Hi,

As most of you know, as of today(9/21/11) I have resigned from running BLN. When I say running, I mean it in the most literal way possible.

For the past 5-6 years, I have been the one who has actively been keeping BLN going.

I have spent a great deal of my time reporting bugs, offering temporary solutions, and moderating players.
I have spent a great deal of my time making sure that the team gets credit for work that is stolen.
I have spent a great deal of time providing icons and resources for the game and providing quality control for a good portion for update content.
I have spent a great deal of time enforcing rules, whether they be rooted in stupidity, or rooted in necessity.
I have spent a great deal of time managing the various members of the GM team we have had in the past.
I have spent a great deal of time making sure that the community doesn't implode due to bug abuse, verb abuse, or unnecessary player conflict.
I have spent a great deal of time and effort in damage control when unexpected critical issues happen, such as extended down time, and game breaking bugs.
I have spent a great deal of time managing bans and negotiating punishment.
I have spent a great deal of time assisting people with issues in game.

Many times I have saved this game from being shut down due to neglect from its programmers. There are many times where I have also chosen to shut down the game in order to prevent further damages due to irreparable issues.

After spending so much time keeping the game stable and going, many of you might be wondering why I choose this time out of all other times to resign. I feel the least I can do is make it clear as to why I'm abandoning you and the game.

The reason is really rooted in one simple truth: The only competent developer we have had working on this game is Spike, and honestly, he is not as experienced and proficient as a developer as the game deserves.

Everyone else who has touched this game's source code are incompetent. They do not know how to generate quality code. They do not know how to make sure their code is efficient. They do not know the fundamentals of software design. They do not know how to test their code, and more often than not they didn't even take the time to try.

The primary culprit I am speaking of here is Buster.

Obviously this is natural; ultimately these people program to satisfy a hobby interest. They think it is, to a certain degree, fun to be able to generate an interactive world from pure logic and thought.

But does that give him the right to consistently integrate failure into the game? No.
Does it mean that he should be able to get away with doing rushed and shoddy updates? No.
Does it mean that he should become arrogant and deliberately ignore the problems pervading his design? No.
Does it mean that he gets to decide how people should play the game, force "balance" by choosing people's game play, make people suffer through endless hours of half-assed grinding and poorly thought out quest content? No.

Yet he does. Why? Because he's the "owner." Because he thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he slapped together a poorly designed core engine in a matter of weeks. It's a vicious cycle really, whenever he updates or does something people think is cool, it inflates his ego. And because of his over inflated ego, he automatically assumes that everything he programs is of perfection, despite the inherent flaws that pervade most of his decisions.

Here is a man who one day came back out of the blue after an extended absence and decided that the game should be RP. Why? Because he played Dragon Ball Finale and suddenly decided that its game play would fit very well in the PVP environment of BLN. For years, players and staff alike suffered through the consequences of his rushed and poorly inspired change to RP. He completely neglected the fact that a change to a completely different playing style would require a complete redesign of the game play, and he brute forced the change into place. Moreover, he did it without the consent or opinion of the other owners of the game. Seireitei productions? More like Buster productions.

Still, we suffer from the conflicting game play brought on by the RP stage in BLN's history. RP was never fully removed from the game- we see it every time we try to kill another player. We see it in the certification system. Instead of removing these flawed design patterns, he integrated it deeper in the game play by rehashing them for different purposes. This was done regardless of how poorly it fit within BLN, and regardless of how boring that content would be.

Here is a man who, despite being told VERY clearly from his server provider not to do so, charged people for in game content such as shikai changes, massive amounts of levels, and practically ban immunity. He made several thousands of dollars from this illegal and copyright infringing activity from minors. Did he care that it broke the game play and caused some serious balance issues? Did he care that he was undermining the authority of his own GMs by allowing his "customers" special treatment from the rules? Did it matter to him that he was not only doing this behind our host's back who literally gave us a piece of their shell for ABSOLUTE FREE with this as their only condition for the use of their hardware? Nope. He even lied to their face when they asked about it after dodging them for months, all while making thousands of dollars to spend on video games and XBL. Shameful.

Here is a man who, in the arrogance he has accumulated over the years, has deluded himself into thinking that he shits gold. He comes back out of nowhere and repeatedly does rushed, and consequentially bugged, updates. These updates often do not fit within the game well. These updates are often not thought out and inevitably inconvenience players. These updates often break game play, and cause serious bugs that can potentially ruin a player's progress.

