Wow, Ortog has hit the nail there. I would suggest everyone to take their time and read his reply as it is the most accurate one. Basically it was Congress leadership's 80% fault, our affectionate community's 10% fault and Admin Garett's wrong tactics 10% fault.
At least we learned something new too. Lyth has recently sympathised with the Congress xD
(07-26-2015, 04:29 AM)Ortog Wrote: Congress was a victim of their success, more then anything else. It was guilty of not paying atention to the fact that there was a server out there, there were other factions and other threads to follow.
The over concentration on jump trading while neglecting everything else, the rush for "shinny" toys, the complete disregard of sensible faction goals and pursuit of influence and perks among the underworld, the abandoning of smuggling as main activity, the almost criminal neglect of the furthering of relations with other factions (Congress leadership refused to acknowledge several pleas from members to establish propper faction perks and green cells), the aloofness if not complete ignorance to what was hapening in other houses then Liberty (we used to be allies of GC and had their tech available, we used to be on very good terms with hessians, zoners and mollys) turned Congress into a monstruosity in role play terms. Basicaly all Congress did was waiting for leadership to log and ...jump. That lasted years.
Xeno hunting, smuggling, pursuit of diplomatic efforts with underground factions, diplomatic efforts with factions we should be closer (IMG, TAZ, BD come to mind), propper alliances with emergent friendly factions like AFC, and eficient containement of what was perceived as an arrivist bunch, (take it in role play terms, Marauders should have been defused underworld way), the pursuit of the war effort on Bretonia side, was all ignored and disregarded in favour of base management and jump trading. That is not what junkers lore hints at, junkers are not suposed to be a trade company.
Tinkerbell, Hawk and Tyber didn't steered Congress in this direction. Tinker was a visionary, Hawk was a shady underworld leader, Tyber was a role player and a story teller. JT was a populist, he steered the faction towards what he perceived was the general ambition of the common player, the pursuit of wealth. Therefore he did just did that while going on recruiting sprees, more people meant more scapp, more jumps, more bases. It did not meant better junkers though. He meant well and JT was, if anything, devoted to Congress and our members, he was also impervious to anything else or to other views then his own.
Congress bloated and eventualy imploded due to the shallowness of its goals, Hug might have his heart in the right place but unless he dares to steer the Congress towards its underworld neglected origins, and start assigning people to ranks and roles, the herculean task ahead of him is bound to fail.
The Congress demise had terrible consequences to the server though, as you can notice by the amazing drop in activity. The server powers should have used a diferent aproach, a stick and carrot one, to correct Congress excesses, instead of fueling the flames of hatred. Like it happened to Zoners, Congress, which was also a more or less pacific group,took the isolationist aproach against the wolf siege,we decided to bury our heads in the sand while the server was set to fire by the admins and devs that played lyra while contemplating the flames, oblivious to the fact that erradicating the Congress would bring the server down.
When the zoners were all but mass murdered in the server the population was big enough to be able to take the hit, when the progrom against Congress was unleashed the consequences for the server population should have been evident. As severe as the impending apocalypse in two months time.
I don't think that Congress can be brought back to life, same as we do not se an active large zoner faction or a living dodo either. Regardless of what intentions the present leadership of the Congress might had, they will not be allowed to rebuild, the hyenas will be vigilant and will stop any atempt of recovery. Congress is dead, as the dodo, and the server.
After the thread above, I was hoping to see Congress roaming around Kusari more often, cooperating with ]bd[ with supply runs and engagements against common foes such as Hogosha (highly populated back then). But silly me, the only purpose of the Yanagi treaty back in 2009 only seemed to benefit congress cashcows with free passage through the Chugoku-Sigma13 shortcut.
I take full responsibility of everything that happened to and for the Congress under my leadership.
Still I think it's important for me to point out some of the falsehoods being levied against us.
First let me start with the person asking to not be a part of this discussion after speaking out.
(07-26-2015, 04:04 AM)Sarawr!? Wrote: The difference here is literally night and day, considering free speech is a protected right in Liberty, while bringing guns and/or giant armed robots into a GOVERNMENT COURTROOM, would be a crime pretty much anywhere. Even despite that course of action, LibGov was still willing to continue that RP in order to try and see things through to a proper end, but the Junker Congress were the ones to step away and discontinue the RP, for a multitude of reasons.
Where did you get this information because it couldn't be further from the truth.
Now just to be clear we did in fact introduce a robot into the court proceeding. A fact that everyone against us seemed to focus on.
Bringing in the robot from an rp role was to direct the attention of the LIbGov/Court to the fact that LN was moving against us in spite of us pleading our case in court.
No relevance was given as to what was going on outside the courtroom where LN / LSF were attempting to push their way into Puerto Rico.
WE tried multiple times to get them to stop this action and continue the RP in court.
