@Wizz This also meshes with my own experiences there, up to the present day. Hadrix Kora is a heavy contributor to the uncomfortableness on Pub, as is the general clique he belongs to that basically seems to control the game.

@kalakh Speaking of… this just hit the boards last night.

=========================<* 8: Game Updates - 199 *>=========================
Message: 8/199 Posted: Jan 20 2023 Author: Discordia
Timejump XP Updates (Non-FS)

As we approach closer to the timejump, post-time jump XP and Sheet adjustments going forward will be:

For all Non-FS, 1000 XP base award
PLUS 150 per 5 years of a 15 year age-up.

Thus:

0 years: 1000xp
5 years: 1150xp
10 years: 1300xp
15 years: 1500xp

FS Characters will be handled separately. The goal with the XP award is to allow our Non-FS characters to come to greater parity with their level of skill after a fifteen year increase.

All XP adjustments will be handled by hand and annotated per character so that if a PC is shelved and their XP is rolled into a new PC, it will not include the XP gained by the time jump. Only their normally accrued experience points, as has always been the case.

Any Non-FS who wish to change their decision on whether or not they will be aging up and by how much, please either add a reply to your existing job or submit a new +request if you have not done so yet. Anyone who does not submit a +request will be assumed to be aging the full 15 years.

If you have more than one alt, you may include your decisions for all of them in one +request, just make sure to note each alt and your choice going forward.
------------------------------< +bbread 8/199 >-------------------------------

The original ‘awards’ were 0 XP for not aging, 150 for aging five years, 300 for aging 10 years, and the full 500 for aging the full 15 years, just so nobody has to scroll back a mile or two. Quite a difference, don’t you think?

Sound like damage control (to the tune of, ‘Please stay! We’re handing out oodles of goodies!’) to anyone else?

(Note: Edited to fix the message header.)

@Narson What was that motivation? Just 'cause I’m morbidly curious…

FWIW, not a fan of AoA, and likely never will be. Even if the subject of this board weren’t an issue (which I’m sure it is), there are too many sketchy things and flying monkeys for my taste, and too many good players run off by blatant favoritism, and a slightly less blatant habit of ignoring their efforts to contribute to the game. Who could blame them? If nothing you do is ever allowed to have any effect/meaning, why stay?

Skipping ahead 15 IC years and letting the Sith Empire have the galaxy, ostensibly to get the game back to ‘Star Wars’s best vibe, rebels vs. the empire’ is just the most recent sketchy decision, and I still wonder if it’s not another attempt to create A Game of Thrones IN SPACE. I also wonder which Sith Empire staff alt decided they wanted to win the game…

But I digress. The ones who have quit have the right (and healthiest) idea.

@CuriousGamer These things remind me a great deal of a Rollins Band song I used to play on the campus radio station. Think it was just called ‘Liar’. This isn’t nearly the whole song, but these are the words I remember when I think of abusers like Cujo and Hadrix.

'I’ll hide behind a smile… and understanding eyes…
And I’ll tell you things you already know, just so you’ll say, ‘I really identify with you, so much!’
I’ll come to you like an affliction. I’ll leave you like an addiction.
You’ll never forget me! YOU WANNA KNOW WHY?!!

‘CAUSE I’M A LIAR!!! YEAH! I AM A LIAR!!!’

‘I DON’T KNOW WHY I FEEL THE NEED TO… CAUSE YOU SO MUCH PAIN!
MAYBE IT’S SOMETHIN’ INSIDE, MAYBE IT’S SOMETHIN’ I CAN’T EXPLAIN…
‘CAUSE ALL I DO… IS MESS YOU UP AND LIE TO YOU!!!’

‘I LIE! I LIE AND LIE AND LIE! OH, I LIE…
I’LL LIE AGAIN! AND AGAIN!
I’LL LIE AGAIN AND AGAIN AND I’LL KEEP LYIN’!
I promise… HAHAHAHAHAHAAH!’

Groomers and cliquesters are a lot like this. Other players are just a disposable thrill to them, or a place to hide when the whistle is blown… or even the flying monkey squad that squashes all criticism of them, so they can continue to prey on vulnerable people.

In what little experience I have with this kind of abuse on games, ones in which staff have near-total control of the information flow, things tend to simmer just beneath the surface, invisible to most of the player body of the game, for a long, long time. Most players go out of their way to avoid the clique the problem player is part of, if there is any warning at all. It’s only when the incidents begin to pile up, and victimized players begin to talk to one another outside of the game and discover patterns in their own experiences, that things come out, and usually it’s in one big rush. The game may or may not die as a result of it.

On the game I was on when I first saw this (a Fallout game run by the infamous Kat), a large part of the playerbase disappeared over the course of a month, and most of the players found out through paging one another, or talking to fellow players outside the game via emails or places like Discord. The game slowly withered and died for six or so months afterward, and by the time Kat actually banned the predator in question, it was much, much too late to save the game or what little credibility she had as a staffer.

