"BMD Quest" destroys CP-4 & Inconsistent ruling on attacks.

[Neonity]

Yesterday, the Civil Protection checkpoint in the slums, housing the auxiliary units was spontaneously attacked by a (player) rebel wielding two incendiary grenades.

For some reason, all containers in the checkpoint were immediately deleted. This has never happened before for any base raid, which leads me to consider the possibility of potential OOC bias against the auxiliary units.

Whenever a rebel base gets raided and "destroyed", the containers inside have always remained and were considered exempt. Players were able to rebuild their base via a small material fee and they would be able to go back to using it as before, containers still inside. Why was this Civil Protection checkpoint treated any differently?

---

After being given context as to how this came to be, we were given clarification that the checkpoint and the building it was in were leveled to the ground by two (very easily craftable) incendiary grenades. The building also apparently being coated in some weird BRI fireproof asspull coating which I won't get into because I think that's stupid regardless of whether or not it's true, was allegedly ignored. Now, the argument we received was "Raging fire destroyed building. This is what fire does lol" despite not a single CWU Member being on the server to assist during that time.

And this is coming from the same person who argued a suitcase bomb IED, which took a considerable amount of resources + a char auth, would just barely be enough to destroy one of the generators in the city. And the CWU repaired that in 30 minutes time
(see https://willard.network/forums/threads/generator-repair-speed-dead-by-daylight-moment.7107/ for context).

But two lowly incendiary grenades are enough to take out an entire CIVIL PROTECTION CHECKPOINT for 5 DAYS?

The repair time we were given for the checkpoint was 5 days. This is an insanely long time for damage caused by two ridiculously cheap incendiary grenades which I know for a fact certain rebel groups, including my own, have in abundance. This sets a dangerous precedent if two of them can take out an entire building for nearly a full week.

Apparently, Rabithunter sent a player to destroy the checkpoint on behalf of his event character. The event character wanted the newest, most active RP hub on the server destroyed for unknown motives, and made a player do it on their behalf. The destruction was then GM'ed by the same person who gave this "quest". CPs responded to the attack, and saw the rebel in question break the lock, but were forced to retreat all the way back to Triumph because of arbitrary timescale.

This is no different than an admin rebel randomly deciding to nuke a building for the sake of it, but because the admin rebel can't do it themselves, they make a player do it instead.

About a month or so ago, a member of my own rebel group organized an attack on the same place. They had to write a character authorization to be able to do so, and they had to invest a copious amount of materials into creating an IED, and despite flawless execution, that attack didn't even do a fraction of the damage these two little grenades did.

---

This feels like a slap in the face to anyone who has written a character/RP Authorization in the past to be able to do bombings or attacks like this when it can just be done whenever provided an event rebel wishes it into existence.

TL;DR: Admin rebel makes player rebel destroy the most active and newest RP hub that had only existed for 6 days for no apparent reason, removes everything inside, and makes repairs take 5 days to complete.

It seriously feels like BMD events aren't controlled at all, and can be used as an excuse for any admin rebel to do whatever they want, provided they simply tell a player to do it for them, promising some obscure reward for doing so. It circumvents the auth team entirely and as far as I know, they weren't even made aware of this.

 

[Liam]

Okay so, your facts are a little off. The BMD quest was given to the rebel whitelist faction in late August/early September. Rabit did not make this quest to target the Auxilallary units at all. It just took a while to complete. At the time of the quest being given, it was just another checkpoint.

As for the reason the fire did so much damage, is because no one attempted to fix the situation. Quite literally, everyone just watched. As for the lack of CWU, that's not the BMD's fault. I ic hired some people on my regular rebel to firebomb the place on my behalf, and they acted on pure ic motive. There was no push from staff to do it at x time. So, the fact no cwu were on when these players decided to do it is just bad luck.

The fireproofing, if true was not public knowledge to me personally. Though I was just spectating really and adding the odd GM here and there to assist the main GM, that being @Travis

Rabit gave this job in good faith to give LFC a worthwhile objective to work toward. I had no issues with it myself, as I have done similar things in the past myself.

I do not believe there was any bad faith from either the gm's nor the bmd team. It just falls down to bad timing from the players and lack of public info about this fireproofing thing.

I will add that just because somethint is an rp hub, I don't believe it should be meta protected. It's an rp hub for cp/aux and a problem for rebels. So it was fair they are allowed to attack it imo. Also it would be better if you aquired the facts before making a complaint. It just makes us look bad for no reason because you can't be bothered to make sure your facts are correct before angrily typing out a complaint because something didn't go your way.

