Well, since I've been banned from something awful and probated for a month as well to prevent anyone from reregistering my account I figure this is probably the best place to clear the air with regards to what has happened from my perspective:
The concept behind "Mojave Ist Krieg! TRVE KVLT New Vegas" was an idea that had been gestating in my head even longer than the Dragon Age 2 Let's Play. I chose to undertake Dragon Age 2 first because, let's face it, it was a way funnier, more accessible idea, while an LP based around Black Metal esoterica clearly had a very specialized audience at best.
Ultimately, my motivation behind creating the thread was a thought experiment: what would happen if I created a thread that was the antithesis of the Dragon Age 2 LP, one that took the game seriously, displayed clear amounts of effort, and lacked the irreverent, rule-baiting attitude that had made the first thread such a target for mod ire? How would the Let's Play purists go after me then? What excuses would the moderators make to punish me?
I want to be clear: I had no anticipation of completing that thread. I fully expected the moderators to ban me Because I Was Shadow Isaac. What I was interested in seeing was what justification they could hope to provide.
Needless to say, they had none. Ozma could not link to an offending post to ban me because there was no offending post. I made every effort to obey the rules and was nothing but courteous in encouraging the readers to keep the thread on track following my probation. In fact, aside from Zorak's little tempest in a teacup over the word "negro" where he claimed it was a "racial epithet" there was no content in updates that could be considered banworthy by anything but the most dextrous mental gymnastics. I was banned because the games moderation staff, especially Zorak, had targeted me as their scapegoat for "rule-breaking" everywhere, and for that reason Ozma Was Sick Of Me.
I don't know what's going to happen to Zorak's "zany" plans to send the thread to FYAD instead of gassing it, and quite honestly I don't care. (Frankly, I do hope it happens, poor Ceciltron will be so disappointed otherwise. He begged Zorak to unlock the thread and send it to FYAD once I locked it the first time. And as Zorak has stated, gassing threads is his fetish.)
Will the New Vegas LP continue? I don't know. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I can tell you one thing for certain however: it won't continue on Something Awful. It's been made thoroughly clear that My Presence Is Not Welcome. The only reason I can imagine that I haven't been permabanned at this point is because the administration hopes to somehow extract more money from the people who bought me avatars and unbans, because lord knows I haven't spent a cent on that forum myself.
Thought Experiment, the best reason to do ANYTHING! Why spend 2 days analyzing the faults of a story, planning a way to patch it up while keeping it 'hypothetically profitable' while still keeping the structure mostly intact (That's FFXII btb, mthough also for FE6)? Thought Experiment!
ReplyDeleteAnyway it was worth it, simply to see how petty the moderation staff is and how much they think their power in a forum about people playing games makes them internet strong. Zorak's one funny LP was Pokemon Quartz, and he just did Chorocojo's style for that, which is hilarious when he began crying when other Pokemon LPs were done in that style.
We at the SA forumz take LPin super serrous.
ReplyDeleteI had fun and wish you could have stayed Shadow Isaac, you were a cool dude.
Wow, if Xander77s serious I wonder how long until the mods just gas the New Vegas thread, even if other LPers take it over. My guess? almost immediately. Banning everyone involved and giving Stanley Woo the biggest boner in the world.
ReplyDeleteThread got locked, so much for that idea.
DeleteApparently Zorak opened it again to get in the last word, the promptly locked it again.
DeleteI'm actually excited to read Zorak's post for the first time. I think I will wait a little, preparing to savour it like a fine wine.
The greatest part, the absolute greatest part, is when he says that me asking people not to report people trying to shit up the thread was "VERY" banworthy, then goes on immediately afterwards, without a trace of irony, and says that whiteknighting the LP (which I asked people not to do,) and reporting people for attacking an LP/me because they don't like the premise of the LP (which I asked people not to do,) are bannable offenses.
DeleteThe funniest part, to me, is that people were objecting to the fact that you were roleplaying as a real-life racialist arsonist murderer, and the thing is that if you're playing Varg you're seriously just playing a normal member of Caesar's Legion. So what they're saying is that nobody should ever do a Caesar's Legion playthrough ever, because that's objectionable content.
ReplyDeleteSI, I just have to say you are one of the best LPers I've ever seen. You didn't do a DA2 LP, or a New Vegas LP- you did an LP of the LP subforum itself, forming a meta narrative where an upstart young LPer rose to prominence, was suppressed by the regressive ruling elite, and then threw it back in their face. They obviously had a script where they would ban you at the first offense you committed, and when you didn't do it, they got flustered, said "fuck it," and banned you anyway. Reason for banning: not providing suitable justification for banning you.
