regarding the tone of the community over the last couple days
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I'll just leave this here:
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Erasing this post as I missed bonzai's other post and am reading it now.
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I will post shortly on behalf of the Screeps United Nations (pompous self and all). Until that time, I want to point out that the attack on Heilos took place at 11/18/16 12:31 AM.
https://screeps.com/a/#!/history/E52N63?t=15365220
The rules of engagement between SUN, TK and TC were agreed upon and made valid at 11/18/16 5:39 PM almost 17 hours later.
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(Edit)
This statement was made in response to Tedivm's edited post.
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Alright, I've come to a decision here-
1. I am not going to talk about peace or in game behavior in a thread like this. The entire first post is filled with accusations and insults, and so expecting anything other than that from other comments in this thread was a mistake I won't make again.
2. I do agree that the atmosphere has gotten toxic and needs to deescalate a bit, and I will work to do that on my end. This does not mean I won't call out bad behavior, but it does mean I'll try to keep an even head when doing so.
3. I still believe that SUN involving themselves in this conflict was completely dishonorable. I feel that SUNs proxy wars in the north (where they engineered situations to try and hide their involvement) shows that SUN can not be trusted. I believe that Thunderkittens accepting their help goes against the spirit of what bonzai has said multiple times, so my opinion of bonzai has changed as a result of this.
4. SUN and Thunderkittens are some of the more aggressive players, and seem to do so "for fun". The Culture prefers wars with reasons. This isn't a condemnation of either side, but rather a question to the other alliances- who would you rather have as a neighbor?
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hum ... .I'm sorry ... but what "reasons" would there be to trigger a war in a game ?
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> 1. I am not going to talk about peace or in game behavior in a thread like this. The entire first post is filled with accusations and insults, and so expecting anything other than that from other comments in this thread was a mistake I won't make again.
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Thank you Bonzai for opening up an important discussion.
I would like to believe that this community is made up of reasonable adults where issues can be solved through constructive discussions. Unfortunately, I must confess the recent days have made me doubt this perspective. It is difficult to tell if the "rumors" spread around are out of genuine ignorance or veritable malevolence.
I do however have to stand up for my alliance and my colleagues. The Screeps United Nations (SUN) has never broken a treaty and will never do so. It is true that I have sought to establish relations with capable partners. It is true that this has lead to military operations against neutral parties. None of these actions were ever in violation of any of our treaties. Throughout our existence, SUN has always treated those we dealt with in a respectable manner. Any deviation from this policy was immediately rectified.
Tedivm's analogy is a bit difficult for me to digest. Indeed the perspective of the 3 main participants in this war are all wildly different. Culture is a lighthearted civilized collection of city states (Greek), TK is a barbarian horde (Germanic) and SUN is a militaristic empire (Roman). The clash of these civilizations has produced a whirlwind of death which is now gobbling up all the bystanders.
Is this diversity a bad thing?
It is true that diplomacy with Thunder Kittens has been particularly difficult because of their decentralized nature. We would like to treat TK as a nation when it is in fact a multitude of independent tribes which sometimes agree on the same thing.
What has taken an unprecedented toll on my enjoyment of this fine game has been the frequent name calling, the unreasonable reactions and the refusal to engage in civilized dialog. I have to commend Dissi and Bovius for remaining the voice of reason in difficult times. I do hope you two will continue to temper the intense spirits of fellow players.
Kind regards,
Security council member of the SUN
AtavusSUN charter can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/zf3jgsg
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> Not everyone gets the same story about what's happening, even when everyone involved communicates as clearly and openly as they know how
I just want to highlight on what bovius has said here, as I think it is an important point. Communication _is_ hard, and even with the best of intentions, mishaps exist. The best online communities I've seen tend to have an unwritten rule of asking members to be charitable to one another. That is, to presume everyone is acting in good faith, and miscommunication should be the first line of assumption, rather than malicious or dishonest intents.
I'd like to ask that to apply to all of us here. As it happens, saying enough things and we are bound to make fun of ourselves a couple of times. It is then fairly meaningless to pick on individual sentences/ phrases/ wordings as a justification for others' wrongdoing. Words are a meant to deliver intentions, as necessary as they are, they are not an end to itself.
Just as an example, and I don't mean to be picking on bonzai here. It's just the easiest one I can find an example of - it could have been another quote had I found one in this thread:
> With the sacking of so many rooms, each player’s sense of sportsmanship is put to the test.
