This statement is being made, in a separate post, to address the recent concerns over BSID “clan stacking” in Empires and the related issues. After spending some time attempting to gather information on the matter, as well as learning about the continued effects as it progressed, I feel, or at least hope, I have enough of an understanding to attend to this in full. I have no doubt that there will be differing opinions on what is said here and can only humbly request that all who reply try their best to respond constructively, whether supporting or dissenting. In the past week there has been a great deal of action over the issue of clan stacking, more specifically because of BSID. In defense of the clan and its members, particularly those who play Empires regularly, this seems to have come on suddenly from my perspective. While I hear now that this has been a point of frustration for some time, it was only more recently that I was directly addressed about it. As was stated when I first took a leadership position within the clan I was willing to address any questions or concerns surrounding the clan. Thor is also around more than we had originally thought he would be able to be. However it was not that long ago that I was informed about the distress present from our actions. Even then, however, it was made out to me as though it were not a pressing matter, and that there would simply be an effort to provide a stronger opposition through “counter-stacks.” It was very recently that I found myself listening to/reading a rather fiery debate in game regarding the clan stacking matter. I mention this not to criticize, but as a point for an appeal to those most critical of the clan right now to cease the condemnation our members. If the severity of the matter had been made clear to our leadership earlier then we could have begun taking action before it had gone this far. We have been taking action, though. A request was made of all BSID members to respect the wishes of the server owners: that we stop all joining the same side. While there has been discontent over this our members have steadily, if reluctantly, begun to respond accordingly. This has taken some time, surely, and that is the other reason why I felt it was important to mention how long this took to come to my attention. Our members, as with anyone, are free thinking individuals who can and will make their own decisions. While we certainly hope all of our members will act in a way that best serves the clan, we have no delusions of believing we can enforce anything upon them. We are, obviously, not a real military group, nor any other organization that binds its members to anything. Therefore an “order” is almost arbitrary, and sometimes requires discussion and is rarely accepted well, if at all by, imposition, especially when emotions are running high. I stress this because there appears to be a belief amongst some, though not all, that a show of internet force – some e-muscle flexing I suppose – is the best and most effective solution, from actions being taken now and statements made to me that asked me to force compliance, in essence. I think it is important for everyone to remember that each person is an individual with a will of their own and that few people enjoy being threatened or intimidated in anything, including a game on the internet. It is my firm belief that respecting that with a bit of patience will carry us far. And while I certainly cannot and do not condone the “flaming” response, I have not been angry with anyone about it and I do not believe anyone should be shocked by it given what has been said and done in recent days. This brings me to the more tangential matters surrounding the accusations against and the sentiments toward BSID. I personally find no fault in a request from a server owner to respect a certain guideline, and am perfectly willing to work toward making that happen or, if the general consensus goes against it, to seek a new server. However the animosity, I find, is excessive and detracting and has achieved nothing. Certainly some of our members have shown bitterness in turn, but this as I mentioned should not be a surprise to anybody. Within a seemingly very short period of time they have been made out by some to be the antagonists of Empires itself. The mere act of BSID frequently all joining one team has been made out to be as much as the greatest threat to the mod’s existence. I wish to stress again here that I do not mind the request to stop clan stacking, but rather the extreme level of sensationalism now surrounding it. BSID was not heavily involved in Empires for some time, and yet despite our absence there has been very little change in the size of the player base in the game. Some names are new with some old ones gone; and some have remained, but all in all not all that much has changed. BSID was around during the height of the mod’s player base, a time between 1.5 and 1.7 as I recall it. Through that time we were pretty much the same kind of group. The truth of the matter is that we have heard all of this before, whether we were at the center of it or not, about how something is hurting or killing the mod. The people accusing BSID of this now have not been around long enough to remember all of this, perhaps, but through the years very little has actually changed. Those who were most critical of BSID through the years have come and gone. Names like “Dee” and “ANGRY Shaved Whale” are likely only going to be significant to a very small few still. I am certain more people remember Evan, but even he is around only rarely these days it seems. These have all been people who have tried to prop up the Empires community and condemned BSID for tearing down their efforts and, through this, Empires itself. However BSID would come and go depending on the level of drama, or more often because of what we thought of the current version. We had a server of our own before in which we often stayed when the other servers were unwelcoming, and ironically we usually ended up with a full server more often than others. Even with our absences or isolations to our own server there was very little achieved by these “community efforts” and many servers have come and gone over the years. In the end BSID has had little to do with whether or not the mod is suffering, and yet we are hearing this