This will... be long. But there's a tl;dr below as well.

1. Intro

When I think of the events of the past few weeks, and then think back on the last two years, I always remember what Dr. Manhattan said to Silk Spectre: "We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings." It was this quote that deeply resonated with me when looking at what happened on eRegime... and what was also about to happen in the future.

It's funny because on the outside it looked like a completely generic forum. When I first signed up back in summer 2014, at least I thought it was just an innocent community that liked the same things I liked; playing historical and political simulations of all sorts. I was greeted by a PM from the administrator: "Welcome to eRegime, how did you hear about us?". And yet, a month later I was already one of the Super Moderators. It was funny, how quickly I have been accepted by Ismail and even how quickly he accepted my playing style as one of his first questions to me was "Would you consider signing up as USSR? We don't have a player at the moment."

It was these sort of really surprising things that made me think Ismail was just a really nice guy, kind admin who only wanted what was best for the players... and players themselves as he kept recruiting and recruiting... but funnily enough, I didn't notice the motives behind the recruitment, nor have I understood why games were ending as such disasters all the time. The first BoP I played was the X version, and that ended immediately in a nuclear war. Next one, XI ended in few years as well. I've played as Yugoslavia and that's how I met Fenrisulfr, "what a nice guy", I thought to myself. "And damn right, NATO should lose this at all costs. Fucking Zar, what an asshole!". Little did I know that even after that infamous babyfinland topic of "Why we banned Zar", I'll remember the guy and remember what happened to him for a long time.

2. eRegime hierarchy

You see, you don't really understand how system works until you end up on the wrong side of the fence, and that applies in every day life as well. I meet so many people in my life who never realise how great a puppeteers is the establishment of politicians ruling over them. The filthy tribalism of every day politics is more important than questioning of people who take your money and use it for purposes that go directly against your moral code. And eRegime operated very similarly. While players from competent forum gaming sites were more than welcome by Ismail, they were never supposed to have any formal saying in what happens in the community, nor were they ever going to play a fair BoP.

The structure was quite simple: Ismail was the head administrator who would seek players from all different corners of the internet, so that they could participate in the games ran by the community. But right below Ismail, there were his loyal goons, as I like to say, his friends and alternate accounts. I probably will never know the full extent of his circle, but let's just say that I have worked extensively with two other players for about a week, compiling the list and looking around to see if we missed anyone, and I think we got those we needed to point out to the players.

What people need to realise is that the most helpful tool for understanding eRegime is to take a generic Stalinist state and compare the hierarchy:

Ismail - Glorious Leader, loved by all, and in order to be kept loved by all, always avoiding confrontation with players.
Notice how every time there's an actual issue with a game Ismail is running or players complain about something, it's never Ismail that addresses it? Ismail only addresses those issues he thinks are solely mechanical. The rest is always on Dawaldo.

Dawaldo was created by Ismail as a way to openly communicate with the players. Ismail couldn't afford being himself, as players seeing the real him would make them either hate him or love him, this is how it is when you're completely open with people. Thus, Ismail chose to only communicate game mechanics and during games; turns. Sometimes he'd poke you a bit with some question, but nothing major. But Dawaldo... the character of Dawaldo allowed Ismail to be himself. Dawaldo was the openly-Stalinist and extremely delusional individual, who himself was funnily enough a capable GM (if he wanted to be). But mainly he was there to keep players in their place OOC and to preach the non-existence of holodomor. LOL. Dawaldo was always used for Ismail to either excuse himself or communicate openly, and the most obvious event surrounding this alter account was when Ismail was late with BoP stats for about a month, do you really think he had internet issues? He's always on, people. There are no internet issues. He was using Dawaldo to communicate his own incompetence as an excuse. If he had internet issues, he wouldn't be using AIM, and yeah, I know it's AIM but still LOL. Amazing, isn't it? The guy was complete loon, but we're gonna get to that (yes, there is so much more!!!)

