The Energon Pub

I think that clans are a natural part in a game like this. Face it, it's inevitable! Players are going to form alliances with other players, even if it's just a "I'll watch your back if you watch mine" thing. Mods can control their activity on the boards here, sure. But what happens off-site or between PMs/IMs, they cannot control. Whether clans are formed openly or not, whether they use a tag or not, whether they even have a name or not, the fact of the matter is sub-factions and clans are a natural part of the game, and nobody, and I mean nobody can stop it.

.op. wrote:Now onto the important topic of this thread. Tammuz here is the thing bud. Yes you can say that the RDD did those things to fix repair and stuff. I will not take that away from you guys. But if more about it was posted here then an answer would of been found faster because we would have the entire community of HMW to look into it. Again that was a acheivement for the RDD and all the kudos for that.

we did, several times, we got no response. except from RDD members.

same thing happened in the sub forum recently, i make a thread to work out armour's mechanics only the RDD post in it.

Mkall wrote:

Tammuz wrote:are these not welcome? do we not want more tournies, do we not want more bugs fixed?

ummm... correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't

1. There is no active effort to eliminate the current subfactions.

mean you guys aren't being kicked out?

i thought we where talking about last weeks locked thread, the one that ended with this

AS wrote:in general it has been made abundently clear that those two groups, are not apart of HMW any longer. Their history, or in this case one groups fantasized history, does not help them in getting back on the staff's good side.

it seems to make it abundantly clear what the position was last friday. which was when all this **** kicked off

and that's my point despite not being welcome the clans have provided the majority of the tournies in the last year, as well bug fixing and other good things for HMW. and i don't think it's becuase we want to get into the mods good graces, b ut becuase we want to enjoy the game.

OS, here's what I have observed over the course of playing the last 4 years WITHOUT a clan/subfaction affiliation.

There are some good qualities and there are some bad qualities in regards to these subfactions. Even though I'm not affiliated with the subfaction of the Decepticons, I have still reaped the benefits from their efforts. How do I do that? Well, I'm IM friends with a lot of the Decepticons that ARE affiliated. They discuss to me what they've learned, and so it sort of telephones on. That's what happens with this game.

I think that subfactions are alright. HOWEVER, I think that there should really only be 2 officially sanctioned and accepted clans in HMW. The RDD/DSA (whatever they call themselves now) and the AWC. That's it. My reasoning for this is that if you actually eliminate the clans all together, then soon you will be up to your optics in other clans. If you don't put an official stamp on one and say "This group is accepted and acknowledged," then you will have so many that try to claim legitimacy that the infighting and bickering we've seen so far will look like a tickle fight to what WILL happen. That's my insight.

Another insight in regards to the Alpha Strike situation is this: We basically have moderators on the site to keep those that frequent it accountable. OS, you have some more special duties than a typical moderator, so I guess I can exclude you from this. However, I specifically remember a former HMW programmer stepping down when it was obvious that he was unable to perform the duties that were required of him. How is this situation any different? I don't see Alpha Strike very often. I'm certain that real life might have caught up to him and is demanding more and more of his attention. As opposed to our bickering, bragging, failures, complaints and celebrations. So, if he can't meet the requirements of his duties as a Mod, it wouldn't be bad to step down, would it? If Alpha Strike IS meeting the requirements, then I say he should continue his course. But regardless of the fact, I don't think that he should be gone from the game entirely. We need all the players we can get. If anyone has a personal problem with this, then I'd say continue discussions in private with AS or another of the Mod squad, but please let's leave the fingerpointing of what happened prior to one's modship out of this HERE discussion about the subfactions.

Novella over.

Word.

Tournaments organised and run by sub-faction members huh?

Wouldn't have had tournaments if it wasn't for a non-sub-faction member who ran the first one (or first couple actually) anyway.

That aside, the reason why the majority of tournaments (oh and by tournaments I also mean alt hunts and whatever) are run by sub-faction members is the number of forum going players tend to be sub-faction members.

Perhaps people who tend to yack on a forum like to yack on multiple forums, hence why sub-faction posters seem to be so prevalant.

However the downside to that is if a non-sub-faction player wants to help organise a tournament they have to go looking for help, and I know from personal experience that it's hard to get help because of the whole "cliquey" thing that goes on.

Yeah yeah, protest all you want, but the whole "we help our fellow sub-faction members first" attitude is also pretty prevalant. That however is just my perspective and I realise that not ALL members are like that, only some.

Which is what tends to bring about the animosity.

