Castle Paradox

[Inferior Minion]

It was hilarious, and you know it. The only setback is the punchline, but damned if I'm going to keep to my original plan after it was rudely interrupted by someone who decided to let CN on a little secret without telling him the full story. To make matters worse, CN did what he always does and jumped the gun without verifying the information and getting the whole story. Had he not made the public post on CP and came to me when he knew I never intended to sell, I would have continued with my plan, but now...who knows. Given another chance, I still would have done it this way.

Grab a chair, this might take a while.

Let's go back to November 16th....you all remember what happened that day....the day I was so fed up with CP I erased it's entry from Apache but just couldn't bring myself to close the site. I'm not a member of this community, never have considered myself to be. I was brought in to host a community site, program features, and maintain the server. I was fine with that, and the community was flurishing. CN and I made a great team: good cop, bad cop. We fought about issues, discussed every aspect of a situation. Those who have access to the early Hush Hush posts know what I'm talking about.

We built CP stating that there were only 3 rules and that the admins only got involved when needed. We worked for the community. We were not above the community. The community came first, we were just members who tried to keep the site flourishing. So why all the admins, you ask?

Very simple....when writing CP, I had never looked at PHP before in my life. My only experience with HTML was a graphic design course my Junior year in highschool....but you can ask Duff...Mr. Hunter was the coolest teacher ever adn we basically dicked around most of the day, having fun with photoshop and Java games. I had no idea what I was doing. I spent my Christmas break trying to figure out how all this phpBB code worked and started mimicking it to create the new features. When I wrote the code, the only way I knew how to give people the ability to accept reviews, delete games, port games from O:OHR, etc...was to give them admin status and stick the hidden pieces between "isadmin" blocks. Aeth and CN were accepting reviews, Squall was porting O:OHR, and we were all deleting the double/triple/quadruple gamelist entries as they appeared. There's no other reason for larger (than you think is necessary) admin population.

By November of '04, I was more than proficient in phpBB's layout. I took the time to rewrite all the admin permissions, allowing for users to access game deletion, review acceptance, etc. No need for the extra admins anymore.

How does that tie into Common Sense, you ask? Simple. CN and I had talked, Aeth had left, Squall was diving into directing and was seen less and less (if you haven't checked out his movies on renzokuken, do so now! ) and he felt Uncommon would be replacement for review acceptance. I felt he was an arrogant prick, but he does write good reviews and if he was willing to finish the O:OHR ports, all the better. Then and there I told CN that he'd have to give Uncommon admin status to accept review, but I wanted it to be clear that his sole purpose was review porting and accepting. We agreed, Uncy was made an admin.

Within weeks, I was getting complaints about deleted posts, excessive bias in IRC, and random bannings for no good reason. It was at this time I found out that Leroy had been banned....for 2 months....for joining IRC....and CN had forgotten about it and never lifted it....didn't even tell the other admins about it. When Leroy Messaged me out of the blue, I was shocked to hear he had been banned for that long. I was getting very fed up with CN rightousness and occasional ego trips.

After a few complaints about Uncommon, I voiced my opinion to CN via AIM. He said he'd talk to Uncommon and, although we both agreed some of it was called for, Uncommon was overstepping his bounds. As CN pointed out, at least he hadn't banned anyone from the site.

In the following months, server glitches started appearing as people decided to use the features differently...text in the hours and minutes boxes, HTML images in the reviews....I was spending plenty a sleepless night debugging. After spending all night and finally fixing text input in the hours and minutes section (Uncy's latest review had a ' which was screwing with the sql entry but it took me forever to realize that was what was causing the page to suddenly stop and show a white screen), I log in to see Uncommon had taken it upon himself to insult a user for poorly written reviews via PM. Obviously, the user didn't respond very well, but Uncy kept replying. Over the course of 2 months, they had written 6 PMs in total and Uncy ended it by banning the user.

That was the straw that broke this camel's back...I was pissed. Regardless of how he had responded, Uncy had initiated the conversation by insulting their attempts to write a review. The entire conversation was private, and it wouldn't have happened if Uncommon hadn't sent the first PM. You don't ban a user for private messages. I made the Common Sense post right then and there.

This was immediately followed by accusations that I was the only one runnign the site now and that my dictatorship would be ruled with an Iron Fist...completely disregarding the fact that we had Cube, Orchy, Setu, and Squall as admins. As far as power goes, I took away CN and Uncy's ability to delete posts, lock threads, and ban users. They still had access to Hush Hush, they still had access to the reviews, and they still had access to game moderation. But I had taken away their admin status....the were complaining about the fact that their names were no longer orange. It was solely a status issue, a sign that you should be respected or something, and I had taken it away. That's not what the admins were created for. I have more respect for Eggie and Leroy for putting up with the responses they recieve. Admins are not figureheads for the community.

