I joined FeralHeart in 2014... My thoughts

[issycat]

As the subject line states, I joined FeralHeart's forums October 2nd, 2014. I have been apart of its in-game community for a long time, and seen my fair share of drama and difficult discussions. I'm going to be completely and honestly transparent in this post. Feel free to leave your response below, however negative or positive it may be.

I have never in my life met Raz before. I have seen his name on the forum a few times but have never actually talked to him or even knew he was Staff / server owner. I've not been very active at all on the forums themselves. Anyway, when everyone started to post their opinions and perspectives on things going down with the No Moderator October, I felt it right to post my own as soon as I could think through what was happening and process my own thoughts on it.

When this whole thing first happened, I was scared. Mostly for my Warriors RP, I had just opened it a week prior, and we had about 20-odd members. I was completely terrified of what could happened.
I've actually left my group now, leaving it in the capable hands of one of the admins there. I honestly don't know whether or not I'll stay on FeralHeart.

Due to circumstances arising, I have found myself to be at odds with one of my closest friends from FeralHeart; I have known this person for 4+ years from FeralHeart and I trust them but now I have a grudge against them because of our varying views on everything going down.
This is all Raz's fault in my eyes. He was the one to make this choice, without involving the other Staff. He was the one to unsettle everyone and as a result, I am lost, confused, hurt and scared.
I do not like him. I do not trust him. And I am afraid of what he might do, deep down. I act like I'm not just so I don't put off anyone in my circle of friends, because I'm trying to put on a brave face.
All of my FeralHeart friends have told me they are scared. They are nervous and they don't know where to turn. So I will be here for them. I don't want to lose FeralHeart but I sure as Hell am not going to support it if Raz is leading the show.

I apologize if this post seems negative, but you must try and look at it from my perspective. I appreciate all that FeralHeart has been and will possibly continue to be, but if there is one thing I will not stand for, it's a total stranger (to me at least) coming out of seemingly nowhere (I know he's been around, but I've never seen him) and making a choice that affects not only me, but my friends, my relationships with some of those friends, and the community. That's not okay, in my book.

I'm really sorry but if Raz continues to be Admin here, I won't spend another second in-game or on the forum. It narrows down to him and what he has done in my eyes. Yes, the community should share a portion of the blame; We are all emotional and are saying things without really thinking about it. I accept that blame.

But I have had days to think this over. Days to sit and mull over my thoughts, and type them out. Days to go back and edit it to be what I truly think.

So, this is the finished product. My opinion. I hope it can shed some light on what's been going on in my mind lately.

So, Raz, if you are reading this. I apologize for the harshness of my words, but I must BE HONEST. I wish you luck, even if I don't agree with your decision.

[Calvary]

As I read through your post, it was great insight to me, and it was great that you apologized.

However, what I am going to say is that — we truly shouldn’t leave over this. Whatever Raz is doing or what he has done, perhaps will be explained better in due time. The community went overboard, and even if it was rightfully so, we all need to share a bit of compassion and forgiveness. We don’t have a lot of that in this community, so we may as well start.

Perhaps Raz had good intentions, but pushed it forward in a wrong direction. That was a mistake. He’s made many so far, but so have we. Being petty and acting out was no way to act in front of everyone around us, and for that we are at fault.
Maybe I agree to disagree, but he is not the only one at fault at the moment. Perhaps a majority of it is his fault, but we also did things we should not be proud of. Forgiving him and forgiving ourselves is the next push forward. We could likely keep our game in good standing if we learn to assess rather than assume.

Much love to you, and I hope you intend to stick around to see if things change for the better. <3

[Edolicious]

I know you've spoken of this and I've replied to it elsewhere, but to me at least, it seems as though you're taking something that's not as big a deal as it was made out to be, and allowing it to fester between this friendship you've made. I'm definitely able to look at it from your perspective, because when this whole thing started I had the exact same feelings toward it. But as time goes on, I don't think this is something to split a friendship over. 'Agree to disagree', respectfully. That's what I would say is the best option, considering. But I have no say in your personal life, and I do not know your friend, so ultimately this bit is up to you. I hope you two are able to work stuff out together, especially as friends who have such a long history together.

