Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[Sullla]

There's another issue I have to mention while I have a minute here. Some people may have noticed that I've been posting significantly less at Realms Beyond in recent months. I find myself posting less, having less interest in reading threads, and less interest in discussing things with the community. I've been increasingly more dissatisfied with the tone of many of the threads here. Quite frequently, I've put in some effort to write something interesting for discussion or explanation, only to find the responding posts full of nitpicking trivial details, making snarky comments, or otherwise taking some sort of veiled potshot. While I expect that sort of crap on the Internet, I don't expect to see it at Realms Beyond, and I've been very disappointed to see what feels like actual trolling popping up on these forums. If posters want to act like idiots, that's perfectly fine, but I won't bother to put in time and effort to write posts like the above one.

Now, since this is the new year, instead of trying to cast blame, let's approach things in a more positive light. I have no intention of naming names or calling anyone out here. I want to ask anyone reading this to think about encouraging more positive discussion this year, so that we can get these forums back to the place that they've traditionally been. Instead of nitpicking a trivial detail, think about responding with a thoughtful comment instead. Debate and discussion are the lifeblood of a community - I don't expect everyone to agree with me all the time, nor would I want them to. What I do expect is for all of us to have a civil tone to our discussions, and avoid making personal attacks. If we can all do that, this will be a great community for many years yet to come.

Happy New Year 2012.

[kjn]

This would probably be better off in a more general thread, but I wanted to add some thoughts as well.

One factor is that this is largely a self-policing community with a long history. That means both that all old-timers needs to be careful about what is considered acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour, but also that newcomers will have to absorb a lot by osmosis, and might see behaviour that they want to emulate, but doesn't know how. Or behaviour that it is considered OK when it is from one specific old-timer, but not anyone else.

This is especially hard when many new people come in (look up Eternal September, for a "classical" example). (I have a background from a newsgroup with a very strong sense of netiquette, that also took a very strict approach on people who transgressed it. Not sure it's the best model to emulate, really.)

A second factor is that what the RB civ community does have changed. It used to be variant games, and competition in parallel, with reporting done ex post facto. Now, it is about MP civ, either via Pitboss or PBEM. That means players are now competing antagonistically to a much larger degree, interacting a lot more in-game (meaning much larger scope for tension between players/participants), but also that the reporting is much more in medias res, concurrent with the game as it is played.

Ie, game lurkers gets much scope, opportunity, and invitation on discussing things in detail, which opens up for much more backseat driving as well.

So hang in there - every thoughtful post helps!

[Lord Parkin]

Very clever move, congratulations. Not sure whether I would have remembered about the danger of the Fast Workers in the same situation or not. Either way, impressive stuff.

The peak lets us see inside Shoot the Moon's city

Just to nitpick slightly () - it's the hill to the SW of the peak, not the peak itself, that allowed you visibility into that city. Probably you already realised that and it was just a typo, but figured it was worth clarifying.

Shoot the Moon's border town has fallen. Maybe next year I will tell all you how it happened.

Well timed.

[Lurker]

There's another issue I have to mention while I have a minute here. Some people may have noticed that I've been posting significantly less at Realms Beyond in recent months. I find myself posting less, having less interest in reading threads, and less interest in discussing things with the community. I've been increasingly more dissatisfied with the tone of many of the threads here. Quite frequently, I've put in some effort to write something interesting for discussion or explanation, only to find the responding posts full of nitpicking trivial details, making snarky comments, or otherwise taking some sort of veiled potshot. While I expect that sort of crap on the Internet, I don't expect to see it at Realms Beyond, and I've been very disappointed to see what feels like actual trolling popping up on these forums. If posters want to act like idiots, that's perfectly fine, but I won't bother to put in time and effort to write posts like the above one.

Now, since this is the new year, instead of trying to cast blame, let's approach things in a more positive light. I have no intention of naming names or calling anyone out here. I want to ask anyone reading this to think about encouraging more positive discussion this year, so that we can get these forums back to the place that they've traditionally been. Instead of nitpicking a trivial detail, think about responding with a thoughtful comment instead. Debate and discussion are the lifeblood of a community - I don't expect everyone to agree with me all the time, nor would I want them to. What I do expect is for all of us to have a civil tone to our discussions, and avoid making personal attacks. If we can all do that, this will be a great community for many years yet to come.

Happy New Year 2012.

I'm afraid you're making a fundamental mistake: This isn't Realms Beyond.

Some years ago, yes, it was Realms Beyond. A community of variant players, people of extraordinary skill and dedication. But this? This is an MP gaming board for PBEM civ4 and LoL, indistinguishable from other random internet places except for a few fossilzed remains of the previous era, like the motto on the front page.

[sunrise089]

I'm afraid you're making a fundamental mistake: This isn't Realms Beyond.

Some years ago, yes, it was Realms Beyond. A community of variant players, people of extraordinary skill and dedication. But this? This is an MP gaming board for PBEM civ4 and LoL, indistinguishable from other random internet places except for a few fossilzed remains of the previous era, like the motto on the front page.

[SevenSpirits]

Could we take the unrelated melodrama out of this otherwise delightful thread?

[Sullla]

It's something that's been weighing on my thoughts in recent weeks, and this felt like as good a place as any to bring it up. This is our spoiler thread, after all, and there's been so little useful discussion of in-game issues in this thread that I don't feel bad about sidetracking a bit. If you guys don't want to discuss "useless melodrama", then... how about bringing up something useful and relevant to this game for discussion? Posts that snipe at each other are exactly the sort of thing I would like to try to avoid.

[SevenSpirits]

It's something that's been weighing on my thoughts in recent weeks, and this felt like as good a place as any to bring it up. This is our spoiler thread, after all, and there's been so little useful discussion of in-game issues in this thread that I don't feel bad about sidetracking a bit. If you guys don't want to discuss "useless melodrama", then... how about bringing up something useful and relevant to this game for discussion? Posts that snipe at each other are exactly the sort of thing I would like to try to avoid.

Sorry, I should have specified I was replying to Lurker.

To be constructive: I think the main difference is people have gotten better at not being spoilerish. Since most people are global lurkers there aren't very many people who can really discuss anything here. And you haven't been updating that much.

[novice]

To be constructive: I think the main difference is people have gotten better at not being spoilerish. Since most people are global lurkers there aren't very many people who can really discuss anything here. And you haven't been updating that much.

Also, you and the rest of the community have taught us so many cool tricks over the years that the wow factor of your updates inevitably gets smaller than it was with your dazzling PB2 display.

Happy new year!

[Gazzahk]

Novice may be right, but I would like to add that those of us who look to this community for experience building, skills imporoving and game play hints would welcome all updates. Just because we may not comment all the time does not mean that we don't value the effort of writing readable updates. The recent updates on the 2 city captures have been really insightful.

Obviously, sniping is always going to be unwelcome and unhelpful wherever it is seenand heard.

It must be true that the general level of players will have increased from all the previous games, but there will always be more to learn and this is especially so for those of us who have only recently found RB.

Please don't be put off by some of the silliness - this is what celebrity can mean for those of you who are known by one name only! Cheers.