ESC Blockade

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zalera.atheria
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ESC Blockade

Post by zalera.atheria »

Most of you are aware that we have been blockaded by ESC for the last couple months. We wanted to update everyone on everything that’s happened so that we’re all up to speed and on the same page.

On 11/14/2023 Epsilon initiated a blockade against Chaos due to (what we believe at the time) was solely because of an incident during a raid where Dark teleported onto the Sim on an alt. Apparently there had been a mutual agreement between Niv and Hadet where if Dark showed up on their sim during another raid, we were to IM him (Niv) immediately and let him know. I won’t get into the specific details here but Dark showed up on an alt, ESC wasn’t notified the literal second he showed up, ESC got mad when they realized it was dark, and banned his alt right away, they also assumed we invited him which was not true. After the raid they initiated the blockade. There has been alterations to this story by ESC as to how long Dark was on the sim, who from ESC was in/joined our Discord channel during this raid and for how long they were in the channel listening, and what they heard us saying in our discord channel while they were connected. Basically the details of that incident have been altered/fabricated numerous times by ESC.

Strealok, Dread, Tyro, and Hadet tried multiple times over the next weeks to get Niv to come to the table to talk about his concerns and try to address the issues but we were mostly met with radio silence. Eventually Strealok was able to get Niv to agree to a meeting with myself, Tyro, Strealok, Niv, and Eles which we had on Saturday December 9th in a voice channel. Niv shared multiple things he and his group have issue with which led to their blockade, many of these things were valid concerns which we were happy to work on/talk about. We were able to come to a much better understanding about why they are frustrated, and what led to them blockading us and the five of us agreed on a list of things that we would work on, and would present to Niv for him to present to his command. The understanding was we would work on these things, and that would hopefully lead to the blockade being lifted sooner (it was initially set to lift “as early as” January 11, 2024).

One of their main issues was with Sam and Dread breaking rules and doing other various things which made them sad. Niv was asked to provide logs multiple times but over the course of these two months has only provided one log, despite saying this has been “going on for years”. To this day we have still only received the one log from ESC.

We were able to make a few changes the night after the meeting, and some other changes required time, conversation, and cooperation from ESC so we weren’t able to mark off everything on their list that night but the three of us (later joined by Dread and Hadet) sat down over the course of the next 6 days and were able to come up with a game plan for what we are going to do, and how we are working on things moving forward. One of the things that was changing was that I was taking over direct communication between our two groups starting that night. I was to be told of any issues with chaos immediately. This was all typed up and presented to Niv by Zalera on 12-17-2023

Okay sorry for the delayed response. I had hoped I could update you way earlier but we had some guys dragging their feet on some stuff.

So first thing we did was we’re now requiring any of our militia guys who are raiding with us to be in discord with us during the raid. We put this into place 12/9 after our meeting and the announcement is still in our “Fednouncements” channel if you want to see it.

As far as dread, I asked him to chill the fuck out and not be so obnoxious and annoying when on raids. I know we had thrown around the idea of not allowing dread to OIC while we are raiding each other but at this time I can’t guarantee that’s something we’ll always be able to accommodate. Right now dread is one of the only command members who leads raids so I can’t always guarantee there will be anyone else available to be OIC instead of him. If we are raiding eachother your guys are always welcome to reach out to him and ask him if anyone else is available to take OIC but if there are no other command members on that raid there’s not much I can do. At that point all I can suggest is that your guys ask us to leave, or you guys leave yourselves if you’re dead set on not wanting dread to OIC but he’s also been talked to so I’m hoping he can be a big boy and be on good behavior moving forward. I’m going to touch more on this in a couple paragraphs.

As far as the sim build being an issue I’m hoping we can set aside some time for some of you guys to come to our sim and point out exactly what the pain points are and we can see about making some changes. However dread is the main sim-builder so he’ll have to be the one who you guys talk to but I’ll tell him to chill the fuck out and take any criticism with grace and not act like a defensive dweeb about anything.

