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| Interviews | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 27 2017, 10:31 PM (131 Views) | |
| Jakker | Jun 27 2017, 10:31 PM Post #1 |
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Interview with Plagentine Can you share a bit about your NS history and how you got involved in using predator? Plagentine: I joined NS several years before getting involved in raiding and gameplay, and spent most of that time in a semi-isolated community, so i wasn't really aware of the bigger picture of the game until around August/September of 2014 when my region got tagged by TBR. After that, I decided to give them a try and enlisted in their military, though for the first month I didn't get beyond the forum and didn't do any raids. Once i got more interested in it, I found my way to Gest's and Wetwork's skype usernames and added them, and later that day I was thrown into my first tag raid where I barely managed to switch on time. I kept on being active in TBR after that since i was pretty hooked on tagging, and after a couple weeks I also found out TBH was a thing and decided to join them too. As i progressively raided more in TBR, Halc first shared his sheet with me, so I could figure out how to trigger for a tiny startup region Shadoke, Fest, Rassen and i co-founded. I was shit at it and I even ended up using NS++ times during my first try, but then Halc showed me how to properly use the sheet so I got somewhat better. After i got promoted to Corporal(i think?), Halc gave me predator access and I started triggering whenever I could. I triggered using predator actively and ended up breaking TBR's record twice until I got caught up with school and decided to retire from the game just a few weeks before TBR's demise. Once I came back to the game though i didn't really use it that much, and preferred either triggering manually or with the use of Oracle, which is a simple tool+sheet that Khron made and basically used update length per nation to determine when a region updated, but you needed to keep punching in new times throughout the update and had to use some guesstimation. How much did you know about predator while you used it? Did you suspect at all that it would be later declared illegal? Plagentine: I knew that Halc made it, and that only one person could run it at a time. Later on, I figured out the second part wasn't the case if you just adjusted the update frequency a bit. The idea that it would be illegal never even crossed my mind because when I joined it seemed so deeply rooted into the raider community. It just seemed like the norm in TBR, and from what I understood at the time, it was used long before I even joined. I was doubting its legality after Halcones updated it to make up for issues not happening during updates anymore, though, and at that point I already hadn't used it for a while. Talk us through what was going through your mind during the days before the punishments were announced? How did you feel once they were announced? Plagentine: I was worrying about being puppet swept because I spent months building a large sleeper network and had a nice schedule for several operations that I wanted to do in the coming months. I was kinda nervous during the whole thing, but at no point did i think that WA bans would be used as a punishment. Also, I thought that I might get DoS'd for a little bit, but I ruled it out since it seemed like a bit of an overkill for the situation. Once it actually happened i was pretty calm, and even relieved that the decision was finally out and I didn't have to wait for the axe above my head to strike down. After some time passed, the dread of the realization that I basically wouldn't be able to raid for 9 months sank in and I got kinda salty about it. The biggest thing it changed for me was that I ended up leaving TBH as a result of it since I could no longer contribute in any meaningful way and just felt defeated about the whole thing. So I went to kinda rest in GC for a while, but a couple of months after I joined, it started to fall apart so I ended up making my own region so i could craft my own cozy community. Why do you think the overall predator situation happen? Plagentine: I think people were just too familiar with predator, so to speak. It was so engraved into TBR's, and later on DEN's culture that no one really suspected that it was illegal. It was so widely used that even a few members of TBH, well including me, used it from time to time. You could argue that something like predator happening was inevitable, and that it was necessary so that we could learn how to manage the frontier of scripts. How did you approach playing the game during your WA ban? Plagentine: Well for the first couple months, i was just doing FA stuff in GC from my phone because soon after predator my PC also died. But after GC started going to shit, I gathered a few friends and founded Firehelm, where I somehow managed to pour tons of hours despite my lack of computer and a WA nation. For the most part, I was doing administrative and strategic stuff like putting together people for operations, getting allies in on them, managing and coordinating sleepers, regional errands, integration, and basically whatever I could get my hands on that didn't require a WA. Playing like that, and again from a phone, ended up being very tiring and lead to me attempting