Guilt of recent events (and the true cause of it)

[Renomaki]

A few days ago, a great deal of drama took place involving SLC, Symbiosis and a horrible mess of a round that involved a lot of misinformation and salt. The day it happened, I just let things go as they do, assuming it to just be another day for staff. But as I come to learn how SLC's name is being dragged throught the mud, I just couldn't let it stand anymore. I thought long and hard about making this topic while at work, and after some deep though, I decided that maybe it is time to come out with the reality of things instead of just letting SLC take the bullet for someone else's fuckup.

The reason all that shit went down was mostly because of me. Other staff had involvement, yes, but mostly it was me that caused all this to snowball into what took place.

It all started as a typical round where I was doing my shift, observing the round and helping with the odd ahelp when I could, while watching some Men Of War videos on the side (but still keeping a close eye on the chat window as she scrolled throughout the round). My memory isn't the best, but at some point I got word of Chubs ordering both Charlie and Delta to stock up on AP ammunition, which sounded really powergamey considering the recent issues we been having with the recent AP + QFA meta that has been spawned by Delta members as of late. I already found this distasteful, alongside with his going planetside on the second drop [with a smartgun], but I just carried on as normal.

But at some point, I went stationside to see how the ground was doing, and if my memory served me right, it was approximately 12:30ish (probably close to 12:40), and I took notice of a relatively empty FoB. It was at this point I came to believe that Chubs was leading another one of his "banzi rushes", only now as a marine commander instead of as a xeno queen. It was bad enough when he does this as a queen, but the fact that he started doing this as a marine commander (going so far as to join the fight with his smartgun relatively early), I got "triggered" and started bitching about the marines metarushing. However, I wasn't paying attention to marine radio at the time, so I had no idea what the full context of the situation was and jumped to conclusions.

At some point, SLC joined the crew, and it was at this point where I, still furious about chub's assumed actions (mostly inspired by previous actions from older rounds and his general behavior), quickly informed SLC that he was leading a metarush with all the fixings. SLC mentioned that he was already on thin ice as is, and then sometime later went to personally talk to him about his actions, but not before preparing a UPP squad to help balance out the round due to this presumed metarush.

While SLC was having a talk with symb about his actions, I myself rambled on about how disgusted I was about the metarush, believing that he was fully deserving of a good punishing and even going so far as discussing the idea of making a CO report to get his whitelist removed due to my blind disgust of his actions that round. I even believe I made mention of wishing Feweh was still on the team, knowing that he would have crushed that "metarush" real easily and distributed "justice" (which ironically would not have happened due to Feweh revealing that he was fully supporting the actions that took place that round, believing marines to be robust instead of being a bunch of powergamers just wanting to win).

After Symb was banned by SLC (but not before having a brief heart to heart about how he used to respect symb deeply before he turned into an arse), and the following staff report that went horribly wrong (which didn't help due to the note system breaking down HARD and causing a lot of information to be lost in the process), I took notice of a recent trend of people shitting on SLC for being a badmin, when really this wasn't entirely his fault to begin with. Sure, he mighta been a bit harsh, but holy shit guys, this wasn't all his doing.

It was me...

After all that, I wish to provide apologizes to two people here.

SLC, I'm sorry for not acting sooner and letting you have your name dragged through the mud by redditers and the community. You are a great admin and I'd hate to see your reputation be tarnished because of another's actions. It is bad enough we lost Feweh (even if I didn't really like him all that much for personal reasons), but I'd hate to lose another good admin because of me being a badmod who got salty over bullshit.

And Symbiosis, while our relationship has waned considerably and gone bitter, I am sorry for ruining your round due to my poorly informed bitching. I don't agree with you on a lot of things, and admit that I can't understand why you seem to find so much pleasure in rushing rounds so fast, but had I only done more research beforehand, I could have avoided a lot of drama for both parties.

After the events that took place and some thought, I may consider stepping down from my position as a mod, feeling that I am not fit for the role after my recklessness caused a great deal of bitterness for a number of people and hurt the community a tad. Honestly, I never was that great a mod anywho, not putting as much passion into the job as I had originally imagined. If anything, I felt like dead weight who was only really useful one round a day, contributing little to the server and being horribly lazy. After my behavior got someone else's rep hurt, I feel that maybe I don't belong in a position of true power anymore.

