Shockingly Awful Community And Community Management

Aron_Swordmaster

If you've been following the Steam reviews over the last few days, you'll be aware that there's been an incredible collapse into vicious abuse of critics recently, which even more shockingly, the Community Moderation not just encouraged, but actively engaged in.

If ever you were under any doubt about the malign intentions towards anyone who isn't blindly supportive of the game, this week should dispel any doubts.

Let's start with the basic facts.  Unfortunately I have to point to a few private individual's actions for the story to make any sense.

1. Originally a positive review goes up by a user on Steam about Shroud, but doesn't give any reasons any details except they want to socialise in it, and hopes that there's pixies in it one day.
2. The review promptly gets voted down, although no one had responded negatively to it yet; this apparently upsets the user enough to edit the review to put in conspiracy theories about why she's being downvoted, and starts abusing the critics.
   
3. So far, so tedious net drama; but bear with me, there's a legitimate issue ahead. I see this and respond brusquely (see the comments in the wayback above) because it's obvious she's assuming malice where none is intended.
   
4. The user is enraged by this, and proceeds to head to the official forums to create a thread dedicated to abusing me, and encouraging others to do so too. 
   
5. The Community Moderator Berek leaves this thread up, and the only action taken is to remove my name, and say that they don't call people out there.  But leaves the identifying details in, and blames my "intervention" for the lock.  In fact, it's only because numerous people have PM'd me to say they'd already reported this harassment to him that I even knew the thread was there.
   
6. The personal drama that follows is irrelevant, although you can easily find it on /r/shroudoftheavatar_raw;  however the original review gets changed again, this time to negative.  It lists the "unabashedly avaricious lines with its cash shop."  and blames the toxicity of the community for ruining the fun. At which point, all the prior support for the review mysteriously vanishes, and it triggers a wave of slanderous comments from the Portalarium Developer account across multiple reviews...

On the review itself, the Portalarium account says this:

Hi Ushimimi,

We're so sorry to hear that you had a poor experience with the game. We at Portalarium work hard every day to connect with players to try and understand their concerns, ideas, and excitement about Shroud of the Avatar. It is with true sadness that we see your review change this week after being bullied around by others.

Please do reach out to us at any time when you have questions or concerns. We had a great discussion with you earlier about the initial conversations in the official forums, and would love to hear more of your feedback here about the game and community.

We can't build a great community unless it stands on positive community members like yourself! If everyone stops playing after being hassled by the few, then we've lost the battle .

We hope to hear from you and see you in the game again soon!

Notice there's absolutely no reference to the actual content of the review?

It's just an attempt to blame the critics for supposedly bullying her. The "great discussion" they had was the thread personally abusing me.

This would be unprofessional enough, if it wasn't just the beginning of a rampage across the reviews on Steam.  On Jayartee's review, Portalarium said this:

Thanks Jayartee for the kind review! Please be mindful to the toxic comments that come up here. Our apologies there are a few out there that wish to just disrupt everyone's honest feedback . Let us know how we can make the game even better!

And when I corrected this and pointed out we gave honest feedback, but Portalarium were having much more fun encouraging their community to hate us, we then got this:

Unfortunately there are those in the review threads that seek to disrupt positive reviews Jayartee . We thank you again for your kind review, and hope you will look past these disruptions.

Again, the actual review agrees with the criticisms. But the Developers own account is more interested in trying to slander their own former playerbase than actually listen to what even the positive reviews are saying.



See if you can count how many times across the Steam reviews the Dev account appears and attempts to manipulate public perception. And remember that Berek the community mod and one of the artists on the game got caught posting positive Steam reviews without declaring they were staff, whilst Chris Spears then referred to those exact reviews and claimed it showed the game was well received.

With this official support, we also saw a wave of community lead abuse returning to both Reddit and the Steam reviews; The user who threatens people's children and hints Portalarium is helping him do so? Unbanned on the official forums, new proxy sockpuppet on Reddit again cheering the thread Berek left active.

And whilst typing this up, the original Steam review got pulled entirely, because one dishonest individual was going on an unhinged rant about me too, and complaining he'd been "doxxed" because he forgets to change his username elsewhere. Unfortunately I wasn't able to Wayback Machine that quick enough.

But when Portalarium encourages lying and harassment, is it any surprise their community is filled with toxic individuals who indulge in it too?

