Natonito Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 I would hope at least that this post can prompt a larger conversation on the sort of toxicity that can result when people engage in political rhetoric merely to say "our side good" rather than to have a consistent approach that, whether others agree with it or not, they can at least respect as coming from a genuine and principled point of view. It would be somewhat disheartening to see such obvious effort as the original poster showed simply be read for a few lines that people might wish to reject because they dislike what it implies without the entire message being taken to heart and discussed in an honest fashion. Like many of the people who have replied already, I agree with a lot of what I read, and at the same time I am aware that there are those who disagree for one reason or another but who should be invited yet again to give a well-thought out and reasoned disagreement that allows us to see what sort of principles are held by those who are being called to account here. 1 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Rygus Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 pure...poetry. 1 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JaxTeller Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 I, like, Horsecock don't talk a lot on these forums and I haven't made a long forum post on an OWF since I played a game on Planet Bob, but there has been a call for a long a reasoned response so I shall attempt to give one from the perspective of an old veteran of text based time wasters, but a newer player to this specific one. 2 hours ago, Horsecock said: This one is a first, and hopefully a last, for me. I've never written a political wall of text, and don't intend to ever do it again after this. In fact, I usually try to avoid political flamewars altogether, even in the more extreme cases of scummy behaviour that need to be addressed for the health of the game. But I do care about this game. And this situation right now, I cannot in good conscience ignore. Anyway, here goes the first ever Horsecock political wall of text. This is an open letter to the Syndicate. First of all, the simple fact that I never did this kind of post probably means that many people (barring Alliance leaders I've worked with in the past) might not know my mentality and moral stances. So let me start this by giving you some more context. For the first time in the history of this game, we actually have a political landscape comprised of a set of (5 before Oasis disbanded, now 4) roughly equally-sized minispheres. That's obviously a good thing for healthy political dynamics. In this climate, I actually don't want Clock (or any sphere, for that matter) to ever team up with a second sphere against a single one (take notes, Tyrion), as that would be a despicable dogpile. These spheres are very much able to pick fair 1-on-1 fights, wars that are certainly more even than ever before. And yes, I did oppose the Clock+BW vs MysOasis war, that was very much not a war I consider fun. The war we had planned was Cata+HoF vs Mystery, a bloc far larger than our 2 alliances. As far as I can tell, there also aren't any "secret treaties" between any spheres at this moment. Sure, Steve (rest in piss) pretended Clockwater was one sphere, but we both know there was no love lost there. I also hope no one takes this post as evidence of any Clock-EMC cooperation. Until the extremely recent Oasis break-up, our 2 spheres actually considered each other obvious rivals. And at the risk of painting a target on my back for revealing this, I personally suggested that EMC should be the target of Clock's first global (instead of Rose). Why? Because at the time, they were the largest (certainly in the mid and upper tiers) and considered the most competent sphere. I place the utmost priority in striving for unconditional competence and in pursuing war as a means of testing and proving my group's skill at the actual game. Proving something to myself, most of all. I am a proud man with a straight shaft back, and taking on EMC would've been a challenge worthy of the Horsecock. That's why I play this game. I do not ever pursue war for political motivations, and I believe my track record very much shows that. And it's quite possible that I have personally started more wars than any other alliance leader in the history of this game. This sections seems like just a legit summary of your backstory, I'm not gonna contest much of this hear only to say that in your time at KT you mass raided a shit ton of micros and for sure have forced players out of the community by doing so. Whether this is good for the game in the name of "competency" is up for the community to decide I suppose. 2 hours ago, Horsecock said: I know that many people don't share this mentality, and that some major alliances enjoy a playstyle more focussed on public grandstanding, finger-pointing and moralising, especially in times of war. I respect that, and I don't want to discourage it in general. In fact, these things do add spice to the political landscape and can make the game more interesting. A good number of alliances do also try to take political advantage in order to dogpile, instead of relying on ingame skill. But you, t$, take it way too far these days. The only other major alliance in my PnW history to act in a comparable manner was NPO, and I would've thought the overwhelming community opinion on NPO would be a useful pointer for shaping your own behaviour. It came as no surprise to me that, when I made a throwaway comment during the last global war about the surprising lack of political drama from