Setting the record straight

I want to apologize to everyone about what's happened over the past two days. I haven't been forthright with you all and I realize now how that was unfair to the community. The only information anyone has gotten is second-hand and understandably suspicious. I wish to rectify this matter.

I've decided to stop working with the scripts and the code indefinitely. I'd like to say that I'm just taking a temporary break, but to be honest, I haven't done any serious development on Empires since last July, and I don't believe that will change any time soon. I will still push out updates as needed, keep some things in line (like the version number on the main menu) and help people with small things, but I have no intention of having an active role in the development of Empires anymore.

Scripts are going to be managed by a coalition of active players lead by Spike and DocRabbit. I wish them the best of luck with what they're trying to achieve.


For those who are wondering about the cause of the sudden change, there are a few factors that have come together. The first two are very personal ones: a daily struggle with depression and motivation, and a marked issue with doing what I need to do in Empires and life in general. I've been facing some very serious issues academically throughout the past year and the stress has been nothing short of immense. Were it just that though, then I'd find a way to manage it.

The most important factor is the community. First, I want to say that I do realize that a large majority of the community supports all and anyone that puts their time and effort into making the game what it is; I appreciate all of you in kind, I thank you for your support, and in no way do I blame any of you for what comes next.

With that said, there is a significant faction of malcontents that are never happy. Over the past week, I've heard from numerous sources that there has been endless amounts of shittalking about me while I wasn't on the server, and have been provided actual evidence. Not just the standard stuff about devs not knowing what they're doing. Literal hours and hours of nonstop insults and hate dripping through chat directed entirely at me and me alone. Claims that I was "monopolizing the IP" and forbidding anyone else from being involved in it; that I was changing the game to be the game that I wanted it to be and not Empires; that I was constantly making changes and never informing anyone as to what they were to give myself an advantage, despite numerous changelogs and a willingness to provide any and all information about the game; that I was abusing my position; that I'd never listen to the players and never talk about what I was doing with others; that this was "my pet college project"; that I only wanted to help to put it on my resume. Claims that were blatantly false but despite all evidence to the contrary, people still insisted on spreading. I know who these people are, and they know who they are. I hold no ill will towards them, fully understanding how frustrating it can be when a game changes, sometimes in unexpected ways, or when it seems how what needs to be done is never being done.

But I will not tolerate outright slander and baseless accusations simply because I am a developer. I will not tolerate this "players vs. devs" mentality that seems to permeate through a vocal minority of this community. I will not tolerate such outright character assassination behind my back from people who turn around and ask me for favors. There is no reason that I, or anyone else, should be forced to put up with such toxicity and hate, with people saying, "That's Empires for you," as if decency is unheard of and incivility should not only be expected, but tolerated and even accepted.

Simply put, I've never been so offended in my life. I'm god damn mad. I'm beyond mad. I'm pissed. I'm outraged. I'm almost so pissed that I want to keep deving so people like this won't get their voice heard. But I realize that it's not healthy, and I won't subjugate myself to it any longer.

I'm still going to play the game, but that's all should be expected from me. See you in the servers.

 

If it anything I did added to your stress I am sorry.

Like I have said in another post I think too much got thrown on you.
I for one do appreciate the things you have done for us. Some things I did not agree with but at least you was trying to better the game.

I think this is one of the main reasons why for years most of our developers didn't play and the ones that did normally used alt accounts so they didn't have to deal with the drama.

 

She apparently just perma banned somebody.
So no I think its not lenient at all.

 

Doesnt do it enough.

 

I did it, it stays until further notice. I rarely ban and almost never perma ban, the fact that I did this tells you there are very good reasons for it.

 

Candles, I am sorry you need to step down, but I do understand.

You took over the mod when the servers sat nearly empty and brought it back to life again.
I just want you to know I appreciate all the time and effort you put into empires and how you listened to our suggestions.

I hope at some point you feel ready to return but I am happy you will still be playing.

 

Welcome to my world.

All jokes aside. You a great guy. You dont deserve to get shit for anything since you did a fantastic job. I'll always flame the shit out of anyone bad mouthing you.

Thanks for all you have done and I hope you keep being my revive bitch.

In the words of the great Taylor Swift. Haters gun hate.

 

At the risk of coming across as a huge asshole (It's not aimed at you candles - as I'm sure you know )

Thats Empires for you. (And no -thats not an excuse for people being assholes).

As usual the people that aren't willing to make any input / effort towards the game heap abuse on those that are. Without seeming to understand that without people making effort their beloved Empires dies very quickly.

Quite honestly I'm amazed (and impressed) that you were willing to continue putting in the effort you did for as long as you did.

 

Without you Candles, Empires would have died altogether two years ago.
Congratulations on your new found freedom from Empires and it's toxic community, it doesn't matter how much work you put in, people are still going to complain and be nasty.
Personally I think it's nearly time for people to just let go of Empires and move on.

 

One of them was a now EXdev imagine that.

 

If it is a clear cut case then people involved should be permabanned from everything, all the servers and the forums. But its not an admin issue - everyone needs to denounce this kind of shit and not let it sneak into the status quo.

