2018-10-05 04:08:03

It would be pretty hard to make this kind of stuff up. I for sure will never be touching the game again. I certainly did not give them any money.

https://old.reddit.com/r/MUD/comments/8 … n/#content

2018-10-05 04:31:55

That admin sounds like an absolutely wonderful person... If by wonderful person you mean it would be wonderful to see their shattered teeth on the ground

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2018-10-05 04:48:06

Christ on a crutch, damn well yeah, what to even say.

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End racism
End division
Become united

2018-10-05 04:55:05

Ummm, what the actual crap!
Guess who's not playing that mud ever again, not that I ever played it much in the first place.

fantasy world creationist

2018-10-05 05:02:45

that sounds completely awful! if that admin was an admin of my game and I found out, I would ban him for ever. I can't believe all this. its, just, why? it makes me wonder about all the other muds out there...

2018-10-05 05:42:57

Holy cow! this sounds insane!

Its odd I've always found the community to be a really nice bunch on there, but have no experience of the admins so goodness knows.

I can't say a certain "I'll never play this mud again!" since I am pretty sure there are others working on the game, but I will think very carefully about whether to give them any money or not.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-05 05:59:49

i agre with you dark; after hearing this, I'm probably gonna be a lot more careful about giving anyone money.

2018-10-05 06:29:43

so what i understand from this is that the guy was a gay and admins didn't love him and simply wanted to use him for his money yeah?

2018-10-05 06:39:49

no not exactly...

2018-10-05 07:39:39

On the one hand, this sounds like a down right disturbing,  and likely abusive relationship perpetrated by one or other of the admins on an  impressionable young adult, and makes said admin sound like a seriously messed up person.

On the other hand, the fact that said abusive relationship was occurring makes me wonder how much of the direct criticisms of the game, the way its run, the way updates are written or indeed the other staff members can be taken at face value.

Certainly I saw no evidence of this on the occasions I've played, though equally I did not interact with any major admin level players either, also from what I gathered there have been a fair few updates to the game, though whether indeed these are as the poster stated merely cash grab schemes, selling trinkits at exorbitant prices, or whether they constitute new systems and events in the game I don't know.

As I said previously, it wouldn't make me not want to play the game, but it would make me think very carefully  whether I do or do not wish to devote money to it should I start playing again.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-05 13:23:21

could someone copy the text of whatever your talking about, the site doesn't like my comp, I wanta know what yall are talking about! or just explain it if you want.

----------
“Yes, sir. I am attempting to fill a silent moment with non-relevant conversation.”
“You don’t tell me how to behave; you’re not my mother!”
“Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.” – Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

2018-10-05 14:17:55

Oh my god, like... really. I honestly got even more paranoid than before. Not going to play any fucking MMORPG for quite a long time.
But that topic should've risen another one, but I will create it after I'll take some deep breaths as really, this made my day fucked.

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2018-10-05 15:54:44

I hope those sorry bastards rot in hell for eternity. What concerns me is the fact that I used to subscribe to this mud and mom and I both thought that the price was more than steep just for a monthly subscription, at the time, $25.00 or so I believe it was. I eventually quit the game and canceled my subscription but came back a bit later on when I had read that they'd gone free to play. I did come back and got bored rather quickly and left and haven't been back since, and after reading this garbage, I will never ever again set foot in that mud. I hope it dries up. I've created a new character on clok and I can easily see why you all love it so much. Those are a wonderful and friendly bunch of folks to roleplay with and I'm already getting the hang of how to survive in the world. I'm also looking forward to starmourn to come out. Have a wonderful day and I have definitely learned my lesson about pay to play muds. Thank you for posting this for us all to read and learn from.

2018-10-05 16:46:35

Apparently, sponsorships are gone and he brought back subscriptions again because no one's playing. I wonder why. Iron Realms is your best bet for this high quality type mud with a CEO that doesn't take advantage of his players. Iron Realms is Pay to Win, not Pay to Play. Iron Elite is a bit much but if Starmourn is that good and I love it that much, I'd be willing to pay it.

2018-10-05 17:17:04

p2w is worse than p2p 
i wonder if the guy made it all up himself, because you know, who would travel to another country because of an admin!

2018-10-05 17:21:24

That's just really disturbing. I definitely won't be playing that MUD ever again.

#FreeTheCheese
"The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

2018-10-05 17:27:56

Starmourn will be good, I think there's no question about that, but will they pull the same crap as other Ironrealm P2W shit? I think they will. I will try it, but if its like that, I'm out. I don't expect anything to change though.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2018-10-05 19:17:29

This is probably the most I've ever read into any Ironrealms stuff. I'm keeping interest in Starmourn, but yeah there's something to be said for this literally being the first sub I've seen in relation to them. I'm glad that guys slowly getting his life back together though. Just damn.