When I describe Shroud of the Avatar as now effectively a Cult, I truly mean it. From the basic Cultist all the way up to the official voice of Portalarium, they put belief in the Cult before decency, and slandering and destroying critics as somehow a holy duty.

And they'll turn on you the moment you turn on the game.

Which you will, because the basic game is bobbins anyway.

blorpykins

Can't.  Stop.  Watching!

postlarval

blorpykins said:

Can't.  Stop.  Watching!

It really is a train wreck that we can't stop watching.

I'm waiting for all the injured to start screaming and threatening lawsuits due to their "injuries".

ROTFLMAO!!!

Aragon100

A community, developer's and administraitors that act's like a sect and also have effective blindfolders to all negative feedback will not become successful.

postlarval

Aragon100 said:

A community, developer's and administraitors that act's like a sect and also have effective blindfolders to all negative feedback will not become successful.

Well, just make sure you say your prayers and wish this game fails and fails hard, because if it succeeds, other developers may get the idea they can pull off the same shit in the future.

MMO players are the only people who have the power to fix this genre.

Aron_Swordmaster

What staggers the mind is that they're so used to just talking amongst themselves, they have NO IDEA what they sound like to the outside world... all critical facilities seem to atrophied to the point they're incapable of even understanding basic reality any more.

I didn't have too much space to go into the community abuse in the OP, because of the character limit; but the person who finally got the drama-triggering Steam review deleted because of his foaming hatred once tried to argue with me that there was only a single unlootable Sheep corpse in one of my video reviews.



And the above was just ONE SCENE of unlootable corpses; however he honestly seemed to think he could lie and deceive people about something as simple as counting sheep.  Right now they're trying to shut down threads that debate whether the Random Number Generator is broken. Surely addressing bugs will help make the game better for everyone, and bring more people in, right?  And yet protecting their own sense of being supportive, of being on the right side is more important psychologically to them than even accepting what's right there before their eyes.

Which in part explains why game breaking, character killing bugs can still be in the game years after they've been reported; as long as these "testers" can dance on tables and socialise, and rip each other off with RMT, they really don't seem to care all that much about anything else.

And which is why the community moderation doesn't seem to understand how encouraging irrational hatred and witch hunting against critics isn't helping them; they honestly don't seem to realise that anyone outside of their tiny little bubble actually matters.

MightyUnclean

I hear you, man, but listen:  This game isn't worth getting upset over.  It's worth a laugh and a sigh, that's about it.

Tiamat64

postlarval said:

Aragon100 said:

A community, developer's and administraitors that act's like a sect and also have effective blindfolders to all negative feedback will not become successful.

Well, just make sure you say your prayers and wish this game fails and fails hard, because if it succeeds, other developers may get the idea they can pull off the same shit in the future.

MMO players are the only people who have the power to fix this genre.

Well, it's not just about game success.  If Richard Garriot and several others got to pocket a lot of the money (as "employee compensation", even), other developers might decide to do the same thing even if they know the game will fail anyways.

After all, if someone says they'll make a game and then gets a ton of money for saying that, and then only spends some of that money on the game while living it up like kings until the shoe finally drops, is it really true that they lost?  Sure, those last few months sucked, but you can't have everything!

CrazKanuk

postlarval said:

Aragon100 said:

A community, developer's and administraitors that act's like a sect and also have effective blindfolders to all negative feedback will not become successful.

Well, just make sure you say your prayers and wish this game fails and fails hard, because if it succeeds, other developers may get the idea they can pull off the same shit in the future.

MMO players are the only people who have the power to fix this genre.

Not at all!!! This is like believing that because someone survived a skydive without a parachute that EVERYONE is now going to be skydiving without parachutes. Making games is risky, not to mention compounding that by trying to make an MMO which is arguably the most expensive genre to create for. Furthermore, they are relying on their ability to secure third party funding following crowdfunding efforts in order to actually complete the game. 

I can appreciate where you're coming from, but the line of developers hoping to make MMOs is short and it's not going to get longer if this game succeeds. At this point, whether this game succeeds or fails has very little to do with future projects. This should still stand as an example of what can happen when you don't have sufficient contingencies in place at the outset of the project. 

Aron_Swordmaster

Nyctelios said:

Move on, it's healthier. This don't deserve your time and effort.

