User:Iscariot/No More Heroes

"Whatever happened to all the heroes? All the Shakespearoes? They watched their Rome burn "

Malton Statistics as of 18:38 GMT, 10th December 2008

Active Characters : 26839

Standing Survivors : 9773 (46%)

Standing Zombies : 11318 (54%)

Dead Bodies : 3726

Revivifying Bodies : 2022

Standing Zombie Hunters : 5566

Christmas Trees : 2

Now if we look at....

S.O.S.

That's not comedy by the way. No really, the authors of that were entirely serious in comparing themselves to the On Strike movement. That's right, they think an ill-conceived update that crippled the character progression of half the game is comparable to a 46/54 split. I'm as shocked as you are that the same people are allowed to vote, drive and reproduce.

Seriously, they think this game is out of balance? How exactly? By 4%? You're never going to get a 50/50 split maintained.

Oh, wait, I get it, they think they're on about the recent updates. We'll look at those instead:

• I'm guessing they don't have issues with Halloween masks, so we'll go further back.
• It must be Flesh Rot they have a problem with. They must be blaming their problems on zombies not having to get a revive to get the same benefits as them. That must be it.
• Perhaps it's their ability to hear equipment breaking, perhaps the lack of restful sleep is depleting their AP.
• It could be lights in neighbouring blocks going on and off, after all we called such stuff X-Ray vision on the Suggestions page, it could be that they are losing out of sympathy due to having this update in their favour.
• What about the darkness update? Yes, they were screwed more than zombies in that update. What? It's not like they had easy access to a piece of equipment that negated the whole thing if they put a couple of their shotguns down or anything....
• It could have been the Facebook update, perhaps they feel that adding a sense of humour swings it towards the zombie side, because the zombies have one and they don't.
• The snow melting in February was of course a pro-zombie update, after all, how can you follow them to kill them in the streets if you can't follow their footprints?
• Are we even considering the January update? Barricade blocking was an important change, but you have had a year to get over it and adapt. What do you mean you don't know how?

Are you ready? I'm going to tell you what's wrong with the survivor side. You don't have any leaders any more. You have no more heroes.

Who the fuck do you think you are?

Who am I? Well you're in my userspace, so take a guess. I'm the guy who's enlightening you if you choose to listen. I currently run a member of the Gore Corps and a Philosophe Knight, as well as another character out of the few spare ones I have depending on how the mood takes me.

I was part of the support team in the later days of the Second Big Bash, ran a horde from the beginning of Monroeville and most importantly I took a level five survivor through every suburb of Malton before, during and after all those updates I've just mentioned, helping the survivor cause throughout. That's from before the Siege of Giddings, through the March of The Dead and through to the present day, moving through every type of suburb colour and every zombie homeland. But yeah, don't listen to me....

Actually, who are you again?

This is why you are wrong

Are you paying attention? You (read: The Survivor side of this game) never got over the departure of Sexy Rexy Grossman. Never.

Now if you don't know who that is, go elsewhere and educate yourself and come back later.

Seriously, when Rexy left you didn't know what to do. He left in March, as the Bash was winding down. Then you had the whole March of The Dead to contend with and then after that you did....nothing. You were broken by the sack of Dulston in August, the traditionally strong NE corner shattered by small hordes and ferals, the major three hordes in the game weren't even there. In January under Rexy you held the might of the Bash for a month at a single mall, half a year later a major suburb stronghold fell to disorganised street zombies.

You failed because Rexy wasn't there, because Ron Burgundy wasn't there, because someone of their calibre wasn't there. You failed ever since for the same reason. And you don't seem to understand that it's not their fault for succumbing to real life and leaving you, it's your fault for not creating new leaders to take their place.

But we have leaders!

No, you don't. You have people running groups, people arranging strikes, people moderating forums, people giving themselves trumped up titles but you don't have leaders. Where leaders go, people follow, unconditionally. Rexy could have walked into the heart of Ridleybank and survivors would follow, and they did, Burgundy could do that before him, as well as the dozens before them. Those you don't have.