either side - a comment responding to TKR and not mentioning any spheres or alliances - the only one who even noticed and got salty was a t$ gov member. Here's the problem: You habitually and aggressively dispatch your keyboard warriors (most of which are current or former high gov members) to every public "forum", be it this one or any major Discord server, in an effort to control the public conversation, spread your own spin and propaganda, and drown out the spectrum of nuanced opinions from all the other people. Both they and your FA leader's public announcements make use of the full arsenal of all the most toxic and disingenuous methods of political drama: Gaslighting, blatant hypocrisy, bare-faced lies and misrepresentation, malicious accusations, paranoia, conspiracy theories, self-entitled boasting, and of course simple flaming and insults. In fact, they do little else. That is the most common behaviour I and many others have seen from t$ over the past year or so. I could compile a long list of public shitstorms that t$ has sometimes caused, always amplified, and often taken centre stage in. At the same time, you act disproportionally insulted and outraged any time someone makes a negative remark about your own alliance. Unlike the vast majority of even small alliances, you seem to conduct yourself with a complete disregard for moral integrity, I'd go so far as to say even a complete disregard for personal honour and honour of your alliance. Of course this shapes the way your alliance is perceived and judged by others, and to pretend otherwise would be evidence of profound social ineptitude. "And that some major alliances" You mean by far most major alliances. Hollywood consistently push narrative that they don't play a political game. They consistently push a narrative that they strive to push forward dynamic sphere politics and dynamic war scenarios. They consistently push a narrative of "we are the good guys of PnW" maybe this isn't the perspective of many, but it is certainly the my perspective and I have a lot of discussions with HW alliances. Many members of HW I consider good friends. I am not saying their narrative is a bad one, but it is certainly there narrative, and from my perspective as a new player who comes to this game with a past understanding of sphere politics and how they work, this war simply replays the same old grudges and sets up the next multiple wars to be continuations of the norm. This includes the constant labeling of opposition as "basically NPO" regardless of what actions they take. Do not engage enough on the OWF: you are acting like NPO. Engage too much on the OWF: you are acting like NPO. Push an our sphere first, win at most costs: you are acting like NPO. Push a low damage low cost strategy: you are acting like NPO. I've played these games with NPO for over a decade in multiple different iterations and multiple different wars. Too many to count. Ya'll have NPO PTSD so hard it borders on mass psychoses. We get it they tried to wreck the community. We get it. It's heard. By all sides over and over again. Don't worry before this is over Blackwater will compare Hollywood to NPO too. The psychoses goes both ways and I'm over it. Get a new boogie man. This one sucks. As for the perception of t$ specifically as gaslighters, hypocrites, and liars. They have shaped The Dead Rabbits. They have helped keep us safe when we were small. They have taught us to have a competency first attitude which is what you, Horsecock, proclaim to be your end all be all. They have arguably created one of the more competent blocs and alliances when it comes to both combat and economics in the game. They are one of the wealthiest and largest AAs in the game. They are one of the most active in sphere politics. It makes sense that they often take center stage. Clock, Rose, and Hollywood all spend lots of time in the spotlight as well. All have their negative detractors from it. It is this pull and tension that gives our game any bit of political life that it has. Everyone needs a bad guy and the game is better when that bad guy is competent. On that I am sure we agree. As for the disproportionally insulted and outraged, Grumpy started this whole thing over being outraged. The OWF and Discord servers are full of tons of salt at length from both sides. Just look at the responses to Krampus and others below. Salt, insults, personal attacks even targeted at ethnicity. This is a keyboard warrior setting. This is a keyboard warrior game. This is by its nature a political game that is anonymous. IDK where you think you are going to avoid the keyboard warriors. I suggest outside. 2 hours ago, Horsecock said: While these behaviours were present in t$ gov for some time before that, they only became intolerable after the most recent resignation of Partisan. I had a lot of respect for Partisan's style and mentality, even if I did not share it. But he did actually try to talk and act with the purpose of making the game more enjoyable, and he put a very presentable public face onto your alliance. When he left, that veneer of moral integrity dropped, and t$ seems to have lost any temperance in controlling, and self-awareness of, how you conduct yourselves in public. You're not the only alliance that likes to dogpile, and you're not the only alliance that is afraid of getting rolled. But you ARE the only alliance that doesn't really even try to hide just how fragile your egos and just how petty your methods and motives really are. Man I only knew Partisan when I was a true newb and rookie in this game. Dude was a titan of OWF posts and rhetoric. Reminds me of Schattenham and Rebel Virginia. I will echo the comments of another poster that this game and all games like it are at their best when giants go head to head in real debates on the OWF. I won't say much more on this other than that Dogpiles were the meta for a while before this war. I very much expect they will continue to be the meta afterwards. Placing that blame at the feet of t$ and blackwater is a bit disingenuous and I suspect you know that. I join you and many others in hoping that dogpiles don't become the norm and we continue to 1v1. 