Official Forums?

[TekDragon]

In the weeks to the run-up of Aftershock I was visiting the official forums regularly to check up on news. Then, as soon as the game was released, I couldn't access the official forums anymore.

 

This strikes me as being EXTREMELY fishy. The official forums are one of the primary places for people to list their praises and complaints with the game. The fact that they took it down suggests, to me, that they do not want their prospective customers seeing what people have to say about the game.

 

I was already worried about buying a game with StarForce. I was already worried about buying a game from a low profile Czech/German developer. Now that they've basically said "Our game sucks so bad, we don't want you to see what people have to say about it" - i'm going to have to give in to my fears and not order this game that i've been so hyped about for weeks and months.

 

If the Official Forums come back up and either:

 

a) Aren't flooded with complaints (likely with StarForce, but maybe from other critical bugs in the game)

b) Aren't Nazi moderated (ie: deletion of all complaint threads and banning of anyone critical of UFO: AS)

 

Then I might change my mind.

[Slaughter]

The official forums has been up the entire time. You can find the official Aftershock site here, and the forums here. As for the moderators, I am one of them . It's a very liberal forum, and no critique is removed or stopped unless people "Troll".

 

As for the reactions to the game, they seem fairly positive. Problem is that the game has a lot of bugs, and as you say, the StarForce. It hasn't created that much trouble for people, but many will not buy the game because of it.

[TekDragon]

The official forums has been up the entire time. You can find the official Aftershock site here, and the forums here. As for the moderators, I am one of them . It's a very liberal forum, and no critique is removed or stopped unless people "Troll".

 

As for the reactions to the game, they seem fairly positive. Problem is that the game has a lot of bugs, and as you say, the StarForce. It hasn't created that much trouble for people, but many will not buy the game because of it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yep, and for the past few days every time I try to access that forum I get:

 

"Connecting to forum.ufo-aftermath.com..."

"Waiting for forum.ufo-aftermath.com..."

 

... at the bottom of my screen. Then a window pops up that says:

 

"This document contains no data"

 

This is happening on my PC as well as the ones at my university.

 

BTW: That is on firefox.

 

On IE I get:

 

Opening page https://forum.ufo-aftermath.com/index.php?showforum=7

 

followed by "The page cannot be displayed"

[Lurker]

I have had no problem connecting to the Aftershock forum. It has always been there whenever I have gone to have a look.

 

They used to erase your messages if they didn't like them. I saw quite a few messages disappear, but that was a year or more ago. Lately, they seem to let a lot of critical messages stand or stay on the forum, and they don't seem to edit or moderate them any more, but if you stray too far off the party line, they will threaten to ban you from the forum. That still happens, from what people have told me.

 

BTW, what is trolling? When I think of Trolls, I think of Lord of the Rings. I have a hard time visualizing what trolls have to do with online forums. Even though you have seen a lot of me here and over at the Altar forum, I don't spend that much time online or in other forums.

 

All the links listed here come right up. I live in the US. Where do you live, TekDragon? Maybe it's an ISP or location issue?

 

I too am one of those who has seen enough to believe that it is important to boycott StarForce games, but it takes a bit of study to come to that conclusion. I'm hoping for a future US Release or a Special Edition of Aftershock without the StarForce, but it probably won't happen.

[Lurker]

TekDragon, my story is kind of humorous, or I have to laugh about it, because I don't know of any better way to deal with it.

 

I hung around here and over at Altar's site a lot. Until very recently, this site and the Altar site were the only two forums that I ever participated in.

 

UFO Aftermath is on the short list of the top ten games that I have played the most in my life. I got involved with Aralez, the primary modder of UFO Aftermath. Aralez is a wonderful person, but he is no longer here.

 

I also left for three or four months, around April 2005, though I wasn't anywhere near as missed as Aralez was. He made a difference.

 

I came back to the Altar site around August 2005, to be greeted with the news that Aftershock will be released late in the US.

 

I said something to the effect that it's a replay of Aftermath all over again -- Aftermath came out in the US a month or so after everyone else got it.

 

Then the fanboys and moderator jumped all over me, essentially called me stupid, and gave me an implied assurance that things would be different with Aftershock. But, the truth is that it was finally determined that there might not even be a US Release. It was the usual misinterpretation or misunderstanding where human beings can't read each other's mind, or at least that's what I chalked it up to.

 

Then I go away for a couple of months and come back a day after Aftershock is released. After all of those assurances that Aftershock was not going to be a replay of Aftermath, I was expecting to see someone exclaiming for joy that he had finally found the first bug, and a week later I was expecting the next person to finally document a bug.

 

Instead, what do I find? There are more Aftershock bug reports about more different things than a person can even begin to catalogue, and even worse, there was a StarForce controversy as well. The moderators and fanboys can call me stupid, and that's fine. I wasn't saying that everything with Aftershock was going to be an exact replay of Aftermath, but to my disappointment it is indeed a replay, but even worse. Now there is StarForce in the mix as well.

