Meatwad420
Member
Do not derail serious threads.
My God isn’t happy with you.
-
An announcement has been posted regarding the data loss and rollback to February 8, 2026 data. The thread can be viewed here.
The Problem With Giant's Lair..
- Thread starter Rick Sanchez
- Start date
Hey Ryan,
I’ve tried to step back since my post and give space for open discussion without constantly inserting my perspective. But this is something I need to address directly.
The situation you referenced in your first point happened the day after the informal staff meeting I mentioned in my post. In that discussion, you explicitly talked about waiting for members like Frosty and Proper to slip up again, collecting evidence, and using that to build a case for banning them. The very next day, Proper, Frosty, and I were in General VC playing games when you joined. You didn’t say a word the entire time. Instead, you sat there recording, which is how you were able to act so quickly when that random person dropped in and said something bannable.
From my vantage point, that’s not passive moderation... it’s clearly targeted. You put yourself in that situation with a clear intent, waiting for something.. anything.. you could turn into justification. That wasn’t coincidence, and it wasn’t neutral. It was deliberate.
Hello everyone,
I'm a little late to this. But I thought I'd put my two cents in if you don't mind...
I know I'm more of the happy go lucky sort of fellow, but there's even sometimes I've literally had to hop on discord and ask for certain staff members I trust and know will handle the situations properly.
Yes, I tend to be positive. But when I notice players, especially certain staff members behave in ways that lets say, I always act as if there (cause at times there is), a younger player in the chat. I'm a mandatory reporter of certain thing at risk of losing my license, and my heart when it gets VERY disgusting and serious to act in certain ways. I want this to be a fun server where, yes, we can all play and mess around in discord...
... But when it comes to attacks on people or content posted that I feel shouldn't be posted, yes I tell people to stop and report it to other staff.
Please let this stay a healthy, good community to play.
Thank you!
I'm a little late to this. But I thought I'd put my two cents in if you don't mind...
I know I'm more of the happy go lucky sort of fellow, but there's even sometimes I've literally had to hop on discord and ask for certain staff members I trust and know will handle the situations properly.
Yes, I tend to be positive. But when I notice players, especially certain staff members behave in ways that lets say, I always act as if there (cause at times there is), a younger player in the chat. I'm a mandatory reporter of certain thing at risk of losing my license, and my heart when it gets VERY disgusting and serious to act in certain ways. I want this to be a fun server where, yes, we can all play and mess around in discord...
... But when it comes to attacks on people or content posted that I feel shouldn't be posted, yes I tell people to stop and report it to other staff.
Please let this stay a healthy, good community to play.
Thank you!
Dinomoto
New member
I tend to agree with those that have stuff to express over those that sound like they're responding through necessity. I have no involvement in both of these sides, but its definitely a sad affair that this is already happening to a relatively new community. Drama is a fun read, I won't lie, but it is also pretty pitiful. Just swallow your pride and admit your wrong doings, admin team. It doesn't take much. Apologizing doesn't make you weak, it just shows that you're a person. Trying to pull the wool over people eyes is a no go, be honest for fucks sake.
Hi
I feel like a lot of my previous thoughts have already been well communicated here, therefore I won't go into depth with some of the things that I would say.
However, after tonight’s supposed “""bombshell”"" announcement that was supposed to """solve""" a lot of problems amongst the community and staff, I’m left unsure what I’m actually expected to do as a staff member to help move things in a positive direction. If anything, it feels like we’ve taken a step backward rather than forward, and I’m struggling to see how this meaningfully addresses the issues we’ve been trying to resolve.
The announcement talked about removing "bad staff" and creating a dedicated Discord team, which is great! This is good progress on the staff side of things. Yet the rest of the announcement (NO HATE TO ANNA <3) felt like a surface level response that barely touched on the core issues people have been screaming about for weeks on this thread!!! There wasn’t much acknowledgment of the underlying problem!!
To Agennon,
You continuously keep overreaching with power while mindlessly pretending that you're acting in the best interest of the community. The vibe audit, the selective log digging, and the clear pattern of targeting certain individuals, NONE of that was meaningfully addressed in the announcement (of which you were supposed to make!). Instead, we continue to get vague promises and a pat on the back for "removing some staff." As far as I know (which I don’t because nothing gets communicated nowadays), ALL of the conversations leading up to the announcement were kept behind closed doors with no real input or visibility from the broader staff team (~25 of us by the way!).
