Looked at the Codex to see the reaction to the KCDII developments, and came across this shitshow, I don't really have much of a stake in this anymore, since I've pretty much given up on the forum moving in a positive direction again, but I thought I might as well contribute.
I used the opportunity of the Codex introducing the 2FA shit to "
keep users safe from the evil Russian hackers, because they apparently can't be trusted with their Passwords and accounts" or whatever to fuck off for the past two years. Like other people that disappeared around that time to never be seen or heard from again, especially great job on not only one-sidedly forcing this on the entire user-base from one day to another without Warning, but doing it in such an egregious way that anyone that can't or doesn't want to agree to that or has problems with it is permanently locked out of replying, or even seeing all forums and can't even complain about it in Site Feedback or anywhere else. Really user friendly bang up job that nobody in charge apparently had the sense to second-guess catapulted it to the most retarded Administration decision I've seen (so far)!
But the main reason is really the decline of the Codex, mainly due to Infinitron's malicious autism that has eroded the feel of the place over time, and made it feel like many other dying gaming forums out there, and that other places now just seem better for discussion nowadays. Whether it's him splitting and creating new threads with passive aggressive titles he thinks are clever, merging them all together in a MEGATHREAD, reorganizing the forums again to hide something he doesn't like even more, constantly Editing the first post of a thread because he wants it in a very specific format
FOR ALL THE THREADS, or for instance replacing YouTube Trailers visible for everyone with ones that are Age-gated and are not visible for people without being logged into a Google account.
When I signed up on the Codex it was because of how oppressively shit other "Official" places to discuss RPGs and video games like the BSN (Bioware forums) or Battle.Net and more Mainstream sites were, especially as exceptionally shit games like Dragon Age 2 started to come out, while being fellated with 95+ Scores and declared by video game publications that it had the "best storytelling" and "best RPG combat ever", that it was the "pinnacle of role-playing games" and "what videogames are meant to be". And you weren't allowed to criticize them, weren't allowed to criticize certain things about them or weren't allowed to criticize them in certain ways. It was expected of you to pretend there's nothing wrong with these games, or when you provided push-back to be "nice" and "friendly" about it. And I remember reading that the Codex was Originally founded because people were sick of only sycophantic praise towards entities like Interplay, BioWare and Bethesda on their forums:
https://rpgcodex.net/page.php?id=about
Originally conceived of during a series of IRC discussions between Deathy, Saint_Proverbius, Ibbz, Shagnak, Xerophyte, Calis and a handful of others, the Codex was born during an era where basically everyone involved wanted to whinge about Computer-Based RPGs (cRPGs).
At the time, companies like Interplay (the king of RPG developers at the time) ran their own forums - however kept a strict lid on any criticism of their games. Fan run sites like No-Mutants Allowed existed but were only focussed on the Fallout series, while places like Terra-Arcanum focussed on the efforts of Troika Games.
RPG Dot existed but they covered everything RPG, including console games and MMORPGS, things the founders of the Codex weren't keen on covering - expressing a strong preference for single-player, PC based RPGs.
And so, RPG Codex was conceived as a place where any cRPG could be discussed - and more importantly criticised - without over zealous fan bois coming in to silence dissent or locking topics for getting "too heated".
Some of the unique people populating the Codex like BLOBERT, who was constantly typing in ALL CAPS and never breaking role for years or Cleve with this theories and tales of the industry also helped as mascots.
But nowadays even some Random Youtubers or fucking NeoFAG aren't as bad as the Public-facing Codex is starting to become, while still populated by imbeciles at least they seemingly allow people to talk about stuff openly now:
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/king...ch-immediately-sparks-toxic-behavior.1679761/
For instance shortly before leaving I posted a thread about the Overused color-scheme in "Modern" video games. And sure enough, as soon as Infinitron logged in the next day and saw it, he probably popped a vein instantly removed the thread from public view and shoved it into "Gaming Drama" to hide it away from the Sensitive eyes of the wider public:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/cringe-zoomerbait-purple-games.147066/
Or see the recent thread about the overwhelmingly bad Sales of certain games, it's literally just a list of Game Titles, Companies, Release Dates, Consulting companies that worked on them and links to articles indicating Studio Closures or Layoffs:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...r-consequences-for-the-games-industry.152204/ Is simply stating the
reason for a game flopping now forbidden discussion on the public-facing parts of the Codex and "Drama"?