 

Anyway, I have pretty much seen what I needed to see and said what I needed to say, and now it's time for me to go away for three to six months and come back and see if the 'replay of Aftermath' has somehow been broken. A US Release of Aftershock with no StarForce would be a good first step.

 

I also miss Aralez on these boards. He is what made coming here and going there to Altar's site worthwhile, for me anyway.

 

I don't know what to tell you, TekDragon, I found some of my most favorite gaming friends on this site and Altar's site, but I have encountered the occasional 'Nazi' or fanboy or moderator as well. I think things are pretty much the same anywhere you go. I have been hanging around the Relic site lately, Dawn of War and Winter Assault, and there are a few Nazi's over there and a few really nice people as well.

[Slaughter]

@TekDragon: That is strange. I have no idea why you can't get in, but there's a lot of people there. As Lurker says, there's been quite a few bugs in Aftershock, but most people seems to enjoy the game besides that. Not everyone of course, but the majority.

 

@Lurker: You can read what a Troll is here. And trust me, the warnings given at the official boards counts here as well. I'll leave your post for now, but you are going to link to the post at the official boards where someone calls you stupid. I am sick and tired of seeing these statements and no evidence.

 

As for the moderators deleting posts and so on at the official boards a year ago, that is bull. The only posts we edit/delete are the ones where people say "I'll download the game from ****" and the likes. The official boards are one of the most liberal boards you'll ever find.

[Auran]

Hey Guys,

 

I am a very new poster to this site and to the official sites but have been doing a lot of reading.

 

I must say that as long as the posts are civil, the moderators will not edit controversial posts.

I can also verify that the official forums have been up and running all the time.

 

I am also concerned about the numerous bugs in the game, (still haven't got my copy) but the style of the game is too unique and appeals to me so much that I cannot simply stop myself from playing it .

 

Anyway I hope you guys over at US get prompt release and it will propably come with a healthy patch as well.

[TekDragon]

@TekDragon: That is strange. I have no idea why you can't get in, but there's a lot of people there. As Lurker says, there's been quite a few bugs in Aftershock, but most people seems to enjoy the game besides that. Not everyone of course, but the majority.

 

@Lurker: You can read what a Troll is here. And trust me, the warnings given at the official boards counts here as well. I'll leave your post for now, but you are going to link to the post at the official boards where someone calls you stupid. I am sick and tired of seeing these statements and no evidence.

 

As for the moderators deleting posts and so on at the official boards a year ago, that is bull. The only posts we edit/delete are the ones where people say "I'll download the game from ****" and the likes. The official boards are one of the most liberal boards you'll ever find.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My experience with the official forums has been good prior to this incident, so I won't comment on the nazism.

 

As for the problems i'm having - my location is Binghamton NY and my ISP is RoadRunner which is very popular in the NE. Slaughter, could you send a message to one of the people who run the site and let them know that there is a problem with their website being views in areas of NE USA that is, at the least, delaying peoples' decision to purchase the game?

[Lurker]

Slaughter:

 

You can't link to the worst messages, and you know why. You know that you and other moderators do your worst, like driving away Aralez, in your private messages where nobody can see the damage that you do.

 

But, you essentially just now said in your own written message that I don't know what I'm talking about. You just told me that the situation can't be on these forums as I interpret it as being. It's the implications, the implications that people don't know what they are saying or that they are stupid or ignorant for speaking up, but the implication is there whether you can see it or not. And, as always it's automatically assumed that it is I or the forum member that is causing the problem and not the moderator -- I'm automatically the one doing the trolling or saying my piece, but the result is once again a threat of banishment or censorship by the moderator. I'm not the one who is in a position to threaten banishment or censorship. Am I?

 

What do they call it when the Moderator drives people away?

 

And you are wrong, I distinctly remember many messages disappearing on the official forum because they got too critical or honest, and I had copies of some of the disappeared messages, long ago when it mattered to me. One man's critique is another man's honesty. You have no understanding of any of this because it is not your messages or your friend's messages that are getting deleted or modified. It's not the stuff that interests you that's getting deleted. You have never been on the receiving end of your chastisement or attempts to drive people away.

 

And on the old forum, there used to be written notification that messages had been edited by Moderator. Now, the thing that you are absolutely right about is that I have not seen any of those 'edited by Moderator' on the official forum for a long time now. Maybe the new forums don't report edits, but you just told me that you still edit this forum and will edit it if you don't like what you hear. So, that kind of proves my point, doesn't it?

 

And, before you get all angry like you usually do, remember that it was you who asked in public. It was you who initiated the response. It was you who made the threat of censorship and banishment in public.

 

You just don't know, because none of your moderations get moderated or edited or deleted. Turn the task over to Aralez or someone else, and let them have a go at you for awhile, and let them threaten to boycott you because they don't like you or like what you say, and then maybe you will get a feeling for what's really out here. How would you feel if we told you that we don't like what you say and that we want you to go away because you really annoy people and that we are going to edit everything you say if you don't say it in a way that we like? How would you feel if we told you that you as the moderator are the greatest troll or instigator or inflamer of them all on these forums? Turn the table for just a moment. Put yourself in our shoes! How would you feel if you were us?

