Smacktars Decisionmaking on CDU

[Vygramul]

I've had some really good games on CDU, and I think some of their maps are quite fine. But tonight, I think that blindly following the letter of their law while being totally inconsiderate has reached a new high, and makes me want to not go there anymore.

I understand the need to balance teams. I also understand and respect, although I may not agree with it, that they don't use auto-balance because they don't want to switch teams themselves. A bit obnoxious, but it's their server, and nothing is keeping us from being active on their TS and forums and enjoying the same benefits.

However, tonight, -=CDU=- Unfair Advantage was either not exhibiting full situational awareness (at best) or he is simply a total jerk.

At the height of the egregious bit of admin absurdia, Unfair Advantage and nother guy were orbiting the coalition uncappable with two stoled OH-64's, raping people as they spawn. While he keeps requesting people switch teams, the teams do the following:

Opposition:18
Coalition: 14
Opposition:18
Coalition: 12
Opposition:18
Coalition: 9

And his calls for evening the team get more frequent as coalition players flee the patently unfun situation they're in. Of course, he is neither willing to switch teams NOR stop base-raping.

THIS is what non-CDU regs are hearing, however:

"Dammit the coalition is ruining my fun by leaving. Would some of you other losers switch teams so I can feel good masturbating to my leet kill ratio?"

It was unfun to watch, and I was on opposition. I was trying to figure out the odds of my being able to down a chopper, since I consider myself pretty handy at the stinger against the whirlybirds. When we decided to switch sides en masse, it took six lives before I GOT A SHOT OFF, and I got him. In the end, we faired pretty well having switched, but the problem was lost on Unfair Advantage, who took the typical, "you're our guests," attitude. If I come to your house, I should treat you with respect, but neither should you expect it your right to make me get on all fours and serve as your footrest and think you're doing me a favor by allowing me to notice how nice the carpet is.

[LilPuppy]

Don't go...simple...post the same thing on their forums. Alot of you's have posted about their behaviour before and your surprised???? Gotta expect that when you go there that's all

[SauerKraut]

yeah, definately needs to be posted on their site. The more stuff is brought to their attention the better. They have some good admins there, however, they also have a bunch of guys with no admin power that kind of ruin their reputation.

If they whine that you're a whiner, F 'em. Don't go back. I quit going there after they said the problems we talked about would be addressed, which they were for about a week, then it turned to "this is my house get the F out" kind of deal with some of their non-admin members, so I did. I left.

i don't even bother posting there anymore.

[Vygramul]

Yeah, I went over there (I forgot my password, so I haven't posted) and I read their, "Hall of Shame," ban thread to see what they're like. They're pretty obnoxious over there. They take too much pride in banning people then crowing over it in public. At least one case had someone send them a note to explain, to discuss, and all they did was tear him a new one. If we had CCM or VSF tags on our names tonight, we would have been banned en masse. As it is, maybe only MASH will get banned.

I guess more than anything, I am disappointed. CDU seemed like a pretty decent place to play, with pretty good enforcement of tard-like behaviour. But now it seems that they are, themselves, not above being :KH:

[SauerKraut]

Agreed. They took a turn for the worse one day and haven't recovered since.

[FinalDream]

I never much liked the CDU server perhaps it's my map nazi ways or the fact that I was reaching a record 13 fps jumping from 9 while I was on Bocage tonight. I left to enjoy some fh with a bunch of vsf'ers. As for whatever went on with MASH that could have possibly had him banned, it must have been serious. MASH seems not to lose it like some other ppl. As for abuse on the VSF servers I have to commend the admins and deputies, I haven't ever seen anything really get out of hand. The curse word auto kick is probably the best server clensing method I've ever seen. Not only is it funny for everyone online, it also prevents ppl from getting into arguments.

There is nothing I enjoy more then seeing someone swear and quickly typing "Bye :)" before the bot kicks in.

[Canadian Hick]

I was on for a while under an alias. I left after they started to demand people switch while just staying on the same side. I did not last long after AK suggested one of them switch then Twisted was kicked (dude, wtf)?

[Iggy]

This isn't news to me. I've seen their admins act like this on several occasions. Pretty bad when they are the ones that end up looking like idiots.

[Angry Kid]

FWIW, I PMed Gunny with a pretty detailed account of the goings-on of Lost Village last night. I didn't want to cause a potential sh!t-storm by posting it in their general furum.

IMO, he needs to be more selective of those he puts in a key role. As Iggy suggests, there have been other instances of less-than-stellar behavio(u)r on the part of some (not all) admins.

[MASH]

:|

[Angry Kid]

UPDATE:

Just got a return PM from =CDU= Gunny; suffice it to say, he was NOT happy hearing about the actions of the admin last night and he shared the overall opinion that most of us had of the evening and of the admin in particular.

His quote was "consider it handled" and assured me he wants the CDU server to be a place people seek out to have a fun time.

He also said he appreciated this being brought to his attention and extended an open invitation to everyone.


Except for MASH. :swg:

[RuperT]

It's tough to run a server, particularly when you have a clan identity. I've been in that situation, where one or a couple of guys do a lot of work to get a server going (tweaking maps, or maybe just general server config), just so a bunch of other guys with the same clan tag (but having done no more work than dbl-clicking the server) can get their jollies kicking/banning.
I took a look at their forums, and it seems like they've made the regrettable jump from "We've got a popular server! Hooray!" to "We can flaunt our power and our server is still full!" to "Look at how hardass we are! Beware our righteous fury!"
Now, I'm a pretty laid-back guy, but even I have had a bad day and been a little harsh with the administration on some poor schmuck who may have missed my warning in chat, or who wants to argue about taxiing. Most of my peer admins have a MUCH shorter fuse than I do. For this reason, I'd recommend against the kind of kickbot that CDU seems to have. It's just too easy to angrily type '!kick Player' or '!ban Player' when it's not really warranted. Besides that, admins should be an invisible and mysterious presence; letting players know exactly which admin kicks or bans just typically has no good outcome, and contributes to a dictatorial atmosphere.
That said, these guys seemed to have reached that watermark where they can maintain whatever policy floats their boats (thanks mainly to their aforementioned map-tweaker guy, apparently). However, at some point enforcing these policies begins to take up too much valuable play-time. I notice in their forums that they gripe and gripe about people who won't switch, or how often teams become imbalanced, and they have to 'babysit' to keep teams even. Well, in economics these might be referred to as 'market forces', and you're not going to easily change them. Besides that, these guys just need to run the math. It's one thing trying to get 6 guys on the same team, but it's just not going to (easily) happen with 18 guys. I like to play on the same side as my cronies too, but not when that entails kicking a dozen players on every mapchange (multiply by X for language regs, pad camping regs, et al). Give it up, CDU. Turn on the damn autobalance, bind a key to change channels in TS, and commiserate on your servers' popularity. :roll: