BirdNES 3: When Worlds Collide

Reason to NES:

Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.
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Blackbard said:
The beautiful part of a NES like this is that it doesn't have to match history exactly. There would be no reason to play this if there was no chance for England or any other country to leave the boundries that history have set for us. I for one am glad that players like Immac have been able to play a country to a level of dominance that did not exsist at this time.
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Yes, on that note we should also mutilate the Americas or make Cambodia the richest and most powerful region in the world because ignoring "real history" would be "beautiful." :rolleyes:
 
Goal 1: Have fun
Goal 2: Make it interesting

Thanks for the new orders! I'll post a list of those I have a bit later.
 
Why are people so concerned about this NES being the most historically accurate thing possible? I think the fact that Bird's black box has done this well of a job is impressive. I'm by no means an expert in NESes, in fact I don't know very many of them, but nearly all the ones I have viewed had plently of "problems" as well. Sure there are a few that were almost "perfect" in the accuracy aspect, but they almost always die fast due to being a ton of work. To me it seems like people came to this expecting perfection and left disappointed. Constructive criticism is a good thing, but not everything I've seen here is constructive.
 
People are female dogging about things this NES never aimed to be. Its quite funny really. I'm loving it.
 
I sent barely sober orders. It was fun I hope they work.
 
Kraz, i don't know what's up your ass about me, but please get off my case.

#edit: I don't think you know what "ostentatious" means
 
Kraznaya said:
You're quite solipsistic to think any arguments I have with you are unique to yourself.
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How "unique" our argument is, bares no relevance to my dislike of it. By all means continue to have it with others if you must.

Oh, I most certainly do.
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Then why use it incorrectly?
 
Orders sent.

Abaddon, as far as I can see, ostentatious makes sense there even if you disagree that Bird's thread was ostentatious.
 
Abaddon said:
How "unique" you're argument is, bares no relevance to my dislike of it.
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Um, okay.


Then why use it incorrectly?
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Because I didn't use it incorrectly. The preview thread for this NES was an enormous undertaking which included the involvement of many prominent members of the community that promised a lot in terms of NES quality, promises which I do not feel were fulfilled in the actual execution of the NES. Birdjaguar himself asked, for example, for some historical research by all the players for their respective polities in the interest of modeling factions. In relation to the rest of the NES, the time and attention spent on promoting it or discussing it is an ostentatious display.

As for arguments of "historical accuracy" or lack thereof: I feel, as a NES purporting to originate from OTL 1490, that Birdjaguar made a good faith attempt to make it as historically accurate as possible at the origin point (save for design choices such as the alternate Americas) and make it as historically conceivable as possible thereafter. Unfortunately, due to lack of time and/or pre-established knowledge base by the mod, this was not satisfactorily fulfilled in many crucial parts of the NES. I myself was frustrated by the vagueries and incongruencies found within Central Asia which lead to my dropping of the Safawiyeh, and I have heard similar complaints with regard to England, India, the Levant, and Iberia, amongst others.

Birdjaguar meant for this NES to be a complex and serious NES. The "simulationist" trappings of the complicated stat system are obvious when you look at how deeply and closely it attempts to model various aspects of polities. I do not feel that this NES was meant to be light and casual, although perhaps it is headed that way after all given the changes in the player base. The problems with the black box, as others have stated, arise not from the opaqueness of the numbers, but the inability of players to determine cause and effect between changes in the stats at all. There are many simpler simulationist stat systems, including in one NES set in a similar time period as this one, which have been much better received by players overall.

I feel compelled to address these issues because Birdjaguar did comment that he felt decaying interest in this NES, which is certainly true, and because of the variety of issues associated with this decay. I do not have any issues with Birdjaguar as a mod in general, but in my opinion this may have been too ambitious an undertaking given his current ability to invest time in NESing, and explains the loss of interest by certain players.
 
Abaddon said:
This NES began its journey in 2008. Since then, Beej has had several big things both in RL and on this Forum to deal with. I think we should be incredibly thankful that he has managed to keep this NES alive for so long, and consistently turned out updates of an amazingly high quality. His previous experience as a NES mod clearly show his capabilities to run a NES of this depth and complexity. His moderating ability in my opinion sits comfortably along side any moderators NESing has seen.

Beej is a very open and flexible mod. If you had issues with vagueries and incongruencies, if you had approached him with additional information or corrections I am sure he would have taken them into account. However, once a NES is moving along, it is very difficult to make these tweaks without unbalancing the game. History is wildly deviating from OTL and thus makes it harder and harder to compare historical facts to. NESers are always going to push faster than IRL. They know to explore, they know what to research. As much as players my claim to play IC, their actions can never truely reflect this. Beej tries his best to therefore create a fun and open playground for us to lead our nations. To some this is a boon, to others a farce. I am happily within the first camp.

Can you give examples of better run, historical NES? Ones that allow so much creativity and flexibility? IMO it is pointless to play out history the same way it was IRL, but I know that some NESers get satisfaction out of this.. perhaps this is why we have lost some players here.

But, the main reason we have lost players is due the RL kicking Beej's ass. While he has tried his best, momentum between updates has never been the best, and players are very fickle. If they don't see their "big plans" come to fruition within a few weeks, they are bored and off to the next nes. Its a great shame, but it happens again and again.



(I replied here since really, this thread should be the one for discussion, not the game thread)
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Replying here because I believe the other thread to be superfluous.

Your fairly blatant and pointless brown nosing aside, you did not address any of my points regarding the flaws in the NES. Our differing views regarding this NES's quality is clearly due to our different views of NESing philosophy, and I do not feel there is much point in taking this discussion further.

While there are always players who will leave inactive NESes, that is not the player base which I was referring to and whose interest was lost, which is so essential to the quality of a NES such as this, one which basically starves for any historical NES, regardless of the length between updates.

However, I feel that your point about Birdjaguar's lack of time rings true, but in more ways than you claim. It has affected update quality; it truncated Birdjaguar's ability to review the setting for validity, as well as making him explore a rather piecemeal method of updating reliant upon patchworking player orders themselves into the update (never a good idea, IMO). In that stead was my tentative suggestion that perhaps this NES was too great an undertaking given his current lack of ability to commit time.
 
Orders have been sent. Apologies for their extreme lateness, but I've been hooked on EU3, and was unable to drag myself away until now.
 
I am putting this game on hiatus until further notice in light of its failure to live up to "community" standards for what constitutes "history".

I appologize to those who have enjoyed my self indulgent fantasy and I applaud and thank those who contributed to its story through your exceptional contributions in the thread and in your orders.

I will use my sudden wealth of free time to play PerfNES, do my taxes, sort of the ongoing confusion with rules and moderation, and enjoy spring.
 
I am very upset. In my mind this is the best NES i have played in a long long long time.


I hope 'hiatus' means you will be returning.
 
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