 

--

 

BTW, telling someone that what they say is BULL is the exact same thing as telling them that they are stupid, and you know it. It's the same difference. It's inflammatory, designed to upset the participants.

[Kret]

I'll be clear and concise. As far as my user privilages can take me I will lock and/or delete the thread if the discusion remains off topic, specially if it's entering a "danger zone" as it is right now.

 

@TekDragon: In the event that this is locked and/or deleted I have no objections to you starting a new one as you're not really at fault that others are diverting from the main topic.

 

@Lurker: If you wish to "move" your discusion to a new thread, do so in the appropiate section and, as a favor to the rest of the comunity, in a new thread rather than in someone else's. Also, it isn't wise to assert as facts issues you have only partial information of.

 

----------

 

Returning to the main issue:

 

TekDragon, can you reach either the aftermath of aftershock main pages?

https://www.ufo-aftermath.com and

https://www.ufo-aftershock.com

 

if so, could you try and type the following bold text in the windows command line:

ping forum.ufo-aftermath.com

and post the result?

[Lurker]

Everyone likes a good flame or rant, unless it gets personal.

 

Slaughter asked me for some facts.

 

Well, about a year ago out of the blue, Slaughter sent me a personal message in which he told me all the things that he didn't like about me. I hadn't gotten such a list since I was in kindergarten over forty years ago. That was fine, but it didn't go over as well when I fired back a list of things that we don't like about him.

 

I looked up Aralez, and talked with him, and asked him why he left. The response, "Slaughter." Slaughter is why Aralez left. A fact. You can find Aralez yourself if you want the fact confirmed.

 

I was on the Altar Forum a year or more ago, and one of the messages was getting controversial, and I thought to myself, this thing is going to get deleted, and sure enough, the next day it was gone. It had nothing to do with downloading stuff, as Slaughter suggests.

 

Another time, I encountered a thread in which people were discussing and mentioning stuff that had clearly been deleted. There was a hole in the thread.

 

But, the real fact or the hard fact for me was the time that I encountered a controversial subject that I thought was out of balance, and I spent half an hour trying to compose a moderate balanced response. I come back the next day to follow up and my response was gone. If I remember correctly, many of the messages before mine and all the messages after were gone as well. Someone had taken the thread status quo ante, back to before the thread started turning controversial -- and there was a half an hour of mine totally wasted, because I had no idea that my input would get censored or deleted, so I hadn't saved any of it. And, since it had been censored and was now gone, I had no opportunity to study it and figure out where it had gone wrong or if I had done anything wrong. All the information that was organized there was simply gone. It really happened. I'm not making it up.

 

Now, I can't say that it was Slaughter who was doing the censoring or deleting in these three instances. I can only say what I know, that it actually happened. I can also truthfully say that it has been at least a year since I last saw things disappearing on Altar's forum.

 

Slaughter wanted to know, and now he does. Whether he chooses to believe me, or not, that is up to him. But, censorship can happen, and it used to happen much more frequently than it does now.

 

I have developed one rule on these forums, stay away from Slaughter, and all is fine. I have discussed it in private email with others as well. If Slaughter wants to know what we think, sometimes we actually get up enough courage to tell him. But, most of us hold back and remain silent.

 

Now, instead of discounting the positive and only concentrating on the negative, I positively emphasize that some of my best friends have come to me off of this and Altar's forum. Aftermath is in the top ten list of my most played games of all time. That's quite an accomplishment. I loved Aralez and his mods for Aftermath. I have enjoyed Pete's input, and I have been fascinated by the stuff that you, Kret, and Thorondor as well have brought to my attention. It's there in the record.

 

I'm not flaming all the time. I can't see how Slaughter can be 'sick and tired' of me, because I haven't been here for months, and I haven't had any dealings with Slaughter for over a year.

 

I came here again recently to learn. I was disappointed by the lack of a US Release and by the StarForce. I am hoping for a US Release of Aftershock without the StarForce, and it yes it is a shame that Slaughter and I destroyed this thread. But, censorship causes confusion and isn't always helpful. And, it is indeed time for me to go away for another few months.

 

And, I do hope that TekDragon and all the others will find themselves a friend on these forums as time goes on. Don't abandon things just because I and Slaughter don't get along.

[Kret]

Sigh, and I thought I made it clear in my previous post. Thread locked.

[Pete]

Just one more final note - if anyone has anything they wish to contact either myself or Slaughter about - any concerns at all about the site or either of us, just send whichever one of us isn't the subject of those concerns a personal message and it'll take top priority.

 

Now, since I'm fairly sure everybody who knows me gets along with me, please feel free to use this channel of communications to avoid things going quite, quite off topic in future. We don't censor things here unless they're against forum rules, and even then we'll leave the thread up, closed and with a warning.