This lack of transparency in the staff team is exactly what breeds the paranoia and resentment everyone is feeling. How are we supposed to believe things will be different when the same leadership structure that enabled the targeting remains fully in control, with zero accountability or visibility into how decisions are actually made? Without that transparency, nothing actually changes, people just end up losing trust faster.
Can we address this while we're at it?
Quoting you directly:
"Once this announcement for a statement or whatever takes place, I'm probably checking out for a bit."
"I fucking hate what this place has become over the last several months, what our staff and members have been asked to tolerate, and spit on the entire time by the most toxic assholes on the planet."
"I should have banned some of these people two years ago."
"what happened with sunny last night, murdered any positive direction I can see this community moving in while proper and friends are given room here."
Oh, okay! Sunny, who publicly harassed one of our fellow developers, mocked the death of their mother, and continued to escalate with toxic, vicious attacks, murdered ANY positive direction you saw in the community.
This is the person that murdered the direction? Nice joke dude.
You were present for all of that by the way. What were you doing though? Punishing people for reacting with Israeli reactions AS THEY WERE BEING HARASSED.
Okay, go ahead and COI proper and frosty, whatever (its not really like you wanted to back down from that decision either way),,, but why isn't this person COI banned as well? Arguably, what they did on this ONE occasion was SO much worse than what proper and frosty ever did.
I could go in-depth on why the COI ban YOU pushed was such a bad decision, but there’s no point. You’ve made a habit of skipping over the main arguments just to nitpick smaller things, so any real discussion just goes nowhere. So, why bother at that point?
trust me this post would've been 4x it's own length if it weren't for that. (and it sucks cuz there's a lot I wanna say!!)
This isn't leadership. This an absolute overreach of your position. How things get handled in this community is so dystopian to me. There is no consistency, there is no transparency, and there is no accountability in how decisions are made. When the owner himself refuses to hear his own team, when staff concerns get constantly dismissed AND when bans get escalated this quickly against people who are valued with barely ANY agreement amongst your team, it stops feeling like a community and starts feeling like a personal fiefdom. Fun fact! People are already disengaging and moving to private Discords because they see the writing on the wall,, "if you speak up or joke the wrong way, and you'll be next!!"
Think about it this way. If we truly want to fix this and bring back the fun, “relaxed vibe” a lot of us signed up for, then real change has to start at the top. Stop the selective blindness. Stop ignoring your peers. Increase actual transparency instead of more layers of dedicated teams that could just become the next problem. You need to start actually addressing the concerns being raised instead of deflecting them in bad faith. Otherwise, these "positive steps" is just window dressing, and the community will keep bleeding the exact people who made it worth being part of.
I am utterly disappointed to see the state that this community is currently in, and it saddens me deeply because I grew up with this community throughout its former iterations.
grow up.
i resign
I feel like a lot of my previous thoughts have already been well communicated here, therefore I won't go into depth with some of the things that I would say.
However, after tonight’s supposed “""bombshell”"" announcement that was supposed to """solve""" a lot of problems amongst the community and staff, I’m left unsure what I’m actually expected to do as a staff member to help move things in a positive direction. If anything, it feels like we’ve taken a step backward rather than forward, and I’m struggling to see how this meaningfully addresses the issues we’ve been trying to resolve.
The announcement talked about removing "bad staff" and creating a dedicated Discord team, which is great! This is good progress on the staff side of things. Yet the rest of the announcement (NO HATE TO ANNA <3) felt like a surface level response that barely touched on the core issues people have been screaming about for weeks on this thread!!! There wasn’t much acknowledgment of the underlying problem!!
To Agennon,
You continuously keep overreaching with power while mindlessly pretending that you're acting in the best interest of the community. The vibe audit, the selective log digging, and the clear pattern of targeting certain individuals, NONE of that was meaningfully addressed in the announcement (of which you were supposed to make!). Instead, we continue to get vague promises and a pat on the back for "removing some staff." As far as I know (which I don’t because nothing gets communicated nowadays), ALL of the conversations leading up to the announcement were kept behind closed doors with no real input or visibility from the broader staff team (~25 of us by the way!).
