The Energon Pub

Maybe instead of everyone complaining about the change, a compromise can be reached.

The powers that be probably have many reasons for making this decision. I personally have an idea that could possibly resolve all these issues.

On other forums I've been to (including Seibertron, there has been a way to join "Groups" in the forums and then only people in that group could see the forums their group is assigned to. This was accomplished by the leadership of a group applying to the administrators of the forum for the group to be created. Then, if people wanted to join that group they applied for membership in the group. If the group forum is inactive for "X" amount of time then the forum administrators could lock the forum and remove it from the list.

So my suggestion is: Why not implement it that way.

1) It would bring offsite hits back to the site.

2) It would delegate responsibility for leader ship of that
group to the leaders of that group.

3) If issues were to arise, then the Seibertron Admins could
step in and either monitor the forum on here without
having to track down an external site and monitor it that
way.

4) Since the forum would be "local" people would still be
able to contribute to the site in a way that would be
still be visible to the general community. And, would be
able to recieve suggestions and ideas from the general
community a little easier.

5) I think it would keep many people from just leaving be-
cause they feel they are being given an ultimatum on
something they do for fun.

I personally believe that fun should be fun, not forced. Will bringing sub-factions to the forums here have problems?
Yes, nothing works perfectly especially at first. Will those problems be worked out and fixed as time goes on? Yes, no one wants to have a bad time here, we all just want to have fun .

I think the Admins should get together with the sub-faction leadership and work on a solution that is beneficial to both sides.

I have given a solution that to me solves most of the complaints I've read throughout this topic.

And just an observation that this old fogey has noticed throughout life and I urge all members, mobs and admins alike. Forcing people to do what you want with threats is a really crappy way to deal with things, it usually has the opposite effect that was intended. So....

Can't we all just get along?


Live Free or Die!!!

i will start out with this post with a quote,just to get a point across.

human nature in large groups of people for a prolonged time is to create smaller groups of people with common interest to ease the time. Sigmund Freud

and i will state a BASIC psychology fact

the military (for one)has ran a lot of tests with this for along time,the invention of team,Squad,platoon,was to crate a feeling of brotherhood amongst its members. because in large groups people are left out,overlooked,and fall in the cracks,because they don't feel apart of the unit as a whole.
having this problem promotes AWOL,cowardly actions,and even members killing there own in action.
i am not saying this is the military,but even without being in a SUB-faction,people will break down into smaller groups,and pull away from the masses,post with others in topics,join missions at the same time,and after awhile back each other up,in times of need.
so if all sub-factions are baned,i give it a week and you will start to see it happen,even in one forum,people will split into smaller groups,so i propose this,why not give said people a place to split into smaller groups.
you ever bad mouth a teacher with someone next to you in high school that you hardly know,have a conversation with a person you have just meet and enjoy it. sub-factions within factions will happen,in the open or behind your back"you know how many times other games have tried this and failed,all one has too due is make a site,have people join with a small recommendation the only why you will end this is to have said Sub-factions hosted at sibes (with one MOD which is in their faction to watch over them)if want too watch them.this way you can watch what is posted,they can post what they want in there group area ,be profane,and talk about what they want,or there interests,and be watched at the same time. your choice,but i can see a long hard road ahead,if you think saying no will stop people,if anything it will make them get more sneaky,and go underground ,and then more will really start to do what you are trying to stop,just because you gave them a reason too. IMHO

i took 2 years of collage psychology in the military,thats all i will/can say for another 43 years.

Burn wrote:Leaving a thread open but pointing people to a similar discussion in another sub-forum is one thing, but you know the history of this site, how long do you think that's going to last before that rule is changed as well and the faction forums become HMW-dedicated?

Oh Primus, I just spent like half an hour writing a post that explained why you shouldn't be worried about that, only to get a "no post-mode specified" warning when I hit the preview button.

The first time I wrote it there was this long analogy putting it in terms of a house that has common rooms (HMWGD) and private rooms (the faction forums). Let's see if I can say the same thing in fewer words this time:

HMWGD has to be highly regulated to insure that staff members, veterans, and newbies can all exchange information efficiently. The faction forums however only exist to facilitate the success of their faction.