Viktor. Oh... Viktor. Viktor was Ismail's other alternate account, but if Dawaldo's purpose was to communicate out in the open, Viktor's was to communicate in secret. Viktor's existence is a direct consequence of Ismail's dark past... or Mrdie's, as he is called by his victims. Mrdie, aka Ismail has been a member of multiple communities, but none suffered from him as much as the Empires Mod community. The PDF File that you can view here is just the top of the iceberg. After getting banned, he used Viktor as a recruitment agent for innocent eRegime players that would go over to Empires Mod and harass people, opening topics and copy pasting that bullshit-like essays that Ismail's hoxhaist clique and the rest of his disgusting admins would write in the "Doloan" or whatever the other area was called. It was this sorta shit that would hit Empires Mod community regularly as Mrdie would be opening these topics, actively post communist bullshit in them and employ the rest of the admins and his alter accounts to harass the members of the community. There used to be multiple topics that talked about Mrdie and the way he treated the community, starting a fake ideological war and using two of his goons to help him harass the mods and admins of the board. Eventually they banned him, and since then he made sure we did everything to hurt them.

I knew what Viktor did. So did Vee. And Potato. And countless others that were forced to help harass an innocent community. I knew my time on eRegime was over. I knew there were head mods and admins asking for my removal. But if I could help out Viktor with this, I would be able to remain with the community that was very friendly and filled with people I started considering friends at some point. Outside that sinister cabal (that according to some players didn't exist, I was just being paranoid; can't blame them as I didn't believe in it when hearing about it from people like officerpup or Hugo Strange, or even Kome!). So I helped. Too bad Kome deleted eRegime :D I had so many PMs between myself and Viktor, but luckily during my own private investigation with two other players, I've copied one of the exchanges I had with him.

First he asked me to make a new email address and then register at Empires Mod forum. My username was always given to me before, one time he made me register as Magyarsav and one time he made me register as Jovanovic. Those two I remember. Here's what he made me post in that forum when I registered as Jovanovic:

    Quote:


    The Communist Party of the Blackhole greets the Blackholian userbase on May 1, a day of great importance for labor and for the solidarity of all those facing oppression. In the conditions of the whole Empires Mod community over a decade of Deeist repression and efforts to dominate the mod has not extinguished the genuine desire of Empirian and Blackholian users to continue the mod's development and to deny any and all attempts to split the mod under the false claim of creating a "spiritual successor" or even a "sequel" which in fact are nothing more than intrigues by this or that sub-clique of Deeism to profit off of an outstanding game by depriving it of all its uniqueness and perverting its community into its opposite.

    The past few months have shown the continued refusal of the Deeist clique to come to terms with the users and to give up its ill-gotten privileges on one hand, while on the other hand the continuing vitality of the Empires Mod has also been demonstrated. Thanks to the mass-based work of the Empires League this vitality is being shown despite all sorts of negative phenomena. Development on the mod is continuing regardless of the intrigues of the Deeists. The recent hacking attacks on the forum were firmly rebuffed by the users who have no desire to see the forum software become outdated once more and to be freely exploitable by the Deeists for their own sinister anti-mod and anti-user aims.

    Our Party welcomed the successful organization of the March 2016 election for the position of President of the Blackhole. As is widely known, such elections have been held "in exile" every year since 2010. They are both a practical exercise in educating the users and drawing them into the administration of people's state power as well as a clear sign of the enduring popularity of the democratic movement. 57 users turned out to participate in the latest election despite the ever-present intimidation efforts of the Deeists.

    The Blackholian userbase is determined to strengthen its activities and to raise them to a still higher level, struggling as always for democracy, progress and peace and for an end to the six-year occupation of the Blackhole forum area. It aims to carry out the order of July 28, 2006 given by the Empires Forum Administration, and to accomplish this through the great Three-Phased Plan for Peace written by our brilliant General Secretary, Mrdie, that fearless son of the Blackholians, farsighted leader of their aspirations, and noted veteran of the Empires Mod community as a whole.

