Kaizen "leadership"

[Romper]

Good luck with your first cra.... wait this isn't who ya crappin...

But this in essence is how it's done.

Learn something from this flame people. If you want to make a flame this is how you do it.

 

[Begen]

Wow, very interesting, good read.

 

[Truegrave]

It was prob almost a year ago now that I think about it I just recall there was a rush to go and True apologied to everyone for the shortness of the run, and half the shell was a bit confused at the situation. Its ancient history now and Truegrave is a real class act btw I never have any problem doing a job or duty he asks me to in dynamis runs. ^^

The only reason that run was cut short was because we had 10 mins left KV was being stalled by a friend, and we had finished NM lake in glacier. We needed a win which will not come in under 10 mins since running the dragons take at least 5 mins and that NM teleports all around, so I made the judgement call and ended early

 

[Caelia]

If you want to make a flame this is how you do it.

^^ This

But yeah, I've always hated the whole "full-time our pearl or gtfo" thing. I was part of an HNM shell 5 years ago and left because I got sick of it. I'm on call enough IRL, no need to do so for a game lol.

 

[Elvaanmage]

I agree with a few people here, I always found shells that have a "wear our pearl full-time and/or be on call full-time or gtfo of shell" policy to be quite retarded to say the least.
Nice flame u got here Lyall, long but one of those interesting long ones. And d^.^b (thumbs up) for quitting, the way this all sounds I don't blame u for wanting to quit it.

 

[Tristam Green]

Well aside from 2 KV's and a Sandworm a year ago, Kaizen hasn't done HNMs in a year. No, sitting around watching other shellls claim Fafhogg, Aspid, and KB isn't doing HNMs, for any who might even try to play that card.

"But we were there, maaaaan. We were there."

Sounds a bit like getting a ribbon for participation. It really says "you suck", but you still feel good about it on the inside.

See, this is exatly why'd I'd never want to join a shell like this. Seriously guys, who wants to play a game for a living? "If you dont 100% devote your life to this shell, this game, you're kicked." What kind of shit is that? These "leaders" from Kaize, and any HNM shell that do this are, for a lack of a better word, retarded. Get your heads out of your asses, its a GOD DAMN game. Lyall, cookies for you for quitting. Good for you

lol, in 2007-2008 there were plenty of Linkshells that did this. Looks like most of them learned their lessons, and said "fuck it, we can't really dictate what other players do". Then there's shit like this

 

[Zaltana]

When kaizen was first built that was the pollicy, but that was also over a half a decade ago and a large portion of the game was still being discovered. It's what led Kaizen to be the titan is was, but things have changed. I agree it sounds like they are trying to pick up from where they started, not from where they left off. The latter being how you move on. Dwelling in the past will just continue to hold you back. To many left over egos from that LS it seems.

 

[Anaeran]

There's nothing wrong with a "wear our pearl only" policy if it is communicated right and members are accepted under the pretense that this is a requirement. Different strokes for different folks. Sad to see a great group decline over the years even if the game is getting close to the end.

It happens in EVERY SINGLE game to many different teams though, not just with Kaizen. Eventually some dickwad is going to end up at the helm when old leadership isn't around anymore and shit like this happens. The only reason it's a flame here is because in this case it happened to a team that had build up a reputation as being one of the best. Sucks for everyone involved really- including mentioned clueless leadership. Not sure why people are so surprised here.

 

[Tomasello]

As far as I know Kaizen has been dead for years. The nail in the coffin was the duping ban. As far as I know amazingly Kisada is still calling the shots in the back ground and these shill leaders who get appointed are his puppets whom strings he pulls just for his amusement. While they once had talent, they've also had some real cocky douchebags in run through there ranks who had nothing to be arrogant about other than being an LOLKaizen member and why anyone would still deal with them is amazing. I can understand dealing with assholes if its a mean to an end but to deal with assholes AND get nothing for it is sad. There's plenty of shells much better than them around now. And to all the decent people who have been/were in Kaizen sorry you dealt with years of douchebaggery like that. Hopefully you got something out of it....

 

[Raesvelg]

Aye, full-timing a pearl is normal in an HNM shell; things pop, and you really need people as quick as you can, not having to track them down individually.

In this circumstance, though, I can see the complaint against it, when a shell is basically reduced to an events shell, and comes to rely heavily on particular socials to sustain itself.

 

[Uzor]

I don't particularly like Kaizen, but I don't see Kaizen doing anything wrong here.

