BoT Voice: TeamSpeak & Mumble Servers

[Kryton]

Ok I have no idea how long this post will be because it is late and I'm now effectively replying to both Sarah and Todd's posts in one go.

Let's start by dealing with the situation that existed before Monday night. Over a year ago I posted in this thread offering apologises for unintended offence in an attempt to build some bridges and try to repair some of the damage to the guild. Todd and I discussed that post at the time and not unreasonably I felt, still feel, the ball is in Sarah's court. Had Todd directly asked me to contact Sarah privately I would have refused and I'm refusing now. My attempt at reconciliation was posted publicly, partly because this impacts other people, and I feel it is only fair and reasonable that her response is similarly open to the guild. Sarah has, on multiple occasions posted threads attacking me containing numerous inaccuracies and that behaviour is simply not appropriate.

Now let's look at Monday night. I believe both your posts are factually incorrect on some key points. This is my recollection of the "conversation" after the instances. UR had gone badly for a variety of reasons and I will admit I was somewhat annoyed by that (including my own fuck ups). Tim began to offer Sarah some advice on how to improve her dps my directing her to wowanalyser using a link that he innocently posted on Discord. The response from Sarah was that she "obviously couldn't get that". This isn't the first time that attitude has been the response to offers of assistance so both Tim and I tried to call Sarah out on that attitude at which point it all went nuclear.

If anyone would like to agree or amend that recollection I will not say it is perfect recall but I do believe it is sufficiently different to the version presented in earlier posts that it needed clarification.

Sarah, it would help my understanding if you could explain what it is about the Discord that alienates you so strongly? Simply answering that with "me" isn't sufficient for me to understand.

I'll be honest it is now very late and my thought process is trailing off so I am going to leave this post here. It's not to say this is my entire response but that I need to process a bit more.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Kryton

[dangphat]

@NaceyDoes that mean you won't take the piss out of my email address anymore?

Edited April 30, 2020 by dangphat

[Fyria]

I've had a few busy workdays/work evenings, I do have a reply for this to help try and answer some of your questions Mark, but it probably won't come until later today. I've not forgotten about/ignoring this.

[Gragneth]

Just wanted to say that it really isn't just Mark you need to be referring to at this point. It has always been beyond just that and you should acknowledge it. Mark is not the only affected here and if you just keep focusing on him you maybe ignoring things still. 

[Fyria]

Note: I'm probably going to use the word Discord in this post to refer explicitly to the BoT Discord server to avoid typing it out in full every time, unless I say otherwise, this is what I mean.

Okay, starting with questions over the original situation and where that was left. 

The original discussion in the Distant Worlds thread ended up with a lot of people posting at once, I felt a bit ganged up on and every time I tried to post to explain something and each time I failed to help the situation. So, Todd ended up suggesting I stop posting in that thread. A couple of other people tried to diffuse the situation in the thread which was helpful but the issue with Mark still remained.

Since nothing was being resolved at this point, Todd suggested that he talked to Mark directly to try and get us to work this through properly. After what happened on the forum I really wanted to initially have a direct conversation in which we could figure out the problems we both had at this point without the risk of it ending up in a place like the original thread. For whatever reason, this resulted in Mark posting on the forums again instead. This left me feeling a bit stuck because I didn’t want to start another forum argument.

I also found it difficult to see that post at the time as completely genuine given the contrast between that and Mark’s previous interactions with me and because we weren’t talking directly there was no chance or way to work through what was said. Between not being able to find a good way to post in the thread and not having another channel of communication with Mark to talk it out, it was left unresolved. 

Over time, the issue has come up again with odd comments and digs and these end up reinforcing the idea that it wasn’t a genuine apology in the first place for me. I understand that this is somewhat self-fulfilling, because perhaps Mark felt like he took that step, nothing happened, so he feels like it’s okay to bring up this issue in a way that I still find quite hurtful and I’m not sure how to break this cycle between us now.

As far as Discord is concerned, there were some early things where people made me feel a bit uneasy/unwelcome that I largely understand to have not been intentional but at the time that was how they came across, a few people including Tim and Gaz actually helped turn some of that perception around for me, but the outstanding issue with Mark still made it difficult to feel comfortable in that environment.

At that point, Mark’s position seemed to be that I was being ridiculous about how I felt about this which made it harder to get past the feeling of not being welcome and made me feel like he was pushing me away from other people. Because of the constant tension between us since, I still associate Discord with the ongoing disagreements we have 

Because Discord was at the core of the original disagreement with Mark, and we never properly resolved the issues between us, I still continue to feel a bit uncomfortable about being on Discord. I felt like if I just suddenly logged in Mark might make a comment about the fact that I was on there and try to invalidate how I felt about it all and why I felt hurt in the first place. I would be putting myself in a vulnerable situation so it was easier to simply never take that risk. I realise that in that situation Mark may well have not done anything like that but, again, because we never spoke directly it was difficult to figure out how he felt about it all.

