anonrerising | Damnit, Arcanist

Very very late but apparently we have an answer now, but boy would I love some context because this seemingly came out of nowhere and... What the fuck?

https://ibb.co/xhBR1dF

Text version:

"Hey all,

We would like to address the members of this community regarding a recent letter posted by a former moderator of Lorwolf, Qhersek. As some may already be aware, this individual was dismissed earlier this year due to a longstanding history of unprofessional conduct, contract violations, and the persistent harassment of Alaunis - as well as several other moderators - over the past few months. Despite numerous attempts to reach an amicable resolution, this individual exploited Alaunis' empathetic nature and made multiple appeals to the admin team, aiming to induce guilt and secure reinstatement as a moderator. This individual does not represent the values or ideologies of Bashful Games LLC, and our team wholeheartedly denies many of the claims presented in this letter. Contrary to the beliefs of this individual, the Lorwolf staff are here to facilitate the enjoyment of Lorwolf, especially with the help of our new Community Manager, Quiche. Quiche’s arrival marks a pivotal step forward in bridging the gap between our valued players and Lorwolf’s dev team.

If anyone has questions or would like further details regarding the firing of this individual from the moderation team, or would like proof of any/all instances of Qhersek threatening and harassing Alaunis or our other mods, we invite you to reach out to Alaunis at alaunis@lorwolf.com - who has recorded and stored screenshots of all communications with this former moderator. We hope this has offered some clarity on the matter, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Moonsblessings,
The Lorwolf Team"

I have no idea what this letter is, where it could be, or even if I could find it now. Probably got deleted if it was on LW somewhere.

i have no horse in this race but if theyre willing to share proof why in the world would they only do it via email. just post the damn screenshots. this isnt some twitter "dm me for context" dramabait this is supposed to be a professional response to alleged mod harassment

I don't know anything about this either, but you can find the letter it references linked on qhersek's tumblr, which doesn't take much googling to find

AYRT

Ahh, thank you. I didn't realize they had posted it to their Tumblr as well.

Letter link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-UWC2UzojACCG_c74Jo_axw-oCC5GmhcDRtQBIBN7ic/edit

It seems Qhersek has updated the letter to respond to Alaunis' statement just now.

ayrt

Okay, I only made it halfway before I had to stop, this letter is a bummer.

tl;dr for the letter:

Apparently Qhersek did a lot of uncredited and unpaid developing work and pointed out and tried to fix all the issues that the beta testers and current users have complained about since the site's inception. They were going to be offered a paid position when things broke down?

(ex. activity upgrades originally used moonstones, Qhersek convinced Alaunis to change them to pebbles, then after Qhersek was fired Alaunis changed them back to moonstones; Qhersek pointing out the launch date was too soon for how incomplete the game was when Alaunis secretly revealed the date, Alaunis flipping out for the breach of secrecy when Qhersek told other staff about the launch date in the hopes that they could convince Alaunis to wait longer for the launch; basically their whole tenure there was Qhersek fixing up the parts of the site they were grudgingly allowed to, with Alaunis being inexplicably stubborn about anything that involving balancing gameplay elements and improving the site)

Things broke down because both Qhersek and Alaunis broke the boundaries between being coworkers and being close friends and Qhersek had a real bad mental health crisis and reached out to Alaunis as a friend instead of a boss, and said, uh, bad stuff of the "i'm going to unalive myself and i don't want to hurt you" flavor to Alaunis, which she understandably interpreted as threatening, which was the breaking point to fire Qhersek and scrub their name from the site contributions they made.

Also the head mod babbled about Qhersek's personal stuff to other staff. Just, boundary breaking all around in this site's backstage, bad sign. I don't see a bright future for Lorwolf with these people in charge, honestly.

Qhersek's contributions from the site getting scrubbed makes so much sense now as to why one of the deity accounts was being used for mod stuff. I didn't recall back in EA, but I do now, that those threads were originally by Qhersek. I also remember the thread they mentioned where everyone was talking about their criticisms with the game. Everything lines up...

All around, I think everyone here is very unprofessional. Alaunis shouldn't even be dipping their toes into the drama by allowing people to get "receipts/screenshots", and the "exploiting Alaunis' empathetic nature" part of her message just rubbed me the wrong way. But Alaunis has a tendency to act unprofessional towards users, so this doesn't surprise me that much.

ayrt

Yeah, agreed. Both crossed lines. Don't make your coworkers/bosses/underlings your confidantes!

(Also forgot to add, Qhersek handled mod applications, Alaunis didn't want to hire mods??? What shape would the site currently be in if Qhersek hadn't appeared?)

sa

I forgot to add: they also did unpaid writing, graphic and admin work, quoting a bit here:

Wrote guides, the forum etiquette, rewrote the barebones ToS with Alaunis, created custom keywords and descriptions, contributed several implemented ideas, drafted countless documents on overhauls, QoLs, economy and balancing (most of which was disregarded), came up with the discord staff acount, the indexes, etc.