My take? Your containers should be refunded. Altho I think fire not destroying them is stupid af, this has not been done in the past. So I agree that was unfair. As for the rest? I think it was all in good faith. I hope perhaps you can see that now as well having been given the facts of the situation. Lest the cycle of willard continues to always assume malice.

Edit: addionally, this was not rabit's idea. Ic, lfc wanted to prove themselves to a bmd and rabit's bmd asked us to do a small task. Thru ic negociation, an lfc member suggested the checkpoint attack instead and the job was then agreed upon.

 

[Vulpes Callida]

This scratches at the core of issues of Willard. The many thousand billion posts made by me and literally everyone else highlight problems with rulesets, and the staff, management, and their permissions. I'm not so bothered by this because it's just one (smaller, imho) more incident of a much bigger issue.

I could link you the latest posts this forums saw: about the vortigaunt faction, about crafting and whatnot, about misbehaviour/harassment, about the state of rebel and CP factions separatedly, about the maps, even the now infamous 'stabilisation whilst wounded' thread. And they all have the two issues seen above in common: faction and player management not doing what they should do, and circumventing over the unspecific server rules that are frankly stolen from GTAWorld - like seriously, at least try, guys. And every time the goalposts are shifted.

Except in the latest thread where people legitimately tried to defend acting like a colossal inbred retard (woah, slurs? it's a joke it's okay) with brilliant arguments such as "it's a joke bro" or reddit's favourite, "source?" (seriously, that whole shtick was two inches away from some 'bright educated mind' saying it was the communists' fault society got this 'weak and soyful' and hate on vulnerable collectives while citing Freud, Nietszche, Ben Shapiro, or Jordan Belfort) I've managed to keep my cool in most of these posts and I will aim to do the same here. But saying the same stuff time and time again gets complicated. So maybe let me make it a bit easier...

It's normal to make mistakes. Noone is omnipotent. It's normal to be emotionally driven at times, even biased. This applies to both players and staff, but especially the latter in light of their responsibilities. You aren't expected to not make mistakes, you are, however, expected to admit to them, make apologies when they oughta be made, and actively work so they do not happen again: by expanding or specifying new rulesets, being transparent, being more on top of the community, creating an environment safe for criticism instead of shunning shit and locking threads, and finally, demoting people from positions of responsibility without hard feelings if the issues keep surfacing from the same individuals.

Positions aren't a reward no matter how good a person the individual in question is, they're a matter of efficiency. The secret doesn't rely on threatening punishment, rather making the system so someone can just be like "mb soz" and have the solution solved without them being a massive crybaby to his dad who works for Nintendo (totally not an allegory to the hierarchy of the server). I have seen more positions maintained by 'sons of' and 'friends of' who do not contribute anything or have not contributed substantially in long enough in this community than in the directive board of a pharmaceutical company.

This community has a big ass issue with deflecting. It's actually just denial. Every issue gets batted away like a baseball by each person in a position of responsibility. When the people in charge of these situations get tired of playing hot potato with users and staff alike or when too much proof exists over an oopsie - then we get the magic sentences, "it will be dealt with", "it will be talked about in the next staff meeting" and discussion is halted any means necessary. Yet these things keep happening over and over... So to a degree I question what "dealing with it" means. Does it mean "stopping a person from bitching" by telling them "it'll be good in the future my child I promise"?

I am surprised by how little respect you all treat eachother with, for a server based purely on interaction. I know it sounds like a liar thing to say, but I wouldn't have the balls (or lack thereof) to play this "no you! no you're wrong not me!" game a lot of people play... What happened to just, playing with others in mind? Does nobody think of the children?

This place is filled with people with simultaneously too much ego and too little self-esteem at once, and it makes for a hilarious combination. Just, let go every now and then, no? Cave in? Admit whether you're ready for something or not. Redo, backtrace, say sorry? Try to get along with people? Understand them...? ...Step up? Step down? Be realistic about your position...? ...Show you're willing to change it without coming across as a defensive lil' mess who can't accept the oopsie happened?

I'm just trying to remain consistent with the matters being discussed - feel free to shove this wall of text on my own face when I do fuck up, which I inevitably will come the time. Because, apparently unlike many, I'd rather be told when I'm wrong, or lacking, so I can change it or improve it, instead of blaming some external factor and sweeping it under the rug.

Oh yeah, what was this post about? CP-4 blowing up? True, true. Pretty stinky to be honest. But I'm sure it's nothing that can't be... discussed and fixed, hm?