So who takes responsibility then? The sub-faction bosses or the Seibertron Mods? This is where the biggest problem lies. If a problem happens on Seibertron.com, it should be dealt with by Seibertron Mods. But then it involves sub-faction members so surely they should be dealt with by their commanders yes? Problem with that is you then have someone trying to be authorative when they have no authority.

And on the flip side, if something happens on the off site forums, who takes responsibility there? Sub-faction bosses of course, but when those off site forums are linked to the Seibertron.com forums what happens when it spills over (as has been the case in the past)

Should Seibertron.com Mods also have to monitor the off-site forums? No, they shouldn't. It's extra work for them, nor do they have any real authority on them.

Is is really necessary for the sub-faction forums to discuss HMW related stuff? If the sub-factions do research and work out the best configs, why should they have a brief advantage over other faction members before the data is brought to Seibertron.com?

Could always bar HMW related discussion from the off-site forums, but then who's going to stop it? And there's still the problem of people not liking to join in the big bad community of Seibertron.com. Which is understandable and they shouldn't be forced to (I think we all remember the last time the HMW community was forced out into the rest of Seibertron).

ahhh all those lovely problems. And you know what? There's no real solution.

Sub-factions can be kept at a distance.
• Allow people to make a mention of it in their sigs (or even team bios, once the reset hits i'm sure people will be looking at bios more often to learn about their comrades) but that's all. No active recruiting on the forums, heck, even go so far as to say they can't actively pm people to recruit them, let them be contacted first.

• Try to encourage/push non-sub-faction members into being involved in planning and running of "un-official" tournaments etc. That way there can't be cries of "it was only organised to the benefit of the sub-factions"

• Discussions on the mechanics of the game should primarily take place in the Seibertron.com faction forums. Same goes for any planning of assaults. Still allow such discussions on the off-site forums but push for the majority of the discussion to take place on the Seibertron.com faction forums for the benefit of all.

• Simply put, Seibertron.com first, off-site forums second.

And who knows, if we get all that worked out and things are quiet on the clan front there might be a chance for other clans to be allowed provided they don't impact on the game too much.

what's stopping non-sub-faction players wants to help organise a tournament getting help off non-sub-faction member who ran the first one?

and if the majority of the forum posters are sub faction members what's that in relation to AS not welcome post? are the majority of board members not welcome?

and for the most part when i try to discuss mechanics on seibs it ends up with either no repsonces (except for my clique), or people getting headaches

The AWC is still here. We are just going on about the business of playing HMW and not pissing off the Mods. So people need to start checking their egos at the door. And that says a lot coming from me.

If the AWC is still around after the reset and genesis of V2 I'll still be a part of it. My role in it will be greatly reduced or completly eliminated by V2 (reminds me, I need to get to work on that...) but I will still be an active and proud member of the AWC in what ever form it takes.

If not, I'm an Autobot first and I'll still play HMW with out a sub-faction.

humm........
after reading this and knowing a little about "THAT" old issue some people wont drop,past is the past, V2 will be a new game,and i hope we all can have a fresh start and forget the past,and move-on to the future of HMW with V2 with a clean slate.

as for the topic this was made for:
maybe have the bots and cons have there own area,un-hidden,so when they goto the HMW forums they join there faction forum,with a area both can see for HMW General Discussion(like we have now),that way people that check out to see what is going on as a whole and see what there faction is up too in HMW,i don't know how many times i have had to show people"new and old players" how to get to the bot/con forums,and i think more people would post in said forums if the set-up is more friendly so to speak.

so maybe have the factions set-up a little like http://z8.invisionfree.com/HMW_Autobots ... p?&CODE=01
with different areas to post different topics.welcome area,config area,mission backup area,and whatever else is needed. so one can see the general topics they want to read and not have to go-threw every topic to find what they want.

i know one of the reasons i didn't like/posting in the HMW forums when i first started was everything was in one area,which took a lot of time to get up too speed,find a topic i wanted to read about,with the countless posts about every topic ,SPAM and not in one area,with spam in the topics i wanted to read as well.
i grew tired of the looking and skim reading threw topics,to really think anything i posted would be heard because of the set-up of the forum,and the endless SPAM.
-my Definition of spam is: anything not on-topic with the original topic/runaway treads/ so to speak/ that people intend to throw it off topic or not, if they have a off topic issue they should make there own topic for that issue,not take over another issues tread.

sorry i i have been a Admin in 3 sites for about 3 years now;that live off of there forum/website,and one thing that turns people way from a forum is un-needed spam and topic hi-jacking,which isn't something i let slide, my feeling,and the other Mod's/Admin i work for/with is that if people want to read about a topic than let them read about that topic,if you have a issue you would like to address than make your own topic in the correct place. just look at it like this, if you wanted to read about fish, and someone changed the topic to the "CLAP" half way threw in most topics,would you keep reading the topic/forum?

just my .02
i hope this helps with the original topic,
if you don't like it then FOAD for all i care,at least i am being helpful.

