I’m sorry that happened.

Not @Cobalt 's fault. I just wasn’t interested in that crap. It was a great theme that sounded like a lot of fun, but that interaction just killed my drive.

There was a whole genera of them about women “sexually healing” broken men. The books basically revolved around a woman picking a man with a problem then “fixing” him until he was her perfect romantic partner. The very epitome of bad fantasy because it never works like that.

Cian/Bear was also that1ginger and Yossarian on Ares. He’s also a known associate of MacKenzie. The two are often found on games together and allies.

They’ve had a few other names as well, previously played Arx before getting banned from it for winding up staff for a laugh. Usually they just change their discord name to the new persona. But definitely one to watch out for.

@Cobalt I get you. When @Pavel installed the spoiler tags without warning and the forum crashed I was like at the error message. WHO DID THIS, ETC. Turned out it was Pavel added a much-needed and much-appreciated feature, BUT I STILL HAD THAT REACTION.

Is it irritational paranoia to wonder if the game going doing when I’m busy RL isn’t just a coincidence?

If it’s any comfort, the people you’ve listed as possibly having a grudge against your game have never showed the skill necessary to take a game down before, at least that I’ve ever heard of.

ETA: Is it irritational paranoia to wonder if the game going doing when I’m busy RL isn’t just a coincidence?

This same player, however, also did do some shady stuff by going through staff to ask to be given a home at another player’s build without speaking to that other player… Who was someone who asked for non-contact with them, and when I called them on it they told me “I was hoping we could be friends again”.

Lileas – Player was snarky at me because I originally didn’t allow otters or seals on the game, because they felt too “fae” for me. And while I agreed there was a good point that I allowed cats and foxes, the way they presented the argument was really troll-ish, so I asked them to leave. In hindsight, I’d probably just tell them to be less sarcastic and let them play. But I got really tired of the “lolol, you allow were-foxes but noooo all seals are selkies” responses.

You super don’t need my permission or anything , but man-- if you’re feeling guilty over this one, I wouldn’t.

Being a jerk in the way you approach thematic questions or disagreements is in my opinion a super bannable offense. It won’t be the last time they make someone feel bad for disagreeing - and they will make your life harder. IME, these are the sorts of folks who drain a gamerunner’s energy until it’s dry.

Cian/Bear was also that1ginger and Yossarian on Ares. He’s also a known associate of MacKenzie. The two are often found on games together and allies.

Bear (@Yossarian) – This guy asked me for my discord, naively I gave it him. One day he started talking casually about being in gunfights and stuff because he was a LEO or whatever. I asked him to stop talking about gun violence on public chats. He moved to discord to tell me how he needed to vent and how he was a special contract agent going after gangs in Florida and etc.

What’s that guy’s name from a few years back? Gunshot Guest or something? Got to be the same guy.

@Cobalt said in Why is Pack closing?:

I was told that a player was Rex/Sovereign. So that was something I needed to investigate.

I’m not sure who this Rex/Sovereign person is, but it’s awkwardly ironic that my character on The Pack was Rex, who I played all of one scene. I hope Rex/Sovereign is their handle alias and not my character.

Top-tier fucker and an absolute fucking gobshite of the highest order. Full details escape me, but suffice it to say it’s no exaggeration that many of the older folks list him to be banned on sight.

I was told that a player was Rex/Sovereign. So that was something I needed to investigate.

I’m not sure who this Rex/Sovereign person is, but it’s awkwardly ironic that my character on The Pack was Rex, who I played all of one scene. I hope Rex/Sovereign is their handle alias and not my character.

@Cobalt when you get back, can you also elaborate on the OTHER Bad Actors?

Ban Watchlist
Character X - (reported) Harem bullshittery, likes to have a harem and try to hide them from each other. (verified) On another game had issues with Character H, and then came onto Pack and immediately tried to get linked to Character H’s build via staff rather than talking to Character H. Reason for doing so was hoping to be friends again, I had a long convo with Character X about this and reputation listed above.

Character C. Someone told me he was Sovereign/Rex, and a bunch of other people said they believe it. And he’s mishaved a bunch of public channel. Getting into a pissing match with @Yossarian/Bear. He’s usually active on Chat, RPs alot privately, rarely shares said scenes, supposedly was RPing in game via a client without scenes linked with a specific character there just to sandbox with him… Helps answer questions for newbies, and is usually helpful. But, again, is reportedly Rex/Soverign.