 

[Liam]

This scratches at the core of issues of Willard. The many thousand billion posts made by me and literally everyone else highlight problems with rulesets, and the staff, management, and their permissions. I'm not so bothered by this because it's just one (smaller, imho) more incident of a much bigger issue.

I could link you the latest posts this forums saw: about the vortigaunt faction, about crafting and whatnot, about misbehaviour/harassment, about the state of rebel and CP factions separatedly, about the maps, even the now infamous 'stabilisation whilst wounded' thread. And they all have the two issues seen above in common: faction and player management not doing what they should do, and circumventing over the unspecific server rules that are frankly stolen from GTAWorld - like seriously, at least try, guys. And every time the goalposts are shifted.

Except in the latest thread where people legitimately tried to defend acting like a colossal inbred retard (woah, slurs? it's a joke it's okay) with brilliant arguments such as "it's a joke bro" or reddit's favourite, "source?" (seriously, that whole shtick was two inches away from some bright educated mind saying it was the communists' fault society got this 'weak and soyful' and hate on vulnerable collectives while citing Freud, Nietszche, Ben Shapiro, or Jordan Belfort) I've managed to keep my cool in most of these posts and I will aim to do the same here. But saying the same stuff time and time again gets complicated. So maybe let me make it a bit easier...

It's normal to make mistakes. Noone is omnipotent. It's normal to be emotionally driven at times, even biased. This applies to both players and staff, but especially the latter in light of their responsibilities. You aren't expected to not make mistakes, you are, however, expected to admit to them, make apologies when they oughta be made, and actively work so they do not happen again: by expanding or specifying new rulesets, being transparent, being more on top of the community, creating an environment safe for criticism instead of shunning shit and locking threads, and finally, demoting people from positions of responsibility without hard feelings if the issues keep surfacing from the same individuals.

Positions aren't a reward no matter how good a person the individual in question is, they're a matter of efficiency. The secret doesn't rely on threatening punishment, rather making the system so someone can just be like "mb soz" and have the solution solved without them being a massive crybaby to his dad who works for Nintendo (totally not an allegory to the hierarchy of the server). I have seen more positions maintained by 'sons of' and 'friends of' who do not contribute anything or have not contributed substantially in long enough in this community than in the directive board of a pharmaceutical company.

This community has a big ass issue with deflecting. It's actually just denial. Every issue gets batted away like a baseball by each person in a position of responsibility. When the people in charge of these situations get tired of playing hot potato with users and staff alike or when too much proof exists over an oopsie - then we get the magic sentences, "it will be dealt with", "it will be talked about in the next staff meeting" and discussion is halted any means necessary. Yet these things keep happening over and over... So to a degree I question what "dealing with it" means. Does it mean "stopping a person from bitching" by telling them "it'll be good in the future my child I promise"?

I am surprised by how little respect you all treat eachother, for a server based purely on interaction. I know it sounds like a liar thing to say, but I wouldn't have the balls (or lack thereof) to play this "no you! no you're wrong not me!" game a lot of people play... What happened to just, playing with others in mind? Does nobody think of the children?

This place is filled with people with simultaneously too much ego and too little self-esteem at once, and it makes for a hilarious combination. Just, let go every now and then, no? Cave in? Admit whether you're ready for something or not. Redo, backtrace, say sorry? Try to get along with people? Understand them...? ...Step up? Step down? Be realistic about your position...? ...Show you're willing to change it without coming across as a defensive lil' mess who can't accept the oopsie happened?

I'm just trying to remain consistent with the matters being discussed - feel free to shove this wall of text on my own face when I do fuck up, which I inevitably will come the time. Because, apparently unlike many, I'd rather be told when I'm wrong, or lacking, so I can change it or improve it, instead of blaming some external factor and sweeping it under the rug.

Oh yeah, what was this post about? CP-4 blowing up? True, true. Pretty stinky to be honest. But I'm sure it's nothing that can't be... discussed and fixed, hm?

Neon's still my friend. I meant no disrespect toward her with my reply here. If that's what you were touching upon. I just have a problem with complaints that are based on assumptions. They only serve to waste time and make the people they are launched against look bad until they set the record straight, which is much easier to do by checking before hand and avoiding drama like this thread.

 

[Vulpes Callida]

Neon's still my friend. I meant no disrespect toward her with my reply here. If that's what you were touching upon. I just have a problem with complaints that are based on assumptions.

oh liam, this post isn't focused on you at all. it's cool bro. I think your reply was ok. I was touching onto an issue at large.