Given that Cujo refuses to even acknowledge that any abuse occurred, let alone ban the player/staffer responsible, I don’t know how long it will take AoA to wither away, if it ever does. Remember that SerenityMUSH stuck around for a long, long time in spite of having similar problems, and an equally toxic staff culture. The same may happen here.

@Jennkryst Why does it not surprise me that AoA would waste time and effort on a kinks code system?

They wasted plenty of time on working elevators and trams, some of which eat coded money, in some locales, to say nothing of ‘balancing’ the coded weapons and ammo, most of which doesn’t begin to match old or new canon… and adding modifications that tend to be very rare (except for the garbage-grade versions that clog up the vendors everywhere) and cost many, many times more than the weapons themselves, just to turn those weapons back into something besides useless junk. Mostly what they managed to do is turn the gap between newbies and dinosaurs into a huge gulf, which I doubt was accidental.

Starship mods are treated much the same way, though the stock ships aren’t nearly as junked-up as the weapons (even if they are far more rare, since only a small number of each ship model exists on the game at any time).

And if you want anything modded, you have to find someone with the skills and coded equipment to do it. While this makes some sense, a staff member has to be available to adjudicate the actual modifications, just in case the tech succeeds wildly or fails; in the latter case, the mod is lost and the item being modded can be permanently damaged, reducing one or more of its base statistics. Needless to say, it takes very high skill levels in the necessary skills to generate consistent results. Like automated cargo running code, this is supposed to ‘encourage RP’. I don’t know about RP, but it certainly encourages frustration, as scheduling is the worst enemy of using coded mod systems.

There’s also pricey color codes for armor, weapons, etc., and something called ‘screambucks’, relatively recently added, that are supposed to be gained through RP, and can be used to purchase other coded rarities, like beskar metal for making Mandalorian armor. This is great for large groups and orgs, who have a habit of nomming one another heavily, but not nearly so useful for less active and/or ‘well-connected’ players, which are usually newbies; usually by the time the dinosaur groups finish nomming one another, they’ve run out of noms.

All of this code and coded objects may explain why the game suffers from persistent and often severe lag. Just typing +paycheck or +bbnew guarantees a wait of several seconds, minimum.

@SqeakyClean This confirms a LOT of things I’ve suspected for some time now.

And I can confirm that the playerbase emphatically did not want the time skip; that was a staff thing all the way, and Cujo admitted that he had been steering the metaplot of the game toward the Sith winning for a good while before deciding to announce the time skip. The playerbase was not even asked if they wanted this; they were just told ‘this will happen, and unless you figure out a way to opt out, you are aging 15 years’ (BTW, it’s a lot harder to opt out than go with the flow). And while noises are being made about the Sith Empire faction ultimately losing, the faction is recruiting heavily, much like the First Order back before that faction was made NPC. So I’m of the opinion that even if the Sith Empire loses, it will be a very long time coming, and even then I’m sure Aryn will fight it every step of the way.

Just one more chapter in the long-running ‘Imps win, LOL,’ side of Star Wars.

@Jennkryst It should be noted that most of the original Koras used to be First Order PCs, who started chargen with the best stats and gear on the game. Except possibly for Sumi Kora, who is head of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild and built to a standard at least equal to the First Order PCs, none of the Koras started life as Mandalorians; they were all First Order PCs who somehow adopted the Mandalorian way of life after the First Order ceased to be a PC faction, so they didn’t have to retire their overbuilt PCs, or go totally Civilian.

It’s probably no coincidence that Clan Kora first popped up within a month of ‘The Mandalorian’ first airing.

@Wizz I suspect more newbies than we will EVER know about had a similarly horrible experience there, whether immediately or much later.

@Popes Or maybe they’ve just learned that they have to hide their bad behavior better, since the word’s out about it and the playerbase is a lot smaller than it used to be (because the word’s out about it).

Time will tell.

@Buttercup Hopes, love, best wishes, and prayers for you and yours. Hope you not only pull through, but get better faster than anyone expects was possible.

@Buttercup I salute you for doing a job I can’t do, and for injuries received in the line of duty. Deeply sorry it had to happen to you, but glad you’re on the mend. Hope the recovery is very swift and smooth, especially given how rocky the road thus far has been.

@SpilledBeanz Speaking of, this just hit the bboards today:

======================<* 7: Game Announcements - 182 *>======================
Message: 7/182 Posted Author
Old Guard Lounge Sep 30 2024 Cujo

Anyone in the Old Guard Lounge, who did not die IC, that can still log in to their character, can ask to be moved back to the IC grid.