    Our Party is convinced that through a further unity of the efforts of the Empirian and Blackholian userbases, the Deeist clique's hold on the mod and its community can be smashed. With this the mod's development and the standards of the entire community can be greatly accelerated and uplifted, the fetters of reaction and degeneration can be broken, and the just and defensive demands of the Blackholian userbase can at last be obtained. No attempts at suppression by the Deeists and their lackeys can reverse this process, which has an objective character and whose conditions are growing ever more potent with each passing year.

    On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Blackhole,
    Jovanovic (pseudonym).



As you can see, this is pure insanity, especially considering it's been YEARS since he's been banned by the community. And yet he persisted harassing these people, using us as his pawns. There is no such thing as Blackhole on there, and hasn't been for years. Unlike eRegime, it was just a NORMAL FUCKING community without any of that ideological bullshit, no Doloans, nor RevLefters, none of those CPeR meetings, none of that crap!

I know a lot of players didn't notice this, but those strange meetings and weird cliques weren't just there for the sake of being there, those were made deliberately to control the narrative, to impose this ideological narrative, similar to that of totalitarian states such as Stalinist USSR. Or any Communist state. Fuck Communism. Just personal opinion of mine, don't get salty, American commies. Unlike you, my family suffered under Communist rule, and I was born in a country that has never abandoned its Titoist principles. Not even today. It's shameful and it's disgusting, and yet it exists. And the narrative of state ideology is always the same; "We" the people, against the "Enemy".

But since Internet is a classless society, who's the enemy of eRegime? Oh right, the hostile gang of stupid1, stupid2 and stupid3, as opposed to glorious leader stupid1000 and members of his commudumb party. During the period of eRegime's existence, Ismail, his alter accounts Viktor, tylupan and Dawaldo, and his goons babyfinland, Nolan, Makao, rizt, Red Cesar and Fenrisulfr and the RevLefters he regularly imported managed to ban over 400 users, purging all elements Ismail in his paranoid mind thought of as "hostile". To this can attest the survivors, such as officerpup, who has gracefully remained on the site despite being a victim of such purge.

But the biggest, absolutely greatest and the most amazing character I've ever met on that site is absolutely Hugo Strange.

3. The general game experience in Ismail's BoP

If eRegime was a Stalinist operation, Hugo Strange was the ultimate dissident, the Lech Wałęsa of eRegime. The shit this guy had to deal with, all the disgusting metagaming moves from Ismail and his goons, to all sorts of dumb RevLeft commies coming over and ruining the genuine forum game experience. I had a pleasure of talking with him for 4 hours few days ago and the testimony of the shit that was going down on eRegime regularly that he gives out, is absolutely staggering. I have nothing but admiration for this man, and I don't really admire people off the internet. Most impressive.

You probably noticed how babyfinland immediately started abusing his position as admin when he realised he can't control me or IMF. But have you also noticed what happened last night in OOC area? Both tyulpan and babyfinland decided, a new system was needed! Absolutely, it was time for a new system, because the old one simply couldn't serve their interests.

Ismail's BoP is owned by them, by his alternate accounts and his goons. They control the players, they control the factions and they control the game. If there's any problem with either a player or the game, they will make sure that problem gets "erased", so to speak. This is why Zar got banned, as someone who played BoP XI and also got verbally abused by Zar, I can still claim with absolute certainty, that the secret cabal was a much bigger destroyed of that game. They had spies in NATO and made sure to sabotage their efforts at all costs, not by fair means, rather by having insiders, RevLefters creating new accounts and entering as NATO players only to then destroy the balance by being super metagamey. However, there were instances when they couldn't win via metagaming. And when that happens, they make sure rules get changed.

So when Hugo Strange's Britain kicked Red Cesar's ass in South East Asia no matter what RC threw at the British, Hugo Strange received "an interesting PM" from Ismail:
Posted Image
Despite having rules tweaked to help Red Cesar, it didn't do much because Hugo was so good at what he does. Red Cesar made Ismail change the rules two more times though :D After Robert Schumann took over as USSR, Red Cesar was so pissed at losing to Hugo, he asked Rob to help him, and when Rob denied his request since it was hopeless and also unrealistic, guess what happened? Robert Schumann got banned from eRegime for 6 hours. This is how these people operated. They made you fear them and comply with their own little rules over the real ones.

