03-22-2003, 10:52 PM
Mmmm... History... I probably gave wrong impression with my initial statement... But I can give some stories regarding diabloii.net that relate to Lurker Lounge in one aspect or the other to give an idea of what kind of history I witnessed...
Well, there was always more of an "underground tension" than flat out outbreaks so to speak, which sometimes manifested itself in posts. When diablo2 just came out, this was not much of an issue... Diabloii.net was already quite a big site by then, one of the biggest, but still was far from fulfilling its claim to be the unofficial diablo2 site. Lurker lounge was a sort of inner circle, where the people "in the know" met.
Some Diabloii.net posters might say that lurkers were somewhat condescending to them, but it's not really true. There are many good posters on diabloii.net, and many lurkers still are friends with them. But there were also lots of other posters... Quite a bit of data found by diabloii.net posters was simply wrong, and any data coming from that site was judged as something to be double checked. So it is no wonder when someone from diabloii.net came into lounge and made some statements, they were double-checked and cross-examined first. This upset some people, making them label LL as âelitistâ. Then there were newcomers to diablo, who usually got response to their questions on diabloii.net right away, but for some reason (like answering same question 100 times) people here did not want to answer a simple question (the answer to which can be found by looking at Arreat Summit or simply looking on a previous page). This became the spring that all the underground feelings of dislike fed from.
As time went by, this really did not change, at least until D2LOD beta. One might remember the report of "Brian Weissman", self-proclaimed professional gamer, which people in LL ripped to shreds. Brian found beta too hard for his freshly converted chars, and wrote a piece on it, which summed up some of the opinions of the diabloii.net posters (beta is too hard compared to classic). Lurkers disagreed, and some flames were started.
After that, it really became more of individual people getting upset by one party or the other, and seeking support in the other place. Someone would get banned or upset with diabloii.net, and they would seek approval on LL, and vice versa. One example that comes to mind was when a certain forum moderator was stripped of mod post and banned simply because that person happened to moderate a forum from another diablo 2 site. Of course, it was condemned by people here, but there was nothing that anyone could do.
Of course, people got upset with LL too, and sought approval at diabloii.net. One such episode happened with THE first maphack. The story about this distant predecessor of maphack goes like this:
One of the modifications for diablo2 allowed to see monsters locations as red X'es on the minimap. Apparently the modification was not much different from diablo itself, since one time someone accidentally left the modification on while entering battle.net, and to his surprise he still saw the red X'es. it seems that this was used in secret by the Hardcore community until the mentioned people stepped forward and asked Lurkers and other places (diabloii.net) what they felt about this. Again, the Lurker Lounge pretty much condemned the soon-to-be-maphack, which drew a surprised response from the poster. His similar post on diabloii.net drew approvement and positive comments. Some tense posts where thrown, and some feelings shown.
There were many other little spats that amounted to some lurkers getting hurt, as well as diabloii.net people getting hurt. I might be a little biased here, but one of the bigger ones occurred when diabloii.net pretty much cleansed the entire PvP forum of it's most knowledgeable posters in favor of the forum being more appealing forum to the newcomers. This seems to be somewhat ironic, since the PvP forum is the only forum that cannot be viewed by newcomers until a moderator approves them, which maybe up to several days after registration.
The story basically goes that one of the most knowledgeable, polite and honest pvp posters from Europe got banned from marketplace because he honestly said that in the socketed item he was trading one of the jewels MIGHT be a 40% enhanced damage/15 IAS, that he traded for a long time ago and was not a duped one. Since in marketplace all 40enh/15ias jewels are banned, even his mentioning of the possibility got him immediately banned. Some of you are familiar with the moderation of the mentioned marketplace, so I won't talk about it.
Anyway, because this got him somewhat mad, he got into a spat with the European Trade forum moderator. In turn, the mod went out of his way to make him change his signature, which linked to a European PvP league site. Since diabloii.net doesn't even remotely have anything like a PvP league, this drew a lot of questions and comments from everyone supporting this person. This upset Elly/Gaile, and they appointed a new moderator to PvP forum, who was a European Trade Moderator; although not the same person, but a friend of the moderator who did get into argument, and he promised to straighten out PVP forum with iron fist. He also showed lack of pretty much any PvP knowledge, which usually helps when moderating a forum created for it.
After some truly unnecessary bans (one person got banned because they mentioned that they used 1.08 version Vampire Gaze - but heck, I know some Lurkers have one too), a lot of flames were started, more bans and accusations, and previous moderators resigned (Except the newly appointed European trade one). PVP posters requested their guides back, which of course were not given back. Many flames, mutual insults and thread locks later (at one point, any thread that even mentioned subject of guides got locked), people simply got fed up with "I own this site I can do anything". Jarulf was there, as well as some other lurkers. Strange to see lurkers come to defense of the PvP posters... But Elly/Gaile did not let the community opinion sway them. In the end result, about 90% of all the posters in the forum picked up and created their own new forums and even a new site.
There are other stories that you will hear, such as some listed above, and this newest twist about banning links as well. Heck, someone might correct me on what I said, I mostly wrote this down by memory. Sure, I still think there are great posters at diabloii.net. But if you got a feeling that I have a general dislike for diabloii.net - its actually mostly directed at the owners and some moderators of the site. Right now might be fine times for them - but when 1.10 comes out and all those guides will have to be reworked, where will all those people who made them be? Surely not writing new guides forum diabloii.net.
