DeletedUser41523
Guest
I finally got my forum account back and I promised that this would happen if Bad With Names died. It has effectively died and are now Return of the Cabbages and Rise of the Carrots. But neither of those are Bad With Names really. So what happened? Why did they fail here? I'll offer my perspective as a former founder and as someone that watched the decline start from the inside and outside. I'll make an in depth analysis of what went wrong, when, and how based on experience and what I heard or saw in some cases.
Note: That this isn't meant to be an insult to the Bad With Names players and leaders on the whole. Though some are going to be brought up more than others. Also this is gonna be long as hell. But if you're interested in why they fell and a little history behind it, here you go. Welcome to my take on it.
Heliopolis: I can't really do this without covering Bad With Names' first world and what they were founded to be, or at least my vision of what they would be. The long story short is that it was founded by myself, Darkstar, Nick, Adam, Goku, Oznob, and Kimimela. The Llamas leaders were in the mix for a moment but that broke down quickly and became another thing. The alliance was primarily built by Goku, myself, Miknel, and Dizzljoe in terms of recruiting with others contributing. As for my vision, I wanted to create an alliance that was capable of defeating Black Zone Crusade and Bedtime Squad. The starting line up for Bad With Names and Llamas is something that I can confidently say will never be beaten. Simply put the team was stacked and couldn't have a want for effective siege breakers, front line fighters, or supporters. However for all the highs of this world and it managing to do exactly what I had in mind both with and without me, the decline started here and began awhile before I even left and definitely continued after. Here are what I believe to be the main points of decline in that world.
Miknel/MP leaving- Say what you will about Mik. The guy knows grep. The guy has a solid group. They formed a huge part of Bad With Names in the early days. The majority of them left. While that's a major hit on its own the reason why I put this as a major reason for decline is that from that there was no more incentive to hold everyone accountable or have incredibly high expectations or even follow the blacklist the guy made. All of these became arguments and issues. Suddenly someone's friend was protected even if they didn't follow the rules listed.
Example of this: Estlando was clearly off alarm. Hell Kimi, a leader, was clearly off alarm at times.
Leadership- There were seven where probably three or four would have done. There's really not enough roles to justify having seven leaders. There weren't really assigned roles either. But generally speaking Goku planned wars, I handled recruiting, we both usually did siege break calls. This left for a lot of people who were trying to find their place in the council. And everyone settled on one role to do that with...everyone attempted to handle diplomacy.
Kimimela- From constantly harping on the Llamas and creating more work for me to handle (big wonder why the group didn't like us right?), to recruiting off of the blacklist, to protecting her friends from the rules, to generally acting as if the rules did not apply to her. I could throw a lot of blame onto this individual. Some notable instances.
- Sending small fliers at a siege on herself
- Trying to call a long siege break on herself...we had just mentioned that day we couldn't long break at that time
- Planning to put wonders within reasonable range of Bedtime Squad
- Keeping Estlando despite him being off of alarm
- Generally being off of alarm (lost 5 towns in 107, this was the maximum amount lost in a single world to even be considered for Bad With Names in the preworld phase)
- Starting spam wars
Generally speaking, Kimi involved herself in situations that would have ended up better if allowed to play themselves out. If you ever had to tell someone to stop trying to be the smartest person in the room, she needs to hear it the most.
Myself- As I have said before, I am not easy to work with and when I take things seriously, I'm very high strung. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't yell at someone in Bad With Names I don't think. I feel that created some resentment. I also blame myself for leaving and later attacking. The minute I did both of those, I'd suspect that any incentive to hold Bad With Names to a higher standard died and a lot of resentment towards the ideologies I held might have been created. I would say that I let myself down and let everyone else down and there's no way to pass blame on how things got here without pointing out that I did and said things that helped contribute to that, whether in a big or small way. There's no way around it other than saying how I ended things was a dick move...but that doesn't make the above points incorrect either.
Combined all of these definitely left Bad With Names worse off than it started out as. While they beat Bedtime Squad, Bedtime was largely defeated by the time I had left. We did a lot of damage, ND did some damage in the south, and I had gotten a few to jump to damage their wonder odds (which is where about half of Bedtime's conquests came from). If I recall, more continued to leave the world or jump sides after I left as well. As a result, Bad With Names pulled the victory out and even with the decline, they had absolutely deserved the win. Nothing can ever take that achievement away. But that was En107.