As for Sam. I was on break for over a year and the ONLY reason I stayed gone was because I thought everything was fine. What you said about sam during the meeting was the first time I had heard about Sam still doing the blow up screaming shit which really bummed me out because I had thought he was done doing that. When we promoted him to overlord, the only reason I voted yes was because we told him he had to stop screaming at people and he did (at that time) so we promoted him, but I was very clear with my concerns if that shit starts happening again I would want him to step back down to Lord. No one told me this was still going on, otherwise I would have come back and delt with it. That being said: we did toss around the idea of demoting sam back down to Lord but we also want to give him one last chance to knock this shit off and do better. I’ve known sam a very long time and personally I think he can do it. But Dread, Tyro, and I had a conversation with him last night and he is aware he is now on his last chance. If I see a screenshot or recording of him needlessly blowing up on anyone again he is going to be demoted. This is his absolute last chance.

Last thing. I’m going to be taking over direct communication between our two groups for whenever there is an issue. Any of your guys can message me on discord any time and I’ll take any and every concern seriously and won’t come back at any of you with “oh well you’re a whiney furry” or “Tell it to someone who has time”. I do work full time M-F and am out of my house upwards of 10-11 hours every day but I always have my phone on me and I will always respond to messages within 60 minutes at the VERY latest. If there is a raid going on and there is a raid specific issue our OIC should be contacted first but if that doesn’t work, I should be contacted. Going back to the dread thing. If he acts like a dweeb, deliberately breaks sim rules, or tells your guys to fuck off when he’s asked to stop I need to be told asap so that I can deal with it. If Sam is screaming at any of your guys, I also need to be told asap so I can deal with it.

Anyhoo I hope that’s all a good place where we can start. Let me know if you have any concerns with any of this and we can talk about it.
This was added and sent to Niv not long after once I spoke to Tyro and he asked me to add some things:
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Niv did not respond to this message despite (by coincidence) asking me for an update only one hour before. I Messaged him again the next day 12-18 asking for feedback, this was also ignored until 12-20 where he responded with “yeah I got this” and that was all. I did not ask if he “got this” I asked for feedback. I did not send another response as I assumed he would elaborate but he did not.
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I messaged him again on 12-23 again asking for feedback, and he finally found it appropriate to respond to me about an hour after I sent that message saying (among other things) the “initial reception from at least me and one other is it’s a good step in the right direction which I think others will be satisfied with” he went on to whine about AT and Aoe but adding “the best way to resolve that initially upon starting combat again would be keeping it simple” which I agreed with. I sent him yet another message immediately after (within 10 minutes) responding to his crap and reiterating on a few things I sent him initially on 12-17. I want to add that in my original message I had said he would like him, or someone from ESC to come to our sim and pinpoint their exact issues with builds and balancing so we know exactly what the issue was, so I started to have a feeling he did not read my initial message on 12-17. I again asked if we could set up a time for someone to come by the sim to talk about and work on the specific balancing issues.
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My response was left on read and he did not answer me again. I messaged him again on 12-30 asking if we could set up a raid sometime and giving him a list of things we will be doing differently on our side to accommodate their precious feelings and stating again that we will “keep it super basic”. This was ignored until 12/31 at what would be after 1am his time so 1/1/24. He is now claiming that Dread was “killing people and shit during the Christmas Party which wasn’t really appreciated” also saying “considering like all we talked about I expected a little better ability to chill tf out.” Again, I told niv in my initial report to him on 12-17 that I was to be told of all issues with Chaos asap so that begs the question, if this really was that big of an issue why was I not told right away? Why was NO ONE told right away? Niv either did not read what I initially sent him, Or he just randomly decided that night to turn this into a big issue when it wasn’t an issue at all. Also him claiming “All that we talked about” is laughable as me and him have not talked at all. I have been left on read and ignored for weeks so this comment was confusing.
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Myself, Dread, Tyro, Casey, and Screaming were all in a voice channel in our discord when I got this message so I read it out loud to them. Tyro Dread and Screaming immediately said that is not what happened (as they were at the Christmas Party, I was not). That most of the people from the Christmas party (including niv) had gone to bed for the night, and Dread killed Tyro, Screaming, and Niv (who had already logged off but whos avatar was still there). Dread also rezzed a ball pit and a cowabunga cube. Dread, Tyro, and Screaming confirmed that no one remaining there was upset about any of these things and everyone thought it was funny and was “laughing about it”. This was all verified as true by Screaming who is in Epsilon. Again, if someone had issue with any of these things why was I, or anyone else in Chaos not told right away? Why wait until days later if one of your main issues with Chaos is dread?

