Hello, it is Ephleinxera here, an experienced player on Netherworld. I am posting this note to give insight and understanding to any players who plan to join this community. The insight I wish to give refers to the players, the clan system, the immortals, and any other topics for which I feel to be relevant.
I will now give insight on the clans, players, and reigning immortal. This mud consists of five active/semi-active clans: Imperium, Protect(my clan), Nosfer, Shaolin, and one which has no benefits but those who were kicked out of existing clans automatically go into Loner; Of these clans, I have seen very heavy favoritism towards Imperium the dick clan of the game, and in my opinion one of the as of now many downsides. That said, an example should be given;
I was making an attempt to load gear in an effort to load a rare or socket item, this involves logging in and out at each tick to kill a mob which hopefully loaded a rare and/or socket item for gems. Of course, while I made this attempt to load my gear an existing Imperium(aka: downside of this game) did what they do best, and ruined this game for me; This was achieved by a logging in and out before I logged back in to check mobs before I reconnected. Shortly after having this done consecutive times without my knowledge to me, I logged in to see that he was attacking my mob which had *alas* loaded socket items, on each of its items. My natural response on login was of course kill that mob before he does. I did so, and the previous player who had done everything in his/her power to prevent me from loading rare/socket went one step further by posting it as a kill-steal which is a against the rules. Example given, an immortal known as Lenny made poor judgement and once again proved that he is on behalf of imperium above all others, by punishing me for the kill-steal. While I may seem as a disgruntled player, I would have been more than happy to take the punishment if the other person involved was also punished, unfortunately in this scenario that was not the case. I have many more examples of such favoritism, but I will not bore you in such a manner, and I would only add that aside from this major issue the clan system is and has been running efficiently. I only post this in hopes that an immortal re-evaluates his judgements in the future, and so that right off the get-go any new players will know what to expect.
Post a commentComment posted on Thu Jan 31 07:47:21 2013 by Lenny:
I am Lenny; I don't like to engage in public squabbles, but other players are asking that I respond to this review. I gave Ephleinxera a “dunce cap” because he violated a rule. Which rule? He “stole someone's kill”, which just means he engaged a mob that someone else was already attacking and killed it. This is a hard mob that takes a while to kill, so it was not accidental. The other player submitted a complete log of the event, if anyone doubts what I am saying.
I don't think I have to defend my actions, since Ephleinxera is very open about breaking the rule. He voluntarily surrendered the items back to the other person without my intervention.
This review saddens me. I don't have any ill-wishes for Ephleinxera, even after this strange attempt at bad publicity, but I do wish he could learn to contain his emotions and take some time to think before breaking the rules and before posting such a silly review.
Comment posted on Thu Jan 31 16:00:30 2013 by Roberta:
I wish to start out by stating I do not participate in Netherworld. That being said, my response is not to Ephleinxera, but rather to Lenny. I believe that it is the role of a staff member on a MUD to treat everyone as an equal. However, your response to this player clearly illustrates your favoritism toward these other players who requested you write your response. Your condescending undertone to Ephleinxera demonstrates that you strongly dislike him. Again, it is my opinion, with your being a staff member for a MUD, that you show equal treatment for everyone. If an outsider can look at your one comment and see that you are not, then I'm sure it is clear to your players, including Ephleinxera.
Comment posted on Thu Jan 31 17:54:43 2013 by Kirby the furby, aka just kirby:
Eph is right to be annoyed, the player who he stole the kill from is definitely shallow enough to spend hours waiting around for a chance to harass another player. Whether he did it to be annoying or he really needed the item is up for debate, but given the fact that the player is known to be shallow enough to do something like this, and Eph volunteered to surrender the items on his own, he never should of been punished. I don't like Eph, I don't like Lenny, and I don't like the person Eph stole the kill from, but what I really don't like is people who go out of their way to ruin a game for others.
Comment posted on Thu Jan 31 18:31:39 2013 by Lenny:
In response to Roberta, I don't think I was being condescending and I don't think responding to a review on TMC is a display of favoritism. I have a feeling I am being trolled, but let me be clear about something: I don't dislike Ephleinxera. I understand why it was a frustrating situation, but it doesn't mean he should violate the rules.
People were discussing the review and the general consensus was that I should respond. The end of the review requests action from myself, so that's consistent too.
Comment posted on Fri Feb 1 17:51:48 2013 by AnkleLoaf:
Non-Imper, anti-Lenny opinion here. Eph is a known cheater and cry baby. He broke a very clear, very old, very enforced rule. That was the only rule broken.
Lenny may say he doesn't dislike Eph, but I don't have a hard time speaking for most of the people on the mud when I say, not many people Like Eph.
Comment posted on Wed Feb 20 10:35:45 2013 by Enko:
I like Eph, and the obvious interpretation of this thread of comments is correct. I myself have been harassed and had kills stolen by the person Eph conflicted with, and then I was told it was 'my fault' as well.
This isn't a new thing; we have a troll problem, and it is almost entirely 1 player. The other Imperium members are actually pretty agreeable when that 1 player is not present, but they become sharp, bitter, and condescending when he is, sometimes even stooping to similar harassment. This 1 player's influence even got to Imperium's clan leader, who followed me to killsteal me a few times for speaking out against the favoritism. Note this person is max level and probably the best player in the MUD, following a newbie to newbie areas to killsteal out of emotional backlash. Although reported, he was not punished. Nor was the 1 player Whose Name We Keep Not Mentioning.
That all being said, I will advocate that the admin Lenny is not biased the way that is being claimed. I play a variety of old online games from the 90's, and they all come down to a situation very similar to this one. Games with playerbases this small, old, and dedicated simply cannot afford to lose players (or at least, that is what they believe). Administrators will not ban unless truly forced to, so the latitude for trolling and griefing is greatly increased.
Get this: the admin gave up on He Who We Keep Not Naming long ago. He knows punishment will not work on this person, so he doesn't bother. Eph gets punished because Eph is a good person. Eph will react differently in the future, if he deigns to continue playing in our toxic environment. Our resident troll has proven he will not act differently no matter what, but he carefully keeps his behavior toeing the line of outright banning, so there is nothing any of us can do. Public outcry is impossible because he has quite literally driven everyone away except his group and a few scattered holdouts. Nobody is left to 'gang up' on the topic, so to speak.
By the way, recently all the clans were disbanded and the entire system overhauled. The Imperium group doesn't exist anymore, although I'm sure the players will still band together the same way.
We'll see if anything new happens.