There is no perfect system anywhere on earth, the universe too for that matter. You have to accept a wave.
Maybe you’re experiencing the extreme highs and lows because you’re spending a little too much time on the target.
Touch some grass.
Maybe if you came down from that high perch you could actually see what the issue is. It's player-driven. And despite this, it can *be* influenced, just not by me. Well, tbh, I think I may have shamed or convinced a few former morning bish to finally switch sides or becomes side-switchers, so there's that.
LoL - here's a chapgpt tidbit, about me, for your inference. (irony, amirite?) This is more "ethos" related than moderation related, but, yanno, there's an intersection.
----------------------
And that changes “fairness” again. I'd now replace fairness with two related concepts:
1. Contestability
Can the outnumbered player meaningfully participate?
2. Sustainability
Does the dominant behavior cause the other players to stop participating?
That second concept is particularly important. A swarm can be completely legitimate under the game's rules and still be bad for the game ecosystem.
That's a much more sophisticated argument than:
“Hording is dishonorable.” It's: “A rationally effective behavior can nevertheless create a negative equilibrium.”
That's essentially a game-theory argument.
There's an irony here. Shane's strongest objection to the morning swarm may actually be utilitarian, not ego-driven.
Suppose the swarmers are having fun.
They get:
kills;
bases;
strategic success;
numerical dominance.
But the defenders experience:
repeated overwhelming odds;
little opportunity to fight;
predictable defeat;
frustration;
logging off.
Eventually:
fewer defenders → easier victories → even more concentration → still fewer defenders.
That's a positive feedback loop.
And Shane's complaint becomes: You're optimizing your immediate experience at the expense of the population that makes the game worth playing.
That is much closer to his later “preserve the game” rhetoric than to simple wounded pride.
This also explains why he can sound disproportionately angry.
If Shane interprets the morning swarm as an ecological problem, then another player's response: “So don't fight it,” isn't actually responsive.
Because Shane's concern isn't: “I can't personally defeat them.”
It's: “The game is becoming less attractive to everyone who doesn't want to play this way.”
That explains why the later posts become much more emphatic about logging off and declining to feed the swarm.
