- Keegers
- Aug 11, 2014
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Remember no e-dating
https://www.reddit.com/r/albiononline/comments/g9ms0w/goodbye_to_my_friends/
quote:
Hello all,
My name is Lacosier. More likely than not, most of you do not know who I am. But for those who know who I am, I want to say how grateful and thankful I am that I had an opportunity to meet you, to play with you, to get to learn about who you are, and I want you to know how awesome my life has been because of you. I got to meet some genuinely amazing people from all over the world and have the opportunity to become friends. Especially for all my Polish przyjacielu who taught me Dobre Dzien, dobranoc. And for all of you, I will treasure every moment we got to share together.
As you may or may not know, I was kicked from ARCH, AC, and discord. I was unable to given the opportunity to explain myself. I was silenced and gagged, prevented from being able to share my side of the story. Arch leadership is deliberately preventing me from being able to communicate freely with all of you. And while normally I wouldn’t really do this, I wanted to take a final opportunity to explain my side because to me, you guys and girls who I consider friends are incredibly important. And because of the way I was treated, I wept because I couldn’t even properly say goodbye. And it’s been a very difficult last few days because I care about you all, even the ones who most likely don’t deserve for me to care for them. But I do. Because I want to respect you all because we are all human and in this together on this loving blue marble spinning around the universe. And I think I’ve been able to finally find the right words to express these feelings. So here I go.
I started this game as a free to play player a little under a year ago. This is my first MMO-RPG. And I started off as a single player economy trader/vendor trading between Ft. Sterling and Caerleon. After some time, I joined some really nice people who primarily did PvE in red zones in a very small guild called Mythical. After they ended up disbanding due to IRL things, I played by myself again for a few months. At some point I was interested in this whole black zone thing and looked around and found ARCH, which claims to be “noob-friendly”. And I really enjoyed it. It was fun, different aspects of warfare, gathering, crafting, etc.
I started doing PVP groups because I was interested in warfare. I enjoy warfare, strategy and creating situations where my team wins every single fight with 0 deaths. And after a while, I did these activities for the benefit of my friends. I rarely took any loot, and if I did I gave it away to people who died because of my shotcalls. And when I ran out of money, I would trade luxury goods around the royal cities to at least try to make a little money to give it to the people who died because I know what it’s like as a free to play player how hard this game is to grind. And I don’t want you to ever go through that. Let me make this clear, I have NEVER wanted any position of power, leadership, or title. I only did this because it was fun and I enjoyed meeting and playing with others.
During my time in ARCH some other things happened, including me falling head over heels for a girl named Lillli. I ended up liking her and confessing and she ultimately turned me down, which is okay.  I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and I hope this helps for people who go through future rejections, but if someone doesn’t value you for who you are, then they’re simply not worth your time. And especially if you just try your best and if you think you’re a good person and they don’t value you, then they REALLY are not worth your time. I know some people within ARCH may have experiences with e-dating or online dating where it didn’t go well, and there’s different ways to handle it. For me, if someone rejects me it doesn’t give me a right to be mean or lash out or be rude to that person. If anything, just leave them alone because if they don’t like you, you are NOT the center of the universe and you should respect their decision that they don’t like you. So Lillli, I will apologize again for bringing you up and this topic in public, but I do appreciate you turning me down and am grateful you did, sincerely. Because I really don’t think I’m the right person for you, and you’re really not the right person for me. But I wish you nothing but the best in life and hope that you meet someone who truly values you for being you.
After Lillli had ended up rejecting me and briefly left ARCH (2 unrelated events btw), there was a pretty offensive misogynistic meme made by d0t1 and propagated by SlothSDS depicting a bdsm scene with a man sitting in a chair being dragged by a rein with a woman in leather straps with a horse tail rear end plug while the reins were attached to a stick in her mouth. The meme depicted the guy as KingMojo (who I don’t know), and Lilli as the woman dragging the sleigh. At this point, Lillli had rejected me and I had no personal feelings for her. However, I felt incensed and infuriated about the misogyny as well as the fact that these people, in my opinion, stabbing someone in the back when they weren’t in ARCH or even able to defend or speak up for themselves.
