The Long-Overdue Saga of VF4 - A Tale of Three Cities

[Spazz]

You're only 12? Well shit....so much for legal and ethical

Mommy said I can't come within 50 yards anymore.

 

[VintagePC]

You guys are taking this way too seriously.

I suggest you look in a mirror, for who is the person taking this too seriously. We had requests from community members that were interested in hearing the story of how VF4 came to be and why things happened the way they did.

So excuuuuuuuuuse us for obliging our players and members with what they asked for. As has been pointed out, the first section which you criticize so harshly is more or less verbatim, and the rest is our own additions written in similar style so as to maintain continuity. Could we have gone serious face and put everything in gory detail and call out everyone's bullshit? Yes. Did we? No. We instead opted for the route that let us take some creative liberty and gloss over some of the less flattering bits explicitly so that people *wouldn't* get horribly insulted.

The fact this thread has been up for nearly a week (even longer for staff to allow feedback and criticism) and none of our other regulars have taken issue with it also speaks volumes.
Obligatory XKCD:

 

[Hexalan]

Now you've regressed to nitpicking at my joke names on Steam? The reference to Bane from Batman? Really? Back a few years ago I used to play FFN frequently. I was the lady known as Stupid Sexy BLUSpy and later on Felix. I never had any problems and was never banned.

Ladies & gentlemen, these are your moderators. This is how they treat players.

We have moderators?

It's Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza goddammit.

*Non-Specific Winter Festivities

 

[EdFromHumanResources]

I can tell quite a bit of effort was put into making this thread. If the same level of devotion had been used to keep the FreeFrag brand intact and the competing egos in check, we'd all still have a Payload server to play on.

 

[Reechard]

I can tell quite a bit of effort was put into making this thread. If the same level of devotion had been used to keep the FreeFrag brand intact and the competing egos in check, we'd all still have a Payload server to play on.

If FreeFrag hadn't been incorporated and an owned name/company.... we probably would have put in that effort, but unfortunately the biggest part of the problem was that the owners had all but abandoned it.

 

[VintagePC]

I can tell quite a bit of effort was put into making this thread. If the same level of devotion had been used to keep the FreeFrag brand intact and the competing egos in check, we'd all still have a Payload server to play on.

If FreeFrag hadn't been incorporated and an owned name/company.... we probably would have put in that effort, but unfortunately the biggest part of the problem was that the owners had all but abandoned it.

I'll add to this that it's not about "hurr hurr us vs the owners of FFN". We had nothing against them but it gets *really* frustrating and tiresome when you want to try something or put a suggestion forward and the people that need to make the decision don't actually make a decision.

VF4, OTOH... has the people actually implementing and doing stuff also the ones calling the shots - because let's face it, if you came in to work each day and could say "hey boss, can I do/try Y even though it's (a tangent/something silly/just because/Smith thought it'd be cool)" and the boss goes "sure, why the hell not?"... that'd be pretty awesome.

 

[lonesome killer]

because let's face it, if you came in to work each day and could say "hey boss, can I do/try Y even though it's (a tangent/something silly/just because/Smith thought it'd be cool)" and the boss goes "sure, why the hell not?"... that'd be pretty awesome.

But you still need direction. Someone has to be in charge of making decisions on ideas and the future. Someone needs to say "What is the purpose of this organization?" Right now it does feel like that's what's going on, everyone who has the ability to change VF4 does so with a "just because" attitude. You have tons of servers and they're all empty. What are you doing to fill those servers? What are you doing to get people to the forums? All I see is every few months you have a revival streak where you make events almost daily in a given month, then you abandon that plan for the next few.

I've moved on. I hardly play TF2 any more, and when I do it's on other servers. I stick around the forums for the occasional good general discussion and serious discussion topics. And VaultBot is freaking hilarious.

 

[LavaRed]

But you still need direction. Someone has to be in charge of making decisions on ideas and the future. Someone needs to say "What is the purpose of this organization?" Right now it does feel like that's what's going on, everyone who has the ability to change VF4 does so with a "just because" attitude. You have tons of servers and they're all empty. What are you doing to fill those servers? What are you doing to get people to the forums? All I see is every few months you have a revival streak where you make events almost daily in a given month, then you abandon that plan for the next few.