This is another thing that was wrong with IMF in this game. When I started issuing loans, I was doing what "IMF Info" topic said. Director was in charge of loans IN GENERAL, members of the board were in charge of applications. So you can understand why I was being so aggressive when babyfinland tried to involve himself and get his hands on the goodies. Some people are only in there to abuse their powers. Why do you think babyfinland, one of the key members of Ismail's hoxhaist clique signed up as Italy? He was spying for the East all the time. And he would send Hugo and I screencaps from Hungary, player that was ousted by Nolan and the clique . And you saw his reaction when we proposed Maybee as France. He resisted at all costs and wanted someone he can control. And these people sure can control new players.

Many people don't know why I suddenly pulled out as director of IMF, citing "being busy irl" as a reason. I realised the banhammer was coming because I have resisted the mighty admin babyfinland and the rest of them. They needed babyfinland on IMF because he'd be able to send in IMF teams and control western countries that sign up for loans and their economies as a result of the rules. When I moved out, tyulpan, A SOVIET PLAYER posted a suggestion for new IMF rules. You can see how the game was rigged from the start.

Once I exposed babyfinland's dirty PMs to players in OOC area, the intimidation tactics started. First, he posted "It seems you're only interested in providing loans to your partners" in one of the Paris Club topics, but he deleted it right after. Hugo saw it and can confirm it happened. He deleted it because he was afraid I'll see their narrative against me. But I didn't need to read that to know there was once.

I woke up to my account having a description "OOC: Gay" and below my moderator credentials it said "gay boy". While I thought it was childish, btw, here's a picture for all you doubters who hate my guts and call me paranoid all the time:
Posted Image

Later on Skype, I've talked to a former Soviet bloc player. While we were talking, he received a PM from tyulpan. This PM sealed my decision. It was this PM that convinced me, I need to sign out of BoP RIGHT NOW if I want to survive on eRegime. He copied it for me:

    Quote:


    After talking to many countries, there is great concern that LizardWizard is trying again to break BoP. He's actually abusing his job as IMF director to give unsupervised loans to his friends, to the consternation of many nations in the West. You can see how manipulative he is as nearly goaded convinced you that Nolan was out to take you down. I don't thik that's the end of his plays.

    Would you be open to reserving the next leadership role in China? Say that you're taking a break and need time to decompress, but you'll be open to coming back in the 1990s. Making sure that one of Lizardwizard's cronies doesn't end up in a game-breaking role should be to everyone's benefit.



So apparently, I've broken a BoP before. Or at least, that's what a player that is relatively new and never played one is supposed to believe. I am also abusing my job, without any proof of course, as well as convincing a player I never sent a PM or talked to Skype before during this BoP, that Nolan was out to take him down. And a you can see, I also have cronies. They used the narrative Hugo was driving to expose their bias and metagaming, and applied it to me. A guy that is either hated or sorta liked by the community, but no! I've got cronies, I regularly recruit people to break Ismail's BoPs, since you know I played so many and always had a significant impact, except... NO!??!!!??

Next up, I talked to Pegote, PRC player whom I do actually know outside the game. But as you may know Skype community is quite large and we know each other quite well, yet outside of Peoplesrepublic-pankaceplace and Comped-FPS dynamic, I've never witnessed nor attempted metagaming predicated on knowing someone. Rather, there was an unofficial team of people who were loyal to Hugo as opposed to the RevLefters, and always signed up as conservative/reactionary characters as to prevent commies taking them over. JordanC is a nice example, he was always ready to sign up for a game and help out against their metagaming, their infiltrations and new accounts Ismail would confirm and put in the NATO camp or Zog camp or whatever other camp we had against them. So yeah, I talk to Pegote, and Pegote has been arguing with tyulpan about stopping the loan deal, as him and player that sent me the PM were already aware of what might happen. But tyulpan was less than pleased and even dared to send him this:

    Quote:


    Given your collusion with LizardWizard in previous games and LW's penchant for game-breaking gambits, one of which he just tried to pull on us, we have to start from a position of scepticism of your intentions. It's a pity because I am probably the most pro-Chinese out of all the ministers, and I've even been telling Ismail to raise your country stats in the stat revisions he's about to implement.