You said it yourself, Kaizen's a wasteland when there's no events going on. But its not Kaizen's fault, its because people have other shells with friends. The only way to CHANGE that is to force everyone to wear the pearl at all times. If everyone wear the pearl at all times, it won't be a wasteland. And Gain's is right, it is a pain in the ass to coordinate HNM's if people aren't in the shell. You can't plan alliance set up, nor do you know who's actually coming. the only way a HNM shell can work out is if you at least wear the pearl the majority of the time. If you're not willing to make that sacrifice, you do not fit in a HNM LS.

 

[Xalioniaf]

Aye, full-timing a pearl is normal in an HNM shell; things pop, and you really need people as quick as you can, not having to track them down individually.

In this circumstance, though, I can see the complaint against it, when a shell is basically reduced to an events shell, and comes to rely heavily on particular socials to sustain itself.

This.
If I joined a shell that had a full-time policy, well... you're in some kind of alternate universe, because I haven't done that shit in forever.
But if I join a shell that's billed as an events-only shell, and then decides it wants to reclaim it's former glory from at least half a decade ago and reinstate an old policy, it's kind of bullshitty.

Also, welcome to the Flameboard, Midgardfriends. This is how it's done.

 

[Lyall]

I don't particularly like Kaizen, but I don't see Kaizen doing anything wrong here.

You said it yourself, Kaizen's a wasteland when there's no events going on. But its not Kaizen's fault, its because people have other shells with friends. The only way to CHANGE that is to force everyone to wear the pearl at all times. If everyone wear the pearl at all times, it won't be a wasteland. And Gain's is right, it is a pain in the ass to coordinate HNM's if people aren't in the shell. You can't plan alliance set up, nor do you know who's actually coming. the only way a HNM shell can work out is if you at least wear the pearl the majority of the time. If you're not willing to make that sacrifice, you do not fit in a HNM LS.

I should clarify this. Large majority of Kaizen fulltimes the shell, the only people who refused to were myself and two others. It's not that EVERYONE was wearing a different pearl, it's that people allegedly complained the three of us weren't there all the time. My referring to them being a wasteland during the day was through people simply not being online. The shell was dead until evenings primetime, had people until the event was over, then returned to being dead. This policy was handed down from On High literally overnight one day, and it was aimed at three people and three people only. Of COURSE most of kaizen doesn't have a problem fulltiming it, most of kaizen doesn't have another shell they consider family.

 

[Arthur]

I don't particularly like Kaizen, but I don't see Kaizen doing anything wrong here.

You said it yourself, Kaizen's a wasteland when there's no events going on. But its not Kaizen's fault, its because people have other shells with friends. The only way to CHANGE that is to force everyone to wear the pearl at all times. If everyone wear the pearl at all times, it won't be a wasteland. And Gain's is right, it is a pain in the ass to coordinate HNM's if people aren't in the shell. You can't plan alliance set up, nor do you know who's actually coming. the only way a HNM shell can work out is if you at least wear the pearl the majority of the time. If you're not willing to make that sacrifice, you do not fit in a HNM LS.

Exactly... I thought it was a rule even, hidden or not. A HNM/Endgame shell needs everyone to be fully dedicated. Its obviously not for everyone, even if you assume the shell won't be hardcore which honestly I think the knightblade members did.

I do understand the other side as well about the leadership being totally wrong in the first place though. Do they pick a name out of a hat or something?

Also, the way recruitment goes is almost a joke... I never heard of such a thing but to join you have to asked by a leader, you can't apply. If you say yes when asked then they will take your name and take weeks and all the leaders(maybe members too im not sure) will vote on you and after that a decision is made. If you don't get in they wont even tell you why, could be someone who just dislikes you and you can't get in for that, or a false rumor. Then if you do get a yes then you go through the trial period. I could understand if this was a full shell that is actually very active. But they are low man and do little events and being extremly picky??

Other then that I do think its a good shell, if they could change the recruitment policy, get some dedicated people, add/change leadership. Could go back to how it was, maybe when the server transfers come this will happen, if the shell doesnt break.

 

[Arthur]

I should clarify this. Large majority of Kaizen fulltimes the shell, the only people who refused to were myself and two others. It's not that EVERYONE was wearing a different pearl, it's that people allegedly complained the three of us weren't there all the time. My referring to them being a wasteland during the day was through people simply not being online. The shell was dead until evenings primetime, had people until the event was over, then returned to being dead. This policy was handed down from On High literally overnight one day, and it was aimed at three people and three people only. Of COURSE most of kaizen doesn't have a problem fulltiming it, most of kaizen doesn't have another shell they consider family.

