Thank you Amok & Ivan (And Sun Tzu)

Hi I am Nero

I have to post in this before it gets locked, and I'm surprised it hasn't been already. Like many others, this game was my childhood. Other kids had RuneScape or WoW, I had Afterwind. I have years of fond memories, and even served as a mod for a time.

With that out of the way, it speaks volumes alone that the forum is full of the same complaints over 3 years later. It also just so happens that that's about the only activity the forum really gets, maybe new players are put off by the hour loading time that has been present since day 1.

I remember Dave saying he bought the game because he loved it, he saw a future for it. That's why, instead of modernizing some features, he started an anti-toxicity crusade against some of the most established players. And what good did that do? Over 3 years later, the most activity this game gets is transient guests. And yet, here I am posting in a thread made by Waffel. Why would we come to post this after not playing for years? Because WE LOVE THE GAME TOO!

Maybe the administration and I have different views of community, but there has been no benefit to ANY community on this game. All I see now is a barren safe space for no one. People play games for fun, so when you ban or chase out the players having fun, no one will want to play. That's what happened to me, and I'm sure many others. And now that the toxic players and all their buddies are gone, you get no scenarios, no clan wars, no tournaments, and a dead forum. Just the fact that it took a thread from Waffel to revitalize the forums should tell you what you need to know.

I think it's time to admit that a few trolls aren't the worst thing about this game, and that a certain owner took poor advice. That scary toxic community is here years later wishing this game was playable, while the anti-toxicity crusaders have disappeared and left the game in shambles.

Atwar has given me rushes I crave for to this day, playing cws for hours and carrying lategame, losing in incredible fashion (thanks tungston and others) or the rush of being someone who I've been trying to beat for months to years. Discussing strategy in this game is fun and incredibly captivating. Trolling low ranks is the equivalent to true happiness, training them is impossible but also a fun thing to try and do.

Helping people get premium, being toxic as hell, im sure most people have had similar experiences when they were low ranks getting dogged on but being able to talk to the vast community. it's been years but I literally remember hundreds maybe a thousand different players even from all the few but valuable years I was able to play. The past is far behind us but I know I',m not just feeling nostalgia, those were great times for not just me but for countless people.

It's easy to blame in hindsight but people move on and this game definitely suffered after people lost the thing that made this game so great : the people who were part of the diverse culture of atwar. Shameful to see this put on blast here and have to relive the sad state of affairs put together by all the players and mods, 99% of people know what the problem is, and I think personally only half or less of the blame can be put on the owner, But rather his advantageous sidekick who swayed him in the wrong direction. Much love to keeping the game running and forums accessible, and thanks to the original devs for designing this work of art.

Written by Nero, 02.04.2025 at 18:54

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Holy shit is this actually Nero

But the fact that a former Mod says this speaks volumes of the problems AW is facing and faced. Dave, if its not clear by now, you can atleast start by unbanning those from the 2021 stuff. And probably Bugs too, I doubt he would cheat again. and besides, Pavle cheats and he is head supporter and unbanned, so I think its only fair.

I remember the curiousity that rich and wide community and game styles such as 2011-2012 could invoke. So many different players and views, so many game styles. Every night to stay awake was well worth it.

I remember the small and well known community that late 2010s atwar used to be. I remember what a broken soul I had and how important it was to have that corner.

That being said, afterwind and atwar will only have meaning, and continue to exist only if we'd be wise to learn from what we enjoyed and were riviliged to experience. 1000 more eu+/wwi games would not change it, and no matter if we were called rats/cockroaches by the late time mods.

Despite all the jealously and the bad blood, after this game shuts down, remember that you still have that friend Roai, who remembers you and wishes all the best for you.

Sphinx.

[Dave]:
Not here to placate waffels 300th goodbye post or stir up past grievances. First, Dave I owe you a small apology for 2022. I never had any grievances with you and still don't to this day. I'm grateful you bought this place and kept the lights on, even if it didn't make financial sense from an IRR perspective. I've long known you've had deranged, resentful communist types in your ear whispering about their grandiose game plans in which you MUST purge players, that just so happen to align with their petty, decade long inferiority complexes. I've never held that against you. More on that later. I've never blame you once for anything that happened here and you have my gratitude. I know I'll take some shit from ole lao for saying this, but who cares, I've always been my own player.