2018-10-05 19:38:01

@ironcross32, if your issue is with the artifacts etc, I imagine there'll be something like that in Starmourn. I'm just going to ignore that, however if I really like Starmourn enough to actively play it, Iron Elite seems like a convincing compromise if I absolutely need credits.

2018-10-05 21:02:59

Hi,

darn, this is indeed pretty disturbing. I have played this game for an extensive time and also was subscribed as a gold member for several months, and my contact with cornelius actually was pretty good, he didn't appeared as odd as is described on redit to me. I was creating a small soundpack for vip for it as well, but this post on redit, really makes me wondering if it is worth it to get back to it. Probably, when this news settled some more, i will probably pop in there again, but on how the stakes are now, i don't think i will get back. And should i get back, then i am definately hesitant to subscribe again.

Greetz mike

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2018-10-05 23:30:58

AlirezaNosrati wrote:

i wonder if the guy made it all up himself, because you know, who would travel to another country because of an admin!

Actually,  people finding international relationships over mutual interest, be that from games or whatever is more common than you'd think.
I met my own wife on a mailing list about books, and she swapped countries to be with me. A good friend of mine met her husband whilst she administered a forum about playstation rpgs, and subsequently moved countries to be with him, so yes, this sort of thing does happen, though manifestly how well it works out depends upon the scumminess of the person involved.

'that the writer of the redit went through an abusive relationship with Genesis the admin I don't doubt, but whether his subsequent blistering critique of Avalon is entirely bias free or should be taken at face value I am less sure of, after all those who have been in abusive situations certainly are not able to be rational about situations which remind them of their abuse, and with some of the references to drugs and homelessness it is also possible the poster has other issues, ---- -which isn't to say I don't believe him, just that his rational assessment about the quality of a game project with multiple developers which has been in development for nearly thirty years may not be entirely reasonable.

My own experiences of the game, and those I've heard from others have been very positive, likewise there have been updates which add to the game or include free events that are not  related to trinket sales or the like, EG the complete revamping of the new player experience recently.
And don't forget that we had an Avalon Staffer actually contact this forum in 2015 requesting! that we help them make their game more screen reader friendly and being generally incredibly helpful.


I can also say on a personal level Avalon has always deeply impressed me as a game with the quality of its writing and many of its mechanics, even if I've found it bloody hard to get into and its got many systems and aspects I really want to explore in more detail.

I wouldn't recommend boycotting Avalon or similar, but I would recommend people play the game cautiously, be certain what they are expending purchices on, and of course don't go changing countries to move in with Genesis big_smile.

One of the ironies in this particular debate, is this criticism (damning though it is), is probably the most serious I've heard of Avalon. Most views of the game I've heard have been positive, where as Ironrealms I've heard both extremely negative, and extremely positive opinions of in the past.

I probably need to try one or other ironrealms game to make my own mind up, albeit there is so much to play out there already big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-06 19:44:51

Hello.


@Fox, here you go.


