And you can laugh a spineless laugh
So I mentioned in my last post, oh so long ago, that I was overdue for a FFXI post. So, here we go.
Ultima, once one of the greatest linkshells on Valefor, is no more. There are quite a few reasons for this, some more significant than others. The linkshell itself is still around, but I doubt we'll ever see the glory days again. There are evenings where I've logged in and been the only person on for hours. It's gotten to the point where we have about 10 active members. There may be more but not by much.
The first major blow oddly enough took place a day after I joined the shell. Valefor has never been big on the scene as far as forums go. I've always joked that we're sort of a backwater server. However, for that last week of September 2007, everyone knew who Ultima was. We hit it big time. Granted, this was due to several of our best players getting hacked and transferred to other servers, so it wasn't really a good thing. One of our more controversial members had managed to piss off Taj, one of the more notorious script kiddies in the FFXI universe. He proceeded to hack into our forum database, dump the PM records onto his pc and take every account he could get ahold of. In the end, after 90 days most of the affected parties were back. However, our leader going into this mess never really recovered. She came back but faded in and out for months before finally leaving for good along with most of our leadership base. Which of course leads us to part two.
If I mention this next blow hit us in January of 2009, most of the FFXI players reading this will know exactly what I'm talking about. We lost about 6 members permanently to the salvage bans and a few others that came back on new characters. This included the shellholder and 2 sacks, along with 2 or 3 other very active members. I won't get into the whole debate of whether SE was right or wrong. Despite it essentially killing my shell, people cheated and SE took the action they felt was warranted. Regardless, leadership was in chaos. Most of the remaining sacks were too burned out to take the reins or hardly played at all. Someone had to step up.
Unfortunately, someone did. Redd, one of our longest tenured members, formed a new shell. He was a bit of a womanizer to say the least, but no one really thought it would be an issue and no one else really stepped up. I offered to help and we put a few people up as sacks and began anew so to speak. Things were great for a while. Redd if anything was a solid organizer and managed to rally people to do events again. We even camped HNMs for a while which we hadn't done in some time. The only problem I noticed from the beginning was a bit of an emotional handicap on his part. He was almost too emotionally attached to the shell and it's success. If he felt someone wronged us, he wouldn't let it go. I found myself on numerous occasions trying to diplomatically patch up minor misunderstandings that he seemed to want to escalate into blood feuds. For an example, when someone questioned the motives and recent actions of leadership, his response was to ban them from the forums without responding to them. This was done to quell drama according to his justification.
As time went on, the cracks in the foundation started to show up more and more. He refused to listen to almost anyone. He made changes to linkshell policy with no input or feedback from anyone. One of our sacks worked rather hard to keep him in check and help streamline things. She was rewarded for this effort by getting insulted, called out in public and ostracized by a lot of old timers in the shell. Granted, these were the same veterans who stepped aside and didn't offer to help in the first place. As time went on, the dissension and disconnect grew and more of the veteran players began to leave the shell or the game altogether. I can't say I blame them really as it wasn't the best of environments. Then again, I've never seen leaving as the best solution to a problem. I've noticed in MMOs though it seems to be a common one.
Unfortunately, the more people left, the easier it was for Redd to control every aspect of the shell. He completely opened up membership and brought in more and more of his friends. We were still active and any time anyone brought up concerns he took a holier than thou attitude of 'if they want to leave, we're better off without them' without looking further into the issue. It was clear to him that since we were doing stuff again that anything else was 'their' problem and not his. As this continued, more people decided to leave and dissension started to grow unchecked. Then, things got worse but first, a little background.
I mentioned above that Redd was a bit of a womanizer. That's not really a fair word as it puts most other womanizers in a bad light by even associating the word with him. He was plain and simple, a predator. He preyed on as many women as he could. This began to bubble up more and more as time went on. One of our newest recruits was his 'girlfriend', never mind the fact he was telling 2 or 3 other girls at that time that they were the only girl for him. While he was telling this recruit how special she was, he was also telling the sack I mentioned before how much he wanted to be with her and only her. It's alleged that he was also pursuing another girl in the game at the time who happened to be 17. These are the ones I know about.
