First things first, my predecessor, pacman, was utterly useless, posted nothing of value and then flaked for no stated and no apparent reason. I have no idea why he did so. I've only ever played in one other game with pacman in the past and he was virtually absent in that game as well, posted next to nothing of value, and also had to be replaced in that game. That's all I know about him.
This is a tough game to get a good handle on. I've read the entirety of Day 1 three times now but I'm still not getting very many really strong impressions of the alignment of several of the players, which is a bit unusual for me. Hmph. I did my first read of the thread deliberately avoiding posts that would tell me who had been lynched so that it wouldn't cloud my judgment, and I got a town read from DDD and a very scummy read from freeko, so I can't say that I blame anyone for lynching freeko. Had I been here on Day 1, I would have voted to lynch him, too. But I was surprised that DDD came under so much fire. I really didn't buy several of the arguments made against him as I was reading them. I realize that it's different coming in as a replacement and not actually being here live, as it were, but still, those who were making what appeared to me to be fairly spurious arguments against DDD seemed suspicious to me from the get go.
Anyway, from my post by post reviews and subsequent analysis of Day 1, this is what I can offer at present as to those who are pinging most loudly on my scumdar currently.
NOTE: The following is based on Day 1 posts only. I will add more later re: Day 2 posts.
ZEEnon:
He completely freaked out over random votes and completely missed the humour that was self evident that led to the beginning of what appeared to be an obvious joke wagon. His wayyyy over the top reaction resulted in a real wagon forming on him and then he went ballistic. After he calmed down, he didn’t seem to have anything more to say except to point out the bleedingly obvious – that Mizz.Mafia and pacman hadn't posted much or contributed very meaningfully to the game. But ZEEnon didn’t contribute meaningfully even though he was actually participating and posting. His post-freakout contributions read like "oops, I'm just going to say 'safe' things now and hope that nobody looks in my direction again". And there was this strange little post directed to Light-kun:
i agree with the rest of your points, so i didn't address them or else it would be seen as me agreeing with you too much and/or me just posting for the sake of posting.
That just struck me as odd, as it looks like ZEEnon either trying to explain to his scum partner why/how he had screwed up or, alternatively, trying to
appear
to be explaining to his scum partner why/how he had screwed up, i.e. buddying up to Light-kun.
ZEEnon later, after having said that he was not going to quit the game, did just that without any notice in the thread at all. He just disappeared. The overall impression of ZEEnon that I am left with is that he was most likely scum who just couldn’t take the heat of having a wagon on him.
Drake:
His first 14 posts were ostensibly all joke posts. That's a lot of joke posts. Mind you, they led to ZEEnon's meltdown and if ZEEnon is scum, as I suspect he is, that's not a bad result. But still, something seems not quite right here. Very soon after his lengthy series of joke posts, Drake moved quickly to DDD, and seemed to focus on DDD pretty much exclusively from that point forward, but the suspicions that he levelled at DDD seem somewhat contrived to me. Then in his post 23, Drake says that DDD still thinking that ZEEnon is scum is suspicious. That seems off to me because it sounds like Drake saying that he KNOWS that ZEEnon is town, which he couldn't know unless he is scum.
Then Drake tells DDD that he "despises" softclaims by townies saying that they 'win with the town', accuses DDD of being 'schizophrenic' for accusing ZEEnon of tunnelling, (pretty strong language there - "despises" and "schizophrenic" - in circumstances that do not call for such extremes) and says that DDD was "buddying up" to Drake and Light. (again, what makes Drake so sure that Light is town, which he couldn't know unless he is scum?) In other posts to DDD, Drake also utilizes the false dilemma fallacy and offers another soft defence of Light-Kun before turning his sights to freeko eventually when it appears inevitable that that's the way the wind is blowing.
Light-Kun:
Another one who seemed to make rather disingenuous accusations against DDD on Day 1, without backing them up. Then there was that weird and unduly hostile post he made to na85 that just seemed to come out of left field. Subsequently, he seemed to side with freeko for a while before eventually voting for him, even though freeko was the scummiest player by far (despite having ultimately flipped town). Something definitely seems "off" about Light's Day 1 play but I'm not getting a "Omg, he's scum, lynch him immediately" feel from it at present. ZEEnon and Drake are pinging slightly louder.
Howard:
Not enough to go on yet, due to his predecessor, so I have to keep him in the top tier of my suspect list at present, by default.
So, those are my top suspects as of the end of Day 1. I won't post the rest of my analysis of other players, or my town reads, etc., as it wouldn't be in the best interests of the town to do so at this point, but I will catch up on the Day 2 posts asap and post more soon, hopefully tomorrow.
Regards,
Jazz