 

[Rabithunter]

For clarification here, and to lay out all the facts for those interested, I ICly organized this over a month ago. The fact that the Aux units now reside there is an unfortunate circumstance. This could not have been foreseen nor planned for at the time I organized it.

However, at the time when I had been organizing it, the building and two floors themselves were in fact occupied by civil protection, being utilized as a checkpoint for overseeing those within the slums.

As far as I know, there wasn't anything in the building to prevent the fire from spreading throughout the buildings floors. I know for certain this has been done with other buildings throughout the city, including the shop that the checkpoint resides above. If someone can obtain evidence of it being used in this location I would be grateful, as I was unaware if had been if this is the case.

In regards to auths, using two incendiary grenades to firebomb a location, if all is done in character would not be required on the auths page. They are not special items, don't require special materials to make, can be obtained through the crafting menu when the player reaches level 30 and providing they have the correct materials.

So far in all of the quests I give out as a BMD, I simply state what I require doing and then leave the player to make the decisions. It is fair play to ask someone to do something, then allow them to make plans, find people to help, perhaps even make mistakes and get themselves into trouble for doing them or making the attempts. I don't give them weapons, ammo, grenades or anything that might help give them an edge over anyone else.

Once a quest is given, the rules on raiding, destruction of property, killing others and committing crimes must be adhered to. Should this have been done outside of those rules, it would be voided and those players receiving reprimands for doing so.

 

[Neonity]

They are not special items, don't require special materials to make, can be obtained through the crafting menu when the player reaches level 30 and providing they have the correct materials.

That’s kinda the problem, isn’t it?

You see, we don’t allow players to craft IED’s or any other large explosives using the crafting menu in order to prevent people from blowing up anything they want (unless they have a special forum auth to make these items for that specific bombing).

However, you have now set the very dangerous precedent that this same thing can be achieved by two mere level 30 firecrackers which can be mass-produced by any established rebel in no time at all.

 

[Liam]

That’s kinda the problem, isn’t it?

You see, we don’t allow players to craft IED’s or any other large explosives using the crafting menu in order to prevent people from blowing up anything they want (unless they have a special forum auth to make these items for that specific bombing).

However, you have now set the very dangerous precedent that this same thing can be achieved by two mere level 30 firecrackers which can be mass-produced by any established rebel in no time at all.

Imo, perhaps cps should not just stand idle with the ooc assumption that cus its just a fire grenade, that they need not worry. No one expected the damage to be so much, but when you have a fire burning at 4000 degrees farenheit (plz forgive my dyslexic spelling) as per what the script says, doing nothing at all expept watch it happen is going to have cosequence

 

[Rabithunter]

That’s kinda the problem, isn’t it?

You see, we don’t allow players to craft IED’s or any other large explosives using the crafting menu in order to prevent people from blowing up anything they want (unless they have a special forum auth to make these items for that specific bombing).

However, you have now set the very dangerous precedent that this same thing can be achieved by two mere level 30 firecrackers which can be mass-produced by any established rebel in no time at all.

If this is an issue, I suggest making a forum suggestion to remove those grenades from the crafting menu. As it stands, anyone who gains level 30 in crafting, can make all of the grenades within that list.

Essentially, with enough materials the player can make ten frags, ten incendiary's and ten smokes, then use all of them to cause havoc if the required rules are met and adhered to.

Edit: Though in saying that, something on a very large scale would defiantly require an auth to fully complete

 

[Pandafish]

Okay so, your facts are a little off. The BMD quest was given to the rebel whitelist faction in late August/early September. Rabit did not make this quest to target the Auxilallary units at all. It just took a while to complete. At the time of the quest being given, it was just another checkpoint.

As for the reason the fire did so much damage, is because no one attempted to fix the situation. Quite literally, everyone just watched. As for the lack of CWU, that's not the BMD's fault. I ic hired some people on my regular rebel to firebomb the place on my behalf, and they acted on pure ic motive. There was no push from staff to do it at x time. So, the fact no cwu were on when these players decided to do it is just bad luck.

The fireproofing, if true was not public knowledge to me personally. Though I was just spectating really and adding the odd GM here and there to assist the main GM, that being @Travis

Rabit gave this job in good faith to give LFC a worthwhile objective to work toward. I had no issues with it myself, as I have done similar things in the past myself.

I do not believe there was any bad faith from either the gm's nor the bmd team. It just falls down to bad timing from the players and lack of public info about this fireproofing thing.