The first thing I'd like to say is that while Subfactions may not be a integral part of HMW, they are a integral part of the Transformers Universe.

I honestly think that limiting it to "two offical subfactions" as was suggested, doesn't work. It didn't work well in the past, and honestly, probably lead to a lot of the problems that sprouted up. It forces the groups to grow into extremely large groups and causes internal policing problems.

I also don't think keeping the subfactions off Seibertron is the way to go either. That'll simply continue what the major complaint about the subfactions currently is; people in the subfactions not posting on the forum. It also keeps up the look of the subfactions not being welcome. Which is a lot worse for the HMW community than having subfactions could ever be. Let the subfactions have threads in the forums.

I'll restate this; HMW needs more Moderators. Personal opinions about AS aside, he's also a moderator in nearly every, if not every, forum on this site. He simply doesn't have time to police this forum. Mkall doesn't really either. That really only leaves on dedicated Moderator, which is insane. HMW needs moderators specifically for HMW. Not for any other section of the site, just for the game.

Unlike others, I'm not going to demand anyone step down, while my personal opinion of some is not high, that's my opinion, and it's not based off the results of DT. It's based off actions taken. Ignoring peoples complaints about obvious cheating, the endorsement of -and- participation of questionable actions, and the shutdown of anyone who brought up these questionable actions. And also there seemed to be favoritism. Like it or not, that does taint the image of people.

Someone also nominated Tammuz to be added as a moderator... I don't think this is a good idea, because like it or not, and I actually like Tammuz, but there will always be people who will take issue with him if he becomes a mod, because of his beliefs about AS.

On top of adding moderators, the factions need to be held accountable. There needs to be clear rules about what is acceptable and what isn't. Whether it's forum rules, faction rules, or both. If a faction is consistantly breaking the rules, it needs to be disbanded. No arguements.

Tammuz brought up a valid point before; Moderators need to be peacekeepers. Mkall also brought up a valid point, they need to enforce rules. However, those seem to be mutual points. You should be enforcing the rules to keep the peace, that's the point of having rules. Not to dominate people, but to keep the peace.

But, back to the topic at hand; Subfactions should be allowed, because they are a part of Transformers from the begining of Transformers. Mini Spies, Seekers, Constructicons. They where all there in the very begining. There needs to be a bit of work done, but not so much as to say they shouldn't be allowed.

I think we're losing track of the thread a little bit which is this....

Omega Sentinel wrote:As promised, here is the thread to discuss in a CONSTRUCTIVE manner how to accomodate the needs of those involved with the subfactions.

Disclaimers:

1. There is no active effort to eliminate the current subfactions.

2. I honestly want to help develop ways to increase feelings of community and competition within the site and the game. This thread will give us an open forum to discuss how.


I will be very active on this thread but if it turns into a flamewar I will lock it and we will forget about it. Please be mature in this as it could help eleviate alot of issues that have been festering for years.

These are some of my suggestions....

For what it's worth I think an official statement needs to be made by the powers that be declaring what this websites stance is towards the RDD/DSA and AWC. The air needs to be cleared and these guys need to know where they stand. V2 is the ideal opportunity to start afresh.

I agree with some of the other posters that HMW:GD is inadequately moderated. I lose track of the number of times I'm in the forum and no mods are around. I think we need at least two more mods, probably decepticons to balance faction numbers, and also from different time zones to ensure that there is a spread throughout the day. I also think that two of the mods for this forum should be provided by the RDD and AWC. These groups are stakeholders in this community and should have a role in helping run it and have a say within the high level mod/technical forums for this game.

Finally, when I was in the AWC there was a code of conduct. Could something like this be utilised here so that people in no uncertain terms see and understand what behaviour is expected of them?. The Mods could then use this to maintain order in the forums.

Not sure why people think we need more moderators, any flame wars seem to be dealt with quickly and the place is pretty peaceful.

Burn wrote:Not sure why people think we need more moderators, any flame wars seem to be dealt with quickly and the place is pretty peaceful.

Don't fancy being a mod yourself then? Just think, everybody would love you even more then

I'm pretty sure you have to have a clean record for that, plus there's issues of "trust" (not sure where that stems from actually, probably someone believing half arsed stories) and that little suspension for occassionally mistyping "Starlick"

But no, I wouldn't want the job anyway. I've seen what it does to people, Mkall use to be funny once.

