Site & blog de-indexed, expected retaliation from Epic Games

I became aware today that both my personal site & this blog had been de-indexed from some of the most known search engines, this includes Bing, Yahoo & DuckDuckGo.  In response to this, I've taken the time to post a new news entry on my personal site (on the home page) as well as will be blocking traffic from those search engines as traffic from those sites are noticed (while not expected there will be any traffic from those sites given they've done a full wipe of both this blog & my site from their databases, I suspect traffic from other sites where their pages have been cached is still possible).

While it's expected Epic Games is most likely the company that is responsible for this action (given they were the last company to have a boycott published against them after their changes with V-Bucks in Fortnite, locking them to the BR mode), there are other companies that are just as likely to be responsible for it based on their history of bad publicity cover-up (Bandai/Namco, Patreon, Pizza Hut, etc.).  In either case, because this happened only shortly after starting the Epic Games boycott, any expectations that I would have dropped the boycott against games that are developed using the Unreal Engine in a few years is now locked as that won't be happening, especially while this manipulation of legal methods & report functions to successfully allow cover-up of anti-consumer business practices continues to restrict search engine access to why those boycotts & reviews were published in the first place.

There are other search engines that still have my site listed in their databases (not so much the blog, but there are still results for the site, even if they are outdated or extremely lacking compared to what has been submitted to search engines for indexing).  For the time I will not be making any public recommendations as any public listing is expected to be the next attack from these companies to further succeed in their attacks to cover up the truth.

Ultimately this attack to fully wipe results for my personal site (this was already expected with the blog) puts a full lock on any boycotts that are currently in effect & any minor points that could have dropped off on their own over time won't be removed until either the boycott ends (meaning the company made the effort to correct the issue on their own) or I start seeing results for my personal site in search engines again (which is unlikely given they've already succeeded in their cover-up tactics).

In addition to their actions, I will be creating some auto-responses in my bot that will provide links to those boycotts when I happen to start on Twitch, meaning they will still get out one way or another.  I'll also be setting a timer that will occasionally give a link to my personal site, with details of search engines that have allowed this abuse to allow companies to succeeded in hiding truths about their companies (any attacks on the channel will result in further publications being made regarding further cover-up attacks to hide negative publicity about their companies, not that it's going to matter much when the most popular search engines have already blocked the site from their databases, but there are still some out there that haven't buckled to the aggressive cover-up tactics of anti-consumer companies).

In addition to this, I will be making it a point to block & ban these game & company pages from being able to access my channels on Twitch & YouTube.  The new commands will be triggered when their company names or games are mentioned in chat, which will provide a link to the pages detailing this information that they succeeded in hiding from the public.

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UPDATE:  Bing has been contacted regarding this matter to ask why this has happened, using the Feedback function on their search results (the only functional contact function I could find on the site, the contact form for webmasters never finished loading).  In this attempted contact, I sent them the following (having to cut the attempt short due to a character limitation):

My personal site appears to have been wiped from Bing, Yahoo & DuckDuckGo.  I've already made an update about this on my blog (which is also wiped from these search engines), the site itself, my Facebook, my Twitch channel & created various commands in my Twitch bot to auto-respond to various terms of what was hidden from the public as a result of this wipe (expected to be aggressive retaliation to negative reviews displaying the poor behavior of anti-consumer companies), giving links to the site in those auto-replies.

At this point I'm simply trying to find out "Why?"  This wipe is expected to be a common discussion when I start to Twitch, how long it continues will be dependent on how long it takes to get this issue sorted out, I will just have to tell viewers "I getting ignored on my inquiry for a reason" until I am given a reason for this gross injustice.

Of course I don't really expect to get any response that is going to give any useful information in it, despite getting an email auto-response to the attempt fairly quickly (unsurprisingly, without any useful information):

The mention of this page is what leads to here (further details about this listed in the 5/26/2022 news update on the site).  As I mentioned in the contact attempt, this will probably be a common disussion when I'm streaming to Twitch (that is when I have the health to do so & have decided on something to stream, many of the games I used to stream now being restricted based on the terms of the boycott until the issue in Fortnite is resolved, which it's clear from Epic Games' response is unlikely to happen) until this matter is sorted out, however my research on the matter tells me I won't ever get a response about it & the issue will never be resolved on Bing or any other search engine that pulls results from Bing.