Heat, Cube, and myself are getting a lot of crap for maintaining the site. They don't have admin status to moderate, they have admin status to keep the site up and running. I usually don't moderate because my feelings on most topics greatly differ with those of actual community members. On larger topics, I throw in my 2 cents in Hush Hush, but the fact that the community accepts Zoidburg as genius....it's your engine, your community, and your games. I'll question the reasoning, but that's all I'll do.

I host this site. Host it. I pay to keep it running, I work my ass off to keep it functioning. It's up to you how it's used. As Squall said, it's not upt o the admins to keep the community going, it's up to the community. I never wanted to be the headrunner of the community, and I've surrounded myself with a great bunch of admins who I trust to moderate these boards as they see fit. It was the loss of trust that made me remove CN and Uncommon 6 months ago. Don't look to me to run your community, look to me when a feature acts up. You want to blame someone for lack of content, blame yourself for not creating any. You want rules and regulations, stop acting so immature and start leading by example. This forum could die out in a month and I wouldn't think twice about it. I continue hosting it because people use the features.

I don't use the boards, I don't upload games, I don't download games, I don't write reviews, I don't read reviews, but I know people who do. And I'm more than happy to offer my services. As long as I can justify hosting it, this site will be up. If usage suddenly stopped tomorrow, or next month, or next year, I'd shut down this page without thinking twice.

Which brings me to April 1st. It was perfect because it was so believable. It started in March. My timetable was filled with these interesting courses and I was itching to start coding again. Coupled with Cube's design doc and a great support team for debugging, layouts, and graphics, we set the deadline for a month and a half. May 1st, to correspond with April Fool's. Cube and I had a grand scheme worked out, new features up the wahzoo, and Veld and SA had a fantastic idea for the layout. Coding these new features posed a bit of a problem. Cube hasn't looked through phpBB's code so he's not familiar with it's built in functions, and I heavily interwove CP's mods into phpBB's functions (that's why I couldn't upgrade to newer releases....I'd have to rewrite all the code). Throw in school, midterms, and computer trouble (had to completely reformat my laptop last month), Our month and a half estimate was a little too optomistic. Almost all the code was finished as we pulled into this past weekend, and the layout needed a bit of tweaking. Friday and Saturday were a mad rush to finish. By Sunday night, everything was put in place and debugging started. Today was my first 6 hour nap since then. So many bugs kept popping up. Little things, but enough to get you thinking. I'm still finding more and more bugs as I mess around with the features, but for the most part, the site was fully functional as of this morning.

Within hours of CN's post, actually. It was very disheartening. Which brings me back to the prank.

Originally, we were going to "close" the site, throw up the countdown, and let everyone think it was an April Fool's joke, then hit them with a new layout and a "closed" forum May 1st which directed you to the main site. There you'd find a hefty Soapbox thread detailing the new features, laying out plans for the future, and exclaiming my resignation from the forum proper. People just can't seem to get it through their heads that I don't want to run this community, simply host and write features. I was going to leave the site in the hands of my very capable team of admins, which is why I told them of the joke.

People believed us and started freaking out, which was expected, but too keep the joke going all month, we needed to revise our plan. I had posted on midnight of April 1st, Australia time. April 1st in the US, we pulled the "Fyre bought the server" joke, which people realized was a joke instantly. To keep just a bit of mystery, I only mentioned the Fyre purchasing as an April fool's joke, left the countdown, and said it was closing.

This is when CN came into the picture. Out of the blue, he IMed me. I hadn't talked to him on AIM in months. He started with idle banter, then moved into CP. We had a short discussion and exchanged some ideas about the server and it's moderation and usage. Then he brought up purchasing CP and the final change to the plan was set out. I wasn't about to tell him of our plans for redesign, but his posts in Hush Hush and comments in that Instant Message had got me thinking about readmining him. I had been thinking about it back when I admined Machu. This gave me the perfect opportunity. I'd resign and give him full reign on the forum. But I'd have full reign in new features and site design. Best of both worlds. He cared about the site enough to offer to buy it, that was enough right there.

In terms of sending prep, price check, and whatever else people have been mentioning in threads, I presented the costs and whatnot. All CN did was save as much money as he could this past month.

He'd be pissed that I led him on all that month, but he'd get what he wanted without having to spend any money, or try to figure out Linux. On a side note, CN's DSL provider strictly forbids the hosting of servers, so yeah.

However, someone decided to let him in on one small aspect of this well planned hoax, and he decided to tell the whole community about it before asking me what was up first. When asked to explain myself after making the public thread, I had to step back and recollect my thoughts before deciding where to go with this new situation. Without the public thread, I would have let CN in on the whole scheme and continued as planned...but given the community's response and actions, I can honestly say I have very little desire to even release the new features to you. It's disheartening to know that someone I trusted leaked the joke. It's even more disheartening to know see how disliked I am for paying for this site's existence.

My server is more than just for CP hosting. Hosting this forum or shutting it down is as simple as clicking a button and the loss means very little to me. I'm providing a free service and if you don't like it, find another site.

