The Future with HelloClan

[DenalDouglas]

This post is one I'm not entirely happy to write, and I would have preferred to wait until I had more definite information on certain things, but my hand has been forced. There are people here who aren't going to like this post, people who are going to be upset by it, and probably people who are going to hate me for it. In the long run, the choice I'm about to make might turn out to be a mistake. I don't know. But I'm making my decision the best I can with the information that's available to me. This post will probably get locked, and might even get deleted. I don't care. I'm going to put it out there for the benefit of anyone who has the chance to see it before that happens.

For almost two months, HelloClan leadership has been tap-dancing around the issue of what happened to BangBangOw. What many people here might not know is that since his ousting, Bang has been quietly developing his own community, ECHO Gaming. I've been receiving calls from both sides, HelloClan and ECHO, to join one or the other as a member of leadership and for a place to host the mods I've been working on for more years than many members of HelloClan have been here. At first, I wasn't sure what to do. I decided to wait and get more information before I made my choice. I've gotten information from some long-time members of the community, who will remain nameless, and looked at some very definite facts. Some information was told to me "in confidence", a confidence I was willing to respect until I was given reason to believe the person telling me that information was telling lies about other things. I'm very sorry for having to break that confidence, but I feel no obligation to keep my word to someone who I believe has been attempting to manipulate things in their own favor through deception. The time has come for me to pick a side. This is the bottom line:

Bang was kicked out of his position for failing to enforce the rules and for "offensive comments." Both he and individuals on HelloClan's side have been very open with me about this. From what I've been told, some of these allegations are things I can't and don't support, if they're true. Others I couldn't care less about. One incident in particular I'd like to remark on is Bang once supposedly using the in-game name "autism speedrun". Let me be very clear here about something I don't often talk publicly about: I have Asperger's Syndrome, or high-functioning autism, myself. Most people wouldn't know or guess this because I've adapted to it very well, but it's true. And as someone who has autism, "autism speedrun" doesn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, I find it funny, and it's hard for me to even type it without smiling. As for some of the other claims, I can't support the mindset behind the actions or words if the allegations are true, but for others still, my mindset is "boo-hoo." We're all supposed to be adults here, and if we can't take a few insults and jokes without throwing temper tantrums (no matter how much we might not like them), what are we doing with our lives? And I'm not talking just about leadership at HelloClan. They have a responsibility to maintain an environment that they think is best for their player base. But if certain other people can't contain their offense at a few impolite or insensitive words, then my response, in the blunt words of a person on the spectrum, is, "That's your problem."

Quite frankly, and even before anyone from either side reached out to me, I've found HelloClan leadership's handling of the situation with Bang to be unacceptable. They claim they want to be civil and don't want to harm Bang's reputation, but that's not the way it comes across. From my perspective, they've attempted to hide from the issue at every turn. There has been no public announcement on Bang's departure (and I know for a fact one is coming, but almost two months later is too little, too late, to say nothing of further details I'm about to go into), and no public announcement of his replacement stepping up. There has also been no public announcement on what happened to the DC servers when Bang left, with the issue being dodged as "technical problems" when it was brought up by members. That's not protecting someone's reputation, that's hiding from your own actions.

And this is far from the only problem I've had with HelloClan. There's a reason why I've joined and left twice in the last few years. Ultimately, it's clear to me that the current leadership has only a minimal capacity to maintain their player base, never mind expand it or actually keep the game alive. When I came back most recently, I was absolutely horrified to see how dead HelloClan has become. It was quiet the last time I was here, but now it's almost completely silent. And what happened the last time I was here? Vietnam's player base had a huge fight over friendly fire and whether or not to disable it, but guess what? There was a compromise the whole time! The issue at hand was people being killed by friendly landmines, but Bang had a fix for that specific problem in his servers without causing other issues that the people advocating FOR friendly fire were concerned about! The rest of HelloClan leadership could have ended that infighting and debate with one single decision, but they did nothing and let it go on for weeks! UNACCEPTABLE. And from what I understand, by that point, Bang was so frustrated with everyone else in leadership that he wasn't going to offer his Bf1942-based solution. In fact, going back to Bang "not enforcing the rules," the whole reason why he wasn't enforcing certain rules, as has been made very clear to me, was because he was well aware that those rules were bad for the community. Even before all of this happened, I was well aware of HelloClan leadership's pattern of allowing a loud minority to rule the community, screeching about things they didn't like while most of the player base, was trying to simply play the game. More unacceptable choices. Some of the rules haven't even been enforced evenly. There's another member of the community, an admin no less, who has displayed behavior that multiple people have complained about in the past. Why was what Bang said and did so offensive but this person's actions weren't? Double standard there?

