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This thread has been repurposed for the CYS Time Warp event! This episode, Jason Hill of CoG is a Kiel!

- EndMaster

In that he's incredibly full of himself and abuses power for the sake of petty grudges, and his sanity may be failing.

...wait, what did you think I meant?

Anyway, the To Hell With COG thread is a happenin place right now so I'm hijacking this old thread to make it easier to access amid all this (hopefully very temporary) time warp nonsense.

Obviously for awhile now I've been of the opinion that the environment of the COG forums is an extremely hostile one that strangles creativity and enforces a hive mind mentality. But my dislike has always been just of the general atmosphere, not really of an individual. (Well MeltingPenguins' antics have been pretty funny but that I approach more as someone watching a nature documentary...)

The truth is though that at the end of the day COG authors are a talented bunch just using the most convenient platform available for publishing CYOAs to sell, and in many cases they've had to endure a toxic atmosphere and constant criticism from unappreciative people who will never be happy.

That atmosphere of oppression and passive aggressive cuntery is created and enforced by just one man.

I now mildly regret the hyperbole I've used in the past. COGites are just so fun and so easy to mock. But it makes it difficult now to express the depths of my loathing and how refreshing it is to be able to laser-focus my hate on just one individual.



I mean, even if this wasn't being directed at Briar and just pulled from his ass based on nothing more than a desire to be a dick to one of his authors combined with the knowledge she wouldn't be allowed to defend herself, what an incredible douchenozzle. Who makes a post like that? The fact that people are now privately messaging Briar their support because they're literally afraid of what would happen if they spoke up is just the cherry on top.

I can't screenshot the smug power-tripping assholery that follows, because it's a massive text wall. Suffice to say it just exists to ramble about microaggressions and inform everyone the thread will now be kept under lock and key as Jason's private accusation chamber. (thanks again to undr for that beautiful phrase)

Anyhow I've always been totally supportive of Price of Freedom continuing as a Hosted game, and it was nice to hear from Briar that it would be free, because I cannot in good conscience give COG any more of my money. It's a shame because there are some real gems in Hosted Games even if the 'official' Choice of Whatever games have been pushed to go blander and blander, but I don't want to support anymore even in a small way the direction that site has gone or buy another cushion for that man reclining on his throne of aggravated twattery. I used to really desire to see interactive/choice-based fiction become a viable money maker again, but it wasn't supposed to be granted like some goddamn twisted monkey paw wish.


DISCLAIMER THAT IS APPARENTLY NEEDED: Just because this thread contains a link to a thread on the COG forum does not mean you're being encouraged to go "troll" there (aka express a contrary opinion in an honest and civil way and get instantly banned). The idea is to look, but don't touch. Treat their threads respectfully, like an exhibit at a zoo.









tl;dr brought to you by Inspirobot:



Thank for reading!

This has all made me even happier that Swamp Castle is free.  

Does he realize how stupid and immature he comes across as considering the people on that forum to be?  Is he really ignorant of what he is doing, or does he do it on purpose for the lulz?  

Edit:  There's are four pregnant horses in my yard now.  Should I call someone?

I love Swamp Castle!

When I've talked to people outside the site on the subject of CYOAS, when they list their favorites it's always the Hosted Games, not the official ones. People who aren't involved enough with COG to use the forum aren't aware of the weird caste system they have in place, even though it's the Hosted Game authors who are as good as carrying the site. 

Swamp Castle is actually what got me interested in CYOA games.  I still play it sometimes.  

It looks as if that is not an uncommon opinion on the forums either.  The peeps who prefer Choice of Games do so mainly for consistency, but others say they are often formulaic.  I have not read many to the end, because paywall, but I do wonder what makes it seem so beyond the first three choices always being identical.  

I wrote way too long a response before paring this down, but basically it's easier to think Hosted Games are better because there's higher variation between titles (since CoG has a fair number of guidelines and requirements), and people basically filter out the bad games from HG that nobody talks about or plays, leaving the best to stand out from the more homogenous CoG library.