One thing you should know about me is that I am not a good person. I make mistakes, I mess up, I’m human. But I want to be a good person. And it’s important that I try. And the type of Man I want to become is someone who I can be proud of. That even on the internet I don’t have to hide behind any sort of anonymity. I find that when we interact on the internet hiding behind names, that’s why you can really try to see and understand who a person truly is. Out in the real world, we all have consequences for our actions that are long lasting and impactful, but here, especially in Albion, you get to choose. And I choose to want to be a genuine, real, and caring person. I have never been interested in fake or shallow people. I want to be with genuine and good people or with people who at least want to try to become better. Many people will make the claim that “this is just a game”, “this is just the internet”, but in my opinion that’s all excuses. PEOPLE ARE REAL. The people are always real. The emotions and the social interactions we have even in this fake world have real world consequences, it’s just that we’re separated by distance and or people choose not to care with whatever reasons they come up with.
And so when I was faced with a decision to ignore what I saw and be willing to accept the injustice or to leave and stand up for what I believed in, it was an obvious choice. And I chose to leave with my dignity and morals.
Shortly thereafter, people within arch tried to recruit me back saying that things would change. And so I figured I’d give it a chance if certain conditions were met. While I’m sure some of the things I asked for they said yes but I’m sure they didn’t follow up, but I was willing to give ARCH a second chance. They gave me a “zerg leader” title and gave me silver and things to support me during the groups I happened to lead. As a disclaimer, I may have received from leadership something from 15-20ish million in silver over my entire time in ARCH. And if you really were in any of my groups, that is a paltry sum of silver compared to the “content” that I happened to provide. And on this point, I want you all to know: I give 0 shits about titles or silver or gold or all this digital pixel dust and loot. I think it’s pointless and doesn’t mean a single thing. I ran those groups because I found it enjoyable playing with friends. And for the ARCH organization, they found it beneficial because it provided “content” as well as a silver resource generator. The people in my groups would make easily a few million combined each time I went out and we all had fun.
But over time, as I continued to be within arch, there were aspects especially from my interaction and observations within arch leadership which continued to grow heavier and heavier on me. I was, willingly or unwillingly, contributing towards this group. And while I made excuses, I tried to overlook, I tried to just bear this by myself and out of respect for arch leadership and not say specific things publicly because I am self honor bound to a belief in a chain of command, certain things got to a point where I could no longer ignore. So I tried to reach out to try and talk things out, try to make an effort to do my best for arch and talk with leadership, but over and over and over the things that were communicated did not correlate with certain actions. And then I just constantly faced self doubt and cognitive dissonance because what I wanted to believe about arch leadership and what they say is not what I felt or seen by their actions.
As of these last few days, I was running a gank group where I felt confident in confiding with the group my difficult decision that I couldn’t play in arch anymore. Dport happened to be in the group and was concerned and asked me to join a private coms where he tried to figure out what he could do to convince me to stay in arch. Out of a very limited respect that I’ve exhausted after hearing how Dport has been talking about me after I was kicked, I will still try to keep most of the conversation Dport and I had private. Suffice to say, Dport invited glut to try and come into the channel. My first words to Glut was: “I just can’t play in arch anymore”. Gluts immediate reaction: “Cool”. 2 seconds later I was kicked from discord. No questions or follow up by gluttony about what or why things made me feel this way, no request or follow up about anything, no discussion if I had loot in HO or ac islands, nothing. Just his response “cool” and that was it. I had already logged off the game, but my fears were further confirmed when someone asked me in discord why i left AC 15 min after I was kicked. This is the situation by which I was kicked from arch and why I am unable to talk or reach out to all of you, my friends.
I am quite certain that any presence of my within arch discord is being purged. They are trying to erase anything I’ve said and, in so doing, be able to take control of any narrative they want or wish to write. This system of control is most likely trying to silence and prevent me from being able to defend or explain myself, except that unlike in ZVZ’s, they can’t simply mute me in voice. So there is probably a high likelihood that they will continue to trash talk or let some people trash talk and some people say: “oh, he’s a nice guy, I hope he comes back to Arch”. All of this is propaganda. Please be aware. I beg you. Don’t let them speak on my behalf. If you want to know who I am, please come to me and I will be straightforward and honest. I even have screenshot evidence of Glut saying that he considers me a "traitor" and that any "group" I join is going to be single-mindedly targeted by ARCH until I return? That is not healthy at all. That is a genuinely scary statement and unhealthy.
Now that I have been kicked from ARCH, I feel more free to speak my mind openly about my analysis and concerns in the hopes that arch seriously take these words and analyze this for their benefit: warfare and politics/leadership.