again. Despite everything these “community” minded individuals have not remained. I fear it is because they did not really understand what would achieve what they wanted and what did little to affect it, or even harmed it by their own actions. Many people, efforts, and servers have appeared and vanished in Empires, but there are a few constants. One has existed from near the beginning and will remain, the Brenodi Sixth Infantry Division. We are the constant, and while our presence has ebbed and flowed it has never vanished and we have always returned strongly. Will the current generation of “community organizers” go the same way? Perhaps, perhaps not, I am not speculating on their fate but rather making the point that BSID is and will continue to be here. We are actually pretty reasonable as long as we can be approached properly and not provoked. As I stated earlier if this had been brought to my or another officer’s attention some time back we could have dealt with it steadily but cordially. Instead nothing was said until people were already angry, and that is just too late to expect things to happen smoothly. Now I hope everyone can reflect on this, calm themselves, and let the processes work as they should have been able to. I may be hoping too much, but knowing this clan and its members as I do I can assure you that the simple action of backing off of them will do wonders for achieving a friendlier state of things overall. We will work with others, but not while being worked against.
There are a couple other, specific points I will address. One is the issue over our use of Ventrilo. There is a belief amongst some that we use it over in game chat options or to ghost when we are split. Those are falsehoods. We use Ventrilo primarily to talk to those in other games or not in game at all, and even when we are all in one game and server we use it to either talk about topics not directly related to playing the game or to alert one another (stressing while we are on the same team). The latter could be said in game, but it is inconsequential really if I alert my clanmate to an enemy presence over Ventrilo instead. If in a group with others we would alert everyone in game. When we are split over the two teams the Ventrilo gets very quiet, actually, for fear that we will give something away. In short, Ventrilo is used tactically for clan matches but more as a social agent otherwise. Another is the question of why we have not yet had a scrim if we are so determined to play together. It has been made out to me by some that a scrim is not that big of a deal. It is true that this is a game, and in the end has little impact on our lives. However BSID does take pride in what it has achieved and looks forward to future victories. We have practiced not to prepare for an enemy as much as prepare ourselves and get our newer members more aligned with the actions of their clanmates in game. It is the simple nature of our clan. We have practices to practice, we scrim to win. Finally there is the question behind “clan stacking” itself, with all sorts of conjecture over the reasons for it. The most insulting and most incorrect of these is the belief that we do it to gain some satisfaction by rolling over pubbers. Our members play together for the simple reason that they enjoy playing together. Certainly that has had the noted consequences, but they are not the reasoning behind it, period. Some may find that irrelevant, but I feel strongly about this. These guys wanted to play this game with their buddies and that was all. It has become an issue now and they were taken aback by it. I hope understanding this may shed a little light as to why there has not been much enthusiasm on our part. In conclusion I am asking everyone to take a deep breath, sit back in their seats, and let us be able to work with you. I am sure I will be told by someone that we had been given plenty of opportunities but I disagree. The epicenter of this maelstrom has been the clan stacking issue, and there was little chance to address it well. The only other item ever brought to my attention was when we would scrim, and that certainly did not alert me to any grievances. Yes our members have been rather fierce in turn, but I would really be surprised if someone expected a different reaction. Few enjoy being dictated to, especially when it is done brutishly. On a related note some may feel I would be better suited working with Thor to remove people from BSID who were slow to accept the request to stop joining one side. I know he would refuse that and I reject the notion as well, and I will not apologize for this the time it has taken and may now continue to take since so much has happened that agitates instead of help. We may not be perfect, we may have our quirks, but I consider each member of my clan a friend. I gladly stand up for those I know well, and I know they would do the same. It is for the sake of my friends I hope to have good relations with other Empires players and clans. However I will not insult, degrade, or remove my friends to satisfy an external interest or to bolster myself in their view. This is not to say I am now unwilling to discuss or listen. I am now, as much as I ever was, happy to address any questions or concerns about the clan. I would ask, however, that we all get beyond the fuss and coarse actions or we will get nowhere. Some may take offense to what I have said here. For that I will apologize on my own behalf. This was not meant to insult anyone or suggest that it was all any single person’s fault, but rather to highlight the barriers being placed between each side and the common ground. So please, I ask each of you to work with me and let me work with you. Enough with the dirt and knee-jerk “BSID is evil” reactions. Our guys, the members of BSID, really are a good bunch of guys but they are fiercely independent people and I would not try to change them. I did come to understand them, however, and I am only asking others to understand this one thing. If there is a problem talk to one of the officers, have a discussion with us, and explain what the problem is and why it has become an issue. Even if we disagree we will do it respectfully, and we will work to resolve the matter as best as we can. I guarantee that the conclusion will be far better than it is when the matter is pressed on our members.
