Does Miriam suck?

[bvanevery]

I sign a Truce with Lal.  Hey, we're both Democrats.  He's "only" got The Citizen's Defense Force and The Command Nexus.  Which belatedly makes me realize that I haven't had a Command Center in Free Drone Central this whole time.  Didn't notice because of my Power and Cyborg Factory.  Well that will be rectified shortly.

The land rail still has value, as a way to get to Decision:Manifold.  It contains The Merchant Exchange and The Empath Guild.  The latter is quite important to me.  I've got a big population, but not enough to overcome all the other factions that hate me.  We've still never had a Governor in all this time.

I've set up for a 5 ship Artifact transfer!  It won't get it all the way home, but it'll get it out of danger and within sight of home.

[bvanevery]

Interlude:

Site owner BUncle and I have come to serious loggerheads, possibly irreconcilable, about the quality of my work for promotion on this website's HOME page.  Many gory details are contained in 2 other threads.  The drama can be summarized by the following statement on my part:

The idea that a "rage quitting NerdX" should be a barrier to showing my work, because the work isn't "finished", is absurd. 

You can click on that topic link if you want BBQ.  Although for my part, I'm looking for a result, not drama for its own sake.  The "writer" either gets a good venue to showcase work, or the writer walks.

What am I going to do with this mountain of a work in progress, meanwhile?  Although it is the best work I've done to date, it can still be better.  For instance, it could be shorter and more focused.  More scintillating in prose.  So I'm not going to write any blow-by-blow about it anymore.  That level of effort, plus the additional improvement and polish I have planned for such work, will be saved for a future work.  And whether that work appears here, or somewhere else, is largely up to what BUncle chooses next.

That said, you gentle readers could influence the situation one way or another, if you spoke up, or PMed one of us.  I don't expect anyone to wade into a drama not of their own making.  If I've had any audience at all, it would be nice to be made aware of it at this time though.  'Cuz otherwise, to quote The Doors, "This is the End."

I've definitely gotten bored with writing this up.  That isn't entirely a secret, I'm pretty sure I've hinted at that or said so previously.  It may be a simple function of the writeup getting to be too long.  It may be a function of the game itself, the whole "painfully stupid AI" thing.  A game the AIs should have won at the beginning, due to my lousy start, but they insisted upon losing.  No matter what happens, this game doesn't answer the titular question, "Does Miriam suck?"  I've only proven that any faction can recover from a horrible start, if the AI happens to behave stupidly enough.

I will probably play this game more.  I won't write about it as I do so.  When I decide I'm not playing anymore, either because I won, or because it's too boring to bother with, I'll give it an Epilogue.  And if that's my final contribution to this site, so beit.

Over the past 13 months, I've written 38 deep, substantive AARs, including this one.  I have 302 screenshots of SMAC in my Windows Screenshots folder at this time, and that's not counting all the ones I hand cropped in GIMP and Paint3D before I simplified the procedures.

In all that time, one other person wrote one AAR.  And thank you, lifehole, for doing so.  You made me not feel alone.

Nobody can take away that I did something here.  Not BUncle, nobody.  I gave.

I'm glad I wrote that mountain of words, and more recently provided that pile of screenshots, for my own reasons.  Otherwise it would be heartbreaking.  What I got out of it, is I know more about narration in games, and the dynamics of gaming communities.  Or lack thereof, sadly.

I hope it helps someone out there on the internet someday.  That was the goal.

[BU Admin]

The management of AC2 wishes to formally note that the author of this AAR is encouraged to finish it, but finds the prospect unlikely after getting a day-long megaposting rampage in response to an offer to do a little extra as a favor, albeit with a practical condition attached.  It is to be further noted that there's been a distinct escalation as the day progressed, all on one side, as I declined to play this reindeer game, notwithstanding a powerful and vexatious urge to reply in kind.

The technical term for the above post in the forum managing biz is The Last Straw.


We are not here to be abused.  A cooling-off period is in order, ban to be lifted when I've had time to wake up.


-Yo, I didn't drift into forum management because of having an even temper.  I prefer to give things time when tempers flare, including my own.  It now being agonizingly clear that this isn't cooling off anytime soon, and having started the day irritated, I can't deal with this nonsense anymore, and I'm not going to.

b, when I have to use my staff powers on people, I've failed as a manager - so be it.  This subject is closed, and the next post on it is going to earn you a permaban and a post deletion.

I've declined to argue the issue today because there's nothing to argue about; I built this site from nothing with years of promotion, and your poorly-considered strategy of jumping up and down on my buttons without letup is hardly about to make me do a favor I don't want to.  Neither is bringing up nasty irrelevant side-issues.  I don't play dominance games and I only take so much crap; you'd have gotten a vacation hours ago if I saw you harassing anyone but me like this.

A suggestion, not an order:  go do something else for a week or two and see if you're still mad before you post here again.  Stuff  like that works, sometimes, and it can avoid a lot of hard feelings and bans and such.

[bvanevery]

My ban is lifted.  I will not be writing any more AARs here.  What I've produced already, is more than good enough for the website's HOME page.

I played a fair number of additional turns of this game.  It quickly became clear that only my reportage on this game, had kept me interested.  Past the beginning when I overcame my fungus difficulty, it was not an inherently interesting game.  In fact it was quite a dull game, demonstrating how crassly stupid the AI really is.  Handed all possible advantages, it snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.  It sits around and does nothing, year after year.  I am more inspired to write a non-stupid AI, than to write about a stupid AI.

I played another game after this.  As Roze, I got early access to the Monsoon Jungle on my continent.  Compared to the Miriam game, it was nearly a perfect start.  Morgan was on my continent at some distance, with some fungus in the way.  He was hostile.  I bided my time and colonized the Jungle.  Then I conquered him.

After that, the only real power in the game was Marr, on another large continent across the water.  This was a Huge map game, as is usual for me.  I built a land bridge to him.  It took a very long time and I got lots of tech in the meantime.  I founded a city at the head of my bridge to control the water narrows and provide myself an Aerospace Complex, given that I had built almost every SP, had The Cloudbase Academy and The Cyborg Factory, etc.  Began the tedious process of skirmishing with Marr and wiping him out with nerve gas, when it had just gone on too long and was way too boring to continue.  Nothing I haven't done before, and with no reason to report on it, why bother?

I quit the game.  I deleted SMAC from all my computers.  I've gone on the internet looking for other games to play.  Other communities to possibly do AARs for.  Today I've been looking at AARs for Europa Universalis IV.  I played EU I eons ago, so I do know the genre.  I find I mostly don't care about these EU IV AARs, I think they're dull reads.  I suspect I'm going to find this true of games in general.  I could be a long time looking for a game with satisfying AARs to consume.

Maybe I need a different genre, like Sims narratives.  But when I last checked those out many years ago, even their "best" stories, as given by their 1..5 star rating system, weren't good stories.  I suspect that "being involved" in a given game, is the only thing that makes this stuff interesting.  "Standalone", for a cold audience, they all pretty much suck.

I currently have nothing to play, and the search for a new game is tedious.  I might reinstall SMAC.  I will probably try to force myself to do "real programming work" for awhile yet, before succumbing.  If I do, I will try a ridiculously large maps, Huger than Huge, with no supply pods available.  I've done those in the past, I've written plenty of AARs about them.  They have their downsides.  But maybe AIs will fare better on gigantic maps if they don't have to fight each other.  Such a map will curb any tendency to think I'm going to make land bridges.  I've proven in many games that they get really dull.  At shorter distances, naval invasions are always faster.  At longer distances, like when you'd have to push ships way too far across the map, land bridges also take forever and aren't much fun.  Maybe Tectonic Missiles would work better, but then you have to play "Planet getting mad at you" as well.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sigh.  In a goodwill token, I'm going back on my word and not issuing a ban for that first line, alone.  -This is not to be misunderstood that more posts harping on same will be tolerated.

I've suggested to two other admins -one the other owner- that they stick their heads in.  Problem is, they both have lives, and may not - also that I'll still be the one running things here if either does come in to mediate, and my stubborn buttons are pushed.

