For The Record

For the record.

Today, newbie blogger Almity posted a rather scathing article about Hans Jagerblitzen on his blog.

As a corp, we don’t really prohibit what our pilots can say on forums or blogs or even local chat, other than to say ‘don’t be vulgar’.

So today when I logged onto IM while at work, Almity told me he posted on his blog and linked it. I knew that he was going to post about Hans Jagerblitzen, he’d mentioned it the night before, and even asked if I would mind since Hans and I are friends.

I told him to go ahead, because I knew that the things Hans has been saying since being elected has bothered him. Before the election, as any politician would, Hans represented himself differently than after the election. Before, he represented himself as someone who would speak for the four factions, as someone we all could point to and say ‘that’s our guy.’ You can scroll back through my blog to see the countless threads I made in regards to the CSM election, desperately pleading with my readers to vote Hans, because we needed someone to represent us.

I believed in him.

After the election, things seemed to change. As things for FW were being announced, of course most of the Amarr had a problem with it. And a lot of them were vocal on the forums about it.

But what else can you do really? If you don’t speak up and voice your complaint, then CCP assumes that everything is hunkyfuckingdory.

If you do complain, it’s met with responses of ‘stop whining’ and ‘harden the fuck up’.

Well, okay.

Just before the launch of Inferno, Hans asked me to keep my corp in FW and I did, despite some of our Amarrian allies leaving it.

I.LAW made a decision to move one jump out of the FW zone so that we wouldn’t risk being locked out of stations. It wasn’t that big of a deal to us to move to Egghelende, we spent a night jumping our stuff out and the next night we were back on the war front as per usual, roaming and killing.

But instead of appreciating the fact that we stayed, we were taunted with several snide remarks about ‘retreating to Egg’ and ‘stop whining in Egg’ etc.

Well, okay.

Even closer to Inferno, with the station lockouts and the fucked up LP pricing, some players in general were starting to turn on Hans because they assumed he could do something about the changes.

He could not. He isn’t CCP, he is only a voted representative from the player base. He has the power to voice his opinions but that is it.

I do think it was very unfair that Hans was getting blamed for things that were out of his control.

However, at the time I told him that he was the posterboy for FW Inferno changes whether it was fair or not, that’s how he would be viewed. I advised him to change sides, even for a little while, so that when he said things like ‘suck it up’, his words would have more merit.

Instead of soaking up the benefits of Inferno, that he should suffer the miserable impositions that we would be dealing with. If it isn’t so bad, prove it instead of profiting off of our misery.

He didn’t, not that I really thought he would.

But therein lies the problem. It was timing really. He was elected when FW was getting a major overhaul, and he received benefits from it (as all Minmatar). Did some players think he orchestrated such changes? Yes, but it was wholly unfair. He doesn’t have that much power within CCP.

So yes, I think Almity had a right to post his feelings on the matter, he had a right to say that he felt betrayed by Han’s saying ‘come at me bro’, ‘suck it up’, ‘stop whining’ etc. Especially when Hans singled out our corp for no apparent reason several times.

Do I think Almity said it in the right way? Absolutely not. I think that, as adults on this game, we have a responsibility to express our opinions without shredding apart another person. It’s just the decent thing to do.

So, on IM this morning I was in the process of telling Almity that his post was over-the-top and needed to be edited when Hans tweeted it…

And so the shitstorm began.

Pretty much this. Hans needs to stop with the snide comments about my corp, that if he has a problem with something or someone to come to me and I will personally handle it.  I think that as someone we all voted for and elected, we deserved better than the snide, underhanded remarks that had been thrown at us by him.

Also, Almity needs to edit his post, because as much as I love the guy, he went too far in his word choices. Way, way too far.

And though it sounds like all we do is sit around on our comms and trash Hans, I assure you that is far from the truth.

Both guys do so much for faction war, both offer so much that I hate seeing either getting viewed in an unfair light.

As for Susan’s post in regards to the whole matter, I think it is foolish to try to paint all of Amarr with the brush of one post by one disgruntled player. Just like we don’t judge all of Minmatar by the stuff she posts.

I hope that everyone can just chill, hug it out, then get back to blowing each other up. 🙂