Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo

[Jennkryst]

@Jumpscare Any time there is new Star Wars media, line go up. I know very little about the one other Star Wars game that exists, but I assume its different enough that the City of Hope effect is in play.

… which is to say, AoA offers players something other Star Wars games don’t, and rhose players are willing to put up with an amount of fuckery due to lack of options.

For City of Hope, this used to be sky’s the limit concepts… Mummies, Nephandi, Shadow Court/Thallain, Demon the Fallen, Possessed, Sabbat… but there was also a serious lack of alternative oWoD games around. Now there is simultaneously a decrease in playable spheres, in addition to competition from other games like Liberation, RetroMu, Fulcrum, Towers, and at least one, maybe more, in alpha… and that means logins are going to go down as people flock elsewhere.

Maybe it is Imperial PCs. Maybe it’s the playable Dark Side. Maybe it’s the ridiculous obsession with Mandalorians. Maybe it is the ability to customize stuff. Maybe it’s the fact that you just +attack and the game spits out success and damage for you without you needing to own a rulebook to understand what happened. Whatever the case, people who are logging in have decided that something outweighs the bad.

The trick is finding out what that something is and replicating it elsewhere, bereft of the bad, and people will flock to you.

[Pavel]

@Jumpscare said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

According to their reported numbers, the population practically doubled just a few days ago.

The number of active characters practically doubled.

[Jax]

@Jumpscare Is these stats for unique connections or total connections? It’s common on Aoa for players to have multiple alts. It might be there was a rush of alts.

There was an Exodus of around 20+ players a few years back started by this thread. So we’ll a lot of us are remembering our old days vs what’s there now.

[Hobbie]

It’s not just multiple alts, but those alts connected multiple times. For example, Sumi in the past used to connect all her alts from three-to-five different devices, meaning over a dozen connections from one player. That’s the number WHO looks at, and the number iberia.jdai.pt sees.

[Warlander]

@Zephyr I’ve had a feeling that the answer was something like this for years now, but thanks for bringing more specifics to the table.

And I agree that he’s not a good leader, even if I do think that’s the understatement of the century.

[Warlander]

@Hobbie I can vouch for this. It’s been a habit in that place for years. It’s not uncommon for Aryn’s whole collection of alts to be connected twice, with a few of them connected three or more times. Add to that the fact that some staff have as many as four or five alts and you’ve got a severely overinflated WHO roster.

It’s not news at this point, I know. It just occasionally bears repeating. Some of those staffers are known to occasionally stagger their connect times just so it’s harder to pin down who’s an alt and who’s not.

This sort of wacky (un-)fun was also common on SerenityMUSH (funny how DSS games attract such horrible, “success”-obsessed and amoral staffers), altfest and all. Mal was so obsessed with protecting staff alt identities that he actually tried to enforce a ban on reading other players’ connect times to see who was whose alt, and how many alts there were.

[Lemon Fox]

@Warlander So, hi. I play Nika/Roan and I’m the reason the wargame stuff happened. I didn’t design any of it, and Cujo told me he had this rattling around in his head for years but couldn’t make it work. But he decided to try it out anyway, and people got really excited about it. So why are you crapping all over it?

To unpack all that, I apped an Admiral character so Imperial Navy people could have someone to come chat at, and Rebels could have a new enemy to lazily RP at. The game was pretty quiet and I just wanted to stir stuff up a little. Like, super low effort. The character got approved, and I was going to be plunked onto the flagship since the position was largely going to be ceremonial.

Someone disapproved of someone coming in without starting from the bottom of the ladder, and I was flabbergasted that they would care since the org had very little activity. I was cool with just binning the character since I wasn’t there for cool leadership stuff and just wanted to shake out some RP. But staff put forward the Navy Captains initiative that you saw above. Just a super-raw framework to be ironed out, and we’ve been doing playtesting on it, on and off.