2 hours ago, Horsecock said: The events of the past year, leading up to this war, made it painfully obvious to anyone with even a shred of public awareness where your behaviour would lead you, and we all knew that you would reap your just rewards for it. In fact, I never even bothered to consider your sphere as a target for a Clock global war - not just because I never use political drama as a reason for war, but because I knew that other spheres do and would give you this war, without any actions from Clock. And honestly, this is a rather evenly-matched war, much unlike the 3 dogpiles you did in 2021. And once again, you act publicly outraged and resort to all the same PR behaviours that got you to this point in the first place. And yet you still made the decision to immediately give up and not even try to fight back militarily, despite being in a good position to put up a meaningful fight with real strategy. Do you really just want your wars to be as cheap as possible and never to even cause meaningful damage to your enemies, other than by dogpiling them when it's easy? You don't even want to be taken seriously anymore, in terms of competence, military might or even honour? Barring actual cheating, this is quite possibly the most pathetic display I've seen from any major alliance, ever. Yeah we were on top and we hit a bunch of people, anyone with a brain new we would eventually get hit as bloc. Honestly I'm happy it wasn't by more of you. We will rehash this same convo after another bloc spends a year winning consecutive GWs, several of them as dogpiles because again that is the meta that basically all spheres follow. Including your own. As for the fighting back militarily lots of us still are. It depends on the tier and the situation, but turtling and missile/nuke turreting despite being "loser weapons" are a good way to do damage to your opponent while opening up the most opportunity for lucrative down declares which can yield nice flash buying attacks and GC raids. Again I don't imagine I have to explain that to you. 2 hours ago, Horsecock said: Please, t$, if you have any modicum of self-respect or concern for the health of the game left, I urge you to rethink your entire mindset. Reverse this escalating course of childish behaviour, and try to become the great alliance you once were. The whole game would thank you for it. If you continue on your current trajectory, then I strongly suspect that this game's community will increasingly respect or even tolerate you less and less. People are judged on their actions, and no one else ever cares about what you personally feel you are entitled to. This part again I will echo my previous statements. To lay the childish flaming and antics of this community both at discord and on the OWF at the feet of t$ is extremely simplified and disingenuous. I just again point to the comments above this one and the ones that are sure to follow as proof. To suggest your enemies should be gracious in defeat also implies that someone might be gracious in victory. There is a general lack of that mindset all around in this community. Blackwater will take its share of the blame on that account, and maybe even for the majority of this year, but again to pretend that Hollywood hasn't paraded around as both the "good guys" and the "perpetual victim" is to ignore an entire half of the current conflict and a large part of the game community and their very obvious political messaging. Yeah there are keyboard warriors abound. Yeah there will be grudges that are deepened in this conflict. Hollywood and others who thought little of us will likely continue to do so because they, like the community, are less about dynamism and more about winning then even they want to admit. 18 5 Quote Ascended of Event Horizon John the Revelator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katashimon13 Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 (edited) i agree participating in any fa bad ... so imma just ignore that part of the post cause i know nothing and mute every public channel for wat little is left sanity regarding the game health thing... can you elaborate on how it would be dynamic if we are locked into perpetual 1v1s and are "even" every time?sounds boring if the fights dont change liiikkkeeee also lesbireal an "even" fight with the chill social alliances isnt really even and i feel like we all know that >_< side note: they should exist and serve a purpose so lets not go down that toxic line of arguments it would just be.... war then and not politics as well??? i just dont feel like we have the population to support enough spheres to make things actually interesting? someone check muh logic plz i am very very retired save me from procrastination rawr Edited January 25, 2022 by katashimon13 rawr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Thalmor Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 13 minutes ago, JaxTeller said: bleh Don't care, didn't ask, plus you're under C30. 