Ok, upon reading that, I have a few (non flamey) comments to make. Firstly, ok, its good that you're telling them to stop, and I did notice "some" drop in it. For that I thank you. However, if BSID members did stack, or pull off stuff like all 8-10 of them in a server using severely racist names, what is your opinion on "bailing them out" so to speak? As the BSID acting leader. As for the ventrilo BS, I think that was simply a misunderstand of what RKB said at some point by some specs, something along the lines of "if you split us up we can hear eachother in vent" or whatever. I'd ignore that talk, I don't know why people got that opinion. But as you said, people will be independant, so if this works, here's to a less flamey emp, if it doesn't then just remember than regardless of how much you say these people are independant, no matter what you say, it always reflects on BSID.
I am absolutely amazed at the amount of official sounding crap the first two post were full of. If you want people to think that you are really changing about stacking, say so simply and sound more real. Also a few of your members really don't help your image.
A lot of official BS in the first couple of posts, pages 3-4 are a bit crap, nothing there to see except a bit of trolling. However, Mayama would prolly put it better, but tbh I don't see what the fuss is about. You clan stack, disobey the rules, you get banned. Continue doing so, you get perma banned. Eventually all the bad eggs are gone and they can't join the main servers any more. Job done? If you don't want to scrim, then it doesn't really matter, you're banned anyway so who cares.
I am assuming the comments about it sounding like "official" junk is based mostly on the language and partly on the size. To the first, well sorry, it's just the way I say things. To the second, I waited until I knew more about what was said and done, so I ended up covering a number of different items at length. To Cyber-Kun: The major point of the post was a response to what has been said and done. Yes, I hope to respect the wishes of the server owners. I dislike the term "changing" because it makes it sound akin to drug addicts ruining families and fathering crack babies, etc. That we are intending this was more of a headnote, though. To Deiform: Yes, I've heard that said before. To be a bit less "official" and couth here, "Nope, don't care, let's just use the magic ban hammer!" Another point made was a request to move beyond that kind of mentality, and that we could reach a satisfying conclusion for everyone without it. It seems that was missed. That's fine, I know it's a long post, so I am mentioning it again here.
I got the impression that your clan members are going to do as they please. I have no problem with your members being reasonable (and from what I've seen they are when I've played with them), just that if they don't agree to the rules laid out by the servers, then I don't see what there is to discuss. If you can't control your clan members and you don't care about your reputation as a clan then fair enough, but offending members will be punished for creating an unfair gaming atmosphere. The community drivers a lot more heavily established than they were in the 1.01 days, and the main 64 man server has been around for a year now. BSID can come and go as it pleases, the community has a lot more tools at its disposal now to deal with the more troubling members. If your members don't act according to the rules, they get a ban from 2 of the most populated servers.