ReplyDeleteAnd, in the process of this wonderful, wonderful LP, you exposed the moderating team for what they really are: a bunch of petty nerds who got their grubby little hands on some imaginary authority and used it to ignore their own rules and ban anyone who criticized them. Just like every other internet forum.
Well for what it's worth, a lot of us enjoyed the adventures of Griskch-Grishckn-Grishna... however the fuck you say that stupid name, and would be willing to keep watching here.
ReplyDeleteShine on, you crazy LP diamond.
Hahaha, Zorak quoted Rentrent (the guy who got probated for bitching nonstop in PYF about Shadow Isaac) in his post in that thread.
ReplyDeleteSI I don't know what you even did to rentrent, Zorak et al but their tears combined could fill an ocean.
So i'm curious about what exactly a ban and a probation entail. Can you still access threads, but can no longer post in them, or can you not even do that? I ask because given the current state of LP moderation and enforced groupthink, it's pretty obvious that one can be banned simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't want to stuff another 10 dollars into Lowtax's filthy pockets if possible, just so I can stay up to date with the Gamecenter CX thread and the 5-6 LP threads I actually follow.
ReplyDeleteZorak is truly the worst of the Games moderators.
ReplyDeleteIn high school terms:
AxeManiac is the fat, out of place nerd who means well, so you let him hang out with the crowd, even though he can be very socially awkward and everyone kinda ends up rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth about him at some point or another.
LouisGod is just the bland nerd, who's kinda cool when you're just hanging out together, but in a group he's basically a wallflower.
Zoolooman is the rich kid who's always talking about His Father The Doctor (or, in real life, His Job At Valve, He Works For Valve), and he's basically a complete retard bitch whose opinions about D&D Rulesets and Tolkien vs. Lovecraft (or, in real life, TF2 class balance) are completely space-case shitbasket insane, but he lets people use his in-ground swimming pool during the summer so he's kinda tolerated.
Zorak is basically Budnick from Salute Your Shorts. He's an obnoxious, pretentious, sanctimonious little twerp who even tries to bully the other kids until the entire group turns on him. If the group is at an anime con, he's the one harassing little kids and breaking car windows when everyone else is just trying to walk to Burger King for a midnight snack. He tries to act like Beavis but he's nowhere near as funny and far less cool. People generally ditch him whenever possible. One-on-one, he insists on trying to spread false rumors about the other nerds in the group, even though nobody believes a word he says. Given moderation powers, he is eager to get up on his high horse and play Internet King.
tl;dr is that Zorak is a fucking bitch. I think he's like 17, too, so that may have something to do with why he's so unrepetantly petty. Games is a fun place to post, but I avoid any thread he posts in - he expresses himself like a petulant, snide, self-righteous little shit, and then gets really offended when people respond in kind. It's more than just hypocrisy - it's complete ignorance of his own responsibility in setting the tone of conversation. If you go up to someone and start talking "street", don't wig out when they start talking street too.
Also your New Vegas LP sucked and wasn't very good and was bad and also dumb, but I think that of most LPs. DA2 at least seemed to provoke some interesting discussion.
Is Zorak really 17? Do you have a source for that information? It would certainly explain a lot of his behavior, I just can't imagine that they'd allow a kid to moderate a subforum.
ReplyDeleteUnless he has been moderating the boards since he was 11, then no.
DeleteJudging from his BAAAW NO U post, it seems to me he's been 11 for years.
DeleteSeriouly, just banning Shadow Isaac without explanation other than I don't like you was probably the way the mods could have taken.
DeleteThen Zorak has to go and act like a little baby. It's like he and dignity are complete opposites.
This post has to be one of the saddest things I've read this week.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I always enjoy reading posts from people who are butthurt over getting banned from SA for any reason because they always try to spin it as "AHA, the joke's on you, for I was the puppet-master all along!" and it never works in their favor.
Though I suppose that, based on this post and its comments, this is what one calls a "cult of personality."
You're crucially wrong on one point: I don't give a shit about being banned from SA. I never did. I went in knowing it's a horrible forum and I'm sorry for all the people who spent money on my account. Except the guy who gave me MW2. That was great.
DeleteFeel free to continue defending the actions of your "benevolent dictators" however.