I also want to add when I read this aloud in the voice chat Screaming was incredibly confused and upset as this was the first he was hearing of ANY of this. So now we are thinking Niv hasn’t shared what I sent him on 12-17 with anyone and is just allowing his group to continue to be mad, and be under the impression we are not working on things and are not trying to communicate with ESC at all.

The five of us went into the ESC Gaming Voice Channel on their discord Server and Dread tried to tell Niv that what he sent to me was not true and didn’t happen that way, Screaming was also brought up as a source. Dread also asked Niv if he had some time to sit down and “squash this beef” and we were basically told to get out and to stop ruining their new years eve (even though it was no longer new years eve). To my memory, dread was not yelling. He was upset but he wasn’t screaming or swearing or anything he just wanted to clear this up immediately. Zalera then called them all “Fucking Cowards” which I am not sorry for at all ;^) then Niv started crying at me in my DMs and I yelled at him and called him out for constantly leaving me on read, ignoring me, and taking advantage of our friendship and being a shitty friend. He then tried to come at me with the classic “you’ve been inactive so your thoughts and opinions on this don’t matter” (this is paraphrased) which he has said to Tyro multiple times which is completely unacceptable so I told him to fuck off and stop talking to me and ended what I thought was a friendship but clearly never was. Again, I am very very much not sorry ;^)

Since then, Tyro has been trying to talk to him and grilling him on what this is really all about which of course Niv has no real answer to. Dread even went out of his way to apologize to Niv for “ruining his new years eve” and “calling you vag man. That was insensitive.”
Hey dude, Tyro filled us in on your conversation from the other day and one of the things he pointed out is that you're upset with me because I bummed you guys out on new years.

I would like to apologize for coming in while you guys were playing games and that it was enough to sour the night, we were all drinking and Screaming was venting to us so we were a little preheated already. When you brought up that someone was saying I caused issues at the new years party, it upset me because I was under the impression we all had a good time, and when that was brought up in the voice chat both Tyro and Screaming chimed in to the contrary of that statement. All I wanted to do was clear the record because I feel that people shouldn't get retroactively mad about something that wasn't an issue.

I would also like to apologize for calling you a vag man, that was insensitive, I should have just asked Screaming if he had a chance to voice his concerns to you yet instead because that was the main point of my question to him.
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All of this was (surprise surprise) again met with nothing but more whining, more excuses and fabricated bullshit, and more whining with absolutely no real solutions or communication from Niv. Eventually the big thing he said that stuck out was “Sometimes change comes too late”. (Convo from 1/4/2024).
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Niv went on to claim everyone in his group is done with us despite him telling me a few weeks ago “initial reception from at least me and one other is it’s a good step in the right direction which I think others will be satisfied with” when I sent him our first draft of things we’re working on. So he either lied to me then, hadn’t actually read anything of what I sent him, or is changing his mind now in an attempt to get back at us for calling him on his bullshit.