And now for the present and future: once Bang's work to develop his new community became public, LTShaun contacted me offering me an admin position in HelloClan, along with two servers to run my mods on. This was in the period where I wasn't sure what I was going to do, so I gave a non-specific but honest answer saying that I needed more time and needed to make more progress on the next update for each mod before I was ready to commit to anything. At the same time, I was suspicious of the timing. Yes, I've been made similar offers in the past. But why now? Why right as Bang is starting to launch his own work? I wasn't sure, so I decided to continue waiting and not pick a side until I knew which was the right side to pick. But the longer things have gone on, the more I'm beginning to feel I know the truth. This is what's been going on behind the scenes. LTShaun and Bang have been talking with each other about Shaun leaving HelloClan and coming over to ECHO, and TAKING HELLOCLAN DOWN WITH HIM. Bang has the discussion screenshots to prove this - I've seen one of Shaun saying "I need to make my final decision" and "HelloClan isn't what it used to be." And yet just this morning, Shaun contacted me pressing hard about making a decision of which side I was on. What the hell is happening?! If I had to make a guess, it's that Shaun is trying to play both sides here for the benefit of HelloClan, and I'm not having it. Unless I misunderstood what Bang told me, it was Shaun who first suggested taking down HelloClan on his way out. And I will say that yes, Bang seriously considered it. He was very angry with how he was treated and the way he was kicked out, and from what I know, he might have even said something to Shaun to the effect that this was what he wanted to do. But from what I know through our conversations is that he's gone back and forth on it, and a recent discussion we had about it was that as angry as he was, he had decided that it would best not to and the best thing to for his community was not to take revenge on HelloClan but to simply show people that he was capable of providing a better product and service. I believe he is entirely capable of this, and the activity I've seen among his community is enough evidence for me. Bang doesn't NEED to take revenge on anyone. But I think Shaun was trying to trap him into committing to that course of action, which could then be used against Bang. I don't know how much of this is true. There are quite a few things I could be getting lies about from either side. But the deciding factor for me is something that I know for certain: LTShaun has been talking to Bang about taking down HelloClan, and to me about adding servers on HelloClan. This is a very clear contradiction, so obviously LTShaun is lying to one of us or the other. Whatever else is a lie or the truth, I will not be a part of this. This is why I'm posting this now - because I've been told there will be a post made attempting to paint Bang in a bad light. But the fact that this is being done now, as ECHO Gaming is bleeding players from HelloClan by providing a better experience, tells me that HelloClan leadership isn't doing this for the benefit of the community. They aren't doing it in the interests of disclosure or honesty. They're seeing falling numbers and trying to protect themselves. That's why LTShaun has been pushing me so hard to commit to HelloClan. It's not for anyone's true benefit, it's to try to force a bit of life into HelloClan, and to deprive ECHO Gaming of another thing to further develop and grow from. Regardless of what Bang has said or done, I do not consider HelloClan leadership to be trustworthy at this point.

My final decision stands as thus. And, full disclosure, I made this decision even before certain conversations that took place today happened; those conversations only convinced me that I was right. Effective as of today, I am terminating all affiliation with HelloClan and committing fully to ECHO Gaming. I might not agree with some of the things Bang has said, but I'm not here to judge people on their personal views, I'm here to make a decision based on who can develop and maintain the better community. Bang has proven he can. HelloClan has shown me a pattern of years of failure. All of my future work will be hosted on ECHO Gaming, and all permission for HelloClan to use my work or mods for events and servers is revoked. Do not attempt to use my work in any way, and do not attempt to sub-mod, redevelop, or reverse-engineer any material in my current or future work. Any such attempt will not be tolerated. I firmly believe that at this point, the best thing for everyone is for HelloClan and ECHO Gaming to go their separate ways as peacefully as possible. Let each player make their own choices.