Atleast he's still funny looking.

From what i've seen in that thread I think "funny looking" is a recurring theme amongst Seibertron.com members.

Burn wrote:From what i've seen in that thread I think "funny looking" is a recurring theme amongst Seibertron.com members.

Must be.

However, I think loosing the sense of humor must be a requirement to be a moderator here. I've been a moderator on other sites, and my girlfriend is a moderator on a much larger site, and she has her sense of humor...

Dreadwind wrote:my girlfriend is a moderator on a much larger site, and she has her sense of humor...

Well she'd have to to be going out with you! *boom boom*
*sigh* That was too easy.

Back on topic!

What is it that the subfactions take away from HMW?

Aside from the occasional forum spat, they don't seem to detract from HMW.

Burn's voiced concerns that there are people who post on the offsite faction forums, but not here; others have said that this is not the case.


Howabout renaming the 'con forum and the 'bot forum to be the RDD and AWC forums instead?

...then make them unhidden so we can get there easily?

In effect that would make EVERYONE a member of the subfactions, so there's no longer a need to go offsite, and there's no "exclusivity".

The value, place and size of subfactions is going to be difficult to determine until we see how territories actually work in V2, as well, by the way.

Burn wrote:THowever the downside to that is if a non-sub-faction player wants to help organise a tournament they have to go looking for help, and I know from personal experience that it's hard to get help because of the whole "cliquey" thing that goes on.

Yeah yeah, protest all you want, but the whole "we help our fellow sub-faction members first" attitude is also pretty prevalant. That however is just my perspective and I realise that not ALL members are like that, only some.

Utter BULL.

Just cuase no one wants to give YOU any help, dont asume its cuase we're "cliquey"...

As an RDD menber, I have given help to anybody that asked, and taken help from anybody that offered. I tell one telling thing though. 99% of the help I have given and received has been on msn convos. As a result, YES, a lot of it has been between RDD members, becuase I have their msns addresses, I dont (until recently) have many none afiliated/AWC peep's addresses. It is a lot easier to expalin your problem, and get a concice answer on msn than it is on this forum.

That is why YOU cant get us to help you. Because YOU exect everybody to want to use this slow difficult forum with all it's problems instead of the very easy and quick msn.

I really hope that I am not over stepping my boundaries here since i am still a relatively new player. I've been reading stuff about this subfaction argument since last night and it has spilled over to this morning, and i just hope that perhaps my ideas could help.

So for starters, The problem here is that both sides of the argument present a very valid point. But while they both present very good arguments and ideas its very hard for either of them to prove that their argument is the correct one.

Thus we come to the basis of society today, Compromise. If either side wins a complete victory here it will create some form of animosity. Now i wasn't around when this rift began so I am not going to pretend that i even know what you all are talking about. But here i go with my suggestions.

1. I saw a very good point made by the subfactions. They help newer players into the community. If you look at my post count i think this is my 12th post. Its not because i don't like to post, its because i just don't know anyone here and i don't want to step on anyone's toes.

2. Subfactions have to be held responsible. So they need to be policed, but not condemned for the actions of one of their members. I think we can all agree on that one.

3. Subfactions need a place to talk on site to eliminate the feeling that they are "separating" themselves from the game. And also to share the information they gather.

Okay so with these points and others i have come up with this idea.

1. Have HMW actually sanction 4 subfactions of the Autbots/Maximals and Decpticons/Predicons. 2 per side, and allow them both to accept both kinds of members Decpticons and Preds , or Autobots and Maximals.

2. Create a set of rules for the subfactions to work under. This should be done via a conference of Mods and Subfaction leaders, once again compromise on issues.

3. Who will enforce them you ask? Why the leaders of the subfactions. I am not sure about this part but if there is a way to just allow the leaders to mod the bot/con forums that would work great. Let them police those posts. That would actually give them more authority over the subfactions instead of being basically a figure head. They could hold members of their factions accountable for their actions.

4. If they want to have a site off the main HMW boards then fine. Let them post a link and a short explanation in the top post for both subfactions. Then sticky it and lock it so it doesn't get muddled up. Any other questions about them can be answered on the board.

5. And of course make the bot/con forums more readily available. I didn't even know they existed until this discussion started.

So basically you end up with

Con/Pred

Subfaction A
Subfaction B
Independents (who still have access to the Con forum)

Bot/Maximal

Subfaction A
Subfaction B
Independents (who still have access to the Bot forum)

That is the idea i came up with. If the subfactions want to exist then let them police themselves and give them the opportunity and responsibility of following the rules set up by the HMW powers that be and the faction leaders (they should set down and discuss it together).