Most of the most damaged players: Skorp, DT, vvr are all acting in exceptionally good sport. It probably can't be overstated that these guys had a cool head (I'd make a joke about vvr here, but then he wouldn't understand and I have to explain it to him again). The specific statement is therefore of questionable truth. But that is hardly irrelevant to the point bonzai was making: that was a shitty weekends for us.
From the principle of charitable reading above, I'd call for everyone to stop he-said she-said, as it is evidently not productive. With the latest development today, it's safe to say that we are all pretty confused. I know I do.
And this is a bit out there. But even though I called bonzai's quoted statement "of questionable truth" because of specific circumstances, it is in fact a safe prior for normal cases: as the war goes on, it is likely to be more salty (this thread by itself isn't enough to be resolving it, unfortunately). If at all possible, I'd like to have a cease-fire for 7 days for all fronts. This is, after all, a week of gratitude. And this is unrelated to any potential strategic implication in the war. In fact if anyone want (and the ceasefire is reached), you would have my words that I will not work on a single line of code related to any war plan during the week.
Yes, some might benefit from it, and some might lose some advantage. At this rate, this war is gonna end with several players leaving the game. This is coming from my experience playing other cutthroat games. And yes, that would include myself -- I take great care in interacting with others, and being called "toxic ramblings" does, in fact, bother me.
At this point, I'm more interested in still having a place to chat, and a game to play, rather than the consequence of the war. The war did expose some strange (not just in balance, but enjoyment) mechanics in the game, and that is on top of the apparent degrading in community's mood
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Overall, I'm really encouraged at the direction that the discussion is going. There is still some back and forth, but nowhere near the level of toxicity that we saw in slack. And Bovius seems to have a really strong chance of leading us to a common ground, his statements are very appreciated. It actually seems like this back and forth could at least lead to some conclusions. Even if a few of them end with grumblings, the important part is that they see an end. I'm going to ignore most of the insults and just address the points that seem part of bringing things to a conclusion.
> I just want to highlight on what bovius has said here, as I think it is an important point. Communication _is_ hard, and even with the best of intentions, mishaps exist. The best online communities I've seen tend to have an unwritten rule of asking members to be charitable to one another. That is, to presume everyone is acting in good faith, and miscommunication should be the first line of assumption, rather than malicious or dishonest intents.
I agree with this, and I look forward to a time that it seems reasonable to return to this mode of interpreting each others statements. For the time being, I hope you can appreciate how that is difficult. It is not because of an unwillingness on my part, I'll let the kind of language that you can see in this very thread be an example for why that is currently difficult to do.
If it is to happen, everyone also has to make a good faith effort to avoid mishaps as well. On several occasions you have said something to the effect of, "oh, that is not what I meant by that." This could be because I am predisposed now to interpreting your statements in a negative light, but you also need to consider your own responsibility for the situation. Your words often come across as condescending, whether you are meaning them that way or not. Take this for example:
> I'd make a joke about vvr here, but then he wouldn't understand and I have to explain it to him again
Maybe you just meant this as good-natured ribbing, but I hope you can see how it might be interpreted as condescending. Not only is it possible, it is likely. If you can't see that, then I propose that this is the root of the problem. You should probably ask yourself why it keeps happening for you.
> If at all possible, I'd like to have a cease-fire for 7 days for all fronts.
It seems strange to simultaneously attack us for our honor and then appeal to it to try and work out a break for the holidays. I assume you are appealing to our sense of honor here because, as it stands, we would not benefit from such a ceasefire at all. You haven't done the kind of damage that would cause us concern.
I'll repeat some of the things I've said about this question already. Since this is a game about automation, asking for a ceasefire because you are unable to monitor how things are going is really a stretch. To quote QzarSTB for the second time today, "attended defense is OP." As you were the ones who effectively scheduled this war, don't start complaining about the time conflict.
That being said, I personally am going to need to spend less time on screeps during the holidays, and I don't trust the effectiveness of my unattended raid code to not throw away resources needlessly when defense parameters are changed in ways it can't yet account for. No one wants to see anyone spend time managing screeps that they'd rather spend with family and friends. So I hope that serves well for this purpose. Seven days is definitely out of the question, it will probably be more like 3-4.