This then links to why Monday was particularly difficult for me because it felt like I was getting the exact accusations that I was afraid I would get if I ever started using Discord, and all I had effectively done was accidentally log in to it due to using the client for some other servers.

So as a result of all this I ended up seeing you as the primary reason why I can't talk to any of my friends on Discord and, therefore, feeling excluded from how a lot of the guild now communicates. This has been really quite upsetting for me as I don’t want to fall out with other people or give the impression that I don’t want to talk to them. So again I ended up feeling a bit trapped between how I felt and what I really wanted.

I realise the events of Monday were a bit stressful for us all. In recent dungeons my DPS hasn’t been great. Mark and Gaz suggested that I try switching essences and move away from the rotation that I’ve been enjoying and have been trying to work on and improve. I was a bit reluctant to do this as I have found it difficult to find much information online on how to play any other build/rotation, but I decided to give it a try on Monday to see how it went. It felt a bit clunky and the results didn’t seem to be much better, plus I wasn’t used to the cooldowns and timings yet so was probably getting even worse results. Ultimately I don’t find this build as fun and the internet suggests it isn’t as good, so it’s difficult to know whether to pursue it or not. But I did try it to try to make other people happier with me. So that made it worse when people were then criticising a little bit during and after the run. I’m obviously not deliberately playing badly so getting annoyed with me doesn’t help, even though I can see how it can be frustrating when you’re able to get much better numbers out of the same class.

In the heat of things kicking off a bit I ended up missing the bit about WoWAnalyzer. After things calmed down a bit Todd basically came to me and said that he knew I probably missed it, but that Tim was suggesting that I could try using it with the logs from that run. This only came the next morning after I'd made a post asking for spec help, and that actually sounds exactly like the sort of useful tool that might help with that and I'll certainly have a look at it. So I just wanted to apologise to Tim that he got caught up in that moment and to say thanks for trying to help.

[Fyria]

7 minutes ago, Gragneth said:

Just wanted to say that it really isn't just Mark you need to be referring to at this point. It has always been beyond just that and you should acknowledge it. Mark is not the only affected here and if you just keep focusing on him you maybe ignoring things still. 

I wrote the post above before you replied, so I didn't see this until after I'd finished. I understand that other people have been affected by this. I don't have a clear understanding of how everybody feels individually but I hope that the post above helps to explain some of the situation - it's intended for anyone a bit confused by this. I'm also more than happy to chat to people, I don't want to fall out with anyone and I'm sorry if people feel like they've been dragged into this or if it seemed like I was pushing them away through this whole thing.

[Gragneth]

When I was young, I discovered Warhammer. I loved it, tiny metal miniatures with such great stories. However one thing I never understood was the Dwarfs history with Grudges. Every mark against the Dwarf race would be written in a book, every massive incident down to even the smallest slight would be entombed in a book. It would always be remembered year after year, generation after generation. To be brought up against those who have wronged them. Only when each individual event was returned in-kind or greater would it be stricken from the record. It has led to some grudges growing to unimaginable levels from merely the smallest of origins. Whole wars would be fought just to avenge a social faux pas made against someones great great great great grandparents. 

This I couldn't get as a kid, I thought it was funny and didn't understand how anyone could behave this way in reality. Why hold on to every little thing to the nth degree at the expense of themselves and the effect it has on other people/the world. 

After reading the above thread I now understand this mindset. This is not an explanation or an honest attempt to fix anything. This is a list of grudges directed at one individual. I cannot even see what the original thing Mark has done from that explanation. He is just the focus of the grudges and so it is written so it must be. 

Looking at that it makes me wonder what happened to the old Todd and Sarah. Where are the people who just enjoyed doing things together. Maybe they were never really there to begin with. Maybe they have only been a front to the true people secretly writing in the book of grudges all the slights they have perceived. If this is what is written about Mark it makes me wonder what has been written about me? Would I ever be able to absolve those wrongs?

To be honest I just want my old Todd and Sarah back. If only they could wake up and take their noses out of their book.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Gragneth

[Sharp]

Just to say, this kind of stupid drama is 50% of the reason I left and why others are activly thinking of doing the same, be it following me or to other servers.

[Buachalla]

Just wanna say that I made the discord so we could essentially have a big group chat, nothing serious, it was there for people to use how they want. I made some channels because I knew discussions would happen and it's nice to have a place for certain topics for people to look back on, or people having multiple discussions at once. I asked for feedback, but nothing was said, some people did clean a few things up after a while.