    So you can thank me for the bonuses even as you huff and puff and threaten to blow our house down.

    However, your associates do not inspire confidence.


I have apparently colluded A LOT with Pegote, as well as have a habit of game-breaking gambit. Now, anyone that actually played a game with me knows that is simply not true. But hey, it's their narrative, and thus far their narrative always stood against the narratives of their victims that simply got purged and lost their voice. And notice how he tried to get Pegote on his side "hey man, I'm the good guy, only tryna help you out here!". Of course.

There are many other examples, but bottomline is, here's where I remembered the Dr. Manhattan quote. We're all puppets, but now I have realised, after 2 years, my god 2 long years on this site, how deep this shady behaviour from the top actually went! It was their game, and if you didn't comply, you had to leave. Meanwhile I've received PMs from countless players, some of them not even IRL commies, just new players, innocent players that told me they got sent PMs stating how horrible I am and how I'm abusing my position. I had players curse at me and slander me openly because Ismail's goons would send around these ratchet PMs. I had to sign out, and keep my real reasons a secret, there was no other way. But then being notified by Kome that it didn't help and that we're getting purged made me realise once and for all that these people simply shouldn't be part of a forum games community that is so fucking innovative, so fucking smart, so imaginative.

During these two years I've talked to hundreds of players and played with hundreds as well and so many have surprised me in so many ways. I've talked to Hugo about this few nights ago, how players we get, the new players can be really, really damn good in comparison to that old clique. How imaginative some of you fuckers are. I've GMed Syria Sim and witnessed first hand how amazing you are as players, all of you, even such I dislike OOC, like Westar for example. And for all the stupidity JV or Robespierre provide outside the games, JV can be a good player if he wants to be one, and Robespierre's game was good, nobody should deny that. We've got some of the best GMs and players from this little community. We really shouldn't be involved in a system that's actively purging anyone that resists and that provides "best playing experience" to the insider circle only. Even commies on here can see that, as you've been locked out of the Soviet areas in BoP XII. You do realise that Ismail allowed them those private areas, right? The ones where none of the Warsaw Pact players were allowed in except the admins, Terrus and Makao. Yeah.

And yes, since we've moved, there will be new accounts springing up, Ismail will sign up for sure, his goons might sign up as well and try to ruin our playing experience for what we've done to them... but we need to endure, as DryProfit would say :D and speaking of dumb ideologies, here's the really important part of this testimony:

Kome saved us all. By buying the domain and becoming administrator, he saved us from those crazy fuckers. It sounded so fucking beautiful when he told me we should be a regular community without any secret shit and elites and such. And that is exactly what we want and we should have. No more of that RevLeft bullshit, no more of the purges and metagaming that is enabled by the root administrator. Just people that like to play forum games... doing just that. Accepting and respecting each other despite political and national differences. Just... normal.

And this is even more important: let us not make them villains, or heroes. Let us not make Kome or anyone else into some godly figure. Allow us to be a normal community. We don't need a glorious leader or a vanguard party to have fun and play our games. All we need is a forum area and an ethical, fair approach to both playing and GMing. We need respect. And always remember; we used to be puppets, but the puppeteer is dead and as long as I am an active member of this community, there won't be a new one taking his place.

God (if he exists but probably doesn't) bless you all.

And for people outside of America, good luck in future games!

Forever yours,

LizardWizard.

Tl;dr
eRegime was ruled by a cabal of Ismail, his alternate accounts and bunch of his friends and they used their admin powers to purge people they didn't like or went against them in Ismail's games, they also harassed other communities and it was the best course of action to start anew as the playerbase is fantastic and can survive without shadow cabal and their pointless totalitarian ideology and the rest of that retarded crap.