to leave the game in January. I was just completely burnt out and lost all the joy of the game that I thought it would be best to just cut off all contact with the game instead of continuing my somewhat masochistic behavior. Did people treat you differently after the fact? How do you work to not let what happened define you as a player? Plagentine: I mean, a lot of people were pretty pissed off that a large group of players were cheating for so long, so certainly there was backlash. But that wasn't something that really affected me, or at least not nearly as much as the realization that a big chunk of what I did and what I was happy of accomplishing was done by breaking the rules. That was something that really made me frustrated for a loooong time, though I tried not to be too salty about it. Generally, I just tried to move on to new raids and contribute to raiding as best as I could with what I had. Dwelling on the past is only helpful as far as it stops us from repeating the same mistakes, but beyond that it's kinda pointless. Looking back, how have you changed as a player since predator? Plagentine: I'm a lot more cautious of scripts and I stay away from the forum even more than I used to, but beyond that I don't think I've changed much. From your experience, what advice would you give players? Plagentine: Try not to get WA banned because that sucks balls. |
| Jakker | Jun 28 2017, 09:40 PM Post #2 |
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Interview with Koth Can you share a bit about your NS history and how you got involved in using predator? Koth: I got involved with The Black Riders in 2012. It's where I spent the bulk of my time updating in my career, before I got burnt out of tagging. I got to witness the slow and steady development of Halcones' raiding tools while I was there. Started out with the BASIC update tool, which gave estimated update times based on ~600 trigger puppets that someone answered issues on with a script, usually Gest. This was eventually replaced by tools like ELITE, and eventually Predator. The point here is that to those of us who were in TBR for years, we had no reason to suspect that Halcones would suddenly start breaking the rules after a long period of delivering legal means to raid. Not that that mattered when the punishments came down. How much did you know about predator while you used it? Did you suspect at all that it would be later declared illegal? Koth: I don't think anyone really understood how Predator really worked under the hood. I knew it had something to do with constantly updating JSON lists, presumably from API calls. I don't think the frequency of the calls was ever called into question, only a few people ever really cared *how * the program worked as long as it let people raid. Illegality wasn't on anyone's mind as far as I recall. Talk us through what was going through your mind during the days before the punishments were announced? How did you feel once they were announced? Koth: I was preparing for the worst. DoS was a legitimate worry. I tried to get as much off of my puppets as I could and I was securing the future of the regions I held. When the punishments came down it turned out that I got the lightest sentence (3 month WA ban and a deleted main), but losing my main was still a huge hit to my love for the game. I honestly haven't felt the same since about NS. I don't post on Gameplay anymore, a habit I got into out of necessity because any warnings I'd have gotten would worsen my punishment (see: the ban being extended to 6 months when I baited 94 block). Why do you think the overall predator situation happen? Koth: This seems like a bit of a repeat question. It was a combination of blind faith and pride in what we'd been accomplishing with the tool. Loyalty to Halcones and a disdain for Moderation played a big role. How did you approach playing the game during your WA ban? Koth: Like I mentioned before, I all but stopped posting on Gameplay entirely, and I used to post quite a bit. I took up the role of the "invaluable moral support" on raids, doing what I could without a WA and sometimes thorning as well. It was a bit empty trying to be a raider without a WA nation, not gonna lie. Did people treat you differently after the fact? How do you work to not let what happened define you as a player? Koth: If they did, I haven't really noticed. Not letting it define me isn't something I put any "effort" into, like most things in NS the controversy fizzles out after a while. I have a career far beyond this incident, it's not at all the defining moment. Looking back, how have you changed as a player since predator? Koth: There's no more blind faith. Like many others, you're not gonna see me just using tools and assuming they're legal. There's also a lot less enthusiasm out of me in general. It's harder for me to get excited about anything these days. Don't take that to mean that the incident itself caused all of that, think of it more as the straw that broke the camel's back. From your experience, what advice would you give players? Koth: As my NS signature has stated since the incident, trust no one. Think critically about your leaders. Don't follow them like a lamb to slaughter. Challenge anyone who tries to tell you that success is more important than following the rules. They don't have your best interests in mind. Edited by Jakker, Jun 30 2017, 04:16 PM.