Look dude, I've refrained from counter-attacking when I felt under attack - this is because we freakin' can't afford to be driving off rare posters who voluminously and energetically post about the actual game.  That is valuable.  It was drawing more activity from others in response.  We need that.

-But, you know, it was discussion posts in other subforums that was doing almost all the traffic/activity raising.  I guess I understand why you got so angry, but your many, many hours of much-appreciated effort don't obligate me to reciprocate with effort my long experience deems futile, just as, say, Geo, addressing a long post to me obligates me in no way to reciprocate either his passion on the subject nor length in reply, (though courtesy does urge me to at least answer briefly).  -Which is to say that I read between the lines that you think I owe you - maybe I'm wrong to believe otherwise, but I do have to act in what I believe is the best interests of the community -which is a heckuva balancing act, it really is- and nothing has changed about my original position except having those stubborn buttons locked down.

Too, and there's a lot of cruel justice to this, in my origin in this community, I've been on your side of similar conflict with forum management.  I was prolific and getting mistreatment, and Solver would be laughing his behind off at me if he was aware of this present situation.  From the side where you're running things, it feels like nobody's so valuable to the community that you'll let them try to coerce you, which is what I did to them, and while there was plenty of bad tactics and strategy and attitude in how they handled the conflict, I cannot except myself from the same, in all honesty - it was some real Game-Of-Thrones-without-any-boobs crap went down, we were all nerdrage idiots, and everybody lost.  Vague as this characterization of that mess is, it's still as much as than I've chosen to talk it, since - everyone wants to be the hero of their own story, and I don't care to relate about a time I was a sucker and a hot-headed fool.  (They were still in the wrong, mind, but I handled my end so badly that I don't get to feel superior.)

What you describe in the above post makes me sad.  It's everybody loses stuff, and hey, I like everybody wins solutions.  You are valued here at AC2, and by me - I could have made my bvanevery problem go away a soon as it became clear there was a problem last Sunday, and erased all the evidence.  That I haven't, that I've refrained from putting something stupid in your custom title and a million other cheap ways I could retaliate, is a measure of the esteem in which you and your contributions are held.  Within the considerable limits of not budging on the original point of contention, can we not reach any accord, any understanding, any win-win solution?  There's probably -I'm very fuzzy on just how, but it ought to be doable- some way to frame AAR narrative conclusions in way more satisfactory to a reader looking for a story with a proper end without making much change to the way you play.  Girldogging about the disappointing AI in the course of the narrative, sure - but a more positive spin on the way you declare the game won and choose to move on might do a lot to satisfy my reservations.  I dunno, but I'm certainly interested in discussing the possibilities and how to make it work.

Let's put our heads together and try to find that win-win for everybody.

[t_ras]

Hi bvanevery,
I don't think your unfinished AARs are the problem, I tried once and didn't finish, so you are encouraged to keep posting as many of them as you feel like.  The issue is that the promotion in the front page is a limited resource as any other. If your AARs, good as they may be, are not finished and people are showing more interest in other things, then we should go with what people are interested in, to keep them coming. This is for the good of the community.
Of course AARs are an integral part of most games and almost all gaming communities. For that reason we'll be more than happy to promote yours if they are a little more evolved (and finished).
Now I think it will be better to just calm down and enjoy (and please don't go for the "he started it and should calm first", it won't count as calming down ).
t_ras (moderator)

[Buster's Uncle]

There's probably -I'm very fuzzy on just how, but it ought to be doable- some way to frame AAR narrative conclusions in way more satisfactory to a reader looking for a story with a proper end without making much change to the way you play.  Girldogging about the disappointing AI in the course of the narrative, sure - but a more positive spin on the way you declare the game won and choose to move on might do a lot to satisfy my reservations.  I dunno, but I'm certainly interested in discussing the possibilities and how to make it work.

Since I posted that, it strikes me that it dances up to an issue I hadn't really been conscious of,  but strongly informs my opinion of the promotional potential of this stuff.

