Play The World

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I'm dropping out actually, since I have no way of ensuring that you haven't modified the map file to your advantage, and I've just read in this thread that you've admitted to modifying the map file.

It's a known fact that the world map is known for its tendency for really crappy, nearly unplayable start locations in its default state.

All I did was go through and nostart the provinces that were stuck on islands and other such locations, same as the < 4 neighbors pass on Cradle. There is, in fact, nothing suspicious about this, since I PUBLICLY DECLARED THIS. If I was really going to cheat, why would I bother telling you about it? Be serious here.

The alternative being that some poor chump would surely wind up with an unplayable start, and in a game of this size, we'd be calling mulligans forever.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
Gad, that's a pretty serious allegation, Stormbinder. Can you be more specific about the "highly unethical" behaviour?

I can clarify this quite simply in detail that Stormbind probably isn't entirely aware of.

The story is simple: Having created an alias a long time ago, I was recently drawn there by the declaration of a new game for "expert" players.

So I entered it using that preexisting board alias. Stormbind, of course, would like to believe I was pumping him for information, unknown to him, on the chat....as if I'd actually care that much about his secret plans. If he had bothered to tell me anything substantive, I'd have even offered him suggestions on how to improve his play. Now, of course, he'd like to throw a hissy-fit over the matter, as if I was somehow wrong to enter a game under an alias. He calls this circumstances surrounding it "unethical", although nowhere in my ethical code does is this behavior mentioned as such.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:

quote:

---

Norfleet's behavior was highly unethical, to put it mildly.

Gad, that's a pretty serious allegation, Stormbinder. Can you be more specific about the "highly unethical" behaviour?

If Norfleet has been cheating, and that can be confirmed from more than one source, then I may feel obliged to drop out myself.

---

I stand by my words, and there are plenty of witnesses for it. I even have logs to prove it.

However I didn't say he was cheating (he could not possible do it since he was not directly in our game, his "Apprentice", as he called him, was).

I said his behavior was highly unethical and that he lied and admited it later. It's not the same as cheating though. But my respect for him as a player evaporated, so the cheationg would not surprise me as well. However as I said I have no idea if he actually cheated with map in your game or not.


I can provide all details completed with logs if you really like but frankly I would not rather dive into that sad mess again. We had 2 pages of discussion in our game related to it already on GoneGold MP forum, "Ice and Fire" thread.

[Zapmeister]

So I entered it using that preexisting board alias. Stormbind, of course, would like to believe I was pumping him for information, unknown to him, on the chat....as if I'd actually care that much about his secret plans. If he had bothered to tell me anything substantive, I'd have even offered him suggestions on how to improve his play.

Hmm, I see (I think). If my understanding of the situation is correct then I would also regard the behaviour as unethical. Correct me (and I'll apologize) if I'm wrong:

1) You were in a game with Stormbinder in which you used some name "A"
2) You conversed about that game with Stormbinder using a different name "B"
3) Stormbinder had no way of knowing A=B and you would have been aware of that, and could easily have rectified it ("I'm Norfleet, BTW")

The claim that you would have helped him if he'd said anything substantive is irrelevant, because:

1) It is only your judgement at this point that nothing substantive was in fact said.
2) Even if you had offered help which may or may not have helped him, you would still have had knowledge which you could not avoid (even if subconsciously) considering in your game plans.

All of this could simply have been avoided by a declaration of your identity.
Again, my apologies if I've misunderstood the scenario.

Now, of course, he'd like to throw a hissy-fit over the matter, as if I was somehow wrong to enter a game under an alias. He calls this circumstances surrounding it "unethical", although nowhere in my ethical code does is this behavior mentioned as such.

Well, judging from your signature and other comments, I'd say your ethical code leaves out lots of things. Many people regard this kind of behaviour as dishonest, at the very least.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
1) You were in a game with Stormbinder in which you used some name "A"
2) You conversed about that game with Stormbinder using a different name "B"
3) Stormbinder had no way of knowing A=B and you would have been aware of that, and could easily have rectified it ("I'm Norfleet, BTW")

I could have. But it would have defeated the point of the exercise. I planned to save that for later.

The claim that you would have helped him if he'd said anything substantive is irrelevant, because:

1) It is only your judgement at this point that nothing substantive was in fact said.
2) Even if you had offered help which may or may not have helped him, you would still have had knowledge which you could not avoid (even if subconsciously) considering in your game plans.

Perhaps, except that I only asked him questions I already knew the answers to anyway.

All of this could simply have been avoided by a declaration of your identity.
Again, my apologies if I've misunderstood the scenario.

You have somewhat misunderstood the scenario: Namely, that the entire point of the exercise was to observe how they reacted to an alleged third party employing my strategy, and how quickly recognized it would be.

Many people regard this kind of behaviour as dishonest, at the very least.

I am not the only person to have entered games under an anonymous alias. I do not see anything unusual about this.

It is also irrelevant to the matter at hand, namely, the accusations that I have somehow modified the map to my advantage: Why would I bother doing that, then make any mention that the capability for even doing such a thing exists?

More importantly, Graeme wrote a post which immediately followed this declaration, which strongly suggests he was aware of this from the start: He joined anyway, and now suddenly, at the Last minute, he's decided to complain about it. If I didn't know him better, I'd say he was deliberately trying to trash the start of the game. But surely that isn't the case, and this is simply a misunderstanding that will be cleared up shortly and we can get the game rolling.

Otherwise, we may have to restart the game sign-up to drop him, rather than having a run-away AI.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
Gad, that's a pretty serious allegation, Stormbinder. Can you be more specific about the "highly unethical" behaviour?

I can clarify this quite simply in detail that Stormbind probably isn't entirely aware of.

