On Moving or Staying

[Justo]

Ok. Ok. I have heard this repeatedly, and I am cutting down on the spam.

However, what do you consider spam?

(I am pretty sure this post is one.)

Questions you ask when the answer is in the ruleset.

Questions you ask within a NES about if someone is doing this or that when they have already answered it or when it is ultimately a secret and not related to your nation.

Those are the ones that I get annoyed by anyway.

 

[Abaddon]

@SP. Spam is what you post 99% of the time.

A post, for it not to be spam MUST contribute to the thread as a whole (therefore, YES, even this post is spam).


Therefore, only post when you HAVE to (can't be resolved via PM) and when all in the thread will benefit from reading it.

 

[Israelite9191]

If you're going to continue the conversation sp, Abaddon, LightFang, and Justo please move it to the While We Wait thread.

 

[North King]

Most likely. There is always the possibility that we will get many waves of payers, and the first wave is still enough to sink at least a few decent NESes. We are fine where we are, and I do not believe we should move unless we truly start to die out, which I do not see happening at the moment.

Once again:

1) Just because the here and now isn't broken doesn't mean we can't improve things.
2) If we start to die out, it's already too late. A crisis is the one thing which you should kill in infancy.

They won't stick around; they will be dumped first chance any Mod gets. However, intermittent waves of these people would be enough to cause a rather large number of NESes to fail in a short period of time which, in turn, causes the real players to lose interest, causing a fall in membership. Again, we are safe here and at risk elsewhere.

I seriously don't see them ruining an NES. How exactly do you envision this?

We don't really need lots of new players. Every NES I can think of at the moment has a good number of players, and only the most dedicated of Mods would be able to handle more than 20 or 30 players for any amount of time, and those would all have to be committed players for the Mod to continue his own interest in the NES.

Yeah, we've been over this ground before, too.

Basically, more players are required for modern NESes. Take the modern world now. Sure, you can NPC the non-major countries, but with 20 countries occupied, that leaves you around 180 still to deal with. If you take it further, as I have been intending to, and let players pick political parties, then you have 2 for the major democracies, and you need 30 players to occupy the major slots, still leaving one hundred and eighty NPCs.

It's unwieldy, and it's what kills modern NESes.

 

[Abaddon]

Having 180 PC's would be even more unwieldy

 

[North King]

Having 180 PC's would be even more unwieldy

Disagree, though I see you're not likely to change your mind.

I suppose that the PM box might become rather full at some point.

 

[Abaddon]

Is anyone else agreeing with NK here? I can't imagine there are...

Having (admittedly little) modding experience, I know how long it takes to collate all the different orders together..more will only increase the modding time.

 

[sp1023]

I think both, that's why I say that keep Modern NESes with only the powerful 30+nations or so. Over like 70 nations makes things problematic. That's why some NESes (one I won't mention) take years to plan! (Which really annoys me...)

 

[North King]

Is anyone else agreeing with NK here? I can't imagine there are...

Having (admittedly little) modding experience, I know how long it takes to collate all the different orders together..more will only increase the modding time.

Jesus Christ, I'm not actually advocating 200 PCs. I'm advocating having enough players to fill the important slots, which there aren't at this point.

 

[Abaddon]

Okok, so just to test the waters, how many important nations do you think there are?

 

[North King]

Okok, so just to test the waters, how many important nations do you think there are?

In a modern NES?

At the risk of taking this dangerously Off-Topic, a bare minimum of: USA (2), UK (2), France (2), Germany (2), Russia, China, Pakistan, India (1-2), Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Brazil, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Australia. Then in addition, you should have around 5 scattered around Europe, 5 around the Americas, 5 in Asia, and 5 in Africa. This is around 41-42 players.

 

[Israelite9191]

Is anyone else agreeing with NK here? I can't imagine there are...

I do, wholeheartedly. I have found that in my Moding I make NESes as complex as they are regardless of how many players I have (and, as anyone who participated in my NESes will attest, the level of complexity I maintain is nearly ridiculous). This means that the fewer players I have, the more I have to make up myself, which makes it take much, much longer to write an update. Basically, the more players you have, the less you need to do as a Mod.

 

[Abaddon]

With that in mind I look forward to experiencing one of your NES firsthand soon!

 

[Crezth]

Questions you ask when the answer is in the ruleset.

Questions you ask within a NES about if someone is doing this or that when they have already answered it or when it is ultimately a secret and not related to your nation.

Those are the ones that I get annoyed by anyway.

How do I play as a nation?

What secret plan does Brazil have?

Why is there a number next to my country?

Et cetera.

However, I believe the issue with noobs is a puerile one, and those who fear an inundation by means of newbies need to get off their high horse. Everyone is capable of improving, and newbie players humble the more experienced ones.

I would say the good outweighs the bad; and anyway, there are bad leaders in reality... having more newbies would better represent that. =P

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Well, most of my views have already been presented eloquently by das or JTK. I only have a few things to off on topic of this thread.

1. We've tried moving around several times prior to this. Each time, it has been a miserable failure and disappeared over time. The one exception was Strategic Command Center which started as a cooperative effort between me and Amirsan to provide an alternative location for NESing and it has since evolved into the site he's made it today. As for another location on these forums, there's really no purpose.

2. An influx of new players, if it actually occurred, would be a bad thing for NESing. Speaking as a nearly full-time moderator, forty people in an NES is probably unmanagable by a single mod. It's possible, but would be incredibly difficult to pull off. In response to Israelite, more players also means more mistakes in orders, and more newbies means "y didnt i get my tankz?" and other nonsensical statements much like those which certain people here have already graced our forums and threads with.

Overall don't move the forum!

 

[Israelite9191]

In response to Israelite

What did I say? My argument is that up to this point we have had a rather optimal balance and that under normal circumstances a move would not be advisable. However, since Civ4 things have changed and the Civ3 Stories and Tales subforum no longer such a perfect match for our needs. Rather, the Civ4 Stories and Tales subforum is more in line with what the old-timers are used to and what has fostered the growth and development of our community. I am not advocating radical change, but rather moderate change in order to preserve the beneficial position we have over time built for ourselves.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

"I do, wholeheartedly. I have found that in my Moding I make NESes as complex as they are regardless of how many players I have (and, as anyone who participated in my NESes will attest, the level of complexity I maintain is nearly ridiculous). This means that the fewer players I have, the more I have to make up myself, which makes it take much, much longer to write an update. Basically, the more players you have, the less you need to do as a Mod."

I just disagree with that personally. It takes far longer to update with more players for me anyways. But different mods, different styles.

 

[Gelion]

What you're saying EQ is totally contrary to my modding experience. I've found the more players the more difficult it is to have an accurate and manageable game. The more players I have, the more diplomatic conflicts I have to be aware of, the more stats I have to modify, more complaints to listen to. Orders for my NESes are usually long and complex, thus I spend more time to make them right. That means that I have considerably less time for personal creativity, a lot less time to involve myself in the intrigue and lead the players rather than being lead by them.

Regarding the whole moving question. I've read all of this thread and will reply to specific points later. I cannot add anything with regard to reasons, they've all been stated very clearly by Symphony.

What I can propose is that we make an experiment. Let some of the more (even less!) experienced modders go out to Other Games and try and make a game of NESing with local population. If it works, we'll understand what is possible in outside world. If not at least we end the debate on one part of the forum.

 

[flyingchicken]

Gelion, I think you were referring to EQ's quote on Symphony D.

On the matter, I think that what Gelion suggests is a good idea. We could set up NESes elsewhere and see how the populations react, how much NESing material they have, etc.

 

[Abaddon]

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