Thick Skulls

Amazing as it seems, Terris is still finding new ways to irk us even though we have left.

Naturally, OGC is still refusing to give Rindancer a refund. Ringy has taken her case to PayPal and the Better Business Bureau. OGC's latest stance is that they are keeping her account active in case she decides to return! A customer CANCELS her account, and they are keeping it open, defying the customer's wish in a lame attempt to justify not issuing a refund! Stunning!

The most stunning part of this latest development is the "they'll be back" attitude. We've both been hearing this from OGC, various staffers, and even other players. It seems that permanently departing Terris is perceived as impossible, and everyone eventually returns. That people don't believe us when we say we're done really pisses me off!

We're done with Terris! Forever! Get it through your thick skulls! In fact, it's your thick skulls that contributed to our departure!

A Visit with OLtL

I miss tinkering with the OLtL site.

I've been kicking around the idea of having the stories bound in hardcover for my own amusement. As I was experimenting with book formatting, I discovered a couple of typos in the "first" tale, Secret Journey (This is my earliest Terris story that I could recover from AOL, written in 1998). I had to fight down an urge to immediately update the story and upload it to the Internet.

So anyway, today I uploaded the entire OLtL site again. Brimbur noticed it was gone, and I can't disappoint my one fan!

http://members.aol.com/madbaron/lyresong/oltl

Escaping the Escape

Every time I visit the Legends of Terris message boards, I'm reminded again of the reasons I left. Why it is I keep going back I have no idea.

There's a segment of the Terris population that as they react counter to everything one has said, will turn a backhanded phrase towards one and then present their own opinion as if it is some Universal Truth that has escaped its proper elevation to the Eleventh Commandment. This phenomena is not exclusive to Terris, however. I see it on the Usenet, on Delphi Forums, on message boards, in Instant Messages, in chat rooms, in games, and on IRC. The Internet is full of anonymous Crusaders of Ignorance.

Perhaps a change has taken place in myself where I have become unwilling to endure such behavior any longer. I find that the more time I spend away from the Internet, the less I "need" the Internet in my life. It had provided an escape for many years, but now that escape is mean, ugly, and rotten, and itself needs to be escaped.

Delphi Forums... now with Blogs!

I've had an account at Delphi Forums for a number of years but rarely use it. Even after they switched to a fee-based model, I began paying for my account "just in case." As a result of this amazing foresight, I have three "grandfathered" forums at Delphi that have no banner adverting and are exempt from forum fees. The only problem is that nobody visits them.

Anyway, Delphi Forums recently added blogging to their service. Since I'm already paying for a Delphi Plus membership, I qualify for the new blog. It's way more customizable than this here AOL Journal, and best of all it has no banner advertising or annoying menu bar at the top of the page. So I may be moving this blog over there at some point once I figure out all the customization tools.

My Military Awards

I finally found a great military ribbon rack builder that includes awards from the Army National Guard. If you're a Guardsman, or you know one, this is a big deal. Most ribbon rack builders only include Federal awards, i.e. those awarded by the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, etcetera. But one of the quirks of the National Guard is that each of the 54 Joint Forces Headquarters of the states and territories also have their own local awards. This also is a problem when trying to procure awards - every military retailer in the world carries the Federal awards, but no luck on the local NG awards.

Anyway, the image of my recently updated ribbon rack accompanies this entry. I will now regail you with a summary of the events that earned me said awards. In order, starting in the upper left:

Army Achievement Medal

I have two of these, hence the bronze oak leaf cluster. For those of you not versed in the ways of military decorations, I will explain. The first award is the actual medal and ribbon. Each additional award gets you a bronze oak leaf cluster to add to the ribbon.

My first AAM came to me in July 2000. My Guard unit was going on its first overseas Annual Training ever. We ended up being split into two elements, one in Mannheim Germany and the other in Frankfort Germany. I ended up in Mannheim with Detachment A of the 510th Personnel Services Battalion doing on the job training to get cross-trained as a 74B Information Systems Operator-Analyst. I also spent a significant portion of my free time designing, procuring, and collecting funds for commemorative t-shirts.