Everything finally exploded one Thursday in July when two of our best and most reliable remaining members both announced they were leaving the shell and most likely the game altogether. Luckily, this piqued my curiosity along with our oldest remaining member who thankfully also happened to be the admin of our forums. We decided to look into the issue and what we found was rather sad and pathetic honestly, but not ultimately that surprising. Redd had approached the female of the pair and attempted to extort her into sending him sexually explicit photos. It turns out he had done this before and succeeded. The recruit I mentioned before, he had gotten her to send him naked pictures under the pretense that he loved her and would protect her within the shell. Protect her from what, who knows? At this point, he was the only leader with any power left.
As expected, he denied any accountability for any of this and again took the holier than thou, I can do no wrong attitude. He claimed that the first accuser was lying and that there was no evidence he had ever done such a thing. Thankfully after some encouragement the second girl stepped forward and produced some rather damning evidence. Instead of simply owning up to it, he again denied any wrongdoing essentially stating that he was sexually extorting her because they were in love and she was a willing participant. He continued to try to paint anyone who doubted him in a bad light despite being caught in numerous lies. Eventually, the admin I mentioned before had enough of Redd and banned him from our forums. Someone else stepped up to reform the shell and we all left the old one behind. We lost a few people in the transition between them either wanting to move on or taking his side in the matter. As for Redd, he got picked up almost immediately by another shell. Despite the fact you can't trust him at all, especially if you have boobs, he's a well geared and skilled player. Then again, that tends to happen when you never go outside and play the game 24/7.
Things were never really the same after that. FFXIV had been announced so the game had slowed down considerably. No one really wanted to lead anymore, including myself and things have pretty much hit a standstill since then. I took over the Einherjar shell but never had much success as our numbers dipped. Eventually, I just disbanded it indefinitely. Ultima's event schedule fell apart as well as more and more people either moved on from the shell or FFXI. Now, we pretty much do limbus and dynamis and that's about it.
I posted long ago about the demise of my first shell, DarknessFalls. That one hit me a lot harder than this did for a number of reasons. DF was more of a family than anything I guess. I suppose my growing lack of interest in endgame activities makes me a bit less sentimental in this case as well. Anyway, the downtime has let me get back to playing console games again and let me work on more casual things in FFXI. I bought a Lu Shang and have started to work on fishing again for one thing. I've also helped Eden with some NMs and weaponskill quests etc. It's unfortunate, but overall I think it's for the best.
Ultima, once one of the greatest linkshells on Valefor, is no more. There are quite a few reasons for this, some more significant than others. The linkshell itself is still around, but I doubt we'll ever see the glory days again. There are evenings where I've logged in and been the only person on for hours. It's gotten to the point where we have about 10 active members. There may be more but not by much.
The first major blow oddly enough took place a day after I joined the shell. Valefor has never been big on the scene as far as forums go. I've always joked that we're sort of a backwater server. However, for that last week of September 2007, everyone knew who Ultima was. We hit it big time. Granted, this was due to several of our best players getting hacked and transferred to other servers, so it wasn't really a good thing. One of our more controversial members had managed to piss off Taj, one of the more notorious script kiddies in the FFXI universe. He proceeded to hack into our forum database, dump the PM records onto his pc and take every account he could get ahold of. In the end, after 90 days most of the affected parties were back. However, our leader going into this mess never really recovered. She came back but faded in and out for months before finally leaving for good along with most of our leadership base. Which of course leads us to part two.
If I mention this next blow hit us in January of 2009, most of the FFXI players reading this will know exactly what I'm talking about. We lost about 6 members permanently to the salvage bans and a few others that came back on new characters. This included the shellholder and 2 sacks, along with 2 or 3 other very active members. I won't get into the whole debate of whether SE was right or wrong. Despite it essentially killing my shell, people cheated and SE took the action they felt was warranted. Regardless, leadership was in chaos. Most of the remaining sacks were too burned out to take the reins or hardly played at all. Someone had to step up.
Unfortunately, someone did. Redd, one of our longest tenured members, formed a new shell. He was a bit of a womanizer to say the least, but no one really thought it would be an issue and no one else really stepped up. I offered to help and we put a few people up as sacks and began anew so to speak. Things were great for a while. Redd if anything was a solid organizer and managed to rally people to do events again. We even camped HNMs for a while which we hadn't done in some time. The only problem I noticed from the beginning was a bit of an emotional handicap on his part. He was almost too emotionally attached to the shell and it's success. If he felt someone wronged us, he wouldn't let it go. I found myself on numerous occasions trying to diplomatically patch up minor misunderstandings that he seemed to want to escalate into blood feuds. For an example, when someone questioned the motives and recent actions of leadership, his response was to ban them from the forums without responding to them. This was done to quell drama according to his justification.
