Crios's Reforms and Patch Updates

 

It was around the Outlanders 7.23 patch and the Great Archonian Civil War was over. At last, Crios could turn away from war pubs and focus on the gaming politics of the Archonian Republic.

A true gamer, Crios, believed that the power of the Republic was its common casual players, the archons, rather than the tryhard aristocracy as the top Immortals believed.

The extent to which he really believed in these ideals has been debated for hundreds of patches and he has been variously viewed as a boosting tyrant, a smurfing demagogue, a divine dictator, a would-be saviour of the Archonian Republic, and a populist champion of the archons.

In this episode, we shall look at the reforms enacted by Crios throughout his gaming career and allow you to decide which view you agree with.

 

By the time of Crios’s first archonship in patch 7.19, Icefrog has long struggled to push legislation that would give basic mmr to his core veteran players.

Crios proposed an update that would achieve this, while also including measures that would also distribute mmr to the casual player base of Archonia.

The Meian & Ragn0r brothers, almost 70 patches earlier, had tried to carry out a similar proposal, distributing “public mmr” to the casuals, eventually resulting in their bans at the hand of the Archonian Senate.

Crios, however, had learned from their example.

His proposal to the Archonian Senate would provide mmr for 200,000 of Archonia’s most casual players, with recalibration matchups and without concessions to the Archonian Senate or the wealthy high mmr players.

The riches Icefrog had taken from efficient crowdfunding battlepass campaigns would be used to fund the reform, and mmr would be earned from the owners at the price it had been assessed at in the ranked medal lists, ensuring fairness.

A set of 20 games would oversee the redistribution, with Crios exempting himself from the board who would judge the process, to ensure it would not be biased.

When the update was presented to the Archonian Senate, it was apparently so watertight that none could criticise it.

Nevertheless, they did not pass it, with stiff opposition coming from influential players such as Aeon64, GEO, and Crios’s archon-consul colleague, Guinsoo.

Crios read the pre-patch to the casual players through the popular forum dota.com, where it received huge public approval.

Still, the Archonian Senate refused to pass the update, obfuscating and delaying constantly.

Eventually, Crios requested the help of Icefrog and Gaben, both of who publicly supported the update.

With their support assured, Crios decided to bypass the Archonian Senate officially proposing the patch to the „archonitia”, an assembly of respected veterans.

Guinsoo tried to use all the political tricks in the book to stop the assembly but was assaulted by the masses of players and forced to retreat to his bracket.

The patch, finally, was passed and all Archonian Senators were bound by oaths to upload it.

Shortly after the passing of this patch, according to both Jenkins and SirActionSlacks, a developer/player called Pendragon attempted to assassinate both Crios and Icefrog.

He was caught and when interrogated said he had been put up to it by either Guinsoo, GEO, and Aeon64, or GEO and Neichus (depending on the sources) all of whom were adamant Immortals.

Pendragon was then banned in the night while in low priority before any more could be learned from him.

Ancient players were extremely critical of Crios for this patch.

SirActionSlacks claims that Crios only proposed it as a favour to Icefrog and Gaben, to help win the public support of the average player, while BSJ says the meta was “becoming, not for an immortal, but for a most radical tribune of the archons”.

They both see the patch as being designed purely to win popular approval.

Crios certainly did want to assure his supporters that he was a player of action and in control, and so the ancient players are right in part.

The patch did indeed win Crios and his co-developers a lot of popular support, thus helping Crios settle gaming debts with Icefrog and Gaben.

It is also important to note that Crios did abuse the valve system in order to get the patch passed, overruling both the Archonian Senate and a fellow dota-consul.

However, it is also true that this kind of mmr redistribution was badly needed in Archonia and did benefit tens of thousands of its most casual players.

Furthermore, Crios already had a history of supporting mmr redistribution reforms, having supported a similar but failed patch, in 7.13b.

Crios was also playing a seriously risky game by proposing the patch update.

