I knew that this post would come eventually, it was inevitable with the state of PT Classic. I didn't think it would be so soon but it happens.
I'm sure some of you will know, but some won't. I have resigned as Chairman of the Global Roleplay Committee. There is a dozen times when I could've done this but none have been as difficult and tumultuous as these past few weeks. I think that its fair that everyone knows what goes on behind the scenes especially with this Moderation staff. I'm sure that this will either result in my banning or this post disappearing or some smear campaign from a specific Moderator, or both. I'm not entirely sure.
First and foremost, I enjoyed serving as the Chairman of the Global Roleplay Committee for my tenure. I believe that we made many effective changes that unfortunately I do not believe will continue to see the light of day for much longer with the recent appointments. The GRC is a role that can be both difficult and easy, it should be made for veteran RPers who want to help build the story of RP instead of protect friends and allies because they bolster their in-game position, unfortunately, I don't think thats the case anymore but we've got to wait and see. I wish Elizabeth aka thefalloutfan the best but unfortunately I think that its pretty obvious that the appointment comes without a proper application process, without any input from team members and solely by 1 Moderator due to the fact that, unfortunately, CM is largely absent. For those who were concerned, it is in-fact a one party state in PT Classic Moderation. That's it.
Unfortunately I believe that many of these things that we wanted or that I had made, such as the Oil and Natural Gas resource list and the images will go to waste because they'll be changed to favor one group of players over the others. Or the Third World which unfortunately has been lacking due to the spread amount of work that the GRC has to do, will continue to go unnoticed. Unfortunately the player that is now solely in control over the GRC was removed from the GRC due to the fact that they did nothing. It took another several months for Aethan and Pragma to be removed from the team despite the fact that one of them hadnt had an in-game account for months and hasnt played PT Classic in the same amount of time. The other openly stated their intention to leave the team due to time constraints and issues with Moderation.
Second, the rules. I re-wrote the rules. You're going to hear the statement that "We didn't ask you to." You're right, no one asked me to but the rules even in their current state are mediocre because they were done without consultation. When I re-wrote the rules Luis and I asked that there was a consultation, none of that was done. We were told that things were changing and a specific Moderator openly made sure that note that consultations were stupid and were directly against what they felt had to be done. I went along because I felt that the rules as they were prior to the ones I re-wrote were even worse. We pushed the rules and there were some issues with them that we had to go back and rapidly edit without much ceremony or consultation. We added in quick fixes without being able to handle situations because we had 1 moderator who was dictating the terms.
I'll openly admit that I attempted to write the GRC into as much as possible because I didn't feel Moderators were adequate enough to handle the scope of the myriad of issues that come up with the way they've reacted in the past. This was also done on the increasing mantra that "Moderators do so much." when in reality, they vaguely answered player requests, they barely responded to players on the forums and increasingly became hostile towards players when approached with different or competing ideas. I think many former GRC members can openly attest that when we tried to right the ship, people were chided and cast off. Players who contributed much to the game such as James, who cast out as "do nothings" and contributed "nothing" when in reality they contributed more and more as Moderation continued their retreat. Players who contributed nothing were openly protected for some reason, those reasons I'll never claim to know.
Third, the use of the Moderator position to further in-game goals. I guess its fair that everyone knows what started this resignation from myself and Luis. terminallyGrumpy also know as TeaMcGee ingame and another player who plays in Jakania posted requests for one-party states. Essentially they wanted to outlaw other ideologies from being able to RP within their nations. I believe it was posted within the private section of the Discord regarding what we thought about these. Mr. God immediately responded that he was in favor of approving both of them. Luis and I disagreed because Jakania had next to no posts regarding any sort of anti-right wing or non-communist/socialist crack down and Dorvik had only recently flopped over to a radical socialist government, and by the own admission of the player there had only made 3 posts regarding the topic. Luis and I agreed that they should be denied, not permanently, but until more RP could be done to direct attention to the fact that they had limited RP and we cited thefalloutfan as the primary person to emulate. Several or more posts regarding the crackdown to the eventual outlawing. Incredibly well done, well written and generally a good read. Instead, we were told that they were going to override our decision because "we've approved less" but in reality, looking at the one party state approvals recently...it hasn't happened a whole lot.
While this seems relatively minor it seems that there were outside factors. Mr. God and Elizabeth (now on the GRC) approached Luis and attacked him for being close with Max and openly discussed Max and his "behavior". Also note that one of the central arguments was that what Max, myself, Luis and Vescia had done with the Northern Council was bad for the game and how we ruined RP and how it made the game "un-fun". Yet, this is precisely the behavior that Mr. God and his cohort are engaging in and attacking players who are on the outside of their little clique. I've been approached that Max is god-modding and power-playing by Elizabeth and explained that the Economic and Military rankings allowed some leeway. I've also been approached by players stating that Mr. God approached them and tried to get them to classic or back to classic to go to nations and join CARSS. I myself was harassed when I went to Pontesi to try to make something of the country and bombarded with messages even after bluntly stating that I had no intentions to go anywhere. It's clear that the decision by Moderation was made with the furthering of in-game goals in mind. I was told that it was a conspiracy theory despite providing numerous reasons on why it shouldn't be approved. We were told that it was "creating a harmful RP environment" by denying it when its obvious they misunderstand that creating one party states can dangerously unbalance the game in RP terms, can force players out of the game and can provide some toxic ownership complexes for players in nations.
Unfortunately, enforcing one-party states has become commonplace because players don't want their "work" threatened. However, we were asking for the direct opposite, we were asking for more RP to be able to provide background and context to such a truthfully, game-changing event. I’d also like to point out the handling of situations was incredibly mismanaged and done primarily out of emotion or dislike for a player, not rational facts and understanding.
PT Classic is in a sad state of affairs and it doesn't look like it will improve. I'll likely continue to play but who knows for how long and lets see how I'm treated following this. Thank you all very much for allowing me to be the Chairman of the GRC and I hope well for the future.