Except... and here's where it gets genuinely evil, the sociopath inside their community dedicates his life to harassing you in reality, and never stops even if you move on from the game. And Portalarium knows about it, because I've reported it countless times, but they don't touch him because he claims to back the game.

He has spent at least the last 8 months running constant attacks on my email account, that he'll time sync attempts either to dates I'll mention elsewhere I'm supposedly not at the computer, or as you can see in that thread, a sudden celebratory evening of constant attempts when he thinks he can't be caught by the Police.

This is someone who was setting up sock puppets the moment the forums went up, before any of us even became critical. Socks so absolutely blatant he can link to his abuse on his main Shroud account, name me on it (he literally had the equivalent of "I hate User X" as his description on his Shroud profile), and then fake a conversation between his two accounts engaging in it openly and STILL not be moderated by Berek.

This is someone Reddit have tried to remove from their entire site because of his actions, not just against critics of Shroud, but he's known at the Ultima Online forums for endless abuse too. He openly admits in his hate filled, rambling screeds he's trying to hurt people and has hundreds of alt accounts going back years; he's reactivated yet another on Reddit today in fact. If he played the Europa shard, I've a suspicion I know who he was there too; and if so, he's been doing this for decades. He's truly unhinged.

But he's at least careful enough these days to not escalate to measures that would obviously require Police intervention. He hasn't always been.  These days he phrases his comments as "Be a shame if something happened to your children"   and "Who do you think is helping me?": Implied threats but not direct ones, nothing that could get the Police to actually come around and tell him to knock it off... he hopes.

And Portalarium despite being informed of all of this, STILL won't take action to protect their community from him.  Trying to keep every last dollar coming in, and hoping your dedicated backers will just tough it out seems to be their way.

The only way he ever leaves you alone, unfortunately, is when his own inability to stop obsessing destructively on someone latches on to someone new.  As you can see, before me, he was stalking and harassing multiple other people.  But just because it happens to other people doesn't mean I should walk away and say "Phew, I'm safe now".



And that's just what I know of JUST ONE of the sociopaths within the community. 

It's not the person who went to the forums and tried to start a witch hunt against me, that set the Community Mod off on their rampage of abuse, nor is it the hate filled, dishonest individual who can't count sheep and was ranting on the now deleted Steam review because he was finally called out for years of easily traced lies.  Nor is it the organised group who decided to harass me on Steam because I tried to warn one user of an RMT scam, and which Portalarium decided to allow to control the entire Steam discussion forums for months.

It's officially backed harassment. It'll follow you everywhere and anywhere you go because, as one person in that thread admitted openly too, anyone who gets in the way of their ability to make RMT profit is seen as his "enemy".  Portalarium deleted anyone who complained about that language, but left the declaration of people being his "enemy" up.

So even if I gave up trying to fight the good fight... the evil shits just will NOT let up.  That's what happens when you encourage people to not just think you're building their dream game, but tell them they're part of the process of actually building it  and hey, you can even make a living (which you can't do in real life, because you're a toxic hate filled prick) by getting involved in it!

It becomes a Cult instead. And like Scientology, anything and everything which discredits and destroys your "enemies" is on the table for some of them.

Aragon100

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

SEANMCAD

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

Aron_Swordmaster

Nyctelios said:

I think you are taking vague threats too seriously.

You know, the thing about threats is they aim to make you uncomfortable because you care about them. Block those people, report their harassment on respective social medias and just move on with your life.

Did you miss the part where he's named me specifically, declared he is attempting to hurt me, and despite opening two police reports on the criminal actions, he still continues to this day?

And that Portalarium's community mod is openly encouraging it now?

The point is, when I'm under pressure I have a diamond-hard core so I'm not uncomfortable, but Portalarium won't act to protect their community and the only way it's going to end is when he or one of the lunatics they're turning a blind eye towards finally steps back over the line and does something so obvious that law enforcement will be able to prosecute.

But it shouldn't have to come to that.

It will though, because the community moderation puts fund raising the game before their own reputation or the safety of any former backer who becomes critical.

Aron_Swordmaster

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

I think someone who has to have a pre-set of rules for how people who read your replies are allowed to interpret it, that no one is allowed to reply to you if they think you're wrong, but if they do you reserve the right to break your own rules and reply to them as you see fit... and a pre-emptive list of people who are on your ignore list tagged to every post is far more of a problem than someone who comments about something they genuinely believe.