4 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaxTeller Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 4 minutes ago, Thalmor said: Don't care, didn't ask, plus you're under C30. Look my point being made one post later. I love OWFs. 3 2 Quote Ascended of Event Horizon John the Revelator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacob Knox Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 Very well articulated, Horsecock. 3 Quote Federation of Knox Enlightened of Chaos, Event Horizon QA Team and API Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Leftbehind Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 53 minutes ago, JaxTeller said: Snip It almost seems like you are trying to paint what HC said as laying the whole blame of the community faults on tS but that's not it at all. It is merely pointing out their seemingly inability to handle the game in a more sensible matter. People can handle politics, we encourage it but there is a right and wrong way in doing it. 7 Quote FORMER LEADER OF COTL. PLEASE GROW INTERNALLY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Salvarity Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 For reference I am not gov nor I have ever been gov. My experience in NationSims is pretty much entirely from NationStates and I have not actively played that game in two years, but I have been in PnW since before Knightfall. ------- Can you really unironically single out the Syndicate as a problem spot for childish behavior in this game? This game has always been toxic and edgy to its core. With moderation that does not care about anything as long as you avoid swearing. We have some pretty casual racism from YangMoment on the prior page and the OP is literally named Horsecock. Neither of which will be addressed by moderation and I imagine the wider community prefers it that way. We could argue about the morality of us not having a problem with that, but that's not the argument here. Eumir acts like an Eumir on the forums and Discord, but I do not think he's the t$ member that's really being targeted in the OP. Childishness is nothing new to NationSims and toxic childishness is nothing new to Politics and War. And you must admit the ideas you're parroting are pretty childish in and of themselves. The idea of fair fights and wars for fun, is childish and frankly boring. I am incredibly disappointed at the lack of political narratives and the continued attempts to smash any narratives that arise. I liked t$ vs GG. I was disappointed when I heard our FA was trying to make peace. Having actual grievances and narratives, linked to the actual game, is much more interesting than pairing off to fight over nothing every three months. GG got us here, we'll get them back eventually, or maybe we don't, who knows. You said yourself that you never use political drama as a reason for war. That is not a good thing. If your idea of fun is simply fair fights and being mechanically better than your opponent, then play CSGO or something. I see others have already jumped on the NPO comparison. I have mixed feelings about the NPO boogeyman and can't strongly argue in either direction. I really want to offer condemnation of your highlighting of forum participation and other forms of participation as a problem. The rest of the game seems to be under a gag order, is that an t$ problem or a them problem? I make posts on the forums from time to time and upvote stuff. Which has never been an issue. It is understood to simply be my prerogative as a player to do so. If the rest of the game wants to combat the narratives set by us, comment and post, and let your members post. We do not outnumber you all. Everyone here is capable of independent thought. And since I can't help myself but continue typing. I'll say that my military is still intact, I have not swapped to nuke turreting as of yet and I have not received any grief for that. Certain strategies beget the situation. I really don't know what you expected the gameplan for us to be. I do not do milcom, but it's blatantly obvious we cannot contain GGs upper tier. The literal turn after the blitz we had SRD 10 city downdeclaring on Tarroc. The mechanics have changed, they're changing again after this war. We're being competent and adapting. We have not surrendered. I hope we make life hell for TKR's middle and lower tiers. --- tl:dr no u, t$ best alliance, I will singlehandedly destroy GG 2 1 7 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Majima Goro Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 Is it bad I agree with what Horsecock says? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Buorhann Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 Alright, who hacked HC's account? 24 Quote Warrior of Dio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfPCFQfOnLg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Cooper Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 based WoT, this discussion and the rolling of t$ both were long-overdue. glad someone noticed how t$ always magically appears on the blitzing side of the war. xD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etat Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 8 hours ago, Horsecock said: ... From my limited perspective, I think your theme is on the money, if a little heavy handed in the detail. If NPO is heroin, then t$ is codeine (relatively benign but still bungs you up with poo). Quote Celer Et Audax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 this was an interesting read thanks for the insights horsecock. 