While We Wait: Part 2

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I like games where people don't do stupid . .. .. .. ., like the Netherlands selling guns to the CSA in the Civil War. Either the players or the moderator. In fact, in my view, moderators are more guilty than players most of the time, because they're in the position to stop the madness (reference it and I'll kick you into a pit) but usually don't.

Again, if people want to do whatever they want they can go play Civilization. The reason we have all these elements of roleplaying is to roleplay with each other to create something unique and not go "LAWLS, i kno how 2 maek atom bombz, imma pwns dos d00Ds 2 show i r supari0r 2 dems". If that's what you're here to do--or whatever other wish-fulfillment it is you wish to carry out--then in my opinion you can piss off and go back to CounterStrike or something--it's certainly not what I'm here to do.

how does one exploit the rules symphony?
I haven't the faintest idea why you're of the opinion Luckymoose speaks anything like the truth of what I do or don't think. Most abuse doesn't come from exploiting rules, it comes from exploiting naivety or perception of reality.
 
Exploiting the rules would be using the rules or lack of a rule to get something you normally wouldn't get or some form of advantage.
 
I want the skills to stop the madness... teach me.
 
I don't exploit the rules very often. I play by them. Ask someone else.
He rather clearly isn't asking you.

I want the skills to stop the madness... teach me.
Excellent. Happily for you, it's easy. All you have to do is develop an insatiable love for learning, go learn as much as you possibly can, and when you have finished with that, have the decency to acknowledge you know next to nothing, if not nothing itself, and begin again.

Somewhere along the line you may pick up a small smidgen of the understanding of technology, economy, psychology, sociology, mechanics, military strategy, geopolitics, and history (among a million other subjects) necessary to understand a shadow of history, and then with that knowledge in hand, the backbone to look at a player's orders and say with confidence "No, this is stupid; your people lynch you."

If they are of the same path, perhaps they can enlighten you as to why it isn't so; if they aren't you may consider them like you might an ant that happens to be annoying you by gnawing your flesh between its pincers.
 
I'm ever so sure that the map is plenty good enough as it is; there is no real need to call it a "beta". You have a hungry crowd now, so get crackin' on the game

-severe fit of bad coughing :)-
 
Did you do that? I have the psychology down, I have a degree in it. Sociology is junk science about 84% of the time...
 
Did you do that? I have the psychology down, I have a degree in it. Sociology is junk science about 84% of the time...
Prepare for a much longer response than you probably wanted. On the other hand, you've got plenty of fodder to psychoanalyze me with now.

I haven't moderated for anything but the briefest of periods, so I have no claim of superiority I need to back up in that arena. Otherwise, yes, I have a wide field of interests and by hook or crook I am constantly forced to learn more about most of them.

I can't claim to be much more than a hobbyist in any of them at this stage, but I know enough, for example, that I can tell you that the Leopard 2 (any variant thereof) doesn't possess a bigger gun than the M1A2 Abrams, and in a post-collapse Western society only idiots would trade in precious metals as opposed to things like computers, ammunition, fuel, or water.

Again, I'm wrong a lot of the time. I know it. The rest of you probably should by now. Most people however don't bother going out of their way to prove it even when I provoke them into it--I presume that's where some of that sentiment about my being an elitist comes from. I don't take people who can't justify their positions or statements seriously. I don't take seriously people who can't meet the extremely poor standard I set either. I love kicking back as much as the next guy for fun, but I also think improving yourself is fun. On any given day on this forum I never see a real zeal for progress or raising the bar.

I know if I were to mod a game right now it wouldn't be perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I would do my best to get it as good as possible before starting and to continually refine its edge as time went along, if at all possible. The only people who have displayed that sentiment in their work consistently and strongly are, I think, Birdjaguar and to a lesser extent Lord_Iggy.

My taste--for more than just sandbox-mode worlds where people do whatever strikes them as a brilliant plan at the moment--requires that anybody undertaking such a task be of a similar mind. Why? Because I find the run-of-the-mill game here exactly that: boring. Excellence breeds excellence. You see it in somebody else and either through jealousy, pride, or even perhaps optimism, you might strive for it yourself. If your moderator prides himself on excellence, then just maybe the players will aspire to it too. Leading by example. That's the kind of game I want to play--one that's held to a higher standard. And I don't just mean fighting battles or cloak and dagger skirmishes with other people intelligently. That's just a means to an end.

I don't see that here. I don't really see it anywhere else honestly, or else I'd be there instead of here. I think a large part of that has to do with that exact status quo sentiment of "Why can't you just be happy with what you have?"

And yes, fun games, be they big budget or low budget or small or big or whatever are great. They have their place. But they don't fill every niche. And pretty much every time the niche I want to see filled has been claimed to have been filled by somebody, it hasn't. As a result, I am rather bitter, and just a little bit pissed off, and hence my prolixity and vitriol on the subject.
 