And for the last part, thanks for being a giant dick about it, because that’s definitely going to inspire any positive change. I’m super thrilled that activity had skyrocketed and people are gearing up for a giant offensive to finally take back the galaxy. The rebels are having fun. The imperials are having fun. Aryn has been huge in fostering RP for the conflict, and us captains have been having a blast with tongue-in-cheek rivalries and for-fun shit talking.

So why are you such a sourpuss about this? Okay, you had bad experiences a long-ass time ago. Can’t you let anything new happen without blowing a trumpet asking other people to be outraged with you? Like, damn, come check it out for yourself if you like. I play Roan and Nika! Hit me up if you want to talk. But don’t just start wrapping the whole thing in shit because you are salty.

[Hobbie]

I can’t and won’t tell you what to do or what to think, that’d be disrespectful. I say the below because it’s what I experienced over eight years, and I got off pretty lightly compared to others. I will always do my best to provide clarity but with a disclaimer that I might not avoid bias, since I’m still a bit crispy from my time there.

Crap is being applied to the wargame system because it is another over-tuned Thing in a long line of additional over-tuned Things to be rolled out without any real consultation, consideration, or internal testing. This’ll be interesting to the player-base for about a month or so, then GMs will get either bored or frustrated and start doing it their own way.

Then the resultant hostility from Cujo will follow, because now he has been slighted by the ungrateful players that don’t want to use what he worked so hard to create. The issue with this is that he didn’t create it. Hadrix/Reverberate did. It follows his normal pattern of doing nothing until the demands are too loud to ignore.

It’s elicited a mass groan of “oh not again” because over the decade or so that a lot of us experienced AoA, the above happened time and time and time again.

@Lemon-Fox said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Someone disapproved of someone coming in without starting from the bottom of the ladder, and I was flabbergasted that they would care since the org had very little activity.

…yeah, that happens. You’ve encountered AoA’s tall poppy syndrome. If you try to rise up above the dinosaurs, you will be pulled back down unless you have powerful friends. The fact that you needed staff fiat to start in a position where you can actually play with this new system (which is otherwise locked only to dinosaurs) is both common and unfortunate.

Many players tried many years to inspire positive change only to run headlong into brick walls, to the point where the advice given to GMs was often “run what you want as long as Cujo doesn’t care”. Change must come from the top as well as the bottom to meet half-way, and the majority of the current staff are corrupt and disinterested in little more than their own egos. And that’s not even starting on the sex pest problem, which is the original impetus behind this whole thread in the first place.

I wish you the absolute best on that grid. I really do, and I say it genuinely, without a hint of sarcasm, condescension, or irony. Nobody should be forced to stew in negativity and I pray for your sake and the sake of all the other folk that came after us that you and they are allowed to play the game that you want. Never lose sight of what you want to do and strive to do it with the people you enjoy.

And good luck with Aryn.

[Lemon Fox]

@Hobbie I appreciate the very grounded approach to how you worded this! Just a couple things, though:

@Hobbie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Then the resultant hostility from Cujo will follow, because now he has been slighted by the ungrateful players that don’t want to use what he worked so hard to create.

Have you actually talked to him about any of this? Like, directly? Casually?

@Hobbie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

The fact that you needed staff fiat to start in a position where you can actually play with this new system (which is otherwise locked only to dinosaurs) is both common and unfortunate.

The Naval Captain thing is open to anyone! No XP, Noms, or what-have-you required! You can also make a General or Wing Commander if you like! Just wanted to make sure people didn’t have that impression about it.

[Warlander]

@Lemon-Fox I’d really love to know who got bent out of shape about your apping a character who didn’t start at the bottom (which, for what it’s worth, I find hilariously petty, even by AoA standards, since the position was, as you said, largely ceremonial). I like learning more about the people who play there, good or bad. The good so I know who might be good people to know, and the bad so I know who to avoid like the plague.

Also, if you want to know why I, or anyone else here, feels the way we do, feel free to read the entire thread. You’ll either agree or disagree with us, as is your right. You may also learn things you may not have known about AoA. Possibly things you may not want to know.