I'm sorry, and I wish I did this sooner instead of letting it fester.

Then again, for all I know this shit doesn't matter because despite being around for a long time, most people don't even give a shit about me.

[Rikman]

You decided to clear this all up instead of letting your comrades take the shit. That takes some real balls. Props to you.
*salute

[CaptainYankee]

Your heart is in the right place Reno. We need people on staff who can take a step back and examine their own actions or lack of actions.

[Heckenshutze]

I was going to make a comment when the report was still open about how things developed from the start, and It's very mature of you to make this regardless I don't blame you on anything nor the rest of the staff team as long as I know.

About what I wanted to say on the report, I'd like to sum it up in a few precise points:

1) We, the staff, were surprised by how quick the round was already sided to the marines, having the xeno hivermind on screen saying things like "We're Fucked!" And stuff put us on red alert. The Mchat was highly active since then; an investigation took place and we all got confident over our mate's testimonies, even we have an Admin on that observed the whole thing and, like us, though that a metarush was taking place, again, we didn't made the proper investigation other than assumptions on what we saw and witness. The icing of the cake was Symb on the frontlines along with the marines and the scenario was then completed, we all saw a supposed metarush that would've been the reason of such stomping. When slc logged in (after we had gather all this criteria) he asked what was going on, and we told him what we though we saw, and at that point ALL staff online agreed of the actions to take or at least they didn't said otherwise (the actions to take were to pm symb to ask him and the upp/ravenger spawn). What made me angry is the fact no staff stood up while we were informing slc to explain his opinion about the matter, instead, waited for the staff report to be made to speak, making slc to look REALLY bad, like he acted without any guidance or consulting; and that's pretty shit.

2) The conversation between symb and slc that escalated into the ban was something aside from the staff criteria since we didn't influenced in slc's judgement (and honestly didn't paid attention until the ban was made) What I believe, as a personal opinion, the ban came as a mixture of past issues with symb, his removal, fights with the staff and of course, the personal link that him and Slc have (since Slc keeps saying that he's a guy good and liked him a lot) This misunderstood just boiled all that up and created this shitshow.

3) Regarding my commentary in Dchat that appeared on the report, I said that due to the fact I, like stated above, believed what the staff was saying on mchat about the meta and the xeno players complaining, I confess, personally, I worked under what the staff 'saw and confirmed' and what the players were saying on dchat. So I apologize for that, one of the reasons I didn't answered the report was to avoid more drama and make it easier for apop to decide the report.

4) What I don't like and accept, is Symbiosis using a topic (already resolved and marked as dumb) to upgrade his complain, creating more drama because that's all it did, referring to me as "The one who made a white people comment" something it wasn't needed at all, rather looked like he was attempting to increase the heat over a situation it was already heated.

At least, I believe, everything got resolved in a way we're all satisfied.

[Symbiosis]

Well. I didn't know our relationship went bitter or that you were so disgusted by the actions of the round. Damn, Weenie, truly a shame to see that, as I've always enjoyed ya and commented positively about how you're a solid example for RP'ers to look up to. Seeing as you find issue of how I "rushed" or how I play Queen/CO I'll do my best to explain.

Whenever I play Queen -or- Commander I take it upon myself to attempt to bring the highest level of enjoyment for my "side" for that given round.

When I play QUEEN I play an extremely aggressive Queen, whip the Xenos into a frenzy, communicating via Hivemind about the superiority of Xenos, or even gibbing particularly vicious Marines while the Hive watches, it's all about a general feel. (Which is why many Xenos can generally detect when I play Queen, I'm not a passive/afk/silent Queen that sits in Ovi eternally, I allow free evolution to let Xeno Players pick and choose what they want to play and do our best to win with whatever we end up with... be that four Praetorians or Four Ravs.

As a COMMANDER I try to utilize military tactics, proper logistical support, and full commitment of our forces. Be it envelopment, flanking, or even pincer movements. I provide maps to ensure that Marines know their orders and locations, and that if they need to fall out or a squad requires assistance everyone generally knows where they are. I enjoy RP'ing as a Commander that "Fights with his Marines" in the same vein of General Merrill. (Look him up, he's a badass, had a heart attack, was treated, then went BACK into the fight. Google Merrill's Marauders)

As far as the AP? It was divided across the station. The north side was Charlie/Alpha and the south side Bravo/Delta. It was meant to provide both "groups" of forces an equal level of firepower... Also why I went south instead of North, as Bravo was ordered to leave half their Squad to set up the FOB. Not suggesting I'm worth half a squad, but the CO's "issue order" is very helpful and having him near the front is great for morale.