Just put in a request. If you can still log in to your character, and you’re in the Old Guard Lounge, all you have to do is put in a request to get put back IC. If there are people who don’t even have their char passwords just have to ask for them to be updated, and you can get your character back IC then.

All you have to do is a request, and ask. Super simple! super fun time simple, big IC grid awaits.
------------------------------< +bbread 7/182 >-------------------------------

Better go get another carton of Morton’s salt to take this news with. I can smell the selective enforcement from here.

@Buttercup Hopes, love, best wishes, and prayers for you and yours. Hope you not only pull through, but get better faster than anyone expects was possible.

@Zephyr You explained the game’s biggest problems in the best nutshell I’ve seen to date.

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

It was going to be a clean slate where players could affect the story, and build a new resistance to eventually defeat the Sith. Except that Cujo drove out the people who actually generated roleplay. I don’t just mean the events, but the day to day scenes and little one off fun things that @Ashkuri was so fond of running.

Pity this idea was screwed from the outset, since we all know Aryn wasn’t about to let her pet faction get beaten, ever, and has alts in every faction in a position to sabotage every effort to change this even if Cujo wouldn’t give her whatever she wanted (which he would). This is likely the largest part of why all the activity generators left; in your own words, what was the point?

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

Cujo never saw the importance in the day to day on the game. He and Banshee both argued with me that posts were enough in the main story and people should just be cool with those and RP off what they read, offering no avenue to actually participate in it. They don’t know how to deal with the social side of the game, because everyone on staff now is either antisocial, or hateful.
They poisoned the well, and now they’re shocked that everything is dying.

Antisocial, hateful, or both. Mostly both. And for what it’s worth, it IS dying. I had a look at their logins tonight, and there were 50. But 30 of them were just alts, and at least ten of those were double-connected alts. I suspect at least half of the remaining 20 logins were staff, or staff favorites.

Not a lot of original bits for a supposedly very successful game. And this is AFTER an influx of new players over the last few weeks, at least a few of which were returning players. Once they see (or re-see) the light, I suspect they’ll be gone, too.

And staff will still have learned nothing except what they want to learn.

Edit: I’m sure someone will point out that roughly ten new player logins is a HUGE number of active players these days, and under ordinary circumstances, they’d be right.

But when you factor in players who were already there, that number shrinks to 5-7 new players at most, who most likely flocked to a game that looked HUGE just from its WHO screen.

Under normal circumstances, big WHO screens mean big games, lots of activity, and easily accessible RP. Big WHO screens on AoA mean tons of alts, stagnant activity, and little to no day-to-day RP. The kinds of places players tend to linger on briefly before leaving to find fun elsewhere.

TL:DR? Drain go gurgle, AoA still go round and round.

Edited 'cause afterthought, and didn’t want to reply to myself.

@Warlander Well, I was wrong. I suspected Darth Omen was Banshee’s alt, since a surviving Mace Windu turned to the Sith sounded like Banshee’s wet dream.

But Banshee doesn’t play Darth Omen; Cujo does. I don’t remember this information coming up before now, but it may have; my memory could be a lot better. Just in case it hasn’t, I’ll re-broach the subject now.

@SpilledBeanz For what it may be worth, this hit the boards recently.

=========================<* 8: Game Updates - 221 *>=========================
Message: 8/221 Posted Author
Rise of the New Rebellion Aug 11 2024 Cujo

Greetings, all.

I’m tossing out a bbpost update on the state of the galaxy, as far as the Sith and the Rebellion elements go. The intention, following our previous time jump, was for the game to get a span of time where the clear presence of Sith Empire dominance was displayed. It had been 17 years since the fall of the New Republic, and we wanted to give a sense of hoplessness to the galaxy, that they were under that iron grip, and that the Sith Lords of this new era had refined the ideals that Palpatine and Tarkin had envisioned. We wanted to make it feel like this iteration of the Sith Empire was really pulling it off, with efficiency and intelligence. There are a lot of arguments that can be made that the Galactic Empire really screwed up in a lot of major ways, which lead to its relatively short downfall, and the desire here was to paint a more powerful edge to this Sith Empire, and give it a bit of that regal classic KOTOR-era Sith style too.

So again, the past year and a half of the game was meant to let the game coast on Sith Imperial rule. I’d hope it would yield some good fun for people, to RP staying hidden, staying in the shadows, being the ones on the run, if you are the ones pushing for the freedom of the galaxy from overlords and despots.

But, this is Star Wars, and we can’t stay in a position of total control for too long.

Because of this, if the past 18 years of the IC grid would be labeled something akin to the Reign of the Sith Empire, then my hope for the future going forward would be the era of the Rise of the New Rebellion.

