About the "cheating"

[Aneyou]

This was my reply to the admin and Kailyn specifically:

Well firstly, I would like to say that I'm sorry, because I truly am. If you have been looking
at logs then you know that this does not go back to when I became Demi and it is a fairly
recent thing. I understood the high risk of being caught but decided it might be worth it
and I'll explain why.

Again let me say that I am sorry for betraying your trust. I told Augustus that if we did get
caught I was not going to log on because I would never want to face you, Dina.
That being said, I never intended to play mortal characters again - even my extremely small
spate of playing over the last 4 or 5 days was meant to be short lived.

Myself and Augustus were trying to decide how to bring life back into the game, and obviously
I had been trying to do this with expanding Doom (which worked - it is constantly run every
uptime and had gotten a lot of excitement), writing zones, bring across code patches with
Scott, helping other players with information for writing zones, fielding zone idea and equipment
balancing and running quests essentially multiple times a week. If you go right now and look at
the quest board, you will notice that around 75% of quests are posted by me and Augustus.
I also do not post all of my minor HH quests. We clearly were NOT just interested in our own
betterment.

Then, we decided (for better or for worse) that it may help the game if we started morting again
and told older players we were, but not just as new players (since we had in the past gotten
rid of all our old characters and majority of our eq) but at the same level we had been playing
at before - with high level equipment we could trade to get people excited, and also to be able to
partake in higher level runs, helping other players.

Clearly, and rightly so, this may not seem like a very fair use of power, and possibly not
helpful to what our goal was. Regardless, it seemed to be working. The combination
of all of the above(and you may want to call it coincidence if you like) resulted in the
past couple weeks being more populated than Jedimud has been in a long time.
The game has been spiralling downwards with inactivity and lack of advancement and
my efforts over the past 3 years have been to counteract that. You can ask players
what they think of my zones and what I have done for the game over the years.
I did not at any point care to play mortal characters and I was very content building
and "playing" the game from up top. This was essentially just an experiment and
we knew it had risks.

All of the above being said, I hold nothing against the mass freezings as they are well
deserved but hold that my donations to Jedimud have been an overall positive one that
the game will benefit from. My only regret is that I will not be able to continue in that
regards. I wish you and the admin all the best in the game and in your personal lives
and I hope that you can keep Jedimud alive for 20 more years. Jedimud 6.0 is a great
idea but it will not be enough - I have kept this to myself. It is a great advancement
of the code and will offer many small benefits to players but what a game needs to
live is material; hard, rock-solid playable material. More zones, more levels, more
equipment to go after. I enjoyed my time with all of you and I am sorry that what
we did let you down. Best of luck and have a great day.

Anton

[wehr]

Anton,

For as much good you have done for the game, cheating at the DEMI level or any immortal level is just "unexcusable". Honestly, we will serious miss your skills in zone writing, quests, game enhancements.

It doesn't take cheating to breath life back into the game, it take a good solid approach to getting more zones written ( which I heard will be easier in Jedimud 6.0) along with running quests both in-game and bigger quarterly quests ( like christmas, halloween, 4th fo july, easter) which I can say personally we all miss alot.

Personally I don't think that your jedimud career should be over, but at the same time I think Dina is going to make this choice, but its going to take time and alot of "soul-searching" before you might ever have a window of opportunity to come back to Jedi, but I as one that has been here since almost the begining ( Yep 1992 folks) can say with confidence that no-one is beyond forgiveness, and everyone does deserve a second chance. But with that I can also say, that you basically put a few nails in the coffin of ever reaching and status above IMM again even if you was to return.

Defintely a sad state of affairs, because you trully did bring alot of fun and life into the game. I am still greatful for the zones you did put into game ( DC, Cedar castle) because I enjoy them alot and I am sure the other players do too.

Best wishes in your new adventures in the Denistry world, maybe its time Real Life takes over and concentrate on that.

Sincerely
Ed
Wehr, Get, Sleepwalker, etc etc

[Tiaan]

Anton, it takes a man of courage to openly apologize for his mistakes. I admire that.

My view is a simple one. And this from a personal point of view and I am not talking for anyone. The focus should not be on "banning" and "freezing all characters", but rather be put back to you as to what you can do to rectify your mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone gets tempted in life to take short-cuts. So for me its not so much about "not making mistakes", but what you do after a mistake. And yes lets be real. I know of no person in real-life or cyberspace, that makes no mistakes.

Yes, cheating is cheating and your reputation will take a serious blow. That is given. And you will have to face up to that and live with it for the time being. But to leave the game and have all characters sitting in cryo(frozen) and the mud missing out on your talent to write new zones and equipment in the future makes no sense to me. And I am therefore not so sure that is right way to go about. Muds are slowly dying and need every bit of creativity and eager players to play - to stay alive and open.

I therefore suggest that another "punitive" action be looked at instead of just the "traditional freeze it all and begone you are".