In the mean time, I've decided to remove the block of traffic from Google (previously blocked due to negating over 96% of the site from their site crawling, but this is still better than nothing).  Either way, I am going to have to recommend against any search engine that isn't listing the site, the recommendation of a search engine (already decided) will likely be made at a later date (probably a few months from now, stated later than sooner to slow down a repeat of whoever manipulated the reporting function on Bing to get the site wiped from it in the first place).

Additional cutoffs, another emote removed

On 4/2/2022, I decided to extend the boycott to games that were developed using Epic Games technology, meaning that any game that uses the Unreal Engine is now included in the boycott that started as a result of their cutoff of V-Bucks from the Save the World mode in Fortnite, meaning I won't be supporting channels that stream those games or purchasing any new games that use that engine (being grounds for placing those games on ignore on Steam until Epic Games decides to do something about their decision that drove me off from their game & avoid any purchases that would put my money in their wallet).  In addition to this, another emote was removed from my channel (Killing Floor's Fleshpound emote), as well as I've added more games to the "Discontinued streams" section of my Game List (the re-written one, which I started when the Game List plug-in stopped working correctly).

Additional emotes will be removed or restricted from the channel as I find more games that were developed using Epic Games technology, as well as their games being restricted from being streamed on my own channel or hosted from others (possibly leading to unfollows of channels I was following and/or removal of those channels from my auto-host list, even if it's only temporary until Epic Games pulls their heads out of their ass & decides to fix the problem they caused with stealing V-Bucks from StW-only players & locking them in a mode they don't play).

EDIT:  Channels on my Discord for games developed/published by Epic Games, exclusive to the Epic Games platform or developed using their technology have already been set to private & are currently inaccessible.

Decision final, Fortnite boycott started, Fortnite emotes removed from channel

I was going to just update the last post, but considering the response from their support was enough to only solidify the decision that I was done with Fortnite (and unwilling to make any new purchases over the Epic Games platform), I determined a new post was going to be necessary.  In their response, they were clearly trying to be polite in their response, but ultimately I ran into a dead end on getting anything done:

Note that the support ticket was closed even before they sent the response above.

This decision is the ultimate end of my playing Fortnite and seeing as I won't have the game installed anymore, I won't be checking to see if an option to convert in the game will be added later, but will welcome any update from those that I made as friends in the game if they have the time to let me know if this changes.  In addition to the decision that I was done messing with this situation as a result of their poor decision to lock V-Bucks to the BR mode, I also sent the following response:

Then my decision is clear (based on your response); I am no longer your customer (any new purchases over the Epic Games launcher will not be happening on my account), a player/streamer of Fortnite (possibly no other games exclusive to the Epic Games launcher either) & will be working on a new public boycott against Fortnite, which includes supporting of other channels that stream Epic Games exclusive games on Twitch or focus primarily on game content exclusive to the Epic Games launcher on YouTube (given that most of the channels on my channel stream nothing but Epic Games exclusive games, I'll probably just disable auto-hosting until I find other channels to add), as well as removing Fortnite emotes I had created for use on my own channel.
I will be uninstalling the game directly after this response is sent, the new boycott expected to be published within a few days, as well as updating my review of the Save the World mode to show that I have since stopped playing the game (not even having it installed anymore) as a result of a change that stole 4+ years of my gaming life in re-assigning the premium currency I was collecting for use in StW to a mode that I was avoiding (for various reasons), collection of those V-Bucks being one of the few things that kept me playing it (associating those V-Bucks to 4-5 years of my life that has been stolen from me by forcing them to be locked in a mode that I don't play).

As for your statement of "continued support", any support that "was" there is now gone; I can not support a game or it's publishers (or in this case, their developers, as this was a development decision) when a decision this detrimental is made to a person that only plays StW, so your statement ends any support I have for the game or your company from this point forward, unless I see otherwise that I have access to what I was collecting in the mode I was collecting it for use in, (meaning considering I won't even have it installed anymore, either I need a notice that the conversion has happened or I will need a statement from other players of the game that they are allowed to spend V-Bucks towards llamas again, which has been the same situation in Genshin Impact regarding the lack of vertical invert, their lack of response towards the inquiry to add it & my unwillingness to even start it up without it, much less do the updates to even check for it; of course I won't be going to those channels while they are streaming personally boycotted games, so it will have to be over private messages from friends I have made in the game if I'm going to get any notice of such a change that might bring me back & make me even consider purchases over your platform again).