You misinterpret me Sym. I mean, we accept that they're unrealistic, but having people constantly point that out is annoying. You know, we're not all idiots. I know when my nations are horribly unrealistic, and I don't need you to dissect everything about it to point out how it isn't perfect. I NES for fun, not for an absolute depiction of reality (which as you say, is almost impossible in a NES format).

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting your counterargument. I don't know, this is just what I think.
 
It is all about having fun within the context created by the mod. If you like the context, you can have fun. If the context is boring for you (like sci fi NESes for me) the odds of having fun are reduced.

And since Mods, as a rule, create games in worlds they enjoy, The most active mods and most active players are those that like the same contexts for playing.
 
You misinterpret me Sym. I mean, we accept that they're unrealistic, but having people constantly point that out is annoying. You know, we're not all idiots. I know when my nations are horribly unrealistic, and I don't need you to dissect everything about it to point out how it isn't perfect. I NES for fun, not for an absolute depiction of reality (which as you say, is almost impossible in a NES format).
Fine. Then I expect people to state upfront "These rules/this setting/these attributes may not be realistic, are not intended to be realistic, and will not be altered for the sake of realism." Just like that.

My natural instinct is to improve things I find lacking. And since you lot collectively and ever-so-casually dismissed my argument that a moderator has any obligation to their players (that the implicit was not explicit) I similarly, preemptively ever-so-casually dismiss any argument by you, collectively that simply because it is nigh impossible for NES to be perfectly realistic (the implicit) that that understanding be assumed to automatically be true (making it explicit) and comments thus should not be made as par for the course.

You don't want to be critiqued for being off in a fantasy world, you better damn well make it clear, putting-blood-on-the-front-door style--otherwise none shall be spared.

[EDIT] Also, nice jab there with "fun" being some absolute value as defined by you universally applied to the rest of us. I appreciate that you read what I said so thoroughly, specificially "I love kicking back as much as the next guy for fun, but I also think improving yourself is fun." Clearly your subjective definition of fun is more important than anyone else's possible definition of fun. Since I don't think we have any sadomasochists here (well, there is silver...) I don't see what's so terrible about those alternative interpretations of it. This sounds like that one-size-fits-all definition from awhile back of "epic" as being strictly temporally based in scope.
 
I think what Symph is trying to say, is that he wants a hug.

I'd argue, but there is no point.
 
Symph, what if there were just one aspect of a NES that had to be held to strict real-life variables, and everything else ran the same?
 
I think what Symph is trying to say, is that he wants a hug.
LAWLS a man who does not bend over backwards to be nice and kiss ass to his peers on the Internets, and says things confrontationaly to inspire introspection and thought! Clearly his anger and bitterness betrays some deep seated psychological issue, rather than just being fed up with the inability of said peers to ever fraking listen to a damn thing he says or think logically.

This isn't a hobby or anything. You don't do it for FUN. You shouldn't want it to be better than it is when you waste hundreds to thousands of man-hours on it annually. No, I'm clearly deluded and don't have a goddamn clue what I'm talking about. Aspiring to love the same thing forever and ever is brilliant. It's why we don't live in caves anymore.

Go ahead. Be dismissive some more. I'm just fine with reciprocating that.

Symph, what if there were just one aspect of a NES that had to be held to strict real-life variables, and everything else ran the same?
I don't see what that has to do with anything I've said.

As I've rather strongly hinted, continuous reality checking rests with the Moderator, not the rules. The rules are there to streamline the process when possible. The Moderator is supposed to ask questions like "Does it make sense for these guerillas to really lay low due to this player's terror campaign?" or "Does it make sense for these economic reforms to universally improve the player's economy?"

Doing that requires having an operating knowledge of the rudiments of those fields. If you don't have that, to some capacity, and utilize it, you're not going to be making informed choices (imagine that; not everyone is capable of entering in a valuable opinion on something), and if you can't do that, how are you supposed to moderate effectively? You can't. And then you're just making stuff up. And if you word it nicely, maybe most people who are out for FUN, Einstein's other, lesser known universal constant, will still nod their heads, but people who know any better will probably be left shaking them.

My neck muscles are getting kind of sore from all that head shaking.
 
LAWLS a man who does not bend over backwards to be nice and kiss ass to his peers on the Internets, and says things confrontationaly to inspire introspection and thought! Clearly his anger and bitterness betrays some deep seated psychological issue, rather than just being fed up with the inability of said peers to ever fraking listen to a damn thing he says or think logically.

No clearly, the common denominator here is your method. Confrontational actions have produced little effect. Go use a different method or evolve your current one.

oh and g/f who gives you massages, works wonders :D
 
LAWLS a man who does not bend over backwards to be nice and kiss ass to his peers on the Internets, and says things confrontationaly to inspire introspection and thought! Clearly his anger and bitterness betrays some deep seated psychological issue, rather than just being fed up with the inability of said peers to ever fraking listen to a damn thing he says or think logically.
Symphony has won the discussion at this point; anyone who says different obviously "just needs a hug". See how easy, and useless, it is to dismiss someone that way?