It is VERY formulaic... And I'm not even saying that as an insult, I'm just stating it as a fact. When I was invited to publish The Lawless Ones for CoG, I was told that one of the things I needed to change was that the character gets to choose their gender too early, and I should put that choice a little later in the game... Why? ... Just... WHY?

I actually am still considering asking to write for CoG at some point in the future. (That $7500 advance just turns me into a Loony Toons cartoon character with giant dollar signs in my eyes.) But I feel like any game I write for CoG would have to be one that I don't care about all that much. One where, if I was told, "This scene in the game needs to be changed," I'd just shrug and say, "Yeah, sure, I could just delete the whole scene if you want." ... I can't do that for The Lawless Ones, because I care about the story too much.

Where there is money, there are copycats. If there isn't an up-and-coming competitor hurling towards us from the fringes of the internet, there will be before long.

To be fair, there are some exceptions. I've been universally told that Choice of Rebels is awesome. (Only read the demo so far, but the demo was awesome... I should buy it sometime.) 

Choice of Robots was surprisingly good. But that writer put in a lot of work.

Avery's new response was a hell of a lot more measured than anything I'd have put together if someone called me out like that in a community I was invested in. I mean that as a compliment, since burning that bridge over stupid forum shit probably isn't worth it, but I hope her restraint is met with at least something approaching good faith rather than Jason doubling down on throwing his weight around while simultaneously playing victim. For someone who's ostensibly so woke, he sure is ready to appropriate terminology used to describe harms done to disadvantaged people and then apply it to himself/his business without a hint of shame.

Just read it, and yyyyep.

But I'm sure it's obvious to Briar how much incredible empathy Jason is using to elevate the discourse when he says things like:


That’s the glory of asymmetrical communication: you have time to consider your words. Think about whether what you’re saying is about them, or about you. If it’s about you, does it really help the interlocutor to hear those words? Or is it just about aggrandizing your ego? Are you adding to the discourse, or are you “just offering your opinion?”

Because I’ve had enough of people sticking their assholes in my face and demanding that they be kissed.

I will probably keep this thread largely locked, and use it to identify instances of these behaviors, as a way to try elevate the level of discourse on this forum.

If I call you out, please try not to take it as a crushing blow; and I will try to use mine own empathy to be constructive in my criticism. But the best way to be instructive is to give solid examples of misbehaviors, and calling those moments out as they happen is the best way to do that.


Most people would just be fucking done at this point but then again, she's put in how many hours into Price of Freedom and he's basically holding it all over her head now, and as you said, she won't really benefit from lighting a match on the bridge Jason's been busy pouring gasoline on.

Briar has gotten 27 likes on that post from people who support her but are afraid to speak up.

Kind of had to lol at Eric Knight going 'oh, umm, I'm sure Glorious Leader didn't mean to single anyone out!' as if he himself didn't read the post where Jason said that's exactly what he was doing and exactly the purpose of the thread.

I'm still waiting for the incredible display of empathy Jason has promised to show to anyone who takes issue with being targeted. I see Briar going through some incredible yoga master level contortions to try and smooth the whole thing over while Jason himself hasn't bothered to reply yet and will at best just say some more condescending/self congratulatory shit when/if he does.

I think Mary Duffy put about as positive a spin on what he said as someone could, by which I mean she said something closer to what he should have said (if he needed to make the point he was trying to make at all) than what he actually said. It's kind of a bummer to see his employee having to try to clean up his mess, but at least someone there made an attempt at displaying some empathy (and she liked Avery's post too).

The other COG guy needs to give her Jason's job, that post was more in line with what you'd expect from a professional representing a business. None of this laughable 'stop showing me your asshole and demanding I kiss it!' stuff at least and the whole bizarre, angry tone.

If Jason had any sense he'd just take that thread down like he has so many before and do some research into how publishers are expected to behave (at least publicly) towards their clients and customers.

