For those of you that don’t know, I spent Monday evening through Friday this week evening with @turkeyman11a and @mountainrasta! Just thought I’d make a post to let you all know how it went 😀

Monday evening

I arrived at Belfast International Airport not long after 6pm, where turkey and mountain came to pick me up, where we met for the first time! They took me to their home, whilst pointing out several sights in Ireland. That was when I first realised how fucking beautiful Ireland as a country (or sovereign state, depending on how you want to look at it) is!

When we got to their home I met Mrs. TurkeyAndMountain, they gave me a quick tour around (very nice house!), and showed me where I would be staying for the wake. A very nice little mobile that they have. What I found the most amazing about the whole place is that they live on the side of a mountain, and… Trust me, where I come from, mountains don’t exist.

After they’d left me to settle in for a bit, I realised where I was and who I was with, and the excitement and pure joy that hit me at that moment I will never ever forget. It was a moment of pure ‘HOLY SHIT! I AM WITH MOUNTAIN AND TURKEY! AT THEIR FUCKING HOUSE. THEY ARE RIGHT FUCKING THERE.’

Not much happened on Monday, so let us move onto Tuesday!

Tuesday

Tuesday was a day of touring and seeing some of what Ireland had to offer! There are some truly stunning sights in Ireland… Which… I wish I had seen, but clouds didn’t seem to like us very much on that day! Nevertheless, we did manage to go to a castle (turkey and mountain will shout the name in the comments, I hope, but I can’t for the life of me remember what the castle was called, unfortunately). The castle, although these days a ruin, was truly beautiful to see, and would thoroughly recommend it if you ever visit Northern Ireland 😀

Tuesday afternoon was when the clouds really started rolling in. We went for a spin in mountain’s yoke (@mountainrasta, be proud of me!) throughout the Mourne Mountains, but due to the heavy level of clouds, we really couldn’t see very much. We went to get some food, and on the way home, the clouds starting fading slowly, so at one point, we stopped on a hill, and I got some pictures of some of the views really not far from their home!

@turkeyman11a also wanted to show me a spot where physics ceases to exist, where a vehicle left in neutral will roll up a hill. And whilst mountain’s yoke did to a certain extent roll up said hill, it wasn’t the most impressive uphill rolling I’ve seen. Fortunately, there was a van that pulled in to the same spot, and rolled very satisfyingly up the hill. I’m fairly sure they weren’t using the accelerator, for one main reason. It’s fucking awesome to see something like that.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a day of pirate-themed minigolf and driving! The golf was great craic (again, mountain and turkey, BE PROUD OF ME!). We don’t know who won, but honestly, who gives a shit? We were there to have fun, and we really did! Especially after passing the same men’s room twice. We played both lots of 18 holes, some of which were much easier than others (I got holes in one in some, and had to give up after reaching the maximum number of goes on others). Turkey and mountain both managed to get a hole in one in the last hole of the first set, which earned them a very special reward! A gold doubloon, which entitles them to a free game, which is why I was very touched when turkey offered me his.

Whilst we were playing the second set of holes, I got (rather rudely, methinks), spat at by a wooden totem pole… I didn’t feel too bad about it, though, because I know that turkey had been spat at by one previously.

And, of course, being from PirateCraft, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to pose for a group photo beneath the pirate golf sign!

Left to right: turkey, me, mountain

Wednesday afternoon, after grabbing some grub at a great local Chinese, we headed to Ballaghaderreen to pick up Little Miss TurkeyAndMountain. ’twas a long drive, but got to see lots of both Northern and the Republic of Ireland. After arriving in Ballaghaderreen, turkey was really not looking forward to the drive home, but managed to suck it up and made it without sleeping… For the most part. Little Miss TurkeyAndMountain had bought a gift, too, which, although absolutely lovely and currently sitting on the wall above my bed, was completely unnecessary (I didn’t go to Ireland to be given gifts, after all!).