Well, there was always more of an "underground tension" than flat out outbreaks so to speak, which sometimes manifested itself in posts. When diablo2 just came out, this was not much of an issue... Diabloii.net was already quite a big site by then, one of the biggest, but still was far from fulfilling its claim to be the unofficial diablo2 site. Lurker lounge was a sort of inner circle, where the people "in the know" met.
Some Diabloii.net posters might say that lurkers were somewhat condescending to them, but it's not really true. There are many good posters on diabloii.net, and many lurkers still are friends with them. But there were also lots of other posters... Quite a bit of data found by diabloii.net posters was simply wrong, and any data coming from that site was judged as something to be double checked. So it is no wonder when someone from diabloii.net came into lounge and made some statements, they were double-checked and cross-examined first. This upset some people, making them label LL as âelitistâ. Then there were newcomers to diablo, who usually got response to their questions on diabloii.net right away, but for some reason (like answering same question 100 times) people here did not want to answer a simple question (the answer to which can be found by looking at Arreat Summit or simply looking on a previous page). This became the spring that all the underground feelings of dislike fed from.
As time went by, this really did not change, at least until D2LOD beta. One might remember the report of "Brian Weissman", self-proclaimed professional gamer, which people in LL ripped to shreds. Brian found beta too hard for his freshly converted chars, and wrote a piece on it, which summed up some of the opinions of the diabloii.net posters (beta is too hard compared to classic). Lurkers disagreed, and some flames were started.
After that, it really became more of individual people getting upset by one party or the other, and seeking support in the other place. Someone would get banned or upset with diabloii.net, and they would seek approval on LL, and vice versa. One example that comes to mind was when a certain forum moderator was stripped of mod post and banned simply because that person happened to moderate a forum from another diablo 2 site. Of course, it was condemned by people here, but there was nothing that anyone could do.
Of course, people got upset with LL too, and sought approval at diabloii.net. One such episode happened with THE first maphack. The story about this distant predecessor of maphack goes like this:
One of the modifications for diablo2 allowed to see monsters locations as red X'es on the minimap. Apparently the modification was not much different from diablo itself, since one time someone accidentally left the modification on while entering battle.net, and to his surprise he still saw the red X'es. it seems that this was used in secret by the Hardcore community until the mentioned people stepped forward and asked Lurkers and other places (diabloii.net) what they felt about this. Again, the Lurker Lounge pretty much condemned the soon-to-be-maphack, which drew a surprised response from the poster. His similar post on diabloii.net drew approvement and positive comments. Some tense posts where thrown, and some feelings shown.
There were many other little spats that amounted to some lurkers getting hurt, as well as diabloii.net people getting hurt. I might be a little biased here, but one of the bigger ones occurred when diabloii.net pretty much cleansed the entire PvP forum of it's most knowledgeable posters in favor of the forum being more appealing forum to the newcomers. This seems to be somewhat ironic, since the PvP forum is the only forum that cannot be viewed by newcomers until a moderator approves them, which maybe up to several days after registration.
The story basically goes that one of the most knowledgeable, polite and honest pvp posters from Europe got banned from marketplace because he honestly said that in the socketed item he was trading one of the jewels MIGHT be a 40% enhanced damage/15 IAS, that he traded for a long time ago and was not a duped one. Since in marketplace all 40enh/15ias jewels are banned, even his mentioning of the possibility got him immediately banned. Some of you are familiar with the moderation of the mentioned marketplace, so I won't talk about it.
Anyway, because this got him somewhat mad, he got into a spat with the European Trade forum moderator. In turn, the mod went out of his way to make him change his signature, which linked to a European PvP league site. Since diabloii.net doesn't even remotely have anything like a PvP league, this drew a lot of questions and comments from everyone supporting this person. This upset Elly/Gaile, and they appointed a new moderator to PvP forum, who was a European Trade Moderator; although not the same person, but a friend of the moderator who did get into argument, and he promised to straighten out PVP forum with iron fist. He also showed lack of pretty much any PvP knowledge, which usually helps when moderating a forum created for it.
After some truly unnecessary bans (one person got banned because they mentioned that they used 1.08 version Vampire Gaze - but heck, I know some Lurkers have one too), a lot of flames were started, more bans and accusations, and previous moderators resigned (Except the newly appointed European trade one). PVP posters requested their guides back, which of course were not given back. Many flames, mutual insults and thread locks later (at one point, any thread that even mentioned subject of guides got locked), people simply got fed up with "I own this site I can do anything". Jarulf was there, as well as some other lurkers. Strange to see lurkers come to defense of the PvP posters... But Elly/Gaile did not let the community opinion sway them. In the end result, about 90% of all the posters in the forum picked up and created their own new forums and even a new site.
There are other stories that you will hear, such as some listed above, and this newest twist about banning links as well. Heck, someone might correct me on what I said, I mostly wrote this down by memory. Sure, I still think there are great posters at diabloii.net. But if you got a feeling that I have a general dislike for diabloii.net - its actually mostly directed at the owners and some moderators of the site. Right now might be fine times for them - but when 1.10 comes out and all those guides will have to be reworked, where will all those people who made them be? Surely not writing new guides forum diabloii.net.