Gower (one of the mods) has also made a good post and liked Briar's. He also called for moderation. I'm really curious to see if and how Jason will reply.

Lol.

Way to drive away not only your potential author base, but also your potential customer base.

Seriously, I get that he wants to have a loyal group of lackies that just obey without question (It’s a beautiful thing), but this really isn’t making CoG look very good.

Hell, Dan would have handled this a whole lot better.

I brought that up in Moxie's thread, because that's the special ingredient that makes this more than just another admin going power crazy on the internet. The man is supposed to be running a business. These are his customers and clients he's kicking in the face. For every lackey that goes 'yes sir can I have another' there's an unknown number of normal people that just shake their heads and leave.

Besides those posting here and those messaging Briar, there was this thread that Undr found: https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/semi-locked-forums/47976

Just got locked down immediately because someone didn't understand why they weren't able to reply to that thread of Jason's and asked a simple question. (It was because all forum citizens are equal but some are more equal than others.)

"Here’s one tip: don’t act like the experiences of other forum members have no value to you."

If one person is going through the trouble of making a thread to speak up, then there's ten more reading and thinking the same thing.

Thanks for linking that. Yeah, I had that guy send me a PM too. He didn't actually give his opinion, but he did ask, "How do you mute threads?" Followed by, "Is it possible to mute the entire Plaza?"

It's a shame, because I think it's a good idea to have a place for just authors to talk about author related stuff... Unfortunately that's not what it's being used for.

I laughed at the tl:dr there and had to go look up Inspirobot. Fun site, thanks. 

To tell the truth I laughed at the whole thread. I saw the Better Citizens: Citizens Not Invited thread earlier and was waiting to see what the reaction was here. I was not disappointed. That is the thing I like about this place, people don't take everything sooo seriously and still remember how to have fun even while being very very vocal about their feelings.

I just hope you're forum gets fixed soon lol, I was extremely confused when I first saw it.

Bad King Urgrain Jason whipped a poet, and that poet wrote the sagas that preserve his name in infamy. [KODP wisdom]

I understand that in his paranoid mind Jason felt his company was subtly criticised, but the smart thing to do would have been to counterargue and show that COG is fair to its authors and so on, like many others had done in the previous thread. Shutting down a user (and author) based on the way she expressed her opinion instead of replying to the topic simply shows that you have nothing to say and are clutching at straws. Besides, the way Briar expressed herself was clear and concise; do we now have to speak like lobotomized dummies just so peeps with low reading comprehension can understand us? Wouldn't it make more sense to help these peeps improve their reading comprehension instead of lowering our level of conversation to theirs?

Oops I've just used a couple rhetorical questions, I'm sure no one will be able to understand my post now and my opinion will be worthless.

It's also sad to see nice members following him blindly, like this Kaelyn guy that listed rules for good posting (some laughable, like "If you want to criticize someone, make them a compliment before doing so") without realizing that Jason broke those rules just a few posts above.

And "micro-aggression" makes me laugh, I always imagine malicious microscopic elfs with tiny daggers trying to stab you.

Awh, bless his cotton socks! "Remember guys, if you're going to bully someone, make sure you bully them nicely!" 

Bahahaha, he actually made the argument, how dare you assume people read your entire post on a writing forum!

Update: looks like the tide of COG opinion are turning around in favor of Bad Forum Citizen Briar, for those of you not following the thread over there or the To Hell With one I linked.

This is hilarious. They're banning people for "misleading posts" now.

https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/palehorse6/summary
 

Gower came on the Discord and was pretty chill actually and explained that that sort of thing didn't really happen as often as we thought. I'm sure you must be incorrect or that was just a clerical error or misclick or something.

who's Gower? I'm lightly following this, like having the tv on but also using a laptop to read periodically more interesting things. If only I had popcorn, I might pay attention to the show.

COG admin but not the co-owner cunt. You should be reading the other COG thread too, the one from the Lounge's future only accessible from the OP.

Awh! Not PaleHorse! I liked that guy!

