People still playing Warcraft III

[obloquy]

I mean no disrespect, well, obviously there is inherent disrespect to saying this, but I mean no more than necessary.

I have no idea what the deal with Fangorn's situation is/was, I don't care enough to ask or research, and I have no connection with him, so believe me when I say that this isn't some sneaky attempt to "defend" him and pick at admins.

That said......here comes 50 page rant:

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The frustration/disappointment he indicates has been felt by me and has been indicated to me ingame by others

I understand very well that the issues he describes are something that I have seen in ANY and ALL clans/communities in wc3, especially DotA, for a decade now.

So this isn't even anything "personal" toward ENT other than, it is personal by default

But really if you guys want to make an honest and serious effort to improve and survive and grow, rather than just "maintain the status quo" and slowly die off due to the SAME issues which plague all clans, you must make some changes or at least make a public display of a desire and attempt to change and improve

The whole political structure thing, power circle and corruption and whatever the fuck it is, okay look that's just how shit goes, rule of life, but when you have leadership that acts like it's powerless to make positive change, or just acting resigned to the fate, this feeling and atmosphere proliferates through all levels of the clan and community

I stopped caring to really bother about trying to gain admin/mod status after seeing some depressing and bleak reaction and veiwpoints, this is not something so simple as "person X said statement Y in thread Z, here is the proof", this is something less concrete, it's just a sense and feeling that is made pretty clear, regardless how the message is delivered and with what words, it exists nonetheless

I had originally been fairly interested to try proving myself as worthy of being an ingame mod because my opinion is that (as I have said in the past and as others such as Fangorn here have said) this community suffers from huge lack of ingame mods, as well as suffering from the other problems he stated (in much less words than I could)

But I decided that it simply wasn't worth trying to pursue for the obvious reasons

There is a general feeling of "meh fuck it" that I started getting and seeing and this again was not anything simple or plainly said, it just is what it is, like you can feel someone is trying to bullshit you when you speak in person, the same goes when reading stuff online

You see these references to being more active, making more posts on forums, displaying good judgment in ban reports, help us catch MHers, etc etc and then you can try to help

But then it's kind of like you hit a brick wall when you see that nothing ever really is handled with urgency or a pursuit of justice, it's just kind of like Fangorn said, sure any clan is like this, but still....kind of the boy's club, and then the random pubs...and good luck if you aren't in the club because you're not getting in so stop whining is kind of the feeling I got

This isn't all about me, I am not trying to complain about that, I'm over it,

I care enough to think that ENT is overall a pretty good place to play and I care enough to think that people do exist who would like to make efforts to improve, but I don't care enough to really deal with the ingame antics anymore, I don't like how the rules are set up to reward bullshit and bad behavior in the ephemeral pursuit of "new players" or "being nice"

I feel like it was more wasting my time to sit through game after game of fountain farming and endless same leavers over and over, and then if I ever want to try bringing someone to justice then it's like trying to sign up for a college scholarship where basically unless you really work your ass off and make it seem like you can accept doing a bunch of bullshit just for the sake of proving you can accept a bunch of bullshit, then gtfo

It's like you have to work so hard at it that it's just not even worth it in the first place, which seems like that's entirely the whole idea and plan is to make you not want to bother, heh...no wonder you don't have many ingame mods or from what I see many or any new mods...because you're basically telling people "we don't want to bother and you must waste your time because it's a waste of our time, so waste more of your time and waste it first, and then we'll talk"

Sure that's how gaining power and discipline works but we're not talking about the shaolin master in the mountaintop lair who demands 30 years of your life and total subservience to learn his style, or some godfather drug cartel shit....we're talking about a fucking video game that only nostalgic old fucks still play and give 2 shits about, where maybe people aren't motivated by pure hearted "I want to make a difference for the better!" but maybe it's more like "I want to have more fun playing this game", at least it's something

It's insane to think about posting a long and official ban report for literally ZERO outcome, again literally ZERO outcome because the bans and punishments are just ineffective, and that blame, that responsibility, should be accepted by the administration, not twisted to be pushed onto the prospective admins, which is kind of the message I have seen: "well if you think shit's fucked up then you should work harder to improve it, Mr. New Guy" nah, it's the other way around....