Trying to enforce a single correct perspective, which matches the needs of one person not the wider community sounds a bit... cult like, even.

Oh, and I gave concrete examples of how Shroud's community is verging on the cult like; organised chanted abuse, and denial of basic facts of reality like that 4 is greater than 1.

SEANMCAD

Aron_Swordmaster said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

I think someone who has to have a pre-set of rules for how people who read your replies are allowed to interpret it, that no one is allowed to reply to you if they think you're wrong, but if they do you reserve the right to break your own rules and reply to them as you see fit... and a pre-emptive list of people who are on your ignore list tagged to every post is far more of a problem than someone who comments about something they genuinely believe.

Trying to enforce a single correct perspective, which matches the needs of one person not the wider community sounds a bit... cult like, even.

Oh, and I gave concrete examples of how Shroud's community is verging on the cult like; organised chanted abuse, and denial of basic facts of reality like that 4 is greater than 1.

I think calling members of a commuity that like a game 'a cult' is pointing to the problem. not the other way around. having said that, it is possible that they a cult but its unlikely

please stop taking this so personally.

Octagon7711

So are you responding to his emails or have you just set them to go to your spam folder?

Wizardry

It doesn't just happen there it happens in these forums as well.People don't like you unless you like their game which is pretty darn immature but that is what we have to deal with inside of gaming communities.

How would this ever change if every single person in charge of communities,forums.websites are making money off of these games,answer at eleven....it won't ever change.

I personally don't give a crap what anyone thinks of me,if i say a game is garbage...it is ..your lack of gaming design knowledge will not convince me either way.
Now if i miss something or have yet to play some aspect of a game,that is fine,so i missed some small inkling of good game play,i am not into buying a game  that is 5% quality and 95% garbage.
I know what kind of game Shroud is,it is more like a quality 1995-99 game but for 2017 it is not nearly good enough.They can cry foul all they want,the game is not getting any better by flaming people in forums.
I guess there lies another very big problem,some gamer's seem to think by insulting others it will make their game and community better....good luck on that thought.

alkarionlog

Aron_Swordmaster said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

I think someone who has to have a pre-set of rules for how people who read your replies are allowed to interpret it, that no one is allowed to reply to you if they think you're wrong, but if they do you reserve the right to break your own rules and reply to them as you see fit... and a pre-emptive list of people who are on your ignore list tagged to every post is far more of a problem than someone who comments about something they genuinely believe.

Trying to enforce a single correct perspective, which matches the needs of one person not the wider community sounds a bit... cult like, even.

Oh, and I gave concrete examples of how Shroud's community is verging on the cult like; organised chanted abuse, and denial of basic facts of reality like that 4 is greater than 1.

serious though is any of this is true and you did police reports agaisnt him time to sue.

I normally would just make fun of the little kid, plus the block thing is kinda powerfull thing to do, he only have power if you let him so if you are not willing to scale this properly you should ignore and laught at his face, also btw even not direct threats like this are still considered a crime

Aragon100

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

It's more a group within a group. 

SEANMCAD

Aragon100 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

It's more a group within a group. 

ok...I dont see how that changes my observation any

Kyleran

SEANMCAD said:

Aron_Swordmaster said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

I think someone who has to have a pre-set of rules for how people who read your replies are allowed to interpret it, that no one is allowed to reply to you if they think you're wrong, but if they do you reserve the right to break your own rules and reply to them as you see fit... and a pre-emptive list of people who are on your ignore list tagged to every post is far more of a problem than someone who comments about something they genuinely believe.

Trying to enforce a single correct perspective, which matches the needs of one person not the wider community sounds a bit... cult like, even.

Oh, and I gave concrete examples of how Shroud's community is verging on the cult like; organised chanted abuse, and denial of basic facts of reality like that 4 is greater than 1.

I think calling members of a commuity that like a game 'a cult' is pointing to the problem. not the other way around. having said that, it is possible that they a cult but its unlikely

please stop taking this so personally.

You are taking the literal interpretation of the word cult when he was making a more figurative reference.