[Nostalgia fagging, can skip]:
Of all of the years I played this game, I'd say 2017-2018 was my favorite, with the covid season being a close second. 2017-18 era was peak competition, aristrocrats, mk, illyria, peaky blinders, amigos and more. I remember I was invited to aristo by Klevis, as probably the only developed rank 7 at the time. Days later, Klevis never logged in again, so I was in search for a new clan. I remember looking at Illyria, one of the three great clans and wanting in. I was hungry for knowledge and Laochra, who I consider the most complete player ever, was who I wanted to learn from. I joined. It was dead. A dusty hall of old legends who hadn't really competed in years. Lao was occasionally dueling but there was no one to clanwar with. I invited 4nic my best friend and 2v2 partner. We began dominating and slowly the clan began to stir back to life. Lao integrated us well, acq became active again, dbacks too, khal for a season or two before he ran off to get married. Chill ran a tight ship, nero was our cheerleader and syrian depressingly wandered the halls, I was in love. I got my friends boywind and witch-doctor to join. We dominated the clan war scene for a year straight with decisive season wins. We had such a stacked squad that our second string could've probably won seasons alone. Everyone hated us, except for us. We had a monopoly on talent, with the personalities to go with it We were a tightly knit clique that other clans tried to emulate, but could never. Total Illyrian Nationalism. This lead to a resentful out group, more on this later.

Covid was a fun season where everyone came back and we had the most active, most competitive season to date. The gameplay was sketchier and more unconventional, but at the end of the day, it was an amazing way to spend the pandemic and have one last dance with familiar friends and foes. And I am grateful.

[The elephant in the room]:
When Dave bought this game there was a power vacuum and extreme information asymmetry from a player to owner standpoint. Asymmetric information occurs when one party has more superior information than another. In this case Dave, who hadn't wasted years of his life on this wonderful game like us, was at a disadvantage. He was brutally taken advantage of by Sid, to no fault of his own. When buying the game, Dave was not aware of the extremely nuanced player caste system, who to listen to, who to avoid, who to trust. it would've been impossible. He was taken advantage of by a resentful player who pretended to have altruistic and unbiased narratives but used the unaware dave as a bludgeon against all of his in-game opponents.

[Mini history lesson]
Mods typically were a combination of player votes and an inner mod conclusive vote. Mods consisted of many well respected, top players with freakish outliers like sultan, google chrome, and a younger version of cold case (he's cool now). Sid was not voted by players nor elected by mods. He spent his time sucking off Sun Tzu, the admin at the time, in a similar way he did to Dave. Sid was quietly and unilaterally promoted by the now disgraced Sun Tzu days before he was demoted for taking bribes from a player to complete a task. Players mostly didn't mind because he remained quiet and reasonable. Years later, during covid, Brian announced he wouldn't have internet for awhile (lol), so Sid was "temporarily" elevated to community manager with a red badge. To no ones surprise, he never stepped down and became some sort of authoritarian right hand admin, who never ever mentioned any of this. During this time he elevated fellow apparatchiks to modship who wouldn't question him. NPCs like lelouch, mobster, dire and others who have came and went. It was a total shit show. There was no longer diversity of thought or opinion, it was a one man regime, with dissenters being demoted or banned.

[The boil-over]
After years of wearing the mask, in 2022 Sid went mask off. Banning waffel and laochra, setting of the 2022 "crisis" events, and despite essentially the whole player base and 80% of the mods telling him to step down, he held on for dear life. Anyone in the "cool kids club" was nuked, players deleted, quit, lashed out. Sure, maybe this game was in decline, but that certainly was a shot of morphine into the artery of atwar. Atwar is like a tree of life, a few established players leave and it causes ripples that lead to many others stepping away. Sid resented Laochra and others on a personal level for his failure to fit in the competitive ingroup. He didn't have the skill to compete or the personality to entertain and instead of doing his own thing like a normal person he harbored that resentment for years until he could go scorched earth.