None of this apparently has
anything whatsoever to do with Gaming or the State of the industry according to the King Autist. It's all "DRAMA"!
And now apparently he even went a step further with his plan and hid the "Gaming Drama" section that populated threads down into "General Gaming" in an entirely separate part of the forum that has nothing to do with Gaming at all, so the threads will not even show up anymore for anyone with the required account privileges browsing "General Gaming" looking for new developments as they used to.
And I mean, he's already admitted what his "Agenda" is with his "Codex Reform" post in Black and White:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...nnoying-and-needs-to-stop.152342/post-9290391
I care about what having anti-woke rage content publicly indexed in Google search does to this forum's user base. And I think you do too, Konjad.
Here, I'll show you again where it all started:
Look at the date. This is nothing new.
He doesn't want the
bad people to show up and discuss the state of Gaming or specific games, because they're doing it "for the wrong reasons".
Well if these are the "undesirables" talking about video games for "the wrong reasons" that shouldn't be attracted and he wants to be rid of, then conversely there must be some sort of
right/good people or "desirables" that he wants to "invite" and attract out of thin air by sanitizing the forum and hiding away anything "controversial" instead. Anyone is left to imagine what they would look or behave like in his mind.
While I initially got the basic intent and even agreed with entirely Off-topic content that has nothing to do with a game at all leading to page-long digressions about taxation or which side one favored in World War 2 being split off, not entirely buying his explanation though - I slowly started getting the impression that he just wanted to hide the criticism of games overrun with Woke content and employees from public view because he largely agrees with it and doesn't want it to "ruin" his protected virginal parts of the forum, which seems to be becoming more and more true as he ratchets up the GULAG'ing of any sort of Criticism of
game content that's in the actual fucking game, plot points/storytelling, features or what
game creators do and say ABOUT their video games on Social media and their choices for designing certain things the way they are etc. which are all
ABOUT the game. If they put say tranny pandering, furfaggotry or political messaging in their video game, it's as much part of the package as anything else. Limiting or removing discussion of said into a separate part of the forum one believes will draw less attention is just as bad as singling out any other part of the game like say character creation, sound or level design or graphics/art design, text fonts or whatever and saying they ought not be discussed in the relevant place for whatever arbitrary reason.
This view started to solidify in how he for instance always treated Nu-Obsidian with kid gloves even as they started going to shit. Close to every time he engages in these topics of discussion himself instead of "managing" them, like when people criticized the Wokeshit in The Outer Worlds like all the girlbosses, he usually pushes back as if there was nothing wrong, that they're apparently not making these "Modern games" because of "agendas". Oh they're just doing it because that's what their Californian studio is like and what they're "familiar with in real life", because there's supposedly these "competent women" all around them! Failing to note that Modern Western AAA studios are like that because they're often closed-off ideological echo chambers/safe spaces/insane asylums that were engineered to be that way, and this begot a free-fall in actual game quality - the worse they get, the shittier the output of the products they are making becomes. (see "Dragon Age: The Veilguard")
In the Outer Worlds, whether doofuses or not, it's the men who have the most
soul. That's why I believe the game's writing isn't intended to be mean-spiritedly agenda-driven. It's just millennials writing about the gender archetypes they're familiar with in real life:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...s-boys-even-stem-subjects-study-finds-n912891
Euro-chuds really misusing the term "DEI" lately, I've noticed.
Geralt's story was over and choosing Ciri as the protagonist of a rebooted Witcher series was a pretty intuitive direction to go that many people expected. That's not DEI. You can be upset that she isn't hawt enough in the trailer, but that's not DEI either.
Remember when a New Staff Member and a bunch of users wanted to just make a visible list of RPGs with Woke themes in them and place it in the RPG Subforum for people who thought that would be helpful to see, and he pretended to leave it be for a few months, before promptly going on and GULAG'ing it again, banishing it to the closed off part of the forum?