SEANMCAD

Kyleran said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aron_Swordmaster said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

I think someone who has to have a pre-set of rules for how people who read your replies are allowed to interpret it, that no one is allowed to reply to you if they think you're wrong, but if they do you reserve the right to break your own rules and reply to them as you see fit... and a pre-emptive list of people who are on your ignore list tagged to every post is far more of a problem than someone who comments about something they genuinely believe.

Trying to enforce a single correct perspective, which matches the needs of one person not the wider community sounds a bit... cult like, even.

Oh, and I gave concrete examples of how Shroud's community is verging on the cult like; organised chanted abuse, and denial of basic facts of reality like that 4 is greater than 1.

I think calling members of a commuity that like a game 'a cult' is pointing to the problem. not the other way around. having said that, it is possible that they a cult but its unlikely

please stop taking this so personally.

You are taking the literal interpretation of the word cult when he was making a more figurative reference.

Yes and would such use of words fall into the category of non-toxic or toxic?

BruceYee

I noticed that they are locking threads on Steam too. I didn't know games had the power to do that cause I've never seen it done before. Even some of the trashiest games didn't/don't lock threads so these guys doing that speaks volumes about the way they deal with their critics.

Kyleran

Aron_Swordmaster said:

Nyctelios said:

I think you are taking vague threats too seriously.

You know, the thing about threats is they aim to make you uncomfortable because you care about them. Block those people, report their harassment on respective social medias and just move on with your life.

Did you miss the part where he's named me specifically, declared he is attempting to hurt me, and despite opening two police reports on the criminal actions, he still continues to this day?

And that Portalarium's community mod is openly encouraging it now?

The point is, when I'm under pressure I have a diamond-hard core so I'm not uncomfortable, but Portalarium won't act to protect their community and the only way it's going to end is when he or one of the lunatics they're turning a blind eye towards finally steps back over the line and does something so obvious that law enforcement will be able to prosecute.

But it shouldn't have to come to that.

It will though, because the community moderation puts fund raising the game before their own reputation or the safety of any former backer who becomes critical.

 "There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard.- Kill Bill 2 Quote."

Walk away and don't look back, no game is worth even the possibility of harm to you or your family.

Octagon7711

BruceYee said:

I noticed that they are locking threads on Steam too. I didn't know games had the power to do that cause I've never seen it done before. Even some of the trashiest games didn't/don't lock threads so these guys doing that speaks volumes about the way they deal with their critics.

When ESO first came to Steam, ESO was getting trashed by none Steam players who had the game.  They locked down the forum so only those who purchased the game from Steam could post.  I think it's still like that to this day.

Aragon100

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

SEANMCAD said:

Aragon100 said:

Seems to be some really insane people in that SotA cult.

I feel for you.

I think describing a group of people who like a specific game a 'cult' in any context at all makes you the problem not them

It's more a group within a group. 

ok...I dont see how that changes my observation any

Definition of cult

5a :  great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book) criticizing how the media promotes the cult of celebrity; especially :  such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult

Satisfied?

There is a cult like group within the followers of SotA, most of them have invested a huge amount of money into the game.

Why they act like a cult? Afraid of a bad investment? Afraid developers listen to others that have a different opinion on how the game should proceed? 

My guess is they binded together towards the one's that wanted a other game. Many features weren't decided after kickstarter and developers claimed they should listen to their community (was a lie)

Many early backer's believed in Garriott's word when he claimed this game will be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online, a UO2. Many oldschool UO PvP players were among the early founders of the game and they had a strong mind on where the game should go on the SotA forums.

This where developer's made the fundamental mistake, they rather listened to the very few funder's that had invested huge amounts of real life money. Administrators began to act differently towards the oldschool PvP players, more frequently ban them, closed their threads after the whales derailed them. 

A very vocal part of the community over at SotA forums had both the developer's and moderators on their side. These were mainly the one's that were not specifically interested in PvP, full loot or a combat system that actually demanded some skills from the player - you know as UO did.

So from within they managed to get their type of game and same time managed to remove the majority of player's that wanted a UO2 game. They quit.

Since many features weren't decided after kickstarter (PvP and combat system among others) and Garriott and friends told they were listening to the majority of their community and the game were a spiritual successor to Ultima Online many oldschool UO players felt betrayed by the developers.

Garriott took their money and laughed all the way to the bank.

That is also why there are so many legit negative feedback towards this game. Developer's have treated alot of people bad and now they are paying the price.

Karma is a bitch wouldn't you agree?