My second AAM came to me in December 2001. It was just three months after the September 11 terror attacks and the 35th (Santa Fe) Infantry Division was being mobilized to U.S. Army Europe in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Part of that division, the 66th Infantry Brigade, is in the Illinois Army National Guard and mobilized out of the armory where my unit is stationed. I volunteered to be support staff for their Soldier Readiness Processing (SRP) and was assigned to run the In-and-Out Processing station for the entire SRP.

Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal

This is awarded for "exemplary behavior, efficiency, and fidelity" while serving as a member of either reserve component of the Army. It was originally awarded every four years of qualifying service, but in 1995 the period of service was reduced to three years. Anyway, I have one for each period listed below, for a total of five:

• 19890815 - 19930814 Four year period with the Army Reserve.
• 19930815 - 19960814 Three years. Illinois Army National Guard
• 19960815 - 19990814 Three years. Illinois Army National Guard
• 19990815 - 20020814 Three years. Illinois Army National Guard
• 20020815 - 20050814 Three years. Illinois Army National Guard

National Defense Service Medal

The NDSM is a general campaign medal issued in times when a national emergency has been declared. Normally it is restricted to those that serve on active duty, but an Executive Order by the first President Bush extended eligibility to all reservists in good standing at the time of the Gulf War in 1991. That's how I got my first one. The second President Bush also extended eligibility to reservists serving on or after the September 11 terror attacks, which is how I got my second one. Unlike the AAM, further awards of this medal are denoted by a bronze service star.

Korea Defense Service Medal

The KDSM is awarded to servicemembers who have served on duty in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) for 30 consecutive days or 60 non-consecutive days. I spent 31 days in South Korea in August 2005 supporting the annual Ulchi Focus Lens joint exercise with the U.S. and South Korean militaries.

Armed Forces Reserve Medal

This is awarded for every ten years of service, or when a reservist is mobilized. I received mine for the ten year period of 19890815 - 19990814, which is denoted with a bronze hourglass. (Mobilizations are denoted by "mobilization device" which looks an awful lot like the letter M.)

Army Service Ribbon

This is awarded to all Soldiers upon completion of Initial Entry Training.

Army Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon

This is awarded for any overseas training mission exceeding 10 days of active duty. I received my first one for Annual Training in Germany in 2000, the second one for Annual Training in South Korea in 2002, and the third one for spending a month in Korea in 2005 in support of Ulchi Focus Lens. Additional awards are denoted with arabic numerals.

Illinois Long and Honorable Service Medal

This is awarded by the Illinois National Guard for completion of a five year period of service. Each additional award is denoted by a bronze oak leaf cluster. I have two of these for the following periods:

• 19931008 - 19981007
• 19981008 - 20031007

Illinois Military Attendance Ribbon

This is awarded by the Illinois National Guard for completion of two years of perfect attendance at all monthly training assemblies and Annual Training. Additional awards are denoted by arabic numerals. I have five of these for the following periods:

• 19931008 - 19951007
• 19951008 - 19971007
• 19971008 - 19991007
• 19991008 - 20011007
• 20011008 - 20031007

I'm eligible for a sixth award for the period of 20031008 - 20051007 but they haven't gotten around to awarding it to me yet.

Throw in a bunch of Certificates of Appreciation, a First Sergeants Award or two, the Cold War Recognition Certificate, a whole slew of challenge coins, and various weapons qualifications badges.

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

Adios TWR!

Today I deleted the Terris WebRing. That took a mental nudge to get underway, but once I started it was easy.

I founded the Terris WebRing in 1997 to promote Terris and Terris-related web sites. It was because of my work on the Terris WebRing that Paul Barnett gave me a free account to play Terris. Considering that I have left Terris, and my free account was revoked by OGC, and membership in the WebRing has been decreasing every year, I felt no obligation to continue to maintain the site. At its peak, Terris WebRing had well over 100 sites. The final tally today was 24, and four of them were mine.

