Over the course of time, the average age of the army community has consistently increased. A game originally made for children, mocking users older than 18 for signing up for a penguin game, is now strictly centered around adults. And I am one of the people to blame for this.

Designed by Wynn

Retiring has always been a natural part of the cycle that built this community. In a community that is constantly criticizing its meta for being “too boring,” the natural solution to this would be, you guessed it, having new personalities rise to the occasion. Although mass retirements can raise alarm bells, retirements have positive outcomes. So, if you’ve been thinking of retiring, this should be your wake-up call.

This post will seek to answer one question: are we leading for too long?

Adults Ruined Club Penguin

In September 2023, Club Penguin Armies announced the results of the Club Penguin Armies Census. In that census, almost 30% of participants marked their age as either 21 or over. I predict that the percentage is actually larger than recorded as the data was taken from the optional form of the census, of which only 157 people filled out. The required form recorded 274 unique responses.

Ten years earlier, in 2014, the census revealed that only 5% of the community at that time was over 18. A significant age increase is to be expected. It is only natural for the average player’s age to increase alongside the age of the community. One would think with age comes maturity; however, I argue that our old ages have held back armies on multiple occasions.

Signing up for Club Penguin

Unfortunately, in a community that was built by kids for kids, there have been unsafe situations of adults invading these spaces. It has become far too common where adults have been exiled from the community for their gross interactions with minors. While this is not an accurate narrative for every adult left in the community, any rational adult would be hyperaware of their interactions with minors, even if it is on the internet. If you were a parent, how would you feel about your child interacting with adults in internet voice channels? It can be hard to escape the feeling of chasing nostalgia, but sometimes it is best to let things go.

Bryce, former Water Vikings leader: I believe having adults in the community, especially in leadership roles, is detrimental to the community as a whole. First and foremost, this is meant for kids to have fun. I don’t see too much fun to be had when the vast majority of leaders are adults too blinded by nostalgia to pass the torch on to the next. This community is stagnant right now and the current leaderships are just too old and stuck in their ways to adapt and make the necessary changes to better armies as a whole.

Dillon, small-medium army legend: I absolutely believe that adults have overstayed their welcome. Quite frankly, I have always believed that armies were at their best when they were being controlled by adolescents, younger teenagers (13 to 15). In my opinion, that is the ideal range for an army leader and always will be. Leaders in that range tend to understand responsibility, but allowed their personalities to influence their army, giving the army a unique “culture.” I think that, as that average age rose, the leaders understood responsibility better, but at the cost of giving their army a unique flair.

Superhero123, Advisor: No, I do not believe that; in fact, I believe the complete opposite. Club Penguin has been dead for eight years now and the majority of people who played the game are now adults/almost adults. The average [private server] player is an adult that returns to the game for nostalgia reasons, but also because it’s genuinely a fun game. What I am trying to say is that if it wasn’t for the adults keeping [private servers] (and in turn [armies]) alive, we would currently simply not have armies! There is just not enough non-adults interested in this anymore to have a significantly sized community.

Stagnation

Compared to kids, adults tend to hold onto grudges. Speaking from personal experiences, I’ve declared war over something as silly as seeing the wrong-colored penguin on my army’s server. After a quick war, all is forgiven and you move on to the next target.

These days, the current meta fosters social action to be taken against armies as a replacement for war. If it comes to war, expect a 32-page document calling for your cancellation. Recently, Edu14463 reflected on the growing trend of social justice. Ironically, Edu14463 has become one of the most controversial figures in the recent year.

I reference this post to echo the answer I gave Edu14463 at the time: “I do not think ‘cancel culture’ is necessarily a bad thing as it stems from a form of social justice and should force people to think of their privilege as army leaders and that one’s actions/words may harm another.” That being said, I believe that our fundamental right as armies is that if you see something you don’t agree with, being brave enough to stand up against in through war represents qualities of a good leader.

I think back to someone like Boomer 20 (riddled with his own controversies) who wrote about a similar topic during- what I would describe as- the fall of armies in 2014. In the post, titled “Why We May Never See An End To The Scandals,” Boomer 20 points to apologists, denialism, and ego as sins of the community. The expectation became that reigning leagues must enforce all sorts of punishments, rather than punishment being served by the armies themselves.

While there are many instances of necessary punishments, leagues are put in positions of the “army police.” Afterwards, administrators are expected to go on apology tours as a way to prevent the league fracturing off into pieces. Club Penguin Armies being one of the longest, if not consistent, organizations despite Club Penguin shutting down seven years ago is a testament to this. These days, it is more common to throw insults than snowballs.

Same, bro

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been flabbergasted by some of the controversies over the last few years. Even in the hay days of my army career, never once did it cross my mind to make comments on appearance, race, sexuality, or anything of the sort. The platinum rule is to treat others how THEY want to be treated.

Regardless of the reason, war is always good. However, the current meta results in foreign relations that are not dynamic and fluid. Alliance lines were drawn in the sand long ago. Due to the same leaders holding the coveted leadership spot for years on end, nothing new is happening. And how could it?

All too often, I log on to see discussions about how boring the community is and that it is the administrator’s fault for not fostering more unique experiences. Even despite my constant attempts to bring unique experiences to the Army Board (which, sure, may not always be the most loved concepts). Relying on leagues to recreate a map every year is no longer a solution. Maps have failed to avoid the stagnation that the community is facing.