The Rebellion has been building up its mobile shipyard fleet, a massive Mon Calamari shipyard on engines, dubbed the Organa’s Hope. This massive fleet factory is the focus of the future for the game’s story. Being that it is fully operational now, after nearly two decades of planning, and building, it should be considered fully in-play now. With its goal being to discover safe star systems, relatively speaking, that it can hyperspace in to, release its ships out… to go grab all the resources possible, bring them in and churn out a new attack force that can then head out to engage Sith Empire forces. Being that this mobile star base is the future of the New Rebellion, and that it is fully functional at this stage of the game’s story, then those players who wish to create stories around this are encouraged to do just so. We can tell you where the Organa’s Hope is located, and what its current goals are. It will be ICly producing fleets to attack Sith Empire forces, which will give the Sith Empire players something to react to as well, as they desperately defend their regions, while also trying to find the source of this growing New Rebellion. It is meant to be a high stakes game of cat and mouse, across the galaxy.

Additionally, at this stage, the New Rebellion is meant to formally request Jedi inclusion in their endeavors again. Not to be generals in a war, but to ensure as much of the galaxy affected by this war, are as safe as possible. The New Rebellion wants the Jedi to be there to help keep civilians, and innocents, safe from the Sith, but also from the splash back of war itself.

So in summary, the New Rebellion IS in full operation now. The wars across the galaxy are meant to be amping up, with word of mouth spreading rapidly that the reign of the Sith Empire is now facing its biggest challenge yet. It is the light, pushing back against twenty years of darkness.

I hope this helps, and if you have questions, or want to create stories based on this, just reach out to Staff and we can help you do that. We are here for you to do that. If you want to decide how to shape the galaxy, this is the vessel through which you do that. We want it to be fun, and we want you all to have great stories told here.

Reach out, and we will help.
------------------------------< +bbread 8/221 >-------------------------------

I predicted long ago that the Sith Empire will rule the galaxy until the game closes, so this post came as something of a surprise to me. Maybe the influx of new players was and is a lot lower than Cujo and his pets wanted. Maybe they’re wishing for more people to show off for, and/or they’re getting sick of each other’s company.

I don’t expect things to actually CHANGE there, since the Sith Empire is the favored faction, and the most active as well (not that this means much of anything, since activity outside of scheduled events is largely dead, and there aren’t more than a half-dozen scheduled events per month, at most); over half of all scheduled events these last six months have been ‘Sith Empire and allies’ events. With ‘allies’ meaning Sith subfactions, and mercs and similar independent characters loyal to them.

But this will make it SOUND like something fun and Rebellious just might be happening. Nobody joins a Star Wars game to play a tiny, powerless Rebellion.

Something I’m sure AoA staff and favorites are counting on.

Edit: For what it may also be worth, the post doesn’t actually change anything meaningful, no matter how excitingly and enticingly it may be worded. The supposedly now-fully-operational mobile shipyard was advertised during the timejump as being on the move and largely doing the same things it will be doing now, and the Jedi have been some degree of involved in the New Rebellion/Resistance for most of the time beyond the jump. I’m sure there’s more, but this tells most of the tale. As does the near-total lack of activity from the Resistance/New Rebellion these last few months. The faction is likely losing players and on the verge of dying. Can’t have that; the Sith players need to feel like they’re beating SOMEONE, after all, not a bunch of coded NPC stand-ups.

If you know a little of the game’s history and read between the lines, this post promises only more of the same of what is already happening. Nothing has changed.

(edited because I thought of something else and didn’t want to reply to myself…)

@ThisGuy That ungodly horrible shuttle system is the whole reason I got a ship at all. Seriously, who wants to risk being stranded at the arse-end of the galaxy just 'cause there’s no shuttle going off-world (yes, there were literally worlds that had incoming shuttles, but none going offworld)?

But even with a ship, I still go offworld as little as possible. The coded spaceflight system is a needlessly overcomplicated mess.

@Jax Best. Advice. Ever.

Honestly, I wasn’t planning on trying it, not least 'cause I’m not a newbie there. But boy, would I love to be a fly on the wall in THAT scene!

@EDI7078 Thanks for the heads-up. I’m already playing there, and have been enjoying the place.

@STD Never heard about anyone trying that. IMO, it’s pretty clever. Since it’s never happened to my knowledge, all I can do is speculate; sorry I can’t be more helpful here.

If a new and well-liked member of a staff-favored faction did it, I could see them pulling it off and getting away with it. Maybe more than once.

Someone else doing the same thing might be accepted as a running joke character. Don’t know what they’d do to the player/character if that didn’t happen, though. Winding up with permanently nerfed dice rolls just to keep the ‘loser’ losing comes to mind, since they have no problem spoofing dice rolls for even less reason.

Since cowardice goes against The Way, I doubt such a character would be accepted among the Koras. They might even kill the character themselves. Which, since the Koras are the faction most likely to benefit from such trolling, would probably get a character ostracized or killed for nothing.