I'm going to have to agree with the auto-join feature kind of - if not ruining, then changing the dynamics of my emjoyment of playing on this server. Orignally, when joing this server, i could join on my favorite peoples currently online/in-a-team, and have a blast playing for hours! More than half of the people on my friends list were made during this time. Then the auto-join feature was enabled - exaclty as StrangerDanger discribed the reason(s) for, and my whole fiasco happened during one of these "forced" team joins. But I've adapted the best I can at this time and since I talk to all and listen to all I have to walk on eggshells to make sure I don't step over someones toe's who happens to be on my team... To sum up, while nowadays playing on this server is fun to visit for a while if some friends might end up on a team together, but the matches quickly dissolve if too many bail outs of "those guys" team, and the server empties out. My random TF2 server join rate has gone up 40 percent or more since the new auto-join feature here at Hyperion, which has turned our elite Hyperion home into "just another random servers" same model of auto-join, to "keep the teams balanced". ...Talking on the teams back in the early days was always a joy and fun, always looked forward to playing with friends, Hyperion was THE TF2 server, and I felt humbled just being invited  to play here with so many excellent TF2 gaming peoples. As with most things that move in time, Shadows and Dust results. Could we try the choose-team-to-join model again for a while and see what happens? My guess is the server wouldn't die out, it would more likely thrive again, with friend activity and just some good damn (team) game play, like TF2/Hyperion is meant to be!

I personally did not know that Admin use-of-power was such a controversial thing on this server until this thread.

I'm not on this server or in TF2 to express my personal feelings about myself or my perspective of the world during a match. For me, game-time is a time to let loose the restraints from the duldrum of daily responsibility, thus my often intoxication. Same thing when I go out dancing, or sword fighting in the SCA (look it up). To some it comes across as a character, to others an attention-seeker, to the ones who have some inner undersatnding of themselves thay see it as it is, a good natured guy just having fun. ...maybe too much loud fun, but fun ntl. It does not matter that some mute me, was suprised that some folks I really like mute me, and not surprised that not everyone likes everyone else.

What I learned about myself is that the real concern is not that I'm disturbing the game with my talk, but in order to participate as a team player better I could take heed of the positive feedback and LISTEN more to what the other players are commenting on and go from there. Aye, I hear yee, I too want to have fun interactions with everyone while playing, so "calm-my-roll" while on the chat. Got it. No excuses but when I play a 'game' I intend to get smashed and have a blast! Don't mean I can't listen and as you could see from those videos I was on a verbal reprimand to "shut the fuck up" and I was attempting my best to be quiet. But then the (apparently Admin people) continued to roast me in chat, then with free rein to say what they didn't like/care about me to everyone while I was sitting in the chat "time-out" corner, yeah, that's not going to happen, I have more respect for myself than that.

That's where my interpretation of Bullying comes from. Abusing your social elevation to shape the shared experience we are all having to befit your personal agenda. That is NOT a concern for the greater good, that is an out-of-touch-with-self-therefore-unable-to-empathise-with-others vendetta style of lording over the environment. And yeah, that doesn't really belong in any open-join kind of game play where you're going to get a slew of personalities showing up. The great built in function TF2 allows is "mute player". Personality problem solved; don't like what they have to say, so don't have to hear it.

My over all take on TF2: I Orange Boxed my origins into Team Fortress, mostly Death Match stuff in the beginning. I finally found a server of veterans (years ago now) called Slaughterhouse, where I really learned what team play was all about in TF2. Slaughter eventually dried up and I was fortunate to find another "serious-skilled" server of TF2 players, Hyperion. Let me top that off by saying I am humbled everytime I realize I am about to play a Hyperion match. Every one of you folks are a super skilled batch of TF2 players and I just know I am about to have a super fun time! I come in with a positive attitude about the game-play I am about to experience, and you'll often see me type "Fun" at the end of a round, even when we get steam-rolled. As for my loud chat repeats, sure I will say "left,left,left" (my in-game thoughts are that some people are pre-occupied with whats in front of them and may not be currently knowledgeable on where the current main pressure points are on the map) but in my positive favor I also have some other repeating chat sayings that I'm hopeing is inspiring the team, such as "Get behind them" or "They don't like it", or "great job so-and-so, lost that cap but you did a great job defending". Before the recent auto-join feature, if I joined a match and saw the teams were 16/15 spread, and even though there were people I didn't care for on the lesser-playered team, I would still join that team to try and keep the TF2 gameplay balanced and fair - you get it, even-odds. Again, not here for personal gains, you can see I'm not an uber K/D player and I'm not concerned about having the best score at the end of a match, I just love the game and I want to win a match just as much as everyone else does.

On that note let me point out what I do feel about TF2 game-play. Just so you know I have NEVER muted anyone, and I rarely participate in a vote ban unless the reason is readily apparent or pointed out to me as to why. I want to hear what everyone is saying cause damn, here we all are and some people are just kooks, whatever. From my past 15 years TF2 experiences, to ban someone from a server is like because of a serious capitol offense. It is not a casual thing to be used, admin or player-vote induced. If some one is mic-spamming - playing none-stop music or repeative sounds that disrupt the game-play (remember I mute no-one) - or talking personal perspectives on the world-at-large or especially racism or trying to stir up discord in the chat in some fashion, THAT is when a ban should probably occur imho. Again, the first step for the average TF2 player who don't like what someone else is saying is a simple mute.

That being said, my hope is that this forum/thread post leads to a greater goal of keeping the Hyperion experience as good clean fun. I've seen that others are abused too, that some folks don't care for others play style but have the common believe of how/when rules should be applied and can straight forward mute instead of suppress.

Oh, and I think I know where the repeated "Left,Left,Left" comes from. I had 4 younger sisters growing up and, for example, in order to 'get back in the roller coaster line as fast as we could', I would have to yell out to them "Hurry up, get back in the line, on the Left, Left, Left!"

And though I mention no names here, I do want to point out one name: Kittie: you are an amazing person with a great perspective on life and we are all fortunate here on Hyperion to have you play with us. Please speak your mind whenever you want to, it's encouraging to have a positive person on board and the rare woman who can hang with a bunch of nerdy game-playing dudes!

Thank you all for the #freevector support ("Vector Mandela" made me lol), it appears this thread had an overall cathartic effect for everyone on the server. Sure did open my eyes!