Why are we torturing ourselves by staying in a community we’re so critical of?

Bryce, former Water Vikings leader: Onto the wars, quite frankly, they are too few and too tame.

From what I’ve seen, everyone is pretty friendly to each other. On paper that sounds pretty good but considering it is called CLUB PENGUIN ARMIES, the penguin friendship simulator just doesn’t work. People don’t want to go to war against their friends and allies, completely forgetting the purpose of this community.

Dillon, small-medium army legend: Wars are absolutely too few and far between. This community’s backbone for 14 years was wars. Without that, you’re waiting around for the next tournament and it can lead to huge lulls in activity.

There was a point where we had armies that were just war machines. Dark Warriors and Light Troops were war machines. They would go to war just because they understood that wars were the best way to keep people invested. They knew that training events were boring as hell, and the concept of completely dunking on another army was exciting. So they went to war, and it worked.

I think you can also attribute the lack of wars to the aforementioned lack of unique cultures and values between armies. Barring Elite Guardians, armies don’t want to be viewed as “the bad guy” anymore, which means there’s fewer armies that you can go to war with and look good.

Superhero123, Advisor: One of the negatives of having to rely on adults (a necessary “evil” as I explained) to keep the community running is that their free time is more limited, and therefore having wars constantly like the good old days has gotten harder. I would love to see more wars and I encourage all community armies to seek them, [as] it’s the essence of [armies] and what makes it more fun for your average troop in my opinion.

The Leadership Protocol

One of the most controversial decisions I’ve been a part of was the creation of the Leadership Protocol in the Army of Club Penguin. Its creation was a way to ensure a continuous flow of promotions to avoid demoralization and ensure smooth transitions. It sparked a lot of discussion as, if someone has proven to be extremely successful, why would anyone in their right mind want to cut them short of their potential?

Created in May 2021

Leading for more than a year straight was uncommon in the OG era. Now, it’s increasingly more common for those to hold top positions for no less than a year. For example, I led the Clovers for only 200 days and, subjectively, accomplished much more compared to modern day leaders. (I’ll defend this claim in #community-chat.) In fact, I was able to split those 200 days into three different leaderships.

Sometimes armies begin to rely on leaders for survival, and there have even been cases of shut downs following the retirement of a prominent leader. Rank stagnation can sometimes make leadership changes difficult. Thus, it is imperative that armies are open to consistent promotions as a way to breathe fresh life into them.

Bryce, former Water Vikings leader: The next ones up need the chance to lead and better the community but will never get that chance if all the leaders in their mid-20s refuse to let go.

Dillon, small-medium army legend: I also truly believe that leading for long periods of time is a negative, but this applies more to [the community] in general. Not just for the army but for the leader as well.

A personal anecdote: when I asked to revive Underground Mafias Army, one of my personal goals was to be retired by the time I graduated high school. Even in 2017, armies were draining. Despite the smaller size of the community, there was more room for conflict. I was burned out by January of 2018 (as I’ve gone into in the past). So I retired in 2018, three years before graduating. I took the next six years off, only returning sparingly for tournaments that friends asked me to attend.

The six years being mostly out of armies did wonders for me. Any remaining bitterness I had towards armies was gone. It allowed me to do stuff like the retrospective, attend events, and actually look at the community again without this feeling that I wasted my time. I feel that more leaders would be served to do what I did. Lead for as long as armies are fun. If they’re not fun anymore, retire. Come back if you feel like it when you aren’t bitter anymore.

Superhero123, Advisor: I do not think there is a thing as “leading for too long.” A leader should keep leading as long as they are enjoying it, their army is performing well and they have the free time to commit to the cause. If your army is failing due to you not being able to inspire troops anymore or not having the time or motivation to do stuff then, yes, you should retire because you should value the well being of your army more than your personal motives for power.

If all is good, however, then I see no reason to retire just cause “its been too long time.” To use a recent example: Xing led Templars for so many years with great success and there have also been plenty of others in [army] history.

In response to Superhero123’s point about Xing: regardless of any multilogging controversy, it is true that Xing dominated the army scene during his time as a leader. Just as we have seen in history, the Templars have yet to see similar success since his retirement. I am not claiming that Xing’s absence as a leader is the sole cause of Templars’ recent performance, rather just pointing that Templars, like many armies, have struggled to regain their footing following such an impactful retirement from a long-term leader.

Templars fell to small-medium in June 2023

As I finish my thoughts for this post, please know that I recognize the irony of creating this post. My unhealthy obsession with leading this community to a form of stability has resulted in me overstaying my welcome. My retirement date is set and I will continue to do everything in my power to see to that the community never has to go through the anxiety of split leagues or power control struggles, and instead can get back to the thing that matters most. Being an army.

As Toxic Storm wrote, “Despite all the retirements, the community [will remain] strong and resilient.” Adults may have played a role in creating an unsavory meta, but it is up to all of us to redefine what is important to us. Do you think we’ve been seeing people leading for too long?

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mchappy2

Mchappy is interning at Club Penguin Armies as the Chief Executive Producer. Max held him at gunpoint to finish his biography.