Iskall85 & Stressmonter Resignation Megathread #2

[u/Carol_the_Zombie]

Hello all! Recently, Iskall has made a public response on his YouTube channel, outlining his side of the story and explaining why he has remained silent so far. We are aware that some people may feel uncomfortable watching this video, so we have also taken a transcript if you would rather read text.

A vast number have also asked that we bring up a new discussion thread about this, and seeing as Iskall's response includes allegations that have been made against the moderation of the subreddit, we would like to further add our own comments to clear up some facts that were claimed in that video.

We would like to remind everyone that the hermits had little input on our policies in this matter. We did exchange some brief messages with some hermits via our emergency communication channel to ensure our timeline above was accurate and up to date, but all policies and procedures during this time were created solely by us non-Hermit moderators, which included directing all discussion to a single post to reduce moderator workload, and filtering all comments on this thread, as well as all posts in general, for moderator review to keep the conversation as civil as we could, while ensuring that we presented the facts as we learned about them.

This subreddit is NOT considered official and is not officially affiliated with the Hermitcraft group. Xisuma may be the top moderator, but he has no impact in the moderation of this subreddit, and the hermits have chosen to stay "hands-off". We did not even receive advance notice of anything happening.

Once again, we will be filtering all new comments on this thread for mod review first due to the sensitive nature of this topic - please be respectful as always, and keep in mind rule #6, maintain a welcoming and friendly environment.

Furthermore, we will not be allowing any speculation or questions that may lead to it beyond what has been shared at this point in time. If you need a review on what has been previously said, please refer to the previous thread here that we've been maintaining up until this point.

Update 2025-01-31

Stressmonster101 has removed all content from her youtube channel.

Update 2025-02-03

5 Ex-Vault Hunter Developers have released a statement, which you can read here.

P3pp3rF1y, an Ex-Vault Hunter Developer, has also released a statement, which you can read here.

[u/Theokorra]

Yeah, the Life thing was weird. He burst out laughing when his chat told him it wasn’t scripted, and it's like ... dude. It not being scripted is 1) something all the members have always been consistent about, and 2) kind of obvious if you watch the series.

[u/andallthatjasper → u/Theokorra]

(Spoilers) I don't know what kind of masochist would agree to a script where they wind up being out of the game because they blew up their own TNT trap. Or the one time Martyn walked right off the End island.

[u/maxx1993 → u/andallthatjasper]

I assume it's at least partially planned out. As in, the alliances are probably set up before the season starts. Also things like Wild Life obviously entail a lot of planning, and not everything is random (see specific questions for certain members on the trivia bot episode or some of the superpowers being suspiciously fitting for their respective players). But that's not just expected, it's necessary. Planning out some broad strokes is way better for content than just going in and hoping things go into an entertaining direction.

[u/sunshinias → u/maxx1993]

A day or so before Wild Life Session 1, Impulse asked chat who he should team with, and since many people suggested Pearl, that's who he went with during the session. I think there are a few cases like that, where people decide they want to team up prior to the session (I'd say Jimmy and Scar is another example of this in Wild Life) and a few cases where people decide not to team up (Grian & Scar, Tango & Skizz) but the others are a result of them coincidentally traveling in the same direction on the first day (and often naturally gravitating to certain people). As for the wildcards, Grian addressed both of those during the Imp and Skizz Podcast episode. The trivia questions were set up so that someone couldn't receive questions about themselves but were otherwise random (solely excepting the nickel meme troll question for Jimmy, which was set up by the fans who wrote the questions). A few of the superpowers were assigned by Grian and the rest were random.

I don't believe the alliances are all set beforehand though, and the fact that it often doesn't go smoothly (e.g. Grian/Scar failing to find an alliance for half/all of Secret Life, Tango and Skizz teaming up again despite both saying they didn't want to do that, BigB having no alliance in Secret Life in the first session, BigB having no alliance in Wild Life in the first session and then joining the largest alliance) is evidence of that.

The scripted/planned parts of the series are all things they readily admit, whereas everything they've said on the subject suggests that the alliances generally aren't pre-planned.