Post by Asuka Was Here on Feb 22, 2008 14:16:49 GMT -5
... To be honest, I'm not sure what to say, really. It seems like that all happened so long ago, and in a way, it did. I was only a child back then... not to say that I'm 'all grown up' now or anything, but... heck, ZBO was everything to me all those years ago. I remember I was so excited when I figured out I could make my own RPG, and so proud and happy to see it grow and be something. What I didn't count on was that even if I could build something, I was still just a twelve-year-old brat, and twelve-year old brats don't have the skills to be both efficient managers and well-liked. I was naive enough to assume that everyone could get along, be nice, and have fun just because we all had a common interest. Obviously, you saw what that led to. ^^' Of course, everyone wound up hating me for it - not to say that some of it wasn't deserved, but I do think it was taken way too far at some points. There was absolutely no need to post random pictures of morbidly obese people and claim they were photos of me, or write up rape porn about me, or some of the other random crap people came up with after the site was stolen. Trying to buy 300 elmos? Do you realize what that degree of credit fraud would have done to my family if it had worked? Some of it was blatantly illegal, but at the same time, all of it was mean in a way that only children can be mean to one another. Yes, I was a child - but then again, so was everyone else. I don't care about how old any particular person was at the time. We were all children. Now that I think about it, how could we be expected to have something good and fun on our own? We couldn't even communicate with any degree of maturity, much less act.
That said, I do disagree with some of the accusations that were leveled against me. You guys may very well have battled the crud out of each other and rapidly bumping up your stats via the chat room - but you never posted any record of it! What was I supposed to do when I went to bed seeing one set of stats, and got up the next day to find them massively inflated with no explaination of how that happened? I had asked that all record of battles be posted to prevent cheating, you know, and without a post to verify anything, I had no choice but to reset them. I wasn't acting out of jealousy or some competitive need to be the best, I just had to uphold the rules. I'm happy if you were enjoying yourselves, really, but you appeared to be enjoying yourselves to the point where you all forgot the rules.
By the way, I wasn't totally oblivious regarding the 'hacking.' I had figured out that someone had to be letting someone in when the stats were deleted - hence the point when I demoted all the asst. managers for awhile to try and stop all the chaos long enough to rebuild and reorganize. I just never expected anyone to guess my password and get into my account. (By the way, you guys ruined my April vacation. Just for the record. ^^')
It is my fault that I was withdrawing from the site - for one, at that time I had just started high school, and I was suddenly getting caught up in having to do a lot more work, on top of having to adjust to a new school and new people, having just moved that summer. The other cause was ZBO itself - I was coming to realize, much to my frustration and general dismay, that it wasn't the same happy place it used to be. All my original ideals, naive though they were, were coming to naught, and I didn't know how to fix it. So I was... I don't even know. But I withdrew a little, day by day, because I was so unsure - and, of course, that only snowballed downhill, as you know, because people came to hate me more and more for not being around. It was stupid, I know.
So, broadly speaking, I've tried to move on since then. I was mad for awhile, oh yes - especially right after I got back from that break - but as rage is wont to do, it died down. I sort of gave up, really; I'd come to realize that it was a lost cause and I had to move on. So I filed it in its place and did my best to learn from it, and after awhile, I stopped dwelling on it all the time and went on doing... not much, actually. ^^' But the point was that ZBO wasn't my life anymore, it was just a phase in it.
You are right to say that ZBO will not restart again. I agree with that totally, though I wouldn't care if someone else wants to try it (I'm just convinced that there's not a snowball's chance in hell of it ever working). I also sincerely doubt that I will be convinced to go back, rejoin, and make a post there - in part because I don't think I'm really wanted there, and in part because I've moved on - but I wouldn't mind exchanging a few thoughts on the past here. (I should point out, though, that this board is also dead and old, and I only keep it here for archival purposes, much like your ZBO archive.)
That said, I do disagree with some of the accusations that were leveled against me. You guys may very well have battled the crud out of each other and rapidly bumping up your stats via the chat room - but you never posted any record of it! What was I supposed to do when I went to bed seeing one set of stats, and got up the next day to find them massively inflated with no explaination of how that happened? I had asked that all record of battles be posted to prevent cheating, you know, and without a post to verify anything, I had no choice but to reset them. I wasn't acting out of jealousy or some competitive need to be the best, I just had to uphold the rules. I'm happy if you were enjoying yourselves, really, but you appeared to be enjoying yourselves to the point where you all forgot the rules.
By the way, I wasn't totally oblivious regarding the 'hacking.' I had figured out that someone had to be letting someone in when the stats were deleted - hence the point when I demoted all the asst. managers for awhile to try and stop all the chaos long enough to rebuild and reorganize. I just never expected anyone to guess my password and get into my account. (By the way, you guys ruined my April vacation. Just for the record. ^^')
It is my fault that I was withdrawing from the site - for one, at that time I had just started high school, and I was suddenly getting caught up in having to do a lot more work, on top of having to adjust to a new school and new people, having just moved that summer. The other cause was ZBO itself - I was coming to realize, much to my frustration and general dismay, that it wasn't the same happy place it used to be. All my original ideals, naive though they were, were coming to naught, and I didn't know how to fix it. So I was... I don't even know. But I withdrew a little, day by day, because I was so unsure - and, of course, that only snowballed downhill, as you know, because people came to hate me more and more for not being around. It was stupid, I know.
So, broadly speaking, I've tried to move on since then. I was mad for awhile, oh yes - especially right after I got back from that break - but as rage is wont to do, it died down. I sort of gave up, really; I'd come to realize that it was a lost cause and I had to move on. So I filed it in its place and did my best to learn from it, and after awhile, I stopped dwelling on it all the time and went on doing... not much, actually. ^^' But the point was that ZBO wasn't my life anymore, it was just a phase in it.
You are right to say that ZBO will not restart again. I agree with that totally, though I wouldn't care if someone else wants to try it (I'm just convinced that there's not a snowball's chance in hell of it ever working). I also sincerely doubt that I will be convinced to go back, rejoin, and make a post there - in part because I don't think I'm really wanted there, and in part because I've moved on - but I wouldn't mind exchanging a few thoughts on the past here. (I should point out, though, that this board is also dead and old, and I only keep it here for archival purposes, much like your ZBO archive.)