It's crippling you not having people like them and there's no-one to blame but yourselves. The hordes are continuing as they always have, helping their newer players and having them take on roles when they're ready and willing, then when the inevitable happens that the current leaders leave these players can easily take over. Take MOB for example. When was the last time you saw Jorm? (If you don't know who Jorm is you need to click the back button on your browser now and leave my userspace) I'm on Barhah and haven't seen him in ages, is MOB any less effective? Go ask some of their recent victims.

Even the PKer groups are better at this than you, no seriously. Let's look at the big events this year, the Bash, the March of The Dead and the Invasion of Gibsonton. Yes, you read that right, the Invasion of Gibsonton. Sonny managed to organise a massive group of players (who by design are notoriously independent) and go and beat forces three times their size. Only in your wildest dreams to you wish you had that kind of leadership.

What events have the survivors managed this year? A couple of weddings (both crashed I might add) and the failure that was the 5th of November? There were only two actual survivor ideas this year that had/have promise and odds are that if this discourse is aimed at you then you weren't part of either. The first was The Big Prick. Brilliant idea, well thought out and with the potential to make a massive change to the landscape of Malton. But, no! You were all to be busy trying to hide from The Dead and then whining when you got eaten. The other good idea was MCM, an educational campus for new players conducting lectures and providing in game support. This institution has already earned respect and kudos from experienced players on all sides, also it's also improved survivor effectiveness, yes it has. Stickling Mall, September, the RRF, after initial attacks by a smaller horde take three corners of the mall in 40 minutes. St. George's Hospital, November, after holding the Undeadites, a respected small horde for 10 days, MCM finally fall to the repeated strikes of four of RRF's most respected strike teams, including holding successfully against the two teams that had three mall corners in such a small amount of time. Understand, the RRF weren't slack, it's just these survivors were effective, as effective as every survivor group could and should be.

But no, you want to whine and pout and throw your rattle out of the pram until Kevan gets sick of you and boost the search rates. Well done, you've actually made yourself right, you are a self fulfilling prophecy, the game is now unbalanced, in your favour. The most important thing is the one you haven't realised yet, this is only going to harm....you! That's right, lazy methods of playing this game caused you to get into this situation, and now you're going to get even lazier and uninspired (if that's even possible) and when in a few months this happens again, you'll whine some more and the who cycle will go on again. Thanks so much for killing the game.

This is how you are going to change

You want to fix the situation the right way? Keep reading.

• You will not create new groups. No, not one. Unless you have six hours a day to devote religiously to running that group you are only going to hinder the survivor cause. Carving out your own little fiefdoms doesn't help, giving cute titles to your three friends that the group consists of does not help. It separates you and hinders the survivor cause.
• You will communicate. Even if you only play for 10 minutes a day, you will log onto IRC and say Hi, you will post on forums and you will be constructive on the wiki. Divided you are easy targets, together you have massive advantages in this game, a simple piece of small communication is the beginning of this.
• You will not be an asshat. Seriously, you will not be impertinent or arrogant, good players on both sides have respect for the others, I am welcome in just as many survivor forums as zombie and PKer ones because I understand the simple truth, we are all players and are separate from our characters.
• You will shut up and learn. There are people in this game who have been playing longer and better than you. What is the point in going through the same testing process they did with their tactics when you can just learn directly? Learn through communication, learn by example and don't think your brilliant one-man-army blockbuster movie style idea is better when you are being told by more experienced players that it won't. They're right, you're not.
• You will not get delusions of adequacy. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. Odds are that no-one reading this will be the next big survivor hero, but by not pretending and concentrating on your own strengths, be that strike team management, forum administration or just logging on and using your APs intelligently you will be giving the next Sexy Rexy a chance to develop.

Very simple, very obvious advice, but none of you are actually following it. There are no more heroes....feel free to prove me wrong though.