Oi, I need to stop sleeping before making massive updates.
... I was just pointing out that you are panicking over something that isn't all that likely nor bad, Ran.
And I still believe that the game is not what makes people leave.
I think it is the tendency of many people here to antagonize other people based on their opinion.
But hey, if you think that this game is not optimized enough for [game mode here] enough or [game mode here] needs to never be played ever again, feel free to waste your time "fixing" that.
Oh, and a small thing to note: Roboenza was what brought me here back in 2011. Not the normal game itself.
@Alice:Alice, if that was the case of your opinion, you have yet presented it in such a way. So far, every post up to this one I can only see, and I can only logically figure at you swinging for the fences, metaphorically speaking. I'm speaking purely from what I understand from them, on a whole. If I'm mishearing you, please correct me where you see a place where I'm not getting your message.
So far that's what I've been seeing, but let me assure you, I'm not "panicking". The thread was put here to be a primary way to express opinion and thought on the matter, as is the Skype chat and calls a secondary means to express thought and opinion, as well as have more dynamic discussion take place in a way that can catch attention and well-formed thought from anyone there as well.
If you have thoughts to give, ideas to share, and something to contribute, then you should do -- I'm not trying to flag down anything against me as some form of an attack. But when people go out of their way to take a single piece of my words, quote it, and use it to springboard something that then leads to... well, nothing, it begins to get old quickly. Like the person I'm about to address after you.
If your opinion is, in your own words (or, at least a quote I feel is capturing the essence of your opinion on this particular post):
And I still believe that the game is not what makes people leave.
I think it is the tendency of many people here to antagonize other people based on their opinion.
-- Then try to help everyone reading understand by explaining the thought in detail, and how that affects other things that can influence the changes and plans we need to make. If you just dump a thought like that, without specifying for what means it's for, or what it's intended, people like myself already dealing with everything are going to be unable to truly figure out the core of your message.
Okay? Okay.
I'm going to start actively refusing to reply to any message that has nothing to do with the subject at hand, and doesn't even to have anything to remotely do with what this thread is intended for.
Thread has already been hijacked, bro. And for better reasons that are actually on-topic: to discuss if such a thing as "a dead community" exists, and if it does, what are the actual causes and what can be done about it.
It's also already been established that you're a self-centered fallacious alarmist (creating a massive skype group chat with "everyone" to expose them your opinion, in the hopes of everyone accepting your argument and shield yourself with argumentum ad populum), and a doomsayer (asserting as fact that the MM8BDM community is dying, regardless of what has been exposed, to the point of blind faith).
And just to make myself not "sound mean", I'll dissect the three pillars of your argument:
#1. Our community majority player-base is made up of selfish, jaded users, who will resist change of any kind. They refuse to take anything seriously, and seek to discredit anyone and anything that shows direct opposition to what they believe is correct.
That's a huge generalization, specially when being directed to a mod-driven community. Things like MMSP, CSCC, YDClasses and KYClasses, Chaos Generator and many more mods are the proof of a community that seeks to change things around. Unless you mean changes within the approach of the veterans towards new players, which in that case there's been a huge push to mak things as accesible as possible. Go check the tutorial threads made by the same guys you call "selfish" and "jaded": all made for the sake of accesibility of mods for new players. Unless you mean something entirely different which I don't know since you haven't defined "change".
#2 Our game-modes, and the choices and popularization of said choices of servers hosted with them, have gotten to the point it has made the base-game itself stale and uninteresting.
It's not the servers' fault nor the mods' fault for vanilla becoming stale: time is to blame. As with any game, there comes a point where novelty wears off. It is inevitable.
#3 The people who know that it's a problem refuse to do anything to change it, because they believe it is inevitable, and those who don't know can't figure out why it is, because every-time we try to discuss it, people destroy the debate and discussion before it can even start.
You're right: we believe it is normal and inevitable for a community to not be crazy active after a long time (despite that it still is alive, making new things, and with ongoing interaction between members), or an old game to not be as active now as it used to be when it was new. This is experience with other communities and games talking here.
If we're going to talk asshole members and asshole players scaring new people away: they are always a shunned minority, so their impact is minimal.
A'ight. Now with that out of the way...let's not take things too far with "banning Saxton Hale". I don't care how shoehorned and badly designed it is: we simply cannot take away other people's fun simply because we think it's so memeticly popular it keeps new people from trying different things. And I think that there just isn't enough people that care about Saxton Hale dominating the servers, and therefore think it is necessary to "ban" it.
If we want people to play something else, we should get together and play it to make it popular: not get together and argue that some other people are playing something we don't like and want to force them to play something we like. Except that we have more refined gameplay tastes than the group that devotes to play Saxton Hale, so we all don't find one single thing to be the best: we all have different tastes, while they all share the same taste.