Thursday

Thursday was a really rather quiet day, we didn’t go out or do anything much. Thursday afternoon, as mountain so eloquently puts it, I ‘showed his kids how to kill each other’.

It’s worth mentioning that during a 2v1 (me vs mountain and turkey), mountain did get cut, and I will forever feel shit for that (really sorry buddy… Love you <3). He said it wasn’t too bad… But it did bleed… A lot.

Thursday evening, mountain seemed well enough to show me his air rifle, and let myself and turkey convince him to shoot for a bit. This… Turned out to be a bad idea, as one of turkey’s shots rebounded off the TV and hit him in the waist before, bouncing off the yoke between him and I. It was at this point (quite hilariously, I find), that turkey started jumping up and down with joy. Despite getting the amount of abuse he did on Friday, mountain was still very keen to go paintballing on Friday!

Friday

The morning of my last day in Ireland came. The day we went paintballing. On a mountain. An overgrown mountain. Which made it very hard to move. We started off playing Civil War (the teams were myself and turkey vs mountain, Mrs TurkeyAndMountain and Little Miss TurkeyAndMountain). Civil war was simple enough. The two teams lined up on opposite sides of the arena, and shot each other. You get hit, you’re out. You don’t. take a step towards the enemy team. Turkey and I ended up winning Civil War.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but we played a Capture the Cripple sort of game, as well as some Castle Defence. Then came the free for alls. The first free for all was just that. Two lives, 10 second respawn time. I lost that one very quickly.

And then mountain, turkey and I played a free for all Capture the Flag. Mountain ended up running out of ammo, and declared himself out. That left just me and turkey, and as soon as mountain said he was out, I saw turkey sprint for the flag, which was behind cover. So I ran up to the cover and started shooting at turkey from above the cover, and followed him as he reached the exit. I ended up shooting him in the back, so he dropped the flag and ran back to his base to start his 10-second respawn time. At this point, I ran as fast as I could (which, admittedly, is still slow). However, it seemed fast enough… I grabbed the flag, and started running back to my base, with my back to turkey. I was sweating so much running uphill that my mask started slipping off. Nevertheless, I kept going… And then I tripped, and fell up the mountain. I was convinced that I was going to lose at this point, yet I got up and kept running towards my base. And I made it. I threw the flag down, took my mask off, and leaned against the tires… And nearly threw up. Twice. Basically… I rekt turkeyman11a ez 10 hearts.

And then I went home. Basically.

So… Ya… That’s what went on in my week in Ireland 😀

Oh boy has this caused drama over the last few months, and I’m becoming a little sick of it, so I’m making this post to clear up a few things.

Concerning advertising:

Fact is; advertising is against the server rules. We have all seen that one player who joins our server, pretends to care, and then starts advertising his server whereby we ban him. There are few things that Godsy, staff (myself included), and the community despise more than advertising.

However…

This advertising applies both to people playing on Piratecraft, as well as people from our community going over to other servers and advertising the server. We know we have a nice little server going on here, but advertising is shameful. Please don’t advertise this server on other servers, or vice versa.

Concerning other players from these servers:

Staff know about all this ‘taking players from other servers’ thing that has been going on recently at an accelerated pace. We know the people who are involved, we know that they are a relatively tight knit community, we know how some of these communities are leaving a ‘lasting impression’ on the Piratecraft community.

However…

We can’t just go around banning people who came from other servers. They are players too after all, and we don’t know the exact circumstances of how or why they joined. So please don’t nag staff about banning or punishing these players (or the one who brought them here) just because they came from a different community. These players will be treated like the other players here; if they behave themselves; all is fine, if they don’t; they get punished. We don’t have ‘special rules’ for players who play on a different server, but we are aware of their records on these servers.

Concerning ‘raiding/pvp crews’ and the ‘toxic attitude’:

The big one I guess, and the main reason why I have made this post.