Got to wonder what it was he said that got him banned. Probably said something very similar to what I said, but wasn't quite careful enough about how he phrased it. >.<

Going to also point out that I have gotten shit from the CoG Admins for supposedly being a "agent of chaos" by pointing out their fucktardery over there, meanwhile Jason and his baseless dumb ass twaddle, along with suppressing any sort of discourse under the guise of "Oh you're not being a good net citizen." is doing more damage to CoG's rep than anything else. Lol.

I'd really like somebody more knowledgeable to clarify what Jason's official position at COG is. Gower and Mary Duffy have claimed that no one is in charge of their mod team, but isn't he literally the co owner of the company with alongside Dan Whoever?

I've just got to say here... SERIOUSLY guys? Was Kiel really THAT bad? I mean I completely missed out on the entire "Bad Mod Kiel" phase, but I used to chat with Kiel a lot and we got along really well. He seemed like a pretty cool, down to earth guy... What the fuck happened? 

Arguably Pedo Mod Kiel was worse than Jason since as far as we know Jason isn't doing sex talk with teenage boys and trying to create a cult/harem. There's also the fact he was a tranny (FtM) with multiple personalities, cheated on his wife, was manipulative, a liar, a crybaby who whined when he didn't get his way and just an all around terrible person.

Of course there's also Grifter Mod Seth who just ripped off people on kickstarter for his non-existent story game. So Jason's probably more in that category given that he's happy to take the money off of authors while abusing them.

WOOOOOOAH! And I thought the whole "Bad Mod Kiel" thing was an exaggeration. 

... Actually, when I won the Interactive Fiction comp back in 2014, I asked that $50 be taken out of own my prize money because I knew that Kiel had gotten 4th place and I wanted him to get a cash prize... Wish I'd just kept it now. Moral of the story... Keep all your money to yourself! (Homeless people are probably evil too.)

Bringing up that he was a tranny seems weird though. I mean, I see a lot of gay/tranny related insults in the forums but I always assume that they're jokes... Are we actually homophobes? Shit, I didn't get the memo! I missed so many rallies! Hang on while I go make a sign...

Here we go! Perfect!!!

Well I mean if any CoGites are watching this thread I really would hate to ruin the reputation we have. Gotta keep up appearances.

If anything we got just as many LGBTBBQ folks (readers and writers) here as CoG, the difference is ours aren't a bunch of whining faggots that get triggered at the drop of a hat.

But obviously Kiel being a tranny makes sense, they're always hiding things thus proving that you can't trust them.

I view trannies about the same as autists. Yes I'm sure there are stable and well adjusted ones who are wonderful people out there somewhere, just, we've never had one on this particular site.

Don't worry though we mocked Kiel just as much back before we found out the wizard had no tower....in those more innocent times when we referred to his Skype harem and meant it as a joke....

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/the-lounge/message/24496

Judging by the ones that are at CoG, neither have they. Lol.

In my cover letter to alexp, begging to be the new main admin since 3J died, I described myself as a stable and well adjusted autistic transexual (MtFtM). He hasn't gotten back to me yet.

I don't believe you sent him anything you lying whore.

As sympathetic as I am towards people who are transgender, I don't think it's really possible to be stable while constantly feeling like your body and mind are at a disconnect.

Kiel is just batshit crazy though.

SPEAKING of Seth (yes I realize we weren't actually speaking of Seth) we saw him online earlier and he did something with one of his games so I guess that's finally proof that he's definitely not dead. We can now shit talk him for stealing from children and then setting a pedo up to rule over them without any chance of being made to feel bad later.

That may have just been the thing that ripped itself out of his belly aliens-style though...

I think I'll respond to this all by saying that I think being a member of the CoG community has effected me in both positive and negative ways.