Balrog (and company): we can't do much other than outlive Saxton Hale Fever, which we will if we keep duel tourneys, mod updates, map packs, official expansions, and forum discussion to keep us together and interested. Balrog: I know that this is personal for you, but there is one thing that I think you're wrong thinking of, and that you've got to trust me with: the next big thing is MMSP, not SH. SH "was" the big thing that killed Roboenza, and its time will come. Unless it doesn't, which really isn't so much of an issue right now. Unless SH outlives MM8BDM's final update, which I would worry then.
@MusashiAACongratulations, you're about to make me respond to you, and make a liar out of myself in my own words of intent. Why?
Because of the sheer amount of willpower to force me to address this post because of your intent on derailing.
And I'm not joking when I say that, and I'm attempting to not see it as such, but I'm sorry -- You came in stating it's hijacked off rip, and by not stating directly who, I have to assume by you.
To which I have one response.
No. No, sir, no. No, it is not hijacked, nor will it be. Why is it not hijacked? Because I'm not going to sit here and let you tell me it is. But, that's not fully addressing everything I need to in your post, ontop of the blatent lies I'm reading, as well as your opinions being facaded as something more than opinion. I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to be, but about.... I'll say 60% of this post isn't needed. But I'll pick it apart, so I'll show you what I believe is and isn't. And it's my opinion, just as most of this is yours, so you'll just have to accept it. I want you to understand before I start that I'm being completely impartial in answering this, and I'm removing myself as a person from my emotions to what you're saying. That's so that I can be fair when i do this.
And yes, there are blatant lies in your post. Exactly like the ones OJ attempted, no less. I'm not sure if you did it intentionally, but I'll be happy to show you my logic. Perception is a very powerful weapon, and just as OJ was in the start, you're attempting to vilify me in this post.
Since you're giving me no choice, just give me a second to slip on my gloves here...
*snap*...*snap*Mk, here we go.
Let's start with this:
And for better reasons that are actually on-topic: to discuss if such a thing as "a dead community" exists, and if it does, what are the actual causes and what can be done about it.
.. Uhm. We did that already. And more to the point, that would be implying that we are already dead. And if it wasn't, it would also be implying that we're on the road to dying and becoming dead in any form, shape and reason that would create said problem, which we are. We're anything but A-OK hunkydory, and here's proof of that fact, in an excerpt from OJ expressing his thoughts on that aspect:
Ok, no. While this thread may not have a basis, Cutstuff is anything BUT thriving. And if you're talking about the Skype chats, I would rather try to have a friendly discussion on /b/. At least there, people don't recognize each other so that they can hold a grudge.
This was in response to someone else quoting me and attempting to pick apart what
once again has been misquoted and taken as my direct thought summary of the public opinion from those who participated in the Chat Discussion and call, to reach said consensus. I'll just tack that onto this paragraph before moving on:
My reasoning for this being, if Cutstuff is truly going to shit, how do we still have a thriving community that continues to maintain a friendly relationship with each other?
All righty, moving on:
It's also already been established that you're a self-centered fallacious alarmist (creating a massive skype group chat with "everyone" to expose them your opinion, in the hopes of everyone accepting your argument and shield yourself with argumentum ad populum), and a doomsayer (asserting as fact that the MM8BDM community is dying, regardless of what has been exposed, to the point of blind faith).
..Sigh.-
Okay. Three things I have to ask.
[*]Who established this vilified personification of me, and can you list everyone who established this by name?
[*]Have you taken Pre-Law, and do you understand what that term meant, without using Wikipedia's Law section?
[*]Were you in the group I attempted to gather, and did you even read the first section of the OP?
Now, for those of you who haven't taken pre-law classes as a college course, or may not have gotten to that lesson in social studies, allow me to define to you the term
Argumentum ad populum , as described in my pre-law coursebook:
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it. In other words, the basic idea of the argument is: "If many believe so, it is so."
What he's saying is that the three summarized conclusions from the OP, are false truth being pushed by me to cover my own assets of debate, by saying they were supported by a majority number of undisclosed persons involved in the agreeance of the first, which denoted these as the former.
Long example short: He's saying I'm lying my ass off, and I'm trying to cover myself.
Now, allow me to quote myself twice from earlier:
I'm not insulting everyone. Those, in the quotes are the exact things everyone in the call and chat agreed were the root problems. If you don't believe me, I'll happily copypasta to you every conversation main and on the side.
I warn you though, many of the side conversation are basically " Lol -Ran, trying to save 8BDM"....
Also, you forgot the preface that explained that was the collective census on the matter. They are not my sole feelings.
Also, I never said "toxic players are toxic so this is why". That was the public opinion agreed upon by those actually willing to discuss it. Was my opinion involved in it? yes, it was. However, I was not the sole person who agreed on this.
When I said these statements, I envisioned someone who would attempt what you just did, so I made sure I repeated myself more than once.