Um... yeah thats because Kaizen is suppose to be the family.

 

[Anaeran]

You know when ANY leader makes a significant policy change to better their team there's going to be outspoken people whether it was the right decision or the wrong. As a leader, it's your job to assess risk versus reward for your team. Is losing a few disgruntled players worth the benefit of having a dedicated memberbase on the pearl ready to go in the long run? It probably depends largely on what kind of players they are. Chances are, leadership views these people as expendable to the cause- probably rightfully so if they aren't fully dedicated to the team's new goals. It sucks to be deemed expendable and perhaps that's where the animosity is really coming from here.

Just because they are low on membership doesn't mean that they forfeit the right to establish policy to accomplish goals that others may view as unattainable or far fetched. Don't like it? Play elsewhere. I think a few people here are assuming that because they aren't the Kaizen of old they shouldn't be allowed to put these kinds of policies in place...which is an unfair and naive way of viewing this situation.

Personally, I'd rather have 10 players who are 100% dedicated to my team and build the team from there than waste my time catering to people who want to be other places when my team needs them to be prepared to move on a target. This flame should be a flame on the way leadership went about establishing said policy change and shift focus away from the change itself, as I do believe change was warranted in this case based on what you've provided for a background here.

 

[Dejavu]

Ok I am not a member of Kaizen because I told them that I did not want to be expected to be at events anymore or camps because they were attempting to recruit me before the salvage bannings and they decided to take on all you nightbladers. They were already recruiting heavily before the salvage bannings to try and reclaim their former glory and the bannings only caused them to lose several more long term members. At this point kaizen was arguably on life support and they made the decision to take on all the NB members because they got 7 members at once which is half of what you would need to take down any king if the people knew what they were doing.

This move was an unprecedented move for kaizen as to my knowledge they have never accepted a 2 or none member joining let alone a 7 or none offer. The problem is that when Kaizen took on 7 friends at once the shell basically broke in half. There was the Nightbladers also know as the band of seven and everyone else. Despite the fact that getting you guys to assimilate into a shell would be hard enough for a stronger leader the fact is that arguably even to this date since Kisada left there has been no actual leader in Kaizen other than Rhad who was already burned out when he took over. Several people were asked to take over including Livvy, Truegrave, Treg, Ilana and several others im sure but all of them refused. It appears that finally this Gains person has decided to take up that mantle but we will get back to this point later.

Now as for the 2 factions of Kaizen, It was always understood that you should be in the shell full time if possible because they intended to get back to their old form. Yet even during events there was times when im told some of the nightbladers refused to wear the kaizen shell. Then since there were seven very close members whenever there was a vote as to what to do the nightbladers would all vote together and basically focused all the events the shell did do towards the nightbladers. This somewhat hits on one of the points that gains had as far as sacrifice unless an event had a direct benefit for the nightbladers they would not have a reason to attend. Limitless for example Alb was the Friday sponsor until she got her relic and all of the NBs attended her runs but to my knowledge none of the NB attended Mondays in which Truegrave was the sponsor. Dynamis is kinda the best place to see the split that Kaizen has taken. The Monday run is all of the older members and the Friday runs are all of the NB and arguably there are only like 3 or 4 people who do both.

Now Gains is doing something positive beyond just having you guys in the shell to try and actually have the people to .. idk camp something. He is trying to also make you guys become part of the group so that you may become something more than like a china town within a city. What I mean by this is even though you are there, you feel like something else and not actually part of the group. Beyond this the intention of taking on all the NB was not to be an event shell it was to make a return to endgame/kings. Have you ever heard the saying you have to crawl before you can walk.

The night you were talking about with Rone is that kind of a situation. The NB have little to no experience doing harder kills and Rone was arguing that you guys needed to take the safest approach. Sure once you have 10 kills under your belt as a group you can do w/e you want I mean I have seen it done with the main kirin kiter being a drk/nin but just because its possible doesn’t mean it’s a good decision. The fact that you guys then wiped to a JOL with 24 shows that baby steps are probably necessary especially since this is post JOL nerf when he can be done with a semi competent 10-12.

All and all taking on the NB was probably a bad idea from Kaizens stand point because you have cost them several members and you seem to think that your joining Kaizen was a bad idea so maybe it is time for the band of seven and Kaizen to split and go their separate ways an both groups will be better off for it rather than pissing and moaning about a rule that should have been in place for a kings shell (or atleast shell that intended to do kings) anyways.