This is all I have to say. It's up to each of you, leadership, admins, mods, and individual members, to decide what you're going to do now. As for me, I don't care. Delete my post, ban me, whatever you see fit. This will be my last log-in on this forum and my last association with HelloClan regardless. Thank you to everyone who I've had fun times with while I was here, and I wish you all the best. Goodbye.

 

[HeiligWahrheit]

Hi,

thanks for your post here. Before I pick out some statements you've made, I would like to mention the thread we've just created about the changes in the leadership. I know, it took a while. This has two reasons:
1. Indeed, this things came up in a very bad timing for LTShaun and me, as we're not having much time right now. All the time we've got, we put into holding the stuff together we have right now (BFV server is buggy)
2. We rewrite the thread some times to make sure, everything is right and the mean aspects can be proofed.

It's your choice to join -[ECHO]-, we will of course not stop you from that. But bear in mind two things:
1. Bang promised us (we have screenshots about that), that his new clan will do nothing in BFV, if we're doing nothing in DC (which we did not). Recruiting you breaks the deal.
2. I do not know, why admins like Butcher joined him again, after they left HelloClan just because of him. But this is a sign for me, that BangBang seems to be moody in his leading.

To fulfill your wishes, we stopped the OP-server.

Now to some of your statements:

This post will probably get locked, and might even get deleted. I don't care.

I do not know, why you are pulling this statement - we've never deleted stuff (besides some spam). Are we really that bad, that you are dropping such a statement?

One incident in particular I'd like to remark on is Bang once supposedly using the in-game name "autism speedrun"

We've posted the statements "autism speedrun" (BangBang) has made ingame. It's not about the name (which we also find unworthy for a leader), it's about what he wrote. And he knew what he did, so he lied to us telling us, it's not him. Is that something we should tolerate in combination what also has happened?

From my perspective, they've attempted to hide from the issue at every turn. There has been no public announcement on Bang's departure (and I know for a fact one is coming, but almost two months later is too little, too late, to say nothing of further details I'm about to go into), and no public announcement of his replacement stepping up. There has also been no public announcement on what happened to the DC servers when Bang left, with the issue being dodged as "technical problems" when it was brought up by members. That's not protecting someone's reputation, that's hiding from your own actions.

I promise you, that we would have done this statement faster, but we couldn't - like I said above.

Ultimately, it's clear to me that the current leadership has only a minimal capacity to maintain their player base, never mind expand it or actually keep the game alive

The first part is right, and we expected that after Ice left who nearly spend all his time into this clan. We can not bring that much time into this clan like Ice did, but with recruiting blueshark, we hope to share the load with three persons. That is something we know and are working on.

Even before all of this happened, I was well aware of HelloClan leadership's pattern of allowing a loud minority to rule the community, screeching about things they didn't like while most of the player base, was trying to simply play the game.

We did not change the rules since this topic since... ...maybe decades? I do not see a minority to rule the community. And because I guess you are adressing the current leadership and not IceSkater: We already introduced auto-kick and -banning when IceSkater was still in duty (I guess 5 years ago?). So this is something HelloClan always stood for - also before introducing the autokciks and -bans.

Some of the rules haven't even been enforced evenly. There's another member of the community, an admin no less, who has displayed behavior that multiple people have complained about in the past. Why was what Bang said and did so offensive but this person's actions weren't? Double standard there?

If it was a BFV-admin: please report this to me/us. We have transparent ways to report such incidents. Regarding DC: It was all up to BangBangOw, that's why we lost Butcher at a certain point.

Yes, I've been made similar offers in the past. But why now? Why right as Bang is starting to launch his own work?

I guess there was an offer, when we started your event server - that was before we removed Bang. And yes: Even after removing bang, we were still searching for support and staff to help us (like I wrote above).

Shaun contacted me pressing hard about making a decision of which side I was on. What the hell is happening?! If I had to make a guess, it's that Shaun is trying to play both sides here for the benefit of HelloClan, and I'm not having it.

We heard you were working for ECHO. And since we had a deal with BangBang we did not break, we wanted clarification. If that offended or pressured you, I'm very sorry about that - this was not the goal.

he had decided that it would best not to and the best thing to for his community was not to take revenge on HelloClan but to simply show people that he was capable of providing a better product and service. I believe he is entirely capable of this, and the activity I've seen among his community is enough evidence for me. Bang doesn't NEED to take revenge on anyone.