I once had a PM conversation - and please forgive me for being vague about what the other guy said; PM publishing is a hanging offense, but not for your own words, just anyone else's, and I hope I'm to be forgiven for skirting that in a modest way, but it's relevant:

"I will say that I think you and I are a lot alike; the world sucks, and we're pissed."  -And he replied, more or less, that that at least SMAC doesn't entirely suck, and that's why we're here.  -Well yes indeedydo, and there's my central thesis, sort've.

-And I don't know that I can do this idea justice in one go, but I hope throwing it out there will be accepted as a neutral observation and not any sort of "you suck" or "and that's why your AARs suck" - which is no part of my intention in raising an aspect that I think, nonetheless, that we need to look over and talk about.

Green1 has tarred me with a number of times with the label 'bittervet' for my grousing about modern "Star Trek" -scare quotes used on purpose, 'cause he ain't wrong about me when it comes to that- and to some extent, that's you and your AARs.  Again, I don't mean this critically, merely an observation of clear fact, but you complain a lot about shortcomings of SMACX -that pretty much everyone agrees are there, mind- all through, at great volume.  -Nothing inherently wrong with that; you're clearly a blunt, let-the-cards-fall-where-they-may sort and that's just your way --- but unfortunately, there's a strong overall trend of negativity, there.  I mean, party down with your own bad self and all that, and I didn't see it clearly last week to articulate when this started, but I realize it's always been there in my reaction to your hard work; forgive me, but 'grumble gripe (a few borderline words often thrown in that aren't in the swear filter, but make me twitchy when I see them too much) grouse' and THEN usually "this has gotten boring [tedious, frustrating, not worth it, whatever] I quit" taken altogether is the problem.

I regret that I didn't see that more clearly sooner.

Like, good promotional fodder for AC2, if there's any opinion of SMACX embedded, kinda inherently needs to promote SMACX itself, doesn't it?  We've got a cool community going here, and I gather this is by far the most peaceful/harmonious it's been in its history going back on other forums 20 years, and not just because things are quiet these days, but that's not something easy to go on Facebook and pitch to strangers, and that certainly wouldn't be welcome at all at other forums, when entertaining game content tends to be.  (Of course, the best-working bait for drawing eyes is the .exe patches, which have a buried "sucks" implication, but more "fix".) I mean, community veterans who've been away for a long time and long-time players who've never been a part of the online community, both, are better attacked here by being reminded how awesome the game is, Right?  That goes far moreso for the kind of people who'd like SMACX if only they'd try it.  Gotta be at least hundreds of thousands of nurdz out there in the world who'd turn out to be Our Kind Of People if only they found SMACX and AC2 - so part of promoting the forum is selling the game, and that's easier being positive about it, surely?  I think the logic scans and all that.


SO - I see three possible ways -there may be others and I'm open to ideas- to attack our impasse that I ask for a commitment to finish most of the games you start reporting before I'll go back to promoting, and you deem said commitment to wasting your time grinding bad/forgone-conclusion games to a pitiful end a deal-breaker:

• 
  1.) As I already said, figure out a way more satisfying to a random reader to spin the end of the narrative you post.  Under this model, you're not necessarily changing anything whatsoever about your evil ways, but simply leaving the negativity out of the last post and explain why you think winning or losing is inevitable and describe how you think it'd go if you'd played it out.  (I'm unsure how to spin the games that were just boring you/cheesing you off, though.  Worth discussion, I guess, 'cause those aren't that rare.)
  
  
  2.) Positive-tone writeups.  I don't see this one happening, so moving on...
  
  
  3.)  Own the negativity and make a joke of it and a selling point.  It's not impossible to sell that kind of thing to a wide audience, witness the comedy of Lewis Black.  (Do go search Lewis Black on YourTube if you're not familiar; worth the trip.) Work up some title phrase to lead all your future AAR names like a simple "Grumbler's take" "Ranter's take", leave off the take, even, or something about Nerdrage or Ragequit or - you get the idea, and no insult whatsoever intended, just trying to think of how to package you being you in your heretofore customary style effectively. 
  