 

[Lyall]

Ok I am not a member of Kaizen because I told them that I did not want to be expected to be at events anymore or camps because they were attempting to recruit me before the salvage bannings and they decided to take on all you nightbladers. They were already recruiting heavily before the salvage bannings to try and reclaim their former glory and the bannings only caused them to lose several more long term members. At this point kaizen was arguably on life support and they made the decision to take on all the NB members because they got 7 members at once which is half of what you would need to take down any king if the people knew what they were doing.

Kisada asked one person from the shell to join formally and when he heard that there were more or us, we were all invited. It's not like we were handpicked or made an exception of, they needed the people.

This move was an unprecedented move for kaizen as to my knowledge they have never accepted a 2 or none member joining let alone a 7 or none offer. The problem is that when Kaizen took on 7 friends at once the shell basically broke in half. There was the Nightbladers also know as the band of seven and everyone else.

Actually, we all wore the shell from the moment we got it. We fulltimed it then, to try and purposefully integrate. It still came down to conversations that we ignored in, or our conversations getting ignored. We were very clearly the new kids in school, so wearing the shell constantly became depressing and boring as fuck. Why be a part of a "family" that treats you and yours like a black sheep? We still showed up to events, still hung out when people were there, and still cooperated to the fullest. We just wouldn't wear the pearl on times when there was nothing scheduled to happen. Spontaneous events did not exist from the time we joined up until a week ago, when Gains got it in their head that we should suddenly compete against bot shells at HNMs.

Now as for the 2 factions of Kaizen, It was always understood that you should be in the shell full time if possible because they intended to get back to their old form. Yet even during events there was times when im told some of the nightbladers refused to wear the kaizen shell. Then since there were seven very close members whenever there was a vote as to what to do the nightbladers would all vote together and basically focused all the events the shell did do towards the nightbladers.

I'd love to know where you're hearing this. Kaizen doesn't vote on events, they're dictated by the leaders. Hence Treg suddenly pushing for SCNMs since he's front-line for the Orc head, hence Ilana pushing for Jailer of Faith when we were sitting on Jailer of Justice pops with the people to pop them. As for their old form? When we were recruited, both Rhad and later Zeth mentioned in tells to various people that Kaizen wasn't that shell anymore. Ard even said so at one point to me, saying something akin to "This shell isn't what it used to be, hasn't been for a long time." At no point were we told "By the way, we're probably going to turn our noses up and pretend we can still hang with the big boys." Like I said in my original post, if I wanted to join an HNM shell, I would have joined a successful one, not a washed up one.

This somewhat hits on one of the points that gains had as far as sacrifice unless an event had a direct benefit for the nightbladers they would not have a reason to attend. Limitless for example Alb was the Friday sponsor until she got her relic and all of the NBs attended her runs but to my knowledge none of the NB attended Mondays in which Truegrave was the sponsor. Dynamis is kinda the best place to see the split that Kaizen has taken. The Monday run is all of the older members and the Friday runs are all of the NB and arguably there are only like 3 or 4 people who do both.

First, I've got all of two things from my entire year's duration with the shell, an uncontested Osode and later, much later, W. Legs. I attended every event I was able, as did everyone else in my shell. I've got nothing against you, Deja, but it sounds like someone vented a bunch of bullshit to you and now you're posting some way incorrect info as fact. You said it yourself, you're not in Kaizen, so stop relaying what (didn't) happen at events. You are incorrect in your assumptions.

Furthermore, Limitless-Dynamis? That's not Kaizen. That's Limitless. You know why people don't run on Mondays? Work schedules, mainly. Alberic was the sponsor on Friday, got her relic, and still shows up. You're right, though; The monday run is all of the older members and none of them show up on Fridays. Who's only showing up to convenient runs again? If I understand it, Monday is mostly TG's friends trying to help him finish a scythe. Pot, meet kettle.

Now Gains is doing something positive beyond just having you guys in the shell to try and actually have the people to .. idk camp something. He is trying to also make you guys become part of the group so that you may become something more than like a china town within a city. What I mean by this is even though you are there, you feel like something else and not actually part of the group. Beyond this the intention of taking on all the NB was not to be an event shell it was to make a return to endgame/kings. Have you ever heard the saying you have to crawl before you can walk.

Again, when we already ousted long before that point. Kaizen was never stated to try and rebecome an HNM shell from any leader aside from when Gains decreed they were fulltime-or-get-out-HNM again.