1 Quote Why are you reading this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hodor Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 (edited) 5 hours ago, Salvarity said: ~snip~ You've completely missed the point and have focused your post entirely on something HC never said. I think you need to go back and re-read what he said, he drew a line between his preference and the preferences of others and does not actually argue against political drama: 10 hours ago, Horsecock said: I know that many people don't share this mentality, and that some major alliances enjoy a playstyle more focussed on public grandstanding, finger-pointing and moralising, especially in times of war. I respect that, and I don't want to discourage it in general. In fact, these things do add spice to the political landscape and can make the game more interesting. Well written, HC. Interested to hear t$' response. Edited January 25, 2022 by Hodor 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miller Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 5 hours ago, Salvarity said: The idea of fair fights and wars for fun, is childish and frankly boring. Arrogance born from only winning dogpiles is something much worse than childish. You do you, though. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Big Brother Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 Frankly, if this was your effort to rationally convince someone to change, you really struck the wrong note by comparing us to NPO. Some would dismiss what you have to say solely as a result of such an insult. My friends, you all need to understand that we don’t really have to do anything you want us to do. We are under no obligation to conform to your silly ideas of integrity or honor. I can’t speak for all of t$ but to me, those ideals mean next to nothing. All we must do is whatever we want to do, damn the consequences. What is the point of any of this we can't do what we want to do? I don’t see why any of us should be concerned with any of your opinions on anything related to us for a single second, unless that's something we wanted to do. I mean, what are you going to do, roll us? Go ahead, we'll be back. I've been in t$ for the vast majority of the last 6-7 years. We have persisted and will persist longer than any of your fickle opinions. 10 hours ago, Horsecock said: Here's the problem: You habitually and aggressively dispatch your keyboard warriors (most of which are current or former high gov members) to every public "forum", be it this one or any major Discord server, in an effort to control the public conversation, spread your own spin and propaganda, and drown out the spectrum of nuanced opinions from all the other people. Both they and your FA leader's public announcements make use of the full arsenal of all the most toxic and disingenuous methods of political drama: Gaslighting, blatant hypocrisy, bare-faced lies and misrepresentation, malicious accusations, paranoia, conspiracy theories, self-entitled boasting, and of course simple flaming and insults. In fact, they do little else. That is the most common behaviour I and many others have seen from t$ over the past year or so. I could compile a long list of public shitstorms that t$ has sometimes caused, always amplified, and often taken centre stage in. At the same time, you act disproportionally insulted and outraged any time someone makes a negative remark about your own alliance. Unlike the vast majority of even small alliances, you seem to conduct yourself with a complete disregard for moral integrity, I'd go so far as to say even a complete disregard for personal honour and honour of your alliance. Of course this shapes the way your alliance is perceived and judged by others, and to pretend otherwise would be evidence of profound social ineptitude. Well, you’re not entirely wrong. We're guilty of much of what you’ve listed above. But really, we don’t need you to like us. We don’t need you to approve of our conduct. Like I said, we need to keep doing what we like to do. If that involves gaslighting, malicious accusations, misrepresentations and so on, so be it. To me, this is just politics. If you can’t handle it, sucks for you. Git gud. If you want to concern yourselves with personal honor or the honor of your alliance, go right ahead. Don’t expect us to do the same. Our values are not your values. We don't play by your rules. We have no obligation to be “the good guys”. In fact, we’re probably better off playing an entirely different role. I am content with being the bad guy. Hate us all you want. 10 hours ago, Horsecock said: While these behaviours were present in t$ gov for some time before that, they only became intolerable after the most recent resignation of Partisan. I had a lot of respect for Partisan's style and mentality, even if I did not share it. But he did actually try to talk and act with the purpose of making the game more enjoyable, and he put a very presentable public face onto your alliance. When he left, that veneer of moral integrity dropped, and t$ seems to have lost any temperance in controlling, and self-awareness of, how you conduct yourselves in public. You're not the only alliance that likes to dogpile, and you're not the only alliance that is afraid of getting rolled. But you ARE the only alliance that doesn't really even try to hide just how fragile your egos and just how petty your methods and motives really are. Moral integrity? What moral integrity? That’s news to me. As for dog piling, a wise man once wrote that if the battle cannot be won, do not fight it. But afraid of getting rolled? Ridiculous. I’ve burnt and rebuilt more infrastructure and military forces while fighting for t$ over the last few years than many of you have ever built to begin with and I’d burn it all a thousand times over again. I know for a fact that many others in t$ share this mentality. Sure, we may not like it when our revenues start to decline, as is natural in an alliance with a theme like t$. But there isn’t a culture of pixelhugging. It really doesn’t matter how many times we burn, it can all be rebuilt. Fragile egos? Our egos are grand and magnificent. Golden, perfect, pristine. If anything, you’re stroking my ego by giving us so much attention. Keep it up. As for our methods, we have nothing to hide. I’m surprised it never occurred to you that your opinion and similar opinions are the desired response. 