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| Jakker | Jun 30 2017, 04:22 PM Post #3 |
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Interview with Chingis Can you share a bit about your NS history and how you got involved in using predator? Chingis: My gameplay story begins with the day I joined DEN, on October the 20th 2015, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, at that time DEN wasn’t terribly active on an update to update basis and the real “tagging potential” lay with the remains of what was TBR’s Phoenix Squad - the region of Cimmeria, founded and led by Coraxion, now DoS. Cimmeria existed until about mid December 2015, where the return of Feuer Ritter (Still alive somehow), and WraithFIN (DoS), sparked the “rebirth”, as Cora called it, of TBR, in the form of the region “Black Riders”, which while similar to Cimmeria in activity, was much more controversial, and for that reason, as well as the sudden second wind of DEN, very soon fell apart. The reincarnation of Black Riders was also where I first met Halcones, the founder of TBR, and creator of Predator. He was rather untalkative, both in the main chat and in Private Messages, and generally stayed off the topic of NS in general. In fact the only conversations we really had were when he offered me an updating version of ELITE, which updated every time someone update Predator and therefore more reliable than the version Gest sent out about once a week top the triggers, and later when he offered me Predator around about late January/early February. I would love to say that I instantly became an amazing trigger the second I received Predator but that would be an atrocious lie. On my first run with Predator I achieved a hitcount of 24. 10 runs later that remained my highest ever hitcount. Varax (now defender), who acquired Predator later than I did. By that point in time was already getting 40-60 hits an update. In reality it was not the tool that resulted in the first tag raid to clear 100 hits in an update. It was innovation. Predator turned out to be amazing as a target generation tool, as it faced none of the restrictions in time and preparation that manual triggering does. That allowed it to work exceptionally well with a set of teams. Shortly after the 112 hit run Predator users were told to cease the usage of the tool, and the 2-3 odd weeks of wait began. How much did you know about predator while you used it? Did you suspect at all that it would be later declared illegal? Chingis: Not a lot to be honest. At the time that I was using I unfortunately had almost no idea how to program, or how most programs work, and did not even know about the existence of the NS API and its rules. I knew roughly how predator worked, however had/have never seen the source code, something which I regret a lot, not as much because I could’ve seen that it is illegal just from looking at it, because I couldn't have, but more because I still have no idea why it took so long to setup, and am interested in what secret math and strange processes Halcones had running in the background. Despite that I had not expected it to be ruled illegal. Not much reason for that bar blind faith, but nevertheless, no, I did not think it would be ruled illegal. Talk us through what was going through your mind during the days before the punishments were announced? How did you feel once they were announced? Chingis: The whole predator situation came across in two waves. Firstly, early March 2016, was the “OK stop using it while we investigate” phase, in which the people who used it were expected to file GHRs while the mods debated over its illegality. At the time I wasn’t terribly concerned. Life went on as usual, I tried out manual triggering, taught newbies to raid etc. I think the reason for my general lack of concern was the fact that, as stated above, I never truly believed that Predator would be ruled illegal. In fact I only filed my GHR some odd week before the red text hit. This had nothing to do with my personal decisions and was really thanks to Ever-Wandering Souls, the current Field Marshall of TBH, and in a smaller amount, to Benevolent Thomas, the creator of this iteration of The Grey Wardens, for which I am incredibly thankful to both of them, as the person that I was back then was far too stubborn. One of the first things I did on my return to NS, was to thank Souls for what he did for me back then. Second, was the week or so before the punishments were actually given out, where Elu had already confirmed Predator to be illegal and it was just a matter of when and what the punishments would be. I personally did not expect to receive the same punishment as Gest, one step away from a DoS, but to be honest, it was the deletion of DEN that shocked me the most at the time. Why do you think the overall predator situation happen? Chingis: I really have no answer. I hope that Koth and Kleo do a better job of answering this question than me. How did you approach playing the game during your WA ban? Chingis: Shortly speaking, I didn't. I vanished until the ban was about 2 months out from being lifted. After my ban from the NPO, R/D gameplay had become the crux of my NS life and without an active WA, there was nothing for me to do. Did people treat you differently after the fact? How do you work to not let what happened define you as a player? Chingis: I think that I was very lucky in this sense. The attitude that most people have shown towards me has changed very little after Predator, for whatever reason. It may be down to the fact that older GPers saw me as less experienced, and therefore less guilty. I really don't know. However, the fact remains that if anything, the attitude I appear to be receiving from the people around me has gotten better with my return. Obviously this is more linked to who I am as a person not what happened around Predator, but it really feels amazing to know that I am still welcome after what happened. I think that this combination of events is why I don't really have to work to, as you put it, "not let what happened define me as a player" - Predator is a thing of thee long forgotten past for me and no one I have talked to since has brought it up in any way that was more sinister than simple jest. For this I am extremely thankful to my fellow GPers. Looking back, how have you changed as a player since predator? Chingis: Again, I feel that "as a player", Predator and the events surrounding it have not changed me in the slightest. Obviously I do not brush over what happened, and have not forgotten why I was given my punishment, but no large changes in beliefs or character have really appeared. The only real difference is with standing at one scripting offense away from DoS, I have stopped trusting any piece of code not written by myself personally. However, other than that, any change in me is down to me maturing as a person. After all, it has been over 2 years since I joined NationStates, and I have grown IRL as a person, so it's no big surprise that who I am as a player has changed slightly too. From your experience, what advice would you give players? Chingis: Regarding Predator? Think before you do something you might regret later, like accepting a tool from someone you do not trust, or sending the mods an edgy GHR (An answer to those who always ask why I got 12 months while others got off with much less). In terms of general advice? Predator is a massive stain on the history of raiding, and marks a period of time when raiders lost a lot of the credibility that some had worked hard to build up. For my part in that I am immensely sorry. However, while it is something we should remember, we shouldn't get caught up on the past. We play a game after all. And in this particular game, in order to keep it fun we must keep moving and learn to leave such stains behind. Moving towards a better, brighter and far less toxic GP. Edited by Jakker, Jun 30 2017, 04:23 PM.
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