Good evening, everyone.

Something has been gnawing at the back of my mind for years now. I feel like I finally have to say something and get it off my chest, if only so I can say that I at least tried to do my part. Some will laugh, some will scoff at the mere thought, but I hope that for many others it might at least linger in the back of their minds.

If you are anything like me, you found this thing of ours a long time ago. For one reason or another, we all decided to call this place our home. After all, what else do you call a place you retreat into and disappear for hundreds, even thousands, of hours? Personally, I have come to know and speak with many people here who have helped me through hard times. People who have kept me sane, kept me from slipping into darker places, and on many nights simply kept me from feeling lonely or bored. I do not think any of us expected that when we first started playing games. But when you sink countless hours into something, those connections can happen. It just so happens that this place is where I have found the most of them.

I want to recognize the good this community has done and brought to people. I have seen relationships form here. I have seen people get married, partners start playing, and friends join together. I have seen lifelong friendships form. Even if some of those connections were temporary, I am sure they still held real meaning during that time. But in recognizing the good, we also have to acknowledge the bad. When problems are ignored or never addressed, they fester like an unattended wound. No place is perfect, not even families, and when issues are left unresolved, they can slowly corrode what once held things together.

Generally speaking, I have seen many gaming communities out there that are far more toxic and broken than this one. Communities with rampant cheating, abuse of power, poisonous leadership, and entrenched players who slowly drain the joy out of the game for everyone else. I can confidently say that our community has never reached the worst levels I have seen elsewhere, and that is one of the reasons I have stayed here for so long. But we would also be dishonest if we said everything here has always been perfect.

We have seen abuse of power. We have seen people act in toxic ways. Some have behaved like tyrants at times. There have also been moments where players crossed lines into personal matters that should never have been crossed. This is not a call to forgive every infraction or pretend the past never happened. It is simply a reminder that behind every screen is a human being. Human beings who feel hurt, sadness, betrayal, loneliness, anger, and guilt. People who go through difficult things in their lives. Most importantly, they are human beings who grow and change. Their perspectives evolve over time as life shapes them.

So how do we address our own problems?
How do we move forward instead of watching our community slowly decline under the weight of old conflicts? I believe the answer lies in communication, dialogue, and establishing a healthy but realistic culture of occasionally burying the hatchet. What I would like to propose is something simple. Every three years, or five if three feels too short, we as a community make a conscious decision to bury the hatchet on the previous cycle.

That does not mean the past never happened. It does not mean people ignore history or stop learning from it. But constantly dragging up conversations, slights, betrayals, and grudges from many years ago helps no one.

When we endlessly weaponize the past, we deny the possibility that people can grow or change. Sometimes we even reinforce the very behavior we claim to dislike. If someone is constantly treated as a betrayer, eventually they may lean into that role simply to survive. If someone believes they will never escape their past reputation, then why would they try? In that way we sometimes help create the very outcomes we fear. When grudges stretch on for years and years, we miss opportunities for alliances, friendships, and new dynamics that might otherwise have formed. Instead, we breed paranoia, mistrust, and division.

Now I am not saying we all gather around a campfire and sing songs together. This is the mob. Strategy, competition, deception, and betrayal are part of the game. That is part of what makes it exciting. If we were racing in Mario Kart, I would absolutely try to knock you off the road. But even in competition, there can still be good sportsmanship. There can still be a healthy community that enjoys the game together instead of endlessly fighting the wars of ten years ago.

So I ask a simple question to all of you.

Can we as a community decide that grudges should not last forever?

Can we choose to occasionally bury the hatchet, let old eras stay in the past, and judge each other more by who they are now than who they were years ago?

These are my opinions and my thoughts, sure, some may not agree, but it is what it is.  I hope it resonates with more than not. 

What do you think? Is this something that you can do? Is this something we as a community can ponder and make happen?

It's surely up to the people at the end of the day.

For nearly 15 years, I've had some pretty longstanding grudges against dozens of players. Sometimes I would just let it slide and not bother me because X player was close friends with other friends and they'd assure me they were fine. If my friends like someone, how can I be so ignorant and stubborn to not give the person another chance? So far so good.

I have personally settled some long standing grudges in the last.. 2 years or so on the game with a lot of people that I really had problems with and honestly, I think it was just the immaturity of myself at the time (Along with dozens of others who also had similar grudges against me/me against them).

