The story of Maniac.

Hey guys it's Maniac and I've got a little story to tell about my experience with the community here.

It all started in 2015. I joined Limelight after being invited by Mahti the ex-administrator. He told me how there was a FL "reboot" with different people as well as staff.
I got interested and started playing Garry's Mod after a long break.

After months of roleplaying, good behaviour,  effort, hard work and an entirely clean record, I became a moderator somewhere around December 2015. I was absolutely thrilled to be finally helping
to administrate the server. Because let's be honest, everybody in the community dreams of becoming staff. Everybody dreams of finally being able to fly over the city and observe the players. Being able to pull players in, ban and kick them,
and ultimately getting respect just because of your rank. The first months of moderator were hard work. Getting to know the commands, developing a good sense of how to deal with players as well as finding
a balance between roleplaying and administrating. I had to completely adjust my attitude to fit in. And boy how I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be the best but that soon changed.

I soon realised the position was changing me. I realised I wasn't me anymore. I was slowly turning into a policing robot, with only a blind love for rules, rules and more rules.
I was losing friends on Limelight just because I was so caught up in my so called duties. All I did was do my duties and not talk to anyone. I was alienating myself from the players.
Being self-aware of it I decided to go back to my former self because I wasn't having any fun anymore.
The witty, funny, sarcastic and ironic meme loving fucker returned, the old Maniac. I gave up on my pseudo-professional attitude and quickly saw things gradually change around me. Players were
more eager to approach me, not only for help but more to just joke around and have fun. The players weren't afraid of me, but they respected me as an equal. I eventually preferred having banter with the players
over my duties, and it seemed like everyone loved it.
I was one with the players, but not with the staff. This later became a problem.

The longer I was my original self, the more conflicts arose within the staff team towards me. It was not allowed for me to have this "attitude", I was required to be "Professional". I saw other moderators being
promoted to Stage 2 in big numbers, and I was left behind as a moderator stage 1. Moderators which were promoted way after me were surpassing me. All because they blindly followed and copied the moves of the admins. Rules, rules and rules. I knew I was viewed as different
within the staff team and I wasn't. I could feel it when talking to the staff. I was slowly being distanced from them just because I didn't mindlessly copy their behaviour. It was this group mentality of not wanting to be associated with Maniac.

I was slowly and gradually being left out by the majority of the admins. They looked down upon me from their golden untouchable thrones high up in the sky. Dare anyone speak out against the admins.
Dare anyone criticise the admins for having no connection with the playerbase. It was all about CEO-grade professionality on an administrator team made of children to look after other children on a gaming server.
I got sick of it, so I decided to speak my mind and no longer be silenced. I was not allowed to have a controversial opinion in the discussion threads. I was not allowed to engage in controversial topics because it could
harm the image of Limelight Staff, or do/say anything that could potentially harm the image of the staff . "A staff member against Islam? He will make the entire staff team look bad for promoting an islamophobe!",
"A staff member messing around on a kik chat? That's not allowed!", "A staff member posting memes on the forum? Absolutely disgusting!"
I was scolded multiple times for my behaviour, because I was not following their professionality agenda.

I used to be great friends with Brynn when I was in my policing mindset. We spoke to eachother as friends, not as colleagues. As soon as Brynn got promoted to SA, he was the one who had to talk to me about my
bad behaviour and attitude. Putting Brynn in the SA position is like letting a dog handle a nuclear powerplant. I could immediately tell whenever I was about to get shat on. Brynn would message me in steam with perfect punctuation, full stops, no grammar mistakes and especially no laughs.
This is all for the purpose of screenshotting the conversation so it can be posted in the Admin lounge. Just so he can look really mature and professional towards the other admins. Uphold the fake veil.
Keep in mind that Brynn is usually unable to write a 3 sentence paragraph without it containing 20 errors, so you understand how different it made him look. Brynn put on his big-boy shoes and tried to talk to me as if he
was my boss, instead of chatting things through as how we did it back when we were friends. It made me realise more and more how a staff position changes people for the worse.

Not only does this apply to Brynn, it also applies to many others of the staff team. For example, Soviethooves used to be an amazing guy. He was great to hang out, laugh and play with.
Look at him now, he's bitter and blinded by his position. Blackdog enjoys nothing more than ruining the banter of other people by shutting down entire projects and threads. Nacreas thinks he knows everything best and is willing to get mad whenever someone disagrees with him.
To give context on that, I remember seeing a massive fight between Doodleh and Nacreas because Doodleh didn't agree with the decision Nacreas had made. Nacreas went on about how Doodleh as a moderator shouldn't criticise
an admin because "he was just a moderator".
None of the admins are genuine. Even internally there would be no room for laughs or banter. Maybe a tiny bit of """banter""", aka the kind of humor that is stale and boring.
They uphold this fake veil just because they're told to, but for what reason?

I feel like the entire point of the staff's professionalism is pointless, and the one of the reasons for it is so players will imitate them. The only reason PassiveRP exists is because the staff wants it. The only reason players do it is because they want to
appeal to the staff, pretend to be professional and thus eventually becoming one of them. There's not a single fraction of genuity in it, and there never will be. It's turned into a contest of who can lube themselves up the best and slide into the onion rings
of the staff to earn RP points and to be recommended for staff. The only way to become part of the staff is when an admin recommends you, which quite frankly only happens when said person is a good friend of the admin.
The other reason is because "Limelight is a business". It's like there's this idea that Limelight is a massive company with a lot of status, when in reality it's just a gaming server for a 10 dollar game.
The only reason it's a business is so there's legal backup when being DDoSed, and so the community can't be accused of tax evasion. If it were really a business and admins were employee representatives, they would be paid but however they aren't.

As you could see my unban request got denied. It's meanwhile been nearly a year since my removal from Limelight and the staff team is still harboring a grudge. I'm still being judged for my behaviour which is deemed inappropriate and I guess you could say "toxic".
Limelight is all about positivity right? We're a welcoming and peaceful community that is ready to silence and ban the living shit out of anyone who opposes the general consensus, has different opinions than we do, or questions authority or authenticity. But yes, we are different from
the community we so claimed to move away from.

I don't exactly know where I'm going with this story. I guess it's to let the community know to not be afraid to speak up for yourself, and against the admins. Don't blindly agree with them.
Don't try to go out of your way to appeal to them. Be you and don't let anybody tell you who you should be. Don't sit there and feel intimidated by the staff. What they're doing and how they're doing it is just
because they were taught to do so. There's no personality nor connection with the players, because quite frankly they don't really care about the players. If they really did care for the players other than rolling out
worthless updates now and then, they would try to make an effort to have fun with them instead of blindly policing them.

This is the story of someone who preferred his personality above the ridiculous and fake standards this community has. I stood up for who I was and it became my downfall.

In the end they're just as you. They are you but with more power.

PS: This thread will inevitably be removed under the excuse of "Spreading toxicity", "Posts by banned players are not allowed", "Hatespreading" or anything among those lines. If this does indeed happen, it only adds to this story. Keep in mind I will not be able to reply to this myself, but feel free to add me on steam. www.steamcommunity.com/id/DrMurdoch
Please share and save it, for I will never be forgotten.

Maniac