Positive, because I wouldn't normally have called End out on saying "Kiel is a bad person because he was a massive pedo and a tranny"... Obviously, I know End isn't a transphobe, just a shameless edge-lord. But I think that all these CoG related threads might get people poking their heads in here and someone might think, "I fucking hate things over at CoG... Hey, what's this other place? This looks pretty cool." Then see End's comment about "Trannies are bad people" and be like, "OH, FUCK! NOPE! I'M OUT!" If they know that we're joking then they might stay. (Obviously most people over at CoG would be put off just for seeing the word "tranny" alone, but then those people wouldn't like it here anyway, so I guess we're doing them a favour by scaring them off.)

REDACTED - M

That said... It's effected me negatively to the point that I'm serving a customer at work and I subconsciously think, "How can I ask this customer whether or not they'd like a bag without it coming off as offensive?" ... Not even exaggerating, this LITERALLY happened.

It's pretty offensive that you just made assumptions about End being ok with trannies imho. You need to apologize for your violence.

In the end, in his worldview, everyone just exists for his amusement. Varying degenerates - and wholesome folk like me and Sabley - are just more or less amusing.

Sabley's only amusing when she's talking about giving blowjobs or potentially killing various family members and co-workers.

 Did you just assume their intent to pay??

i'm glad we could come to an agreement, Briar. I knew you'd come around.

... LMFAO!!! I'm crying! I love you people!

Still, am a little disappointed that nobody loled at my beautiful sign... Was that an r/wooooosh? (I probably should have saved that one for Crazy people be CRAZY.) 

I'm sorry but your image was pretty tame and barely even qualified as notable by internet standards.

Something like this thing Cricket found, though...

I know I said that I was leaving but I just want to say... I definitely think this was an r/wooooosh. Basically:

1. What does the B in LGBT stand for?

2. What does the sign say? 

Oh shit lol

Guys, read the sign.

Yeah the black thing, I noticed that the first time Briar posted it.

Yep! ... And I just want to say how inspiring it is that these good Christian souls are trying to save these utterly shameless sinners... But at the end of the day, our Lord's love knows no bounds. He CAN make you white again! 

Copy pasting from CoG because the exact same applies:

I’ve decided to mute this thread, and any other threads (on this forum and any other forum) that contain potentially controversial topics. (With the exception of "To Hell With CoG" because I want to see Moxie's response... Assuming of course she actually comes back and sees it... This whole thing might literally have been a complete waste of time.) The reason I’m doing this is… Quite honestly… My boyfriend has diagnosed me as being addicted to Internet Forum Drama and, in hindsight, I kind of have to agree.

I think the only cure for me is to go cold turkey on basically any threads that might contain controversial topics (except for my own WIPs of course.) Basically, I have a lot of strong opinions and I feel the need to express them. I spend a lot of time expressing them and, like I said in the other thread, this is time that I could be spending writing.

I think I’m going to make it my New Year’s resolution to avoid any internet forum drama for a year. (Knowing me, I probably won’t last a week, but at least I tried.) 

We don't have a mute thread thing on here though.

I meant unwatch 

Oh that, I turned that completely off in the settings. I usually forget that it exists.

People watch threads?

Although I guess I must've at one point because I was getting notifications on some of the time warp threads

That's a really annoying bug that occurs with thread pre-watch/unwatch feature. For whatever reason most threads created before the watch feature was are automatically set to "watch" so when something gets necroed (and if you posted in it) you'll get a notification for it, even if you had it turned off like I do. (Then I have to select unwatch to that thread)

Honestly the watch feature is one of the pointless features added to this site. I'd be all for getting rid of it.

I like it. If you’re short on time - or just lazy - you can quickly get into an active thread that’s presently amusing.

The forum index is set to my home page on phone and PC so the notifications are doubly unnecessary for me. I can see at a glance what the active threads are while on my way to do anything else.

Also, people barely post anyway.

... Also... Last, last, LAST one I promise (and I know I've said it somewhere else in a different thread) but.... ... ... This is me. ^_^
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q8jkReniTY

Last bit of faggotry from Jason and company about Briar.

Oh and RIP Meltdown Penguin. LOL

You’re an awful micro-aggressor and big meanie!