And then when people complain about lack of ingame admins they get told "well it's easy to do, just follow these steps and prove yourself" but obviously you're deterring people from even doing it because no one gives enough of a shit to bother, the proof is in the pudding...again this isn't about me and some weird spiteful thing, I'm just going by what I see, which is no one applies

It's really sad to me because I feel like from the perspective of technical foundation, bots, database, system, codes, ENT really is strong as hell, you guys have some amazing shit here that most wannabe clans would drool over having or even looking inside the engine, I think most players don't even half understand how good they have it to play on your shit

But the rest of it...just not there, again this isn't mean to be an insult or disrespect it's just honesty, take it or leave it, I don't expect to argue more or have to defend these opinions here because I'm not going to bother, so if you read this, just digest it and think about what we're saying, or don't, either way is fine, but I have to say it to keep level with my conscience

Like I said other day, I think you guys have done a damn good job overall keeping people active and playing, but there's a lot more to the picture, because the people you're keeping happy are the ones that aren't very positive attributes, while the ones you're pushing away are the ones you probably could have really gotten some useful mileage out of.

Again I don't know Fangorn from Adam, sure I remember that same name from years and years ago but no idea who he is or anything about him, I don't give two shits about him so I'm not out to "have his back" or jump on his bandwagon just because I want to cause hurt or be spiteful. But when I read his posts, I have a lot of respect for him, and I see that this is the type of person who you are (or should be, or will be) sorry to have pissed off and pushed away, it's kind of like EdgeofChaos talking about how DC treated him like shit and that's their loss, to lose him...

...Well, I don't see ENT growing and gaining and attracting and keeping valuable new people in leadership roles or positions of authority, I see the same handful (literally handful) of people who don't even play DotA and obviously they cater only to their direct personal interests, you have a huge segment of the population (I can't say majority because I don't know but probably huge majority or at the very least a plurality) who is basically running amok with no rules, no fucks given, and no recourse for those who do give a fuck... and no I don't mean to insult or talk shit about the other great custom maps out there who people still love and play and keep running, it's really awesome to have these maps still hosted, I'm not trying to shit on people who play "non" DotA games by any means, so don't even think I'm saying that...

I'm just talking 100% real level, what's up...is this clan basically just a boy's club + pet project for random custom mapmakers and diehard addicts and their friends for shit like WMW/TD/Island D/NWU/Bships/etc etc, or what?

Sure it's true, DotA is a shitty, "pop" lame-ass game filled with shitty lame-ass people, I hate the players more than I hate the game...but guess what, that's kind of the way shit works out in real life

Anyway, like I said a while back, barking up the wrong tree is what I got out of it

[Methodzz]

A MASS ammount of people are still playing wc3 because, lets be honest sc2's online arcade is HORRRRRRID.
Wc3's online experience is 1000x better. I mean sc2 screwed up so hard it takes me like 1 hour just to add a freind in sc2 thats how bad the online experience is.

Also the arcade system is such a fail in sc2 that barley anyone hast o motivation to even create good maps their.

I belive this is why the majority has moved back to wc3 to play with all the quality custom maps and enjoy the nice hosting system.

[I-N-S-A-N-E]

I can't imagine good admins grow on trees. Perhaps they've tried to get more but the interest just wasn't there. I just think that ideally you would have more players in these games who could stop the BS game ruining before it starts. Their presence in games alone should have a dramatic effect on the games, much like added police presence can deter crime just by being seen.
And to the comment about smurfing admins above, this is 100% NOT cool. Admins should never smurf unless they want to announce it to everyone at the beginning of the game. This, and many other shady admin practices (!swapping players in lobby to stack teams, banning without just cause), is what in my opinion helped kill the old SUN bot I used to play LoD on. The admins, and chieftain, were constantly smurfing so they could antagonize other players under a veil of anonymity.
I'd be happy to lend my services in any way possible. Problem is, I'm computer illiterate and probably incapable of the required tasks. Like seriously, I'm a total idiot about this stuff and I'm too old to wanna learn it. These damn machines confuse me in every way possible (I can't even figure out how to install new windows updates that should be automatic but say they keep failing). So I guess for now I'll just stick to submitting the occasional ban report.
Also, while were on the subject, is there anywhere on here that tells us who the admins are. I think I only know of 3 of them, I'm assuming there are many more?

