Originally posted by Havohej

OMG is still in PotBS, French on Antigua and Pirates on Blackbeard. As much as they might like to think they did, they didn't destroy anything. When OMG left PotBS for Warhammer, the Spanish nation took their place as the dominant RvR force on Antigua. Now, having found WAR boring a few of the OMG guys resurrected PotBS OMG and are still active in PvP and RvR.

They do have a bunch of jerks, but they also have a bunch of decent players. I've seen game breakers (SomethingAwful forums' Goons in Eve-Online, for example, whose stated purpose is to screw up games for other people); OMG I'm Drunk aren't game breakers (no matter how hard sickdoll wants to chestthump about it).

 

The problem with such "hardcore" players is that they inevitably put the size of their "e-peen" before anything else, even the future of the game.

As for the SA Goons, I never played EvE but I did encounter a few of them in other games, and I agree with you.  Their "e-peen" isn't even a consideration, just another object of mockery. 

I'm a cynic myself, as many of the Something Awful guys pretend to be, but I'd never mingle with their crowd -- self-congratulatory snarkiness, especially when it consists of little more than American navel-gazing, has never been a source of interest for me.  Tell me if you like or believe in anything, and then I'll be listening.  If it's just put-downs for put-downs' sake, there are more intelligent things to be done.

As for their attitude in games, they don't recruit -- that's not their purpose, since it would involve letting in an outsider (not acquainted with the proper conduct of the SA forums) who might not get privy to their real aim. I'd be very surprised if they even liked online games. They don't need to get engaged in the development of a community -- they already have their own at the Mothersite (based on the amazingly dubious model of a subscription-based forum) where they can revel in their brand of anarchic tastelessness rooted in self-parody.

But whether SA Goons or genuine "hardcore", both will ruin a game in the long run -- the former just for the fun of it, the latter because that's how they can demonstrate to the world that they "pwned".  The second category wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that it's now a contest of who has the largest guild that they can transplant from previous games, while the rest of us players, if we are welcome at all to join them, will be little more than peons in the larger objective.

If there's one thing I hate about WoW, it's the constant need to stroke the ego of every button-masher plunking in his $15 (which goes a long way towards explaining the ridiculous level scale -- I can't even hit an NPC six levels above me? Come on) without any need of skill or any other factor outside of available time.  But one thing I hate about Shadowbane and other games of that type, is that not even half of the game is available to players who aren't in guild leaderships.  Maybe I'd love to design a city? Maybe I'd like to be content with my shack in the woods without having a zergball tearing it down within minutes?   Maybe I'd just like to be an independent trader, or a diplomat, or to run a small independent city just satisfied with what it has, which would already be too much to certain crowds? WoW doesn't offer this to anyone, since it's just one large, shallow theme park; Shadowbane offered this to a select few among its already niche player core.  No wonder one of these games is almost dead, while the other is killing everything else off the market.

A personal note: I got screwed over (along with perhaps more than a few guildies) by my own guild leader in SB because the game forced me to rely on him even though I didn't know him and would never have trusted him to this extent; so I have reached the conclusion that if a game forces me to play the fearfully obedient lackey to someone I don't know and who wouldn't give a damn about me when I'd need help, I just won't play it. (Good luck with that, Darkfall.)

Originally posted by Havohej

OMG is still in PotBS, French on Antigua and Pirates on Blackbeard. As much as they might like to think they did, they didn't destroy anything. When OMG left PotBS for Warhammer, the Spanish nation took their place as the dominant RvR force on Antigua. Now, having found WAR boring a few of the OMG guys resurrected PotBS OMG and are still active in PvP and RvR.

They do have a bunch of jerks, but they also have a bunch of decent players. I've seen game breakers (SomethingAwful forums' Goons in Eve-Online, for example, whose stated purpose is to screw up games for other people); OMG I'm Drunk aren't game breakers (no matter how hard sickdoll wants to chestthump about it).

 

 You are correct, most of us really are not jerks, and those that found us to be usually started it, or just couldnt hang with it. We are just people who enjoy a good pvp game. The above about breaking the game was 100% meant as a joke. Forum pvp is a part of our mentality as much as ingame. I just enjoy perpetuating the boogyman aspect of our crew to those who only know about us in legend. It was a sad day when I unsubscribed to what was a great game. We still have a very active potbs player base, it is just a fraction of what it was on morgan/early antigua.

I've never played Shadowbane myself, but as an EVE vet who ran a moderately successful (though not 'famous') 0.0 corporation for a year I can completely understand the trust issue.  It sounds like SB is as much a game of social engineering as EVE is, though maybe in different ways (I don't wanna be too liberal with my assumptions since I never played it).