Simply not true. All he wants is revenge. He was kicked out from a clan before (I guess it was EA117 or something?), and was writing in the dc- and leadership channel, how happy he is that they had to close and that this was his main goal. And by the way: After we did not respond within 7 minutes after our message to him, that we remove him, this is what he wrote us: "If you guys are just going to ignore me after this situation. I can make sure you never play Vietnam again. Or any other server for that matter. Or you can give me the decency and respond to this." This and many other messages he wrote to us we threatening us and our community (this resulted in banning him by the way). And as a sidenode: We provided him ALL his files after removing him. We did not have to do that, WE wanted to go seperate ways. That he is recruiting you show, he does not want to.

LTShaun has been talking to Bang about taking down HelloClan

Noone is thinking about taking down HelloClan. The only thing LTShaun could think about is resigning from his leader duties - and I do not see this, as I can see how much he is doing in the background.

But the fact that this is being done now, as ECHO Gaming is bleeding players from HelloClan by providing a better experience, tells me that HelloClan leadership isn't doing this for the benefit of the community. They aren't doing it in the interests of disclosure or honesty. They're seeing falling numbers and trying to protect themselves.

Everything we do is to provide a friendly gaming atmosphere with as many players as possible.

We wish you all the best and thank you once again for helping the players downloading the game.

Best regards,
HeiligWahrheit

 

[LTShaun]

This post is one I'm not entirely happy to write, and I would have preferred to wait until I had more definite information on certain things, but my hand has been forced. There are people here who aren't going to like this post, people who are going to be upset by it, and probably people who are going to hate me for it. In the long run, the choice I'm about to make might turn out to be a mistake. I don't know. But I'm making my decision the best I can with the information that's available to me. This post will probably get locked, and might even get deleted. I don't care. I'm going to put it out there for the benefit of anyone who has the chance to see it before that happens.

For almost two months, HelloClan leadership has been tap-dancing around the issue of what happened to BangBangOw. What many people here might not know is that since his ousting, Bang has been quietly developing his own community, ECHO Gaming. I've been receiving calls from both sides, HelloClan and ECHO, to join one or the other as a member of leadership and for a place to host the mods I've been working on for more years than many members of HelloClan have been here. At first, I wasn't sure what to do. I decided to wait and get more information before I made my choice. I've gotten information from some long-time members of the community, who will remain nameless, and looked at some very definite facts. Some information was told to me "in confidence", a confidence I was willing to respect until I was given reason to believe the person telling me that information was telling lies about other things. I'm very sorry for having to break that confidence, but I feel no obligation to keep my word to someone who I believe has been attempting to manipulate things in their own favor through deception. The time has come for me to pick a side. This is the bottom line:

Bang was kicked out of his position for failing to enforce the rules and for "offensive comments." Both he and individuals on HelloClan's side have been very open with me about this. From what I've been told, some of these allegations are things I can't and don't support, if they're true. Others I couldn't care less about. One incident in particular I'd like to remark on is Bang once supposedly using the in-game name "autism speedrun". Let me be very clear here about something I don't often talk publicly about: I have Asperger's Syndrome, or high-functioning autism, myself. Most people wouldn't know or guess this because I've adapted to it very well, but it's true. And as someone who has autism, "autism speedrun" doesn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, I find it funny, and it's hard for me to even type it without smiling. As for some of the other claims, I can't support the mindset behind the actions or words if the allegations are true, but for others still, my mindset is "boo-hoo." We're all supposed to be adults here, and if we can't take a few insults and jokes without throwing temper tantrums (no matter how much we might not like them), what are we doing with our lives? And I'm not talking just about leadership at HelloClan. They have a responsibility to maintain an environment that they think is best for their player base. But if certain other people can't contain their offense at a few impolite or insensitive words, then my response, in the blunt words of a person on the spectrum, is, "That's your problem."

