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Choice of Games, Drama Part 2

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BronyForThePony

Member
Member
Greetings to you all, tis I, Elagabalus.

Let us directly continue from where we last left off, shall we?
What better way than to show another author standing up for the blatant shenanigans of a power abusing mod team!
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But alas, Mary likes to get the last laugh. And made sure of it.
Only she could post in real time, anyone else would have to wait
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and once she finished having the last word?
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Closed! None could counter, none could offer more discussion.
And what happened to the two who offered a counterargument? Including that of the Relic's author?
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Why they were erased!!!
Gone, reduced to atoms, as a great purple man would like to say. Any hint of people making sense, was made to vanish into the ether.
But nay, some do not like to take things lying down!
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Bravo! Bravo to an author standing up for themselves and not putting up with tyranny! Even better, Relics 3 will be free for us all!!!
Some had tried to spread the news to the reddit! But guess what awaited?
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Deleted and the user who shared banned from the reddit. Behold! Injustice!
And finally, after a long day of being showered with support by readers and authors alike who were tired of Choice of Games blatant power abuses:
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I must plead, my friends! Please! Show this author your support!
www.tumblr.com

James Shaw Games

A website for interactive novels written by James Shaw. Right now, that means the "Relics of the Lost Age" trilogy. Maybe someday there'll be more!
www.tumblr.com www.tumblr.com
Show this author you stand with him!
Send the man supportive asks, shower him in his inbox that you approve of such courage!

That is all from I, Elagabalus, today.
When people begin to show support for Choice of Games and side with them anywhere, point them in old Elagabalus' direction.
May Jupiter Optimus Maximus keep you all in his light.
 
melusina

melusina

Active member
Member
When I saw a Reddit comment about how unfortunate it was that we didn't have a community space to discuss COG/HG that wasn't moderated by their staff, I thought of this place right away and I am SO glad you made a post with screenshots. It's gross how they've just been throwing everything under the rug so the next wave of folks who venture into the forums likely won't hear about what happened until the next time some Big Drama happens again. I still can't get over how they actually banned several of their HG authors over these discussions lol

Now they've even deleted the second Relics announcement thread on the Hosted Games subreddit which had over 70 comments discussing what happened. Do they not realise how bad of a look this is to nuke all these discussions? Then again, this certainly isn't the first time we've questioned their actions :II it'd be nice if someone could compile everything that's happened with the company over the past few years into a post or google document for easier sharing in the future. Like, people wonder why authors end up switching over to Twine. If it's not a financial reason, it's usually a disagreement over how the company handles things.

Welp. May this site continue to live on and reign so we don't have to give that company any more money than it deserves.
Use that money and support your favourite authors directly if you can!!
And thank you for your service, Elagabalus! lol
 
KathyPlays

KathyPlays

Member
Approved Releaser
Member
Was late on seeing the deleted post from that thread so THANK YOU for having screenshots! Backing that up now myself, I never know when it'll be handy. Also, they finally gave me the missing context, and honestly, really great of James on taking a stand!

The CoG moderators DID overstep boundaries on thaf thread and have been remarked to be continuously devolving to being big mad when community users don't dance to the tune they set. The show's still ongoing, with several topics being opened and unopened as mods and users alike post their greviances over that.

But also quick update, in a recent post (7 hours ago), Jason confirmed he was the one to delete the earlier reply on that thread instead of Mary. But a few hours later, I found that James had become suspended from the forum, in account of having no constructive purpose to their actions other than creating dissent within the community, which is... really shameful to the Mods, ngl. Relics 3 thread has also been silenced, on account of people having the discussion there, with James' last post just being happy that he's pulling the last game out.

ANYWAYS. Will continue to respect and support this author with his endeavors. It's the least he deserves, without even considering how WELL his books were written.

And I agree! May someone else be kind enough to compile all the other shady and frankly, clown things the CoG mods and staff have done (and WILL do) into one shareable document.
 
P

phgzg

New member
Member
moths_flame said:
I really don't get why was author of love verse banned though... the mods are ruthless....
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The author of the love verse was banned because he posted really nasty things, including talking about self-harm and as if internet bullying was normal, which was off topic. But I think the moderators were idiots, Lucas Zaper mocked and made fun of everyone who was criticizing the game and didn't get a warning for it just because his opinion was in line with the mods.
 