When that didnt work I tried to add an RP element to make everyone aware of what was going on.
Did that matter? No. Only the robot being in court was discussed even tho its appearance was largely irrelevant and wouldn't have happened if the LN had stuck with the trial.
Additionally following all that drama I BEGGED to continue the trial and was told by Garret and Jonas that it was over and retconned.
My pleads to allow us to continue our RP FOR THE TRIAL and not the robot were denied.
Despite several of us having put in our time and energy into the case we were bringing against LN / LSF.
Even with the staged incident that brought us into court in the first place.
Regardless that it was done oorp and from information WE GAVE two individuals over SKYPE in an attempt to start RP with them.
They took that info and within an hour or so began this so called "drug bust".
Still we were willing to do as the admins requested and "RP it out".
Following our opening statement and when it became uncertain who might win the trial.
The LN attempts to enter Puerto Rico started up again bypassing the ongoing Libgov's court trial.
In point of fact it was my suggestion the trial begin in the first place.
Having our RP/work removed that was some what entertaining plus fun for others was very discouraging.
Which lead to some veterans leaving the game/faction forever.
Finally just let me say..
OF course bringing in an armed robot would be illegal anywhere we planned to rp that fact too.
All of the rp being done for the trial was being coordinated with the Libgov's appointed trial judicator and myself.
He was fully aware the robot was going to make an appearance and knew it wouldn't be a threat.
He understood what its PURPOSE was and not the colorul dramatic entrance meant for RP/Entertainment value.
Now to Ortog..
(07-26-2015, 04:29 AM)Ortog Wrote: Congress was a victim of their success, more then anything else. It was guilty of not paying atention to the fact that there was a server out there, there were other factions and other threads to follow.
The over concentration on jump trading while neglecting everything else, the rush for "shinny" toys, the complete disregard of sensible faction goals and pursuit of influence and perks among the underworld, the abandoning of smuggling as main activity, the almost criminal neglect of the furthering of relations with other factions (Congress leadership refused to acknowledge several pleas from members to establish propper faction perks and green cells), the aloofness if not complete ignorance to what was hapening in other houses then Liberty (we used to be allies of GC and had their tech available, we used to be on very good terms with hessians, zoners and mollys) turned Congress into a monstruosity in role play terms. Basicaly all Congress did was waiting for leadership to log and ...jump. That lasted years.
Xeno hunting, smuggling, pursuit of diplomatic efforts with underground factions, diplomatic efforts with factions we should be closer (IMG, TAZ, BD come to mind), propper alliances with emergent friendly factions like AFC, and eficient containement of what was perceived as an arrivist bunch, (take it in role play terms, Marauders should have been defused underworld way), the pursuit of the war effort on Bretonia side, was all ignored and disregarded in favour of base management and jump trading. That is not what junkers lore hints at, junkers are not suposed to be a trade company.
Tinkerbell, Hawk and Tyber didn't steered Congress in this direction. Tinker was a visionary, Hawk was a shady underworld leader, Tyber was a role player and a story teller. JT was a populist, he steered the faction towards what he perceived was the general ambition of the common player, the pursuit of wealth. Therefore he did just did that while going on recruiting sprees, more people meant more scapp, more jumps, more bases. It did not meant better junkers though. He meant well and JT was, if anything, devoted to Congress and our members, he was also impervious to anything else or to other views then his own.
Congress bloated and eventualy imploded due to the shallowness of its goals, Hug might have his heart in the right place but unless he dares to steer the Congress towards its underworld neglected origins, and start assigning people to ranks and roles, the herculean task ahead of him is bound to fail.
The Congress demise had terrible consequences to the server though, as you can notice by the amazing drop in activity. The server powers should have used a diferent aproach, a stick and carrot one, to correct Congress excesses, instead of fueling the flames of hatred. Like it happened to Zoners, Congress, which was also a more or less pacific group,took the isolationist aproach against the wolf siege,we decided to bury our heads in the sand while the server was set to fire by the admins and devs that played lyra while contemplating the flames, oblivious to the fact that erradicating the Congress would bring the server down.
When the zoners were all but mass murdered in the server the population was big enough to be able to take the hit, when the progrom against Congress was unleashed the consequences for the server population should have been evident. As severe as the impending apocalypse in two months time.
I don't think that Congress can be brought back to life, same as we do not se an active large zoner faction or a living dodo either. Regardless of what intentions the present leadership of the Congress might had, they will not be allowed to rebuild, the hyenas will be vigilant and will stop any atempt of recovery. Congress is dead, as the dodo, and the server.
Seems you forgot some very important and rather relevant Congress founders.
Such as Rudo the man that helped save and restructure the Congress when our visionary Tinkerbell left.