And as for me ‘crapping all over it’, ‘being a giant dick about it’, ‘such a sourpuss about this’, ‘salty’, etc., etc., etc… reread my posts on this subject. Compare it to other posts here, including your own. I have my moments of anger and bitterness, as does everyone, and I’m choosing to believe that this is one of yours, because, contrary to what you may be thinking, I respect players and staff, yourself included, until they give me a very good reason not to.

And unlike you, Cujo and Company failed that test long ago, and have only gotten worse since. Positive change just isn’t a thing that happens on AoA, largely because of the sheer toxicity of the upper echelon of staff there, and until some or all of them change their ways, which they show no signs of ever doing, or leave and turn the game over to people who know and appreciate the value of respect for themselves and fellow players, positive change will remain an alien phenomenon there.

Feel free to disagree with me. As I said before, that’s your right. If this thing actually succeeds, and actually results in player driven, meaningful change to the grid (especially if it includes seeing the Sith Empire pushed into the position the Resistance occupies right now, a situation that I would consider proof positive that Aryn and her ilk aren’t just letting everyone think they’re accomplishing something while nothing meaningful actually changes) I’ll reevaluate my position. And if you and yours actually are having fun and don’t eventually get the full AoA experience (aka being screwed over by one or more staffers in at least one major way), I’ll be happy to be wrong.

[Hobbie]

@Lemon-Fox said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Have you actually talked to him about any of this? Like, directly? Casually?

Yeah, a few times way back if it came up while we were talking about other things. I’d get various permumtations of “I worked really hard”, or complete silence. I think silence was actually the best result I got, 'cause then I could fool myself into thinking he’d listened to me. Then… history would repeat, and eventually I just didn’t try.

Most of the time he’d built something no one wanted or cared about and then got upset because no one wanted or cared about it, because he never really looked at what his player-base wanted or cared about. Some form of coded space combat was requested for years, in that time there was an alcohol system, vendor randomisation/rarity, a hugely growing space grid that was never used, endless Mandalorian handouts, beskar, the time-skip, etc.

The first indication the grid would receive that he’d made something was when it was suddenly live.

@Lemon-Fox said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

The Naval Captain thing is open to anyone! No XP, Noms, or what-have-you required! You can also make a General or Wing Commander if you like! Just wanted to make sure people didn’t have that impression about it.

It is now, thanks to your actions. I don’t know whether or not you raised it as a concern to them, but I’m going to assume someone noticed and therefore the change was made. My point was the part before that, where another player took offense at you trying to play a character that could actually interact with the new system simply because you weren’t starting at zero. That’s never sat well with me and I saw it a scary number of times on that grid.

[Lemon Fox]

@Warlander

@Warlander said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

And as for me ‘crapping all over it’, ‘being a giant dick about it’, ‘such a sourpuss about this’, ‘salty’, etc., etc., etc… reread my posts on this subject. Compare it to other posts here, including your own. I have my moments of anger and bitterness, as does everyone, and I’m choosing to believe that this is one of yours, because, contrary to what you may be thinking, I respect players and staff, yourself included, until they give me a very good reason not to.

I just didn’t read it that way, and it seemed really negative toward something that is just trying to help (and being pretty effective!) I think one of the major disconnects is that people here expected a cut-throat, finely honed PvP engine, when those of us using it just like to swing big ships at each other and shout silly insults when we lose. The jank is part of the fun for now. It’ll get beaten into shape with more testing.

@Warlander said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Cujo and Company failed that test long ago

So, this is part of why I feel like old salt is interfering with giving stuff a chance. I’ve been on the game for a while now, and I’ve not experienced…hardly anything listed here. And while I play flirty characters, I’m rarely in the mood for taking anything further. And no one has creeped on me, which is actually really refreshing.