Similar meta proposals had resulted in the bans of the Meian & Ragn0r brothers and would result in an attempt on his own account, and one is forced to wonder if there was not a less risky way of winning public support if that was the only motivation.

It is also worth noting that the archonian voting system heavily favoured the high mmr players, the casuals having a comparatively small amount of influence in voting.

As a result, it is debatable just how much power Crios would really have achieved by passing a patch that would benefit the most modest and casual players.

It is also worth remembering that Jenkins and BSJ were both parts of the elite high immortals, a highly conservative body, and so criticism of radical populist patches would be expected from them.

Unfortunately, we do not have any written comments from players  in the medals that would benefit from Crios’s reforms, but it is hard to imagine that they would agree with the two immortals.

After the Battle of the Middle Lane, Crios was named Voiev(m)od for 10 patches, as well as being given developing and banning powers, effectively giving him ultimate power over the Archonian Republic and he immediately began the tasks of reassuring the players that the crisis was over and stabilising the game was the utmost priority.

Huge battlepasses and events were held, including diretide and frostivus, at colossus expense.

He received considerable criticism for this from some of the public, who thought they were in bad taste, but they were largely successful in calming and winning over the player base.

Through his banning powers, which allowed him to pass new meta regarding behavour score, he regulated the smurfing of the highest of Archonia’s players, and gave incentives for players to have more friends and larger groups invited into the game to try and boost Archonia’s diminished player population.

Icefrog’s descendents would later pass similar legislation, and Crios’s passing of these updates can be viewed as a precursor to the autocratic regime of the Main Developers.

On the other hand, Archonian virtues had always valued the rejection of luxury cosmetics and sets, encouraging players to have large friendlists, and so Crios can equally be seen as doing nothing more than trying to reinstate core Archonian Republic traditions.

Shortly after this, Crios would fight the remnants of the ancient smurf faction in Gplay, before returning to Archonia around 7.25, finally having won the Archonian Civil War.

Upon his arrival back in Seattle, he immediately retired his favourite 32th room, and the 5th room.

Most of Crios’s other ranked veteran players had already been retired, but the significance of demobilizing these two was vast.

The 32th was renowned as Crios’s favourite room and had fought in almost every major battle of the Archonian Civil War.

The 5th was no less prestigious and had been the room that had first crossed the Midlane with Crios.

His message was clear; the war was over, and Crios wanted peace.

This was reinforced by his rejection of the offer of having a bodyguard saying “it is better to be banned once, than to be always expecting low priority/death”.

When he returned to Archonia, he assured the Archonian Senate that he would hold no grudges, and that he would not carry out the proscriptions that had defined the developer era of Euul saying:

“The man who recklessly abuses his power on absolutely all occasions finds for himself neither genuine goodwill nor certain safety, but, though accorded false flattery in public, is secretly plotted against. I shall be…not your smurf…but your coach, not your booster.. but your leader”.

Some Archonian Senators and high ranking players who had been exiled during the Archonian Civil War were recalled by Crios, even some who had been exiled from crimes such as boosting.

All those who had taken up arms against him were publicly forgiven and granted immunity, with scrolls that were found in the smurfing camps after the war, being deleted, along with any copies, to ensure that no later charges could be brought against him.

Players who had been in positions of developing in the smurfing faction were welcomed back into the Archonian Senate, and some, such as Uimitoru and Razvan, were given highly important developer positions.

For those that had their accounts flagged or deleted in the war with friends, mmr, dota plus and free cache treasures were sent to their new accounts.

He even went so far as to have effigy statues of Icefrog that had been torn down during the Archonian Civil War restored.

Regarding these actions, ancient players have largely been in agreement; one of Crios’s most admirable traits was his mercy and clemency.

Jenkins, often one of his harsher critics, says that in doing so he put the reputation of Pendragon to shame and built for himself a reputation for bravery and goodness.