The night you were talking about with Rone is that kind of a situation. The NB have little to no experience doing harder kills and Rone was arguing that you guys needed to take the safest approach. Sure once you have 10 kills under your belt as a group you can do w/e you want I mean I have seen it done with the main kirin kiter being a drk/nin but just because its possible doesn’t mean it’s a good decision. The fact that you guys then wiped to a JOL with 24 shows that baby steps are probably necessary especially since this is post JOL nerf when he can be done with a semi competent 10-12.

You might want to stop insinuating my shell doesn't know how to handle things. Also, I like how you blame us for a wipe when it was GAINS that called jobs that day. I was there as an ungear, unmerited, unskilled black mage. No wonder we died. Totally my fault.

All and all taking on the NB was probably a bad idea from Kaizens stand point because you have cost them several members and you seem to think that your joining Kaizen was a bad idea so maybe it is time for the band of seven and Kaizen to split and go their separate ways an both groups will be better off for it rather than pissing and moaning about a rule that should have been in place for a kings shell (or atleast shell that intended to do kings) anyways.

Read the entire post before you refute things. I made it clear we've already left/been run out. And we cost Kaizen members? I'd love to know who.

Deja, you aren't in Kaizen. Please stop talking on their behalf, especially when you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Alberic]

Ok I am not a member of Kaizen because I told them that I did not want to be expected to be at events anymore or camps because they were attempting to recruit me before the salvage bannings and they decided to take on all you nightbladers. They were already recruiting heavily before the salvage bannings to try and reclaim their former glory and the bannings only caused them to lose several more long term members. At this point kaizen was arguably on life support and they made the decision to take on all the NB members because they got 7 members at once which is half of what you would need to take down any king if the people knew what they were doing.

Been staying out of it so far, but I figure this is as good a time as any to step in. I told Rhad, who was leader at the time that we joined, that I wanted no part of HNMs. "Oh, it's okay, we don't do them anymore."

This move was an unprecedented move for kaizen as to my knowledge they have never accepted a 2 or none member joining let alone a 7 or none offer. The problem is that when Kaizen took on 7 friends at once the shell basically broke in half. There was the Nightbladers also know as the band of seven and everyone else. Despite the fact that getting you guys to assimilate into a shell would be hard enough for a stronger leader the fact is that arguably even to this date since Kisada left there has been no actual leader in Kaizen other than Rhad who was already burned out when he took over. Several people were asked to take over including Livvy, Truegrave, Treg, Ilana and several others im sure but all of them refused. It appears that finally this Gains person has decided to take up that mantle but we will get back to this point later.

This part is pretty much true. TG wouldn't have been a bad choice; I personally told Rhad and Zeth that I thought Treg would make a good officer. I supported him because he got people organized and got stuff done, something Kaizen desperately needed at the time.

Limitless for example Alb was the Friday sponsor until she got her relic and all of the NBs attended her runs but to my knowledge none of the NB attended Mondays in which Truegrave was the sponsor. Dynamis is kinda the best place to see the split that Kaizen has taken. The Monday run is all of the older members and the Friday runs are all of the NB and arguably there are only like 3 or 4 people who do both.

I joined Limitless when Kisada invited me and my friends to join in January or so of 2009. When I joined Limitless, I was already stage 4 relic horn, which I obtained through my own work and my friends helping me. I did try to attend both Mondays and Fridays for a while, but it was hard for me--Mondays enter an hour later than Fridays, and at the time, I was in the final two semesters at school; I stopped attending Mondays to focus on Fridays once I was chosen to be the Friday sponsor, and I only missed one run on a Friday thereafter due to illness. Some of the "Nightbladers" did attend both, but most of us work and are incapable of doing Dynamis til midnight or later EST, only to get up and go to work the next day. Ramp, as far as I know, attended Mondays until he had to start working nights.

Did the Nightblades focus on Friday runs because I was the sponsor? Sure, but that's not so shocking. TG's friends helped Monday runs to help him get his relic; my friends help Friday runs. I don't really see the difference.

Now Gains is doing something positive beyond just having you guys in the shell to try and actually have the people to .. idk camp something. He is trying to also make you guys become part of the group so that you may become something more than like a china town within a city. What I mean by this is even though you are there, you feel like something else and not actually part of the group. Beyond this the intention of taking on all the NB was not to be an event shell it was to make a return to endgame/kings. Have you ever heard the saying you have to crawl before you can walk.

When we first joined Kaizen, we did do some kings--I remember a couple Faf camps where it was me and 3 other people sitting in the Aery, while the majority of Kaizen didn't even bother coming out. I HATE camping kings, but I did at least make an attempt to follow the policy.