As stated in that response, because there is now a boycott active against Fortnite (and quite possibly any other Epic Games exclusive games, I haven't quite decided if I'm going to go through with that yet as I started streaming Dauntless myself, but there's a high probability that I will), I will be removing the Raven emote from my channel.  Given this was the emote that I was keeping in the 1000 bits slot on my channel (which 3 cheerers had achieved, given them permanent access to that emote), I will need to ask the bit leader which emote they would prefer to have access to (this is a benefit on my channel exclusive to the bit leader, they can reorder emotes on the channel on request).

If there are any more updates regarding my going back to Fortnite, it will be done on this blog, but it seems unlikely that this decision is going to be reversed...

I half-expect there may be retaliation to the response I sent them, which could quite possibly result in an account closer, which would result in the boycott definitely including all games exclusive to the Epic Games launcher (possibly on the Epic Games platform at all), but would go a step further, meaning all games developed using their technology (meaning the Unreal Engine), so may other developers & publishers would also be affected if the boycott against Epic Games goes into FULL EFFECT.

Fortnite streams discontinued as a result of locking V-Bucks to BR mode

Early in the morning on March 31st, 2022, I updated Fortnite & logged in to find out that the V-Bucks I had been collecting for the past 4+ years in Save the World mode had been locked to the Battle Royale mode.  I do NOT play BR & I do NOT spend V-Bucks on the BR store, so this change felt like stealing 4+ years of my life from me...  Earlier this morning, I went on a few rants (over 1 live channel of a former Fortnite streamer who had helped me acquire Affiliate on Twitch as a StW streamer & 2 Discord servers, including the official Fortnite Discord), stating I was done with Fortnite, had left the official Discord & was expecting to uninstall the game by the time I had woken up (expecting) around noon.

After getting some sleep, I was thinking a bit more clearly & decided I would make one last-ditch effort to keep the game in my list of games before I uninstall it, this was to contact Epic Games support & see if they would be willing to convert most of what I had prior to the change into X-Ray tickets (what is now accepted toward llama purchases in StW, V-Bucks no longer being accepted towards them).  In this support ticket, the following was stated:

I noticed when I started StW this morning (not playing the last couple weeks due to health issues) that I got 1000 X-Ray tickets on login.  After some discussion about this on your Discord server, I eventually found that the V-Bucks I had been collecting since I purchased it in 2017 (over 37,000 before this change was made, which collection of these from missions & dailies were the primary reason that kept me playing the game after Twitch dailies were broken in StW in the first year of playability) are now locked to a mode that I don't even play (BR mode). I haven't been happy about a lot of the changes in STW for the last few years, but I continued playing it because I knew I had already spent over $40 for it at full price in 2017 (plus tax, purchasing roughly a month after it was playable), mostly just avoiding the modes I didn't like (which were missions that had the enclosing storm mechanic or didn't allow you to craft your own schematics).

Last night I blew up about this on your Discord server, stated that I was done with Fortnite & left the server (also blowing up about it in 1 other Discord server & chat in a live Twitch channel, that particular streamer not even having the Epic Games launcher installed anymore because he wasn't happy with the StW modes that didn't allow him to craft his schematics, 1 of 3 channels that helped me acquire affiliate status on Twitch while I was still streaming StW with their raids to my channel).  After getting some sleep & calming down a bit, I rejoined your Discord server & decided to make a last-ditch effort to retain those V-Bucks in the mode that I "was" still playing before I uninstall the game and make that decision to ditch the game final.

This request to retain me as a player/streamer of StW (and potential customer on the Epic Games platform) is that you convert 37,000 V-Bucks into 37,000 X-Ray tickets; this will allow me to retain most of what I collected in StW & to be able to use them in the mode I originally collected them for.  I have NEVER spent any V-Bucks on the BR store & locking what I had collected in StW to the BR mode is not going to force me to play it or spend them on that store, it's only going to get me to remove the game from my system & stop supporting other Fortnite streamers on a whole (not just BR streamers, where I already have streams tagged with "Mode: Battle Royale" blocked on Twitch, but the entire Fortnite game, regardless of what mode is being streamed).