  It strikes me as having the most potential, if we do it just right, of drawing worthwhile attention and letting bvanevery be bvanevery with another boilerplate statement leading your future OPs that you rant because you love (or something frivolously/amusingly positive-spinning like that to introduce the grumble on the right note)  - and work in a few jokes when you can as you go, and maybe that positive spin on wrapping up the end, or maybe commit and turn the rage to eleven, if you can make that funny enough (Ask any Apolyton OTf veteran about Wiglaf.  I can definitely sell some Wiglaf-ish AARs in 'poly OT).  None of this really solves the problem I've pointed out, except - if it's entertaining enough, sorta trashing the game still manages to make it look worth trying by entertaining association.

I'm sincerely interested to your response to these ideas, and any new ones/modifications you pitch in -it has to work for you or it doesn't work- and all that.

P.S. Something about SMAC-Talk for 3.)?

[bvanevery]

In hindsight, both of us wish you'd come up with the "negativity" objection sooner.  That I can see as a legitimate objection.  A dimension of the "read" that I should be thinking about and deciding upon, one way or another.  Something I never considered when writing them; I only communicated my direct feelings about any given game.

There were plenty of legitimate ways to object to most of my AARs.  The main one I saw was length and wall of text.  That is not so exciting, unless one is very committed to digging out the gory details of a strong analysis that happened to be in the pile of text.  A massive <SNIP> would probably be better for a highlight reel.

The literal objection "you didn't finish", I could not take seriously because in 1/2 of the games, the game was 99.9% finished and only the formality of pressing an I WIN button remained.  I also wasn't writing an instruction manual, where formally showing a novice screen by screen may be necessary.  I assumed everyone here knows how to push the buttons to win the game, when they are so far ahead.  So in 38 AARs, I'm sure there are several I have produced that are HOME page worthy, even if they are not all so.  And, a rather substandard early one of mine, has been sitting on the HOME page for a year anyways.  If it's so bad, why not remove it?  If it's been up that long, it can't suck that bad, and I've done far better work since.

But returning to negativity, which is an issue I take seriously.  I would point out, the problem can be solved by removing things from an AAR.  Including the ending.  Including the beginning.  Frankly there's no rule or law out there that says an AAR has to be about a complete game.  At any time, I could have spilled gory details about a specific section of a game.  In a case like that, I'd probably concentrate on some core tactical detail, some incident that occurred that had an interesting or clever result.  Moments like these sometimes occurred naturally in my games anyways.  That's why producing 38 AARs is deemed to be of value, finished or not: there's stuff in there.

But let's assume for a moment, that I don't want to remove things.  I've read other authors who didn't want to remove things.  They wanted to present their unvarnished experience playing a game.  The highs, the lows, the cool moves, the screw-ups.  They don't promise to play well, they often warn you that they may play badly.  I was surpirsed to find some people going out of their way, to assure that they weren't faking their games, or staging their games.  That these were the actual games, the actual things that happened.  Really, people do it otherwise?  I guess they must, somewhere out there.  But it didn't naturally occur to me that someone would choose to be a showman or a flim flam artist, rather than a war reporter.

This, despite the fact that 4X TBS game designers have theorized for years, that we could simply lie to you about everything.  We could make the ships just appear somewhere, for dramatic reasons alone, just to dazzle you with oh-so-kewl endings.  Some semblance of such cheats have actually been put into wide commercial practice.  Like having all the powers of an enemy automatically increase as your own power level increases.  Lotta RPGs pulled that stunt, and I heard Emperor of the Fading Suns pulled it too.  Could never really tell myself though, because if you think SMAC is bad for finishability, you should check out that wreck.  I've literally never finished a game of it, and not for lack of a pile of playing and even trying.

Now let us consider "notions of non-ideal content".  On one hand, imagine a player that is cheerful but plays badly.  On the other hand, imagine a player that is grumpy but plays optimally.  You don't have to imagine that BTW.  That's me, and I just gave you a year's worth of content!  Which is better?  Is either inherently a dealbreaker?  Personally, I strongly doubt it.