If you'll excuse the concern-troll wording, what is it about SA that makes it a horrible forum, in your opinion?
DeleteI can't vouch for Shadow Isaac or anyone else, but it's kind of obvious by now that SA--or the Let's Play subforum, at least--is basically the BioWare Social Board, only you have to pay to register.
DeleteSounds pretty horrible to me.
It uses the same business model as Scientology. What more do you need? :P
DeleteTo answer your question Imperious, Something Awful is a barely functional trainwreck of a forum whose terrible coding is the stuff of legend where you have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for basic features that are absolutely free on virtually every other forum on the internet.
DeleteThe forum culture itself is a delusional struggle to retain some illusion of relevance in the face of countless other sites such as reddit and 4chan growing far more popular that it ever was not to mention Lowtax's chronic inability to monetize the site, coupled with a bizarre Stockholm syndrome that obligates the posters to buy into the moderators' cult of personality or be banned for mod-sass. Zorak actually stated that the something awful forums are "at best a benign dictatorship," so essentially it amounts to thousands of posters willingly paying to be held to the arbitrary whims of a group of socially broken malcontents whose poor life decision-making skills are quite frankly the stuff of legend.
Registering for something awful is probably one of the most pointless wastes of money on the internet, because at this point you are essentially paying them money for the "privilege" of to continuing to pay them, because rest assured, that's all you are to them: an ATM. They don't give a shit about the community anymore, gooncon is dead and it's not coming back, and Smashmouth Eat Teh Eggs only happened because of Twitter, not because of any relevance SA or FYAD still hold for the internet at large.
So why did you sign up? Aren't there other sites where you could've posted the DA 2 LP?
DeleteI was given an account by another SA poster so that I could post this on SA. He figured that would get me the biggest possible audience for this, and he was probably right.
DeleteBecause like it or not? SA is still the most notable place to put a LP, because that part gets the most exposure. Even if it wasn't the forums itself, there's still the Archive.
DeleteSo you'll have hundreds of people sitting and watching threads without signing up. Sometimes you just want people to see what you're doing. I know if I was going to do an LP I would rather do it on there than off it.
Zorak "Combine this with the shitty posters who don't understand our rules (it's not against the rules in LP to be critical of an LP, it IS against the rules to whiteknight an LP, do dramatic callouts, and veer off topic)."
ReplyDeleteI would love to see Zorak's reaction if 5-10 people turned up in his inane look its a fish LP and gave any sort of sincere commentary.
The LP subforum is host to retsuprae which is honestly the most low effort, low content, low humour MST3K bullshit I have ever heard of. When the sandcastle thread found out about an anime con having a lets play convention half the people seemed to want to do their own.
I also find the comparing of Khad to Shadow Isaac deliciously ironic. Slowbeef was doing one of his many metroid revamp LPs the same time Khad got hounded out of the forum for doing his thief LP. Both LPs were shitty, had shitty people playing them, who frequently got lost or had little idea on what they should be doing. The only real difference was Slowbeef having "hilarious" guest LP superstars half of whom seemed more goony than Khad.
His reaction no doubt would be to brush off their commentary by claiming that they're obviously members of the Shadow Isaac/Deceased Krab/Former Enemy sycophancy squad and thus their comments are both irrelevant and ban worthy.
DeleteI've been bumming around the interwebs for quite a long time now and it never fails to amuse me how SA has apparently deluded itself into believing it has some form of propriety now. SA has always been a troll filled shithole, the only difference between the SA of now as compared to say, the SA of 10 years ago, is that 4chan is around to be an even BIGGER shithole by comparison.
Eh, at least 4Chan is honest about it's shittyness. SA tries to pretend it's superior whereupon it's really run by a bunch of children
DeleteI think that the mere existence of Book Barn makes SA worse than 4chan, but I like books better than people, so that may have coloured my opinion.
Delete4chan is better than SA, actually.
Delete- no monthly "join our forums" screen if you're not logged in
- no registration fee
- lots of artbook scans to download (IF you find the right thread, that is)
- trolls and/or shit posters are generally too busy saging threads to ruin meaningful discussions
- no Feinne LPs (ok, this was totally uncalled for)
Not gonna lie, this made me a little angry.
ReplyDeleteThis LP (DA2) was the sole reason I ever decided to visit the SA forums.
It made me laugh, it still makes me laugh, and I will forever harbor feelings for ~the Arishok~ because of it.
