While We Wait: Part 3

[Demetrias]

No go ahead and use 130 words it makes the thread better for everybody involved.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Damn. You just have to ruin my dreams, don't you?

On a different note, I'd like to ask everyone something. For sometime now (I think around a year), I've been having trouble writing anything. I'll start, form an idea, and write out a paragraph or two. Then I'll get frustrated seeing that the story itself is nothing more than a ripoff of a different story, and delete the whole file. I guess what I'm saying is how do most of you guys remian creative? Do you not just care about the idea of the story or are you just that creative? Or am I just a whiny freak who doesn't know how to commit to work ?

Just post something short then. You're not expected to write a masterpiece.

 

[alex994]

I'm not creative as I've come to the conclusion anything I write will be based on something since I've come into contact with too many literary stuff and everything I do can be at best a spin on another topic or theme

 

[das]

If that's the real explanation for him wasting 88 double sized divisions when I expressly told him to coordinate with me during NES2 VIb

Stormbringer's admirable self-destructive tendencies mostly manifested themselves in high amounts of inter-faction strife, and, ofcourse, the revolution in the end.

You like that word, don't you?

I am often placed in a situation where I feel obliged to use it.

A honour system is too easily abused in most cases and presumes everyone shares a similar set of values.

You don't say. That's why moderators are forced to come up with more cunning ways of achieving the same results and/or punish all those that turn out to not share the right set of values. However, if people were to act more responsibly that would've saved us all a lot of trouble.

On the topic of conquered nations - I think it has less to do with culture (or, at least, culture is ultimately useless to us as moderators when working with this sort of issues), and more with political and economical integration, at least in most cases. These, in turn, depend largely on geography and (perhaps to a lesser extent, perhaps not) imperial policy.

For sometime now (I think around a year), I've been having trouble writing anything. I'll start, form an idea, and write out a paragraph or two. Then I'll get frustrated seeing that the story itself is nothing more than a ripoff of a different story, and delete the whole file.

Pretty similar, except that I brainstorm first. I usually have a lot of ideas, even a fair number of good ideas, but most of them tend to be impossible to execute in a way that isn't hackneyed (under impossible I mean I can't figure it out no matter how I try). That's why I post so few stories when compared to some others here, though hopefully the ones that I post are worthwhile.

 

[LittleBoots]

Actually, I wasn't a newbie any more by that point (by my judgement), however, it was my first great fight with andis. So far, we're kind of tied. My Medes got beaten by his Sumerians in JalNES, after a brutal, long and close-fought war.

I thought I listed you under experienced players. In any case, I didn't mean to say you were a newbie, as I most certainly do not think you were.

I wasn't exactly experienced at that time and just went following a textbook on Rome for "inspiration"

Ah. Very well then. alex was a newbie, too

...or involves morality. Then again, that could be filed under "unintelligent". Frankly, having been fed the squishy end of the "powergaming" stick more than once, I am loathe to use it on anyone else.

I still don't think it can be held against the player that he effectively understands and uses the rules to his advantage. I mean, I am a big advocate for roleplaying in everything and acting as in character as possible. I disagree with meta-gaming, which I take to mean (and may be wrong)
doing things for purposes outside of the IC atmosphere (like attacking an ally played by the same PC who betrayed me in another game)

QFSE.

I must admit ignorance as to what this means.

This is an interesting question; as I am definitely not a mod of any quality whatsoever, I can't say, though I'd like inputs on this as opposed to our "language problem".

For what its worth, I thought you were good.

Last time I checked he was pretty active, whereas you don't even get on AIM at times that are not extremely early in the morning for me (if that).

I guess thats why I think he's inactive. I don't spend really any time at all on AIM and so only see whats going on here. I suppose thats probably to my major disadvantage, but I don't know how much AIM would change things.

EDIT: LB, Perfectionist ain't a n00b from what I recall, but I'm probably horribly wrong, since I spend less time here than Sheep does these days.

I meant when he was a newbie, he was really good. I believe his first game was INES, which he played brilliantly. I may be wrong.

Speaking of that terrific game (INES), where has Imago popped off to?

 

[Disenfrancised]

Thlayli. He paid for what was frankly a half-@$$ed op (getting a Spanish submarine captain with a Marxist history to torpedo an American ship) on the first turn of the entire game, and since he was dumping so much EP into the thing as compared with the actual likely cost, and since I am relatively a pushover, it went ahead. Not one of the smarter decisions I've made, clearly.

Three points:
1) You could have just said - "It failed because it was a stupid plan, and cost far less than you assigned so have the cash back next year".
2) Vast government expediture in an open society is going to get wondered at - and the more you spend the more likly someone in the chain speaks out and blames to government for starting a world war. I really did find Congress's apparent willingness to back an invasion of the world (rather than pushing for peace after mexico had be seized and spain defeated) somewhat iffy.
3) A point about the thing itself - whats a marxist doing taking a huge bribe from the capitalist power to do something that will send his country and military into a war (presumably he has at least some loyalty, and functioning brain cells to get to his position)?

 

[Dachs]

Everyone's guilty of making tech advancement too fast. Hence my admission of hypocrisy earlier.

I'm sort of proud of the fact that I can't recall ever spending money on tech research.

That's right, people, I inadvertently killed DaNES! Who wants to take a swing at me?

Yeah, clearly not what I meant. Thanks for the smiley.

Says the man who uses the word "yo" inappropriately at almost every opportunity?