As you were around in 2014, you'll remember the update when we were given the maps we have now. They were many varying opinions on this as well, and some even went as far as to say these new maps ruined the game. They didn't. We're all still here, alive and kickin'. I even heard some negative talk about the preset sync before it was implemented, despite the fact I couldn't see anything negative about it myself. Yet now, after experiencing it, almost everyone agrees it's a nifty and beneficial thing. My point is, considering this is something people are scared of before it has even gone through, I think we can only truly pass judgement on it after seeing this new system in action for ourselves. Even if it has bugs and accidentally bans people who are not deserving of it, Raz is not some heartless monster; I'm sure he would lift the bans of those who are undeserving of it. Just as he didn't leave all of our characters in the void and restored them. Do I agree with how Raz went about things? Absolutely not. But we need to remember that everyone is human. Just because someone is in a position of power does not mean it's okay for us to scrutinize their every move and blow things out of perspective when they do something wrong. I guarantee that each and every one of us on this site has done something worse at some point in our lives. Yet we are all here now, and are all trying to better ourselves. Again, I really do not agree with what he did, whatsoever. I think it was completely uncalled for, but even so, let us give Raz the chance the do the same, hm?

As for Raz being a stranger, I believe he's always been a behind the scenes worker. He may have been absent from connecting with the staff team, but even still the server was kept up for us.

I know I may not be able to change your mind, but at the same time I believe it's better to forgive, but don't forget, just keep in mind for the future. Especially as you have apologized, meaning you've asked for forgiveness as well. Focusing on the positive side of things is a lot more beneficial than the negative side of things.

[Likuu]

I personally don't think this kind of thing should affect relationships and friends, all that, as when it just comes down to it, it's a game. However, I understand that you're upset with Raz and such, over his decisions, I wouldn't necessarily blame Raz for your falling outs with friends and such. Personally the whole game made mistakes, we all overreacted, we all did things that coulda been done better, Raz, staff, and the community. I also recommend doing a bit of "research" on the whole topic, actually learn about it, every side has a different story and honestly my personal opinion at this point is nobody is really 'right' and we shouldn't be choosing 'sides' as we are a community and we should be working together and trying to keep the game active and help out with members while staff are gone work on keeping it as active as possible, maybe everybody should have communicated more, we all should definitely work on that, haha. I feel as though thats the main source of our problems here as a whole, lack of communication, within all parties, all three parties.

[Astraea]

I personally don't think this kind of thing should affect relationships and friends, all that, as when it just comes down to it, it's a game. However, I understand that you're upset with Raz and such, over his decisions, I wouldn't necessarily blame Raz for your falling outs with friends and such. Personally the whole game made mistakes, we all overreacted, we all did things that coulda been done better, Raz, staff, and the community. I also recommend doing a bit of "research" on the whole topic, actually learn about it, every side has a different story and honestly my personal opinion at this point is nobody is really 'right' and we shouldn't be choosing 'sides' as we are a community and we should be working together and trying to keep the game active and help out with members while staff are gone work on keeping it as active as possible, maybe everybody should have communicated more, we all should definitely work on that, haha. I feel as though thats the main source of our problems here as a whole, lack of communication, within all parties, all three parties.

Big agree on this. Others have said most of it but; we should all take responsibility and work on becoming better and most importantly, learning forgiveness if possible. If you haven't seen the threads and posts about what happened like Likuu said -- I would go read up. It might bring more insight to what happened and give you more of the story.

[Calvary]

I have to agree with everyone above me. As everyone has said, it's really important we analyze our own mistakes. There's a lot of things that could've been handled better from the get-go, but unfortunately here we are.

It's life, to put it simply. As much as we may hate it. We forgive and don't forget, as glossed over many times. The source of the problem is a lack of communication, and communication competency. When we lack communication competence, we pin the blame on others and get defensive quickly. We all have made that mistake, and it's truly a common one!

Hopefully whatever happened, you can work this out with all your friends. But we, as a community, shouldn't point fingers and throw a fit as we have. I hate seeing people leave, because we've already hit rock bottom. It only goes up from here. Maybe not quickly, but if we all have the patience, it gets better. <3 But exactly, I would do a bit more research, heed into people's insight, and learn to forgive. I guess that's the big word here. Forgiveness.

[Jango_Fett]

been here since 2013 and this is the most controversial incident to happen since general chat being shut down and the chatbox being taken out back with a 12 gauge.