[child]

@obloquy @fangorn @cuminmyassplz @i-n-s-a-n-e
Well I spent like the last 20 minutes reading and thinking about many of the comments here, and I'd like to offer my opinions as, yes, a hated moderator (I'm a newbie moderator tho I think I started exactly a month ago today), but first and foremost (like you all) as a die hard no bullshit oldschool player. And to be clear I agree with 90% of what you guys are arguing.

By the way my names Charles charlie w/e, and I'm not a little boy as fangorn seemed to suggest I just turned 23 and I've been playing this game obsessively on and off (usually on ha) since before it was even dota (forgot the name of original atm).

In response to comments that many of you have made about in game moderation I would wholeheartedly like to say that I support increased activity/number of in game moderators. --@@ No actually I BEG some of you to PLEASE help me out with handling the requests and appeals and in game moderation. We just had one of our most active mods, at least in the ban requests/appeals forums resign today and I am getting stressed over work at the moment @@-- I really do empathize with the lack of in game disciplinary actions. But the bottom line is I only play two modes and I can only play so much per day. Essentially the only moderators who play dota regularly are myself, Agreements and edgeofchaos, although Agreements only plays once or twice a day from what I've seen. 13omb was playing dota LOD but I am not sure if he still is. Additionally, Agreements and Edge almost strictly play dota apem us/ca (maybe apem euro for Agree's once in a while) and I strictly play arem and sdem unless I absolutely cannot find a game. Fangorn, that probably explains why you haven't seen any moderators haha. I am extremely active, although if you live in the US you may not see me on THAT much as I usually play the most from 2 am EST to 7 am EST (i have a form of insomnia ) Since becoming a moderator ive played over 100 games on the account that is the same as this name, child@uswest. Thats a little over 3 games per day.
However, @i-n-s-a-n-e I also usually play a few games on random accounts as well. I have three good reasons for doing this, in my opinion, and I hope that maybe when/if we play (OR MODERATE!@!!@!) together some day you will see that I never abuse my power or troll players on smurfs (mods aren't allowed to use powers on smurfs anyways). I play on new accounts for some or all of the following reasons at a time A) Because I just want to be anonymous for a game, and I dont even mean anonymous as a mod vs player I just mean that my stats are pretty decent, and its nice to sometimes play and not have a bunch of stackers holding up the lobby or other things B) Because I want to be anonymous because I am interested in the activities of a/some certain user(s) and do not want to risk exposing myself and have them dodge the game or change their normal behavior and C) if I am playing with a friend (none of my friends have high elo btw) i do not want them to gain little elo for games just because I am in them and I also don't want the distraction of people complaining to me to kick or ban people etc. while I'm having fun with a bud. I do moderate while on a new account though, and although I can't use powers in game I have banned several users from games I was in on anon accounts. I hope you can understand these reasons.
Last thing I want to say is about the issue of delayed ban request processes, or appeals, and the lack of severity in punishment for game ruiners. I want to impress right off the bat is that being banned sucks if your a dota addict like me, because the other servers just arent up to par with ENT as of over a year now. When doing ban requests I always try to give the accused the benefit of the doubt for that reason, UNLESS i personally know the user to be a, uh, "bad person". That being said, for cases in which evidence is clear, I always ban for near or at the maximum suggested time periods based on guidelines we have. I'm new and have been new, so I've been trying to strictly follow the guidelines and nothing else. @Fangorn, I've processed a few of your requests and I know they were frustratingly banned for a short period of time, but please recognize that I want to keep my job so that one day maybe I will have a very large say in the rules. I've started to ban people for longer than the guidelines suggest if they are repeat offenders or just unkind in game.
But on the other hand, I know that the reason I left dotacash (a lonnng time ago, I went to void after) was because their ban lengths were so long and the rate of accepted appeals so low that it just was ridiculous. Mind you this was also back when Dotacash was basically the only viable autohost bot. It was back in the day (probably when I was 16 or 17) and I was a little childish and lanned with a buddy of mine all the time at my house. We would occasionally leave games if we were doing poorly, and sometimes (embarrassingly) would rage at our team and do things like toss them to the other team. We were given one two week ban, which even that seemed so long back then, and although we improved our behavior we left maybe 1 or 2 games out of dozens in a couple weeks after that and I actually got banned for a YEAR from dotacash. I was a kid, and it was terrible.