We don't mind our players getting banned (they themselves will probably :p), as it's their own responsibility for not obeying the rules of the server they're playing on. I'd also like to respond to Shadow and some others that I personally highly disapprove of the usage of racist names ingame. I don't mind if the term is used jokingly towards other clanmates (although I remain weary to ensure they don't use it in a hateful manner even in that context), but racial slurs have no place in a public game, especially not a combination of "Cotton Farmer", "Black Peanut Man" and "Sl4ve", the latter effectively creating the derogatory context for the other two. Concerning the fact that BSID members will often discuss or appeal to their ban or kick ingame, I have to plead guilty that I just enjoy a good discussion as long as it stays polite. I sometimes even annoy my girlfriend by continuously proposing arguments and retorts to some things she says (again, staying within the borders of civility).
I'm sure that Duke, other BSID members, and any fellow server managers would prefer this thread be kept clean & half-way free of trolling... most of pages 2 - 4 is nothing but unnecessary garbage. It's distracting. I don't expect much more, but if a moderator comes across this thread, please do clean it up. Also, enough with the TLDR natured attitudes please (many of them found their way into this thread). If it's TL and you DR, then don't bother posting. Although I'm sure that Duke appreciates the feedback from normal community members (from the posts in this thread that are actually real and contain thought), this thread, in my opinion, is more pertinent to server managers and BSID. Server managers actually do care a lot about the servers they're involved with - many of us are friends, discuss issues regularly with balance, and want the best of both worlds for all players of the servers, not just clanmates/veterans/clanless players. We care to at least hear BSID out, even if some of you don't. To those who don't care, rest assured that the rest of this post is TL, and you will likely end up DR'ing it. That's okay. I understand... just keep it to yourself. Anyway, Trickster touched on this a bit, but as it did come about to me and [LoDw]Keef on Nachos a few weeks ago, I'll mention it again. I personally don't care about ghosting... Everyone knows that many people do it in many games, mods, and through many methods... VoIP, steam chat, IRC, etc. Same-team ghosting is even supported by Empires itself, allowing the use of text chat from dead players to living players, despite it disallowing the use of voice chat from dead players to living players. It's really not an issue... not one that I or most of the fellow server managers & admins I know even concern ourselves with. However, the subject came up when BSID members were threatening to ghost if admins (myself, Keef, Drummer) forced them to split up across both teams on emp_escort. I guess it was some kind of warped rationale to help them argue that they should be left to stack with no intervention, but we simply ignored it. It is interesting to see you suggesting that BSID is willing to listen now, but you said yourself that not much has changed with the community's attitude, size, and BSID. I hope attitudes will change for the better, but I have some points of my own to make, especially regarding "change." Stacking rules have been a long-standing doctrine on Empires servers of the present, past, and will likely continue to be so on servers of the future. Nothing has changed in that regard. Server admins certainly aren't doing anything different now - at least not those with solid experience. There are some newer admins, especially on some of the newer servers, who don't have a solid understanding of what all is detrimental to Empires, and what qualifies as stacking/griefing/etc. The matter of fact is that everyone, especially veterans and clanmates, knows that the servers won't tolerate stacking. So the fact that BSID will cooperate when you've been told, but not when told individually by admins, strikes me as a bit odd. We both know they can't be controlled by you - at best, you can only request that they stop stacking... and perhaps frown upon them if they persist. When nobody would meet admins half-way, admins were labeled as dictators, nazis, and excessively harsh, power-hungry fools, etc. (Perhaps not those exact labels, but those should allow you to deduce what I mean.) Now all of a sudden, admins are supposed to not only try and level with clanmates and meet them half-way (as we already have been), but are supposed to also go the extra mile to seek out the acting leaders of clans and request that they ask their members to cooperate (I've done that on a few occasions with JPL & CW, but coincidentally not with BSID). Clanmates know they shouldn't stack. Their clan leaders shouldn't need to inform them. The server owners, managers, and admins shouldn't need to inform them. Fellow players shouldn't need to ask or demand that they refrain from doing so. You seem to stick to the notion that we admins should've expected hostility when enforcing rules... but it works both ways: Players who violate rules should've expected intervention from admins. When we verbally warn, teamswitch, kick, or even ban a player, it shouldn't come as a shock (especially if the actions came in that order), yet clanmates & veterans alike will often act as if they're shocked at the consequences and as if the admins are in the wrong or doing it to be "mean" or "controlling." We're not. I take no joy in having to remove someone from the server. I'd imagine that most of the Empires admins don't enjoy having to confront troublemakers, but it's what keeps rounds from being disrupted or lame. When we know with 99.9% certainty that a clanmate or veteran is aware of the rules, and see them disobeying them, we are left with no choice but to assume (and make somewhat of a judgment call if you will) that their violations are deliberate. Usually before arriving at such a conclusion, we'll warn them or talk to them... and if ignored, told off, or if their behavior persists, we take action. It's not very difficult at all to determine whether a particular player "knows better." It is why I am more lenient with n00b griefers than I am with clanmates or veterans who grief. The new player may not have understood the importance of the CV, but a veteran, or anyone who is regular, recognizable, or competent enough to join a clan, certainly does know better.
