Taking a bit of my own advice.

GothicKratos

There's been plenty of "I'm fed up with the grind" threads in my tenure on the forums and my advice is always the same; if you're finding it more tedious than fun, you should take it easy or take a break. I tried taking it easy, so now I'm taking a break. This is not a resignation, nor an I formally "quitting" the forums, however, I am taking an extended hiatus.

So, that being said, I've grown tired of the suffocating negativity on the forums. I've grown tired of voicing my opinions on matter and being pelted with toxicity. I've grown tired of being labeled because I volunteered to help the community as a whole. I'm tired of dealing with a member base that would sooner lambast and demean the curators of the community and game they apparently enjoy rather than try to understand, adapt, and/or be constructive. I'm tired of having to mediate between a bunch of stubborn man-children fighting over a mobile game.

I don't know how to be constructive to my perceived issue. People's attitudes aren't going to change and nobody is going to knock them down a peg (or even speak up about it), so the best thing for me to do is to walk away peacefully. I'll still be hanging out on Line and I'll still be playing MPQ, so I'll see a lot of you guys around still (unfortunately for y'all ).

Shout out to NorthernPolarity, Phantron, ThugPartrol, atomzed, locked, Jamie Madrox, turul, mohio, TheUnwiseOne, mischiefmaker, HailMary, Colognoisseur, Bowgentle, and many others for being insightful, constructive, and fun. I didn't always agree with what you guys said, but it was always awesome having a conversation with you guys. Many of you made several contributions to the community as a whole, and I'd like to thank you all for doing those things. Last shout out goes to the Mod Squad whom have been and will continue to pick up my slack as I stepped back from things some and now will completely step away from for awhile. You guys are the grease that keep the forums going smoothly. You're not the heroes MPQ Forums deserve, but you're the heroes MPQ Forums needs.

So that's that, I think. May the luck of the Token be with you all.

fight4thedream

The Mod Squad and forums won't be the same without you, GK. You always tried to approach the negativity with a clever wit and a smile and that positive energy will be missed. But it's like you said, if you don't like it just walk away. But don't stay a stranger amigo and know the Mod Squad will always have your spot if you wish to take up the good fight against the neverending spam bots and nefarious trolls.

Thanks for all your hard work and look forward to crossing paths or swords with you again!



Till then, may the One Above All smile upon your journey into the heart of Marvel Puzzle Quest!

Best wishes,
fight4thedream☆⌒o(*^ｰﾟ) v

atomzed

I was surprised that I was included in the shout out.... The forums will be different without your sane and levelled headed posts. I like the way you moderated the forums so I guess the forum will be different without you.

Take a good rest. And when you come back, pick the battles that you feel strongly, and just ignore the other posts

IamTheDanger

Taking a break can sometimes be the best thing you can do. Sorry to see you go GK. (and not because it means more work for the other Mods ), (JK). Seriously though, good luck. Enjoyed a lot of your posts. See ya in the game.

Square

Being a forum mod is one of the most thankless 'jobs' out there. In my limited experience, it's basically just spending time keeping a forum clean and having abuse heaped on you for it.

Thanks for your volunteer time and positive outlook

Unknown

Thank you for all the hard work, I know we can be a lot to put up with sometimes. Sorry to see the state of the forum and game get you down.

konannfriends

Power to you man!

turul

Have a nice vacation

wirius

Good luck. Don't let the bad guys get you down. As long as there's one person doing the right thing in the world, there's always hope.

Unknown

Unless the idea is that this forum is a lost cause there should be someone who is paid to moderate this stuff, and that way there's also accountability since if whoever's being paid to do this does not do a good job you can at least fire the guy. I think the moderation is lacking, but given nobody's paid to do this I can hardly expect moderators to do more. Sure I realize the staff for this game probably isn't very big, but they don't seem to have any of this long term stuff figured out. You can't have volunteer moderators doing most of the work forever if you think customer feedback is going to be valuable, and it should be valuable if the game is supposed to stick around for a while. They should at least consider some kind of HP stipend or something for moderators doing their job because I sure wouldn't want to deal with myself on a forum let alone anyone else I don't like.

Unknown

At least stay in the LINE chat, or I'll have to pelt you with negativity.

Enjoy your MPQ vacation!

Unknown

I also have been taking a break from the forum if you don't count me posting all the time and reading everything.

Also, thanks for the shout out

Unknown

I feel like I should say something cleverly amusing to lighten the mood, but I really can't think of anything. I've (mostly ) enjoyed our little debates, and this community would certainly be worse as a whole without you and your perspective in it. This game and this forum will make you crazy though if you let it, so if your gut's telling you it's time to take a step back you'd do well to listen. The madness will still be here waiting for you should (read as: when) you choose to return.

Take care of yourself. Best of luck.

ClydeFrog76

Unknown

Don't blame you. I have basically ceased pve and now enjoy DpD and a bit of pvp. Much more fun. Hopefully you come back after a break and just play when, and how you want.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

I was surprised that I was included in the shout out.... The forums will be different without your sane and levelled headed posts. I like the way you moderated the forums so I guess the forum will be different without you.

Take a good rest. And when you come back, pick the battles that you feel strongly, and just ignore the other posts

I know why I wasn't mentioned. Over half my posts never get published because I always fall asleep after reading Phantron's post.

Unknown

As one of the biggest troll on the forum, I thank you for the work you've done.

Many of us need a break it seems

Talking about negativity, much of it would not exist if the devs were behaving differently. It's not all black or white, and the responsibility is shared.

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

As one of the biggest troll on the forum, I thank you for the work you've done.