I will add that just because somethint is an rp hub, I don't believe it should be meta protected. It's an rp hub for cp/aux and a problem for rebels. So it was fair they are allowed to attack it imo. Also it would be better if you aquired the facts before making a complaint. It just makes us look bad for no reason because you can't be bothered to make sure your facts are correct before angrily typing out a complaint because something didn't go your way.

My take? Your containers should be refunded. Altho I think fire not destroying them is stupid af, this has not been done in the past. So I agree that was unfair. As for the rest? I think it was all in good faith. I hope perhaps you can see that now as well having been given the facts of the situation. Lest the cycle of willard continues to always assume malice.

Edit: addionally, this was not rabit's idea. Ic, lfc wanted to prove themselves to a bmd and rabit's bmd asked us to do a small task. Thru ic negociation, an lfc member suggested the checkpoint attack instead and the job was then agreed upon.

The cops didn't do anything to fix it because no workers were online and from what I've been told, by the time they got their bearings and prepared to react against the unannounced, unscheduled fire, the damage was already total. There was no one to facilitate the proper roleplay, no communication took place OOC to give us a chance; for some players on the cop side it was 2AM for them which in no way is a fair timeframe for a spontaneous destruction event. Because of the extent of the damage by the two low-level scripts roleplayed by the GMs as greek fire to a straw thatch hut, more than fire extinguishers would have been required, like a hose connected to a fire hydrant - which again requires CWU.

It's a classic case of admins acting in bad faith carrying out an extrajudicial map-altering faction-impacting OOC hitjob (if this was done for the LFC and GMed mainly by their faction lead, I can see some conflict of interest there, so how that was even remotely considered OK makes me dubious that there was no malice on their part) and certainly not courteous behavior in any capacity, especially when you look at the facts that a BMD-organised 'quest' can now bypass the normal authorization process (let alone allowing players to use far less scripts to carry out far more damage) that I assumed is in place to avoid situations like this.

And I find it highly hypocritical of you to attack CP-4 as a roleplay hub being irrelevant and 'fair they are allowed to attack it' when you personally routinely organize BMD events in admin box devoid of any Combine presence for rebel roleplayers.

This isn't a case of something 'not going our way' - CP-4 is an entirely valid and legitimate target for rebels and I was not upset about the destruction at first; it was the containers. The GMs essentially acted to cripple auxiliaries by deleting the containers because they roleplayed the damage so severely. These containers were made to arm new members into the faction and contained a plethora of gear that needed to be manually deactivated by admins, and radios that needed their frequencies set. From an IC perspective, obviously this stuff would have been destroyed, but it's common sense that the Combine would have the facilities to reimburse it, thus making destroying the actual scripts unnecessary and just contributes to an OOC hassle - one that Rabithunter rectified (but the computer still needs to be set-up again).

The whole ordeal has put a bad taste in my maw regarding how GMs operate on this server, their willingness to destroy progress and waste time, even their own time, how their decisions are bipolar and inconsistent, and has brought into question just how far they are willing to warp the rules via recruiting players directly as a 'middleman' to carry out bombings and in doing so bypass any sort of authorization, as it becomes something 'GMed' in response to a player carrying out an act with their own resources, and is the IC equivalent of being hired by God to carry out natural disasters on the cityscape while being presented as a 'purely IC' thing. You guys hired them to do this and you roleplayed the damage; it goes against the basic idea of gamemastering itself as an impartial, uninvolved narrative entity, which was instead wielded as a weapon against an opposing faction. Saying that this was fueled by players, let alone organically in any way is straight up wrong and a blatant lie and is contributing in my mind that this was just a loophole to carry out some wanton destruction with no accountability, no requirement to alert other factions, and just blame the poor circumstances for us as 'bad luck'.

 

[HOKI]

Another dub for the neighborhood watch

 

[Liam]

The cops didn't do anything to fix it because no workers were online and from what I've been told, by the time they got their bearings and prepared to react against the unannounced, unscheduled fire, the damage was already total. There was no one to facilitate the proper roleplay, no communication took place OOC to give us a chance; for some players on the cop side it was 2AM for them which in no way is a fair timeframe for a spontaneous destruction event. Because of the extent of the damage by the two low-level scripts roleplayed by the GMs as greek fire to a straw thatch hut, more than fire extinguishers would have been required, like a hose connected to a fire hydrant - which again requires CWU.

It's a classic case of admins acting in bad faith carrying out an extrajudicial map-altering faction-impacting OOC hitjob (if this was done for the LFC and GMed mainly by their faction lead, I can see some conflict of interest there, so how that was even remotely considered OK makes me dubious that there was no malice on their part) and certainly not courteous behavior in any capacity, especially when you look at the facts that a BMD-organised 'quest' can now bypass the normal authorization process (let alone allowing players to use far less scripts to carry out far more damage) that I assumed is in place to avoid situations like this.