Now, in my opinion, the success of the faction should be up to the members of the faction, therefore, the regulation of the faction forums should be up to the posters in the faction forums. They should be free to choose what they do and don't discuss within their faction forums (within the basic limits of nothing over PG-13, no flaming, etc.), but be prepared to have their efficiency as a unit suffer if they lose their important information amongst the mess - which I really don't think will be likely if I understand what OS has in mind.

Essentially, I think the players should be responsible for the norms and standards of their own faction forums. There have been some pretty radical ideas regarding the moderation of the faction forums, which is part of why OS asked the subfaction commanders to contact him in his announcement.

That's it in a nutshell. Not as well written, and I probably missed some points, but that's the basics.

The only other thing I was going to point out was that you guys would probably have better odds of winning an argument over the intensity of the faction forums' moderation in the future, than you do of winning this argument now.

Oh, and remember months ago when the staff asked the subfactions what things we would have to provide to make their off-site forums redundant/unnecessary? OS and the rest of the staff did listen to the responses, and those answers have had a major influence on how he has approached the incorporation of the Faction Forums in v2, and how the mods have been handling the current Faction Forums.

Ultimately, we want to provide all the things the off-site forums were providing before, including smaller, less intimidating communities.

Hope that helps Burn.

Good night.

I like what mogwai and waylander wrote but the Staff well OS is to stuborn to talk with us bout a solution

I'd like to put in a few cents if possible(and pardon the rambling if it happens i do it often sometimes).

I myself am not a member of a sub-faction, i post in the open HMW forums when i have the urge(character pics, something that strikes me to hit the post button). Mostly cause i feel im trying to weave myself into an already tight knitted sheet, since im fairly new, dont know many folks on a personal basis, while quite a few others do.

But some may realize im more open kinda in the Bot's forum, cause i'm surrounded by teammates, doesnt mean i dont wanna talk to Con's i just feel since im a Bot(currently) that im sorta part of the big family, maybe the redheaded stepchild, but still family.

I also see and understand where folks who are in sub-factions are comming from on somethings, but not completely agreeing with them. Mostly Burn, and about the non-HMW related items. Heres my idea/question.


Would it be really too much to, when V2 starts, have 6 added sub-forums?
1 new each for Decepticons and Autobots,
2 for Maximals and Predacons.

They come up the same way as they do now, when you click the forums link in your registry, cept with 2 listed.

"Faction" 'base' and "Faction" 'bar'

where the 'base' would be your HMW mission, alts, stats etc. discussions, and your 'bar' would basically be, well your bar, open discussion while you have a drink, talk about things going on outside of HMW, and getting to know your faction mates better, understand them, be a family.


Thats my idea/2 cents.

While I'm no longer part of the sub factions for HMW...

The huge amount of irony from banning sub factions is overwhelming. It encourages interest in the site and the game.

On the same point, with the faction part of the forums there isn't a need for the sub factions to be off site.

And Burn's right... if talking about HMW off site is bannable, why are the mods talking about it off site over IMs?

Just my two cents

Kalon wrote:why are the mods talking about it off site over IMs?

They do?

Where the hell to start...

First of all just on prinicple I'll have to quit the site.

I've had my problems with Ryan in the past and have only really stuck around to play the game.
Now part of what makes the game fun for me (and obviously alot of other players) is being taken away for very murky reasons.

I feel very responsible for this whole thing, reporting the mult-accounts (ironicly, one of which is the last post in this thread as I'm typing this) and trying to point out possible 'infiltrators' to the RDD... that and it seems like anytime I open my about things that happen here sh*t starts flying.

Here's a story for ya'll
Once upon a time I make a harmless comment over on the RDD boards about the quality of Ryans galleries... A well meaning member of RDD sent those comments to Ryan... the result was a firestorm of activity which resulted in Ryan demanding access to the RDD forums and making veiled threats about the continued existence of the faction. Also lead to a huge schizm between RDD memebers bringing about the existence of the DSA. Fortunetly we recovered from that.

That time I backed down and humbled myself to Ryans ego just to make sure I could stay in the game... Then almost quit anyways because I was so disgusted that I'd done it.

This time I bring attention to a problem of people using Mult accounts and probably forms of IM to pass information between factions and drama starts again.
I'm fairly certain it partially stems from the fact that I used this site to direct members of the RDD to our site when I recognized that one of these 'spies' was applying for membership.