Niv has been using myself telling him off and Dread calling him out on lying to me about what happened at the Christmas party as a way to justify blockading us indefinitely which is what he did on Saturday 1/6/2024. Despite our NUMEROUS efforts from MULTIPLE people to try and talk to him or anyone else (which he refused to let happen, it’s him or no one) about our issues and try to work them out. After wasting HOURS and DAYS of our time and disrespecting almost every single person in command with his behavior, they still have come to the “overwhelming majority” decision to basically not interact with us in any capacity. To which King Tyro responded “good luck with that”
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Since then some things that have happened: Most of the ESC members in our discord have left on their own immediately, the ones who have remained have been assigned the “Vag Man” tag which allows them to see public channels, read messages, connect to and listen to public voice channels, but that is it. They cannot post anywhere, they cannot talk in voice, and they cannot change their nicknames which is super funny for me. Most of us who were in the ESC discord have been ejected, I do not know if we were banned. Every ESC member in our Land Barrons Group, Militia Group, and Main Chaos Indivism group in SL have been ejected, Niv has also been removed as the ESC Armory rep. Also Strealok and Dread have called out Niv very publicly in the Balance Discord which was really really funny. As far as I know, neither or them nor any other Chaos person has been ejected from the Balance Discussion Discord as of today (1/7/24). Sam made a forum post under the Punishment Log for this here: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=921&p=2650#p2650

That is all that has happened so far but we are done playing nice. Again, We have wasted days and hours of our time to try and work this shit out and do this the "right way" and we have been met with radio silence, blatant disrespect, fabricated lies, and excuses again and again and again despite our best efforts to work this out with them amicably.

At this time that’s all we know. If you see anyone from ESC please shout “VAG MAN” at them and also call them cowards.

Honorable Mention:
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zalera.atheria
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Re: ESC Blockade

Post by zalera.atheria »

WOOPS ALL MY IMAGES BROKE :')
dread.hudson
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Re: ESC Blockade

Post by dread.hudson »

Looks like they're closing after 7 months of low activity since the blockade
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H3O ... HVE9g/edit
Niv on ESC Closing wrote: Hello!

After much internal discussion in ESC, we've decided that we are going to close up shop as of Thursday July 11th. The goal was to be here for a good time, not a long time and for us we've achieved exactly that with the last 5 years of fun we've been able to have. Thank you for all the good times we’ve been able to have together in the community.

ESC was started in 2019 by Sin Straaf, Aurora Guffey, and Myself after we moved our neutral sim ERROR to a homestead. It was kind of a sudden spur of the moment thing that had a slow initial start and I expected it initially to really go nowhere. Thanks to the massive help of Kelkith knocking our armor out fast as hell, and the addition of Eles Nebula and Aria Thexios to the team we basically blew up overnight. I'm proud that we were able to become one of if not the most active, largest groups for the last few years.

Our content creation team (Robin, Shiri, Bailey, Zabi, Aria, Delly, Vincent, and Crow) truly made any dream I had about a piece of gear come true. As a team they’ve been able to work together to do some really cool stuff over the years as well as memorable pieces of tech that have now spread into other groups (Spider Mines).They did all of this with no expectation of pay, or rank or any other recognition than seeing our members USE the gear. Despite how things went, I also feel it's important to also thank Criss despite how things went as for years he consistently produced content for us.

I am thankful for every member of ESC both past and present that have made this group what it is, thank you for being part of this whole thing. We’ve had some amazing NCO+ That have truly made this group run. Special thanks to Michelleawesome and Zachora for being here since damn near the start.


The Negative:

Combat has been mostly neutered to the point where it's a bastardized amalgamation of CS:GO and Call of Duty. Aircraft mostly cease to exist, ground vehicles are seen by some as a massive escalation. Jetpacks which were common in the past (some were admittedly excessive) are mostly not permitted anywhere. What was once a place to be creative and do cool things has turned into individual groups effectively stifling innovation. Combat 2.0 is on its way, and of the 3 features added already adoption has been near zero. (Healing, Partial Damage, Scriptless Bullets) tldr; Things have become so homogenized to where the difference between groups is the theme, the idea of adapting is gone. It’s either copy it or ban it.