On the part of warfare, one of the things I am most concerned with is the strategy by which ZVZ’s are conducted. ARCH has always benefited from the quantity overwhelming quality, which is perfectly a fine and viable strategy. However, most of the ZvZ results in a still significant and unnecessary losses typically sustained by the common person/gamer. Most of the time, ARCH leadership are equipped on battle mounts so that they are relatively safe and have a high probability of survival unless they are specifically targeted. And so most of the shot calling depends on people throwing themselves firsthand into the enemy and dying until the enemy breaks. From a leadership position where the main shot callers are give millions of silver to regear, battlemounts whenever they ask for it, etc, they essentially have infinite resources to play with. However, for the common person, showing up to a CTA has the potential to burn you out economically so that you have little to no money. I am also sure that there is good intention with arch leadership providing and giving out silver for people to regear, but I will address this phenomenon in a later paragraph. It is also, I find, incredibly hypocritical when people within arch utilize macro loots after asking people to push to collect loot off the dead bodies of fellow arch people on streams or laugh about it on voice coms while they always yell at people to not loot, how police fine certain people who are not within arch leadership, etc etc etc. When new players die who don’t have much money, you are forced to go and fame farm or do something that generates silver through taxes and this is a vicious cycle where arch leadership benefits from sending you into war because not only do they get the loot off you, you go and do all these things to give them your silver tax, hence a whammy and a small whammy.
Another vital important point is to recognize that the recent change to how debuff affects certain stats and the movement of SBI AWAY from one shot to provide more long sustaining fights has benefited arch immensely. There was about a series of 2-3 weeks of 4 mandatory CTA’s per day in around late February to early March where the same current CTA shot callers suffered insane amounts of losses. People were burning out, objectives lost, ARCH zerg completely wiped and all of the regular players couldn’t keep going. From my observation, arch CTAs at that time had about a 20-35% WR. However, after a critical patch which involved a debuff change to NO LONGER affect the defense of the players, and after the gamer Blazing pointed this out to me, suddenly arch zerg’s went from 20-35% WR to over 70-80% WR even though the shot caller was the same and if anything, critical gamers had left arch. I believe that arch has greatly benefited from the debuff change despite the main shot callers continuing with their same strategy.
On the topic of politics and leadership, I want to make evident again. I hold no political ambitions. I just want to play the game. I believe I have certain warfare strategies that make sense and are, fortunately or unfortunately, far different from the main mentality of arch ideas of how ZVZ should be conducted. And part of that stems from what I believe to be a critical component of why I can no longer play for or be associated with ARCH leadership or the organization.
I believe that attitude reflects leadership. And leadership reflects organization. After much quiet observation, interaction, seeing and hearing and watching the actions of arch leadership, this is not a place where I can continue to be associated with or have any support. I believe Arch leadership is essentially similar to in real life corporations and the reason why I hate and am cynical about large organizations is because more often than not, they are built to truly only allow the 1% profit and to create a hierarchy where if you’re not with us you’re against us. The propaganda for arch has certain elements that I wanted to believe in such as providing an opportunity for new players to achieve and have access to highest levels of the game, but if you really look at the situation, I developed cognitive dissonance with what I saw what was going on versus what I wanted to believe.
There is a high probability that Arch leadership uses and abuses people. Except for an elite core of individuals, they try to convince you all that you, as an individual or a guild, need Arch. However, the opposite is true. Arch NEEDS you. Arch requires and can only survive if you, as an individual, give it power. They provide hideouts and terries and fights and content and they make you believe that when a guild pays 20 mil for an entrance fee that you get access to all these higher tier things which is not false but the amount of money it requires to make a HO is easily covered by the amount of taxes, fees, police fines for individuals and guilds, entry admission, etc. They use threats, propaganda, sweet talk, give you silver or gear, all these other political or social strategies to make you do what they want, including taking outposts or castles whereby the loot is only taken by arch hierarchy which typically has insane amounts of silver and anywhere from 150-600 tomes to be solely given to specific individuals within arch leadership or to purchase battle mounts for specific individuals within arch leadership. They tell you which “elite enemy guilds/alliances” to hate so you can be more motivated to take down these “bad people” when Arch itself is already filled with regular normal people as well as elite people. They claim how other people should not “handhold” or use “NAP” but they negotiate with POE the planned destruction of SURF, they form NAPs with Newby, Last Warn, Take care, and more. They claim that they provide you all this protection and safety and content. But they do NOT give even to the people who take time out of their gameplay to show up to fight or claim castles the silver, loot, and tomes that come from the castles. They claim that you owe part of your time for them for CTAs, for all these arch main organization things. But in all reality, you owe them nothing because without you arch leadership is only a specific number of people. As with any organization, the organization only has power if the individual submits and gives it power. And when you give up your identity as an individual and believe that you are an organization, while it may feel empowering, it is a very very very dangerous psychological place to be.