Honestly, that's not our sole purpose here. The majority of us have lives which don't allow for nightly events, and it is what it is. We have zero bills, zero drama...it's pretty cozy around here I'd say

 

[VintagePC]

Honestly, that's not our sole purpose here. The majority of us have lives which don't allow for nightly events, and it is what it is. We have zero bills, zero drama...it's pretty cozy around here I'd say

I'd say our direction is primarily dictated by what folks ask for. To date we've experimented with just about every server request people had - and hey, even if they don't become permanent fixtures or smash hits, the fact that they gave folks the a place to hang out and have some fun with friends is what really matters. Some of them like melonbomber, murder, etc have enough traffic to warrant keeping them around, so we do.The others were left up until recently as a side effect of the fact we have plenty of resources.

Since we have zero bills... we don't need to worry about maintaining subscriptions and ad revenue to make ends meet like just about every other community out there.

Probably cliché, but... "By the vaultings, for the vaultlings™"

 

[moo_d]

Well thank god someone's angry. It's not a family if no one is angry.

 

[Felix]

So what you're now saying VintagePC is that because I'm the first and/or sole person to post this opinion, it's invalid?


My opinions/critique are invalid according to staff because:

• I have silly Steam names.
• I have a silly avatar.
• I "am the only person" to disagree with dirty laundry being posted.

You wonder why the servers do not have players.

 

[VintagePC]

No, that's not what I said. You incorrectly inferred that's what I meant. I'll get to that in a bit.

You're entitled to you opinion, but to be frank with you, your delivery and attitude comes across as trying to incite an argument.

Clearly you take issue with the content and don't like the way it was written. That's fine, we realize it might not be to everyone's taste. Had you said so and left at that we wouldn't be having this discussion. But you continue by:

• Calling it pretentious
• Say *we* drag people through the mud when it's abundantly clear section 1 was essentially a verbatim copy of a preceding work
  
• Call us immature/petty for posting it.
• Interpret it as malicious when the intent was an informative history.
  
• When someone points out that you calling this immature is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, you start pigeonholing the moderators and inferring they are not entitled to an opinion of YOUR comments. (off-topic: @Statboy isn't even a moderator. He's gameserver staff.)
• Take a cheap shot by mentioning the servers, the population of which has no relevance in this thread.
  
• Reinterpret what people are saying incorrectly/out of context.

So, is your opinion invalid? Not by itself, but we certainly take less stock in it given the bigger picture of the way it was presented and how you conduct yourself.

 

[Hexalan]

So what you're now saying VintagePC is that because I'm the first and/or sole person to post this opinion, it's invalid?


My opinions/critique are invalid according to staff because:

• I have silly Steam names.
• I have a silly avatar.
• I "am the only person" to disagree with dirty laundry being posted.

You wonder why the servers do not have players.

No, your arguments are bad because you don't actually have any evidence, you don't connect any of the the things you argue with the iconic non-sequitur at the end of your post, your ad hominem arguments apply equally to yourself, and the fact that having an opinion doesn't automatically make it valid.

 

[VoltageSpike]

Are any of you interested in trading goods? You seem to have found someone with an abundance of salt.

 

[moo_d]

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FORGET WHAT I SAID I CAN'T TAKE THE BICKERING ANYMORE!!!!

Felix, you're damned lucky the mods you just attacked here aren't as hard on people at the ones elsewhere (*hint hint*), because there's a good number who probably would have blacklisted you already.

Quite fortunate that Vintage is Canadian and therefore lacks the mean gene. I on the other hand am 100% viciousness:

STOP IT

Whew, I feel much calmer now and hopefully will get to sleep soon.

 

[Felix]

You're welcome to be vicious, moo_d, no one is stopping you. Seeing as it has been clearly demonstrated if you're defending the opinion of the staff and backing them up, you're allowed to take as many cheap shots, use ad hominem, and be as abrasive as possible in your rebuttal as you want.