Anyone who is reasonably active on Teamspeak or discord, and has been on there within the last month or so will know exactly what I’m talking about with all of this. I’m not trying to cause more drama than there already is, I’m not trying to point fingers at certain individuals or groups, I’m trying to stick to the facts.

Firstly, the ‘raiding/pvp crews’: 

When I first joined over 2 years ago, things seemed simple to a lot of people; small-ish ‘pirate crews’ would attack and war with the larger ’empire crews’, and from time to time even the larger ’empire crews’ would have a bash at one another. Time passed, and as the ‘pirate crews’ started to become scarce, and eventually even the ’empire crews’ started to crumble, what seemed to be a new class of crews started to form: these ‘raining/pvp crews’. From personal experience from being on Teamspeak, it seems these new crews/communities have created quite a divide among many veteran members of our community.

I keep hearing people say things along the lines of “player1 was salty at player2, so player1 brought over all of his/her toxic pvp players onto Piratecraft to get revenge/piss off other players/take over the server”. For all those who agree with that statement, I’m sorry but for the most part that’s what communities do: they work together to achieve a common goal. Whether that goal is productive or beneficial to the server is debatable.

Of course not everyone enjoys being on the receiving end of one of these ‘raiding/pvp crews’. But its not against the server rules to create such a raid/pvp crew. Yes ok, you may struggle to call them pirates, let alone say they use things like ships or own a nice port as would be standard on a pirate-themed server, but these are not compulsory features of the server. We have plugins that people can choose to use, or not. Staff won’t go around with a stick beating those players who ‘never use boats because they only pvp’. I’d really like to see more and encourage the use of ships, cannons, brews, etc, but it’s these players’ choices whether they use them or not.

And don’t get me started on the “its unfair because they are all in discord working together in a big group and always win”. They’re organised. Without mentioning any names, those of us to do go on teamspeak and play together on other games are guilty of this too; we communicate and win a lot of games, I’d even go as far and say we win a good majority of games because we work together and communicate well. Sounds familiar? Yeah, it should. Are we exploiting things? Not really, no.

Secondly, the ‘toxicity’:

“That crew only play on here to annoy us” or “They’re just so toxic”.

I get it. They’re kids (mostly). They do what most kids do: be bold, be irritating, and be immature.

I know things get out of hand, I have witnessed things get out of hand with this immature attitude, and those involved are known and have been muted or warned about it in the past. But if you’re not a tolerant person, then why are you on the internet? We have a wonderful /ignore command on the server if somebody is annoying you, if they are still annoying, take screenshots or record it and send it to staff or post it on the forums. Its what we are here for. Not every offence will be punished, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do something later on. 

Also, I know people are being ‘targeted’ by other certain people in the community. We know which players are involved, and we are watching the situation very very carefully. Just because someone is good at pvp/raiding/working in a team, does not grant you the ‘lets be annoying’ badge (only Markus can grant you that).

A message to those ‘pvp/raiding crews’ or individuals:

Don’t be annoying, don’t be the ones whom the server frowns upon, and don’t ‘target’ people or crews just to annoy them and get a reaction out of them.

For those at the receiving end of this ‘targeting’; it exerts an enormous amount of pressure and stress on them. It may just be a game, but for some people it means more than that; it means being apart of a community that respects them. You probably don’t know the person in real life, they probably don’t know you. If these individuals/crews think they can get away with this, well they won’t. It’s not bullying, but it’s not far off it either. As for the language being used… some things are best kept to oneself. If you are being aggravating, staff will mute you.

Finally

At the end of the day, we are all here to have a good time. Whether this be building, creating a crew, raiding or whatnot. I can speak for the whole of staff when I say we do care about player feedback on things to do with the server, or pertaining to certain individuals. We do take notes ya know.

So please, if this post/topic does relate to you, please be considerate of other people already in the community, as well as staff who have to listen to this day in and day out, thanks.

Life isn’t fair, but you can be.