And from the exchanges in this thread (not to mention my own dirty socialist outlook on life), this is why I think we need a merger: to foster a mutual understanding and long-term dialogue by which we may improve both communities.
I too have a dirty socialist outlook on life, but that's beside the point.
I'm afraid I don't understand your argument. Two groups with peripheral connections have a few cases of individual hostility between a few of their members. Thus, it is important to merge them, to improve both of them?
I don't see how there will be a mutual improvement through a sudden merger. There will be confusion, there will be some hostility between the usual suspects, but that's obvious, and minor. What I'm interested in are the potential positive aspects of the merger- but they just aren't apparent to me, especially when it's already easy to be involved in both IOT and NES at the same time.
As the saying goes, you're much less likely to discriminate against blacks/gays/Jews/etc. when you know them personally and interact on a regular basis.
I read this a few hours ago and it left me with an uncomfortable feeling. I've now taken some time to ruminate, and have figured the source of that disease. You're drawing a parallel between the very serious issues of ethnic and religious discrimination and what is, at its very worst, cliquish behaviour between two recreational hobby groups. I don't at all appreciate the implication that the NES forum's views are comparable to racial discrimination. :/
Cross-pollination is OK, but if we really want to build bridges then we need to aim for immersion.
It might build connections more quickly, but given the results of the poll, I'm concerened that many of these new connections would be hostile. To make a metaphor, there's a difference between building bridges, and relocating two cross-river towns onto a single new location.
My question is: If the majority of NESers claim they won't play IOT but are happy to accept IOTers into NES, then how much further of a stretch is it really to host the games side-by-side?
Many IOTers seem to be disinterested in NESes, and vice versa, each for their own reasons. Thus, even though the NES forum is always happy to get new NESers, many IOTers just don't wish to join our games. Moving our forums together won't change the levels of interest. NESers interested in IOTs are already involved in IOTs, and vice versa. There's still not a compelling reason to host our respective games side by side.
After all, if the cultures are supposedly so clearly identifiable, then surely we can let the players pick the one more suited to their play style?
Sure, but if that's the case, then why even bother merging them?
I think you're grossly undervaluing the importance of first impressions on your end. Like I said before, back in the day when Abaddon was NES' self-appointed evangelist I decided to give the forums a look. What turned me off wasn't the complexity of the games (although I did find some OPs to assume a bit too much familiarity for newbies, and the FAQ didn't help), but the hostility of the player base to fledgling participants who didn't get it "right" on the first try.
I, for one, am very sorry that you had a bad experience with some NESers on your first try. I wish I'd been around for that, as I probably would have called them out for jumping on the new guy, or tried to help guide you through the situation and avoid whatever pitfalls you may have walked into.
Whatever one may say about IOT decorum (God knows what I have), at least it has the patience to try helping a player get into the groove, rather than absolving itself of all responsibility with "you fail; start over".
Well, this is a rather complex issue, so I'll address it in several points.
Firstly, NESes do strive towards realism. NES mods often aspire towards realism, although all of them will make compromises to improve playability and player enjoyment, to some degree. Part of the beauty of a NES is that, as part of this attempt to achieve verisimilitude, actions have consistent and reasonable consequences. Thus, if a nation does make a horrendous misstep, it will pay a realistic price for its error. If it were not somehow harmed by doing so, then a disconnect forms between the player inputs and the in-game results, and the whole experience of the NES is reduced.
With that said, in my experience, if you talk to a NES moderator about your plans, they'll often give you a warning if your plans are badly flawed, although this does vary significantly from mod to mod. Many more will dedicate a lot of time to helping you understand how their NES works, if you just make the effort to ask. Even if you do have an tight-lipped or unforgiving moderator, they'll surely tell you after the fact what mistake your nation made, so that you can learn from the experience and improve in the future. Thus, there are a variety of systems in place to provide feedback to players and help them learn.
To sum up my response, to claim that having consequences for player mistakes is an absolution of responsibility by the NES moderator is not a fair assessment of the way that our subforum's culture works.
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All in all, I feel that the best path is to encourage NES-IOT interactions through the systems we already have in place. When I get my NES rolling again, I will be sure to make that well-known to IOTers, who might be interested in such a thing. Similarly, I'll keep my eyes on the IOT information thread, and I hope to be a very active and involved participant in Tyo's IOT. If we have a good number of NESers regularly interacting with a good number of IOTers, we're creating the grounds for a healthy relationship. Perhaps in the future, when our communities have much more interaction, then a merger might be in the books. However, for all of the reasons that I've touched on in this post, I don't think that a merger between NES and IOT is currently a desirable course of action.
The difference is consequently one of aims, as well, though, since this leads to the NESers trying fairly hard to be good writers (diplomats, generals, etc.), and the IOTers not really trying so hard to be good writers (etc.).