Despite a majority of groups adopting the Big 4, we've seen time and time again it be breached only for people to not be held accountable or attempts to rule lawyer the concept to get their friend a pass. It's reached a point now where the FBI has been called on two people, many people have been doxed and repercussions are only upheld for a year at most before they’re given a pass to come back.

The inability to talk and handle issues properly instead of seething over it within personal echo chambers is functionally zero. One would think that in all these years of the community we’d finally make it past this, but here we are. Some people cannot handle dying in combat, or if they don’t get to have their version of fun, that singular individual will be sure to make it the other group's problem. It’s amazing what a sit down and hop on voice in discord can do to find common ground and put an end to needless hostilities. It’s a game, try to start treating it as such.

The Drama has completely overtaken what should be the core focus of what the community is about Combat. Some individuals sit in discord all day attempting to stir problems up instead of doing even the slightest bit of combat. I imagine some of them haven’t attached a gun in months. Stating the obvious but, some of this is due to people that hop between sim to sim to whatever new cool thing they ride on the success leaving messes in their wake, do better.


What's Next?:

We've been having more fun playing games and stuff together on discord. We may pop in here and there to do combat or some of the members of ESC may spread out to other groups. Can't say for sure! Personally for me I'll still be reachable via discord but I'll be doing a lot of travel in the next few months. We’re likely going to start working on a different project outside of the SLMC.. Keep a lookout for more later!

Keres will be returned to the Lindens on July 11th. July 10th we’re going to hop on discord and have a few drinks and give the sim a proper send off. As for the armory, we will be working to de-auth gear bit by bit within the armory and potentially move it over to a caspervend system so people can buy some of our stuff and use it as lonewolves or give it a try for those that were never part of ESC as well as profit split between the content creators to give them some extra cash maybe!

Someone should probably pick up the tab on the yearly New Years Parties and the Bingo Card. I bequeath this responsibility to the Union. I’ve already reached out to their peeps to see if they can start handling it.


Group Remarks:

Megiddo - I'm glad to see you guys coming back and attempting to be more collaborative and willing to work with people compared to past incarnations. Good job on what you've been doing Pedro!

WOOF as a whole - Y'all have an alliance of 3 + 1, You have a great opportunity to do something good with this and push forward and attempt to innovate and support other new groups. At the same time you have the ability to ruin things by having a majority pull. Be collaborative and flexible.

Vos - It's been a year since you guys have come back, I truly hope you guys find your footing and can potentially grow your member base and expand your armory to become more self reliant, those of you that I know personally are great people. I wish yall the best.

Grand Fed - We've been on and off like a bad relationship for years,I’m glad we were mostly able to resolve our differences over the last few months and do some pretty chill combat.

CDF - I'm glad that I've been able to get to a point where I can have passing conversations with Exavier and not feel like I'm dealing with a brick wall. It's actually been one of my big positives the last year. Y'all are an alright bunch and I’m glad we got on better terms!

Chaos - I hope you guys can work out the issues that have led things to where they are and make amends somehow with others to get unblockaded. Despite where things landed in the end, I am immensely grateful to Hadet and Dread for helping us get things started at the very beginning.

GLC & Faust. - Despite the years of this weird animosity, I harbor no ill will against any of you. Good on Markus for being more communicative in the last few years!.Hope you guys can find a new opposing villain!

Ashguard - Keep trying to push things forward, you're at a disadvantage with the theme but y'all have done really well. With Soap’s creative ability I imagine you guys will continue to push out neat content, and hopefully with cliff racers.

AN - It's been a blast being able to share a space with yall for a bit. Thanks for the fun combat and the short but fun time spent together. My only exiting suggestion is that you guys tell the group to no longer use any of the legacy stuff and only use the new stuff. It limits but it’ll make other groups have more fun.
I'll do it Eventually™
dread.hudson
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Re: ESC Blockade

Post by dread.hudson »

ESC fucking died lol
I'll do it Eventually™
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