I just want to point out that stacking with friends would mean fuck-all if everyone stacking sucked. The only reason why they're being threatened with a kick or ban for stacking is because they're good at empires. A good example is OMFG stacking. Nobody cares if they stack 7-10 high because the pub team on the other side still has a good chance of winning... but as soon as you stack 3-4 BSID and the other team is full of randoms everyone's screaming bloody murder. Basically this is a defacto ban on active, skilled players who also like to play with other active, skilled players. I don't think anyone doing it gives a shit if they're pub stomping a bunch of newbs or if the other team is composed of a bunch of good players (in fact they might rather be playing against skilled players)... the only thing that matters to them is that they're playing with their friends and their friends are knowledgeable and skilled at empires. What happens to your server after you ban everyone with these qualities? You might say, "fuck'em we've got enough people here already," but these people are among the most active players. Are you really sure the empires community is large enough to keep your server active without all the people you'd be banning? I hate stacking just as much as the next guy but I am ideologically opposed to a ban on stacking. The people who are stacking are just playing with their friends and it shouldn't be their fault that they also happen to be good at empires.
Well I cant say anything against stacking, Sonecha and I played alot in foxtrot with other EPIC members and did alot of random shit like trying to surive in the west or east crossroad building as long as possible when the enemy team has the middle or whatever. Back in the day of ghost clan we griefed a whole server til the server owners stoped hosting for empires, cant even remember the name now haha. What I dislike is abusing of flawed game mechanic/game elements like lololol jeepspam rush at start or overrun the enemy team with overpowered afvs. Its just abusing something that isnt balanced and makes the whole game boring :/
If you believe our group is stacking, make another thread about it. As I already told you more than once, all it takes is for you to message me about it and I will tell them.
That's not very true unless the pub team particularly views OMFG as "not very good." It's also not so much about a single round as it is round after round after round. You're either misinformed or not paying close attention. There is no de facto ban on active skilled players... no de facto ban on clans, no de facto ban on veterans... no de facto ban on playing with friends. Most of the BSID targeting is actually coming from normal members of the Empires community professing their anti-BSID sentiments - not from server owners, managers, or admins. If there was a de facto standard for banning stackers, there'd be a lot more bans issued across the board than there have been recently. On Nachos, we only banned one player, who happened to be in BSID, and his ban was only a temporary 4-hour ban. I don't think any admins have mentioned permanent bans for stacking. I saw some mention of permanent bans for stacking earlier, but not from actual admins. The same goes for G4TC, ELC, VIPER, and servers of the past. We probably would actually, but that's beside the point. We aren't, and haven't ever been banning people for being active, skilled, or wanting to play with their friends. Stacking discourages more players from the mod than actions taken by admins. Dubee's points made earlier in the thread (before it was cleaned) hit the nail on the head. Skill stacking is a problem and always has been, though it goes through highs and lows. It drives players away from servers and eventually away from the mod when left unchecked. We get more flak from players when we don't fight stacking than we do from stackers when we fight stacking. The problem isn't "playing with friends." Everyone "gets that." We understand that it's desirable. Stackers shouldn't need to pursue that so adamantly & with such hostility, however, for the following reason if no other:
I appreciated the post Shandy. This is a lot of what I was hoping for with actual discussion. It may seem obvious that we should not clan stack, but as I mentioned a lot of our guys did not see it as such. Yes, we're all on one side, but most of our guys viewed it as just playing with their friends. So that was the clarification that had to be made, or at least that the difference of opinion had to be respected. I feel I should clarify the notion of expecting hostility. It is not that I feel the admins should expect hostility for enforcing the rules. I was referring specifically to instances where it seemed some were going after our members rather harshly, and that it should not be surprising there. Certainly that's not all the admins/mods, and if someone is warned and doesn't stop then they have earned their punishment. I'm just concerned that, given the current state of things, there may be an undue burden on our members to be more than perfect and be dealt with more strictly than others.