Anytime you or anyone else has issue with something I'm doing (be it "Echo Squad", fighting with the Marines as a Commander, or "rushing" the first Squad I see as Xeno Queen), feel free to hit me up, talk it out, and I'll be happy to explain my reasons. I'm pretty damn careful to not break the rules when I do things (I've slipped out of ignorance a select few times) and I genuinely try to bring as much enjoyment for my side on any given that round that I possibly can.

Now to the important part ... as far as stepping down from Mod? Dude, water under the bridge what happened. It's settled, it is DONE. Learn from what you feel was a mistake and carry on. The CM community needs good Moderators that are willing to take on the burden of being a public face of CM which isn't easy, you're under a lot of scrutiny. I've had rounds as Queen when Admins have sent in PMC's and Freelancers because we rocked the Marines too quickly... and I've had rounds as Commander that they've sent Ravengers, spawned Ancient Ayys, or sent in hostile human ERT's. I don't sweat it or get salty about those actions as I'd hope other players/staff don't salty about how I play CO or Queen. I do it because I enjoy it but also to bring enjoyment to the round for my side. If the Admins see fit to tip the scales, I'll have no qualms. It's just a single round. There'll be more.

We good, Reno. We good.

Heckenschutze. You were openly asking players to create a CO report, suggesting I ruined the round for many players (clearly many players didn't feel as such), and frankly I believe you should also let bygones be bygones, as I'm trying my best despite my personal opinion to move on from this. Please don't use this apology as an opportunity to get more jabs in. Vent your frustrations to me in person or on slack/msay not in the open forum this is.

[slc97]

Symb and I actually spoke quite a bit on this topic this morning in PMs. I personally went that way because I didn't particularly care if reddit saw my response to him or anything like that cause they're just gonna dramatize it anyway. First and foremost, I wanna say exactly what I told him. Symb is a cool dude. I don't like some of his more recent actions, but that doesn't mean I dislike him. I banned him the other day because metarushing is a subsection of the metagaming rules, and I was harsher with the ban because of these actions that myself and some other staff had seen as toeing a certain line. That being said, I also toed a certain line that I'll get into.

I had actually had a meeting scheduled with Apop Sunday night anyway, so we wound up discussing the report. He told me it was a shit situation because we both had ground to stand on. This all happened before we found out logs got fucked. The issue was that metarushing is against the rules, but we'd been very lax in it lately and had been being replaced by mechanics so much that it was really a bigger failure of mechanics than on Symb. At that point, I suggested we just drop the ban because it's not fair for players to be banned because we made mistakes in mechanics. Then we found out logs were fucked, and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Reno, I don't think you owe me an apology at all. I was too harsh with the ban. A lot of staff pointed that out in staffchat, and I immediately told them I was absolutely willing to budge on the ban time. Some of you who have spoken to me before may know that I do occasionally stick my foot in my mouth. I've done it my entire life and try to be more careful what I say. It's been pointed out to me that me saying "I've never apologized for doing my job, and I won't start now" sounded like I was arrogantly stating that I'm not capable of being wrong. That's dumb. If I could rephrase that, I would say that my main job is to moderate the community and maintain order, and I can't play favorites. I should have thought about what I said before saying it, but I didn't.

It's closing on two years that I've been staff now, and I've behaved the same way I behaved this week for this entire time. I believe what makes it seem differently is that there has been a lot of disorder in the community. I realized this week that we have a very careful line between moderating and maintaining order and silencing community members. Symb pointed out to me correctly that anytime he was asked to stop doing something in the last week, he did comply almost immediately every time. We had consistent problems with Symb this week, but he also worked with us anytime we brought up the problems. I toed that line between moderating and maintaining order. Symb, I do apologize for the harshness of the ban. At most it should have been 3 hours or even just a warning, because it should be up to us to install mechanics to stop rushes.