And I find it highly hypocritical of you to attack CP-4 as a roleplay hub being irrelevant and 'fair they are allowed to attack it' when you personally routinely organize BMD events in admin box devoid of any Combine presence for rebel roleplayers.

This isn't a case of something 'not going our way' - CP-4 is an entirely valid and legitimate target for rebels and I was not upset about the destruction at first; it was the containers. The GMs essentially acted to cripple auxiliaries by deleting the containers because they roleplayed the damage so severely. These containers were made to arm new members into the faction and contained a plethora of gear that needed to be manually deactivated by admins, and radios that needed their frequencies set. From an IC perspective, obviously this stuff would have been destroyed, but it's common sense that the Combine would have the facilities to reimburse it, thus making destroying the actual scripts unnecessary and just contributes to an OOC hassle - one that Rabithunter rectified (but the computer still needs to be set-up again).

The whole ordeal has put a bad taste in my maw regarding how GMs operate on this server, their willingness to destroy progress and waste time, even their own time, how their decisions are bipolar and inconsistent, and has brought into question just how far they are willing to warp the rules via recruiting players directly as a 'middleman' to carry out bombings and in doing so bypass any sort of authorization, as it becomes something 'GMed' in response to a player carrying out an act with their own resources, and is the IC equivalent of being hired by God to carry out natural disasters on the cityscape while being presented as a 'purely IC' thing. You guys hired them to do this and you roleplayed the damage; it goes against the basic idea of gamemastering itself as an impartial, uninvolved narrative entity, which was instead wielded as a weapon against an opposing faction. Saying that this was fueled by players, let alone organically in any way is straight up wrong and a blatant lie and is contributing in my mind that this was just a loophole to carry out some wanton destruction with no accountability, no requirement to alert other factions, and just blame the poor circumstances for us as 'bad luck'.

Well, from my pov it was player driven. We asked the BMD if they'd pay us to do it and they said yes as that would help them out icly too. So, yh. Players kinda organised it from the start by seeking out a BMD and asking for some kind of payment for the destruction. As for it being an "event" at 2am, since it wasn't prompted by admins it was not an event. And by prompted I mean, no day nor time were planned for when it would happen. It was left entireley in the agency of players when it would happen. It's unfortunate that 2am was the timezone of the attacking players but we cannot fault a player(s) for having a different timezone to the majority of the CWU. That just isn't fair on them. Unlike CP's, there does not need to be x amount of CWU on for a crime to be commited.

Also, regardless of any of these points, you do not need auths to throw grenades, even at a combine checkpoint. So the whole "BMD middle man bypass something something whatever" is utterly redundant of a point as it was not "fobbed off" as player driven to bypass an auth. It was a player driven BMD mission that would not have required auths under any circumstance either way.

Every complaint or rant on this page would be perfectly valid if the rules they were asspulling were actually real. They are not. Everything was done in accordance with server guidelines in terms of the bombing itself.

So, moving onto the other two issues. Travis was gming. It was his first day as a trial admin so we can cut him so slack. He also had no idea this was linked to the LFC. Sure, he obviously knew we had the mission to destroy it, but these were random unaffiliated slummers I delegated it to without telling Travis ic or oocly. Rabit came to help him and as did I to a very little extent like placing fire as I didn't want to be involved oocly. The only mistake which was made in my opinion was deleting the containers. But we're all humans and mistakes happen. That situation was rectified and I do not believe it was done in bad faith for one single second. Everything else was within server guidelines and in good faith.

If we want to keep this complaint constructive rather than going in circles, perhaps people can make suggestions for ammendments to the guidelines and rules so that in future everyone feels satisfied if something like this were to happen again. I like to ensure players are not left with bad tastes in their mouths and it's sad to see such a negative and borderline vicious reaction to something completley within the rules. But despite that, I would much prefer that instead of argueing we focus on ammending what can and can't be done for future reference.

 

[Leudoberct]

I already explained this on staff chat, and it's something that Neonity has mentioned multiple times in this thread: conflict of interest. All three GMs were involved with this quest: one handed it out, one supplied the grenades, one was the leader of the group doing it.

I already explained the concept of unconscious bias in staff channels, so I'll just leave it at that.for that segment.