I don't get what all the fuss is personally. BSID have always been like this, and like Duke said, they'll still be here unchanged until the end of time, I would bet. The next version we have of empires that doesn't do so well, BSID will go off for a while living their lives, and then when it gets better again, BSID will come back and some will stack a bit to begin with. Then someone will get mad and make a half-a-dozen threads about stacking on the forums and the BSID leaders will once again inform their members that it's frowned upon, and within a few weeks, just like now, it'll fade away. I'm sure this is just some fun for someone, somewhere. So why get riled up about it? Heh to be honest, I feel kinda left out of all this, seeing as JPL and EPIC have done a lot of finger wagging and BSID have rallied quite a few shield charges. CW barely get's a mention (props to Shandy for being only the 3rd person or so in 10 days for getting those two letters together). I'm frankly surprised that some of our edgier members haven't done anything to steal the limelight yet. Surprised, and rather proud. Edit: I should just add, it's never just BSID members that turn the tide. No, something like this requires Audience Participation! Yay! And all you guilty vets out there, we know you always love to do it!
Like I would like to have discussed. WHAT2DO ABOUT NAEM CHANGING. Also, PH, we don't ban stackerzorz, just teamswitch them.
>_> sry bout sarcasm earlier. BSID is in no way the target of any discussions that may or may not have been started due to a thread I made raging about the topic of the attitude of the community and stacking in general. BSID isn't the main source of the problem. The main source of the problem is the fact that there are only enough active people playing empires to fill 2 servers, and that those servers play all map types. This being said, people that don't like maps like escort constantly bitch or stack particular maps they don't like if their rtv fails, in order to end them faster. This thread: http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=9619 and this thread: http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=9622 are both fires ignited by my rage post, and lead to most of the anti BSID post in the past couple of days. I appologize for posting something that would start such a large amount of flaming. at any rate, there is, in reality, very little by way of stacking that does happen in empires. If a game is even on players, it is an even game, as there are enough untagged skilled players and generally decent players out there to make any difference in the general skill level negligable. It is very rare that teams are stacked. The actual problem in most games is shitty coms, or lack, and in some cases, too much teamwork. Earlier, we had a game on slaughtered where the NF had rushed the bridge, and BE had gotten there. Both teams had barracks set up within a stones throw of eachother, and both teams were fighting desperately to win the bridge. Unfortunately, the NF neglected the rest of the map, and only 1 person went over to the eastern side of the map to build stuff. BE had 3 people, killed NF's 1 person, and took the 4th refinery, and then managed to hold on long enough to moveback through water and take out the engineers repairing the NF barracks at bridge from behind, allowing BE to retake the bridge. NF then complained that it was a team stack due to the fact that, by neglecting the eastern side of the map and making a risky (failed) rushed, they had now lost almost all of their ground, and were pushed back into a corner (they didn't set up a second barracks behind the bridge either). This is an example of a quick, but good game overall. NF made a risky push and rolled 1's. Point being, unless there are people litterally telling you that they are stacking on purpose, it is probably not stacked on purpose. The only times I've ever gotten livid with stackers is when they tell you that they are stacking. It just pushes it over the top when half my team asks what a squad is. Anyhow, I thought I would put this whole discussion into context as to why it even started in the first place. Also, I acknowledge that pickled had a legitimate reason to stack that particular game of escort that pushed me over the top and made me post in that one thread. I don't like the reason, but it is a legitimate one.