I feel I'm too old to be fighting seriously on a mafia game online when I have a job, a girlfriend and a life lols. I enjoy my time here, and if I don't, I won't play. I however do feel there are people who would seek to actively ruin the time people put in for the fun of it, and luckily, those people are not very welcomed by the ones in charge at the moment.

People can change, but very often they don't. 

I like who I like & given how long I have been around here that is unlikely to change. I am open to new people but very rarely make the time or effort to make new deep connections given the transient nature of much of the player base / I have better things to do with my time & this game is a relaxing / distracting 30 mins of my day.

I am in the lucky position where I am not active enough and not actively concerned nor do I care about 'who runs the game'. From my experience going back to when the game was on the web domain devinelunacy or something similar, we have had some times where the regime in power has made things fun / stable. We have had other times where the game has been absolutely dogshit to play / we lose users as its not worth logging in. 

In the many years I have been here there are 3 people I actively dislike. All 3 are nothing related to in game actions or game play styles. It is baffling to me that people can get so angry about pixels on a screen. My ire towards all 3 is because they did things IRL which I view as genuinely disgusting / weird all because of this game. My stance on these 3 are unlikely to change. 

TLDR

In game actions - Don't really care too much, its a competitive game. Would sooner have people in charge who do not make the experience poor for the majority but it is what it is. 

Out of game actions - If you show yourself to be a disgusting wierdo I am going to have zero interaction with you inside or outside of the game. 

Breaking news: grown adults with jobs, partners, and responsibilities log in for 30 minutes a day and still find time to maintain decade-long beef over pixelated crimes. More at 10.

Genuinely though, fair play for anyone actually trying to squash old grudges, it certainly can be harder than people admit. I agree with what people have said about finding the right balance though, let in game stuff stay in the game, give people room to grow, and recognise when someone’s crossed a line outside of it.

Of course, there will always be a few who actively enjoy the decade long grudge scene, and unfortunately, those people can’t really be reasoned with but that doesn’t diminish the effort it takes to rise above it.

The complete lack of separation between player and character is a problem. User-driven decisions have left a lot to be desired in this regard but in a game with such barriers to success it is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that the separation is lost. It takes an active suspension of disbelief from users at the top to accept that the same person, playing the same game, will this time make different choices in a similar situation than they did previously. When that suspension falters, you see the wholesale removal of potential opposition before they can present a problem. Purging, as we like to call it. 

This problem is further compounded by some of the game mechanics i.e. users having to vouch for the past, present and future actions of others (is it brave or stupid to risk that on someone I just met in-character?), the continual requirement to auth and promote users to ensure sufficient coverage (in-character actions of CL/RH/LH place a burden on those around them, who is a safer bet, moneyrustler76 who might secretly hate me or John Smith who I first met in 2008 and know to be solid?) and most significantly, the amount of effort it requires to make a strong account (so I'm told, anyway).

When someone else kills your account, as much as people are quick to virtue signal their lack of care, it is a very long road to get to a place of acceptance of that consequence and not to be bitter about it. If someone in real life took away something you had devoted hundreds or thousands of hours to, even though that may not always be actively engaged, nobody would expect you to just smile and move on. And so it is here, the stakes are tangible and ever increasing; hustle points used, credits spent, time wasted, wiped out in an instant by the actions of someone else. Difficult for that not to sting. 

So given this, together with the natural human desires of wanting to be with our friends and the people we enjoy, as well as being able to get the better of people we don't like, the deck is rather stacked against people playing each character on its own merits although it would certainly make for a better game if they did. I think the best we can probably hope for is a degree of tolerance for player-driven decision and hope that, where they can, they try to act as their character would. 

I have more thoughts on the concept of bloodlines in general, but I guess I'll leave it there for today. 

yearlong grudges have probably been the one thing keeping this game alive for the decades it's been around, considering they still affect matters to this day. mixed with the community aspect it definitely has a fun hook. it's a lot harder for people to stick around though with a high effort character when grudges or stupid things get in the way of matters or everyone ends up dead really quickly, but that's how it's always been for so long.

the 1 thing i have noticed is grudges fade away really quick when active new players are introduced to the mix, as a lot of people might squash their beef trying to court or teach new players whenever possible. friendships made over initiating newbies tend to keep the game healthy, so i tend to prefer crewleaders who go above and beyond in this aspect as i feel it not only helps the game but keeps stupid drama from 10 years ago from affecting jimmy linguini who joined 5 days ago and is trying to learn the game.