Gains changed the policy saying that as long as we were sure to be there for events, we could wear our social shell the rest of the time; she then changed the policy back to "Wear Kaizen or else." She changed the policy originally because some of the Nightblades had already quit Kaizen for reasons of their own. Those of us that were left were gratified that leadership was trying to work with us. We got a lot of flak for not wearing Kaizen all the time, but the shell was DEAD most of the time. I only took Kaizen off when I was afk (at night or while I was at work) or when I was doing Salvage (since my Salvage group had non-Kaizen people in it). Once Gains changed the policy, yes, I wore my social shell more, and I'd left Kaizen myself before she changed it back.

Lyall's argument was that Gains arbitrarily changed the policy back due to complaints from people that we still have never heard to our faces. Court occasionally complained to me that I didn't wear Kaizen enough; I told him then, "I wear it when I'm online and at keys." It's hard to get up the motivation to want to be on a shell though where there's some pretty overt hostility. Gains him/her/whateverself wasn't that bad, though I can see why Lyall directed this flame at her. She's a weak leader with no real idea what she's doing. Kaizen leadership in general has been weak since Kisada got banned (which is a shame, because I liked him and his leadership style). Rhad and Zeth had the ability to get people to do things, but both seemed to get burnt out by the daily grind very easily; Ardenbruk could've done it, but he quit out of the blue; Courtney didn't want to; Treg and Ilana are in my opinion in over their heads.

The night you were talking about with Rone is that kind of a situation. The NB have little to no experience doing harder kills and Rone was arguing that you guys needed to take the safest approach. Sure once you have 10 kills under your belt as a group you can do w/e you want I mean I have seen it done with the main kirin kiter being a drk/nin but just because its possible doesn’t mean it’s a good decision. The fact that you guys then wiped to a JOL with 24 shows that baby steps are probably necessary especially since this is post JOL nerf when he can be done with a semi competent 10-12.

The NBs had no input on the JoL strat that night--we weren't involved in Rone's quitting at all. When we wiped to JoL, that was Gains, Treg, and Ilana's strategy, not ours. We were peons participating in the higher-ups' strategy. Gains changed the strat to follow Rone's suggestion and we still lost. Still, what's this "The NBs have no experience with harder kills"? Ramp helped run a sea shell and has done JoL tons of times (he had a Novio for a while). Mai was a member of CK, TheNameless and Fury, just to name a couple old-school shells. I think the only people with inexperience at JoL out of our group were myself and Lyall--I'd done lower-tier Jailers before but never the big guy, and Lyall told them not to use his BLM and they told him to skill up on JoL's pops.

All and all taking on the NB was probably a bad idea from Kaizens stand point because you have cost them several members and you seem to think that your joining Kaizen was a bad idea so maybe it is time for the band of seven and Kaizen to split and go their separate ways an both groups will be better off for it rather than pissing and moaning about a rule that should have been in place for a kings shell (or atleast shell that intended to do kings) anyways.

Probably true--come the level cap raise, a group of 6 or 7 can do just as much as a full, formal shell. It's a shame things got to this point--I was really excited to join Kaizen, and proud to wear the pearl, but Kaizen's nothing like what it used to be.

 

[Dejavu]

Kisada asked one person from the shell to join formally and when he heard that there were more or us, we were all invited. It's not like we were handpicked or made an exception of, they needed the people.

As I said beyond who is responsible for it you guys or Kis my understanding of the situation is that it was sold to the members of Kaizen who were at the time desperate for any blood that it was all or none.

Actually, we all wore the shell from the moment we got it. We fulltimed it then, to try and purposefully integrate. It still came down to conversations that we ignored in, or our conversations getting ignored. We were very clearly the new kids in school, so wearing the shell constantly became depressing and boring as fuck. Why be a part of a "family" that treats you and yours like a black sheep? We still showed up to events, still hung out when people were there, and still cooperated to the fullest. We just wouldn't wear the pearl on times when there was nothing scheduled to happen. Spontaneous events did not exist from the time we joined up until a week ago, when Gains got it in their head that we should suddenly compete against bot shells at HNMs.

Then you guys were being sold a different bill of goods than I was when they tried to recruit me because I was told that the reason that they were recruiting soo many people was so that they could make a return to camping during atleast primetime and this was part of the long term goal.

