Before I say anything, first let me state that if you believe I am genuinely trying to make this game or Federation space worse for anyone, you’re delusional and should seek self-introspection immediately, if not professional help.
I’m up at 6am writing this because I’m really, seriously tired of everyone running around in circles, calling names, throwing insults, whatever. This is the internet, you’ll never make any real progress by doing that. Stepping up and trying to build something better is hard, and yeah, I’m taking a risk by writing this. You all could just ignore it and keep going, and then I probably will actually quit. But if you stop and think for a minute, you’ll see that doing so isn’t a good thing, and never was.
It seems like people don’t actually know why some decisions were being made, and people rushed to incorrect conclusions without stopping to hear the reasoning.
My goal, and by extension Arkhos Core’s goal, was to give some number of small corporations a sector of their own, so that some of the weaker ones would have a safe space to play against their allies, train, and do so without having to go up against much more powerful opponents. Such games are guaranteed losses, and in the long run don’t get those corps very far. Giving them a safe space is an extremely useful way to get some activity going without dragging high-powered corporations into the fray. The heavy hitters can duke it out over the big game rewards elsewhere, and the little guys can still get to play.
Arch had picked up eight sectors, and I was starting to realize that it wasn’t the greatest idea. Rather than have the entire world go “I told you so” and really only make things worse, I decided that some good could come of having so much territory.
Giving away sectors was step one, since Arch had so many. With that, we could try to get specific corps access to said safe spaces. Once this was done, the regular sector competition could continue as normal. We’d go back to skirmishing bigger corps, getting better practices, and not trying to underhand each other for territory, instead getting productive games in that bettered everyone’s skill for it.
However, this was heavily impeded by the swath of corporations looking to take Arch territory - which made some sense, since we had a high sector count. So Arch picked its fights and did what it could to stave off the attacks, getting as many battles as possible in the process. Needless to say, it meant we played favorites - heavier hitting corporations would often be ignored in defense, since making two or more wings takes a toll on the number of top players that can be in a wing to fight back. Putting a C-wing against a heavy hitting corp’s A-Wing is a waste of time for everyone, and saving 20% from two other incoming attacks better let us hold the territory in the hopes we could give one out elsewhere and still have something to hold on to.
Now NASA didn’t like that much, since from their perspective their only real Fed space competition was chickening out. Truth be told that wasn’t the case, and I repeatedly tried to clarify things to the Officers and VPs that seemed to be receptive. Unfortunately, the message never got through, and people fell either to peer pressure or ignorance. Repeated attempts to offer contracting out for defense while the situation settled met with consistent failure, and NASA kept attacking when I’d said just a few minutes earlier to them that we wouldn’t be able to defend. You can see how this is frustrating for everyone - NASA gets no game and blames Arch, and Arch’s attempts to better things fall on deaf ears.
As for Kazumi, I could never quite understand why they got so upset, since at the time BEASTS was one of the smaller corps I was trying to help. They already had a sector when I started telling them to back off, as I was trying to get a sector given to another small corp. This never really got through, and here we are.
So to anyone who might be wondering: I am not your enemy. Arch is not your enemy. If you want to make this a better place, then stop fighting it on a personal level. Friendly rivalries are great. Unfriendly ones destroy communities. Nobody walks away happy.
As for OWL or anyone in it, or anyone in any other outside corp, I’d prefer not to drag anyone unnecessary into this. People should be able to have their friends and their games without being part of something that only alienates them from both sides.
I don’t have to “offer” anything. You need to wise up and man up. This is ruining the game for a lot of people, and it’s on you to start trying to fix it. I’m already out here doing that. So get on board, or stop talking. Being loud doesn’t make you right.