At this time I'm feeling obligated to reveal how I found out about the 'cheating' to begin with.
When the Alt. Mode rotation was implemented I was curious to see if I could create a spreadsheet to predict when specific Alt. modes would be available. The thought being that I'd be able to add it to the tracking spreadsheet that I use (and that I regularly offer other people to use).
Since I wanted the predictor to be comprehensive i needed to know what Alts the Bots had at any given time.
Instead of contacting a Bot to see if they'd share the info I chose to create an Autobot account for the sole purpose of viewing the Alts. As it turns out I soon had no time to follow thru on this project and soon dropped it, leaving that account inactive.
I never played the game with that account.
I never posted.
I never even view the forums with it....until September 12th.
I had found out thru a post in another thread (ironicly, again, by that same dual account I menetioned earlier) that a bounty had been placed on my team due to the Sigs i had created.
Intrigued, I succumbed to temptation and logged into that old Bot acount to see what i was worth.
Once there I noticed there was a thread about retalitory sigs. Again intrigued, I read it and discovered the information leak.
I beleive that my post has already been shown in this thread relating what I had learned.
Burn encouraged me to report the leak to Mkall
I did.
I also reported myself.
Since then I've been on the look out for Mult-accounts and been trying to report them to the powers that be either here or on RDD depending on where it mattered. (even had one guy out of the blue report himself to me when i wasn't even checking him out)


So if you're still reading this, you understand why I again feel responsible for bringing the hammer down on the RDD and factions in general.
Weither it is conincidence, or Ryan really does have a bug up his ass about me... I don't know. Don't care.

This may be his game. But it's nothing without the players.
If it was up to Ryan the game would have been dead long ago.
Factions, though they have caused their far share of drama, have been a driving force for the expansion and betterment of the game.
It's unfair and disgraceful that we're being censored like this because of a bullsh*t excuse like this.
As many have pointed out, removal of factions from the game will not stop 'cheating'.
This is simply a matter of page-hits and Ryans neede to have absolute control and inabilty to handle any crticism (especially on a site he can't control).
Always has been.

I was looking forward to V2...
I was trying to do my part to bring some fun back to the forums...
All the while it was killig me that in the end I was increasing the page hits to the site and feeding the monster that is Ryan's ego.

I'm Done.
See you all at The Tavern Table

Caelus wrote:Oh Primus, I just spent like half an hour writing a post that explained why you shouldn't be worried about that, only to get a "no post-mode specified" warning when I hit the preview button.

Yeah .... learnt that lesson myself once. Just remember, when typing huge arsed responses, copy to clipboard a lot and preview regulary.

HMWGD has to be highly regulated to insure that staff members, veterans, and newbies can all exchange information efficiently. The faction forums however only exist to facilitate the success of their faction.

Now, in my opinion, the success of the faction should be up to the members of the faction, therefore, the regulation of the faction forums should be up to the posters in the faction forums. They should be free to choose what they do and don't discuss within their faction forums (within the basic limits of nothing over PG-13, no flaming, etc.), but be prepared to have their efficiency as a unit suffer if they lose their important information amongst the mess - which I really don't think will be likely if I understand what OS has in mind.

Essentially, I think the players should be responsible for the norms and standards of their own faction forums. There have been some pretty radical ideas regarding the moderation of the faction forums, which is part of why OS asked the subfaction commanders to contact him in his announcement.

So basically what you're saying is ...

Non-HMW related topics can be created in the faction forum at the risk of important HMW related material being lost and buried under the various non-hmw threads.

Yes?

Okay, I can understand that, and it makes sense. And i'm sure a number of members would be happy to know that they'll still be able to talk general stuff in their small groups.

HOWEVER ... I still see two issues.

The first is of course the threats of bans hovering over the heads of others. I fail to see how this is anything but bullying.

Secondly is the reassurance that down the track rules won't be changed and non-HMW discussions will suddenly be barred and people forced to take such discussions to the other sub-forums, thus forcing people into the larger community.

It's happened in the past, that went down well.

On the flip side, I honestly don't see the sense in allowing non-HMW discussions in the faction forums in the first place. A topic ... let's say, the current season of Heroes, may have exist in General Discussion. Such a topic could be then created in the Autobot forum, the Decepticon forum, the Maximal forum and the Predacon forum.