I'd love to know where you're hearing this. Kaizen doesn't vote on events, they're dictated by the leaders. Hence Treg suddenly pushing for SCNMs since he's front-line for the Orc head, hence Ilana pushing for Jailer of Faith when we were sitting on Jailer of Justice pops with the people to pop them. As for their old form? When we were recruited, both Rhad and later Zeth mentioned in tells to various people that Kaizen wasn't that shell anymore. Ard even said so at one point to me, saying something akin to "This shell isn't what it used to be, hasn't been for a long time." At no point were we told "By the way, we're probably going to turn our noses up and pretend we can still hang with the big boys." Like I said in my original post, if I wanted to join an HNM shell, I would have joined a successful one, not a washed up one.

And how do the leaders determine what they are going to go do … if 7 people tell the leader lets go do X im pretty sure you guys are going to be doing X pretty soon. Everyone in Kaizen knows they are not what they used to be.. that doesn’t mean that they intend to stay that way. As much as the gear doesn’t make a huge difference in this game as it does in others you still have to fight the smaller stuff to progress to the bigger stuff. You cant just instantly walk up to timmy and expect to have a flawless kill when you only have 1 pld in the shell who even knows how to fight him let alone a fire resist set.


Also I am curious as to why Ilana would be pushing for a faith because none of his 75s can even use it >.> lol.

First, I've got all of two things from my entire year's duration with the shell, an uncontested Osode and later, much later, W. Legs. I attended every event I was able, as did everyone else in my shell. I've got nothing against you, Deja, but it sounds like someone vented a bunch of bullshit to you and now you're posting some way incorrect info as fact. You said it yourself, you're not in Kaizen, so stop relaying what (didn't) happen at events. You are incorrect in your assumptions.

Furthermore, Limitless-Dynamis? That's not Kaizen. That's Limitless. You know why people don't run on Mondays? Work schedules, mainly. Alberic was the sponsor on Friday, got her relic, and still shows up. You're right, though; The monday run is all of the older members and none of them show up on Fridays. Who's only showing up to convenient runs again? If I understand it, Monday is mostly TG's friends trying to help him finish a scythe. Pot, meet kettle.

Yes I am one of TG friends who only attends Mondays. But strangely enough I am not a member of kaizen either. And as much as it pretends not to be, Limitless is a branch of Kaizen (hence the reason you can get kaizen points for attending a limitless run) it just they also have non Kaizen members so that they can have larger numbers for einherjar and dynamis.

You know why people don’t run on Fridays? Poor leadership… Good job with that one. When Truegrave took over dynamis on Mondays Limitless could hardly do a Xarc and averaged 15-18 people a run. Now Mondays are averaging ~24 people a run. Fridays used to be the big show they were averaging about 25 people when true took over Mondays now they cant even scratch together enough people to do a jueno and don’t even try to do an uplands zone without making it a joint run.

Also my point wasn’t that both sides of the equation are not doing it I was pointing out that there is a definite divide down the middle of the shell. Which other then arguing who is responsible you don’t seem to be arguing about that the divide is in fact present.

Again, when we already ousted long before that point. Kaizen was never stated to try and rebecome an HNM shell from any leader aside from when Gains decreed they were fulltime-or-get-out-HNM again.

You might want to stop insinuating my shell doesn't know how to handle things. Also, I like how you blame us for a wipe when it was GAINS that called jobs that day. I was there as an ungear, unmerited, unskilled black mage. No wonder we died. Totally my fault.

You were sold a different bill of goods then because everyone I talked to knew it was the intention to have a rebirth. Otherwise why recruit. As for the JOL I will admit gains obviously made a bad call … but if half of the people on the run were doing what they needed to do what caused the wipe.

Read the entire post before you refute things. I made it clear we've already left/been run out. And we cost Kaizen members? I'd love to know who.

Deja, you aren't in Kaizen. Please stop talking on their behalf, especially when you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

You somewhat admitted Rone, I know Livvy would be in vent talking to us but playing WOW because she didn’t want to deal with the NBs, just because they didn’t quit tho doesn’t mean that they didn’t actively try to avoid you.

Been staying out of it so far, but I figure this is as good a time as any to step in. I told Rhad, who was leader at the time that we joined, that I wanted no part of HNMs. "Oh, it's okay, we don't do them anymore."

I was not a part of this conversation but as I said in my original post Rhad was burned out and he probably meant that but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the shell didn’t intend on doing HNMs

This part is pretty much true. TG wouldn't have been a bad choice; I personally told Rhad and Zeth that I thought Treg would make a good officer. I supported him because he got people organized and got stuff done, something Kaizen desperately needed at the time.