C

clownfish

Member
Member
phgzg said:
The author of the love verse was banned because he posted really nasty things, including talking about self-harm and as if internet bullying was normal, which was off topic. But I think the moderators were idiots, Lucas Zaper mocked and made fun of everyone who was criticizing the game and didn't get a warning for it just because his opinion was in line with the mods.
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Oh OK I didn't know that, thanks
 
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xenoboy

Member
Member
Well, another s-show brought upon by the CoG mods. Really, I kept going there for Inifinty series updates, and will likely do so, but it's been years since I posted anything in their forum, and that's why. Someone mentioned something that might be the reason for their actions: they use the forum as advertisement, as in, to people outside the forum too. It's still unjustified, they should create another space for advertising the games. They always took the community there for granted. Like, I don't particularly blame that Bryce guy, because I've seen him tolerating "dissent" on some Infinity threads, like people bad-mouthing him, in an argument, but Mary has been nasty, particularly so during one occasion, when she criticized authors for only writing male-locked stories. She then went and created a label where most stories are female-locked. Jason is a two-sided guy, he's either almost absent and cool dude, or very authoritarian, ban-hammer welder. See the Choice of Vampire thread, where he single-handedly suspended a few people for asking about a release date years ago.
 
melusina

melusina

Active member
Member
To be fair with Hearts Choice, people need to be applying/proposing games for it. And I don't think it's as easy as it is with Hosted Games? I'm not surprised that for a branch focusing on romantic stories, there are more female-locked protagonists in their titles. Even if the romance in said titles are lacking compared to the romances in Hosted Games lol. Not defending Mary, of course, considering I'm still thinking about this comment she made.

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Is she sure that she understands why SotS wasn't popular? Because in my opinion, my issue is that the writing wasn't that bad but it wasn't a good game. This feedback document that I found on Steam summarises a lot of my own thoughts. I'm not a stranger to toxic positivity and I prefer it over the alternative, but there's a thing as too much. So yeah, I haven't been able to shake off the feeling that this is a backhanded remark lmao but I might be reading too much into it. The vibes are just off imo I found some of the things she said to be immature, especially in response to James' post before it got removed.

Hasn't Jason also go on tumblr and bothered readers who made posts about their forum bans too? Wish I could find some receipts of that. I understand protecting your brand but bruh that's a bit much lol they wouldn't have this many issues if they'd allow criticism about their moderation. It's embarrassing to see.
 
X

xenoboy

Member
Member
melusina said:
To be fair with Hearts Choice, people need to be applying/proposing games for it. And I don't think it's as easy as it is with Hosted Games? I'm not surprised that for a branch focusing on romantic stories, there are more female-locked protagonists in their titles. Even if the romance in said titles are lacking compared to the romances in Hosted Games lol. Not defending Mary, of course, considering I'm still thinking about this comment she made.

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Is she sure that she understands why SotS wasn't popular? Because in my opinion, my issue is that the writing wasn't that bad but it wasn't a good game. This feedback document that I found on Steam summarises a lot of my own thoughts. I'm not a stranger to toxic positivity and I prefer it over the alternative, but there's a thing as too much. So yeah, I haven't been able to shake off the feeling that this is a backhanded remark lmao but I might be reading too much into it. The vibes are just off imo I found some of the things she said to be immature, especially in response to James' post before it got removed.

Hasn't Jason also go on tumblr and bothered readers who made posts about their forum bans too? Wish I could find some receipts of that. I understand protecting your brand but bruh that's a bit much lol they wouldn't have this many issues if they'd allow criticism about their moderation. It's embarrassing to see.
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Well, I remember the birth of that line as her taking cheap shots as both Cata (the author of the Dragoon Saga) and the Aswick author, so I barely even touch it. I think the last game I played there was the French spy one. I'm not complaining about the lack of male MCs, just pointing out that what started as complaining about most HGs being male-locked ended up creating a new line with most being female-locked. About SotS, I literally only played once, and don't remember anything about it, even though I'm a huge VtM fan. Have you seen the Relics author Tumblr? Jason tried censoring it too, and his answer was epic.
 
melusina

melusina

Active member
Member
xenoboy said:
Well, I remember the birth of that line as her taking cheap shots as both Cata (the author of the Dragoon Saga) and the Aswick author, so I barely even touch it. I think the last game I played there was the French spy one. I'm not complaining about the lack of male MCs, just pointing out that what started as complaining about most HGs being male-locked ended up creating a new line with most being female-locked. About SotS, I literally only played once, and don't remember anything about it, even though I'm a huge VtM fan. Have you seen the Relics author Tumblr? Jason tried censoring it too, and his answer was epic.
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Yeah, I see the hypocrisy that you're pointing out now.
And same tbh, the only reason I played SotS more than once was because I thought it ended too soon and I must have missed something somewhere lol it felt like the weakest VtM title in their catalogue. Which is a shame because I remember being the most excited for it (totally not because we could play a Malkavian... lol).

That was a riot lmao and not even the first time he's done that to an author on a different social media platform! Loved how James handled that, and not even surprised since he was as civil as can be when he was up against Mary in that thread. Shame she lacks reading comprehension. Going through some of the tumblr replies, seems like a handful of authors who switched to Twine also have their grievances with her.

I'm honestly half expecting Jason to show up here or on the new subreddit at this point. Then again, I imagine everything will just blow over again until the next outrage and they lose another two authors. He and his minions sure love ignoring complaints and pretend everything is a-ok in their lala land, bleh.
 
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