A word of warning: I may delve into the psychology of Elron's brain here, i'll probably fail...
I've been getting really pissed off with elron (because he's been getting pissed off with me, vicious circle anyone) lately, as you may or may not have noticed. He doesn't take any criticism whatsover, he thinks it's all a personal attack aimed directly at him. It isn't, i'm actually trying to be helpful.
Anyone who knows me (jonny) knows i'm not the best person to be arguing with, i'm quite argumentative and am not patient at all.
[rant]
First of all the story of tonights antics:
Everyone's playing along nicely, nobody's complaining, the world is a happy place.
Elron decides it might be funny to MUTE me, where i can't type anything into the server. I'm talking to alex and rich on the phone so i ask them to tell elron, who unmutes me a few mins later. This really pissed me off, but i thought: don't want to piss off elron, so i won't say anything apart from a cursory
'F**k off elron' which he laughs off.
We play a few more maps and then someone says elron's been moaning all night, so he stops and starts typing in capital letters something along the lines of:
"WHEN HAVE I MOANED TONIGHT, GIVE ME ONE INSTANCE" to which no-one replies, so i reply saying he hasn't moaned but he was a bit of a tw*t when he muted me, so he mutes me again. Then says 'I'M NOT PLAYING ANYMORE BECAUSE OF THE WAY I GET TREATED AS SERVER' and he shuts down the server. (which in itself was quite annoying as i was winning by a large margin :p (had to get that in somewhere))
So when i quizzed him about it afterwards he starts moaning about how sick of getting moaned at he is (mainly from me, i must admit). I've had a few post game 'chats' with elron now, most of them have developed into arguements without either of us giving way whatsoever, but tonight's really took the biscuit:
(i've edited my msn name as it was very long...)
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the worst part in my mind is where he says stop being such a twat and play. i take this as his mind saying, Andy's got a point but i don't want to lose the arguement so i'll get out now.
then I went on to say i always like to chip in my two cents worth as i feel i'm the most experienced (i've played more wolf online than anyone who plays with us, i think) and knowledgable host, if i feel something isn't going the way it should i'm always going to chip in, doesn't matter who is server.
he say's i'm not, there is no BEST person which wasn't what i was saying. being experienced and knowledgable doesn't necessarily make me the best (Mark was prob best server...) but it's me who's done all the looking up of how to run a server. i looked up and configured et pro, and most importantly i found out how to change the port (that took me feckin ages) and elron comes back with something along the lines of anyone could have done it. maybe they could, that's not my point, my point was that it was ME who did it (and for the benefit of others, i'm inside resnet i don't need the port changed). it's me that has set up elrons server (he said it was HIS server, and it is, but i've still done most if not all of the config of it...), so i feel i have the right to have a little say on how it's run, i think that's fair.
he ended the conversation by saying he was going to block me, then he went offline/blocked me.
generally if i chip something in elron thinks i'm having a go at him, so he'll either ignore me or tell me to fu*k off, which obviously rattles me so i keep going with my typing. he'll either tell me to fuck off again, kick me (has happened), mute me (has happened), tell me to stop typing and just play or simply keep ignoring me. Then at the end he'll tell me i've hurt him deeply with all my moaning. I usually have a fairly good point to make, so if he listened to me he might learn something about to run a server properly, making it all better in the long run.
Now, I have been moaning at him lately, because i feel he's been taking his powers as server too far. Time was getting added if his team had a chance of winning, players were getting moved around to make his team stronger, he was moving himself to other teams if didn't want to play as one particular team.
And one other thing which bothers me is that he doesn't read the chat box very much, this is especially vital as server so you know what is going on, who is happy, who isn't. If he misses a lot of messages from me, I start to type in caps and my language gets stronger and stronger to try and get attention (i'm impatient so these come thick and fast), which probably worsens the situation. When i'm server i'm always reading the messages (i do miss some, but not very often) so i always know what's going on, maybe because of this i feel other hosts should do the same?
The job as server is to make as many people as happy as possible (we're all their for fun/relaxation, none more than me), and i realise my having a go at elron maybe made him unhappy but that was not my intention, my intention being for everyone to get the most out of our games.
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so what if no-one outside resnet plays any more, i still looked up how to do it. *argh*
Now, when elron isn't serving or i'm not playing (according to elron) nobody complains, it's only me that complains when elron's serving. Maybe no-one else has the guts to, i've heard a lot of bad reports from people about elron's servers, mainly the time adding, gravity changing etc etc.
I have a bit of criticism for myself too
(i'm not entirely perfect): I always used to be server, now elron's always server (my computer can't take it :'( ). Now I really love being server, i see it as a challenge to keep everyone happy (i like a challenge 
) and i'm not terribly happy if i'm playing now and i'm not server (or a ref, which elron refuses to make me).
So what's the solution to this. The easy one is for me to host, as no-one complains much when i'm hosting but my computer can't take it. Another solution (one which worked a few nights ago) is for someone else entirely to host and I can be a referee. Elron seems to be fine when i'm server (he might not be now...) so why not have this as a solution, we're only here for a week now.
if anyone who plays hasn't met elron, he *appears* to be a fairly nice bloke in real life.
[/rant]
A final thought:
We want as many people playing wolf as possible, and i know for a fact we have lost some (primarily because of elron and i bitching at each other) because of this. I want elron to play, he's a fantastic player and one i would have on my team anytime (unless he's playing as some stupid class we don't need and isn't listening to me asking him to change, i know good tactics ffs). So for the next week lets not have any elron servers, lets have fun playing wolf and lets leave St A/Halls of Residence with a good impression of our games.
also, if there are games on resnet next year i'll play from outside :p
from your long suffering ex-server
Andy.
ps. this might get edited if i ever re-read it.
edit: formatting
admin edit: removed fragments of a private messenger conversation
that's always my intention.