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/list-of-woke-and-non-woke-roleplaying-games.147782/
The list is now maintained as part of the RPGHQ forum due to this thread having been moved into the Gaming Drama ghetto. The following is the last version posted on the Codex.
And it's now only visible for people over there anymore:
https://rpghq.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1654
Or the example of what Rusty managed to do with his ModHQ on a barely 2 year old forum without even trying, being friendly to some Mod creators that wanted to DeWoke some of the major recent RPG releases, and giving them a place to go wild with their ambitions?:
https://modhq.org/
Not only is Infinitron seemingly opposed to any such potentially effective grass roots effort to Dewoke-ify or even
List any relevant infested games (a Sort of Woke-ipedia for instance for games and other entertainment could be great and informative), but he's actively working against anything that could actually bring
some positive change to
any small part of the industry for the better on here. No, he goes Above and Beyond to hide even any Criticism of Games or Creators that are forcefully including that stuff in their products from any related thread where they (or any random person of the wider Internets) could potentially stumble upon it and see it being discussed.
The only Conclusion I can draw from all of that (working against any effort to change anything and hiding all criticism or discussion from Prying Eyes or any Tourists or New Users it might attract and that might find it refreshing or change their mind) is that Infinitron is in favor of most of the changes that have been happening in the industry for the past decade and
he doesn't want to see a change or better games.
Once this Madness is hopefully all over and behind us in a few years to a decade (it seems to be beginning to wind down due to the actions of various courageous people) and everyone can talk normally about exciting new RPGs and other games again and look down on the releases of the late 10s/early 20s with hindsight as the hilarious aberrations they were, both Infinitron and the RPGCodex should be judged by their actions (or inaction) in this time of Shit Politically charged games and wider Industry collapse, where speaking the truth about Game Features, Games Writing and Game Designers, or even Color Schemes and the fate of companies engaging in said was discouraged, deemed "Drama" and hidden away in inaccessible Forum Gulags. And only people that could look past all that and pretend it didn't happen (e.g. mindless bootlickers) were deemed "right" and "not obnoxious" enough to hold discussions on the Codex.
Let the record show that (arguably) when it mattered the most, the Codex wasn't on the side of openly discussing and airing grievances, but of suppressing them by hiding them away, making it seem to outsiders or onlookers like they didn't exist or aren't worth discussing and disappearing plenty of Effortposts into the ether. If you want to see what Infinitron is trying to turn the Codex into, just browse it for a few weeks without being logged in.
Unless Dragon Age: The Veilguard or the changes to Brokeback Mountain: Deliverance is truly what the Codex now views as the future and desires from RPGs going forward, I see this as a similar "betrayal" as if it sided with the Cancel Mob that ended Avellone's career or sided with "Gaming Journalists" between 2010-2015.
That's despite the Codex being not entirely uncourageous in the past, for instance I can still remember the 2012 piece on "Gaming Journalism":
https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8579 or when it stood by Avellone with humor in his moment of Cancellation while he was being bombarded from all sides:
https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=11481
But it feels like it doesn't stand for much anymore and lost what some might call its "voice", along with many of its forum gimmicks, and has become Infinitron's dumping ground for PR Press Releases.
He has done his best to castrate it as best he could while thinking he's "Helping", so it's only plastered with Newsletter spam posting about the
#77th Community Update of the BearFucker Game, Copy-pasted YouTube Trailers or roundups of "Games Journalist" Reviews/Previews.
For instance instead of even acknowledging what over half of the forum is actually talking about, which has in a few days created debate that produced a thread bigger than the one going on since the game was announced,
despite the suppression efforts and being Gulag'd, his most recent "contribution" to the Codex about KCD II is a Publisher press release about an "expansion pass with three DLCs":
https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=12497 and the most notable contribution regarding Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a repost from a BioWare PreOrder Blog about how exciting it all is:
https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=12396 Surprised there isn't a "review roundup" or "critical reception" with links to all the Shill sites many people came here to avoid, must be in the thread.