I decided to go ahead and delete my Lyresong site (including the OLtL sub-site) and the Dojo of the Mad Baro (my Monk's Guild site), too. My only remaining Terris-related site is the Mad Knights, which I have handed leadership over to Tali and Terrell. That site and the MK mailing list will remain active for them.

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

The Wrong Move

Sometimes in situations we're not always aware of what the right move might be, but somehow we instinctively know to avoid the wrong move. That, in itself, might simply be the right move.

So to put a context with that startling relevation, I will reveal to you, O Faithful Reader, that in recent days I have enticed the possibilities of either playing another MUD or of participating in the creation of one. After reading my thoughts on Terris, this news might seem to indicate to you that I have not yet recovered my mental faculties. And sure enough, as I delved into the research necessary to properly take on either of those two new possibilities, my mind began to recoil further and further away from them. It instinctively knew to avoid the wrong move.

So, with apologies to the parties concerned, it is not yet time to make a move into a new MUD; not yet time to come out of retirement.

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

Exploring Worlds

I don't want this entire journal to be about my escape from Terris, but I do want to try to write in it every day. However, today I haven't yet thought of anything clever to say.

I have recently started reading volume four of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, "The Mauritius Command." I became a fan of these books after watching the movie "Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World." I enjoyed the movie a great deal, but the books are infinitely better! Doctor Maturin sometimes has such a wonderful subtlety to him, where he will do something apparently absent-mindedly or by accident, but in near defiance of the very words on the page the reader suspects that whatever it is the Doctor did was exactly what he wanted to do to give the impression he desired. Were I to continue writing "One Lyre to Live," this is the kind of characteristic I would love to give to Baxter/Xanthus.

Speaking of "OLtL," I've thought about posting "What Might Have Happened...", a synopses of my various plotlines, some aborted, some in progress, some not yet begun. But knowing the environment of Terris, my ideas would surely be stolen by some nefarious player looking to make his or her name from raiding our legacy. But while this journal is intended to satisfy my desire to write, it's only partially doing it's job, for what I desire to write is fantasy! Perhaps a world of my own is needed at this point.

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

Another One Bites the Dust

Word reached me that Baroness Shy of Frostfall left Terris today, stating that she was "...not happy with things that are going on elsewhere..." That statement is vague enough that only Shy knows what she is referring to.
It must certainly hurt the baron program to lose another from their rank in such a short time.

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

The Divine Myth of Terris

I previously wrote about the lines between in-character and out-of-character being blurred amongst the staff of Terris.

For example, my in-character posts regarding Kylu's hunt were responded to by Froggor with out-of-character hubris. He wrote that the satyrs in question were being tested for the Temple of Humor. While that is certainly nice to know, there is no possible way that my character could know that. That is clearly OOC information. Furthermore, Froggor relied on that old staff axim that staff can do anything that they like because they are staff. Froggor is wrong, however. Staff has repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot respond in-character to the roleplay environment of Terris.

Conversely, Mitchellx replied to Ringdancer's out-of-character letter by saying that since he is Immortal and can do whatever he wants. Again, staff got it wrong. Mitchellx may be Immortal, but that's a character. The player of Mitchellx most certainly cannot do whatever it is he wants, unless what he wants is to purposely confuse IC and OOC and alienate the players of Terris who try to seek resolutions to their problems. I usually speak very highly of Mitchellx, but I disagreed sharply with his handling of this situation. Rather than extinguish the fire, he fed gasoline to it.

Really, the staff members of Terris have no power over players except what the players are willing to give to them. As "divine" as staff's characters may be, try as they might, that power and authority does not extend to the real world. We vote with our time, our effort, and our wallets, and we have found Terris lacking.


Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

An Appropriate Quote

"When you are in command, you get so sick of the loneliness, of playing the great man and so on, that you long to break out of it; but in the nature of things it don't seem possible." - Captain Jack Aubrey, "The Mauritius Command" by Patrick O'Brian.

Carve Away the Stone

Shortly after word got out about our departure from Terris, Blackwing sent me an Instant Message to ask, "What are you going to do with all of that free time?"

The answer, for the next few days, is nothing.