The only reason I even stopped to look at your NV LP was because it was done by you, and I was not disappointed. I had myself a few good laughs. And I was genuinely confused as to how YOU were the one banned when you were staying polite and trying to abide by forum rules, but stupid fuck-trolls were left alone.
It's a "mod lets power go to their head" problem is what it is.
Here's to hoping you don't stop LPing things because of that bullshit, because I think your stuff is pretty fucking funny.
IMHO the whole subscription fee/frequent banning is just a ruse to raise more money. They'd love for SI to come back under a different account and happily accept his cash.
ReplyDeleteHopefully we get some momentum for a new LP board that removes all the sanctimonious pricks from SA.
There is one forum for it. Some of the goons are there, some of the youtube wankers are there. Fuck if I remember what it was called.
DeleteGods this page is hilarious though. Shadow Isaacs' DA2 LP was the right shade of shit for a terrible videogame. You were trolling the game and us and good trolling is still appreciated by a lot of people on the forums. Of course the mods didn't like it, they're mods, but then you just fucking move on. It's when you took a genuinely good game and tried to LP it like a fucking idiot that the little monkeys in charge of LP decided they'd had enough. The fact that they are idiots does not change that you were a bigger one.
Seriously, the whole idea behind the LP was fucking shit. "Let's kill everything with a norwegian death metal idiot named after an Orc from LOTR, durrr". When the fucking Tipping 40s make a better LP than you you know you are in a tier of shit rarely seen outside the confines of youtube hypercam LPs.
Both of the sides of this little drama are idiots, but at least we got rid of you and some of your shittier fans. We're still stuck with Slowbeef and Zorak and the rest of their circlejerk, but most of the time they spend their time sucking each others dicks by themselves. So, uh, business as usual again.
Technically it is a good showing about how you can kill everyone in New Vegas and still get to the end. I mean I personally don't play that way because I'm a goody two-shoes to the extreme. I don't think the LP ever got time for me to decide if I loved it or hated it. I only really hate the moderators for being dicks.
DeleteThen again you're entitled to your opinions on the LP and people so SHOOP-DOOP-BAWOOP
Same here; for whatever reason I almost always pick the "good boy" options(*). Seeing a "douchebag to the extreme" LP would have been interesting, especially in a game where apparently you can actually go and kill shit (hi there, immortal quest-giving Skyrim NPCs).
DeleteThe fact that it was based on an actual person was even better IMO. Sort of a "what would you do if you were in X game?", only with "a murderous psychopath" replacing the "you" part.
...granted, the "negro" part was just the thing Zorak & co were waiting for: zOMG this LP is racist like that one time SI used "gyp" as a synonym for "steal" and hell broke loose because someone other than SI said that gypsies are subhuman or whatever.
I'd call it an oversight on Shadow Issac's part, but he mentioned it's exactly what he wanted, so...
(*) giving Isabela to the Qunari is good, because she likes to fuck and the Qunari are all muscular manly men; giving Fenris to Danarius is also good, because he'll get a memory wipe and be happy with his sadistic molester for the rest of his life; slaughtering both parts in the Sandral-Matale feud in KOTOR1 might not very goodish but it sure is fun to watch.
oh DA2 was the exception to my "Good Guy" run. I want you to consider something, I consider Party Members to be the greatest premium ever when talking about RPGs, before weapons, money, experience, Party Members are the most limited resource and I collect them obsessively, and even I took every option I could to get rid of everyone in DA2. And I REVELED in it! I felt sick even doing a quick run through in DA:O to unlock the blood mage specialization, even knowing I
DeleteA. Wasn't going to continue that game and
B. Was never going to pick those options again.
And yet I still felt disgusted with myself for picking those options.
No, the bad written fuckers in DA2 deserved every bad thing I did to them, They were the first party members to make me feel pure, white hot loathing.
I like how people presume that they knew everything that was going to happen in the LP based off of the first 2 updates.
DeleteAlso, like somehow this "one-joke" LP was in any way worse than the godawful Gordon Freeman RP Fallout 3 LP that made it to the archives.
DeleteAFAIK churches in New Vegas are fireproof, so I figured Count Grishnackh would kill every NPC out of frustration.
DeleteAnd the...Gordon Freeman RP Fallout 3 LP...?
Oh...oh, wow. It really exists.
Unfortunately it was Bobbin who did it, I say Unfortunately because he did an excellent Quest for Glory LP and I'm liking his Academagia one (Even if the game itself is about as penetrable as an adamant vagina)
Delete