Hey there...
So I've made posts here occasionally concerning Avalon, in the past. I was a loyal player for nigh on ten years, and this post is basically the story of how I lost my faith in the realm, and more specifically, the admins running it. I'll refrain from using their real names here and just go by their deity names.
For the last 5ish years, I took a more serious turn in life by choosing to go and live with the admins who were, at the time, living in Portugal. I was fresh out of high school and I had never met any of them in person, though I had known Genesis online, intimately, since I had turned seventeen. My parents didn't trust him at all because they thought he was a paedophile who basically preyed on me and turned me gay - but that's a story for another time.
I travelled alone, out of the country, and in doing so (though I didn't realise it at the time), gave up any future plans for continuing my education...
Looking back now, years later, I realise that this was the first of many bad choices I made in life. When I arrived, I had the surprise of finding out both the admins were hardcore drug addicts who had been hooked on fentanyl for three years straight as well as ritalin/adderall, nicotine, and a bunch of other pills and narcotics I never bothered to remember for many years even before that. They practically owned their own pharmacy.
I also happened to arrive at a time that Avalon was nearing the end of its lifespan, and that meant very little to no income. (I was of course never told this before leaving America - the complete opposite, actually.) It's also worth pointing out that they have never had to get a real job their entire lives. The prospect of doing so often turns them violent (which, sadly, I was at the receiving end for most of those outbursts). Their philosophy was that anyone who got a "real" job was a wageslave who could have done better but reaped the consequences of their poor life choices. Sadly, not all of us are given their own gaming company on a platter during their teenage years.
Anyway, moving on. No income = no college. I also couldn't get a job in a foreign country since I didn't speak the language, and the admins for some reason hate America, so that was out of the picture. They said, "We haven't even touched the game for three years... That's why it's doing so poorly. But after three months of effort, we can get it back up to speed and live carefree forever!" This was a sweet lie they told themselves more times than I care to count. These deadlines would pass by time and time again, and Avalon would usually end up worse off than it had been before. The only saving grace that kept us afloat was the implementation of trinkets at extortionate prices. This was necessary in order to make up for the potential loss of subscribers since they made the game free to play. They knew just how to take advantage of those select few players who were "big spenders" to buy their most expensive trinkets. These usually cost thousands of dollars, and they were more often than not, pay-to-win type trinkets that gave players clear advantages in PvP. Anyone who had real skill and managed to beat up or kill these "big spenders" would be zapped for endangering their source of income (or in my case, grounded from using a laptop).
This change, while bringing in a lot of new players who had previously avoided Avalon due to the subscription requirement, ended up driving off a lot of the older playerbase. These newer players knew nothing of the old Avalon ways, before trinkets, so it's not like they knew any better. Any older players that stuck around and persevered through this were soon driven off for other reasons, like playing the game in ways the admins didn't like, or getting upset when trinket-buyers would beat them up due to some unfair advantage. This included most of the active pantheon at the time and a large number of their followers who were left without any replacement or direction as a result.
So the months dragged on... Soon enough, Avalon is a ghost town. "Why isn't it making any MONEY?" they cried, as the game now imploded in on itself due to the thousands of bugs players had filed over the past few months while they were busying counting bills.
I probably have these sequence of events mixed up a bit. I have a hard time remembering it all because it seemed like my life was at a standstill, and I was merely existing, waiting for the dark ages to be over. On the bright side, I lost a lot of weight due to starving myself most days.
A few notable events happened during this era... Salvador returned and ended up spurring all the fighters into action. He garnered the attention of the admins because of this, and they decided to host a Gem Quest so that Salvador could win and join the pantheon, thus helping with whatever projects needed working on at the time. Regardless of the reasons, the events and all the activity during this time was quite fun.
More bugs arised left and right as they half-arsedly implemented new backend systems to all the skills and god knows what else until they managed to drive Salvador (Elmaethor in his deity form) off as well. They said he was too "simple" to handle the tasks that required anything other than donkey work, but it was probably because they were destroying the game further and they needed someone to blame for all this (other than themselves). They never kept me in the financial loop, so I can't say for certain.
For most of this time, I had been playing as my mortal 24/7, doing my best to help drive history forward. I was a top-tier fighter, a city baron, guildmaster, PR aide, etc. - I had, for the most part, a positive impact. Not that they really noticed.
Eventually, they had no choice but to turn to RL friends for financial help. Getting a real job was still out of the picture for them. So they decided rather abruptly that they would move to London. I had mixed feelings about this - I wanted to go back to the US... But they said no. At least I would be back in an English-speaking country, I thought.
As someone who had only travelled internationally a few times, I did not know the regulations very well. So when we arrived at the border to London, I ended up getting pulled aside - I didn't have a UK or EU passport like they did to be let in so easily. I was interrogated rigorously over every little detail of my past and future plans. I slept overnight in the prison area the airport. In the end, they decided to deport me for a few reasons: 1) I had overstayed my visa in Portugal and therefore wasn't trusted not to overstay in London, 2) I had no cash on me, and 3) I said I would be working while I was there (referring to Avalon).
So I was sent back to Portugal who in turn put me in their prison for a few days before sending me back across the Pacific where I stayed with my mother for a bit to recuperate. Genesis and Cornelius' response to that whole scenario was, "That sucks... well, see ya!" And thus my involvement with Avalon ended... until next year when I caught up with Genesis again.