Note: That this isn't meant to be an insult to the Bad With Names players and leaders on the whole. Though some are going to be brought up more than others. Also this is gonna be long as hell. But if you're interested in why they fell and a little history behind it, here you go. Welcome to my take on it.
Heliopolis: I can't really do this without covering Bad With Names' first world and what they were founded to be, or at least my vision of what they would be. The long story short is that it was founded by myself, Darkstar, Nick, Adam, Goku, Oznob, and Kimimela. The Llamas leaders were in the mix for a moment but that broke down quickly and became another thing. The alliance was primarily built by Goku, myself, Miknel, and Dizzljoe in terms of recruiting with others contributing. As for my vision, I wanted to create an alliance that was capable of defeating Black Zone Crusade and Bedtime Squad. The starting line up for Bad With Names and Llamas is something that I can confidently say will never be beaten. Simply put the team was stacked and couldn't have a want for effective siege breakers, front line fighters, or supporters. However for all the highs of this world and it managing to do exactly what I had in mind both with and without me, the decline started here and began awhile before I even left and definitely continued after. Here are what I believe to be the main points of decline in that world.
Miknel/MP leaving- Say what you will about Mik. The guy knows grep. The guy has a solid group. They formed a huge part of Bad With Names in the early days. The majority of them left. While that's a major hit on its own the reason why I put this as a major reason for decline is that from that there was no more incentive to hold everyone accountable or have incredibly high expectations or even follow the blacklist the guy made. All of these became arguments and issues. Suddenly someone's friend was protected even if they didn't follow the rules listed.
Example of this: Estlando was clearly off alarm. Hell Kimi, a leader, was clearly off alarm at times.
Leadership- There were seven where probably three or four would have done. There's really not enough roles to justify having seven leaders. There weren't really assigned roles either. But generally speaking Goku planned wars, I handled recruiting, we both usually did siege break calls. This left for a lot of people who were trying to find their place in the council. And everyone settled on one role to do that with...everyone attempted to handle diplomacy.
Kimimela- From constantly harping on the Llamas and creating more work for me to handle (big wonder why the group didn't like us right?), to recruiting off of the blacklist, to protecting her friends from the rules, to generally acting as if the rules did not apply to her. I could throw a lot of blame onto this individual. Some notable instances.
- Sending small fliers at a siege on herself
- Trying to call a long siege break on herself...we had just mentioned that day we couldn't long break at that time
- Planning to put wonders within reasonable range of Bedtime Squad
- Keeping Estlando despite him being off of alarm
- Generally being off of alarm (lost 5 towns in 107, this was the maximum amount lost in a single world to even be considered for Bad With Names in the preworld phase)
- Starting spam wars
Generally speaking, Kimi involved herself in situations that would have ended up better if allowed to play themselves out. If you ever had to tell someone to stop trying to be the smartest person in the room, she needs to hear it the most.
Myself- As I have said before, I am not easy to work with and when I take things seriously, I'm very high strung. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't yell at someone in Bad With Names I don't think. I feel that created some resentment. I also blame myself for leaving and later attacking. The minute I did both of those, I'd suspect that any incentive to hold Bad With Names to a higher standard died and a lot of resentment towards the ideologies I held might have been created. I would say that I let myself down and let everyone else down and there's no way to pass blame on how things got here without pointing out that I did and said things that helped contribute to that, whether in a big or small way. There's no way around it other than saying how I ended things was a dick move...but that doesn't make the above points incorrect either.
Combined all of these definitely left Bad With Names worse off than it started out as. While they beat Bedtime Squad, Bedtime was largely defeated by the time I had left. We did a lot of damage, ND did some damage in the south, and I had gotten a few to jump to damage their wonder odds (which is where about half of Bedtime's conquests came from). If I recall, more continued to leave the world or jump sides after I left as well. As a result, Bad With Names pulled the victory out and even with the decline, they had absolutely deserved the win. Nothing can ever take that achievement away. But that was En107.