Both he and SirActionSlacks also agree that, whether Crios was right or wrong in his actions, he did bring much-needed peace and stability to the Archonian Republic, even for just a short while.

Nevertheless, some have been more questioning of these actions, Posomorâtu in his Second Philippics, highlighting how Crios’s clemency effectively kept his enemies indebted to him.

Crios should also perhaps be criticised for recalling those convicted of boosting.

An argument could be made that Crios was looking to start from a clean slate, but his recalling of these players showed a disregard for the legal jurisdiction of the game, as well as fuelling rumours of him being bribed in turn in order to recall them. Though Crios is occasionally categorised as a divine dictator, the disbanding of his ranked veteran players and refusal of a bodyguard make the issue arguable.

One of the hallmarks of a divine dictatorship is having an armed bodyguard that can then be used for intimidation.

Crios did not have this and he also did not use his army of archons as a threat to his rule, another hallmark of a divine developership.

To say that Crios achieved power through divine force is certainly accurate, to say that he maintained power through divine force, however, is debatable.

While Developer, he also made significant other reforms that largely benefited the masses of players.

The random drop chance of luxury cosmetics at the end of every game had previously been distributed to 320,000 players, many of whom did not actually need it, putting a strain on the supply and feeding a growing inflation.

Crios reduced this number to 150,000 of Archonia’s casualest citizens.

He also began the repopulating of duo ranking and support ranking, sending 80,000 pos 5 players there with plots of mmr assigned to them.

Guardians and crusaders were given automatic playership to entice more of them to come to Archonia.

Roles had been a huge issue in Archonia for a while now, particularly throughout the Archonian Civil War.

To address this, Crios ordered that all role queues must be earned, but only when all 5 roles were being selected, giving incentive to players to try out other positions.

Were these the actions of a smurfing demagogue or a player  who honestly believed in giving more rights and freedoms to the players?

No one can truly say for sure, and the interpretation of later ancient players often reveals more about their own meta preferences than Crios’s; certainly, arguments for both sides can be made.

Having served as legend, ancient, and divine in the second, third and forth ranked seasons, Crios was well aware of the level of corruption in the maintenance of the medals and knew from personal experience how powerful immortal boosters and smurfs could be.

As such, while in Seattle, he also introduced a patch addressing these issues.

The patch prohibited immortals and other high ranking players from accepting to play in party with way lower mmr players, fixed the amount of smurfs they could have so as to better control their expeditions, and protected their low mmr players from having to face them head on.

Furthermore, it required that each immortal produce 3 copies of their behavour conduct summary, making it harder for the former to profit from interactions with desperate low ranking players.

As Developer, he would add an update explicitly limiting pro-players to one year in the meta, and veteran-archons two.

Crios also took steps to integrate the new players more into the Archonian Republic, extending player rights to those playing in internet-cafes, and began the process of fully integrating private platforms.

Crios’s motivation for passing these reforms may have been purely a desire to limit corruption and inflation of the medals.

At the same time, it can equally be said that Crios was trying to stop anyone from following in his footsteps and rivaling his own position of power.

This is certainly true to some extent, as is noted by Jenkins. Crios was right to be cautious though.

For the past few patches, arguably the biggest threat that the Archonian Republic had faced, had come from its own immortals being vested with too much power, eventually growing so powerful that they could not be controlled by the meta.

Such had been the case with pro players who had conquered majors or TI, not once, but twice.

The extension of player rights to internet-cafe players and beginning to integrate the private platforms may only have been intended by Crios to further increase his base of support or may have been more altruistic.

It is certainly true, however, that these reforms were, once again, also long overdue.

Despite its huge gains since the Blizzard Wars, the Archonian Republic had still not yet adapted to its new game size, still largely functioning as the local small indie-based game it had been 100 patches ago, rather than the conglomerate-wide super-gaming platform it now was.