My point in telling you this useless story is that A. first offense bans for a week may be reasonable for game ruining, but I think 2 weeks is a really long time. Theres kids who are mid/early teens even now who play, and they aren't all mature like you guys seem to be. But i just remember how unfair I thought it was to be given 1 harsh warning and then a completely outrageous ban when I was young. B. that things need to be scaled, and not scaled at a 90 degree angle. If I see a user violate a rule, im going to ban him for usually 1-7 days for first offense for almost everything except maphack and sometimes ban dodging. If he does it again (the same offense) I will ban him double the length. If he commits a different offense, but in close proximity to the first, ill just add a couple of days on.

Crap I have to go terrible ending. My ending is this, I agree with 90% of what u guys said. JUST LOOK IN THE SUGGESTIONS FORUM, i basically say a lot of what you all said this was more recently viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18231

but if you search threads posted by child in the suggestions archive ull find several long winded posts relating to these issues.

PLEASE CONSIDER HELPING ME AS A MODERATOR lol but seriously.. I have work too IRL. IF U WANT TO TALK MORE PM ME I NEED TO GO WRITE (FOR WORK)

[ProjectPat]

I disagree StarCraft still is a fun game to play however its not that it is ''sucky'' that people don't play it anymore, its the fact that there are so many games out that have similar graphics and gameplay that it has simply been pushed to the side. Warcraft III is far more competitive for today's style of gamers, this is why so many people still stand by warcraft over starcraft

[Nightkill]

If Blizzard makes Warcraft IV,the Warcraft III community would be dead and everybody would transfer in Warcraft IV.I still think they won't make a new Warcraft.

[Fangorn]

@child , I didnt mean to include you in criticism. It goes mainly to the owner(s?) and agreements for not recruiting more active admins. They obviously don't understand that more admins are needed, which is sad for the community.
https://entgaming.net/openstats/game/2422118/
This is yet another example of a game that is ruined by a bara-picker who feeds 12 deaths before leaving. With adminpower, I would tempban him for 3 days, and then kick him after 5 deaths, since he kept charging alone = intentional gameruin.

[ahobbit]

warcraft 3 wil never die unless warcraft 4 gets released The game is pure fun and a good community.

[EdgeOfChaos]

warcraft 3 wil never die unless warcraft 4 gets released The game is pure fun and a good community.

agreed

[eldryan]

@child , I didnt mean to include you in criticism. It goes mainly to the owner(s?) and agreements for not recruiting more active admins. They obviously don't understand that more admins are needed, which is sad for the community.
https://entgaming.net/openstats/game/2422118/
This is yet another example of a game that is ruined by a bara-picker who feeds 12 deaths before leaving. With adminpower, I would tempban him for 3 days, and then kick him after 5 deaths, since he kept charging alone = intentional gameruin.

you can just make a ban request...very rarely have I seen ban requests go unprocessed for more then 1-2 days, really. Also, it's not allowed to ban someone in game for offenses like MH - !votekick is present for those scenarios such as feeding, and it is bannable to not !yes anyways. Mod isn't needed in this scenario.

[Fangorn]

Mods are naturally needed. This is one example of how slow the ban requests are being handled;
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21359

The maphacker I reported is still not banned, even though it was more than obvious that he maphacked whilst in the game. Now however, the same maphacker I reported, has made a report on another maphacker.

The votekick command is useless most of the times, as the maphackers allies will refuse to !yes it, noticing that they have a much greater chance of winning the game with the hacker in their team.

I hope this cleared the issue out for you

[Snip130]

It's a great game, I can't leave it without the nostalgia just taking over. I feel like Wc3 is a drug, I've never quit completely, and always come back.

[uakf.b]

Warcraft IV: A King's Rebirth just released -- http://warcraft4.com/