I have already moved Fortnite to the "Discontinued steams" section of my Game List on my Twitch channel (with a descriptive reason why this game is being discontinued on my channel) & that is likely to remain the decision if the time & effort I put into StW remains as time I can't get back because those V-Bucks are now locked to a mode I don't even play.  Additionally, I'm intending on make a blog post about this on my Twitch blog explaining why Fortnite will no longer be streamed on my channel (if I can't get those V-Bucks accessible in the mode I play), as well as an addition to my review of the StW mode on my personal site, which is likely to be the final update to it once I'm left with the (expected) decision that all that is left to do with Fortnite is to uninstall it & never look at it again...  Another BBB complaint is also possible if I'm faced with the decision of just scrapping what took over my gaming life for the last 4+ years.

Depending on their decision (whether they decide to make V-Bucks usable on StW again, convert what I have asked to X-Ray tickets or just decide to give me the proverbial finger & reject the request or close the ticket without a response), is going to be the deciding factor whether I even keep Fortnite installed anymore (as well as whether I am even going to consider additional purchases over the Epic Games platform).  If the decision stands as it is now, Fortnite will no longer be played, much less streamed on my channel ever again & this will likely also affect my decision as to whether I ever purchase anything over the Epic Games platform again.

Twitch extensions having issues, possible removal & replacement in the near future

On 2/6/2022, I noticed that both the Game Lists & Exclusive Content for Subscribers didn't appear to be working on my channel anymore (the StreamElements Leaderboards extension is still working however).  I spent maybe an hour trying to troubleshoot the extensions that don't appear to be loading anymore to make sure it wasn't an issue on my side, eventually giving up on trying to troubleshoot them & just marking them for removal at a later date.  I'll be leaving the extensions on the channel for now, but they are likely to be replaced by something else in the near future if they don't start working on their own...

More chat restrictions in response to further attacks

As I stated earlier, I decided to increase restrictions on chatting in my channel as a result of regular harassment when I was streaming (particularly when the game being streamed was Fortnite).  As of 2/4/2022, the minimum requirement in the screenshot on the linked blog post has been updated from a minimum of 1 week to 3 months (if the viewer's account does not have a registered phone number or hasn't been following for a minimum of 10 minutes).  Details regarding what happened on 2/3/2022 to prompt this change can be found in the extended video evidence description at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LGHViVsJPPAyVR5TKqC_REFdJ4ubldF936HRdCpjm2Q (with a list of ALL known accounts, name changes & logged attacks starting on 2/5/2020 with the original situation in the video evidence located at https://youtu.be/B-4jmNFZD-o).

Community tab disabled on YouTube channel

On 2/3/2022, I noticed that the Community tab on my YouTube channel was no longer present (probably gone for some time).  Doing an online search would give indication that this function is only available to those with over 500 subscribers (regardless of whether they had access to it prior or not).

I was using that section for updates regarding the YouTube channel (which has probably all been wiped at this point, can't even see what was on it anymore even in my YouTube dashboard), it looks like I am going to have to do the same as I had to do with Twitch when they removed their Feed function & start running written updates on an external site (which is what is seen here).  As of yet, I haven't determined if I am going to create a new blog for it, I might just create a list of posts related to the YouTube channel farther down the right-hand side of the page.

The YouTube channel is used more for highlight backups of streams on Twitch, but due to health issues that have prevented me from being able to stream much over the past couple years, it's still serving as a place for gaming highlights (or when it's necessary to display somebody for who they are as being a troll or griefer), just more for highlights recorded when I'm gaming (even if I wasn't streaming).

I still want to get back into being a regular streamer on Twitch again, however due to the whole COVID situation, medical resources are strapped tight & I'm unable to get my surgery taken care of (I've been trying to set this up for over 2 years already).  Without going into too many specifics, the surgery is necessary to stop a bleeding issue, which leaves me with a lack of energy as a result of daily anemia from that blood loss.  Until I can get this issue resolved, extended time gaming won't be possible & having to walk away from the PC to deal with these health issues is a common distraction from what would make it possible to continue being a streamer on Twitch...  I might try to do streams occasionally when I feel I have enough energy to do so (I know I've tried setting up to stream in the last few months, but didn't have the energy to do so before I was ready to start streaming), but there's no guarantee on how long I'll be able to stream if I am able to get started, so we're just going to have to play it by ear until my health is good enough that anemia isn't a daily factor in my life that interferes with my ability to get things done...

Internet problems again; further streams on hold...