In order to make money, they had apparently sold ownership of Avalon that year. 45% ownership went to him and Cornelius, and 10% ownership to some investor (hence the new income). They were using this income towards completing the new Avalon web client (which still hasn't been finished to this day, and probably never will). I thought it was a huge mistake on his part, but whatever, it's his company to do with as he wishes. The actual hierarchy of Avalon now is pretty much Cornelius as the owner and Genesis the sub-owner who thinks he's the real owner. Cornelius' parents pay for most of their living expenses which is why Genesis basically lets Cornelius do whatever he wants to the game. I should mention that the overpriced trinkets and autocure/autodef-fireflies were all Cornelius' idea.
So, Genesis offers to come to the US and settle down somewhere on the west coast. I figure I'd give it another shot since from what he told me, everything was looking great again. He told me he was clean, no longer an addict or a smoker, and he was so responsible now with all his newfound money. I was very pleased to hear it.
...Long story short, he comes to the US and ends up blowing out all his cash in less than a month. He had lied to me about being clean and having quit smoking, and instead of us settling down somewhere like he had originally promised, he ended up buying a ticket back to London overnight while we were staying at a hotel... without telling me... until *two hours* before the flight. His ultimatum was "come with me or go home". I had burned bridges with my old job, and my mother was extremely displeased that I had left to give Genesis a second chance again, so it wasn't a very alluring prospect. I told Genesis I wouldn't be let past the border, just like last time, but he said I wasn't prepared last time. This time I could get past because I knew the process and what not to say... he just had to know for sure whether or not I could get into London. *fume*
I was deported, again. This time we had gone through Iceland on the way there, so I hopped off on the deportation flight back and stayed in Reykjavik for a few weeks until we sorted accommodation in Berlin where his brother lived. Little did I know that Berlin was his favourite spot for heroin! So I end up going through this entire Portugal-era process again, this time in Berlin (which should have been an interesting new and fun experience), but I was left by myself for the most part as Genesis lived his junkie-brain lifestyle. I asked myself daily why I had let myself fall into this trap again, but I didn't have any answer aside from blaming myself. I couldn't bring myself to ask my family for help and give them the satisfaction of saying they had been right all along... so I attempted suicide and downed a fistful of pills (doxylamine) in the hope that that would be the end of it... Evidently, I didn't take a big enough dosage, because I woke up the next day feeling very groggy and depressed.
When the money had almost run out again and his brother had come back to take over the flat in Berlin, we were truly faced with the possibility of homelessness and living on the streets. So Genesis did what he normally does in these situations, and got violent. I was the punching bag for his physical frustrations, and then afterwards he abandoned me to the streets while he spent the last of his money to book a flight back to London where his flat awaited him.
I, on the other hand, was left with no other choice than to contact my (already poor and financially struggling) family and ask for help. I had a bed in a hostel some nights, and others it couldn't be afforded; until finally I had contact with the US Embassy and sorted out emergency services for a flight back to America.
Genesis, during this time, had told me that all of it was my own fault for choosing to travel with him outside the US, and he had no responsibility to help me.
*takes a deep breath*
Needless to say, I've cut all ties with Avalon, Genesis, and Cornelius. I just landed a new "real" job, and I have both short and long-term goals to make up for the past 4-5 years of mistakes I've made.
If you've made it this far, then thank you for listening to my rant. I just really needed to get it out of my system. It was cathartic.
Now I'll just wait (im)patiently for the release of Starmourn which I'm sure will be amazing.
EDIT: I realise some people are having a hard time deciding if this is real or not, so I thought I'd just post some of my passport stamps here..
Page1 Page2 Page3 Page4
EDIT2: And some communications between myself and the US Embassy..
The Appointment The Flight
I realise that these don't exactly tell the full story, but rest assured I have a lot more than I'm revealing.
Genesis often told me how he found me less attractive whenever I shared personal information to others about things that transpired between us. I guess now I know that was just another subtle form of manipulation.
EDIT3: I felt it was necessary to point out that I'm referring to Avalon, The Legend Lives (avalon-rpg.com) - not First Age or the German Avalon.
And lastly, I want to thank each and every one of you for believing in me and for being so supportive. It's really helped me with processing it all, and I feel more confident now than I did before about leaving all that negativity behind me and moving forward towards a better and brighter future. <3
I hope that if the admins at Avalon learn anything from this, it's to treat others better in the future.

I'm gone for real :)

2018-10-06 22:38:47

Hi,
Wow. What a post to read the very day after I went through the academy in avalon...
Here's my opinion. I still haven't decided if I want to keep playing, although I can't get enough of their skill system, and wish there were others like it, with abilities being learned as you increase the skill, rather than choosing what abilities I want to learn... but I really... really don't want to pay for it. It's a mud for pete sake. But on the other hand, whose pocket am I taking out of if I choose to be sponsored? The mud itself's? or some benefactor who chose to say sponsor all of mage's guild who needs it? But I am certainly not asking that in game. I feel like I'll be much frowned upon.

2018-10-07 07:27:19

As far as I understand the sponsorship system, its not so much that a mages guild or a city or whatever have some super generous person who pays massive amounts of cash to keep new players going, rather its that the mud is setup to reward active players who participate on a regular basis.

About the trinkits and magical objects I'm not sure, but Avalon does have one of the most awesome  payment systems I've seen for a game.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-07 09:55:24

Wow that rant is entertaining. I'm not into such stuff, whatever, but that rant made me laugh like hell.