Giskard and False Accusations

[Arthmoor]

Heh. I had thought about that, but no, I don't think he was ever a MUD developer :P

[Dallen68]

Actually, he was. Or at least he said he was some time ago. He also posted a link sometime last year to a forum from like 1996 to show that he was a Mechstorm (or something like that) modder. Reading through that thread shows no sign of the Giskard we know and love, however.

[The_Fury]

Arhhh, but it just goes to show a trend that we all know and understand, spend time as a mud admin and it makes you retarded and that it takes a long time out of muds for the retardism to subside, and for some, it never leaves.

[Vorians]

I have no clue what Mechstorm actually is, but one of Giskard's websites was called Mechstorm, as far as I remember. That was back when he first started causing trouble in the Oblivion community.

[Arthmoor]

His having once been a MUD developer explains so much.

[Dallen68]

Mechstorm is a game where you build robot vehicles (think power rangers) and battle them against each other. Each team is represented by (by default) one of four colours. Giskard is famous for inventing a fith colour (gold).

[The_Fury]

[quote]Giskard is famous for inventing a fith colour (gold). [/quote] Did he call this highly modified?

[Arthmoor]

Given his arrogance, he probably called it 100% rewritten and no longer subject to the license :P

[Dallen68]

Well, no. He was actually pretty modest about it. From the comments and requests that followed, I'm guessing this was actually some kind of feat in 1996. I also gather that at that time, it was played in DOS and in order to mod you had to know one or the other assembly languages. Today, of course...everyone and his brother has their own colour. It is possible that he became accostomed to this kind of praise and now thinks anything less is...trolling?

[Arthmoor]

1996? Nope. It's no different today than it was back then. You download a code package. You get yourself a linux account somewhere, learn C, and have at it. There's no assembly language involved here. It's certainly way more involved than Oblivion scripting but it wasn't anything special to download a copy of Smaug or Rom and have something up and running within an hour's time even if you were 100% clueless. And plenty of people were clueless. The fact that hardly anything has changed in 15 years time is why MUDding is more or less dead. There hasn't been a new innovation in the field in at least 20 years or longer. If Giskard got praised left and right for the ability to download a source package, compile it once, and launch it I suppose it's certainly possible he thinks anything less that slavering praise is an attack on his abilities. A lot of MUD developers end up with egos the size of Great Britain.

[AndalayBay]

Alright, I have to ask: what the hell is MUD(ding)? I think you posted a link at one point and I read through it, but it went in one eye and out the other, or something... :lol:

[Arthmoor]

The shitty Wikipedia explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD My tl;dr summary: Text based MMO, without the "massive" part.

[Dallen68]

Ahhh...I've always just called those "text adventures". I didn't think anyone still played those.

[Arthmoor]

[url=http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/content.php?356-Current-Service-problems]*snicker*[/url] I wasn't aware having, you know, actual visitors was considered a "service problem" :P And yes, Dallen, people do still play MUDs though it's lost most of its popularity over the last 10 years. Steadily bleeding out to MMOs. They're not quite text adventures, but close.

[Dallen68]

It probably isn't the hosting services fault either. It might be *his* DNS server. I mean...pick an address and stick to it, so when people type 'theengineeringguild.co.uk'; the DNS servers go "ok, that's 4.12.12.12" (or whatever) and poof! your visitors are there.

[Arthmoor]

His DNS server is the same as the host he's using though. So that shouldn't be an issue. Besides, DNS issues like what you're describing are only a problem for the first 72 hours of changing the IP address.

[Vorians]

Considering that in the past (possibly still now, I don't know) Giskard has banned his forum members from talking about or linking to his sites when on other sites (resulting in being banned if caught out (which presumably involved taking several screenshots of their post on other forums from multiple angles, then sending them to the police to investigate)), I think having actual visitors really is considered a "service problem" for Giskard.

[Dallen68]

Well, he does take screenshots. I actually wonder how many he has of this thread. :lol: From what you can see on the public part of his current site, i'd take it that that is still the policy. I guess we can add that to the growing number of reasons I'm here and not there. Any way, banning people for mentioning you, seriously? :stare: I can understand having a rule about what people do on *your* site; but who in their right mind has rules about what you can do on someone elses?

