APEX ORDER statement of events regarding Actual Pirates 11-2-24
As the Team Lead of Apex Order, a guild that doesn't have a million person captive audience, we are using this medium to share our experience with Pirate Software.
These events are the result of a misunderstanding with unfortunate timing. They are further littered with false accusations, baseless claims, and what we see as a gross overreaction that violates the spirit of the testing environment.
Earlier in the afternoon of 11.2.24 a group of Apex Order members were farming inside the Ursin Cave on the top level. A group from Actual Pirates came in the cave several times as they were farming the mobs on the lower level. Both parties passed each other and cleared bears together for an extended time without hostilities. At one point the group from Actual Pirates stopped where our group was sitting. Actual Pirates immediately flagged and engaged killing our group's cleric and several others. Our group was surprise attacked and defeated, it's part of the game. Our group revived and moved to a different location to avoid further conflict. We moved to a location outside of Ursin Caves on the south side of that mountain farming bears.
Later that evening our group was still pulling bears from all over the hill side. One of our pullers heard combat and went to have a look. A group of Actual Pirates was farming bears right over the hill from us on the north side. Members that were in our group were also in the group that was killed earlier by the group from AP. Our group then gathered to engage in pvp with AP as a continuation of the earlier engagement over Ursin Caves.
We had no previous knowledge that the streamer known as Pirate Software was in the group we were about to engage. We had no way of knowing that he was writing a bug report. All of that information we found out after the fact. When we engaged the group of Actual Pirates we did not even see Pirate Software whose character is 'Maldavious' until he emerged from behind the group. He was only then engaged in combat.
I am a 44 year old. I do not and have not ever watched streamers, nor do I have the desire to. I did not know who Pirate Software was. In the group were my daughter, and my 13 year old son. We were testing a game that we love and engaged in pvp for fun. It was not a group of hardcore pvpers it was a family group. We did not travel across the map to find him or stream snipe Pirate Software. We merely happened upon the Actual Pirate group because we were in the same area killing bears just over the hill from them. We had absolutely no idea Pirate Software was writing a bug report at the time. When we later learned he was in the middle of a bug report we issued an apology. If we had that knowledge previously we would not have attacked the Actual Pirates group. There was no way for us to know this. It was unfortunate timing.
We had planned to not loot any Actual Pirates, as was said to them by one of our members. Even in pvp we can have respect for one another. GG Actual Pirates got a group of us, Apex Order got a group of them. This type of pvp is in the spirit of the game design. The Apex Order group was heading to town to log for the night. We did not plan to come back and prolong a conflict. We left the area, with the intent of letting the Actual Pirate group get back to enjoying/testing the game.
Again this started as a misunderstanding.
The events that followed...
An Apex Order recruit had died and respawned at the shrine outside of Ursin Caves. He spawned into a group of Actual Pirates that were also at the shrine. The Actual Pirates group including Pirate Software then killed this Apex recruit. As he tried to respawn they continued to kill him up to four times, camping him at the shrine. After repeated deaths, speaking from frustration the Apex recruit said he was going to report Actual Pirates for shrine camping. Moments after being made aware what was said, Apex Order leadership counseled this recruit. This was merely a heated exchange after pvp. No reports were made by this recruit nor any of our members. This was then blown out of proportion by Pirate Software claiming on stream our entire team was going to mass report him. This was yet another baseless accusation.
The following day as some of our Apex members began to log in. Our members were attacked in town by Actual Pirates, while at the vendor, storage and crafting tables. There were multiple instances of these attacks in town by Actual Pirates across several nodes. After killing the Apex member in town, Actual Pirates would then run to the shrine to kill the player again as they spawned at the shrine. Sometimes this would go on for upwards of several deaths to the same player. Actual Pirates players would never go corrupted despite attacking unflagged players that were not fighting back. Sometimes killing them while they were still in the loading screen from the previous death.
While still in development the corruption system and town guards do not (as of yet) offer any protection to non combatant players in Alpha 2, Phase 1 testing. Some members from Actual Pirates are taking advantage of this by locking down town nodes. Attacking any of our members that are seen within the nodes. Because of Actual Pirates massive membership they can easily lock our members out of every node, denying them access to test any content within the node itself. We believe this is outside the scope of Steven's vision for pvp risk vs reward. This style of game play only hurts player's experience and their ability to actively test systems for Intrepid Studios.
In Steven's own words "Now the question is, when risk becomes something that doesn't stop other players from impacting your gameplay in a negative and harassing and repetitive manner. The motivation to do that action is less about their personal advancement and more about impacting your gameplay, because when they elicit the response of anger or rage from the player, they feel a sense of accomplishment. That in my opinion is what griefing is. It is outside of the expectation of the gameplay behavior that is communicated in the design philosophy." – Steven Sharif
Apex Order members follow a strict set of Rules Of Engagement during the Alpha 2 testing. These rules include 1. No pvp combat within the town nodes 2. No spawn shrine camping. We hold our members to a higher standard, even if other guilds do not. We believe in the vision and development of Ashes of Creation and wish to give other testers the respect they deserve.
In conclusion....
Pirate Software's stated intent on his stream, is to harass an entire guild, until they leave the server, during the Alpha testing phase of a game.
Apex Order was falsely accused of a stream snipe by Pirate Software. From the time the Apex Order group attacked the Actual Pirate group it took Pirate Software less than a minute to falsely accuse us of a streamer snipe as shown on his twitch stream.
Apex Order was falsely accused of knowingly attacking while Pirate Software was writing a bug report. We had no way of knowing this.
Apex Order was falsely accused of mass reporting in an attempt to get a ban on Pirate Software. As detailed in our statement, no reports of any kind by any of our members were ever made. Go ask customer service, we'll wait.
Apex Order leadership has reached out to Pirate Software in private correspondence explaining the misunderstanding and seeking a retraction of his false accusations to no avail.
All of the false accusations are a result of Pirate Software being pvped in a PvX game. Are streamers untouchable in pvp?
If you do kill a streamer what is stopping them from accusing you of a stream snipe? They can accuse you without limit or evidence.
The attacks on Apex Order membership and content gating are the result of a massive streamer zerg guild mentality on a smaller guild.
Team Lead
Apex Order - AoC
-Bromel