As time went on, the cracks in the foundation started to show up more and more. He refused to listen to almost anyone. He made changes to linkshell policy with no input or feedback from anyone. One of our sacks worked rather hard to keep him in check and help streamline things. She was rewarded for this effort by getting insulted, called out in public and ostracized by a lot of old timers in the shell. Granted, these were the same veterans who stepped aside and didn't offer to help in the first place. As time went on, the dissension and disconnect grew and more of the veteran players began to leave the shell or the game altogether. I can't say I blame them really as it wasn't the best of environments. Then again, I've never seen leaving as the best solution to a problem. I've noticed in MMOs though it seems to be a common one.
Unfortunately, the more people left, the easier it was for Redd to control every aspect of the shell. He completely opened up membership and brought in more and more of his friends. We were still active and any time anyone brought up concerns he took a holier than thou attitude of 'if they want to leave, we're better off without them' without looking further into the issue. It was clear to him that since we were doing stuff again that anything else was 'their' problem and not his. As this continued, more people decided to leave and dissension started to grow unchecked. Then, things got worse but first, a little background.
I mentioned above that Redd was a bit of a womanizer. That's not really a fair word as it puts most other womanizers in a bad light by even associating the word with him. He was plain and simple, a predator. He preyed on as many women as he could. This began to bubble up more and more as time went on. One of our newest recruits was his 'girlfriend', never mind the fact he was telling 2 or 3 other girls at that time that they were the only girl for him. While he was telling this recruit how special she was, he was also telling the sack I mentioned before how much he wanted to be with her and only her. It's alleged that he was also pursuing another girl in the game at the time who happened to be 17. These are the ones I know about.
Everything finally exploded one Thursday in July when two of our best and most reliable remaining members both announced they were leaving the shell and most likely the game altogether. Luckily, this piqued my curiosity along with our oldest remaining member who thankfully also happened to be the admin of our forums. We decided to look into the issue and what we found was rather sad and pathetic honestly, but not ultimately that surprising. Redd had approached the female of the pair and attempted to extort her into sending him sexually explicit photos. It turns out he had done this before and succeeded. The recruit I mentioned before, he had gotten her to send him naked pictures under the pretense that he loved her and would protect her within the shell. Protect her from what, who knows? At this point, he was the only leader with any power left.
As expected, he denied any accountability for any of this and again took the holier than thou, I can do no wrong attitude. He claimed that the first accuser was lying and that there was no evidence he had ever done such a thing. Thankfully after some encouragement the second girl stepped forward and produced some rather damning evidence. Instead of simply owning up to it, he again denied any wrongdoing essentially stating that he was sexually extorting her because they were in love and she was a willing participant. He continued to try to paint anyone who doubted him in a bad light despite being caught in numerous lies. Eventually, the admin I mentioned before had enough of Redd and banned him from our forums. Someone else stepped up to reform the shell and we all left the old one behind. We lost a few people in the transition between them either wanting to move on or taking his side in the matter. As for Redd, he got picked up almost immediately by another shell. Despite the fact you can't trust him at all, especially if you have boobs, he's a well geared and skilled player. Then again, that tends to happen when you never go outside and play the game 24/7.
Things were never really the same after that. FFXIV had been announced so the game had slowed down considerably. No one really wanted to lead anymore, including myself and things have pretty much hit a standstill since then. I took over the Einherjar shell but never had much success as our numbers dipped. Eventually, I just disbanded it indefinitely. Ultima's event schedule fell apart as well as more and more people either moved on from the shell or FFXI. Now, we pretty much do limbus and dynamis and that's about it.
I posted long ago about the demise of my first shell, DarknessFalls. That one hit me a lot harder than this did for a number of reasons. DF was more of a family than anything I guess. I suppose my growing lack of interest in endgame activities makes me a bit less sentimental in this case as well. Anyway, the downtime has let me get back to playing console games again and let me work on more casual things in FFXI. I bought a Lu Shang and have started to work on fishing again for one thing. I've also helped Eden with some NMs and weaponskill quests etc. It's unfortunate, but overall I think it's for the best.