"Yo" isn't even vaguely insulting, unlike "duh", unless we're trying to overcome a language barrier again. But all right, whatever, consider it dropped.

On the topic of conquered nations - I think it has less to do with culture (or, at least, culture is ultimately useless to us as moderators when working with this sort of issues), and more with political and economical integration, at least in most cases. These, in turn, depend largely on geography and (perhaps to a lesser extent, perhaps not) imperial policy.

That is one of the most comforting things you could possibly have said right then, but at the same time makes me quake in fear.

I still don't think it can be held against the player that he effectively understands and uses the rules to his advantage. I mean, I am a big advocate for roleplaying in everything and acting as in character as possible.

Oh yes, absolutely everyone should be roleplaying, but my problem is with the existence of any loopholes in the first place. Game play should be either very straightforward or it should be much more translucent or opaque (as has been advocated by das and Symphony and several others throughout this thread). Besides, as has been also previously mentioned, I can't recall any time in real history when someone magically exploited economic loopholes.

I must admit ignorance as to what this means.

Quoted for spelling errors.

For what its worth, I thought you were good.

It is worth a good deal, and I do appreciate that.

I guess thats why I think he's inactive. I don't spend really any time at all on AIM and so only see whats going on here. I suppose thats probably to my major disadvantage, but I don't know how much AIM would change things.

Actually, I am a firm believer that if I had had the relatively easy, AIM way to conduct diplomacy during NES2 VIa, then European history would have been vastly altered. Until GMail's Chat interface added AIM functionality about a month ago, I was in the dark as much or more than you were, aside from talking to Thlayli and NK.

Also, Dis: didn't I say that I am a) a pushover and b) it was not one of the smartest decisions I've made? Of course there were alternatives, but they felt nastier.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

He got busy and had to leave.

You're confusing newb with noob, I believe.

 

[Angst]

You're confusing newb with noob

Is there a difference?

 

[Luckymoose]

Is there a difference?

Yes. A newb is a new but not always noobish person. A noob is a new person with noobish qualities.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Of Newbs and Noobs

 

[Angst]

You're confusing newb with noob

Is there a difference?

 

[LightFang]

On Writing Stories: I'm a terrible writer. Just write whatever. I just start typing within the Post Quick Reply field and it's done when it's done. Never mind the fact that they're terrible; the story's out there, which is the important part.

 

[Angst]

^^ The world's slowest double-post.

 

[Angst]

^^ The world's lamest crosspost.

 

[Supermath]

Someone wants to improve his postcount.

 

[LittleBoots]

Quoted for spelling errors.

No, you think I was talking about Napoleon, but I was actually talking about his emaciated cousin who Napoleon installed as Tyrant of Monte Carlo in 1807 to 1815 when he was deposed by the Austrians...

...

yeah.

 

[Angst]

Someone wants to improve his postcount.

Actually, I think it's hilarious myself. It's my kind of joking.

You must admit that lol fits in somehow.

... And I only remembered that I was gaining postcount after the last message, and now I suddently remembered that I could get banned for spamming, and therefore I'll shut up.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Speaking of that terrific game (INES), where has Imago popped off to?

From Imago on 12/1/07, after I had noticed him lurking in September or October:

Sorry for responding so many months later. I still visit the NESing forum about once a week to see what you guys are up to, but since I don't post anymore, I never bother to log on. You're lucky I was trying to find an old PM.

Anyway, it's nice to hear you liked INES. I never really wanted to quit NESing, but I suddenly got busy. I'll probably come back sooner or later.

Oh, one other thing. I noticed a month ago that das posted an althist on the EUIII website forum. It could be buried by now, but you might want to check it out.

-----------------------------------------

Anyway, LB, it's nice to know that you're still traumatized by JalNES.

I think there are a few interesting things from JalNES to consider in the wider off-and-on debate about NESing we seem to be having: it was really only successful during the time in the summer I was doing absolutely nothing else and could update every 3-4 days. Then it petered out, as a result of me have RL things to do (not even problems, just a normal routine), and having to grapple with an increasingly complex ruleset and orders (my fault).

It seems hard for anyone anymore to update a NES more than once every 2 weeks, and then erratically (Das used to be a counterexample, but has had problems lately, and only EQ seems to be able to update regularly--but he does have a nasty habit of disappearing every few months, which, luckily, hasn't happened lately). Perhaps this is due to some overall aging of the NESing community (I think most of the veterans are seniors in high school, in college, or older than that, which wasn't true a few years ago--Jason the King was in 9th or 10th grade, I believe, at the time of the really successful stJNESes).

But more than that, NESes have gotten more complex. I don't think you can dispute that. I'm a big stickler for realism--I shudder at the way I ran centuries-long wars in JalNES, and the whole practice of annexing defeated nations is unacceptable--but at some point the complexity seems to be impossible to keep track of and still update frequently. Symphony D., for example, is one of our biggest defenders of realism, but I'm fairly sure that he doesn't mod because he just doesn't have the time to actually carry out a NES with his desired ruleset.

So, to what extent is it acceptable to sacrifice realism in a simulation-style game (a historical or alt-hist with turns of 1 year or less) for the sake of actually being able to play it?

 

[carmen510]

@Jal: Thinking of making a new NES?

@Everyone: Is there any particular reason why nobody else will join my NES? This is including those latecomers to my previous NES, such as Motherland, Donald, and Iownz.