Five threads, for one topic. That's going to be permitted? Isn't that a waste of database space and also "clutters" up the forum? More so because it won't just remain with Heroes, there'd be topics about other tv shows, movies, comics, TF figures etc etc. In the end you're liable to have certain topics doubling, tripling, quadrupling and at worst, quintupling!

And where is OS, AS and Ryan whilst all this is going down?

So far all we've had is Caelus doing his very best to tow the party line and make up excuses for a decission he probbably had no part in making.

Omega Supreme, from my dealings with you, I thought you were more intelligent than to pull a stunt like this.

-----------------------------------------------

Knives.

The only 'us vs them' feelings around subfactions comes from cirtain people (AS in the main) repeadedly and publicly attacking us in the hope for a reaction.

And another thought to leave for you.
The (by and large friendly) rivalry between the AWC and RDD allowed -Soundwave- to run a couple of tournies that gave her the experiance needed to run HMW wide tournies. I think with the excetption of Burn, kaijubot_uk and Supercollidor, NO ONE who isnt part of a subfaction has run ANY kind of HMW minigame since I joined.

Redimus, you forget the safari hunt. It may not have been massively successful, but I ran it.

kaijubot_uk wrote:Redimus, you forget the safari hunt. It may not have been massively successful, but I ran it.

Sorry man, I knew there was someone I had forgoten.

Edited my post.

Mine havnt beem masive either, but they were fun. Keep at it kaijubot_uk.

Goddamn headache inducing things.

Project B.A.R.T. is reminding me of just why I told someone else to organise them, and I only deal with it once a week!

Burn wrote: On the flip side, I honestly don't see the sense in allowing non-HMW discussions in the faction forums in the first place. A topic ... let's say, the current season of Heroes, may have exist in General Discussion. Such a topic could be then created in the Autobot forum, the Decepticon forum, the Maximal forum and the Predacon forum.

The only thing I come to seibertron for is HMW and the HMWGD and Darkmount forums. I don't know anyone outside of HMW and I'm not willing to jump into the main forums with 35000 people to get to know. I like talking about stuff I like with the people that I like, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Daneki wrote:

Burn wrote: On the flip side, I honestly don't see the sense in allowing non-HMW discussions in the faction forums in the first place. A topic ... let's say, the current season of Heroes, may have exist in General Discussion. Such a topic could be then created in the Autobot forum, the Decepticon forum, the Maximal forum and the Predacon forum.

The only thing I come to seibertron for is HMW and the HMWGD and Darkmount forums. I don't know anyone outside of HMW and I'm not willing to jump into the main forums with 35000 people to get to know. I like talking about stuff I like with the people that I like, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Anyone see a problem with this? I don't.

Burn wrote:

Daneki wrote:

Burn wrote: On the flip side, I honestly don't see the sense in allowing non-HMW discussions in the faction forums in the first place. A topic ... let's say, the current season of Heroes, may have exist in General Discussion. Such a topic could be then created in the Autobot forum, the Decepticon forum, the Maximal forum and the Predacon forum.

The only thing I come to seibertron for is HMW and the HMWGD and Darkmount forums. I don't know anyone outside of HMW and I'm not willing to jump into the main forums with 35000 people to get to know. I like talking about stuff I like with the people that I like, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Anyone see a problem with this? I don't.

Neither do I, and it's something I've been chatting with OS about. Nothing definite yet though

I will have more to say when I (hopefully) have a sit down chat with Seibertron, OS, and others about this. Yes I was warned about this decision before it was made official, so I am not blindsided about this.

I was, Mkall tried to contact me but it didn't go through. but I didn't see OS or anyone contacting the OTHER leader involved in all of this.

If anyone wants to contact me, I no longer have my YIM. I am on MSN. I figure be a little bit open, after all it's offsite, where all the action is....except for us cuz we bad.

Ok, after reading through all the pages, I will first say I'm surprised about how some people have responded to this, both positively and negatively. Just really interesting.

But as for all this: Frankly, its a bit much.

I will start by saying I joined the AWC about a month after I joined the game, and frankly I loved the community. I never have been a fan of large communities, either it be college, the office, or just my circle of friends. (I'm by no means a loner, I just like smaller groups.) And telling someone "You must be in OUR community, or none at all!!" is wrong. Especially if your community helped create ours in the first place. Especially without a full explanation of the reasoning behind it.

