to read about how normal people react in that type of situation, some are just incapable of running away.  I can see why Lum replied to that post but I'm not sure it helps to engage with someone on the internet who's clearly got some kind of mental illness.

Huh.  Imagine going to a cesspool and finding a pool of cess.

Sigh, I wish the whole Breivik incident had never happened, if only because I can't even read norwegian newspapers or watch norwegian television without having to read or hear some idiot spouting some "professional opinion" or "professional interpretation" of how fucked up in the head Breivik is, or some "professional theory" of why he did whatever.

The only positive thing I've seen come out of this is that apparently some study about how violent games aren't causing violent behavior, but violent people gravitate towards violent games, got some airtime.

I wrote about that on my blog 6 months ago (http://www.antipwn.com/blog/2009/06/08/killerspiele/)...

The attempted glib humour "hot chicks" comment just makes you seem like a douchebag yourself, probably worth smacking the stupid out of. One of the kids where I work (she's Norwegian) had a friend killed by that cunt, but you'd look like a douche even without that being a factor.

Some people only get offended if they can perceive a personal connection.

I'm honestly quite surprised that Brevik was not diagnosed with some form of Schizophrenia.  At a minimum he's got a seriously nasty narcissistic personality disorder.  But I digress.  Anyone that defends the guy is a serious weirdo. 

Why does this not surprise me at all? Not only that, but other people in that thread were standing behind Koontz and like "good point!"

A scenario in which Lum is clearly the good guy...cats and dogs sleeping together!

One of the things which I've been forced to learn throughout the last 6+ months is that while the initial psychiatrists deemed him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, they were apparently wrong because of the way he reacted when he was confronted on his views, he got argumentative instead of more extreme.

I dunno, I wish they'd just stop covering the whole case and let him go back to obscurity instead of continually feeding his "hey look at me" desire.

"Probably worth smacking the stupid out of"?

For the record, I was brought to tears by watching the Sky coverage of the trial as they read out the victims' names and how they died. I really wanted to tear the smirking shithead apart. I was watching from my hotel room on holiday, but normally I'd be seeing it in the newsroom where we cope with stuff like that every day through black humour. I didn't mean to offend you, I was only trying to express my dismay at the pro-Breivik rant.

This. Shut off the cameras, stamp the fucker insane and have him rot in a padded cell for the rest of his miserable life. I dont want or need to know any more.

I think the adherence to the rule of law, and the principles of innocent until proven guilty in this case highlight the strength and enlightenement of Norwegian society.

/politics

You wouldn't have seen the same level of enlightenment of the Norwegian society if it had been done by one or more muslims (which even muslims living in Norway thought it was, initially).

Prove it.

How would I prove it? By converting to islam, changing my looks to look like an arab or pakistani, speak their language fluently and blow up a building and shoot 77 people, and see what the reactions would've been then, nation-wide and long-term?

Thanks for volunteering.

What the hell are you people doing?

At a guess, trying to move this thread from the Outlands to the plane of Carceri.

You mean you can't back up your ridiculous assertion ?

Shocked.

For the record, I suspect that anyone doing this level of monstrous insanity would get the same treatment.  At this level things have to be seen to be done properly.

I think it's fair to say that the reactions wouldn't be the same here in the States for the scenario that tgr is describing.

Ha ha, remember when I said the Politics forum had a nice tight lid on it? (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21751.msg1051775#msg1051775)

That was four whole pages ago. We were so young. The whole world lay before us.

Well, yes.  You'd invade somewhere that had nothing to do with the crime in question.

lolz.  And whatnot.

I realize that you're focusing on the whole "strict adherence to the law" etc etc etc, but while quite frankly I'd still be surprised if they did quite as diligent work if it had been done by a muslim, that's not what I was referring to, at all. You're making assumptions on the target of my statement, and you're missing the mark.

Some background for my initial comment: there's been a lot of statements by various media and politicians about how awesome our "responding to the act of terrorism with love" reaction was, basically chestbeating about how much more awesome we are than other people (whomever those are). That's the drum we were drumming pretty goddamn hard a month or two after the bomb went off etc, and I'm saying that's bullshit.