I did not quit WoW over this, but it has certainly soured my experience to the point I've had the entire server muted, not just topics that aren't relevant to me.

I will thank Todd for buying me some game time to get back in. I have actually been having fun leveling other classes and going through old stuff on Allied races, but I have pretty much had 0 interaction with people in game, some of that is due to my messed up sleeping, but it's also very evident there's a bit of a split happening. I have had people reach out to me, but right now I'm not really looking to do much in terms of endgame, so I'm just going to carry on by myself until Shadowlands.

 

Edit: I also want to say, that while I have asked people what's been going on, I've kept an open mind, but from an almost complete outside perspective right now, this is all really very stupid and I can't believe this is still on going.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Buachalla

[Tim]

I don't understand what any of this is trying to achieve.

[Dave]

As you may know, I’m leaving Talnivarr and the guild, because of this drama. It’s a farce. I’m sad as I’ve had a lot of fun with this guild in the past – but not that much in recent times.

At the time of the discord drama, there were a lot of attempts to make it more welcoming – the distant worlds thing was a misunderstanding as people did not know you weren’t using the server Sarah – you were even the first person tagged. Even the most recent incident was because we saw you active on the list and assumed you were active. We even went so far as changing owners back then - but yet we’re still not trusted? The exact same people use our discord as use our forums and the guild. However, a lot of stuff was said by you about our intentions in the thread that followed, but an apology was never issued. It hurt, but I tried to leave it behind, but every time you took umbrage about something to do with discord it came roaring back – especially now when you’ve made it clear you use other discords, but not with us

In defence of Mark, if you were being told you were the baddy or lashed out at unpredictably (see classic character server thread), would you not eventually lose patience? In all my interactions with him he hasn’t held ill-will. When discussing mage play it was to help get everyone able to do M15s. I feel Mark has been unfairly targeted as others have said things similar to what he has said but not received such treatment.

I’m afraid that I feel the opportunities to resolve this has been missed.

Sorry should have been said a long time ago.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Dave

[Fyria]

2 hours ago, Gragneth said:

Looking at that it makes me wonder what happened to the old Todd and Sarah. Where are the people who just enjoyed doing things together. Maybe they were never really there to begin with. Maybe they have only been a front to the true people secretly writing in the book of grudges all the slights they have perceived. If this is what is written about Mark it makes me wonder what has been written about me? Would I ever be able to absolve those wrongs?

To be honest I just want my old Todd and Sarah back. If only they could wake up and take their noses out of their book.

I really don't understand this, I have absolutely no qualms with you and enjoy doing random WoW content with you, I see no wrongs to absolve? I'm confused? 

 

34 minutes ago, Dave said:

The exact same people use our discord as use our forums and the guild. However, a lot of stuff was said by you about our intentions in the thread that followed, but an apology was never issued. It hurt, but I tried to leave it behind, but every time you took umbrage about something to do with discord it came roaring back – especially now when you’ve made it clear you use other discords, but not with us

I think I've missed something in the process of this because I never see this side of things and no one talks to me. As far as I can see, I'm still getting important information from Todd in terms of dungeon groups etc, and as far as I can tell it's not otherwise making any difference to anyone. There are no trust issues I have with you guys and enjoy our time spent together doing dungeons and random content online and it saddens me to see people go away.

I made it clear early on that I'm on other Discords (at the time of the Distant Worlds thread, I believe it was three?), and it's become more of a necessity with recent events., this is not a new thing and I'm not sure what gave people this impression. My feelings by the end towards the BoT server were purely the issues I had with the way people who were using it were treating me over it, those people are not on other servers?

Also Tim, people seemed confused over the issue, I wanted to offer some clarity and say that I'm open to talking about it if people want to talk about it, since I've clearly misunderstood people's stances on this matter (Mark was really the only person this was left unresolved with). I realise that people have somehow let this aid decisions to leave the guild and I was completely unaware until other people (outside of Mark) felt directly involved in this anymore.

It's obvious the guild will never recover for the next expansion and all hopes we might be able to run raids again at that point have disappeared, so I'll make it easier for everyone and leave the guild myself. I was hoping that we could find some way to eventually solve this issue and all talk together again, but it's clear that we can't if that's how everyone feels.

Again, I'm really sorry to anyone who felt like this was personal to them, it's not, I love you all and Todd can attest how upset I am about losing you all. I miss all of our banter and friendship.

[Fyria]

I'm going to also take this opportunity to apologise to Mark as well, I realise you've felt that things have been very unfair for you over the past year and a half over this. It might take some time to rebuild these bridges between us all again. Outside of this situation between us I really enjoy spending time with you as a friend and that will be missed. I've had fun playing stuff like Gloomhaven with you and it's a shame we couldn't ever quite find the time to do that again as I feel like we do get on alright outside of WoW.