I hope this will help in keeping you with JediMud. I also agree with Get about your zones. They are fun and if it wasn't for Cedar, I am not so sure where I would have run my 2-man team to get good experience and keep on leveling and remorting. There are only so many "experience" zones in the mud - and we need more. Maybe that should be your punishment. To create 3-4 new, fun and biggish experience zones with new types of equipment for us to go and play in. ;-)

Many regards,
Tiaan

[Dank]

Earlier, before I knew what Anton/Augustus was actually doing, I had posted some diatribe about trust and communication and how fragile JediMUD is as a game community, offering the old adage "when in doubt, ask."

Jason called me and told me that I came off sounding like a marm.

However, in light of what Anton/Augustus was trying to do, I hope that Kailyn's final punishment be ameliorated to reflect that they had the Jedizens interests at heart.

The same thing happened to me in the mid nineties. I ran a (short-lived) series of in-game parchment quests. They were the closest thing I could think of to live Jedi performance. The winners would receive 1 million coins. When Levino's girlfriend complained that these awards were not GOD sanctioned, and wanted me frozen, Nino came to my defense, explaining that I had the players' interest in mind. I was spared the box and here I am, after all those years.

So, it's just a game. Be gentle.

[Aneyou]

But then you must ask yourself, did you even notice? Did you care? I am in
no way trying to justify what was done. Rather, I am trying to direct your
attentions to something that has always been very noticable and is infinitely
more detrimental to the game - the lack of activity by the majority of the higher
ups. Kailyn and Austinpowers are the only ones that do anything - and most of
Kailyn's work (by necessity) is mostly unnoticed to the mortal world because it
is individual requests, minor updates, tweaks and basically keeping things in
check.
Ching has been busy with life for a very long time, Doc has always been essentially a figure head. He does not do anything that requires more than 2 minutes of time - his position as
"world coordinator" is a joke as all requests were passing through me, the assistant, anyway.
I have no idea why Silverking is a Demi. I don't know what he does.

My point is rather than pointing fingers at what was done, and asking how what was done
has hurt Jedimud. (how did it?), why not ask how what has NOT been done has hurt Jedimud.
Of course this is not a unique question, or a unique stance. It has been pointed out many
times.

I was trying to be different but I also take full responsibility for what we did. It was not right,
and despite anything written in the above posts, we will not be back to help with Jedimud.
The admin have a hard time trusting people with higher levels - and I didn't help the situation .

Anton

[gonfalon]

True, they do have a difficult time trusting people with the ability to affect real change. I hope this experiment of yours does not further sour them (those that remain) to the concept.

I know many people will see this as a victimless crime. Who did this hurt? It hurts everyone. I don't see the real "crime" in this case as being the act of loading equipment for distribution amongst the mortal population. That is a blatant violation of policies that have been in place on Jedi since its inception and this is hardly the first case of an immortal being frozen for it. However, the real crime was the betrayal of trust.

These are dire times for JediMUD. There are so few active players (sadly I have to admit that I am not one of them) that every one lost is a terrible blow. I hope that the sudden loss of you assistance does not rob the other people, who are trying to salvage the game from the dustbin, of their resolve.

[Aneyou]

Well Gonfalon I would say you are essentially right in 100% of what you've said.
Regardless of intent, it was wrong and I did betray their (especially Kailyn's) trust.

The funny thing is that I honestly - and I truly mean this - did not care to play
mort at all. I stopped wanting to mort a long time ago. I enjoyed building
and I got a kick out of watching people run around in zones that I wrote.
There was a lot less malice in what we did than it seems - I was simultanously
working on the halloween quest and coming up with ideas that could make
the game better while we were doing all this mess. So I wasn't trying to hurt
the game in any way. I've always had its best interest at heart and if I thought
that it could damage the player base (and i figured it would do the opposite)
I would not have done it at all.
Again though, you are right. I hope that they can trust others and allow them
to help build and promote the game - if anyone comes along that is actually
up to the task.

[Aneyou]

Ed, thank you for your kind words and for appreciating my zones - but you forgot training grounds and the new extension of doom .

Tiaan, also thank you for your appreciation but really I have no care for any of the frozen chars. All the eq and the characters meant absolutely nothing to me. The only char I cared about was Anton. Like I said above, I was already past morting. I had run a little xp in the few days before we got frozen but I was already getting bored of it. Again, thank you for all the nice words and your quickness to forgive.

Dank, thank you for understanding and adapting your opinion. It's okay if you sound like
a marm but I suspect thats because I'm not totally sure what a marm is lol. We did have
Jedi's best interest at heart - but that didn't make it right. I don't know what to say.
At this point, it is what it is.

Anton

[Ash]

I find it inspiring that this conversation has been so open and that people seem to have expressed them selves with clarity and minimal hostility. The fact that, historically, contrary ideas and statements (even those directly criticizing administrators) are allowed to remain on the board as part of a conversation speaks volumes about the willingness of the administration to have open communication and to consider the all serious suggestions for changes and improvement regardless of their poster's past.

[hawkeyex]

Even I can appreciate Anton's contributions to the MUD for many, many years, and it is what kept the mud going, making it fun for 20 plus years....

Thanks for everything you've done Aneyou/Anton/Augustus.

The guy known as Stef/Pitr/Slappy/Beefcake/Dustpuppy and many other different chars.

[augustus]

I would like to resurrect this old thread. C 'resurrect' About the "cheating".

Anton and myself have been having some discussions lately and we(mainly myself) have come up with a proposal to the admin(imal)stration of JediMUD. We would like to be reinstated into the game. Here is what we're suggesting:

1. Restore our old characters, reimburse us all of our old equipment plus some complimentary items from the more recent Holiday quests(do they still do those?).
2. A public apology from said administration for their lack of effort in the development of the game
3. Nude photos of Ciara
4. a 100+ room FUSION complex located directly above the firedragon.

In exchange for this we will (reluctantly) allow you to remove our siteban and breathe some life into this old dog

[Tarbal]

HA!!! i have not actually logged in to this board in about 2 years...but i just HAD to log in to respond to this one!!!! made my day, brother!!!

i say lift the site-ban just for the creativity (and balls) of the request!

[augustus]

I need an answer, folks.

[Dank]

I can provide the Ciara pics. But that's about it. Hope that helps.

[augustus]

Feb 22, 2013 18:48:32 GMT -5 Dank said:

I can provide the Ciara pics. But that's about it. Hope that helps.

Do these pics include Mickey Mouse and/or cats?

[Aneyou]

It's been almost 2 years since I wrote this post. What is the progress on Jedi 6.0?
Has a single zone been built since I left?

[augustus]

Apr 17, 2013 20:23:57 GMT -5 Aneyou said:

It's been almost 2 years since I wrote this post. What is the progress on Jedi 6.0?
Has a single zone been built since I left?

I think you are beautiful and I miss you

[gambler]

Aneyou: Your contributions to the game are some of the best jedi has ever seen.
It was a joy to mud with a player of your caliber. I don't know the statistics
behind a claimed revival of jedi, but I respectfully disagree with what brings
people together. A new zone is exciting for a short time, but I would argue that
the barrage of quests, happy hours, and equipment groups you led had more impact
in sustaining/rebuilding jedi than any of your zone building. The majority of
the population (mostly apart from jedi now) enjoy coming together to socialize,
and group together for a common purpose (sometimes this purpose has to be laid
out to them). Relationships and the enjoyment of companionship are far bigger
motivators and there are a plethora of outlets for people to plug into.

DOOM is amazing and I hope more people take the risks to explore and understand it.
That being said, there were only two factions of people going in there (you & I).
No one can know what the true intentions were, but new doom was primarily ran by
a very small number of players. To date (3 years later), only 2 active players
know the zone, despite many offers to teach others.

The rest of the post reflects on the difficult decisions admin made in banning.
You had the unique position of 'trust' on jedimud and you destroyed it. Ends
never justify the means. You waded through the belts of integrity as if they
didn't exist and then tell us 'it's all for a greater cause because we were
trying to help you'. Do you not realize this is what our government does on a
daily basis? We entrust people with power and then some of them choose to abuse,
then spin it in the media and tell us 'it's in our best interest'. You basically
spit in the eye of those people that entrusted the reigns of the mud to you.

The best apologies I've ever seen are fairly simple: I'm sorry. I was an idiot.
I can't promise I won't make mistakes in the future because I'm flawed (as we all are),
but I need your forgiveness.

Augustus' apology was snarky at best (albeit hilarious) and Aneyou's was loaded with
justification (although eloquently written). As one who has come and gone from jedimud
many times, I'm blessed that they still allow me to play there, despite my many flaws.
I hope to see you back someday, but not because the mud needs more zones. Your
contagious personalities, wit, & humor more than likely were the things that brought more
players in (or back as the case may be). I hope you understand this is where your true
contributions were: leading, galvanizing, & entertaining
The worlds you build will become old and dusty someday, but people will remember the fun
they had experiencing the jedimud with you.

Sincerely,

Gambler

[Thf]

First I will say this topic of what went down as cheating years ago is so old now that nothing needs to be said about that, instead I wanted to stop by and say thank you to a friend I've known through the years only through the graces of JediMud's existence. This is a thanks to Aneyou for helping me come around to speed when I first started back up on JediMud and thanks for your contributions to area building it is definitely part of the best. That was some fun times when you would mort with us it's not the same now, many these days just like to just XP solo. You have left an impression in the game that will not be forgotten either, lot of people like where you went with making Cedar so plentiful of an XP dungeon and is to this day inspiring others to be interested in building their own XP zones in much the same calibur.

Neil

[otep]

My view is at this point we are all adults playing not a bunch of over caffeinated college students and that theres no need to cut a mans balls off because he made a mistake on a game due to a brief lapse of judgement while in a position of power. We can speculate on reasons from here to eternity, but its pointless. he did the time for the crime. I for one am glad he is back, if in a limmited capacity. Welcome back old friend. was good to run with you briefly a few months ago