Many of us need a break it seems

Talking about negativity, much of it would not exist if the devs were behaving differently. It's not all black or white, and the responsibility is shared.

That's bulsshit, plain and simple.

Months ago, the forums were a better place. There was still plenty of negativity, but it was constructive negativity. There is very little that is constructive here anymore.

Additionally, things from the game side are much improved over the past few months, maybe not as much as we would like, but game play and communication are much better. The bulk of the current forum issues are on us, the users. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

GothicKratos

First and foremost, I wanna give a thank you to everyone that replied in the thread or in reputation posts (even you two negative nancies! ).

Secondly, I'm sorry for all the awesome people I missed in my shout outs, like Valeyard, JunebugKiller, and WorldRunner! There's a lot of awesome guys and gals out there in forum world and my memory is very, very bad. Some other users like Lidolas, Pylgrim, Lerysh, papa07, lukewin, gamar, and God forbid, even Psykopathic are great, insightful users that slipped my mind and have since came across my mind, and I'd like to also give a shout out. I know I'm still missing a lot of guys. Just complain REALLY LOUD and I'll fix it for you!

Last thing before I get to responding, is just to note I'm not really going to be super active going forward. I'm going to keep my head out of most of the high end conversations and try to stick to the more community orientated stuff like the spoiler thread and the taco token thread and stuff like that. Engaging with everyone is what I'm here to do, and I guess I kinda lost sight of that for a little bit.

atomzed wrote:

I was surprised that I was included in the shout out.... The forums will be different without your sane and levelled headed posts. I like the way you moderated the forums so I guess the forum will be different without you.

Take a good rest. And when you come back, pick the battles that you feel strongly, and just ignore the other posts

To be honest, I don't remember the who or the what, but you were one of the first 'forum personalities' I noticed in my earlier says of the forums, but besides that, you're definitely one of the folks I would certainly consider as a high quality poster. You're awesome and don't let anyone tell you otherwise (or just tell me who they are and I'll take away all their token luck - I can do that).

/////

@ClydeFrog76: How'd you know I love memes? I wish I could give you more than one upvote. :[

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arktos1971 wrote:

It's not all black or white, and the responsibility is shared.

As much as of course (given this thread lol) moreso agree with papa07, you're right in a sense. I would never ever say that MPQ's publicity sense is amazing, nor would I say that I would think (if I were them) that some of their choices would not go over well, and that's going to have a tendency to boil over from time to time, but I do have to say, I'll hold the individual with the pitchfork a thousand times more accountable than the movement they represent. Meaning, basically, that I have no problem with people complaining, or even complaining loudly - you have to do it sometimes to get the point across; been there, done that - however, as an individual, when you are stooping to the level of defaming or accusation remarks, you've kind of hit a low in my books.

For example, my post here, I voiced that I was unhappy in the nature of the forums, but besides a few slightly negative remarks, it was simply informative. I didn't have the gull to call anyone out, I didn't have the tenacity to claim anyone was ruining anything, and I certainly didn't have the gonads to say something inflammatory towards any users. It's unnecessary and it solves nothing. I understand we get upset sometimes and we say things we don't entirely mean sometimes, but a normal person, after calming down and coming to their sense apologizes, or at least amends previous statements to be more reflective on their new-found enlightenment, so to speak, but rarely do we see this ever happen here at MPQ Forums.

I feel like, on an individual level, despite what may be going on around us, we're each responsible for our own actions. If you're being toxic, you're being toxic. There's not a valid excuse for it. If you're upset and wanna vent, you're fine to do so, but you don't need to be rude about it. I'm going to hold you a lot more accountable for your actions and your words as a human being than any words or actions from a corporate entity. We're all human beings here, why can't we be considerate of one another?

/////

As a closing note, if anybody out there that has a problem with something I say or do (or said or did), please do message me. I'm a very talkative person and I'm very willing to have an open dialogue with people. I'm not going to drop any names, because that's not something I do, but I had several of these, especially after the whole "abusing my powers"/"asshat"/"waste of space" comment/s that were widely misconstrued and/or poorly worded, both with people that were inquisitive on my statement and some that thought I was completely out of line, and all of them were completely constructive. No harsh words were exchanged on my part. I genuinely don't think I'm some special guy, like, I literally got this job because they needed people to relegate the spam at the time and I said "For great justice, I'll do it!" and that was that. I don't think some people really get that. I'm just a dude. I don't want to be something else. If I could deal with the spam tasks without having a special colored name or title, I would choice to do that 100% of the time, but that's not how this cookie crumbles, so I take the good with the bad to give a bit of a hand where I can.

Unknown

I should be giving a shoutout in everyone's posts, no matter the subject. When I leave this game,I'll be giving myself a shoutout cause I feel, in all honesty, I'm completely awesome.

Also, tc GK, will see u on line and send u some stickers

GrumpySmurf1002

Phantron wrote:

Unless the idea is that this forum is a lost cause there should be someone who is paid to moderate this stuff, and that way there's also accountability since if whoever's being paid to do this does not do a good job you can at least fire the guy. I think the moderation is lacking, but given nobody's paid to do this I can hardly expect moderators to do more. Sure I realize the staff for this game probably isn't very big, but they don't seem to have any of this long term stuff figured out. You can't have volunteer moderators doing most of the work forever if you think customer feedback is going to be valuable, and it should be valuable if the game is supposed to stick around for a while. They should at least consider some kind of HP stipend or something for moderators doing their job because I sure wouldn't want to deal with myself on a forum let alone anyone else I don't like.

I agree completely. They should really hire some sort of Community Manager.