Additionally, I don't find it helpful that this was done in the early hours of the morning for most of the server, where there is considerably less players around. It's already been noted that rebel activity seems to exclusively happen when there is only the bare minimum of units on, and to then say "too bad" to there not being enough CWU on to handle the problem is pretty terrible to me, given this was done knowingly at a time where the CWU were unlikely to evem be able to reapond. Hell, they need management just to access the appropriate gear.

Rule changes can be suggested, sure, but I don't.find it constructive to just say 'suggest a change then' to it. Maybe an admission that some things were done wrong would be good, too.

 

[Pandafish]

Well, from my pov it was player driven. We asked the BMD if they'd pay us to do it and they said yes as that would help them out icly too. So, yh. Players kinda organised it from the start by seeking out a BMD and asking for some kind of payment for the destruction. As for it being an "event" at 2am, since it wasn't prompted by admins it was not an event. And by prompted I mean, no day nor time were planned for when it would happen. It was left entireley in the agency of players when it would happen. It's unfortunate that 2am was the timezone of the attacking players but we cannot fault a player(s) for having a different timezone to the majority of the CWU. That just isn't fair on them. Unlike CP's, there does not need to be x amount of CWU on for a crime to be commited.

Also, regardless of any of these points, you do not need auths to throw grenades, even at a combine checkpoint. So the whole "BMD middle man bypass something something whatever" is utterly redundant of a point as it was not "fobbed off" as player driven to bypass an auth. It was a player driven BMD mission that would not have required auths under any circumstance either way.

Every complaint or rant on this page would be perfectly valid if the rules they were asspulling were actually real. They are not. Everything was done in accordance with server guidelines in terms of the bombing itself.

So, moving onto the other two issues. Travis was gming. It was his first day as a trial admin so we can cut him so slack. He also had no idea this was linked to the LFC. Sure, he obviously knew we had the mission to destroy it, but these were random unaffiliated slummers I delegated it to without telling Travis ic or oocly. Rabit came to help him and as did I to a very little extent like placing fire as I didn't want to be involved oocly. The only mistake which was made in my opinion was deleting the containers. But we're all humans and mistakes happen. That situation was rectified and I do not believe it was done in bad faith for one single second. Everything else was within server guidelines and in good faith.

If we want to keep this complaint constructive rather than going in circles, perhaps people can make suggestions for ammendments to the guidelines and rules so that in future everyone feels satisfied if something like this were to happen again. I like to ensure players are not left with bad tastes in their mouths and it's sad to see such a negative and borderline vicious reaction to something completley within the rules. But despite that, I would much prefer that instead of argueing we focus on ammending what can and can't be done for future reference.

From my POV it was admin driven; you guys set the terms and dished out the punishment. Plain and simple; you exacted the judgement in the form of every destructive act against the outpost after all. Funded it, supervised it, and are now proceeding to defend it.

"As for it being an "event" at 2am, since it wasn't prompted by admins it was not an event."
Because you loopholed it. Congratulations, you found a flaw in our precious text-based roleplaying gamemode ruleset by declaring a 'quest' that YOU made as a spontaneous action taken by a player (THAT YOU CREATED), and therefore not an event and thus not subject to the rules.

"And by prompted I mean, no day nor time were planned for when it would happen."
Makes sense based on the poor handling and our subsequent response based on what was carried out like an admin-backed, authorized event, but was treated like a player-thing without any of the accountability nor adherence to the rules of the server.

"It was left entireley in the agency of players when it would happen."
They did your dirty work for you by operating through the methods I have listed above and you have performed accordingly.

"It's unfortunate that 2am was the timezone of the attacking players but we cannot fault a player(s) for having a different timezone to the majority of the CWU."
I love that you said this. You basically read all of our minds.

"Unlike CP's, there does not need to be x amount of CWU on for a crime to be commited."
I think you will regret saying this regarding how deeply involved CWU is with basically every destruction-RP event.

 

[Donavin Jones]

"Unlike CP's, there does not need to be x amount of CWU on for a crime to be commited."
I think you will regret saying this regarding how deeply involved CWU is with basically every destruction-RP event.

As an ex CWU member this is very true, any destruction-RP event is like getting a coffee for us, CWU and the branch 'City Restoration' is basically the grim reaper for every destruction RP event.
And to be fair, I feel as if a fire bombing is meant to happen on a CP outpost, there should be at bare minimum 12 CP's to be on so its at least fair.

 

[Maroon]

I'll take a look at this when I'm home tonight. For now, I'm a little iffy on the initiative of the entire ordeal, and I'm getting mixed messages reading through some of these posts:

What lead up to the attack to begin with? Was it entirely under the player's initiative, or was a staff member (via BMD or their own rebel characters) orchestrating/suggesting it?