@Warlander said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

(especially if it includes seeing the Sith Empire pushed into the position the Resistance occupies right now, a situation that I would consider proof positive that Aryn and her ilk aren’t just letting everyone think they’re accomplishing something while nothing meaningful actually changes)

This is actually my hope. I’m not going to sabotage the Empire’s efforts, but the Rebellion outnumbers us by a huge margin and I’d love for them to kick our butts overall. That’s the Star Wars way! I’d honestly like to also see a huge uptick in Jedi running around. Sith can be anywhere, but the Jedi are always hiding under rocks right now.

[Warlander]

@Lemon-Fox I very much appreciate your admission that you might have misread my intentions. Thank you. Frankly, I’m not really into complicated combat systems, no matter who designed them or how refined or kludgy they are, and the ground battle system as listed was so eye-crossingly complex that I couldn’t even finish reading it. If you really are playing with those two systems and having fun with them, and I really hope you are, I won’t try to dissuade you. That’s just not why I commented on them.

@Lemon-Fox said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

So, this is part of why I feel like old salt is interfering with giving stuff a chance. I’ve been on the game for a while now, and I’ve not experienced…hardly anything listed here.

As with most of ‘the AoA experience’, I suspect this phrase should be capped off with the word ‘Yet.’ I hope not, but experience has taught me better than to harbor hopes that usually turn out to be false, or at least misplaced.

Hobbie already laid out the reasons for this better than I ever could, but for my part I’ll repeat that not only did Cujo and Company fail my test long ago, they continue to do so, and their behavior has gotten worse, not better. Even if they seem to have learned to hide it better than before. This may be a large part of why you haven’t had ‘the AoA experience’ to date.

[Zephyr]

@Lemon-Fox said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

So, this is part of why I feel like old salt is interfering with giving stuff a chance. I’ve been on the game for a while now, and I’ve not experienced…hardly anything listed here. And while I play flirty characters, I’m rarely in the mood for taking anything further. And no one has creeped on me, which is actually really refreshing.

Hi there.

I was on the game for about eight years. I was staff for close to five years. The people that are on staff now are the ones responsible for much of the sex pesting. Hadrix, in specific, had so many complaints over the years that I tried to address and it was all swept under the rug. I personally had many unpleasant experiences with him. It’s very easy to say, well I don’t experience it so maybe it didn’t happen, maybe it’s all better now. It’s not. You just don’t know about it because that’s the nature of the game culture.

Current members of staff have either outright abused systems and cheated to the point that they were set suspect up until they were abruptly put on staff. They have been complained about for harassment and manipulative behavior. They have been repeatedly accused of sex pesting. They have a long history of sweeping harassment claims under the rug, because they don’t want to deal with it, and when asked to even be allowed to address it, was met with a firm no we’ll wait and see if it stops answer. For years. This is every member of the wiz staff. Every. Single. One. I was there to see every bit of it, deal with many of the complaints, sift through the suspect logs, try and reassure players that I was listening to them.

When those are the kind of people that you put into the position of power, the well is poison. Don’t see it now? Cool. You will. You can ignore it, but the thing is, all of the things warned about here? They’re true. Eventually the shine is going to wear off on the game, and you’ll start to see what’s underneath.

They can only hide the rot for so long.

Good luck.

[Pavel]

[Jax]

@Lemon-Fox Hey Lemon-Fox, I’m glad you’re having fun on a game. Enjoy yourself tell the stories you want for the people you want to tell. Remember it’s better to ask for forgiveness with Cujo than permission. Have thick skin and no cares you will be fine.

Just be ready for the first time you cross Banshee, Hadrix, or Aryn. The 'not earned it’s for your admiral bit was just a taste.

Banshee once changed the rules for a force power mid scene cause he couldn’t one shot my very powerful dino Jedi. It was infuriating and funny at the same time.

Oh and yes, I talked to Cujo several times. It was hardly ever a directly bad experience. But years of lip service with no real support coupled with finally seeing the light is why I walked.

Oh if you’re a female player or female presenting player, try getting away with being bossy. He’s afraid of you. You really have the same power as Aryn especially if you can generate rp.

The times Cujo got onto me was my ic love interest was not playing well with others. Cujo would talk to me to get her to behave cause he was scared of her.