This lack of transparency in the staff team is exactly what breeds the paranoia and resentment everyone is feeling. How are we supposed to believe things will be different when the same leadership structure that enabled the targeting remains fully in control, with zero accountability or visibility into how decisions are actually made? Without that transparency, nothing actually changes, people just end up losing trust faster.
Can we address this while we're at it?
Quoting you directly:
"Once this announcement for a statement or whatever takes place, I'm probably checking out for a bit."
"I fucking hate what this place has become over the last several months, what our staff and members have been asked to tolerate, and spit on the entire time by the most toxic assholes on the planet."
"I should have banned some of these people two years ago."
"what happened with sunny last night, murdered any positive direction I can see this community moving in while proper and friends are given room here."
Oh, okay! Sunny, who publicly harassed one of our fellow developers, mocked the death of their mother, and continued to escalate with toxic, vicious attacks, murdered ANY positive direction you saw in the community.
This is the person that murdered the direction? Nice joke dude.
You were present for all of that by the way. What were you doing though? Punishing people for reacting with Israeli reactions AS THEY WERE BEING HARASSED.
Okay, go ahead and COI proper and frosty, whatever (its not really like you wanted to back down from that decision either way),,, but why isn't this person COI banned as well? Arguably, what they did on this ONE occasion was SO much worse than what proper and frosty ever did.
I could go in-depth on why the COI ban YOU pushed was such a bad decision, but there’s no point. You’ve made a habit of skipping over the main arguments just to nitpick smaller things, so any real discussion just goes nowhere. So, why bother at that point?
trust me this post would've been 4x it's own length if it weren't for that. (and it sucks cuz there's a lot I wanna say!!)
This isn't leadership. This an absolute overreach of your position. How things get handled in this community is so dystopian to me. There is no consistency, there is no transparency, and there is no accountability in how decisions are made. When the owner himself refuses to hear his own team, when staff concerns get constantly dismissed AND when bans get escalated this quickly against people who are valued with barely ANY agreement amongst your team, it stops feeling like a community and starts feeling like a personal fiefdom. Fun fact! People are already disengaging and moving to private Discords because they see the writing on the wall,, "if you speak up or joke the wrong way, and you'll be next!!"
Think about it this way. If we truly want to fix this and bring back the fun, “relaxed vibe” a lot of us signed up for, then real change has to start at the top. Stop the selective blindness. Stop ignoring your peers. Increase actual transparency instead of more layers of dedicated teams that could just become the next problem. You need to start actually addressing the concerns being raised instead of deflecting them in bad faith. Otherwise, these "positive steps" is just window dressing, and the community will keep bleeding the exact people who made it worth being part of.
I am utterly disappointed to see the state that this community is currently in, and it saddens me deeply because I grew up with this community throughout its former iterations.
grow up.
i resign
i hate to say it, but giants lair is falling apart.
3 staff resigned today alone.
and i dont know if theres another way to say it but, @Agennon you need to do something. someone prooved you wrong and you stopeed replying to this thread overall.
Sunny got a 1 month ban for making fun of a dead mother. proper and frosty got a YEAR BAN from vibes,
STAFF TARGETING PEOPLE IS FUCKING HAPPING. YOU CANNOT DENY IT.
we need to take action, instead of sitting hear tallking about it. PLEASE. fire staff, demote people, step down yourself. whatever it takes. this community means so much to me. i want to keep it alive. PLEASE do something agennon. Park ranger moon said "think the best, healthiest, longest lasting servers I’ve seen are the ones where the owners are a bit detached from moderation and trust their staff teams to make decisions" @Agennon i want you to read what park said, please.
3 staff resigned today alone.
and i dont know if theres another way to say it but, @Agennon you need to do something. someone prooved you wrong and you stopeed replying to this thread overall.