With EVE, if a corp wants to "get" anywhere, there has to be a willingness of the members to contribute their time, effort and in-game resources to the corporation's aims.  For my corp, the first big project was we needed a half a billion for our first player starbase... later we needed a few hundred mil for our first capital ship pilot's skillbooks (having one cap pilot subsequently helped us recruit other established cap pilots - investment paid off ten times over), then it was the need for miners to contribute dozens of hours' worth of their mining labor by selling their minerals to the corporation for roughly 8% less than they would've gotten on the open market, and so on.  While the return on these investments was not immediate, nor in the case of the miners was it even directly paid back in cash, there was a return on all of these contributions for the individual members.  They had trusted me with their time and effort, they had worked with me and suffered patiently through our time of "nobody-ness", they believed in me that I could get us established if given enough time to do so and I didn't want my reputation stained by thirty people on the forum saying "that dirty Havohej robbed us of billions of ISK that was supposed to pay for making us all uber! booo!" y'know?

SOME people don't care about that sort of thing and won't think twice to rip off anybody on the internet, be it real money or virtual game currency.  It sounds like your SB guild leader was that type of player.

It sounds like EVE is also similar in that if you want to really, really experience the 0.0 game (I don't mean just roaming through and ganking the carebears who just mine and farm NPCs all day, I mean really being a territorial power like Band of Brothers for example) you have to be involved in a player group and you have to put your trust in the leadership.  For a lot of players, whether because they're casuals, or because they've been screwed (like you), that's just not an attractive option.  I'm sure you can understand though that if the really 'big' end-game economic stuff were so easy that one guy could just build it and defend it all by his lonesome, it wouldn't really mean anything, all the epic-ness would be gone from it and that would be more harmful to the game than the alternative which is forced teamwork and social engineering.

Right now, PotBS doesn't have that sort of forced teamwork.  With Lineship Structure Bundles being such a large undertaking, they're close to that sort of thing, but a solo player CAN produce LSBs himself - it just takes longer and is quite a bit more expensive.  When Port Governance (which is third in line in the "Big Projects" category; first in line was AvCom Revamp which goes live next patch, second in line is Skirmish which has been the big buzzword the last few months and I think is close to completion) gets into the game, it will almost certainly be a forced teamwork game mechanic that only the most well-organized and possibly effective PvP societies will really be able to experience.  While this exclusivity doesn't help the casual gamer, or the anti-social guy who just stubbornly refuses to "play nicely with others" in a "massively-multiplayer" game, it beats the alternative (games like Diablo where you can literally do everything there is to do all by yourself).  The only option for folks like us is to start our own guild/corp/society/whatever and find like-minded people to enjoy the game with.

As far as the leetkid PvP groups like OMG I'm Drunk, every game has them.  Hell, after I got burnt out on running my corp in EVE, I joined one - an alliance called "G00DFELLAS" (the o's are zeros).  WoW has 'em, WAR has 'em, they're a "fact of gaming."  As long as they're not devoting all their energy to finding exploits to try to ruin a game, they can't really harm anything.  Sure, they talk a lot of trash on forums, but any game development company will tell you that only about 30% of their players actually read their forums anyway :P  The ones you have to look out for are the griefers; you know, your spawn campers, noob gankers, that sort of player.  FLS has made a lot of changes to help protect the player from being griefed.  Griefers will always find something they can do to annoy you, of course, but from what I gather off of the PotBS forums, there are a lot less ways to grief now than there were in January when it released.

Originally posted by sickdoll

Originally posted by Havohej

OMG is still in PotBS, French on Antigua and Pirates on Blackbeard. As much as they might like to think they did, they didn't destroy anything. When OMG left PotBS for Warhammer, the Spanish nation took their place as the dominant RvR force on Antigua. Now, having found WAR boring a few of the OMG guys resurrected PotBS OMG and are still active in PvP and RvR.

They do have a bunch of jerks, but they also have a bunch of decent players. I've seen game breakers (SomethingAwful forums' Goons in Eve-Online, for example, whose stated purpose is to screw up games for other people); OMG I'm Drunk aren't game breakers (no matter how hard sickdoll wants to chestthump about it).

 

 You are correct, most of us really are not jerks, and those that found us to be usually started it, or just couldnt hang with it. We are just people who enjoy a good pvp game. The above about breaking the game was 100% meant as a joke. Forum pvp is a part of our mentality as much as ingame. I just enjoy perpetuating the boogyman aspect of our crew to those who only know about us in legend. It was a sad day when I unsubscribed to what was a great game. We still have a very active potbs player base, it is just a fraction of what it was on morgan/early antigua.

I'm glad to hear you say that, sickdoll :)

I don't personally like OMG, mainly 'cause of all the hype and arrogance, but I'm in Nine Winds and the best PvPers of our soc said they respect you so I started paying more attention and you guys really do back up all your trash talk so I can't help respecting you too.

But I'll still take any opportunity to gank anyone with the OMG I'm Drunk tag on their name lol  

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Agricola1

You failed to mention them signing a deal with the devil over publishing, the famous quote "I spoke to Smedley and SOE have it down cold!". Many warned against SOE, I was still going to purchase until SOE f***ed up on a titanic scale. I couldn't purchase a pre-order because SOE hadn't shipped them, those that could get them (a few stores in the USA) ended up either not having the disc or the gamecode because someone at SOE forgot to put them in there!