Still does apparently

I joined Limitless when Kisada invited me and my friends to join in January or so of 2009. When I joined Limitless, I was already stage 4 relic horn, which I obtained through my own work and my friends helping me. I did try to attend both Mondays and Fridays for a while, but it was hard for me--Mondays enter an hour later than Fridays, and at the time, I was in the final two semesters at school; I stopped attending Mondays to focus on Fridays once I was chosen to be the Friday sponsor, and I only missed one run on a Friday thereafter due to illness. Some of the "Nightbladers" did attend both, but most of us work and are incapable of doing Dynamis til midnight or later EST, only to get up and go to work the next day. Ramp, as far as I know, attended Mondays until he had to start working nights.

Did the Nightblades focus on Friday runs because I was the sponsor? Sure, but that's not so shocking. TG's friends helped Monday runs to help him get his relic; my friends help Friday runs. I don't really see the difference.

I wasn’t really trying to state a difference just trying to show the two different factions within the shell. Also most of TGs friends who help him with his relic, myself, Javir, mulletjunky, artielange, banane, apoc, geneviene, mrwonderful, mandalor etc are not actually members of Kaizen and are specifically there to help him get his relic. We are not a member of the Kaizen family. And the reason that most of us didn’t attend Fridays is because before TG got the Monday sponsorship we did einherjar at the exact same time in Einhergizerbunnies and we are all incapable of doing Fridays with that scheduling conflict.

When we first joined Kaizen, we did do some kings--I remember a couple Faf camps where it was me and 3 other people sitting in the Aery, while the majority of Kaizen didn't even bother coming out. I HATE camping kings, but I did at least make an attempt to follow the policy.

Gains changed the policy saying that as long as we were sure to be there for events, we could wear our social shell the rest of the time; she then changed the policy back to "Wear Kaizen or else." She changed the policy originally because some of the Nightblades had already quit Kaizen for reasons of their own. Those of us that were left were gratified that leadership was trying to work with us. We got a lot of flak for not wearing Kaizen all the time, but the shell was DEAD most of the time. I only took Kaizen off when I was afk (at night or while I was at work) or when I was doing Salvage (since my Salvage group had non-Kaizen people in it). Once Gains changed the policy, yes, I wore my social shell more, and I'd left Kaizen myself before she changed it back.

Lyall's argument was that Gains arbitrarily changed the policy back due to complaints from people that we still have never heard to our faces. Court occasionally complained to me that I didn't wear Kaizen enough; I told him then, "I wear it when I'm online and at keys." It's hard to get up the motivation to want to be on a shell though where there's some pretty overt hostility. Gains him/her/whateverself wasn't that bad, though I can see why Lyall directed this flame at her. She's a weak leader with no real idea what she's doing. Kaizen leadership in general has been weak since Kisada got banned (which is a shame, because I liked him and his leadership style). Rhad and Zeth had the ability to get people to do things, but both seemed to get burnt out by the daily grind very easily; Ardenbruk could've done it, but he quit out of the blue; Courtney didn't want to; Treg and Ilana are in my opinion in over their heads.

So they did kings when you first joined but then said they were never going back to kings which is why u joined?

The NBs had no input on the JoL strat that night--we weren't involved in Rone's quitting at all. When we wiped to JoL, that was Gains, Treg, and Ilana's strategy, not ours. We were peons participating in the higher-ups' strategy. Gains changed the strat to follow Rone's suggestion and we still lost. Still, what's this "The NBs have no experience with harder kills"? Ramp helped run a sea shell and has done JoL tons of times (he had a Novio for a while). Mai was a member of CK, TheNameless and Fury, just to name a couple old-school shells. I think the only people with inexperience at JoL out of our group were myself and Lyall--I'd done lower-tier Jailers before but never the big guy, and Lyall told them not to use his BLM and they told him to skill up on JoL's pops.



Probably true--come the level cap raise, a group of 6 or 7 can do just as much as a full, formal shell. It's a shame things got to this point--I was really excited to join Kaizen, and proud to wear the pearl, but Kaizen's nothing like what it used to be.

Yea im pretty sure Ramp was a member in Absoluteperfection but I don’t think he helped run it by any means. I love Ikari as a person but CK never really did anything either… infact if I remember right CK broke before they were even able to get down a prudence. From what I understand about that JOL is that they used the safest JOL strat possible and still managed to die. I agree tho the strategy was the problem… next time bring 30 people. That will fix it.