10 hours ago, Horsecock said: Do you really just want your wars to be as cheap as possible and never to even cause meaningful damage to your enemies, other than by dogpiling them when it's easy? You don't even want to be taken seriously anymore, in terms of competence, military might or even honour? Barring actual cheating, this is quite possibly the most pathetic display I've seen from any major alliance, ever. Again, we don’t really have to care what you think. As far as I’m concerned, you should consider yourselves lucky if we even deign to consider your opinion for a minute. I won’t pretend to be honorable just to look good, just to make other people approve. The only people who need to approve of t$’ actions are people in t$. 10 hours ago, Horsecock said: Please, t$, if you have any modicum of self-respect or concern for the health of the game left, I urge you to rethink your entire mindset. Reverse this escalating course of childish behaviour, and try to become the great alliance you once were. The whole game would thank you for it. If you continue on your current trajectory, then I strongly suspect that this game's community will increasingly respect or even tolerate you less and less. People are judged on their actions, and no one else ever cares about what you personally feel you are entitled to. 1 1 4 5 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Prefontaine Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 (edited) This games history breaks down into a 5 eras, currently. The introduction, where pieces were falling into place in the first year or so. The Bipolar era where Syndisphere and The Covenant battled it out until Syndisphere beat them and then destroyed paperless. After that was the EMC era which ended with Knightfall. Following was the NPO era which ended with their epic downfall. We're now in a multisphere era. Syndicate was at its peak during the second and third eras. They became the dominant sphere in the bipolar era and were a part of the demise of the remainder of EMC in Knightfall. This is when they lost Partisan. Partisan wasn't the only piece of the puzzle, they also no longer had Manthrax, Roy Mustang, Jessica Rabbit. These were the fixtures of when Syndicate was at its best in the game. I don't say that to knock their current leadership, or leaders they had since then. To tie into Horsecocks original points, the rhetoric around Syndicate these days always feels like "Hey, we're great, we've always been great" and then the mindset becomes we'll always be great but it no longer feels earned. It feels like Syndicate is resting on its old accomplishments and the mindset of always needing to win is creeping in. Syndicate has an impressive win to loss record here, but it feels like winning has become too crucial to its existence. The "Git Gud" retorts of days gone by fall a little flat when you lose a couple wars, haven't done much in terms of taking a chance, or make an epic move. It feels like Syndicate is afraid to take a chance. I may be wrong, but it's the vibe I'm catching. We can take TKR for an example. TKR grew to prominence at the end of the Bipolar era and heavily in the EMC era. It's why the end of the era was called Knightfall. Honestly, at the time TKR grew it was on the coattails of Syndicate. They talked about never losing, how good they were, the same sort of swagger Syndicate had over the years. They took a hard loss though, and haven't had it easy since. Before the ego of winning became too much of a fixture in their alliance culture they got gut-checked. I'll largely credit Adrienne for being the leader they needed then, it's not a easy thing to keep morale up, but I'd argue TKR is stronger now because of it. Syndicate can do the same thing. Syndicates solution to these sort of problems in the past is at odds with the new world though. You can argue whos fault it is during the Bipolar era, one side built up treaties, so the other responded in kind. But Syndicate often amassed treaties to be able to have more strength. This kinda shows today with working with another sphere to 2v1 a sphere. You can argue that it's good tactics to dogpile, spares risk and limits damages but it's not anything to write home about. If your wins are coming from dogpiles in every tier besides 40+, then who cares? I'm actually somewhat talking to Partisan while I write this. He's someone I've worked precariously along side of many times, over way too long of a time. Alliances sometimes have difficulty replacing leaders of the magnitude of Partisan. In Syndicates case they had to replace him and his supporting cast. Alliances need to adapt to their leaders; how Syndicate operated under Partisan shouldn't be how it operates today because its leaders aren't Partisan. Again, not knocking the leaders of Syndicate. But if feels like your playing an act of how you think Syndicate should be based on how they were in the past versus making it something of your own. Damn the history, forge a new one. TEst has been recreated, or morphed several times in this game. It was very different when Jodo Lead, when ElPinchazo lead, when I lead, when Insert Name Here