Sunny got a 1 month ban for making fun of a dead mother. proper and frosty got a YEAR BAN from vibes,
STAFF TARGETING PEOPLE IS FUCKING HAPPING. YOU CANNOT DENY IT.
we need to take action, instead of sitting hear tallking about it. PLEASE. fire staff, demote people, step down yourself. whatever it takes. this community means so much to me. i want to keep it alive. PLEASE do something agennon. Park ranger moon said "think the best, healthiest, longest lasting servers I’ve seen are the ones where the owners are a bit detached from moderation and trust their staff teams to make decisions" @Agennon i want you to read what park said, please.
tea
New member
since i've been coi banned now i figure i'm entitled to throw in my two cents. in the short time i was allowed to be in here, i have seen some of the dumbest drama play out. the kind of drama that's only rivalled by every other fucking garry's mod community i've ever been in. it's likely that i'm just wasting my time here because you've already decided that i'm a troll or whatever. but at least i'll be able to hear the sound of my own voice, i guess. this post will be heavily influenced by my own experience, but i hope you don't take this exclusively as a rant about what happened to me.
first off, how can you possibly have made that announcement after not having demoted the one person on here who was called out by name? i'm not gonna harp on this point too hard because i wouldn't want to "harass" someone by telling them things they don't want to hear. but come on. get real. it's an insult to the intelligence of your community. no one believes you when you say this shit because no one even sees a change, besides that you've coi some people instead of just targeting them. you can't pretend like you've resolved your nepotism problem if you're not even willing to demote one (1) of your friends. either admit this is a server only for you and your friends or actually make a single genuine gesture towards fixing your massive nepotism issue.
secondly, if you intend to be a server where people feel comfortable being "authentic" or whatever, banning people without warning is a hell of a way to do it. i admit i've maybe been a bit too "authentic" for this server, and that's fine. there's one or two things i've said where i maybe have deserved to be told to knock it off or whatever. but like come on. how are you going to cultivate this "relaxed vibe" when you're punishing people for making your staff be even slightly annoyed? i don't want to make this comment about me but having been muted and then banned without warning for having a single negative interaction with your very special little boy, i just can't imagine how you intend to make people feel comfortable engaging with your community in a meaningful way. as one of the people who have been accused of "interacting in bad faith", i have to say, what do you expect? you can't create an environment where people are regularly punished for upsetting your special boy and then expect them not to be a little bit aloof. despite this, i've made some friends here. i say this just to illustrate my point that your response to this debacle has been ridiculous. to be told that this is a place where people can comfortably discuss politics and then being banned for getting too political. but i said i didn't want to make it about me and i've gone on too long about my own experience.
you're hemorrhaging users and staff because of your own ego and your inability to take a good, honest, hard look at the way you've been running your community. you can't have it both ways. either be "checked out" and let your staff run your server, or actually make a real good-faith attempt to engage with your users' concerns. you can't have it both ways. no more half-measures, waltuh.
first off, how can you possibly have made that announcement after not having demoted the one person on here who was called out by name? i'm not gonna harp on this point too hard because i wouldn't want to "harass" someone by telling them things they don't want to hear. but come on. get real. it's an insult to the intelligence of your community. no one believes you when you say this shit because no one even sees a change, besides that you've coi some people instead of just targeting them. you can't pretend like you've resolved your nepotism problem if you're not even willing to demote one (1) of your friends. either admit this is a server only for you and your friends or actually make a single genuine gesture towards fixing your massive nepotism issue.
secondly, if you intend to be a server where people feel comfortable being "authentic" or whatever, banning people without warning is a hell of a way to do it. i admit i've maybe been a bit too "authentic" for this server, and that's fine. there's one or two things i've said where i maybe have deserved to be told to knock it off or whatever. but like come on. how are you going to cultivate this "relaxed vibe" when you're punishing people for making your staff be even slightly annoyed? i don't want to make this comment about me but having been muted and then banned without warning for having a single negative interaction with your very special little boy, i just can't imagine how you intend to make people feel comfortable engaging with your community in a meaningful way. as one of the people who have been accused of "interacting in bad faith", i have to say, what do you expect? you can't create an environment where people are regularly punished for upsetting your special boy and then expect them not to be a little bit aloof. despite this, i've made some friends here. i say this just to illustrate my point that your response to this debacle has been ridiculous. to be told that this is a place where people can comfortably discuss politics and then being banned for getting too political. but i said i didn't want to make it about me and i've gone on too long about my own experience.
you're hemorrhaging users and staff because of your own ego and your inability to take a good, honest, hard look at the way you've been running your community. you can't have it both ways. either be "checked out" and let your staff run your server, or actually make a real good-faith attempt to engage with your users' concerns. you can't have it both ways. no more half-measures, waltuh.