Theres a lot of awesome people, like Candles, who are fun and a pleasure to play with - then there is also a bunch of sad old cunts that take things way too seriously like this shit isn't just a game. I stopped playing for ages mostly because of that and only came back and continued to enjoy Empires because I realised I really don't care about what they say or do.

I don't get why people think they are even entitled to an opinion just because they play the game. Either try and work with people who are developing or fuck off and find something else to do with your time.

I say Good on you Candles et al and everyone else needs to think alot more about what they say. This place is too small for your petty cliques

 

Waaaay ahead of you buddy, still more to come.

 

Considering how long Angry has been in the Empires community, he is awfully nice to everyone. What is his secret?

 

The problem with the sleazy people that originally spread these rumors (and are now trying to throw me and others under the bus to cover up their caustic lies) is that while they can take a demo out of context, they cannot delete a certain chatlog on a certain match of District last Thursday that clearly shows who originally spread them. (Bit of oversight perhaps?)

Poor judgement on my part? Quite obvious. Had the accusation that Candles used empires as a pet project not been mentioning during a heated discussion that was it self the result of a misinterpretation (Candles didn't try to block anyone out, he just didn't have a lot of time lately), chances are I would have seen through it.

Especially as - in a hindsight - I recall Candles never being either arrogant or condescending towards me in private (or public).

Once again a small destructive and vocal minority - that themselves have a track record of this behaviour - have managed to stir up drama and damage the community. Which has resulted in two (now ex)developers - who also happened to be coders - leaving the team. Combined with the fact that Beerdude is generally too busy, this paints a bleak future for the mod overal.

Furthermore, I was also the victim of lies, such as the accusation that I refused an offer to the use the vipers test server (Which I didn't, I even explicitly asked for permission multiple times), and a certain person trying to convince me that Vicki was badmouthing me behind my back (Which I cannot imagine being true, as that would be completely out-of-character for her).

Hmm, I wonder who is responsible.

 

Well, your ban was simply to hold you off til you were stripped of privilages, I'll look into viper server logs and find out for myself, but your viper ban is something you have to take up with the server so I'm gonna ban your alt and lift your mains ban.

 

Also, why would I actively try to bully away a developer that was planning on leaving anyway?
Why would I try to do that AFTER Beerdude gave me SVN access + others permission to do scripting?
Why are the people that were actively badmouthing, insulting and ridiculing Candles behind his back suddenly acting all upset?
Why did no one - including you and Vicki (who has me in her contact list) - ask me for an explanation?
Why are certain people trying to accuse Vicki of badmouthing me behind her back (even though she never insulted anyone that I know of in all these years I have played Empires, even those that publicly scolded and ridiculed her) and trying to pit me against her (Telling me she is a bitch and other such terms)?

Why would I actively try to ruin the community of a mod that I wish to support monetarily?

The way I see it, a small group of people actively spread false rumors because they had a personal vendetta with Candles, and are now actively trying to shift the blame on others - survival of the mod be damned.

Awpolt, Spike, Me, others, etc. Can confirm that it wasn't us that spread those lies.

 

I was actually listening to this kind of shit last week. From a CW from "way back" (who has already been named), who was lamenting the passing of Krenzo who he boasted as knowing on some deeper level, and the horrible state of the game ever since.

Typical holier than thou coder bullshit, about how no one has any proper experience in the dev team any more. I pointed out that Krenzo was a javascripter / naval nuclear engineer, who worked on this in his off time, and the CW didn't think that was relevant.

If I had admin I would have just silenced him until he left for another 8 years, but instead I just listened to him in awe and tried to show him how insanely flawed his line of reasoning was.
If he tries to act for a second that he was doing anything other than being a pompous prick, he's lying (again).


EDIT - IN GENERAL: You guys gave Spartacus enormous levels of shit, and then forced him out. Spartacus was actually actively trying stuff, empires was active because the game was changing and evolving. Sure, it was extremely frustrating to have a vague idea of what was good, or bad, or shit in the game. However it was all extremely different from what it was before: unendingly the same. All of you people that shit on him, started doing it again after hardly a month with Candles. This is pretty much a large factor in the story of the leaving of most empires devs. Shit tier people who have never even tried to contribute something to the game should really stop making personal attacks and welcome changes to the game with criticism of the changes and never the devs.

 

While I can confirm this happened, it wasn't Awpolt that started with the whole "Candles is using empires as a pet project".

There were people actively agitating us. Telling us that he didn't let anyone work on Empires, pushed changes without discussion, that he was arrogant, etc.

This was happening in the context of a discussion that was held previously about making Empires open source. Candles said (as is true) that there are some issues with that (including proprietary software). When we discussed that a day later and wondered why he couldn't give us a clear answer someone (check the logs) jumped on that and said he was using Empires as his personal college project. As expected, that made some (including me) furious.

I'd also love to hear that demo. Because we had subsequent discussions the next couple of days, including over several matches. Even without context I have trouble understanding how they could have been interpreted as us deliberately spreading false rumors, instead of being furious and agitated over what we (wrongly) believed Candles was doing.

Do you have a smoking gun that implicates us? No. Because there never was a cabal-like conspiracy on our part to spread rumors about Candles.