So Aloha has obviously been dying, BnS is dead now too. Do you want to know why this happened? Well with facts that I have gathered from disgruntled staff, BK’s, and my former experience as staff, I will let you know what I know. Before I say this, I feel really bad for Izzy as he has tried so hard to keep this forum up and running. I also feel really bad for good staff members, such as MuffinTastic, Nathan, Israellee, FalleN, FerrrariFlunker, Pun, Chase, BR and Froelich131. I feel bad for all the staff who have tried to help these forums get better and failed. I may have forgotten some of you but you haven’t gone unnoticed.
Firstly, we haven’t bothered to expand to any other games. That’s one of the reasons that this forum is dying, but there’s better ones yet. How does this affect aloha? Simple. Lack of new players being thrown into the mix of things, and just waiting for people to stumble upon the game and these forums. We never were aggressive with the other games that we went into and expanded into, and the support for the games dropped like flies since it wasn’t Ace of Spades.
Secondly, the staff of this website is broken, and in some cases corrupt. I can affirm from being a staff member that there are people who cause issues who are still staff since they’re considered “Veterans”. Basically nobody gets a fresh scope, which is why Guards are always getting beat up, even if an older staff member does the exact same thing. Also, there are instances where the staff would go out and call up inactive staff to trash applications for Trusted and Guard. I personally witnessed trashing of Trusted applications, and I was told by multiple admins, AND 2 BK’S, that staff applications suffer the same problems, especially guard ones. You know how they filibuster stuff in the government? They basically do that and gather inactive staff who don’t care for Aloha to vote on the application, often drawing upon age old issues that are no longer concurrent with whats happening now. Also, they don’t look at your trusted applications at all if they don’t know you. Yeah. There are literally hundreds of people who needed trusted who lost it because the staff “Didn’t know them”. There are also cases where staff members will purposely go after someone they don’t like, and argue with you to make you look like an asshole so they can trash your application. Unrelated, but a good portion of the staff belong to the same clan and friend group.
Oh and how do I know that there are staff who actively cooperate to trash Guard apps? Easy! There are BKs and admins who told me my entire application word for word and post by post. Getting someone to vote on an application is necessary sometimes, but some people completely trash applications because of personal vendettas. It’s happened to more than one person too, especially in trusted apps.
The rules of this website are nonexistant. Flaming, flame baiting, and many other things happen. Additionally, people do not get banned for the mentioned things on the forums. The last time there was a forum ban, I don’t even remember. The rules for the game are even worse. The forums have adopted a forgive all policy, as long as they’re (the hacker) honest. There was someone with NO LESS THAN SEVEN BAN APPEALS who was playing the game. They got banned, came here to appeal, and went on their merry way. The lack of rules has chased off a lot of staff and players alike. In addition to this, there are some “Veteran” staff who are often above the rules, and actively go out to troll people with their friends. The staff is in dire need of a massive overhaul, and allows inactive staff who become active again for 1 day to vote on the applications of people who need to hear back.
Also here’s what it’s like being a guard. You will be abused, and I know the situation hasn’t gotten better, because I have access to the guard ban reports still. There are currently over 300 guard bans which haven’t been answered. Here’s what being a guard means, in a nutshell:
- You will be used in place of admins, who will not look at your reports unless you spam the IRC, and then they get mad at you for being ambitious
- You have literally no power over hackers who ban evade. Good luck!
- You will be tested to the extreme when someone doesn’t like you. Prepare to be trolled to the max, and prepare to deal with instances of stupid votekicks.
- You will not go up because to go up you need to devote all 24 hours a day 7 days a week to catching hackers to even have a hope of advancing, since the staff, even the inactive staff, are considered staff until retired.
- No matter if you do something another admin does, even for fun or to joke with a friend like they sometimes do, you’re wrong
- You have a better chance of getting an abuse report answered.
- They don’t care about what happens to you in reality.
Typically a guard then comes under fire for not wanting to ban anyone, and if they don’t pick it up, posting useless reports that don’t get looked at, they get dismissed. There are staff members who try so hard to do these but even the most adamant and truly helpful staff members can’t do anything about it because there are so many reports. The higher staff has started to stop caring.
Well, here you go, this is basically everything I said, simplified:
1: The staff have in the past, and from what I understand, still are turning on each other and arguing. I have access to the Aloha staff channel but I don’t bother going in there again
2: Major breaches of the admin rules, committed by several staff members, unfortunately, the bulk of who are Komrades.
3: Rigging apps, people to fail, and calling in the inactive staff to trash applications.
4: Lack of rules on the forums
5: Lack of banning people like we used to
6: Guards are the equivalent of a terminal lance, but even worse. At one point I had 50 unanswered reports in the MW list.
7: Continuing that above pointer, guards are viewed as expendable and nobody wants to review their reports.
8: Continuing with pointer 3, there are staff who are veterans who cause issues and have been called out for it, yet nothing happens because of favoritism
9: The Moderators and Admins aren’t doing what they need to anymore, just ask anyone on CSMaps, the Guards can’t keep up with it
10: There are admins who are trying their best and nobody else wants to help them
11: The second biggest pointer, we won’t expand to other games with any sort of backbone. We tried Minecraft, Terraria and more, and yet they all failed because lack of administrative support.
Oh and the biggest pointer. Several somewhat pissed off staff members who helped me build that, including BK’s. That’s right. MULTIPLE BK’s. The good staff is very frustrated with this website and what it’s become, and because of how the staff operates, Izzy cannot do much about it without overhauling everything, and going against what he originally said. Oh also, I can’t get banned and this post cannot be deleted as it is not against the rules. This isn’t a leak or a hack of information either, as I have been included in the Staff document with editing rights since 2013, and while I mentioned it, nobody took the editing rights away from me either. I did not use names, I did not talk about certian people. I have a right to speak the truth here.
As for any arguments against this, your opinion does not matter. That’s a very harsh thing to say, but everything I said above here are facts. Well except for one thing, I get that some of us run “Grandma Rigs” but I’m running an i7 and GTX 1060 and I will still play AoS in addition to other games. As for any Moderator or above staff who might reply “Where is the proof”, I don’t have to supply it because you either have access to it or you know how well this operates. To the guards, and good staff, I’m sorry. You guys are so hard working and you try so hard. If someone asks what there is to fix this, I’ve already said it multiple times. Just remember, if this topic gets deleted or I get banned, or both, it’s because there should be some extremely embarassed staff members. I’ve had my faults, I’ve been a bad person in the past, I’ve done stupid things but the one right thing that I do I do not want to go unnoticed.