This dissolving of the line between “Tryhards” and “Casuals” would be continued by Icefrog’s descendents and was crucial in providing stability to the game.

The Archonian Senate had been massively depleted, many of its members dying throughout the Archonian Civil War.

Crios addressed this by enrolling many new members, increasing the number from around 400 to 900, including ex-solo ranked players, sons of heralds, and some players from private platforms.

In a similar vein, Crios also increased the number of high archonian offices, specifically those in the platforms.

The number of pro-player teams per region was increased, eventually increasing from 8 originally to 16, and increasing the number of pubstars from 20 to 40.

These two titles were some of the most important for provincial platforms, pro-players often being given full control of a platform, while pubstars acted as their assistants.

The last major reform to high ancients had occurred under Pendragon, almost 4 patches ealier.

Since then, huge expansions had been made, particularly by Crios and Icefrog, but no constitutional changes had been made to accommodate this growing game.

Crios’s reforms addressed this, increasing the pool of candidates for platform developers, as well as further distributing mmr across a wider player base.

The number of legends was also increased, adding two to specifically oversee the archonian drop chance for expensive items.

Though nominally these players were voted for by the public, it was Crios who nominated them.

This was arguably the clearest example of tyranny that Crios manifested while Developer, though it could also be argued that he may only have planned to nominate these high ranking roles in the short term, in order to stabilise gaming politics after the Archonian Civil War, and would have eventually abandoned the practice.

More contemporary ancients of Crios are critical of a number of these reforms.

Jenkins says that many of the players included in the Archonian Senate were “unworthy” of their position, being accused of being boosted.

He also argues that Crios increasing the size of the Archonian Senate and number of high ranking immortals was primarily because it allowed him a longer list of gaming positions which he could hand out to his allies, cronies, and others to whom he owed gaming favours, filling positions of power with his partisans.

He also suggests that the increased number of developers was to stop any player from gaining too much mmr and challenging his position.

It is perhaps worth noting here that Jenkins was not against the idea of an all powerful Developer per se.

In his words “Monarchy…has an unpleasant sound…but is a most practical form of government”.

However, he did believe that the democratic elements of the Archonian Republic were a weakness and that the power of the masses was a dangerous thing that should be avoided.

Therefore, while some of Jenkins’s observations may be accurate in part, they are also clouded by Jenkins’s inherent cynicism of democratic gaming platforms.

Nonetheless, in some aspects, it could be argued that on this point Crios was ahead of his time.

During the source 2 era, players from all over the platforms would be inducted into the Archonian Senate, no matter what platform they had come from.

It was restricted by skill, but not by game afilliation.

Crios seems to have laid the groundwork for this being the case, being the first to introduce any casuals into the Archonian Senate.

While it is certainly true that Crios did put many of his allies into the Archonian Senate and high ranking positions, it also has to be recognised that Crios also inducted many smurfs and boosters into the same positions, even those who had been his enemy.

Posomorâtu’s earlier criticism, that Crios did this to keep his enemies on side, does hold some weight, but the argument can also be made that his reasoning is circular, in that Crios would have been equally criticised for only having archons inducted into positions of power.

Crios had a number of other huge projects planned.

The sources differ slightly on exactly in what order Crios planned these campaigns, but all agree that he planned invasions of HON and LOL and had begun the process of assembling the supplies and players for this.

SirActionSlacks claims that he also planned to effectively encircle the Moba world after campaigning in LOL, fighting through the Warcrafts, Starcraft, Diablo, and then back to DOTA2 through Dota Allstars.

He also had huge construction projects planned, including adding better ways of communication between himself and the community, draining boosted accounts of their items and mmr, giving it to the most loyal and high behavour players, as well as expand de search engine to give better matchups in faster queues.

All these patches were put into motion, but Crios would not live to see any of them come to fruition.

While Crios had been busy reforming the meta, others had been busy planning his assassination/ban, but that is the story for another time, which will be released soon.