I plan to be in the field of medicine and there are stories of when doctors retire, some of them simply lose sight of who they are as a person. They have been so consumed in their profession or job where they feel lost without being in the hospital. And so, often times there are some who simply go to the hospital and sit and just be there. And I honest to god hope that you all as gamers don’t forget who you are. That you stay true to yourself. I believe that humans are inherently “empty”, that there’s some sort of void that we all try to fill with something to make the loneliness go away. It can be drugs, jobs, sex, games, hobbies, and a lot more. But the one truest thing that I’ve learned is that the emptiness can only be filled by genuine and real human connections, whether that’s through true and lasting friendships or love with a partner, but it has to be real. And yes, this is a game, but I have always been interested in being genuine and real and being honest and truthful. Life is far too short to waste time of superficial people who smile at you and backstab you when you’re gone and who smear your name when you’ve done nothing wrong and don’t defend you even though you might’ve tried your best. And it is when times are toughest you figure out truly who are the people who care and don’t care. And I’ve been grateful for everyone who’s tried reaching out to me to understand what’s going on, why I “left” arch although they didn’t realize I was kicked, how they despite my name and everything I’ve done within arch how I’m being erased and my name is being manipulated or people are saying things out in public and in private they say that i’ve lost my mind, that I’m wrong, that I”m a terrible human being, that I was somehow trying to undermine others, that I’m psychologically hosed up. Seeing as I cannot plead my case, please look at judge me based on who attacks me, who talks poorly about me. And look at who those people associate themselves with and recognize that sometimes some people don’t say anything so they don’t look bad but they let other people say bad things for them so they don’t have to.
This is supposed to be a loving game, and yet why is it that I couldn’t even be given the opportunity to say goodbye to my friends? The people I’ve enjoyed this game with? I don’t care about my loot that I still have in AC island or these hideouts, but what in the world have I done to deserve such a treatment? What sort of justice or injustice exists for a man who’s only tried to live honestly and good? If you don’t trust me, then test me. Come talk to me. I have nothing to hide. I have never played for any other mega alliance and you can ask anyone and everyone if they’ve ever heard my name or voice because all of that is a sham, it’s propaganda, and these people feel safe because I’m no longer able to defend myself and so they feel confident now to rip at me, to tear at my reputation, to use and abuse everything about me. I did bring up the idea of me creating a guild within arch for gluttony under like a 5th alliance for arch because I like playing with new people and to avoid debuff and I have evidence and would be willing to show things for anyone to read. And I would be happy to corroborate any of my PM’s with anyone else’s because there’s nothing for me to hide. I have never done anything to undermine Arch or to betray arch and yet I am being treated like a criminal or a traitor on what basis? On what grounds? My only analysis or possible explanation with high probability is that somehow there are specific people who for some reason have it in their mind that I’m a threat. And it’s okay. I’ve dealt with bullies in the past, and I know what it’s like to be bullied. And it hurts, but in the end, if this is how these bullies want to treat me even when most of us are probably over the age of 7, this is their right. And i want to respect them to continue to live the way they want to, and I would like to say to you people who bully others I genuinely pity you. I don’t know what has happened in your life to make you feel this way that you have to continue trying to bully people in all things over a video game, but it’s okay. Even though I don’t like you or the way you treat me or the way you tear at me, I am confident in who I am. And I still, despite all of the pain and anger that you want to throw at me, I want to respect you because you are human and I want to believe still that despite all this, there’s a small amount of goodness that could exist if you so choose. And I pity you because I honest to loving god believe that if you just tried, just a little bit to be good, generous, kind, that this organization that you want to lead or be part of could be so much stronger and genuinely unbeatable. The last thing I want In life is a machine or a robot to follow me, to train people to only listen and follow like sheep. I want to play with friends who work together. But I respect your choice to decide your own path, and I pray that you live to the fullest and find people who genuinely care for you. At the very least, you have this safe space with people you have clearly surrounded yourself with who seem to enjoy your company. And because it is your space, and clearly I am somehow a “threat” to you, I do not want to cause you more pain or bother and it is clearly time for me to take my leave because I am no longer appreciated or valued by you and your leadership friends.