> However, I am going to be honest about the fact that I have lost a lot of respect for members of SUN and Thunderkittens, who from our end of things have gone out of their way during this war to both misrepresent facts and escalate things where escalations was not needed.
In regard to the question of respect, I won't be losing any sleep over it. On the other hand, I have always respected you. You and some of the members of your alliance have provided the community with some excellent tools, which is an incredible service. I will admit that I've lost some of that respect for you too, but to the extent that this all might just be a drug-induced fit of unfortunate behavior, I'd be willing to try and find it again some day.
As for misrepresenting the facts, I'll let your own discredited statements in this thread speak for themselves on who wins in that regard.
Finally, very surprising you are accusing us of escalating things when they are not needed, I'll point to the situation with Skorp and your decision to start this war in the first place. You've protested constantly about how warlike we are, but your alliance chosen to take a very reasonable response to a strategical move by Skorp as evidence of "repeated acts of war" on our part. It seems like this overreaction was the heart of your mistake. From what I can tell, The_Culture expected us to quiver in our boots at the idea of war with them, thinking that as the largest alliance in the game in terms of combined GCL, they could throw their weight around. They only decided to start crying "no fair" when they started losing.
Culture is a lighthearted civilized collection of city states (Greek), TK is a barbarian horde (Germanic) and SUN is a militaristic empire (Roman).
Definitely enjoyed this analogy
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And finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to bow out as a major contributor in these discussions. I've found the direction they are taking encouraging, and I'm sure others can keep the ball rolling that way. This is bigger than just our alliances, as it has to do with the ideals that we have for our community in general. So hearing from other folks might be a good thing too. I've spent a lot of time talking that could have spent coding, so it is time to balance that out.
I know that a lot of TK members are already busy with the holidays and other stuff, and probably just checking in to manage raids, so don't take a silence on our part as a sign that we are ignoring anyone.
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> Maybe you just meant this as good-natured ribbing, but I hope you can see how it might be interpreted as condescending. Not only is it possible, it is likely. If you can't see that, then I propose that this is the root of the problem. You should probably ask yourself why it keeps happening for you.
Very fortunately for me, the incidence with you is the first time I've encountered it. I've explained things, jokes and otherwise, to vvr numerous times. Ask him.
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I hope that bonzai will deign to remain in these discussion instead of bowing out - it is interesting to see the viewpoint of the other side in long-form.
I would like to throw my 2c in here - most of the tone in this thread has been rather brash & aggressive to my reading.... and I don't see why this is a problem, so long as we can act reasonably to shield new players from the drama.
In a war shit-talk occurs. On the internet shit-talk occurs. Egos are bruised and months of work are crushed under relentless waves of invaders, so of course emotions are high. For many of us, this marks a huge step from screeps into the "eve" style game, where suddenly this strange politics thing is just as important as our beloved code, so tempers are not surprising at all.
So can someone explain to me why we suddenly have this little circle of insults? Accusations of dishonesty, backstabbing, etc I understand... but the tone here feels more like a playground where people are called out for typing things that are misunderstood? Honestly I don't get that. English is imprecise, especially for any non-native speakers, and a lot of cherry picking seems to be going on.
Toxicity is a descriptor that I dislike, it feels like people try to claim moral high-ground through accusations of toxicity. Maybe that is just me, though?
Special shoutout to VVR who wasn't shitty at CopS when we invaded [them].
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I feel wrong for being shown as example of a problem here. I personally see myself as one of most toxic Screeps player and I'd like to correct some things and defend NhanHo a little as it seems like stuff is still unexplained.
Yes, NhanHo is little tough most of the time to me, but I don't really find it toxic. It's way people react to things and it doesn't make me "cry in my pillow". If someone would make joke about me that I woudn't like, I think I'd personally spoke to that person about it, so please - stop using me as example of bullied one.
Edit: If I misunderstood previous posts, feel free to blame me for writing this.
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Apologies vvr, in hindsight it was a poor choice to bring you in to this. I know that you don't need any defending, and that wasn't what I was trying to do. Nhanho, to the extent that I am misjudging you as well, I apologize.
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In case anyone thought Thunderkittens was actually trying keep things civil, they just insulted the crap out of Skorp and when we called them out on it had this to say-
So, if it wasn't clear, the only reason they made this post to begin with is propaganda and they have no intention of stopping the insults and trolling behavior.