And I'll repeat myself again, and I'll make sure I make myself clear here.
If you don't believe that this was agreed upon in text and by call, I dare you to ask me to copy and paste 17 different side conversations sent to me by several different people, as well as the 600+ message chat, and I will sit here with you over Skype in a call, in this painful damn desk chair of mine as I read line after line to you from start to finish, including the fanfiction someone kept spamming in the chat and in PM IMs, because between chater's 19 and 25 of this, several people spoke out and testified that these things were issues, and after asking and checking several times, we all agreed we would label them as our collective problems, including the one person who laid it down, point by point.
Now then, while I expect his Skype poke with baited breath after I post this, allow me to continue.
The above excerpt is an unneeded and failed attempt at vilification. It's unneeded, and was put into that so that the following statement would have more gravitational weight.
#1. You're stating your own personal opinion into a debate as an argumentum ad populum,
just barely before accusing me of my own.#2. That second part of the statement is a lie. Why? Because of this:
Also, here's what you didn't know:
Permissions were set up so that people could be able to listen and talk to other in a debate and discussion. Sadly, the bad apples saw fit to go all out to troll.
Every time the chat permission for the users that weren't mods were set, I explained why it was, and asked the chat to behave. And as my just rewards for asking people who seem to be deadset on doing the opposite, continued to troll.
At the very beginning of the chat ( and first call), i introduced everyone to who I was, why they were brought together, and presented to them my opinions and views, so that I could rationalize my position and voice on the matter they had been brought for.
Not
once, did I ever mix or confuse my opinions and ideals of the discussion being had as hard fact that had to be swallowed by all in attendance. I opened the floor for open discussion, so everyone could speak on the matter, and so those who did not agree with, or did not see how the situation I prose was the problem or the issue, could then prose their own and that be discussed, and so on.
And as explained in this quote, despite the permissions set to be able to stop the trolling that would make debate and discussion impossible, people continued to carry on with the problems, which in reailty delayed the actual core group that was participating from reaching these conclusions by around 55 minutes. Which was explained in the
original post, verbatim.Seeing as how your description of the event and situation in question are half-completed at best, and because you decided to vilify me instead of simply presenting a counterargument , I have to assume either you were part of the group that was trolling, or you misunderstood or misinterpreted what I said or did, and thus allowed your perception of the situation as a whole shape this false image of me, my intent on starting the group, and the situation at large.
If I'm wrong, or there's something you haven't shared, please directly contact me on Skype so we can discuss elsewhere and not here, because it's not conducive to the thread's intent as it's purely supplementary.
And 3#: Exposed? Exposed what? And pushing what as fact to the point of blind faith, other than this "false truth" you accuse me of? It would be lovely to understand if I knew what was being exposed from before, so I could address it properly.
Okay, moving on. Now I'm not going to point out your point rebuttal, as you actually did flesh out your stand on them as you went over them and thus can understand them and I can accept them as a counterargument, so I'll pick it up right... here:
A'ight. Now with that out of the way...let's not take things too far with "banning Saxton Hale". I don't care how shoehorned and badly designed it is: we simply cannot take away other people's fun simply because we think it's so memeticly popular it keeps new people from trying different things. And I think that there just isn't enough people that care about Saxton Hale dominating the servers, and therefore think it is necessary to "ban" it.
If we want people to play something else, we should get together and play it to make it popular: not get together and argue that some other people are playing something we don't like and want to force them to play something we like. Except that we have more refined gameplay tastes than the group that devotes to play Saxton Hale, so we all don't find one single thing to be the best: we all have different tastes, while they all share the same taste.
Okay, simple enough, last two things that stick out.
#1: Never said anything about "banning" Saxton, or any modes like them, as that would punish those who wish to play the mode, as the aren't guilty for their preference.
#2 This is what I said, exactly:
Now, in the case our problem is one of disinterest, all we have to do is encourage those players who refuse to play other things because they feel unskilled at them by taking them by the hand, introducing them to the mode, and playing it with them, and then doing that on a regular basis so there's more than just Saxton Hale servers that are pulling most of the attention.
If the problem turns out to be one of resistance to playing because of the boredom with the basegame, which I define as the game modes we play on: DM, T/LMS, Duel, CTF, and the wildcard modes we've made over the years (In this context: Saxton, (Rage)Robo, ScrewScramble, BotApoc, Classes etc..) -- which is the core of every mode and gametype we play, not just a object that we can easily point at and say:" Oh, anything using mods on a server are pure evil, and vanilla is the only way! " -- then we have to take the second option:
Creating a game-type and game mode that appeal to those who are resistant to changing from it, and those who immerse fully in it now.
At best, Option #2 would end up being a band-aid solution, and Option #1 is too idyllic to work without people reinforcing what we'd be attempting. But as you can see, neither option suggested "banning" any mode, and certainly not Saxton.