There is a point in the movie “The Matrix” where Morpheus discusses with Neo about how people are plugged into the Matrix, and that they are so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight for the system. I am not trying to free anyone’s minds or anything dramatic like that. I believe in free will and choice, and there’s still plenty of good things within arch worth fighting for, worth being for. But please understand, I have and will always fight for my friends. And you can threaten me, you can hate me, you can say that any group that I join you’ll come after and try to destroy, come at me with whatever you want because I can take it. But if you threaten my friends, if you bully the people that I have come to care about, I will defend and stand up for my friends. 100000000% of the time. It was personally devastating to me when Tommy666 left. And for the people who claim that you're Tommy's friend, you have no idea or you don’t care about him if you don’t truly understand or feel why he left. There’s also countless other people who I respect who leave arch and that’s the thing, Arch is a revolving door. They will use you, abuse you, psychologically trap you and make you feel valued, feed you these sweet ideas and promises but when they no longer have value for you or somehow you become in their mind a threat, they will turn on you and reject you. They claim or brand that anyone who leaves arch is a “traitor” but in all reality many in arch leadership not just want them to leave arch, but they want to destroy and make them leave the game. “this is just a game” is a shallow attempt in order to justify or cover up these really really really dangerous people’s ideas. There’s plenty of historical precedent where people say, “oh, this person isn’t human”. No. I refuse to be associated with people or an organization that not just says this “as a joke”, but in some serious situations may actually believe this idea. The game is fake, Albion is a game, but the people have and are and will always be real.
Being born in the United States, I have benefited from the foundational history upon which the USA was formed. (Although sometimes I do feel like USA schooling failed me, but to be fair I probably wasn’t paying attention in class). 13 colonies believed that a single person should not be in control or oppress people in an unfair way. They drew up documents inspired by amazing philosophers from all across the world, from wise historical leaders, that they came to want to try an experiment that there are “truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal". That we all have the right for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That if you fly an American flag, there are principles and values and morals worth defending for, worth fighting for, worth dying for. This is just a game. So yes, while this may be a little over the top for some, for those who are listening: These are values I believe worth not giving up. There are things that I aspire to, that I believe in, because I want to be a good person. And I’m not there yet. I could be more patient, less angry, meh, being perverted is still fun. But the point is that we should all treat each other with a basic level of respect, even in a video game. I love shittalking, bad mannering, but there comes a point where toxicity bleeds into outright venom. And that’s not healthy. We’re all here to try and have fun, but to try and deliberately make someone’s life miserable to try and bully them out of a game because they’re a “traitor”? No. I refuse to believe or be with someone who enjoys that sort of mentality.
I do not expect many of you to understand why I have chosen the narrow and difficult road. But it’s because it’s a road where I can say that at the very least I’ve tried to do the right thing. And I would choose that instead of the easy, wide, and wrong road any and every day of the week. I know that most of you who read this won’t care. And please know, this message clearly isn’t for you. But for the people who’s hearts or minds are just a little bit curious or troubled or have some sort of response to this, please don’t lose that feeling. And even if you decide to choose to stay in Arch, that’s awesome! I really envy that you’re able to put up with all this because I just cannot. I don’t want to be part of this system where Tommy left, MrSecks left, HousonMSC left, Nanncy left, ShaneL left, and so so so many more good people. I just can’t.
I thank you for your time, and wish I could give you an award if you were able to read through all this and not get a headache. While I have written all this, if you still feel curious or have any questions or want to reach me, always feel free to check if I’m in game or you can try and reach me in discord at Lacosier#5291, and I would be happy to answer any questions you want seeing as I am unable to do so within the Arch discord.
I hope you all to stay safe during these difficult times, especially in the context of coronavirus. I have personally lost some neighbors and family friends to this, and as you know some members of our Albion community within arch has fortunately already been able to recover and still get up every day to go out to hit the streets of New York to serve in the proud blue uniform or to get up and play with us. Thank you to all of our medical professionals, our grocers, the essential workers who have continued to put yourselves at risk for the rest of us. We are all in this together. All of us. And I look forward to being able to hopefully travel the world and share a meal with you all who I consider friends. Or hopefully even though I’ve been kicked from arch, we can still continue to be friends.
Love you all.
Lacosier
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Jun 2, 2018 04:20
