To Defy the Laws of Tradition

Another year has passed, and with it I have officially passed a decade in my membership to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. Along with the only person who comes to mind right now – Oberst – I’m one of the few who has been around that long. This installment deals with a few things that used to happen, but for some reason we just stopped – or things that we’ve never given a chance.

April Fool’s Don’t.
I was genuinely disappointed that nothing happened to the site this year for AFD. I sent in a suggestion last summer that I thought for sure would have been used, but when I went to DJB.COM yesterday – nothing. Well, I should say ‘nothing unusual’ because there was stuff there, but it was the usual DJB crap. Since Michael Halcyon’s exodus from the Dark Side, the AFD website change joke has been something I’ve waited all year for. The Pokémon one was kind of funny, though completely out of fashion. Not that my suggestion was any closer… I had thought either Smurfs or Snorks would have been a great AFD complete site change.

At one point yesterday I started writing my own little AFD joke – a complete defection from the Dark Side – but I was quickly put off at the thought of hundreds of hate e-mail flooding my gmail inbox. It’s not a whole hell of a huge stretch though – I mean, just look at my dossier… or my wiki entry.

Hard Roles
Since the DJB SPG system is a long way off, I think we should just give general RP a chance. Sildrin and I have discussed starting an IRC channel for RP only. We’ve started defining some ground rules such as no OOC talking, no idling and no power tripping – this means all those low level people who like to talk big would find themselves in a world of hurt. This channel also wouldn’t tolerate much of the overly dramatic/quasi-romantic “nearly VTM” garbage that the Lounge (on the Forums) became.

I also wanted to extend this out to a JA map for strictly RP, but that’s a bit tougher I think. The server would have to have like 40 custom skins installed in order to satisfy the diverse choices people make for their characters. I kind of wish SWG had a ‘free local server’ option. The DJB’s own environment like that would be awesome.

WARNING – Tangent – A few things really pissed me off about SWG though. For one I couldn’t just use my damned character name. Secondly no one was ever really around when I was. Third the game punished non-combat classes with massive taxes and no viable way to make a living. Fourth, by the time I decided I wanted to try for Jedi I totally lost interest in the game because I was so heavily in debt.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Everyone knows all about how I ranted about respect being lost on the newer members, right? Well in some capacity I’m still right. However – in browsing the forums, I came to the realization of something I didn’t quite consider at the time of writing my original rant; Respect is truly a two-way street. I knew this before, but I was so blinded in my rage I disregarded it.

The one thing that popped up in a thread was that sometimes people who have not earned enough or do not deserve respect find their way into positions of power. These self-absorbed, megalomaniacal freaks latch on to low level leadership positions, then slowly work up the ladder. They do a good enough job in those spots, churning out activity and keeping people interested, but they lack in social graces (or they lose it when dealing with specific members). I’ve dealt with some people I flat out hate. Do they know? Probably not. Friend or foe, I’ve tried to be equal in dealing with people and their problems, even if their problem is me.

The point here is that sometimes you have to just suck it up and be the bigger person. Let the jackass dig their own grave. I know we’re all “dark jedi” and “evil” and all that crap but we’re also humans who make mistakes and communicate using technology that can easily distort one’s intent. Your character can be an evil monster. You shouldn’t.