On a whim, I went to Tarot.com to get a reading on the current situation surrounding our departure from Terris. No matter how many times I rephrased the question, the Tarot spread told me that this was a time for quiet healing and meditation. Whether or not you believe in online oracles, that seems to me like sound advice considering the physical effects that Terris was having on me, as described in my previous entry. So I will rest like a still pond on a quiet spring day.

At some point, of course, I will have to get back to business. I still need a job, the college semester starts on 19 January, and I have to get into training for the Army Physical Fitness Test rumored to be administered in March. I will use this newfound free time to prepare my mind, spirit and body for these tasks.

The Tarot readings also suggested writing in a journal to focus my thoughts. ; )

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

After the Farewell

Almost as soon as I resigned from Terris, I felt better. I had been carrying around so much stress for a long time, and I thought that it was all from real world sources -- my current unemployed status, my college courses, our little Miss Independent three-year-old, or the possibility that due to my membership in the Army National Guard I could be sent away to Iraq or Afghanistan on a moment's notice. But no, most of it was apparently from Terris! The tension in my neck and shoulders melted away, the heavy feeling in my chest lifted, and the furrowed brow unfurrowed. I'm suddenly able to sleep again!

Though I have experienced pangs of sadness (we were there for nine years, after all), the only parts I miss are plotting with our friends, writing fiction and working on the "One Lyre to Live" web site. Now I can't even bring myself to work on that, because it's Terris. The site already feels to me as if it came from another age, another life. At some point in the future, I will have gathered enough detachment from the situation to remove my Terris sites.

Meanwhile, OGC is refusing to issue a refund to Ringy for the time left on her account (She was paid up through March 2006). She is appealing through PayPal.

We consider ourselves retired from MUDs.

(Though Tali has a project that could use some -- tweaking.)

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".

Why Ringdancer & Madbaron Left Terris

Ringy and I have been dissatisfied with Terris for years. I could rattle off a whole litany of reasons, and I think I will!

Primary among our reasons for leaving is the cost. We have been living on a pretty tight budget for the last three years, and though I had a free account thanks to my years of work on the Terris WebRing (Thank you, Deori!), Ringy had to pay for her account. Whenever budget issues arose, Terris was always at the top of the chopping block. But our in-game "responsibilities" seemed to always dictate that we keep Terris. We were what the soap operas in the States call a "super couple" -- lovers and partners amongst the movers and shakers in Terris.


The other usual reasons were also there: The lack of significant game innovations, players that would rather just have monsters scrolled in for the kill over roleplaying, an uncaring OGC that refuses to give barons the tools they need to do their jobs and a staff that resents being asked to assist barons with the things they can't do.

Consider with this nine years each for Ringdancer and I. Certainly the length of time we spent in the game affected our perception of it. The struggles and the fighting never really seemed to end, there were just low tides and high tides. Each new hurt tended to evoke the previous nine years of hurts.

Things came to a head again in December 2005. OGC decided to end the practice of barons appointing holders over their subordinate towns. This, of course, directly affected me as Baron of Lyresong, and Ringdancer as Lady Holder of Spire Hold, and our friend Tali as Lady Holder of Wintertown. Holder was an in-character position with no power except by association with a baron, so we did not buy Sysop's reason for the change -- that holders had become de facto barons and were interfering with staff's attempts to initiate things in the holdings. Rather than bring any of these supposed issues to the barons to solve, a policy change was simply announced without our input, directly impacting the last three years of our roleplay work. Again, the feelings of "us" versus "them" came to the forefront.

After receiving word of an invitation from Sysop to discuss the new policy, I began writing to him. However, Sysop refused to discuss anything and simply stone-walled me. He ended the conversation by denying he'd ever invited it. Furthermore, he held an impending baronesshood over Ringdancer's head in an attempt to ensure her compliance and silence.

Over the Christmas break, Ringy and I didn't play much. We talked back and forth about leaving Terris. She seemed set on it. However, I told her one night that I couldn't decide. One part of me did want to leave while the other part didn't. Just before the new year I floated some ideas passed Baron Ops for dealing with Lyresong in the event I should leave. Then things sat there undecided until after the holidays.