 

[moo_d]

You're welcome to be vicious, moo_d, no one is stopping you. Seeing as it has been clearly demonstrated if you're defending the opinion of the staff and backing them up, you're allowed to take as many cheap shots, use ad hominem, and be as abrasive as possible in your rebuttal as you want.

Felix, you need to read what is actually being written rather than simply interpreting it. I'm not defending the opinion of the staff, and it's not being clearly demonstrated in any way either. What did happen was I blatantly and rudely told you to hush, and also expressed that you are indeed lucky to engage lenient moderators and staff members - many of which are wise enough not to engage you at all. I'm impressed that they can handle the rudeness from you towards them with such clear heads, as well as let go and not even let it affect them in the slightest.

Actually, bro, it's interesting to note that there was no rebuttal in my last post and mere clarification here, the only one of us taking an argumentative or debate-like approach is you. It is, however, true that I am not in any way going after your argument, but rather using an ad hominem approach to your posts to the thread. In fact, the way that you approach the thread and express your position are the only things I wish to communicate unhappiness about.

But, hell, it's not like either of us are going to give in at all to the other. So why even bother? You must really like debating things. I know I do. I'll tell you what - arguing things can be fun, but let's do it somewhere else and about something truly stupid like, "How many ways can you really skin a cat?" As for this thread, however, I think we better just let the issues lay where they lie. Otherwise we'll be here for ages and make no headway, and that's a lot of wasted bandwidth for the Vault.

 

[Felix]

"With yo bitch ass" no of course that's not immature, let's check you out on steam and see what comes up... ohh my your most recent alias's, Professional Boob Juggler, Accidental Incest, and my personal favorite Baned (even though you misspelled it). Can't imagine anybody banning you.

I suggest you look in a mirror, for who is the person taking this too seriously. We had requests from community members that were interested in hearing the story of how VF4 came to be and why things happened the way they did.

So excuuuuuuuuuse us for obliging our players and members with what they asked for. As has been pointed out, the first section which you criticize so harshly is more or less verbatim, and the rest is our own additions written in similar style so as to maintain continuity. Could we have gone serious face and put everything in gory detail and call out everyone's bullshit? Yes. Did we? No. We instead opted for the route that let us take some creative liberty and gloss over some of the less flattering bits explicitly so that people *wouldn't* get horribly insulted.

The fact this thread has been up for nearly a week (even longer for staff to allow feedback and criticism) and none of our other regulars have taken issue with it also speaks volumes.
Obligatory XKCD:

I don't think I'm the person with the reading comprehension problem. Statboy has the tag "Staff Member" underneath his name. He is clearly representing VaultF4.

As demonstrated; it's okay to do all the things as listed in VintagePC's bulletin point list directed towards me if you're on the side of the staff or are a member.

It was poor judgment to air this dirty laundry here and try to pass it off as "informative" instead of the passive-aggressive underhanded nonsense it is. Then it progresses into attacks of the same caliber against me, using the same language, while you preach that I shouldn't be abrasive.

You people aren't making a lot of sense. Pick one, you can't have both.

 

[EdFromHumanResources]

The VaultF4 brand has had no success in TF2. Whose fault is that?

 

[VintagePC]

I don't think I'm the person with the reading comprehension problem. Statboy has the tag "Staff Member" underneath his name. He is clearly representing VaultF4.

As demonstrated; it's okay to do all the things as listed in VintagePC's bulletin point list directed towards me if you're on the side of the staff or are a member.

It was poor judgment to air this dirty laundry here and try to pass it off as "informative" instead of the passive-aggressive underhanded nonsense it is. Then it progresses into attacks of the same caliber against me, using the same language, while you preach that I shouldn't be abrasive.

You people aren't making a lot of sense. Pick one, you can't have both.

What else do you expect when you come in here and start bashing things? People will respond in kind.

As has been pointed out, we've already been quite lenient in our actions toward you, yet you continue to play the victim, lash out at everyone that doesn't agree with you, and write intentionally inflammatory posts. Enough's enough - the door is over there. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out.