BUT, this board, like any board on the web, is open to the decisions and rules created by the board owners; in this case, Seibs, OS, and the rest of the admins. If they wish to ban something, that is their choice and its their right. Just like a newspaper can choose not to allow letters written to them published in their newspaper, OS and the rest are free and welcome to do with the board as they please, and as for it being 'illegal'...um, sorry, it's not.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean we can't tell them that their decisions are ridiculous. Banning someone for talking about HMW on another site is a bit over the top. True, they are trying to prevent cheating, and if they have evidence of cheating by certain players, then of course they are looking out for the welfare of the gaming community as a whole by banning these individuals. But if their is no evidence of cheating, the argument doesn't hold up as well.

Even if a compromise is created after this all calms down, or one group or the other backs down, the damage has been done, and I am sure several people are not coming back, no matter how much we ask them too. But that is their decision. And if they choose to go create a blog with the title "HMW SUCKS!!" and update it every day, [unfortunately] that is their choice.

I think this decision should have been put on hold until all the senior leaders of the sub-factions were properly contacted and their was a dialog created, alerting the leaders to the decision, and how the backlash could be kept to a minimum. Would have been a great idea. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.

Now Caelus in the Autobot forum has been very good at trying to restructure the sub-forum, as he noted earlier. There is a LONG way to go, but there is at least some hope. Its definitely not a replacement for the AWC at this time, but I think with time and effort by both mods and posters we can do that.

In the end, the damage has been done, and I think it would be fair of OS, Seibs and the rest to at least give us ALL their reasons behind this decision, and I would hope they are willing to at least evaluate some form or a compromise. As for the AWC and RDD members, I understand your frustration and share in your disbelief that this has come to pass. However, I would ask you to at least wait and see if something can be done to make this situation better.

Finally, to all AWC members, please let us see where this goes, and how it plays out, before anyone else leaves the game and board. I don't like this decision either, but its been done, and hopefully something better for everyone will come out of this. So just give it a lil patience first.

-NB

KAMJIIN wrote:The subfaction forums were originally on Seibertron. They moved them offsite so they would not be subject to mods.

And let's leave it at that before we reopen a very nasty old wound that led up to the whole thing.

I am going to have to completely disagree with you there since I am the one that started the movement. I first moved the AWC off-site to have more of a headquarters than our thread on the forum. It was a more of a role playing issue. Yahoo groups didn't work as well as I thought so I moved them to a more of a forum enviornment. I never thought things would have gotten this big.

Evolution Prime wrote:

KAMJIIN wrote:The subfaction forums were originally on Seibertron. They moved them offsite so they would not be subject to mods.

And let's leave it at that before we reopen a very nasty old wound that led up to the whole thing.

I am going to have to completely disagree with you there since I am the one that started the movement. I first moved the AWC off-site to have more of a headquarters than our thread on the forum. It was a more of a role playing issue. Yahoo groups didn't work as well as I thought so I moved them to a more of a forum enviornment. I never thought things would have gotten this big.

Yeah, we even got organised enough to form squads

The AWC rocked during tournaments

Stormwolf wrote:

Evolution Prime wrote:

KAMJIIN wrote:The subfaction forums were originally on Seibertron. They moved them offsite so they would not be subject to mods.

And let's leave it at that before we reopen a very nasty old wound that led up to the whole thing.

I am going to have to completely disagree with you there since I am the one that started the movement. I first moved the AWC off-site to have more of a headquarters than our thread on the forum. It was a more of a role playing issue. Yahoo groups didn't work as well as I thought so I moved them to a more of a forum enviornment. I never thought things would have gotten this big.

Yeah, we even got organised enough to form squads

The AWC rocked during tournaments

Tournaments that will never happen again

No, I'm pretty sure we will still have tournies. They may be 'Autobot vs Predacon' or whathaveyou, but we still will. Besides, we haven't even had a big tourny in MONTHS.

Seibertron and staff, shouldn't you all be flattered that your game has so many fansites and so many people talking about it? SHouldn't you be a little more grateful for your fans loving the game so much that they formed clans/subfactions for it?

and correction on my last post: My clan's more than my friends. It's my family and I won't stand by and watch as anyone tries to destroy it.

i really dont feel like reading 7 pages, but the awc and rdd are not subfaction, they are clans. a subfaction is like maximals under autobots.

if anything no more clans are allowed. i hope discussion are underway about this though. however it comes down to seibs.