Once January 2006 rolled around, we found that our feelings hadn't changed regarding leaving. Add to this the sudden "resignations" of Baron Ops and BaronsAssist, who had been ardent supporters of the Baron Program. It appeared that OGC was doing everything they could to piss off staff and barons alike. Granted, after a few years of no apparent interest in Terris from OGC, this "interference" was likely exaggerated in our minds and affected by our previous nine years of hurts.

Then we witnessed Kylu's murder spree disguised as an event run with the hero Froggor's help. They ended up killing a bunch of satyrs, which irked me since I had created a satyr mobile for my city. So, knowing from past experiences exactly what would happen if I messed with that event, I said to Ringy "I ought to..." She warned me not to. But I knew that if I did, that would finally be the thing that would decide for us whether or not to go. Basically, I decided to use Froggor and Kylu to force the situation -- a means to our end, so to speak. I made two in-character posts condemning Kylu for the murder of satyrs and declaring him an enemy of Lyresong.

It worked far better than I thought it would. Froggor went OOC just as I expected, but he also revealed the satyrs killed were new ones in testing from the Temple of Humor, Mitchellx's temple. That Mitch created his own satyrs didn't really bother me, but it did Ringdancer because we had been told that our satyrs would be exclusive to Lyresong, and so she wrote a scathing OOC letter to Mitch and all but accused him of plagiarism. Mitch, in turn, gave Ringy disfavor -- an in-character punishment. This proved that the lines between IC and OOC were just as blurred as ever amongst staff. Mitch, who had been Baron Ops, also blamed Ringdancer for his "resignation" from that position, attributing to Ringdancer a letter-writing campaign to Sysop regarding the holdings decision. This angered Ringy, as one might expect, so she deleted her character right after reading Mitch's e-mail.

Ringy's deletion basically sealed my fate. I had always said that if she quit playing Terris, then I would too. I knew that if I tried to continue playing without her my heart wouldn't be in it, since a similar situation had occurred in January 2001. So I wrote my usual rant to the baron mailing list about staff going OOC and interfering with the baronial mandate of roleplay, and announced our departure from Terris.

In January 2001, when I announced my intention to leave Terris, I received e-mails from Deori and instant messages from Terris Ops that convinced me to take a break to cool down. They gave me the time I needed to get myself together, and when I returned to Terris I found my account status and baronial powers intact. Contrast that with January 2006. Five years later, the atmosphere at OGC has changed so much that within minutes of announcing my intention to leave, I was removed from the baron mailing list, my baronial powers were revoked, my free account was eliminated, and my coder access was cut off. There was no attempt by OGC to get me to stay. That's gratitude for you!

October 2007 Update

Ringdancer and I have been back in Terris for about a month as of this update, and an interesting tidbit has come to light: A source on Terris Staff has revealed to us that there is only one satyr mobile available in Terris and it's the one I created for Lyresong. Was there ever another in testing for the Temple of  Humour, or was that some ass covering? We'll never know, but I know what I believe.

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madbaron".

Birth of a Diary

Many a time I've tried to start a journal on the Internet. There was the attempt to chronicle my travels on the back roads of Illinois (The Hunt for Red November), my short-lived flirtation with rocketry (MB | aerospace), and now this attempt. I believed that I didn't really have anything interesting to say, but upon reflection that doesn't seem to stop most people from saying things anyway! At any rate, where my other attempts to create a journal failed, this one may now succeed.

For the past nine years I had been a player of Legends of Terris, an online roleplaying multi-user dungeon that originated in the United Kingdom. I took to writing short stories about the life of my character and his family under the title of "One Lyre to Live." Eventually, writing became about the only thing keeping me in Terris, so one week ago I quit playing. In search of something to do with all of this newly-freed time and also a replacement for writing about my character's adventures, I decided today to create an online journal. To start things off, I'll be writing about Terris and why I left. But that's the next entry. (I have to pace myself.)

Imported from the AOL Journal "Diary of a Madman".