The end-game
A resentful, freakish, inferior freak tried to convince dave to essentially corporatize AtWar. I look at Sids awful plan like Bolshevism. In 1918, communist freaks murdered the Russian Royal Romanov family in their basement. Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and their 5 children, the youngest child being 13, were brutally murdered. The bolsheviks killed the children too because they knew that if they left even one alive, the people would be able to cling onto an heir of the throne and it threatened their one party communist rule. You may be thinking, wtf Sphinks has gone insane, stay with me here. Like the bolsheviks, Sid wanted to eradicate all atwar history, as he had never taken part in it. He wanted to dismantle players clans, hierarchies, the competitive system as a whole. These were words out of his mouth. He wanted to flatten this whole game, start anew and be the glorious leader of "hundreds of thousands" of braindead bots, who had no notion of what "Mortal Kombat was, or what a 3v3 Europe game was". I am not exaggerating this plan, he wanted to raze this place for a monetized botfarm. This is sheer resentment of someone who has never won a clan war season, never played a game with the season on the line, climbed the duel rank charts. They wanted it ALL GONE. All of you who spent years contributing to this community were nothing but cattle, replaceable, expendable. During the peak of being high on his own supply he even mentioned that "AtWar would be his retirement plan" once it went mainstream. These are verifiable facts. Once that plan seemed unattainable he just disappeared, leaving a path of ruin and bans in his wake.

[The whitepill]
It's not all doom and gloom. I know for a fact this game isn't near the top of priorities in Daves busy life, especially in this volatile economic climate. But there are many talented, genius individuals here who would love to help you fix this place up and perhaps monetize it better. But thats a conversation for another time. This place is one of a kind, and there are ways to increase revenue and player-count with it becoming a soulless slop-fest. And I appreciate you for at least keeping the lights on for now.

[Final Thoughts]
At the end of the day, AtWar is more than just a game, it's a living, breathing community built by the blood, sweat, and rivalries of its players. Dave, you've kept this chaotic, beautiful mess alive, and for that, we owe you. The scars of the past, won't fade easily, but they're a testament to what this place once was and could be again. There's still life in these halls, still talent willing to step up, and still a chance to turn this into something sustainable without losing its soul. Let's not let resentment or apathy write the final chapter.

Written by Dave, 01.04.2025 at 23:41

Written by Palmitas, 16.03.2025 at 18:42

I always said this: I believe that people change. People can sometimes see that they fucked up, and correct it. I believe Dave can change mistakes he did in the past.

As for profits, it is a very tough spot indeed, but you can increase activity by just unbanning people, its a no brainer to atleast start from that and give it a shot.

The only mistake I've made with atWar was actually caring TOO much about the community and what other people think. It caused me to waste too much time talking to people trying to make them see my position. Nobody cares. Waffel is the perfect example. I spent HOURS talking with that dude, listening to his concerns, telling him mine, and trying to reach understanding. Then he goes off and posts things which only show me that he absolutely did not understand anything I said. The lesson I've learned: people are gonna bitch no matter what. Nothing I say will change their minds. Just do what you need to do for the best interests of the game and ignore the noise.

If I had it to do over, I would have banned people faster and not wasted so much time explaining why. Activity was already declining before, and continued declining after.... banning a few toxic people who needed to go didn't do anything to change the course the game was already on. In other words: no great loss. The upshot: somewhat less moderation issues to have to deal with. The trade-off was and is worth it.

It does irritate me however when people say I "don't care" about atWar. It's easy for people to sit back and make accusations when they don't have the real life responsibilities to deal with like I do. I know better than to expect any sympathy or understanding from this community. But I do keep atWar running and deal with the emergencies when things break, no matter how busy I am with other things. Is that the act of someone who doesn't care?

Toxic? You know I'd never been called toxic in my life until I met you.

I had my account of 8 years erased because i criticized how you ran things. You told lies to the community about why i was banned and censored every post made in my defense by both myself and by others. You and Sid decided you'd enact your 1984 fantasy on dozens of players. Who's the toxic one here Dave?

I can't hop on and play a world game with my old friends because of you.

I can't go have a nostalgic clan war vs mk or Aristo because of you.

I can't hop on to the forums and have a laugh with Waffel without using VPNs and different devices because of you.

I can't go burn some hours on a scenario because of you.

Who's the toxic one here?

And stop whining about your real life responsibilities. We all have them. I know in your mind we are all lifeless incels who sit around all day moving pixels around on a browser. But we are actually real people with lives, jobs, partners, wives, kids and responsibilities of our own. I guess dehumanising us makes it easier for you to treat people like disposable garbage eh?