But does he care? No. It's not his problem. It's the player's fault for doing things in the way he didn't intend. It's the staff member's fault for "editing themselves" so clearly, the bug arose from some impossible stat combination when the responding GM went to test the bug. And when he realizes that he messed up, it's not even a big deal! Of course not! He shits golden bug fixes too, and suddenly its like the problem never happened and nobody has to clean up. Of course he thinks this only because he never has to do it, because I'm almost always the janitor.

And that's not all. How often is Buster around? Maybe 3 months at a time? Yes, the infamous BLN God inevitably disappears into thin air periodically without notice, and he leaves some other poor sap to clean up after his mess and clean his game. His disappearances are indicative of an assumption that other people WANT to deal with this mess. That someone will always be there to catch BLN when it is in trouble. He's shoved this burden onto Sven and Spike in the past. Then when they (particularly Spike) do some quality upgrades to BLN, revamp Buster's rushed systems, fix bugs, he suddenly comes back and repeats the process over and over.

What makes matters worse here is that when he sees that one of his updates have been changed, he can't accept it. He can't accept that someone found a problem in his code and repaired it. He can't accept that someone else came under the assumption that his design plan was poorly thought out and sought to make it better. So what does he do? He changes it back to the way it was: crappy and buggy.

So after a month long absence where he, uncharacteristically, neglected to leave the source to someone willing to fix problems, he leaves unannounced. The official reason is that his mother became ill. Fine. But does that mean that he gets to ignore everyone's attempts to contact him for an entire month? Does that make it fair to his staff that they have to deal with a mess of unfixable bugs for an entire month while they wait for him to come back? Does it excuse the fact that his bugs ruined multiple player's saves, and damaged player's game play experience in BLN?

Of course it does. Buster gets to leave when he wants! And fuck you if you desperately try to contact him over PSN to get the source to fix his bugs! He doesn't give a shit! He's in the grieving process watching Austin Powers on netflix! Fuck you and your issues!

So upon his return, I made it clear to him that I wanted the source. What does he do the next day? He leaves again unannounced. Probably for the same issue.

I'm resigning because I gave him 3 days to return, give me the source, and give me owner status. I am tired of sitting here every day cleaning up after his mess. I am tired of watching other programmers have to dodge around his inflated ego. I am tired of dealing with his crap updates that he refuses to fix because everything he does is automatically perfect.

The only way to combat that, and argue with him on equal terms, is clearly to become an owner myself. How else can someone combat his "BLN God" owner status unless they're recognized on equal footing? There is literally no other way to offer reason to such a person who's arrogance overflows out of their ass. And naturally, isn't it more appropriate for someone who has professional programming and software design experience, namely myself, to do updates and make sure that the game has high quality content?

Obviously, I am here today because he has failed to respond to my demands. You may assume that it's not is fault that he didn't respond because he wasn't around to do so. But how is that not his fault? How is it acceptable for him to go weeks at a time without taking the time to sign onto MSN once in a while so issues can be communicated to him? It's this attitude that he can come and go as he pleases and ignore everyone. His time is THAT valuable, and ultimately nobody else is worthy of talking to him in his time off. Therefore, my resignation is his fault, and his problem. And because of everything I've mentioned from the rest of this manifesto, now it's your problem too.

Enjoy. Your safety net is now gone.

Oh, and the game is down because it's essentially Spike's mission to make sure the game doesn't become shit under a unworthy manager. If you have any complaints, take it up with him, because no longer is this game my responsibility or my problem.

To the few people in the BLN community that were actually reasonable and pleasant to interact with (particularly people on the GM staff and my friends in various guilds): it was fun while it lasted. I wish you luck in all of your endeavors in life.

To everyone else: Go fuck yourselves, you all suck.

Love,
Hyren

PS:
Since I went through the trouble of coming back to post this on an accessible page, let me just help you interpret the current state of BLN for those of you who are lurking the comments page offering to host.

Buster returned two days after I posted my resignation on the forum, and by extension 2 days after Spike shut the game down. What did he do? Well he sure as hell didn't put the game back up. He hasn't lost the server (yet) either, so clearly this indicates that he doesn't care. Would he have not booted it up if he gave even a tiny shit about the game?

To be clear, what you need is not a host (he has one already), but an owner that cares about the game outside of how much it's filling his wallet.

But anyway, I wish you guys luck dealing with an apathetic owner if he does bring it up.