The last thing I wanna say is that I was in fact wrong in the degree in which I handled the situation. Like I said, I was definitely too harsh. In almost two years of working for this community, I'm bound to make mistakes, but I've always tried to do the right thing for the community and staff. Doesn't mean I don't fuck it up sometimes. Frankly, If any of us is incapable of admitting to the occasional bout of incompetent ability, we have no business being a staff member. Reno, I hope you do decide to stick around. The ability to sit here and say "I fucked up" particularly when no one knew you did shows depth of character.

[Kesserline]

Damn, that's why I love this community. Drama doesn't become toxic waste, it just gets cleared with apologies, like civilised gentlemen.

If only Marines in the req line would act the same, riots would be divided by 3, or even 4 !

Come by Delta squad one day, I'll get you free hugs, for all of you !

[Jakkkk]

you got heart reno, good man

[misto]

the accusation of "rush" is a joke these days, and especially on a map like prison station. there's only one direction where the hive's gonna be: off to the west somewhere. there's only one direction you can go from lz1: off to the west, and it only takes like what, a couple of minutes to walk through the place? and you have like a hundred people to "scout" with? whether you make contact with hostiles or follow a trail of weeds or not, the place could be combed top to bottom in 10 minutes by the kinds of playercounts youre pulling these days

[Tigroon]

I believe this thread should be stickied as an example of how the CM community can truly come together, apologize, shake hands, and move on. Really. Please, Apop, do this.

Reno. Good of you to come forward. Shows character. Learn, improve, move on.

SLC. Good on you to admit to shit that hit the fan, and good on you to admitting improvement needs to be done. Learn, improve, move on.

Kudos to all of you guys, really. You guys are what makes the server great, and when shit hits the fan like it did the past week, it drags the server down with it. Posts like these bring clarity to the situation, and help immensely. Thank you for everything you guys do, and keep it up.

[apophis775]

As requested, I'll stick this temporarily.

[TheMaskedMan2]

I always liked you Reno. You’re a good player and I imagine a good Moderator. Even if a bit of a doofus sometimes, but so am I. We all make mistakes, we all have salty moments, the real mark is if you learn from them, and admit to them. Which is maturity a lot of people don’t have.

I was an Admin prior and i’ve made some really really dumb mistakes myself, and trust me, I understand the salt towards powergamers and even certain players. After I joined staff I found myself getting a lot less tolerant of certain things. It can get to you after a while. I’ve had my share of msay rants i’m really not proud of.

If the stress gets a bit high, it never hurts to have a small inactivity post for a week and recollect your senses. I don’t believe you should step down. This is one minor mistake, and things such as this are blown out of proportion quite commonly. I’ve seen much worse mistakes before.

Good luck, I hope the guilt passes, and I believe it will.

[NethIafins]

Wow... This topic is a sight for sore eyes

I also have to repent as I was trying to get on to Symb's constant shuttle hops as Hunter (with eventual extinction of entire almayer crew)
I hope you forgive me

It's just seems that we, in heat of hunting for new tactics, started to forget this this game is not a team deathmatch

Good COs wipe entire hives in minutes while bad COs loose Planetside before first scan...

[caleeb101]

how heart warming

[Vispain]

Wow... This topic is a sight for sore eyes

I also have to repent as I was trying to get on to Symb's constant shuttle hops as Hunter (with eventual extinction of entire almayer crew)
I hope you forgive me

It's just seems that we, in heat of hunting for new tactics, started to forget this this game is not a team deathmatch

Good COs wipe entire hives in minutes while bad COs loose Planetside before first scan...

Sadly, so true. Sometimes a SL, SO, or other rank should temper down the bloodlust with RP caution and, obviously ignorance. It's easy to charge everything you've got when you get info of 'some hostiles' in *give location*. IC we know nothing. A squad or two is all that is needed.

On another note, it's good to see the community not being toxic and ... well...I'm sure you get the point.

[Renomaki]

You know, as cool as it is to have made a topic worth stickying, I feel that the information at hand is now long out of date these days.

I think unstickying it would be pretty ok right about now.

[Bancrose]

Takes balls to admit fault, I often think your a dick at times but I cannot bash you in any way at all for acknowledging you made the mistake.

Hopefully in the future you'll remember this moment and reconsider making a rash judgement before you look at the big picture and better inform yourself.

[slc97]

Unstickied at poster's request

[edda]

Dang it Reno, you're too pure a cinnamon roll for SS13.