[Kryton]

11 hours ago, Fyria said:

I'm going to also take this opportunity to apologise to Mark as well, I realise you've felt that things have been very unfair for you over the past year and a half over this. It might take some time to rebuild these bridges between us all again. Outside of this situation between us I really enjoy spending time with you as a friend and that will be missed. I've had fun playing stuff like Gloomhaven with you and it's a shame we couldn't ever quite find the time to do that again as I feel like we do get on alright outside of WoW.

Thank you Sarah. This post means a lot to me. I know these issues have been hard for you and I want you to know that my apology post from way back was genuine. I'm sorry if I gave you reasons to doubt my sincerity. I hope I speak for everyone on here that even if BoT as a WoW guild has now had it's day, the community on this forum can continue to be a wacky family to us all.

Also, we do need to move Gloomhaven forward. I mean, how silly would it be if I had just backed the sequel on KS without having finished the original...

[Dave]

1 hour ago, Kryton said:

I hope I speak for everyone on here that even if BoT as a WoW guild has now had it's day, the community on this forum can continue to be a wacky family to us all.

Agreed

[Maz]

3 hours ago, Kryton said:

Also, we do need to move Gloomhaven forward. I mean, how silly would it be if I had just backed the sequel on KS without having finished the original...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/

^Fully featured multiplayer co-op when it's properly released so one to watch - obviously not the same as in person board games but good if you're far apart and want to enjoy the same campaign!

[Tim]

11 hours ago, Kryton said:

I hope I speak for everyone on here that even if BoT as a WoW guild has now had it's day, the community on this forum can continue to be a wacky family to us all.

And with this I'll be moving on as well. I've really missed raiding which we haven't had the proper numbers for quite some time.

I still feel a strong belonging to this community and hope we can continue to play other games together.

[Brynneth]

6 hours ago, Kryton said:

I hope I speak for everyone on here that even if BoT as a WoW guild has now had it's day, the community on this forum can continue to be a wacky family to us all.

Fourthed?

I've typed about 3 responses and deleted them because I don't know what I can say that's productive...  Though I guess I want to say how things feel from my end - it feels like we've reached a point with the guild where there are too few active players. Too few to get any sort of content done apart from a couple of specific days a week, or to do any raiding at all, so most days I just log in to farm mounts and then do something else outside WoW. There also isn't a lot of conversation going on in guild because there are so few people and/or when people do log in it's to run pre-organised things. There just isn't half a dozen people chatting shit while levelling, AHing, waiting for BG queues etc anymore. I'm feeling quite lonely in BoT these days and a bit frustrated that there's half a game out there that I'm not getting to experience, but also quite sad that the guild has just petered out like this. But, as much as I want to stay in this community we've built over the years, it's just not giving me what I need anymore. 

So, I'm going to join the long list of people jumping ship and am going to take Bryn to another guild. I have no animosity toward anyone - quite the opposite, I still care for you all - so will probably keep my alts here and will still be on the forums and discord and hopefully get to play other games with you all. 

 

[Welsper]

Now it has come to this, what is left to say that hasnt been mentioned already. Ive made wonderful memories with everyone here, and i cherish all of you. BoT just fading away like this hits me harder than id like to admit, as it has always been somewhat of a home to me in WoW. I fondly remember the good times and hold no grudges towards anyone.

My loyalty will always lie with BoT, but for now, at least temporarily, i will be joining them alliance traitors. I hope that way we can keep playing together for a while, afterall, ive generally had a good time in our m+s, regardless of performance. 

Id like to apologize to some of the non-brummies like khatum and ryk, who mightve not even noticed what is happening yet, but theyve probably realized by themselves that things werent going great in our indeed quite empty and quiet guild these days... 

 

[Largi]

Oh... Ok. 

So I resubbed to WoW recently and was a little confused as to... well where everyone was. 
I guess this explains it. 

I'm a little surprised this issue is still going. Also I'm confused as to how Mark replaced Me and Lei as the "bad guys" here. 
We had Discord servers for other games with people and wanted to emulate that with you guys so we could keep in better contact when we wern't in the game. 
I'm sorry it didn't turn out how we wanted it and saddened it became this.

But for the record, Yes, this drama was what pushed me out of the guild, mostly as Lou ended up attacked in all of this as a brand new member to the group and was never allowed to feel any sort of acceptance. 

But whatever, i'm back on now, leveling some characters for Shadowlands and Myself, Lou and Samih are going to be playing on Talnivarr during Shadowlands. I hope some of you will be there for some dungeons, activities and maybe some flex raiding. I'll be more active in the Discord and around here.