While I was intending on doing a Dauntless stream later today, I've found that my internet with CenturyLink is again having issues & my upload rate currently is not high enough to run a stream of online multiplayer games (single player games perhaps still being an option).  I did attempt to schedule a repair call with a technician over their online chat, but the chat representative was unwilling to schedule the call & stated that I needed to contact my router's manufacturer (which isn't going to fix anything).  There's also a high probability that even if the technician does come out to fix it, my upload rate is going to be back to a mere 3 mbps, which means I won't be able to stream online games anymore anyways (not until CenturyLink offers a higher upload rate or I ultimately decide to switch back to Xfinity, the latter I've been attempting to avoid after what they pulled with me in 2018).  I've been waiting for Google Fiber to become available in my area to get a decent internet connect at a decent price, but this still remains unavailable in my neighborhood since I moved here in 2016...

So while I was considering a stream today, no stream will be possible while my internet connection is malfunctioning (even if I do get a service call scheduled, it's unlikely it will be fixed while I still have energy to work on the last day of Dauntless before the new season).  I'll be making a call to CenturyLink later today to try & set up a service call to have somebody come & look at the line, but if I can't get anywhere because they would rather put responsibility on my router for the problem (which is only a factor because my CenturyLink modem is in bridge mode, which was necessary because I wasn't able to update my personal site if it wasn't), I will need to make calls to start switching back to Xfinity at the end of this month.

On the plus side, if I do switch back to Xfinity, I should have the upload rate to be able to start streaming regularly again (this is provided I have the health to continue doing so, which hasn't been the case for the last few months).  The bigger issue is I may not have the funds to continue paying that bill once I have to start paying my medical insurance's premiums again (especially after what Patreon pulled with terminating my account), so currently we're just going to have to see where the future of my channel goes based on available ISP services, whether they are functioning correctly, how much they are going to cost if I switch again & whether I can afford those costs (not to mention the continuing health issues I haven't been able to get taken care of due to COVID sucking up hospital resources & preventing me from getting the surgery done that I've been trying to get taken care of for over 2 years)...

Emote reclassification, more emotes available to Tier 1 subscribers

On 11/22/2021, I noticed a notification from Twitch stating that they had given us more emote slots for Tier 1 subscribers, so I decided to reclassify my emotes so that Tier 1 subscribers would have access to more of those emotes when they subscriber (currently 4, with 1 more still & 1 animated I may add later).  The Ammo, SeriousBomb & Fleshpound emotes were moved to being accessible to Tier 1 Subscribers, while I moved the Raven emote back to being available to all tippers of 1,000 bits on the channel (currently including 3 other Fortnite streamers, or at least former-streamers of Fortnite).

Of course there would be a catch in doing this, where like many other things on Twitch have become broke (or previously gained perks being revoked), I found that once again I'm having to go through the initial acceptance period that Twitch imposes on newer affiliates (where I had gained approval to immediate acceptance of emotes over a year ago)...

Note also that the bit leader on the channel has the ability to request an emote resort (allowing access to emotes more to their liking in cheer slots that they have reached).  Unfortunately seeing as Twitch is now making me go through the acceptance process again when I attempt to resubmit emotes to have them resorted, this means that any time I have to do so, those emotes will become temporarily available until Twitch re-accepts the emotes (even if it was supposed to be a simple resort of existing emotes)...

CenturyLink speed changes, continued streaming pending streaming performance tests

Roughly the first week of November of 2021, I noticed that my upload rates seems slower when uploading gaming videos to YouTube, so I decided to run another speed test on 11/8/2021 & found that it appears my speeds have changed (download speeds increasing roughly 10 Mbps from where I should have been, the uploading rate running roughly 4 Mbps higher than what I was originally quoted when I switched back to CenturyLink from Comcast...but roughly half of what I had when they fixed my internet back in July).

While 3 Mbps was not high enough to continue streaming online multiplayer games (what I was getting back when I first switched back to CenturyLink), 7 Mbps might be enough to allow me to continue streaming the games I'd prefer to be streaming (although I was getting 10 Mbps upload when I was with Comcast).  I'll be running some tests when I get a chance to stream again to see if this increase in upload rate allows me to stream at 3000 Kbps (what I prefer to stream at); If not, I'll again be restricted in my streaming capability to only single player games until decent internet is available in my area (that doesn't feel like it costs an arm, leg & newborn child every month...).

 I'm still waiting on Google Fiber to be become available in my area, with any luck, maybe Biden's new budget plans will get these companies to start laying fiber optic cables for fiber internet plans once again (as they stated 4 or 5 years ago when I first moved here, later finding out that those plans were abandoned when CenturyLink changed their management company).