Apostolos Koutsokalis

I had originally planned for a different subject to continue the series but recent – ahem – “discussions” made me change my mind and opt for the following.

Apparently, even three years into the game, over 80% of retired and active players strongly believe they were treated unfairly and that admins showered others with favoritism. Even though most of these claims are true – because there are the occasional delusional people that lack proof and reason – it’s more about the “why” and “how” than the “what”. Unfairness, either intentional or not, was undoubtedly a major factor in the game’s development and evolution, in more ways than just treating people differently.

Although quite a few unintentional unfair events took place, by unfairness I will be mostly referring to pure intentional abuse and bias, unless specified otherwise. The one and only truth is that everyone at some point in some way was treated unfairly or was given the option to act in the same manner towards others. You might remember me talking here about the unspecific and nearly non-existent game rules. This was the major cause resulting in unfair treatment from the head admin to the last player. The whole system was so lacking that everyday a new problem would arise. And since creating solid rules wasn’t a top design priority most of these cases were tackled in a very subjective-case-by-case-sweep-the-problem-under-the-rag way. Player A might use the same offensive word player B did and A might get banned while B would stay unpunished. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Admins did not just treat players unfairly to compensate for a lack of rules but because of a general lack of game features. If only I had a cent for every time a special power or item was given to a player with no description or instructions and limitations. Time machines, items that commanded a 10000 men army, abilities and items that could resurrect dead people. The creators introduced all these to keep people entertained, without supporting everything and everyone with rules. They wanted to push this unfinished product so badly that they neglected everything else. And of course in the end the ones that benefited the most were the ones that had a special relationship with the admins, some others that were master crybabies and a few lucky ones that just happened to show up at the perfect moment.

If instead of constantly counter-benefiting different sides, the admins put all that effort  into building solid rule foundations for the game everything now could different. This continuous alternating favoritism took its toll on both admins and players. The fact that all these favors were unquantified or based on set rules made keeping track of them even harder, leading to hilarious events such as the following.

Group R wanted to complain to mister A about him offering more in-game scenarios tied to the nature-loving group G than their own justice-themed guild. So they went out to have a discussion over coffee at a place that many players frequented. The discussion went something like this:
Group R member(R): It’s so unfair to not have any themed content related to our guild’s justice theme.
Mister A(A):I am trying my best. In a couple of weeks every guild will start having more content and stories related to their guild beliefs.
R: What couple of weeks? Group G have been having nature-specific content for months now.
A: That’s impossible, I never did anything like this, and even if it happened it would have been unintentionally just once long ago.
R: It wasn’t over a couple of weeks ago that group G had a conversation with mother nature herself!
A: This is absurd.
R: (turning and shouting to the group G leader(G) that happened to be sitting two tables away) Hey G Leader, didn’t your guild talk in-game to mother earth a couple of weeks ago?
G: Nah, we haven’t communicated with mother earth for over a month now. Ten days ago we just had a conversation with the four seasons.

I would never call someone a liar without having solid proof, but anecdotes such as the one above more than prove that mister A was at the very least incapable of keeping track of past events – since he would never lie about something like that, so forgetfulness is the only remaining explanation, right? Thankfully he had every player reminding him of everything he did for others to further occupy his mind with stuff and force him to come up with new ways in order to overcome his past favoritism. If only he allocated all this time to form a solid basis than continue these tactics that finally brought people past their limits. Of the people that played under those conditions for 2 full years since the beginning of the game only a measly 10% remain still playing the game. Of the other 90% of people that left, around 75% of them did it because they were fed up with poor admin choices concerning rules and player/community management.

Most of those players would even claim “fed up” to be an understatement, since most withdrawals happened over tense verbal moments with admins and other players. So the question to be asked is why did these players stay that long before leaving? Everyone was more or less OK for the first year, but the second and third years were a complete mess. Did something different happen at that time? Was it just a matter of time or timing? Were they stupid enough to believe they could abuse this unfair system better than others in order to prevail over them in the long run?

Player-wise the most annoying part wasn’t the fact that everyone only complained about unfairness aimed towards them but instead – in typical greek fashion I might add – tried to fight fire with fire, and use the same kind of unfairness to “fix” things. It wasn’t about eliminating the bad aspects of the game. It was about abusing it the most in order to climb to the top. And the fact that all those gifts that were handed by mister A to everyone were not what the game considered normal at the time but instead something special, made each player think of themselves as something special compared to others. Mister A was indeed a master at that. He could see the wants and dreams of each person in that fantasy world and granted them their wishes. It could be a session theme, a special power, or just the item they were dreaming of. He more than accomplished his design goal of offering each player something they really wanted. He made their dreams come true, even if he had to bend ignore make a worse mess of his already lacking system. And that was enough for a long time.

But players kept thirsting for more. Things were awesome and yet it was fairly easy to push for more, so they did what most would have done. And the more the demand the greater the supply had to be in order to please. But this piling of favors and wishes had become very unstable and halfway through the second year it was more apparent than anytime that it would eventually explode. Without realizing or even aiming for it mister A had managed to raise player tension to the extreme. While still operating under total lack of rules and limits he organized competitive tournaments among the guilds, implemented a browser castle war system without explaining combat mechanics to any player (not officially at least, lots of info leaked to some people), and promised the winning guild the undeniable rule over the world at the end of the month. That month was the most bitterly tense I have ever seen other players. It was also one of – if not the – the most successful booster sales month.

In the end one side won. Was it a clean victory? Arguable. Although game mechanics were not abused, mister A did indeed play a big part in helping the underdog win the fight in the last minutes, as did the players that under the lacking rules that accompanied the sieges managed to achieve the typical winning conditions. Those moments were the lowest and darkest the community ever lived while playing. There were threats, more promises, players that quit, even blackmailing. The game switched to a slower pace and calmer atmosphere with those who stayed, and mister A claimed that it was a necessary step in order to test the game’s limits and learn from it. It also was the first time that instead of trying to balance things out by buffing the opposing side, he opted to cripple the winners by severely limiting the true power – compared to the one previously described as a prize – they had over the world/setting. Does this remind you of something stated previously here in the fourth to last paragraph?

But excluding the last negative feedback part, this very thing that annoyed admins and players alike was what they had being doing all along. Players wanted to gain whatever they could get out of mister A and mister A kept feeding this polarization and hardcore gaming style while claiming since day one that he wanted to create an enjoyable casual game. All sides had been milking and enjoying the benefits of the system for almost a year and a half without any major setbacks until a clear winner at something was declared, even momentarily.

It’s this very addictive unfairness, that even to this day makes the game more appealing.

But why stop doing it if they truly enjoyed it? Or why keep on doing it all this time if they did not truly enjoy it? It wasn’t the competitive nature that was introduced that was at fault, and it is certainly not wrong including competitive aspects in a game like this. It’s about implementing those aspects properly. The story and setting should always stay on top and rules should be created and adapted in order to establish proper functionality of said setting and story and maintain them through the course of the game. Positive and negative feedback should be both utilized to balance things out. And they should not be used to provide unsupported content in order to please or distract players but used to fix and balance clearly specified design goals.

Happy players and large communities are a result of fair treatment, crystal-clear rules and mechanics, content that derives from proper design and innovation. I have said it in the past and I will say it again: TGTSNBN certainly had a very interesting starting concept and its poor execution still saddens every player that was effectively forced to abandon it.