 

[Leudoberct]

To my understanding, Rabit made the quest, Liam handed incendiary grenades to the perpetrators.

 

[Kaffee]

admin bombing with extra steps (make a player do it instead)

 

[Cocohop]

The cops didn't do anything to fix it because no workers were online and from what I've been told, by the time they got their bearings and prepared to react against the unannounced, unscheduled fire, the damage was already total. There was no one to facilitate the proper roleplay, no communication took place OOC to give us a chance; for some players on the cop side it was 2AM for them which in no way is a fair timeframe for a spontaneous destruction event. Because of the extent of the damage by the two low-level scripts roleplayed by the GMs as greek fire to a straw thatch hut, more than fire extinguishers would have been required, like a hose connected to a fire hydrant - which again requires CWU.

It's a classic case of admins acting in bad faith carrying out an extrajudicial map-altering faction-impacting OOC hitjob (if this was done for the LFC and GMed mainly by their faction lead, I can see some conflict of interest there, so how that was even remotely considered OK makes me dubious that there was no malice on their part) and certainly not courteous behavior in any capacity, especially when you look at the facts that a BMD-organised 'quest' can now bypass the normal authorization process (let alone allowing players to use far less scripts to carry out far more damage) that I assumed is in place to avoid situations like this.

And I find it highly hypocritical of you to attack CP-4 as a roleplay hub being irrelevant and 'fair they are allowed to attack it' when you personally routinely organize BMD events in admin box devoid of any Combine presence for rebel roleplayers.

This isn't a case of something 'not going our way' - CP-4 is an entirely valid and legitimate target for rebels and I was not upset about the destruction at first; it was the containers. The GMs essentially acted to cripple auxiliaries by deleting the containers because they roleplayed the damage so severely. These containers were made to arm new members into the faction and contained a plethora of gear that needed to be manually deactivated by admins, and radios that needed their frequencies set. From an IC perspective, obviously this stuff would have been destroyed, but it's common sense that the Combine would have the facilities to reimburse it, thus making destroying the actual scripts unnecessary and just contributes to an OOC hassle - one that Rabithunter rectified (but the computer still needs to be set-up again).

The whole ordeal has put a bad taste in my maw regarding how GMs operate on this server, their willingness to destroy progress and waste time, even their own time, how their decisions are bipolar and inconsistent, and has brought into question just how far they are willing to warp the rules via recruiting players directly as a 'middleman' to carry out bombings and in doing so bypass any sort of authorization, as it becomes something 'GMed' in response to a player carrying out an act with their own resources, and is the IC equivalent of being hired by God to carry out natural disasters on the cityscape while being presented as a 'purely IC' thing. You guys hired them to do this and you roleplayed the damage; it goes against the basic idea of gamemastering itself as an impartial, uninvolved narrative entity, which was instead wielded as a weapon against an opposing faction. Saying that this was fueled by players, let alone organically in any way is straight up wrong and a blatant lie and is contributing in my mind that this was just a loophole to carry out some wanton destruction with no accountability, no requirement to alert other factions, and just blame the poor circumstances for us as 'bad luck'.

<:: You have been charged with first degree murder using facts and logic. Cease evasion ::>

 

[Taliazure]

I must agree there has been rebel bias a lot when it comes to these.
Whenever a rebel base is burnt from the cp side to keep them under a bit after an attack as retaliation, it is repaired not in 1 day but 3 hours... And all containers are kept intact.
This on the part of staff is bad gming and tipping the balance to one side making any players efforts completely null.
Now while it is true that 2 easily incendiary grenades shouldn't be enough to burn an entire checkpoint.
You must remind yourself that this is not a combine checkpoint withj the famous combinium and metal on the walls keeping it safe from such attacks. It is a slummers housing repurposed jjnto a checkpoint meaning it is made of wood, specially old uncared for wood.
Perhaps this could have only affected one floor and it would be required something more to burn the other floor as to keep it from being such an easy destroyable building.

And now that I read upon this I have to agree that there was some loophole and I do not agree 2ith it at all.

But despite that I think that the roleplay should stay and be used.
And these mistakes should also be a door for change.

Rebels and Cps alike should not be different when it comes to these things, yet there is a big gap beetwen them where whenever rebels are attack in the same sense as this checkpoint they are allowed to fix it in hours if not just 1 day with no repercussions at all other than some hours of /mes.
While Cps have to remain days without the checkpoint and nearly lost all their gear.
This is bad faith on the gms sadly.