Koji

Koji is a member of the MegaZeux community and has been since at least the year 2000. During this time he has had some well known bouts with community administrators and ops, in particular Exophase.

Koji was originally known as Artith, and was rather maligned at this time. Artith had a tendency to defensively argue whatever point he set out to make, no matter how hopeless his stance was and how obvious it was that he didn't know what he was talking about, all the while doing so with a minimum of tact and proper spelling/grammar. He was routinely insulted and ridiculed for this behavior and several specific mannerisms, for instance his habit of ending especially flame-ridden posts with lines such as "not ment to offend." In time Artith grew more and more openly bitter and depressed, with arguments on IRC often degrading into him talking about how meaningless and terrible his life is. Finally, Artith left in a huff, never to return - or so it would seem.

Shortly thereafter (circa summer 2001), in the community's most significant instance of identity deception, Artith rejoined as Koji. Koji claimed to be friends with Artith, whom he spoke of in a mildly denigrating tone. Although he knew many things about Artith that he probably shouldn't have (even explaining that his poor spelling and argumentative attitude was just a very deliberate attempt at trolling) most people shrugged it off because Koji was relatively agreeable and well to do. One exception was Diamond, who strongly contended that Koji was Artith. Koji quickly gained acceptance as a "new" member of the community by showing an interest in developing MegaZeux. At the time, most of the former developers working on MZX 2.7 had gotten tired of it, and the few remaining that had any interest at all were split off from #mzx due to the prior community schism between it and #megazeux. Those with proficient knowledge in C/C++ were at an extreme minimum, and anyone showing any such ability to muddle through Greg Janson's source code was immediately embraced. Upon suggestion, Koji named the version he was working on MZX 2.60 which marked a return to "proper" version numbers (as opposed to ones named after the principle author such as MZX 2.51 spider versions or MZXAk).

In MZX 2.60 Koji implemented many features that were hold-overs meant to be implemented in MZXAk 2.0. Since Akwende openly left the community on bad terms after controversy surrounding his MZXAk 1.0 release (and following behavior) Koji figured that MZXAk would never be released. Koji first called out Akwende on DigitalMZX asking to have the source so he could finish it, while receiving "very little credit." It later became apparent that Koji manipulatively approached Akwende (on AIM) with the intention of determining what features he implemented (and if possible, how to implement them), while pretending to be an admirer of his work. Koji seemed to hold an animosity towards Akwende at the time, which was mysterious due to his apparent newness (surprisingly, this didn't tip anyone off either, possibly because a lot of people weren't very happy with Akwende either). After learning what he wanted to know about MZXAk 2, Koji proceeded to tell Akwende off admitting that he was going to release his own version now, with only a fraction of the amount of work hours necessary to complete. Shortly thereafter, Akwende released MZXAk 2 on DigitalMZX, much to widespread surprise. The community, being much more aware of Koji's work on MZX 2.60, found the timing suspect. Exophase in particular accused Akwende of releasing only to prevent Koji from making him look bad, which sparked furious arguments between the two rivalz (Exophase would later come to deeply regret this short-sighted and biased stance). In reality, it was likely more Koji who was developing with the sole intent of preempting Akwende and gaining respect within the community. Nonetheless, despite MZX 2.60 being released several months after MZXAk 2.0 (ironic, due to Koji's boasting that he could develop it in much less time than it took Akwende), it was not derived from the MZXAk 2.0 source (instead it was based off of MZXAk 1.0), nor was it feature compatible (although it had similar features), causing the first real fork in MZX development. Due to Exophase supporting Koji's branch over Akwende's all future versions were derived from MZX 2.60, and the MZXAk 2.0 branch died (and Akwende quietly slid back into the background, before appearing over a year later with humorous concern of MZXAk 2 support). The community didn't seem to mind MZX Ak 2.0 being thrown out with little explanation, in addition to the SMZX mode from MZX Ak 1.0; this might have been because features cost a premium in available memory which was highly limited. 2.60 actually contained some code from inmate2993 and Exophase due to Koji's inability to get all of his code working. Koji released MZX 2.61, which was nothing but a bug fix (2.60 was notoriously buggy); this marked the end of his involvement with the MZX source code.

Over the next couple of years Koji maintained a quiet role in the background of the MegaZeux community, never sparking much attention. He would later admit that he deliberately tried to avoid conflict and come off as non-argumentative so that people wouldn't realize he's Artith. This facade eventually wore off - towards fall of 2003 Exophase started noticing that Koji is quick to offer explanations for topics he is not adequately knowledgeable of, or at least not capable of explaining in a sensible fashion. In less than kind words Exophase eventually shot off at him for it (after Koji said that C++ was like C with a few extra features and that objects were like enhanced functions), which sparked defensive retaliation from Koji (in particular, him saying that he's had enough with everyone hating him for no reason). Exophase responded by noting that Koji was behaving a lot like Artith was, and that in fact he started to wonder if Koji was Artith all along. This mention prompted heavy denial and hostility on Koji's part, which made some community members even more suspicious. A good deal of evidence was gathered, comparing writing style, behavior, and several personal connections between Koji and Artith, although much of this was deemed consequential. The crux of the debate was the discovery of a mis-crediting of one of Koji's alleged works to Artith, and Koji possessing the same ultra-obscure video card that Artith had complained about in the past. Koji continued to deny being Artith and provided weak rationalizations to counter the evidence presented. Eventually the debate reached critical mass; some administrators such as Esdemo1 insisted that Koji no longer be pressured since it can't be proven beyond any doubt that he's Artith (Esdemo1 personally refused to believe that he was, but also maintained that if he was then he should be banned permanently). Koji himself went into a complete frame rage, and received due criticism specifically for his current behavior, contrary to any suspicions. Koji was eventually paroled, and Exophase gave up trying to get him to convince that he was Artith, conceding that there wasn't enough proof to do anything either way.

About half a year later, in the summer of 2004, Koji gave Exophase a PayPal donation out of consideration for his work on MZX; this was done in spite of the animosity present. The donation actually served a dual purpose; it contained Koji's real name, which was Artith's real name. Exophase didn't actually realize this because he never knew what Artith's name was, but Koji spelled it all out for him. They talked in private, where Koji admitted that he really wanted to be proven wrong all along because he couldn't stand constantly pretending anymore. Exophase urged Koji to come clean to the community, insisting that he would be forgiven. Koji was reluctant but eventually proceeded to do so, and he was generally forgiven.

The overall level of annoyance towards Koji has since subsided, but he still has a reputation for providing explanations and advice where he really shouldn't. The administration generally agrees that he has a penchant for speaking without thinking. He has been known to leave nodes on this wiki that are of questionable content, such as "... it's Tetris." or "Koji is a koji", and at other times lacking in quality of writing or factual content.

While Koji is not well known for any major MegaZeux releases aside from MZX 2.60 itself, he is a relatively respected Robotic programmer whom has demonstrated his skills in some impressive engines (most of all his "voxel" engine which has perspective correction and height mapping). Koji has participated in a few Day of Zeux competitions, although he is more known to sign up then drop out before they start.

Koji has worked on several games, with his most well down being Chronostodian, a game that has been in progress since at least 2003. Koji has kept a journal following the game for years. Every now and then he will announce that he's adding a complex new feature or system to it, which has eventually led to him being criticized of biting off more than he can chew for a game that he has generally said will be finished by several times that have since passed. He is also known for having lost his work on many occasions due to computer failure. In fact, because of this and several other tragedies that follow him Koji is considered a profoundly unlucky person.