I don't know how feasible this is because i don't know how the factions are structured. But you could have the subfactions structured differently for a more variety of play. Example: one setup similar to a republic where officials are elected and the other setup similar to a monarchy where one person appoints people to positions. Thats just a thought.

I hope that my ideas have been helpful, and i hope this discussion ends with a compromise that will please both sides.

-The Gobbler

Burn wrote:Perhaps people who tend to yack on a forum like to yack on multiple forums, hence why sub-faction posters seem to be so prevalant.

I think that just about covers it in my case.

*looks at topic*
*shrugs* All I want is to play the game and have fun.

I consider the RDD I belong to as a bunch of players that take the game either way too seriously or not seriously enough, its difficult to tell. Either way HMW:GD wasnt designed for it. The con forum has changed that and we are adjusting slowly.

Lets us show you for the remainder of V1 that we can help the cons in this game, as thats what threads at Darkmount such as this one are all about, as on the larger part the threads there have been started by either us or Burn, so its not like we are ignoring the rest of the cons.

Come V2; who knows what part we will play in the bigger theatre? Until we are actually in the game and know what we are up against, we cant do more than just guess and get excited about it.

My 1 cent (so I'm cheap, sue me)

I think after the reset the "sub-factions" should be done away with for a short time. If there is still a need for them after a few months then let them start from scratch. Let them create new forums and get rid of all the old baggage.

I feel that this reset could be a very good thing and a way to let bygones be bygones between players and moderators alike. I know I have burned (no pun intended) some bridges with ppl here that I would love to mend and focus on having fun with this community once again.

I say to all the RDD/AWC members. Let it go. Go without you sub-faction for a few months and post here or in the faction forums provided onsite exclusively. I think that is a good way to get past the past and start looking toward 2.0.

I would like to submit my clan idea-- "The Silent Joe's"... or maybe just "The Silent," specifically made to include all tight-lipped (or absent) Autobots.

So, on the bright side, you'll never need to make a forum for us in the future...

With V2 soon appearing I would think subfactions and HMW forum would have to start fresh anyway for the most part. It seems to be a new game to me with all the new features that have been hinted at. Other than being social gatherings of particular faction members that took place somewhat off this board which is how those things suppose to work it seems in games, it didn't effect the game itself much due to how V1 is design. Be quite hard to pull off a a true clan vs clan war in this game at moment due to how anyone in that level can jump in. V2 could be different and may have a feature that may work well for clan related stuff. Although I could of sworn that clan features wasn't on the top of the priority list base on what I read. We should probably hold off on what to do concerning subfactions until V2 is launch and see what it has to offer.


On other note yes Burn I'm well aware of your disorder that will probably never go away with how every time you type my name it has to be typoed. Hopefully neither of us will repeat past mistakes further.

Redimus wrote:That is why YOU cant get us to help you. Because YOU exect everybody to want to use this slow difficult forum with all it's problems instead of the very easy and quick msn.

See, there you go again with your inability to look past yourself.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe people don't like to use MSN? Or did you stop to think that maybe they don't have the time to sit in front of computer and carry on an IM conversation and that this "slow difficult forum" is good for them because they can come back hours later and be able to catch up on conversations?

Did you even stop to consider that having such a discussion on a public forum may give newer members a chance to see how things are organised and give them a chance to join in and make friends?

Did you stop to consider any of that or is far simpler for you to make this about me?

Try looking past your own selfish attitude and your dislike of me. Contrary to what you and a number of others seem to believe, this isn't about me "being left out", unlike you I try to put forward ideas to benefit all members, old and new. Do your private IM conversations do that Redimus?

Be a good boy and start looking at the bigger picture.

I agree,maybe its time for the RDD and AWC to wash their hands of the past and take a breath of fresh air which is V2. Learn from the mistakes and grow stronger.

Maybe its time for some non faction members to wash their hands of the past aswell.

Cmon guys,the game is for enjoyment,check the ego's at the door. What happened in the past is dead and gone in the past,we make mistakes to learn from them. Check your egos for once. And if the subfactions want to be apart of HMW forums then how about a RRD base in the Con thread and an AWC in the Bot thread? it will keep them in view of the side they are meant for only and will give new people a chance to see what the subfactions are about without having to join them first. Plus it will let Non faction members interact with the faction members.

Follow the KISS rule. Keep It Simple S........

Game,fun,check the egos at the door and you will probably have more posters on Seibs.