There's the full story, not the bits and pieces you've picked up from LJ or other threads. I still haven't made my decision on where to go from here, but don't expect to see that new site release tomorrow or the next day. Right now, I'd much rather close the site than release new features to the many users who think I'm an incompitent, lazy asshole...when all I do is lose money for their benefit.
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[The Wobbler]

[Zombie Hunter Green]

Jesus, do you actually expect me to read that? Couldn't you just paraphrase it to a list of things people did that you feel the need to whine about? Or maybe just "I am a drama queen", and leave it at that?

Thank god the internet doesn't make you pay by the letter, huh?

[Linkmax]

Thats alot of text! But I read it anyway, he makes a HUGE POINT. And IM you are not an incompitent lazy asshole, you do so much work to this site that nobdy can see. I for one support you in your decisions 100%.

[Moogle1]

I don't think anyone accused IM of being incompetent.

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

Accusing IM of making his explaination too wordy and then not reading it is the same as accusing a new forum user of not reading any other user's post all the way through before responding to it. The effect of paraphrasing your post would come off as something like this, if read by a great many members of the community:

[Moogle1]

If IM is going to let the site go, he ought to at least sell it to CN like CN thought he was doing.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Zombie Hunter Green]

If you think that I'm going to start cocksucking or doing whatever you people think that I should do to be "grateful" or really giving a shit over threats to take the server down, you obviously don't know me all that well.

Also we're under a HACKER ATTACK?!?!? I'D BETTER FORWARD ALL MY ENERGON TO OPTIMUS QUEER THEN.

[Uncommon]

Don't blame CN or us for your actions, if you'd've been honest about it from the start, you wouldn't be in this position.
And my biggest problem with "Common Sense" isn't that you took away a little "badge" from me, it's that when you had a problem with me, instead of telling me to my face, you plotted behind my back instead. I had no idea that you had a problem with anything I was doing, because you never say anything. That is why I can't respect you as being in charge of this site. Everything's like a shot in the dark with you.

EDIT: By the way, good job skewing the situation.

[Machu]

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

[LeRoy_Leo]

... *sniffle*... I believe that Fenrir said it best. And I also believe that what ever IM decides is fine and in all of our best interests. It's sad that IM feels that we can't have the new and improved site with new features, though (which he had told me his team was working on a few months ago). I was looking forward to that in the worst way. However, if what must be done must be done, it doesn't matter how much I resent the decision.

The joke was a little far fetched, if not drawn out a bit (much). But, if it had gone as planned, I believe that it would have just been another sunrise for the OHR community. In other words; we wold have awakened to new features, a fresh new start, and a new day whether we like to believe it or not. It didn't, so we should move on.

I second Moogle's idea of still selling CP, as opposed to 'pulling the plug' on the place, to CN, or whoever. CN is certainly concerned for the community. I reckon CN has his eye on us and has his sights on our best interests. One cannot deny that he jumps the gun sometimes, but that's basically the only major downfall I can see. 'Dun know 'bout you guys.

I have a renewed respect for IM now. That's my bottom line. What he did is 'water under the bridge', for me at least. I am not saying I think his 'prank' was very considerate to the 'common nerve'. In fact, it threw most all of us off and really ticked some of us off. IM responded in a very reasonable, responsible, mature manner. Everyone makes mistakes. That's a fact. Some people make more than others. Some people are expected to be PERFECT. IM is probably expected to be perfect, and when something like this goes WRONG, what IM did is what to do. This all makes a lot more sense. My gratitude.
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Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[Shadowiii]

[Setu_Firestorm]

[Moogle1]

The problem is, you guys seem to have an "everyone" complex. No, everyone's not on your side. You're going to learn that painfully if you don't let yourselves see it how it is.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Rinku]

personally i think that it was both cruel and funny (although not funny because it was cruel, and not cruel because it was funny). the main cruel part was that im knew cn was saving money for the server and getting his hopes up, but didn't tell him that he had no intention of selling it; other than that, i thought it was funny. i personally am against jokes of this nature, as i'm against deception of every sort, but i can see things as funny even if i personally wouldn't morally condone them (i also see things like the torturer who invented the iron bull (or whatever its name was) being killed immediately after in that torture device, as funny, so i have a cruel sense of humor).

also, is it possible that it was me who let cn in on the joke by mistake? i mentioned in a subtle way on may 1 (which was the date i heard from IM that the joke was going to be sprung) in moogle1's lj that the server transfer thing wasn't accurate; so if it was me that cn learned it from, i apologize for letting it out early, i had assumed that because it was may 1 that cn knew about it. but it seems like he got the info via email, so it may not have been me, i don't know.

also, i should say that whether the joke was cruel or not is IM and CN's business, not ours; their friendship is not a public debate topic. there's no point in everyone else getting involved. (i know i'm going against this advice in paragraph 1, but cp is the place where contradictions thrive)
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Tower Defense Game