I have been extremely disappointed, and I am absolutely exhausted about this situation, and how this has been handled. I never thought I would be at the point of finding it hard to sleep because the situation and the vibes have been so bleak that I thought I would wake up and find things just gone, friends and others just lost to yet another explosion in the STTT cycle. its been so bad that honestly I have found it hard to sleep at times. I find myself waking up early and worrying about missing people. I find it hard to sleep because of that same reason. I get surprised every time a message on discord is sent and I cant read it because I'm at work and I don't know if it is a lead admin upset with me discussing protocol on something that has no protocol on a game they have no experience on, or a warning that something is going down, or that shit just hit the fan, a normal how are you doing, or if it is just a question asking about a situation I don't know. Honestly, that's one of the things I am most tired of.
Frankly I agree with a lot that has been said already about this. So much of this could have been done with action on the decision that was already set in stone for you Agennon. You knew you were going to ban them. You lied to us that you didn't want to. You put us through months of disagreements and discussions and stress for what? Just for us to lose some of the people who put the most work in making this community welcoming? To push away the people who have worked so hard for this community? I really hope that this isn't the end of the cycle because dear god it would honestly be embarrassing to have so many people with so much knowledge and experience for this iteration to crash and burn within a year of its launch. I want to keep going. I want to help this community advance, but decision and decision and inaction after inaction has just been shooting ourselves, and yourself in the foot. We got so worn down we just gave up because you were and have been set on a long ban, or if we want to talk semantics like we have for months, a long time out, a significant punishment even if we want to avoid using the word ban. I mean this in the best way possible, but you cut off your nose to spite your face here. In the process of trying to fix the vibes you have lead it to be the worst vibes I have experienced. You had so many chances and ways to fix this given by so many people. You defended people that have gone against the very ethos we worked on figuring out at the beginning of the community, and used the excuses of other non staff behavior to push away from the discussion and talk circles around the suggestions and advice of everyone who could give it. I find it honestly ironic that the announcement made highlights that "we are completely against bad faith interactions" yet I think those in advisors/admins channels have experienced the most of that in every conversation we have had.
I have dealt or seen drama in so many communities, and I would be lying if I didnt say that ultimately it usually comes from the top. and in each situation I have had the change and the unfortunate opportunity to see a little more how it is from the top, I can whole heatedly say that you have had the best group of people behind you (attempting to) talking and suggesting how to move forward and what to do. I really do have to beg that you use that, because like I said earlier, it would be god damn embarrassing to have this much talent and experience available and this come crashing down and being such a shit show like it has been these past two months.
I find it harder and harder every single day to argue against you when you already have set your heart and mind to something, yet you push for more discussion. I have felt myself avouding checking discord and other things involved with this community more and more since this all started. Maybe I should have listened to that gut feeling that I had each time I was close to launching and hopping on AHG and SGM after I left SGM in 2018, that same gut feeling I had when I was told that GL was launching a TTT server. Maybe I should have listened to that voice saying "dude do you really want to risk that same staff drama again" when I was asked and suggested to apply by multiple people. Maybe I should have listened to it again when I was told I should push for admin.
To everyone else that reads this, I am here for you. To be blunt, my specialty, I care not about the GL name, not about the history from SGM/STTT or AHG or Crescent. Without the people the community is nothing. I have fought for the people of the community so much, I made mistakes, I learned, I hope I got better. I will continue to fight for the people of the community till I guess its over, but man the people I fight for are leaving and it is still harder and harder to fight more for everyone when there is no one to fight for.
I hate telling myself and others I told you so. I hate that I get chance after chance to say it. But here we are, and I am finding it hard to not tell myself that. Yet here I am writing this long ass message, because I care. And I know others care. I know there are people that aren't staff anymore or even weren't staff and they care. But it is hard to do much other than write this because I know and I think many of them know doing something like this is the best chance we have to getting across to you.