The story is simple: Having created an alias a long time ago, I was recently drawn there by the declaration of a new game for "expert" players.

So I entered it using that preexisting board alias. Stormbind, of course, would like to believe I was pumping him for information, unknown to him, on the chat....as if I'd actually care that much about his secret plans. If he had bothered to tell me anything substantive, I'd have even offered him suggestions on how to improve his play. Now, of course, he'd like to throw a hissy-fit over the matter, as if I was somehow wrong to enter a game under an alias. He calls this circumstances surrounding it "unethical", although nowhere in my ethical code does is this behavior mentioned as such.

---

You mean you actually ARE Pakhar Njal?!?!?

Blah!!! What a pitiful jerk. Sorry, if this is true he _was_ cheating, big way.

Than _everything_ he have been telling us was a lie and than it is much worse than we (all other players in Ice and Fire) have suspected.

See, as a Norfleet he was constantly soliciting information from each of Pkahar Njar's (his alias in our game) neigbors with questions such as "So what are you going to do about Caelum?" (Caelum was Pakhar's nation). "How is your war against Caelum going?" , "How are you going to attack Caelum now?". (all these are exact quotes)


He asked it of each and every of three Caelum's neigbors, _every_ time one of us loged on IRC channel. When we have finally cornered Pakhar about the fact that he plays exactly as Norfleet and asked him if he knows this person (same primitive, abusing and boring tatic of uber 500 points VQ and cheap castles/temples in every province), he grudgingly admited that he is Norfleet's "Apprentice". Than Norfleet said that all this time (it was the end game by than) he kept pumping us for inforamtion just out of curiosity "how well his apprentice Pakhar Jarl is doing" and wasn't giving PJ any advice on how to play this game.

However at the end (according to Norfleet's story, which tunred out to be another lie) it was admited by Norfleet/PN that PN was in fact constantly sending to Norfleet sceenshots and Norfleet was giving him advice how to play the game, while continuing soliciting sensitive information from all 3 Caelum's neigbors about thier plans regarding Caelum. (that was the core of "unethical" behavior I was refering to)


However now he is saying that he was in fact Pakhar Jarl all along, despite constantly denying it up until now. Some people suspected that much at the end of our game, when Norfleet started triping over himself with his lies (
"I was giving constant advice", "no, I didn't give him any advice, it was a test for my apprentice", etc.)

But I didn't think that PJ and norfleet are actually the same since Pakhar showed himself to be pretty mediocore player, making many stupid mistakes, and I though that Norfleet, despite all his faults, is at least an expert player. Blah!


What I don't understand is that why are you now openly admiting that everything you been telling us was a lie?!? You have to be either extremely stupid, or you are lying again.


For those who wants to read entire story, here is the thread for our game that was finished (or rather abandoned because of Norfleet/Pakhar) a week or two ago. In fact, I strongly encourage everybody who had any dealing with Norfleet in the past or in the present to go and read that thread right now (pages 3 and 4), and see for yourself.


http://www.gonegold.com/ubb/ultimate...1;t=002168;p=3


It looks that Norfleet have turned out to be complete peace of sh_it. I swear in all my years of MP gaming I never meet someone so rotten and dishonorable.

[ May 24, 2004, 08:12: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Norfleet]

What I don't understand is that why are you now openly admiting that everything you been telling us was a lie?!? You have to be either extremely stupid, or you are liyng again.

Because I had planned to reveal this after the game, and the game is now over. As I suspected, you were trying to drum up an excuse to chicken out. Indeed, you did so, just as I predicted.

Given your constant, tiresome snivelling, you'll understand if I do not care to play with you or speak to you further. I suspect the feeling is mutual, which I am sure suits us both just fine.

Therefore, I have no further interest in discussing this, or really, any other matter, with you. I wash my hands of this affair.

You are not in this game at all. If this entire debacle causes a restart, you are not really invited to join, although if you joined, I would grudgingly tolerate you simply because I don't care to reject anyone...provided you keep your whining to yourself. Make no mistake about it, though: I do not like you.

[Stormbinder]

Norfleet, perhaps you are suffering from some delusion here. You do reilize that you have completely destroyed yourself whatever little was left of your reputation as both Dom2 player and honest person, right???


I don't think anybody who will read this thread (or "Ice and Fire" thread on GoneGold MP forum) will want to play with you in the future.

[ May 24, 2004, 08:22: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
Norfleet, you do reilize that you have completely destroyed whatever little was left of your reputation as both Dom2 player and honest person, right???

I don't think anybody who will read this thread (or "Ice and Fire" thread on GoneGold MP forum) will want to play with you in the future.

You can believe that. I don't think that people will find it so unreasonable if I felt like joining a game undercover for once.

Is it so ABSOLUTELY UNREASONABLE to think I might actually want to try and see if my supposed reputation actually makes such a difference, by joining anonymously for a bit?

No, I think not.

More importantly, we're becoming increasingly off-topic, not that you were ever a part of this topic. If you want to continue this entire line of inquiry, kindly take it to another thread that I can duly ignore.
----------------------------------------------
Therefore, let us now put the real issue on the table:
In the event that Graeme declines to be reasonable about this, and spoils the game by pulling out suddenly, do we:

A. Bot him and continue, knowing that somebody who started next to him now has a grouchy neighbor...
B. Attempt to restart the game without him.
C. Cancel the game.

What do the ACTUAL PLAYERS of the game, of which Stormbind is not one, think we should do?

[Tris]

>You can believe that. I don't think that people will find it so unreasonable if I felt like joining a game undercover for once.<

Not at all.

What I think people find unreasonable is joining a game, and asking other players about their strategies with a different name, without stating that you are actually playing the game.

I think people probably find that sickening.