Under Tink's leadership the Congress was more criminal than legal and on the verge of being made hostile in Liberty.
Rudo came in and changed Congress policy to be more quasi lawful.
There are plenty more members/factions worth mentioning too like Finnegan, Jeni, Widow, RIP, Aces and Bill to name a few.
You mention we needed stronger relations with groups like TAZ and IMG.
Strange considering we had ongoing contracts/relations with IMG and were considered allies with TAZ.
We did attempt to start some coordination with AFC as well.
Which included our jump trading operations.
During those jump events we provided both factions with ores and other materials.
AT NO TIME was my intention to only provide profit to those participating.
We did jumps because it wasn't the same thing we had done for YEARS now playing this game.
WE did jumps because it allowed several people all working towards the same goal to interact and group.
We did jumps because it provided activity for the faction, indys and other factions we would work for.
We did jumps because it was fun and different.
The jumping system could've been reworked, tweaked or changed in ways to still allow us to coordinate events.
Instead of making it worthless and pointless despite how much activity it would generate.
The numbers proved month after month that there was value in these events.
While many may believe all we did was jump there was quite a bit of work going into our jumping operations.
We as a group built pob's without jumpdrives, acquired a capital ship capable of mounting the drive, before fully integrating the jumping events.
Our events would have at times more than a dozen people in the group participating and not all Congress.
Many times someone new to disco would join our jumps and be inspired by what they saw.
Since it was new and different people were interested in joining.
Our Rp was denied, disregarded and deleted on more than one occassion.
In the end our barges were taken from us 5 in total and jump trading was removed.
This is what lead to many members not wanting to play as Congress or disco anymore.
No hard feelings.. truly because I had many wonderful years playing this game.
This place provided a much needed distraction to RL and gave me loads of entertainment.
Leading the Congress was my greatest honor and I thank all of those that made it possible.
I have fond memories of all my years dedicated to disco and differing opinions aside enjoyed the majority of the interactions I had here.
Thank you all for the memories!!
This thread got worse then Keeper feedback at times. But make no mistake. for all its lack of innovative ways to deal with the new feature > run wild > nerf terribly mod cycle some cool stuff has come and gone here. The congress isn't alone in playgroups feeling disenfranchised and persecuted. But "somepeople".. labeling us all as whiners. Shows your infantile stance to dealing with people in general. if you did that at your job? how long do you think you'd keep it? if you did that in public how many friends would you have left?
This server has enough of that. Enough writing off entire groups of people. And dare I say without a serious turnaround. not just in attitude but innovative solutions to things that are viewed as problems here. There isn't going to be a lot to log in for. But as far as "feedback" There's no second chances here guys. were a shadow of who we've been. We had our fun and paid for it.
I do not believe the congress can continue There's nothing to leverage here to redeem it frankly and heres what i've come up with over the past few months i've been in actual charge.
- no one has been blunt enough to say let it die.
8 people said destroy all our bases. Just because.
4 have said make it better by going red with lib. (a while lot have passively suggested it not straight up)
5 people think we should be more like marauders. When i asked what that meant it came down to there aren't that many marauders on.
2 JUNKER WILDE
2 focus on bretonia and bring more activity there.
- it took two months to do a single rp event that shrunk from 6 people to 3.
- Fewer were interested in doing anything with us at all but it seemed mostly because they have had their own activity drops.
So looking at the facts. What's left of us don't want to carry a corpse as it's been eloquently stated. Chief reason so many left? Not gonna beat the bush. Thier opinion was the admin team did not care when they should have and cared when they shouldn't have. right or wrong there you go.
So lets be clearer. I would like the least amount of mirth and detritus closing out what legacy there is here on disco. and merely say.. So long. thanks for the memories.
But like the rest of us who've moved on. and those of us who are sad to see it happen. This is the closing of the book on the congress. lets close out the thread with fond goodbyes.. or let your salt forever be locked in here for all to see how much a jerk you are. As so many have done all these years.
No im not personally leaving yet yall are stuck with my ass till this place burns cause I want pictures.
I joined Congress in '08 when Tink was handing off to Rudo, so I will personally lament the loss of this faction - and while I went dark and stopped playing Disco almost a year ago, someone needs to say what I am about to.
I think that, when all of the individual issues and complaints are summed up and looked at in the long view, that the dynamic is very easy to read.
Congress was populated mostly (not all, but mostly) by mature players - by that I mean parents and adults of advanced age.
It was also, accordingly, populated mostly by people with little to no interest in pew, whatsoever.
It was in all seriousness always a trading faction, whether legal or illegal didn't matter.
But it was a trading faction made of people who were very practiced at avoiding pew - for the most part.
And I think this is what pissed off the 'kids' so much, Congress' actions and RP were designed and cultivated strictly to leave pew-whores frustrated - and it worked.