The reason I'm saying that's bullshit, is because I live in Oslo, and I saw how basically anyone who didn't look nordic enough became increasingly treated with suspicion for weeks after the bomb went off etc, even though newspapers were reporting who did it. We're not as awesome and "turn the other cheek" as we'd like to portray ourselves as to the world, we just got lucky it was "one of ours" this time.

You used the word 'Society'.  Your society is determined by the laws you live under.

If you wanna talk about The People, next time use the phrase 'The Mob' and we'll know what you mean.

The Mob  is an entirely different beast.  Quite Literally, a Beast and you shouldn't judge anyone or any society by what The Mob does.  Hell, look at Fox in America or the Tabloids here or, fuck it, any message board anywhere to see what 'The Mob' thinks.

Hell, we tried to string up Paediatricians for what they were DOING TO OUR KIDS THE MONSTERS.

 :uhrr:

I'm quite sure there's a large and vocal group in every country in the world who feel that Brevik should be shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave, muslim or not.  Doesn't make it a good idea, nor should it be used as a blanket judgement on a Society.

The society defines the rules it lives by, the rules don't define a society.

Hell, you better hope that you have the alarm set on your house.   :why_so_serious:

SECONDED. WHAT... THE... FUCK?

At least they unbanned Lum?

We don't invade, we freedomize the fuck out of you!

Oh, and you're welcome.  :drill:

Well, this kind of explains that pro-Brevik post (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=3105647&postcount=525)

I'm going to just point out that it's Breivik, not Brevik.

And when I read the initial link to this topic I was actually thinking that Koontz was either mentally ill himself, or just an internet troll. Guess he's next for the straitjacket and padded room.

Sorry tgr. My spelling is atrocious at best.

Surely most forum admins have some sort of mental illness ?

Spending more than ten minutes in Second Life makes one realize that EVERYONE on the internet is insane.

I personally think Scotland has been a wee bit undemocratic lately.........   :grin:

FIFY.

Hey, I've made a cool grand off SL.

(http://i.imgur.com/bvhqK.jpg)

I don't think WUA mixed all that well with the q2t exiles over at Lums.  :why_so_serious:  :heartbreak:

Tch, just as I was pondering replying to him today.

Huh.. got me to scroll through the banned user list there.  I didn't realize he'd banned Dawn Falcon and Sinij.

Sinij got banned a while ago, yeah. He decided to go all MRA in their politics forum and eventually just got a bit too personal and too stupid in a reply to someone.

What do you mean by MRA?

Men's Rights Activist

Yeah, that doesn't shock me about him. 

Who are Dawn and Falcon? Do we mean Falconeer?

No, Dawn Falcon. One Name.  I can't remember his LTM-era handle.  He switched over to Dawn Falcon on Corpnews years ago. 

London guy, Jewish if his defense of anything related to Israel was any indication. (i.e. any criticism is antisemitism.)   Scott doesn't strike me as having much tolerance for his brand of nonsense anymore.  Much like Boogaleeboo sure wouldn't be accepted either.

Haha, all this time I thought Dawn Falcon was a woman, because I just assumed it was "her" actual name for some reason. 'Cause I've never actually interacted with him.

(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3523/4065855444_6f9eab4a8b.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/28167723@N03/4065855444/)
Blue Falcon &amp; Dyno Mutt (http://www.flickr.com/photos/28167723@N03/4065855444/) by sidemachine (http://www.flickr.com/people/28167723@N03/), on Flickr

Sinij continued his absolutism about F2P titles as well and would start threads to argue the point. He released controls on the brakes of reasonability and decided to coast down into the well populated village of ARGLE BARGLE.

Dude has issues, that's for sure.

His stance on Steam was also very interesting.....

That is a new one for me and I love it.  My wife wanders into that village all the time.

My wife owns a hut there.

Mine is the fucking mayor.

Hilariously enough I'm reading The Tommyknockers for the first time, and one of the chapters has a feud between a poet and a professer named Arberg.

He gets drunken turned into Arglebargle!