I wanted this to work. I wanted to play it, however now it seems it'll be purchased by Smedley to add to the list of dismal faliures associated with the SOE brand name. If PotBS were a sailing ship she'd be the Marie Celeste, on a direct course to the SOE dry docks alongside Vanguard!

 

That this game failed wasn't SOE fault. The devs didn't listen to the beta testers, that kills a lot of game.

In the AoC beta forum many testers warned about releasing to early and I heard the same happened in the WAR forums. While some testers might be wrong, all are never.

Just Blaming SOE for everything they publish isn't really fair even though they should check it up better before signing anything. Vanguard and SWG are their fault but not this.

ok lets be clear vanguard wasnt sonys fault remember sigil? 5 or so years for a unpolished broken game?
 

swg clearly sony had something to do with it but again i think lucas arts might be to blame here as well

potbs not sonys fault asshats never listened and im major ticked i loved this game as something different the avatar combat was a joke every city looking same was a joke pirates having economy was a joke they tried to be everything to everyone and noone liked it.

now my biggest gripe with sony is the friggun way they used gambling as a cash cow with there tcg and then turned around and gave henchmen to eq killing what was left of group game then to add another nail they added rmt to the game thus ending my dealings with all soe products except planetside  wich im sure they willdo something to screw that up soon enuff.

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Originally posted by sickdoll
 You are correct, most of us really are not jerks, and those that found us to be usually started it, or just couldnt hang with it.

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Ah, the same lies. It is rare I call someone a liar but it is so obvious that it fits.

OMGs actions made it clear their intent. They were the last of the expat French to come to Antigua. They did so with a video which told the entire "you're %#^#%ed". OMG put more French ports in the red than the other three nations combined. They did so for the expressed intent of punishing the other French for perceived slights. They routinely crippled French trade around the Florida cape by taking ports of no strategic value. They were rarely seen outside of strong French waters. Any time the other French could get a circle up with OMG's constant spamming of French waters with circles they never showed up for battle. The whole time anyone got upset with their antics (who wouldn't) they beat their chests, were rude, abrasive, insulting and in the end... somehow... the victims?

I think it is telling that when I left there was not a single non-Morgan French soc that hadn't had most of their members express a desire to cancel because of OMG and OMG alone.

People can lie. OMG regularly lies and, clearly, still does. Action's don't.

Originally posted by Greyed

 

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Originally posted by sickdoll
 You are correct, most of us really are not jerks, and those that found us to be usually started it, or just couldnt hang with it.

---

 

Ah, the same lies. It is rare I call someone a liar but it is so obvious that it fits.

OMGs actions made it clear their intent. They were the last of the expat French to come to Antigua. They did so with a video which told the entire "you're %#^#%ed". OMG put more French ports in the red than the other three nations combined. They did so for the expressed intent of punishing the other French for perceived slights. They routinely crippled French trade around the Florida cape by taking ports of no strategic value. They were rarely seen outside of strong French waters. Any time the other French could get a circle up with OMG's constant spamming of French waters with circles they never showed up for battle. The whole time anyone got upset with their antics (who wouldn't) they beat their chests, were rude, abrasive, insulting and in the end... somehow... the victims?

I think it is telling that when I left there was not a single non-Morgan French soc that hadn't had most of their members express a desire to cancel because of OMG and OMG alone.

People can lie. OMG regularly lies and, clearly, still does. Action's don't.

Yep, that's the OMG I've heard about.  Back on Blackbeard, I met a guy who had come from the Morgan French, and when I asked him why his society had come to Blackbeard (which was not doing so well after the transfers, especially on the French side) instead of going to Antigua, he all but told me that they had waited to see where OMG would go to make sure they went elsewhere.  Your account fits perfectly with what I've heard of Antigua French tiring of them and leaving the game.

Also, rude is rude.  I don't care if it's a forum persona they put on to see how red other people's faces can get; if anything, that makes them pricks even more.  But let's not worry, they'll move on to the next game pretending that their leetness actually matters. I'd never heard of those guys before PotBS, and it's unlikely I'll hear about them again in another game.

LOL I remember when we put 3 french ports in red on purpose. Now that was some good pvp that day! I think that was also the day the truce among the french collapsed. We did it with 6 people eco bombing. Havana 6 we called ourselves. Took about 2 hours.

Originally posted by Agricola1

You failed to mention them signing a deal with the devil over publishing, the famous quote "I spoke to Smedley and SOE have it down cold!". Many warned against SOE, I was still going to purchase until SOE f***ed up on a titanic scale. I couldn't purchase a pre-order because SOE hadn't shipped them, those that could get them (a few stores in the USA) ended up either not having the disc or the gamecode because someone at SOE forgot to put them in there!

I wanted this to work. I wanted to play it, however now it seems it'll be purchased by Smedley to add to the list of dismal faliures associated with the SOE brand name. If PotBS were a sailing ship she'd be the Marie Celeste, on a direct course to the SOE dry docks alongside Vanguard!

I beta test'd until they signed with SOE and I left right then knowing it was doomed.