While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Symphony D.]

You're right, a bunch of 3-5 turn games that spiral into over-complexity and restart in an iterative sequence thus yielding no appreciable progress is definitely superior. We will always hold the aborted, DOA, and short games in our hearts forever and ever, and they are truly the ones which we appreciate and value the most, for like dead children, they passed before their time and their souls were innocent and pure, untainted by the world.

Oh, wait, no, basically everyone forgets about them and we value things that have longevity and durability over everything else, and if one is going to invest the time to do something, it's probably good to have something that will hold one's interest.

But you're right, Daft could waste time putting in lots of effort on repeating the cellular evolution stage of a NESLife again for the fifth time with the high likelihood that it wouldn't get any farther than the previous times, while also almost certainly killing NESCraft and that WWII idea I don't like anyway. Some people like doing the same things over and over again. He could do that if he wants. It's just, you know, stupid and wasteful of everyone's time.

P.S. Tell me some more about TNES I and II and that big story-game with the huge map you and NK worked on and about SymNES I and II all the other wasted potential that everyone totally appreciates having wasted time on.

 

[Thlayli]

How many turns did SysNES II have again? Five? You don't say.

 

[Symphony D.]

Yeah, a wonderful counterexample, because I totally don't resent it for offering a taste of something vastly superior to the forum average and then cruelly taking it away, like an alcoholic in rehab. You've absolutely defeated me, sir, I'll take my points that you have not countered in any substantive way at all and go home.

 

[Luckymoose]

IOTs like to be short. D:

 

[North King]

and that big story-game with the huge map you and NK worked on

In fairness to that project, we seriously overestimated the number of players we could populate the world with.

That said, PureNES does actually corroborate Symphony's larger point in that stretching yourself too thin diminishes the overall product quite a bit. Ultimately we should have limited ourselves to one half or the other.

I actually agree with his original point that Daft might do better sticking to a single game. I wasn't exactly a model of consistency or long-lived projects myself, but people certainly seem to have enjoyed the result when I stuck to one.

 

[Terrance888]

I have two brands. SilliNES live merely as long as the player wants, and if it falters I give them graceful deaths. TerraNESes? YEAH NNNNNOPE, NOT GONNA END BABY. (/cue sarcasm)

 

[Daftpanzer]

I feel vaguely insulted by Symphony D., and not for the first time

Daft has the right to mod whatever he wants to mod, whenever he wants to mod it, because >0 updates of something good are always better than 0 updates.

I agree with Thlayli - might seem harsh, but we're all here giving up our time freely, we have to take the gamble that anything we post might be ignored or left unused by others. It works both ways. This is ultimately all about doing things for the joy of creating them in the first place.

Putting expectations and conditions on other people for whatever reason is rarely a good idea IMO - this is what life teaches us over and over again.

To be honest, I'm continuing NESCraft because there's still much more potential fun there, for myself as moderator. And its already an established game and it seems to work quite well overall. Doing something purely out of guilt of not doing it, is not a great reason for doing it IMO.

 

[Symphony D.]

Again: you can do whatever. But it's a fact that for every long-lived project you've done (DNES, DNES2, one of the NESLifes, ATBE, NEB) there are two or three short ones that died quickly, and several of those long-lived ones had intermittent, often extended breaks, frequently involving "mechanical changes" nobody really wanted or cared about, and the pauses definitively negatively impacted the game (especially DNES and DNES2). The end was often heralded by obvious interest in some new project, or by trying to run multiple ones simultaneously.

Now, to reiterate: you can do whatever. But I can also do whatever, and speaking for myself, the majority of the time I don't play in your games because they don't interest me, but even if they did, I wouldn't because I've watched them go since the beginning and so I know the odds of them going anywhere aren't good. I'm probably not alone. I would fully expect that skepticism from others if I was ever to mod something again too—it's not unique to you, and that's not the point.

You can ignore that fact, and just do whatever strikes your fancy, whenever, but it continues to be a fact nonetheless, and it's a point I'll make.

 

[Daftpanzer]

I freely admit, creating a stable, long-lasting NES has not been a priority of mine in itself. How do you judge 'success'? Where do you draw the line on your investment of time being worthwhile, as a mod or player? If you join a NES and create a nation/faction purely on the expectation of some outcome, I think you're bound to have a bad time, I think that goes for any NES. I think that goes for life in general. I think we've all had our most fun as players with a 'its fun to share my creation, now lets see where this goes' mentality.

I do get the point about moderator reputations. I won't kick up too much fuss whenever anyone quits my NESes or shows no interest to begin with. But as a result of my wanderings, I feel I've actually gained a large amount of varied experience. One day - I'll get to grips with economics and history, and create my Magnum Opus!

BTW, NEB#1 and ZPNESV had 20 updates each, NESLife #3 went over 30, for anyone who was wondering. Let's not paint myself as a total hobo.

 

[North King]

I understand why you're getting upset, Daft, but not all players play for the same reason. Much as I enjoy the simple act of creation, the reason we do it on the NES forum is to watch the beautiful collisions of my creations with other creations, to watch competing egos, and ideas, watch them battle and eventually wither and die. An NES which is DoA is functionally no different than me writing this sort of thing for fantasy settings of my own -- and all things considered I would rather invest time in the latter. That said, there's a great deal of error margin for what people consider "success", but I think I'm not ungenerous in estimating it to require at least around 10 quality updates. Five update NESes (or ones in that region) tend to elicit reactions of mostly "well it died before its time", as you can see with the SysNES comment further up the page, or Perfectionist's NES, and so on.

 

[Angst]

I just want Daft to continue NESCraft.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Me as well.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I've generally accepted that Daft projects do have a fairly high chance of outgrowing themselves and dying early, but my enjoyment of a few of Daft's best works makes that investment worthwhile for me.

 

[North King]

Note that I don't think Daft -- or anyone, for that matter -- should decide what to moderate based on public opinion. The mod must be invested for it to succeed.

 

[Nuka-sama]

LeBoshWade Nes was one of my finest moments as a Moderator

 

[Birdjaguar]

Way to fail to get the point and turn it into a personal attack, dude. Since you're so inclined: who the hell are you to talk, random newbie?

Moderator Action: Chill guys.

 

[christos200]

IOTs like to be short. D:

Not all of them. Mine lasted for almost a year and had 18 Turns. Although it is true that NES are, in most cases, longer lasting than IOT's.

 

[Daftpanzer]

What NES has the most ever updates? I'm interested to know. I'd guess one of the earliest and simplest NESes?

 

[North King]

What NES has the most ever updates? I'm interested to know. I'd guess one of the earliest and simplest NESes?

A cursory glance at EQ's dataset suggests RTOR2.

 

[Frozen In Ice]

RFMK 3 lasted pretty long if you consider NES-lites.