Quite frankly, and even before anyone from either side reached out to me, I've found HelloClan leadership's handling of the situation with Bang to be unacceptable. They claim they want to be civil and don't want to harm Bang's reputation, but that's not the way it comes across. From my perspective, they've attempted to hide from the issue at every turn. There has been no public announcement on Bang's departure (and I know for a fact one is coming, but almost two months later is too little, too late, to say nothing of further details I'm about to go into), and no public announcement of his replacement stepping up. There has also been no public announcement on what happened to the DC servers when Bang left, with the issue being dodged as "technical problems" when it was brought up by members. That's not protecting someone's reputation, that's hiding from your own actions.

And this is far from the only problem I've had with HelloClan. There's a reason why I've joined and left twice in the last few years. Ultimately, it's clear to me that the current leadership has only a minimal capacity to maintain their player base, never mind expand it or actually keep the game alive. When I came back most recently, I was absolutely horrified to see how dead HelloClan has become. It was quiet the last time I was here, but now it's almost completely silent. And what happened the last time I was here? Vietnam's player base had a huge fight over friendly fire and whether or not to disable it, but guess what? There was a compromise the whole time! The issue at hand was people being killed by friendly landmines, but Bang had a fix for that specific problem in his servers without causing other issues that the people advocating FOR friendly fire were concerned about! The rest of HelloClan leadership could have ended that infighting and debate with one single decision, but they did nothing and let it go on for weeks! UNACCEPTABLE. And from what I understand, by that point, Bang was so frustrated with everyone else in leadership that he wasn't going to offer his Bf1942-based solution. In fact, going back to Bang "not enforcing the rules," the whole reason why he wasn't enforcing certain rules, as has been made very clear to me, was because he was well aware that those rules were bad for the community. Even before all of this happened, I was well aware of HelloClan leadership's pattern of allowing a loud minority to rule the community, screeching about things they didn't like while most of the player base, was trying to simply play the game. More unacceptable choices. Some of the rules haven't even been enforced evenly. There's another member of the community, an admin no less, who has displayed behavior that multiple people have complained about in the past. Why was what Bang said and did so offensive but this person's actions weren't? Double standard there?

And now for the present and future: once Bang's work to develop his new community became public, LTShaun contacted me offering me an admin position in HelloClan, along with two servers to run my mods on. This was in the period where I wasn't sure what I was going to do, so I gave a non-specific but honest answer saying that I needed more time and needed to make more progress on the next update for each mod before I was ready to commit to anything. At the same time, I was suspicious of the timing. Yes, I've been made similar offers in the past. But why now? Why right as Bang is starting to launch his own work? I wasn't sure, so I decided to continue waiting and not pick a side until I knew which was the right side to pick. But the longer things have gone on, the more I'm beginning to feel I know the truth. This is what's been going on behind the scenes. LTShaun and Bang have been talking with each other about Shaun leaving HelloClan and coming over to ECHO, and TAKING HELLOCLAN DOWN WITH HIM. Bang has the discussion screenshots to prove this - I've seen one of Shaun saying "I need to make my final decision" and "HelloClan isn't what it used to be." And yet just this morning, Shaun contacted me pressing hard about making a decision of which side I was on. What the hell is happening?! If I had to make a guess, it's that Shaun is trying to play both sides here for the benefit of HelloClan, and I'm not having it. Unless I misunderstood what Bang told me, it was Shaun who first suggested taking down HelloClan on his way out. And I will say that yes, Bang seriously considered it. He was very angry with how he was treated and the way he was kicked out, and from what I know, he might have even said something to Shaun to the effect that this was what he wanted to do. But from what I know through our conversations is that he's gone back and forth on it, and a recent discussion we had about it was that as angry as he was, he had decided that it would best not to and the best thing to for his community was not to take revenge on HelloClan but to simply show people that he was capable of providing a better product and service. I believe he is entirely capable of this, and the activity I've seen among his community is enough evidence for me. Bang doesn't NEED to take revenge on anyone. But I think Shaun was trying to trap him into committing to that course of action, which could then be used against Bang. I don't know how much of this is true. There are quite a few things I could be getting lies about from either side. But the deciding factor for me is something that I know for certain: LTShaun has been talking to Bang about taking down HelloClan, and to me about adding servers on HelloClan. This is a very clear contradiction, so obviously LTShaun is lying to one of us or the other. Whatever else is a lie or the truth, I will not be a part of this. This is why I'm posting this now - because I've been told there will be a post made attempting to paint Bang in a bad light. But the fact that this is being done now, as ECHO Gaming is bleeding players from HelloClan by providing a better experience, tells me that HelloClan leadership isn't doing this for the benefit of the community. They aren't doing it in the interests of disclosure or honesty. They're seeing falling numbers and trying to protect themselves. That's why LTShaun has been pushing me so hard to commit to HelloClan. It's not for anyone's true benefit, it's to try to force a bit of life into HelloClan, and to deprive ECHO Gaming of another thing to further develop and grow from. Regardless of what Bang has said or done, I do not consider HelloClan leadership to be trustworthy at this point.