Agennon, I pray you do not try to nitpick this because I really tried to write this out in a way that is respectful and thoughtful, I know that it being my words will come out blunt, they always do somehow. I hope you recognize that I care and want success and fun and such in this community. I think just about everyone does, but the cost for that effort it requires has been skyrocketing and that will drive people away.
My final thing is for anyone seeing this is that my Discord dms are open, my forum dms are open, my steam is accepting friend requests I think, and I welcome any communication for you if you wish.
- Zyp
Frankly I agree with a lot that has been said already about this. So much of this could have been done with action on the decision that was already set in stone for you Agennon. You knew you were going to ban them. You lied to us that you didn't want to. You put us through months of disagreements and discussions and stress for what? Just for us to lose some of the people who put the most work in making this community welcoming? To push away the people who have worked so hard for this community? I really hope that this isn't the end of the cycle because dear god it would honestly be embarrassing to have so many people with so much knowledge and experience for this iteration to crash and burn within a year of its launch. I want to keep going. I want to help this community advance, but decision and decision and inaction after inaction has just been shooting ourselves, and yourself in the foot. We got so worn down we just gave up because you were and have been set on a long ban, or if we want to talk semantics like we have for months, a long time out, a significant punishment even if we want to avoid using the word ban. I mean this in the best way possible, but you cut off your nose to spite your face here. In the process of trying to fix the vibes you have lead it to be the worst vibes I have experienced. You had so many chances and ways to fix this given by so many people. You defended people that have gone against the very ethos we worked on figuring out at the beginning of the community, and used the excuses of other non staff behavior to push away from the discussion and talk circles around the suggestions and advice of everyone who could give it. I find it honestly ironic that the announcement made highlights that "we are completely against bad faith interactions" yet I think those in advisors/admins channels have experienced the most of that in every conversation we have had.
I have dealt or seen drama in so many communities, and I would be lying if I didnt say that ultimately it usually comes from the top. and in each situation I have had the change and the unfortunate opportunity to see a little more how it is from the top, I can whole heatedly say that you have had the best group of people behind you (attempting to) talking and suggesting how to move forward and what to do. I really do have to beg that you use that, because like I said earlier, it would be god damn embarrassing to have this much talent and experience available and this come crashing down and being such a shit show like it has been these past two months.
I find it harder and harder every single day to argue against you when you already have set your heart and mind to something, yet you push for more discussion. I have felt myself avouding checking discord and other things involved with this community more and more since this all started. Maybe I should have listened to that gut feeling that I had each time I was close to launching and hopping on AHG and SGM after I left SGM in 2018, that same gut feeling I had when I was told that GL was launching a TTT server. Maybe I should have listened to that voice saying "dude do you really want to risk that same staff drama again" when I was asked and suggested to apply by multiple people. Maybe I should have listened to it again when I was told I should push for admin.
To everyone else that reads this, I am here for you. To be blunt, my specialty, I care not about the GL name, not about the history from SGM/STTT or AHG or Crescent. Without the people the community is nothing. I have fought for the people of the community so much, I made mistakes, I learned, I hope I got better. I will continue to fight for the people of the community till I guess its over, but man the people I fight for are leaving and it is still harder and harder to fight more for everyone when there is no one to fight for.
I hate telling myself and others I told you so. I hate that I get chance after chance to say it. But here we are, and I am finding it hard to not tell myself that. Yet here I am writing this long ass message, because I care. And I know others care. I know there are people that aren't staff anymore or even weren't staff and they care. But it is hard to do much other than write this because I know and I think many of them know doing something like this is the best chance we have to getting across to you.
Agennon, I pray you do not try to nitpick this because I really tried to write this out in a way that is respectful and thoughtful, I know that it being my words will come out blunt, they always do somehow. I hope you recognize that I care and want success and fun and such in this community. I think just about everyone does, but the cost for that effort it requires has been skyrocketing and that will drive people away.
My final thing is for anyone seeing this is that my Discord dms are open, my forum dms are open, my steam is accepting friend requests I think, and I welcome any communication for you if you wish.
- Zyp