I should print out the Rule 0 from Dungeons&Dragons and hang it at the top of the forum. Heck, I should drag in more serious D&D players here as a whole - their obsessions with realistic worldbuilding and the DM [moderator]'s power to bypass the rules might be useful.
 
No clearly, the common denominator here is your method. Confrontational actions have produced little effect. Go use a different method or evolve your current one.
Ah, look at that, somebody who read between the lines. Good, I can continue then.

You're right. Confrontation hasn't worked. Strangely for people on the Internet, no matter how much I yell and harangue you people, you don't defend yourselves--or, at least as Abaddon has demonstrated, don't capably defend yourselves--which speaks rather poorly of your survival instincts, but that is somewhat tangential to the point. I'd say your defense mechanism was to ignore me, but you do that regardless of what I do, so I'm getting ahead of myself.

I've tried being encouraging and helpful too. I have established at least two projects here, and in truth many more than that, to try and improve certain things, most notably historical organization and cartography. Now, I have become more stringent with rules over time, but only because they tend to be exceedingly simple, and because people exceedingly tend to ignore them (see, we got there). So it's very clear an encouraging method doesn't work.

So if yelling, kicking, and screaming at you doesn't work, and coddling, prodding, and encouraging you doesn't work, what does? Interesting question, isn't it? I already know the answer(s) empirically. I have for awhile now. There are two possible solutions to this.

The first answer, the trivial solution of A=0, is that nothing works at all and that you'll ignore me regardless, ostensibly because I am me (this we can deduce by the fact some of you sometimes listen to other people). Now, I have significant evidence supporting this viewpoint, but I'm going to discard it because my ego is too large to accept that fact (FEEL FREE TO PROVE ME WRONG, I could do with the spare time deserting this place would provide me with).

The second, nontrivial solution is the one that has definite evidence empirically. The last time I tried soliciting advice on rules I got about 6 pages of half-hearted comments (subtracting out my own remarks) and a whole lot of bellyaching that too much thinking was involved. I've only modded a single real game for one turn. The last time Birdjaguar asked he got 14 pages and the last time das tried it was 9 pages of more than just half-assery.

Isn't that interesting? You should be fascinated. There seems to be a clear correlation between interest and knowledge of past results.

No, I'm rather aware yelling at you doesn't work. You don't want to be given an idea and encouraged to utilize it or demeaned if you don't. You don't want to think at all unless you know you'll get something proven out of it, and even then you're loathe to do it unless you really have to. You want something shiny persuaded into your possession--not thrust or gifted into it half-formed, where you can--should--put the rest of the pieces together yourself--no, no, persuaded. "Look what I've got, don't you want some of it?!" You want a nice big box where ugly sprawling things go in one side and nice pretty things come out the other, and you don't want to know how it works because then you whine that it's too complex. And you want to know that the person offering it to you can actually deliver it.

There's nothing wrong with any of this. Nothing immoral or bad about it. It's just who you are. I can't judge you based on this empirical data. But I personally find it a laughable concept. By the way, you're not allowed to judge me for thinking that either. That's the one concept of the little Culture of Nice system I will accept--reciprocity and a lack of double-standards. (And by the way, that's presumably why " need a hug;" because I'm pointing out all the flaws in the logic train to begin with and them I'm not shamelessly flattering you with praise and caveats while I'm at it--the truth hurts. Write your own version of the truth and refute me or suck it up and deal with it.)

So, going back around to where we started, why am I bothering to continue to harass you people when all you want is to be left alone with your silliness instead of bothering to think about why things are as they are, and how they could possibly be made better? You want to remain blissfully ignorant and unaware of those possibilities and stick with the status quo. I get that.

Why do I do it? There's two reasons. The first is that on some level, I obviously care, or else I wouldn't be bothering at all. I want to see those ideas manifested--not just for me, but also for the rest of you, because there's a small but finite probability that maybe some of you will like them too, as a few among the silent majority of this conversation have confided to me. The other part is I remain an optimist that maybe some ray of this will penetrate that blissful shroud of darkness and spark a sense of curiosity, and even if it doesn't, maybe it'll prevent you from being shell-shocked later on. And who knows, there might just be a third part where I really like talking like a condescending . .. .. .. .. .. .. . to see if any of you will bother stepping up to the plate to take on any of this or back it up with more than "I agree."

Either way, it doesn't matter, because I'm working on more permanent solutions anyway. This is just a little sideshow. You don't like it? Tough. Either form a lynch mob and chase me off this forum or somehow convince Thunderfall to ban me or IP Nuke me or block me or whatever it is you want to do to get it to stop, or consider what I have to say and genuinely roll it around in your head for awhile.

Odds are pretty good I'll wind up with "tl;dr" responses but I'll continue to hold on to that small probability that given enough time in the universe that anything that can happen will.
 
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