a bizarre, infuriating, wtf Crazy Party experience
Hi all,
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not out to start throwing flames. The real purpose of this topic is to discuss a technical goof-up that makes no sense to me. Ideally I would keep it short and sweet, but I'm so flustered right now, both because of the technical weirdness and the unpleasant exchange it brought on, so I can't help but detail everything that happened, even the unimportant stuff lol
Short version: I was waiting in the central server for a minigames party to start, and after leaving the game window for a few minutes, I came back to find out I was actually hosting a party myself. Having only hosted once or twice, I had no idea what was actually going on, and paid a price for my naivety. I only found out what truly happened after looking at the speech log, and even now I can't quite figure out how it happened. I'm desperately trying to piece this together for my own sanity.
A much more in-depth account is below.
It all started when I tried to do a recording for a friend to show how Crazy Party works online, and why I enjoy playing with other players. This was going to be a private recording I only share with him.
So I connected to a minigames party. At first there were only two people other than me. Then there were three, then there were four. Then one left. This is pretty busy, I told myself. So I decided to get the recording ready. I left the game in that state, as I alt tabbed and went into Reaper to set things up. As I did this, I could still hear people coming and going, since Crazy Party does play those sounds even when you're in another window. If I heard the start sound, my plan was to start the recording real quick and then alt tab back to the game.
So about two minutes later, I'm fully ready and am sitting there waiting for them to start. A few messages come in, but I don't read them because I figure they're just deciding whether to wait or not.
Curiously, I checked the player list, and I found that there were only 2 players. Me, and someone I hadn't seen before. Wow, I thought to myself. Did everyone really clear out like that? I've never seen that happen before.
I assumed the player I now saw waiting was the host. I could've sworn he wasn't the host when I first joined, but whatever. I'm easily distracted from remembering names, so I wasn't going to question my memory. I casually asked, "What's going on?" And that's when it unraveled...
It started with these messages. "God. Start! S, t, a, r, t!" Sheepishly, I said I don't think the host is here. I've been in online parties before, I know the host can't just disappear and that the host has to be the one to start the party. But what else was I to think?
"Oh my God," he responded. "Hit control enter!" Completely perplexed, I did as he said and the game started. Then he proceeded to yell at me because I apparently didn't have auto-enter key enabled... Buddy I did. I even checked to make sure.
I already didn't like how this was going, he didn't seem to have patience. He clearly was confident he knew what should be done, and I was an idiot for not doing it. But being a good sport, I decided to stick it out. Maybe I was reading it wrong.
During the first game, he asked me if I was trying to infuriate him. My fingers were tantalizingly close to slamming alt F4 and then desperately trying to forget the incident. But I didn't. Instead, between games, I told him, admittedly in a rushed message full of typos, that I'd never had to use control enter to start a game in my history of online CP games, so I'd appreciate it if he was a little more patient. Or something like that.
I was cooking up some really snide comment to send right before the last game ended, something he wouldn't have time to respond to. Mind you, I normally would think that is a horribly immature thing to do, but I was ticked off, and those of you who actually know me (I know most of you don't, but speaking to those who do), will know that I'm not naturally a snide person and I hardly ever have a mean thing to say to anyone. so anything I could've said would probably not have been that bad.
As it turns out, he beat me to the punch. Just as I was deciding not to go through with the snide comment, he took the opportunity to send one right before the last game ended and the party terminated. The message was something along the lines of "Got ya good, n00b!" Though tbh that's only my best guess; the message had more typos than accuracies. I've got to hand it to him though, I barely registered the message receive sound; it cut off too quick, so he definitely had his timing down or something.
I'd already had my mind made up that I would be making this thread, in an effort to at least gain insight on what happened, but with my last bit of patience, I decided to try to piece the whole thing together; it made no sense.
Looking at the speech buffer, I saw that the person whose punishment I had been devising was not the person I had initially connected to. So indeed, the one who I had thought was hosting had somehow either vanished or changed their username. And you can't do either, so far as I know, while you're hosting a party. Besides, why did I have to press control enter to start? That was another weird thing.
I decided to read through the flurry of player connects and disconnects I had ignored when I was setting up the recording. And that's when I saw it... Somehow, the original host I had connected to had left after I had alt tabbed out of the window, and soon after that, people were reportedly joining and leaving the party of Musicalman! In fact, it looks like most of the connect and disconnect noises I was hearing were happening while I was the host! Now how the hell did I create a party? Not even the speech log can tell me; none of the party setup prompts are there. I would've had to pick the number of turns, the party mode, the difficulty (I have hardcore unlocked), the game list (I have lists unlocked and have made a couple). The speech log has absolutely no evidence that I set that up. Somehow though, we were playing a bog standard, 10-turn party.
The only conceivable way I can think this would happen is if the keystrokes I used to get Reaper set up just happened to coincide with party setup keystrokes, and the game intercepted them without me knowing. But that doesn't seem the most likely; I didn't think the game would ever intercept keys outside the window. But hey, I'll just roll with it and say it did. The prompts would still show up in the speech log right? Maybe not, maybe the speech log only logs things when you're inside the game window? I dunno. I suppose both of these theories wouldn't be overly difficult to test, but... I can't help but question my sanity at this point. Now I'm afraid to alt tab out of the game for any reason... I used to do it all the time to quickly read Discord or Skype messages in between minigames or something. Maybe that only worked because you can't do a whole lot in that brief interlude between games, and I didn't press keystrokes which would actually do anything in the game anyway? Maybe.
I will eventually test all of this, after I get over the crushing feelings of being such an idiot who probably will not be taken seriously after this. I know I know, I shouldn't be taking it so hard. Shit happens and I'll most likely be fine going forward, but still. Emotions hit hard sometimes, and when they're shrouded in bemusement, it's much harder to deal with.
I'm also very tempted to just blame the central server, I mean that's a more logical conclusion especially after I look at the speech log and see how the host duties just magically seemed to transfer to me after the original host left. But blaming the central server could also be a convenient excuse for my stupidity...
But yeah, everything I said in-game sounds like utter nonsense now. I can't blame him for being mad at me. No sane person would jump to the conclusion that I had not intended to host. In the end, I'm glad I didn't let my agitation get the better of me though.
If by chance the person I dragged through this unfortunate mess is actually on this forum and reading this thread, all I ask is that we have an understanding now. We both have our reasons for being frustrated I'm sure, but I'm ready to forget it and move forward, and would gladly party with you again in future. All I ask is for a bit of patience! I'm being as sincere with you as I would be with my close friends. If I was trying to infuriate you, or was being dense on purpose, you'd know it. I can't think of a time when I've done that. I've been dense by accident many, many times, it's embarrassing really. But not on purpose. Believe me or don't, as you wish.
So yeah, any responses at all? Or am I just crazy lol
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