Lots of players who liked the occasional furrball joined, and when they found out Congress didn't want a fight every day, or at all really, they left for other more action-packed factions.
I saw it all the time.
And to those who say Congress 'harmed the server', pay more attention.
Who did a faction call if they wanted 15 ships to deliver enough base materials to build or upgrade inside of 8 hours?
Congress, that's who.
Secondly, multiple Congressmen have become admins over the years - not something handed out to abrasive or harmful players.
Thirdly, I myself wrote over 300 RP posts under my TFinnegan account, and I was a slacker compared to some in the faction.
And in the end, as RP goes the way of the Dodo, and more and more quality mature RPers leave to be replaced by pew-happy children, the server gets what it deserves, Huggie standing over it waiting for it to burn.
Matches in hand.
Anyways I think people - including Congress - would benefit a lot from letting go of the ad hominems. It's always the "kids", the "pew-happy", the "lolwuts", the "non-rp'ers", the "haters" etc. (and of course, by extension one also also positions oneself as the positive opposite - the "mature", the "roleplayer", "the kind" etc. - when one fires shots like that. It's as prejudist as it is self-serving, so please just don't). What about "fellow members of the community"? What about approaching those players' opinions maturely and free of bias? Maybe they have a point, and if not then surely you can make an argument that attacks their point of view, rather than their person? There are a lot of trading factions with no pews that are well respected and liked, how can that be? Plus Congress operated a bounty board and were frequently involved in PVP... Your argument makes no sense, or it is based on your experiences in '08 - I assure you that what happened in 2014-2015 had nothing to do with "pews" or lack thereof.
If you look at this thread it's fairly obvious that what started out as mild complaints got brushed off by first association ("oh you are in X faction, so that is why your opinion is Y, and that's why it's ok for me to just ignore everything you say"), then critique is interpreted as "envy" and further on "hate to those who succeed in making big clans". Look at pages 19-23 (POB's entering the scene, yay). It just picks up speed from there.
There was a time when Congress was super active, and other players on this server (with a diminishing player count) were eager to see them out of Puerto Rico and out of jump ships so that they could interact and roleplay with the rest of us. Some of us spent our time trying to explain this in a nice and polite manner and in many different ways, also including statistical data, and got our heads chewed off or were just totally disregarded.
When communication breaks down and the ad hominems are instantly thrown around, you eventually annoy people. The total dismissal of any and all critique on super unfair grounds ticks people off - it is frustrating spending your time trying to help, only to get the word "hater" thrown in your face over and over again, while the point you were trying to get across is totally ignored. I mean it's downright laughable to hear "mature" and "Congress" mentioned in the same sentence if you look at those pages. It's like no one in Congress ever stopped to think "hey, what if they are right?" or "what if they don't hate us, what could bring them to have these opinions?" No attempts to understand any of it was ever made, it seems. People that were in a position to actually help either gave up, couldn't be bothered or further isolated Congress by fueling the ever convenient notion that everyone are meanies out to get them.
When you then on top of that have a "non harmful player" admin involved who abuses her position attempt to get Congress out of a terrible bind their stubbornness alone brought them in, and the proof gets leaked so denial is not an option, well then there isn't really much left to do. The faction had to die. It's just too bad there won't be a lesson learned from it, I think no matter what a lot of Congress players will stubbornly insist that all of what happened was a direct result of "pew kids hating on a calm mature trading faction" or some similar fairy-tale.
If that story is so important, then so be it - it is however quite ironic as that tale in my view is the sole reason of Congress' demise.
EDIT:
Disclaimer: I, like every single other person who posted in this thread, never "hated" Congress. Had fun with them in-game too. Etc. etc. etc. No one is spitting on anyone's grave either, let's calm our tits for a moment. Can't believe that this has to be spelled out, but apparently it does.
(08-07-2015, 03:02 AM)Mímir Wrote: When you then on top of that have a "non harmful player" admin involved who abuses her position attempt to get Congress out of a terrible bind their stubbornness alone brought them in, and the proof gets leaked so denial is not an option, well then there isn't really much left to do. The faction had to die. It's just too bad there won't be a lesson learned from it, I think no matter what a lot of Congress players will stubbornly insist that all of what happened was a direct result of "pew kids hating on a calm mature trading faction" or some similar fairy-talee.
I find it amusing that you think a faction had to die because an admin got involved in some RP. As one of only 3 people who know the whole story I can tell you that her involvement was minimal and wildly overblown. You also referenced a leak that told only a small part of the story and was leaked by a player who was trying to influence RP. If you don't know the whole story then don't get involved. This community managed to kill the Congress. There's no need to spit on their grave.
Disclaimer: I was not part of the Congress and have never even had a junker character. Yet some of the most fun I've had in disco has been RP with Congress members.
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Ortog
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