Like, dang. I wonder if, besides personal pride/control of one's creation, Alaunis said no to implementing many things because this person was borderline a co-creator/co-admin and would that would have opened up legal/money implications?

When they were becoming friends and Qhersek wasn't communicating because of money troubles, Alaunis gifted them money on a personal gift way, which I suspect further complicates things on the professional side of things.

fucking blows that quersek literally wrote the TOS that they were not credited for and that was sent to them when they got banned. if LW is going to the effort to remove them from the site entirely they should at least have the thought to rewrite that stuff. feels very unprofessional all around

sa

*animations, I somehow erased that word when shifting text around. They did animation work on the site too. I'm counting like 3-4 normally-you-would-pay-for-this work positions they volunteered for

Which is also its own boundary blurring troubling behavior, if well-intentioned. Know your worth! All of this is normally paid work!

Like no wonder Alaunis is just confidently going ahead, feedback be damned, she saved so much money, which would have otherwise been hours and hours of her own time and effort if she tried to do it all herself.

I don't care about Lorwolf but from your summary, this honestly seem like a petsite version of the iiluminaughtii Youtuber drama.

I read a summary of that and yeah, a tale as old as time. It's the common of thread of passion projects where you don't separate your work from your personal life stuff, either because of unhealthy ego or because of mental health stuff.

Internet being what it is now, it's super easy to have all this stuff leak to the public.

Also the lower barrier of entry; for better or for worse, you don't have PR keeping your drama under wraps to protect a company's interests, you are your own PR.

+1 Yeah I was just thinking this. No sock account harassment army or cease and desist letters yet (or wild pedo accusations) but the tamer bits are very similar.

Re: Lorwolf Launch Wankers?

(Anonymous) - 2023-05-29 22:44 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Lorwolf Launch Wankers?

(Anonymous) - 2023-05-29 22:56 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Lorwolf Launch Wankers?

(Anonymous) - 2023-05-30 03:41 (UTC) - Expand

Going to be honest, Qhersek does come off pretty unhinged later in the doc in screenshots they presented and absolutely need to get some professional help for their obsession issues BUT

Lol, lmao even. I am not surprised that both owners of the website couldn't care enough about their shortcomings to accept and listen to people they literally hired. They need to learn how to eat their pride.

Take this as a sign: Cash and get out fast. Lorwolf is not getting better anytime soon.

Qhersek probably is a country that doesn't value mental health

Someone asked Qhersek more details about the ideas and changes they suggested:

https://www.tumblr.com/qhersek/718686255250079745/i-appreciate-you-taking-accountability-and-owning

Some of them are iterative quality of life and balance things, like the kind of thing you only realize is missing once you try to play the game to see how it flows, but others are such bare basics for a functional petsite that it's baffling that it was pointed out they were missing way back then and they still are missing today.

The site truly wasn't ready for launch.

I originally thought the devs were just oblivious/in over their heads and didn't know a damn thing about game design, but looking through what Qhersek told them, they had all the blueprints/advice on how to make a good petsite (or at least better than it is now) on a silver fucking platter and they're choosing to do nothing with it.

Holy shit, I have no faith in the devs anymore.

I didn't hope it'd fail before, but now? I do.

There's also a tumblr post that says that lorwolf apparel has stolen designs from fr accents and skins, which if true, yikes

https://www.tumblr.com/iaqo-petsim/718135259193016320/this-is-a-reminder-that-even-if-you-do-not-intend

Ah, apparel is usermade?

not all of it, but the vast majority. you have to use premium currency to submit the designs too lol. if it looks good, it's probably user-made.

SA

And now this response is gone from the Lorwolf Discord's announcement channel. Maybe it finally hit them that this wasn't the most professional move?

I doubt it. They're probably more concerned that not everyone is instantly on their side and a lot of the community liked Qhersek and are believing her.

The mod team's attitude is very black and white. Either you're on Alaunis' side, or Qhersek's.

If you even dare point out that the google document points out some things that are verifiably true from other sources -- such as the owners not listening to all the bugs and issues that needed to be fixed -- you might as well be okay with the harassment that Qhersek did.

To clarify, before anyone gets it wrong, what Qhersek did was not okay in terms of harassing staff. However that doesn't mean that their other points are immediately invalid.

Qhersek wasn't right. But the staff wiping their name off all they did and turning them into a villain for mental illness and sharing that with anyone that asked?

The situation is just shit, and I'm glad I didn't give any money. Honestly, if I had anything there, I would strongly consider selling it for FR while the getting is good.