[Vorians]

Only paranoid people have rules about what you can do on other websites.

[Arthmoor]

And strangely, MUDding seems to attract a large proportion of paranoid people.

[prettyfly]

[quote=Vorains]Considering that in the past (possibly still now, I don't know) Giskard has banned his forum members from talking about or linking to his sites when on other sites (resulting in being banned if caught out (which presumably involved taking several screenshots of their post on other forums from multiple angles, then sending them to the police to investigate)), I think having actual visitors really is considered a "service problem" for Giskard.[/quote] A warning to all of Giskards followers; Big Brother is watching.

[Dallen68]

Well, actually Big Brother's minions, but yeah.

[The_Fury]

[quote]And strangely, MUDding seems to attract a large proportion of paranoid people.[/quote] [quote]My tl;dr summary: Text based MMO, without the "massive" part.[/quote] The M stands for Massive Ego

[Vorians]

It helps to have a few friends registered on Giskard's site, I can rely on them to let me know when they're talking about me (paranoia spreads!!!). Giskard [url=http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/content.php?355-Warning-to-Origin-of-the-Mages-Guild-Users]unleashed[/url] his followers on another modder last week (Reaper9111), sending them to flame him in his [url=http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/163915-reapers-arcane-university-v-4/page__view__findpost__p__3412550]Nexus comments[/url] thread. Now this modder might possibly have done wrong (he certainly did something unsafe since it upset Giskard enough to make a public rant about it) - I don't have v6 of OMG so I don't know whether this version included the "anybody may edit and upload my mod without asking my permission" licensing or whether it included the "I hate you!!!!" licensing; this modder provided a compatible version of Origin of the Mages Guild (ESP only, separate download) to work with his mod. The only edits to OMG were nudging a door and relocating a few banners, otherwise it was the original OMG unedited since Giskard uploaded it (though it was v6, slightly outdated, but you can't blame a modder for mistakenly believing that Giskard has quit modding forever and hasn't continued to release updates somewhere unknown since then). This barely edited ESP has been described as a "massacre" of Giskard's work, a "messy edit" of Giskard's work, and "ruining [Giskard's] original university" (wait, what? The IC AU is an original creation by Giskard, not Bethesda?! Did Bethesda seek Giskard's permission to include his Arcane University in their game? Call the police, quick!!). Well I do agree that the ESP was a messy edit, but not because of Reaper's tweaks, it was messy before he ever touched it. So I sent this poor modder a PM suggesting that he dispose of his compatible OMG ESP, and posted some counter-defence in his thread. The offending OMG ESP was promptly removed coupled with an apology by the persecuted modder. Next thing I know, I'm being informed by a friend that a certain ComplexityBrit is laughing over how they think they got one over on me by posting [i]using a different user name[/i] on TES Nexus (shock! horror! People can actually have more than one username on different sites!!!! Oh the humanity! Won't somebody please think of the children! Blah blah blah) hoping I wouldn't recognise their post as being a poke in my direction. Well ComplexityBrit, the joke's on you, as not only do I now know that a Giskard guildmember is also secretly called LordRavenclaw on TES Nexus, but I... don't... care. So what? That's no clever trick pulled against me. Your posts already made it clear that you were a Giskard follower, after all you were the first person to start the flaming. The end-result? Less people will now be using OMG, as those who like Reaper's Arcane University will now have to drop OMG (any version) from their games.

[Arthmoor]

I saw, I just wasn't interested in reading the comments. If I were Reaper, I would have produced the license from the copy of the mod I used and told Giskard and his minions to shove it out their asses. Assuming he used the "do what you will" version of it anyway. If he used the "no touching the locks" version then Giskard did have a legit complaint - only in so far as using his work without permission. This business that moving two banners and a door "destroyed" the mod is preposterous. If that's all it took, the mod shipped in its destroyed state right from the start. So yeah. Oh well. Good one G. Less people using your stuff. Less people knowing you're still around. From a certain point of view, I can't really see that as bad! Oh, I know. I bet this is another one of those "service problems" he was blathering on about before.