lead, so on and so forth. You try to keep some of the core ideals, but don't let what the alliance used to be dictate what it should be today. The past isn't what needs to be replicated, but the foundation for building new structures. I wanted to take a moment to thank Horsecock for making this thread. Whether you agree with him or not, these are the types of threads missing from the game these days. Side note, I didn't proof read, sorry for any typos or errors of that nature. Edited January 25, 2022 by Prefontaine 26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Dorian Grey Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 (edited) 11 hours ago, YangMoment said: not surprised you didn't understand what he said though. can't say turks have much of a spine or moral integrity to support it This was so unnecessary. Bringing in someone's race doesn't add anything to the conversation Edited January 25, 2022 by Dorian Grey 23 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pubstomper Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 8 minutes ago, Prefontaine said: *important text* Or just do like Rose and constantly underpromise and underdeliver while slowly getting more competent leaders 1 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Prefontaine Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 Just now, Pubstomper said: Or just do like Rose and constantly underpromise and underdeliver while slowly getting more competent leaders Who are these competent leaders you speak of? 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pubstomper Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 Just now, Prefontaine said: Who are these competent leaders you speak of? We had kurd, exalts, valk, vexz, durmij, and beli all in leadership at some point Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Prefontaine Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 1 minute ago, Pubstomper said: We had kurd, exalts, valk, vexz, durmij, and beli all in leadership at some point 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namukara Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 I feel an important point has been lost here. Another way in which T$ can be compared to the NPO is in regard to the utter contempt it shows for its allies. I know that in the vast majority of spheres there is a group of people that are driving matters forward, who make the majority of leadership decisions. Of course there are: nobody disputes that giving every member of a 300+ member sphere equal voice is going to lead to unworkable arguing further down the line. What I'm seeing from T$ however is that not only are they happy to drag people who apparently respect them and their sphere into conflicts, they're apparently willing to leave them high and dry in said conflicts by refusing to fight to the best of their ability. Attempting to throw a major war isn't just damaging to the health of the game, it's an utter slap in the face to those who fight alongside you and it's quite probably the most disgraceful way I've seen allies treated. Just wondering, would Hollywood consider a white peace for the numerous smaller alliances that T$ has led into this mess? I can't think of a ship that's worth going down with less than this one at the moment. 1 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Director Nyus Posted January 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2022 >inb4 "Adam u quit stop being a loser and checking forums" This post came to my attention and being one of the people who directly kept t$ on the path I felt like I should respond. Pre-emptive note to Syndi that this isn't me flaming y'all or whatever, it's just my genuine thought process. For the most part, minus the unnecessary NPO comparisons, I agree with what Aleph said. I won't go too far into detail on it as I don't represent t$ anymore in any fashion, but I wanted to respond to a specific point of Pre's. 59 minutes ago, Prefontaine said: But if feels like your playing an act of how you think Syndicate should be based on how they were in the past versus making it something of your own. Damn the history, forge a new one. We've had our differences in opinion, but this specific series of lines is something I wish I'd been told when taking over for Partisan. I take full responsibility for what I did as FA, which is essentially be a shitty 140p ripoff dvd of Partisan, and I genuinely think if I'd gone another route Syndi and I would've been better off for it. That grandstanding FA style was never my cup of tea no matter how much I acted like it, and I wasn't nearly as good as Parti was both at doing it and knowing when to stop. It's likely the main reason I quit, honestly. I pretty much ruined the game for myself by trying to be someone else and shoddily copying their FA style instead of making my own, and I think doing that caused a lot more issues (particularly between t$-TKR following the split and GnR) than it solved, and I genuinely think had I been doing my own thing a lot of subsequent issues wouldn't have happened. I view my reign as FA as an utter failure. It wasn't catastrophic, but it wasn't what Syndi needed and wasn't what I was good at. My message to WANA is more of a "don't make the mistakes I did" moreso than a "change what you're doing now" type thing, but: Reevaluate if this is the way you want to do politics and you are comfortable with Syndi being seen as. If you are, by all means keep it up. If you aren't, use this war and postwar to make efforts to change things to your own style. 11 20 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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