Like I said in the other thread, fuck you Dave. I've earned the right to say that with how you've treated me. You don't get to call me toxic.

On a positive note though, this game was truly a wonder. All the fun games, clan wars, rivalries, banter and drama from people all around the world - all facilitated by 2 risk enthusiast brothers who put this game together as a hobby.

I have lots of love and nostalgia for this game and always will, even if I am no longer welcome around here.

The 2014-2016 era was peak for me. But then the likes of sphinx, boywind, 4nic and witchdoctor came along and injected another burst of life into the game for another few years. I'd even really began to enjoy scenarios and that side of the community. I'd easily still be playing this game if I could and pestering all the oldtimers to come back even if only for 1 game.

Alas all good things come to an end. Thanks Ivan and Amok, thanks Waffel, thanks mk, illy, aristo, enigma, epic-clan, thanks scenario community and most of all, thank you Croat.

Ciao.

I think dave surrounded himself with the wrong people and whats worse he trusted them and gave them power, which is normal actually the most power hungry people are the ones to make it and then use that power how they want
like Stalin in the Ussr he didnt rule it for so long by being a great statesman for sure , and reading by the comments here on sid u can draw a pretty good parallel, ban dissenters and surround urself with puppets and yes-men.
These are ppl that dont really care about the good of the game but their own ego , if everyone was against them they would permaban everyone destroy the community and leave themselves too just in spite. (which kinda happened already)
If dave thinks hes flawless and hasnt made a single wrong decision in picking staff , bans or whatever then hes an egoist too and theres simply no point to argue about that.
Marking people as toxic and permabanning is also illogical cus who decides who is toxic or not its not a logical measurement , and id bet if u made an anyonymous poll about dave , sid croat or whoever majority would mark them as toxic too.
Many years ago i remember reading the forum drama of croat vs CE, which was some of the funniest banter ive ever read but if that happened today the posts and threads would be deleted, croat would be called toxic,racist and permabaned maybe and CE too as well which puts todays situation in perspective , its probably why nowadays theres not much discussion going on in forums anyway since they have been "sterilized" of toxicity.
Banning or permaban ppl for cheating is k , but permabaning bugs for cheating while slapping pavle on the wrist for the same thing and letting him keep supporter status , id rather u just come and take a crap on my head
than doing this kangaroo court stuff.

Written by YourSphinx, 04.04.2025 at 00:44

Sphinx.

In 1918, communist freaks murdered the Russian Royal Romanov family in their basement.

the romanov family was murdered by bolshevik JEWS in a satanic ritual (they worked so hard to hide this with fake propaganda and censor. never ask about this on chatgpt it will get removed instantly)

Written by 77TENGRI99, 04.04.2025 at 15:13

Written by YourSphinx, 04.04.2025 at 00:44

Sphinx.

In 1918, communist freaks murdered the Russian Royal Romanov family in their basement.

the romanov family was murdered by bolshevik JEWS in a satanic ritual (they worked so hard to hide this with fake propaganda and censor. never ask about this on chatgpt it will get removed instantly)

Those who know…

Some people were harshly banned, people that were influential in the community and very active. Their bans led to others leaving as they couldn't play together anymore. I super rarely interacted with Lao for example but Lao seemed fine and not toxic from them few interactions I did experience.

All of this could have been avoided if only dave had made me head moderator after buying the game and had given lilouch under my command as head mini supporter

Written by 77TENGRI99, 04.04.2025 at 15:13

Written by YourSphinx, 04.04.2025 at 00:44

Sphinx.

In 1918, communist freaks murdered the Russian Royal Romanov family in their basement.

the romanov family was murdered by bolshevik JEWS in a satanic ritual (they worked so hard to hide this with fake propaganda and censor. never ask about this on chatgpt it will get removed instantly)

1. Bolshevism was not Jewish
2. The Bolshevik inner circle did not even give the order for the execution. Lenin and Trotsky wanted initially to trial the Tsar than hand out the correct punishment.
3. What happened to the family was unfortunate but you have to understand that from a Bolshevik perspective they were dangerous. If they remained in the country or were simply exiled it would have posed a threat to their power. They would have had a harder time to be legitimized and Tsarist influenced riots or even other forms of revolutions would of possibly taken place.