My final decision stands as thus. And, full disclosure, I made this decision even before certain conversations that took place today happened; those conversations only convinced me that I was right. Effective as of today, I am terminating all affiliation with HelloClan and committing fully to ECHO Gaming. I might not agree with some of the things Bang has said, but I'm not here to judge people on their personal views, I'm here to make a decision based on who can develop and maintain the better community. Bang has proven he can. HelloClan has shown me a pattern of years of failure. All of my future work will be hosted on ECHO Gaming, and all permission for HelloClan to use my work or mods for events and servers is revoked. Do not attempt to use my work in any way, and do not attempt to sub-mod, redevelop, or reverse-engineer any material in my current or future work. Any such attempt will not be tolerated. I firmly believe that at this point, the best thing for everyone is for HelloClan and ECHO Gaming to go their separate ways as peacefully as possible. Let each player make their own choices.

This is all I have to say. It's up to each of you, leadership, admins, mods, and individual members, to decide what you're going to do now. As for me, I don't care. Delete my post, ban me, whatever you see fit. This will be my last log-in on this forum and my last association with HelloClan regardless. Thank you to everyone who I've had fun times with while I was here, and I wish you all the best. Goodbye.

Bye bye then, thank you for what you contributed over the years. Your statements above are disappointing but at least I got my answer and you’re not the person I thought you were lol. All the best to you

 

[Blue shark]

Let me first preface this by saying I was the admin responsible for investigating what's happening on the DC server after several complaints and provide a neutral view on the situation, I had only rarely and peripherally dealt with Hello DC or BangBangOw so there genuinely was no bias at play going into this.

After already playing regularly on the DC server for several months, I banned a player for racism (calling people race traitors and brown retards and similar) After his ban expired, he seemed to take me banning him personal and repeatedly called me vulgarised versions of my name and generally tries to rile me up and get a reaction out of me in a disrespectful manner for which I warned and kicked him several times. It had been made clear to me by several players that he also seems to hold white supremacist views in his real life and that it had not been the first time that he let this slip onto the server.

Later this player told BangBangOw that he wanted to talk to him on voice chat, presumably to complain about me mistreating him or "abusing" my admin powers. Shortly afterwards, the aforementioned "autism speedrun" player joined, in spite of what you may have been told by BangBangOw this wasn't something that personally offended me or anyone else, though I immediately suspected that it would be one of BangBangOw's seed players, mostly due to the ping and that the name used was very similar to some of his earlier chats/names.

Now, had it remained at that, I would have seen no reason to report BangBangOw for misconduct even if it's anything but professional to use such a name as someone in a leadership position. Another reason I suspected this player to be BangBangOw was that I had been made aware that the aforementioned previously banned player and BangBangOw were friends and my guess would be that they wanted to make fun of me for being too "proverbially autistic" (in the sense of interpreting the rules too literally by warning this player for disrespecting me) Now I am only bringing their friendship up to provide more context, I know it's none of my business who is friends with whom as long as certain standards are ensured in the game and there is no bias at work on the server.

Anyway, we played for another few rounds when all of a sudden BangBangOw in guise of his "autism speedrun" player left some very distasteful racist remarks employing the N word and comparing being back to having a disability. Only then did I set out to report this incident and confirm my suspicions that this had in fact been him.

Genuinely I hope we can all agree believe acting like this is worthy of someone in a position of responsibility and that the removal of BangBangOw from his position was a necessary consequence for his actions. Since he often displayed erratic behaviour and outbursts for much more minor things than this I wholeheartedly believe that telling him upfront would have been disastrous since he there was the fear that he could leave a wave of desrruction in his wake with the powers he still had at the time and this risk does in my view fully justify the action the leadership took when dealing with his removal.