Wh... wha.... what happened to the community?? :'(

[Radio_Star]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Heehee. Nicely put..
But isnt it the same description with different wording?

No.

[rdonj]

On a lighter note, welcome back Tifone. I was wondering what happened to you.

And radio star, you have just won the Noob of the Year award.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm this seems to have come to a stop.
Im not at disagreement with Radio_Star's descriptions.
And Im not in disagreement with Squirrelloid's reaction to lack of morale high-road.
Both seem fair descriptions of any corporate-owned sales-interested forums.

[Foodstamp]

So much drama. They type things over there, we type things over here, some people type things over there and over here. Sometimes people take a break from that and play a few turns of Dominions.

The End.

[Zen]

LingChih is a bastard and loves the 3rd degree. Also we cuddle and I call him snugly names that he adores like "Fufflebunny"

[Quitti]

Yes. No.

Community?

[Lingchih]

You will pay for that remark, Zen. Tomorrow. Clear out your games, Gandalf, Zen and I have a score to settle.

Originally Posted by Zen

LingChih is a bastard and loves the 3rd degree. Also we cuddle and I call him snugly names that he adores like "Fufflebunny"

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

So much drama. They type things over there, we type things over here, some people type things over there and over here. Sometimes people take a break from that and play a few turns of Dominions.

Amen. There's a community of people who play games, and a community of people who post on the forums, and of course, enormous overlap between the two--but the first community is more silent, because gameplay mostly doesn't produce words, and the first community is also far more important, because there is only one Dominions 3 and it is very special, whereas there are a million billion trillion forums online where people can post about stuff and fight about stuff and try to formulate the Last Word on every possible topic and grow as social creatures and stalk each other and fall in love and be masterful humorists and BLAH BLAH BLAH yes all that stuff is valuable and some is very good but it's available EVERYWHERE. Thumbs up to people who strive to defend justice and all that, but if you think that your refusal to perform a trivially easy demonstration of fealty to some seemingly-awful moderator is more interesting and good than Dominions 3 is, then I think you are a poor judge of what is interesting and good. Not that there's anything so bad about that... as long as you keep playing the game!

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

Amen. There's a community of people who play games, and a community of people who post on the forums, and of course, enormous overlap between the two--but the first community is more silent, because gameplay mostly doesn't produce words, and the first community is also far more important, because there is only one Dominions 3 and it is very special, whereas there are a million billion trillion forums online where people can post about stuff and fight about stuff and try to formulate the Last Word on every possible topic and grow as social creatures and stalk each other and fall in love and be masterful humorists and BLAH BLAH BLAH yes all that stuff is valuable and some is very good but it's available EVERYWHERE. Thumbs up to people who strive to defend justice and all that, but if you think that your refusal to perform a trivially easy demonstration of fealty to some seemingly-awful moderator is more interesting and good than Dominions 3 is, then I think you are a poor judge of what is interesting and good. Not that there's anything so bad about that... as long as you keep playing the game!

wrong, without all the chatter around dominions, besides the games themselves, this game will die like most others... it's this "second group" that actually keeps this game alive so long after it's original release. oh and by the way, all the modders, map makers, etc are also in your "second group" yet those are the people who keep this(and other) relatively old games fresh, along with the constant discussions and chit chat as you call it.

[Bananadine]

My description of the distinction between these groups was sloppy--let's say, there's activity focused on the game, stuff that couldn't happen the same way if it were a different game. And there's activity focused on the people who play the game, which could happen in any forum. The former is essential and rare, and the latter is commonplace, and it is bad to fight for the integrity of the latter at the expense of the former.

It's certainly not true that, in order to survive, every multiplayer game must lean on a "community" that's capable of standing on its own without the game. The world is big, and there are other ways.

One could claim that the only practical way for this particular game to survive is to be associated with a fairly open community--one that's open enough to statistically guarantee that standard-type forum fights will sometimes occur. Maybe that's true.

But I'm not saying there shouldn't be fights. I mean, if there were a friendly genie listening, then I'd definitely say that, and the genie would stop the fights. But you, reader, are just a single person, not a genie, and not a community. So I'm suggesting that when you are in a position to decide whether to get into a big ol' argument about the rules of a forum or about who has or hasn't displayed proper respect to whom, you would do well to consider how easy it is to find arguments like that, and how hard it is to find the other nice stuff that the forum is supposed to be about. And after saying that I think I have to shut up about the matter, because I really am here to play games. Chat on, those who must chat!