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In the spirit of Kotarou's post, a new channel has been added to slack: #exception_thrown
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I'm just really tired. Tonight it was just more of the same. Hopefully the new channel does some good, but I think it is a bit late for me. As you can see from his screenshot, steeler came home from vacation only to catch up on all the sludge being thrown around, and was upset. Tedivm decides to interpret that as a sign that the thunderkittens are indeed the most terrible alliance, just as he has been saying all along. We are getting attacked by it seems like every alliance in the game. That could actually be a really fun event under normal circumstances, but it is getting hard to differentiate between those that are strategic moves and those that are done because people resent us.
On the social aspect, there is just no way for me to compete. Tedivm is an admin on slack. He seems to be the ringleader of the biggest alliance in the game. He has a ton of influence. He is going to get what he wants eventually, which seems to be for me to leave the game. All for having the audacity to challenge one of his alliance members. I have to worry about everything I do now ending up as a negative consequence for my alliance. I log into the game and I'm getting messages like this from random people I've never interacted with sending me caustic messages.http://imgur.com/a/2rTWp
I'm not interested in defending myself anymore, and I don't have a thick enough skin to continue in the community under the circumstances. The community was easily half of my enjoyment of the game, and it just doesn't seem like a welcoming place anymore.
Please don't attack my alliance over something they didn't really have any control over. Just attack my rooms.
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I kindly ask for closing this conversation here as it is. I don't see anything good going out of this.
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*OPINION PIECE*
For what it’s worth...I joined ThunderKittens about 2 days before the war broke out. My history with any given individual member of TK extends no further back than 1 week as of today. I have no deep ingrained loyalties to these guys, but have been in the privileged position of experiencing the alliance chat and being involved with them over the last week as the war has unfolded.
I understand this is a high emotion scenario for some. However to those who have been very publicly negative about the personalities of the TK members, accusing them of trolling, bullying, being hateful people and/or generally being miscreants, you are plain wrong... (Well, except for the miscreant part).
The chat in the alliance for the entirety of the week has been largely focused around how to have a fun war with other players of this RTS. Bonsai went to quite some effort to attempt to have a respectful war where opponents could have fun during the proceedings, whilst maintaining that this is an RTS and wars / combat and other such things should be expected as part of the game and no player should necessarily get a carte blanche exclusion just 'because'. At numerous times he went out of his way to try and negotiate temporary cease fires so that people could resolve issues in their personal lives. He made an active effort to try and involve the community and his opponents in the proceedings on slack.
A lot of unconstructive things have been said in the heat of the moment over the last few days and parties from both sides are guilty of this. Repetitively regurgitating these things publicly, out of context, to others in community only ever leads to more negativity and misunderstanding. People need to stop that.
It’s a real shame. It could have been a beautiful experience. When The Culture declared war on TK. The alliance / sun chat was filled with overly excited comments of people eager to see the battles, political events and adaptations in code that would emerge from the scenario and enjoy a brawl with friendly opponents.
Unfortunately it turned toxic and continued to spiral day after day with both sides saying things in the heat of the moment that should not have been said. In that, no one person is to blame. I really hope the community can heal and that TK can enjoy friendly wars with others in the future and that Bonsai will come back one day.
TL;DR... Bonzai / SteeleR / the others in TK are great guys and only wanted to enjoy a good war in this RTS we enjoy so much. If you believe otherwise then you are mistaken.
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Thank you so much for your addendum trebbettes. And thank you everyone for your messages of support on slack and in the game, it truly made my day. It turned out it was a really good thing to get some distance from this, for my own wellbeing. I slept on it before I fully went through with it, so it wasn't made in the heat of the moment. The night earlier I had a squads of creeps headed toward enemy rooms and I couldn't help but think that it would just be seen as lashing out, adding more fuel to the flames. Worse than that, I was worried that it had become true. The game in that context loses all the charm it holds over me, and turns from an edifying experience to a fatiguing one.
I have just as much responsibility for how it turned out as anyone else. But I've also learned a lot, and perhaps I've grown up a bit.
I haven't given up on screeps, it is still a great game. I've moved over to the west side of the map to be at peace for a while, perhaps downgrading my account to 10 cpu after I can get a room to rcl8. I'm going to work towards open sourcing my code base and just refining things peacefully. I wish everyone a good time over the holidays, and a good time in screeps.
And maybe someday I'll reactivate my account and the screeps world will once again know the fury of bonzai! (the good kind
)
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Bonzai 4 president