BANNED
Mackenzie - This is well detailed.

Bailey – This player tried to play two different female characters, lied to both players OOCly, and when confronted about stated he had evidence to prove he wasn’t doing it, but refused to share any of the receipts to protect other people’s privacy. Only, the two female players involved shared -their- receipts and proved he was lying. So on top of being shady and gaslighting players he lied to staff so I bounced him off game.

Lileas – Player was snarky at me because I originally didn’t allow otters or seals on the game, because they felt too “fae” for me. And while I agreed there was a good point that I allowed cats and foxes, the way they presented the argument was really troll-ish, so I asked them to leave. In hindsight, I’d probably just tell them to be less sarcastic and let them play. But I got really tired of the “lolol, you allow were-foxes but noooo all seals are selkies” responses.

Bear (@Yossarian) – This guy asked me for my discord, naively I gave it him. One day he started talking casually about being in gunfights and stuff because he was a LEO or whatever. I asked him to stop talking about gun violence on public chats. He moved to discord to tell me how he needed to vent and how he was a special contract agent going after gangs in Florida and etc. I told him to not contact me off game again, but forgot to block him on discord. So as soon as I linked my character on 6ix Remains, he contacted me via discord to tell me he wanted to be “transparent” about being on there, and if I wanted to RP any time he was totally up for it, and then started asking about my RL. But his transparency didn’t include telling me who he was playing-- and he had a 2.5hr window where I didn’t respond because I was at work to come forward with it. So I bounced him off the game. He then got himself banned from 6ix Remains because he started rage-venting about me to a player on there, who told him to stop, and he wouldn’t so staff banned him for bringing his issues with me onto their game.

I don’t want to distract everyone from the Macha hate, but @Cobalt when you get back, can you also elaborate on the OTHER Bad Actors? I know you said there were a number of them that you were about to take action on, Macha/Mackenzie was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.

With The Pack closing, these Bad Actors are going to be fleeing to other games. People need to keep an eye out for more than just Macha.

I’ve given this info out to the game runners who have contacted me. Macha was one of the person who was going to be banned, but I hadn’t yet. Two others were on my mental watch list and I hadn’t had time to investigate if the claims against them were true or not. So I’m a little hesitant to name and shame people I haven’t verified are creepers.

I was told that a player was Rex/Sovereign. So that was something I needed to investigate.

I had reports of a player who was telling people IC and OOC they didn’t want any romantic RP to their IC sex partners but was potentially doing romantic RP in private scenes and deliberately not sharing them to hide this. This one is difficult to confirm/deny. This same player, however, also did do some shady stuff by going through staff to ask to be given a home at another player’s build without speaking to that other player… Who was someone who asked for non-contact with them, and when I called them on it they told me “I was hoping we could be friends again”.

I had a conversation with this person about their reputation (playing secret harem, gaslighting, etc) and told them that behavior needed to not happen on the game. So far they had done nothing further to make me have to speak with them.

And in fact are Character X in the above logs. But they were on my mental list to keep an eye out for shenanigans. I didn’t witness any further misbehavior but… they do have a reputation of it in the past.

tl;dr some details above, but i’ve given all this info to game runners who have asked for them.

ETA: I tried to restart the game, but it’s refusing to start up. I’ve pinged Faraday on the ares discord, but I gotta go to bed shortly.

@Cobalt Can you please shed some light maybe? Thanks!

@CuriousGamer Does it have farming tho?

The only time a hand-over has worked that I’ve seen was in the Exalted MU sphere, which happens because it’s always just the same players re-making the same characters (though sometimes there are new things), so everyone knows eachother. Anyway, a new coder was hired because the one guy that inherited it knew nothing, and the new coder re-wrote everything from the ground up.

Twice.

And then at some point, the original owner did some creeper shit and the coder was like ‘you know… I have shell access. I’m just going to take over’, and the game lasted a while, and then rebooted into a few different settings because that’s just how Exalted MU works. 3:1 time scale, so each 15-month year passes in 5 months, and Solars quickly get to ‘I win everything’ levels, so people get bored, and yay reboot.

But this it totally a highly unique situation that probably won’t happen again for a while yet.