I think ideally, in a healthier community with more blood in it, you'd end up with both.  Then you wouldn't get stuck with only 1 style.  I'd frankly fall asleep if I was reading about low level play all the time, why bother?  That's what learning a game is for, to get over that hump.  But someone else might dislike that I'm getting pissed off at the game all the time.  They may not understand or appreciate my objections as a would-be game designer in the same genre.  In the extreme, it can lead to fanboi / fangrrl dynamics where the fan "thinks the game can do no wrong".  Which leads to bitter feuds and moderators sorting things out, unfortunately often without enlightenment and banhammers and children screaming at each other but I digress.  Got kicked out of a developer community like that a long time ago.  Technically I left before they were going to vote on whether to throw me out.  Too petty and demeaning to particiapte in.

Some people don't like negativity as a basic core aspect of their personality.  Has nothing to do with the subject matter, just whether something is "negative".  Then again some of us can't stand people who are positive to the point of being Polyanna about things.

My takeaway from that is, since people have different opinions about what's good or bad, enticing or off-puttting, how are you going to know in advance how an audience will react?  When someone complains, how do you know they represent a community, or a demographic?  They may not.  They may just be the loudest crybaby in the room.  NerdX rage quits your site?  Maybe he just did you a favor.

What if someone actually wants to know what sucks about the game?  Do you insist on turning people into fans?  Someone out there on the internet probably shouldn't be playing SMAC.  Part of me doesn't want someone walking away, thinking I'm participating in some kind of cult of loony tunes.  "SMAC is so... ah, it's so... SO!"  I prefer honest opinions, that's my personality.  Sure there's debate between what's honest or negative or what's too honest, I don't deny that.  It shouldn't be an excuse to bludgeon people, but it shouldn't be people taking soma in Brave New World either.  You drones will be happy, Placation merit badge....

Let's say nobody really comes along to offer you free content, that fits your imagined ideal list of AAR characteristics you'd like to have.  It's missing one of: sexy, family friendly, edgy, well written, has pics, edited for length, important critical examination, demonstrating a high level of play, accessible to beginners, makes you feel good inside, cheerful, truthful, humorous, serious, encourages community participation, role plays, tells a good story....  I hope you get where I'm going with making the list longer and longer.  There can always be some objection why the AAR isn't "good enough" at something.

Employers do this a lot.  They make job ads with absurdly long lists of features that they'd like to have, in their ideal candidate.  Nobody with all of those skills would actually take the job, because they wouldn't need it.  They'd be running their own startups and being The Next Big Thing, not scraping for the alms that some employer is offering for a pipe-dream skillset.  Someone who's been around the block, will worry about selling them one of the major things on their list.  Maybe two.  After that, it's like, get real.  You couldn't possibly pay anyone to have that much skill and still be your employee.  It's the stuff that Dilbert cartoons are made of.  "Team Player, Can Write A Linux Kernel Single-Handedly, ...."

Another perspective on the problem: I judged the Independent Games Festival for 6 years.  Yep, never made a game.  Didn't have credentials that way.  I had run gamedesign-l for many years, and I made some loud complaints about the judging of one of the early IGFs.  Well the contest chair at the time, I guess he needed more judges, 'cuz he drafted me into service.  I said um, ok.  So I tried to be part of the solution for awhile, until they got a new contest chair.  Who was making some stupid moves from a game design standpoint IMO.  He was more interested in populism at the time than advancing originality and innovation, things which we had tried to make the contest about.  In the 6th year I failed to hide my ire suffciently, and someone in an indie gamedev forum took some kind of umbrage at something I said about something else and went to the IGF and waaaaah and I didn't try to deny any of it, so...

...I didn't have to judge boring games anymore!  Something I learned from those 6 years, is the contest is only as good as the entrants.  Some years we had a lot of good entrants in some category.  Other years we didn't.  Had to play 'em all anyways.  Still had to give the awards away.

I've put 38 entries in front of you.  In the course of a year.  Single-handedly.  Only 1 other person made 1 entry last year.  I don't think anyone has produced the volume of entries that I have, at any time, in the history of your archives.  I don't know about other sites, I haven't checked.  I also know that 1 of the guys who had the biggest pile of views on your site, burned out.  The point is, you have an awful lot of work in front of you.  It's pretty hard to believe that none of that stuff is usable work.  That says to me, "Manager is being too picky about free stuff."

I'm a veteran of a lot of open source projects.  Among many smaller failures, one big one, which I made a man-year contribution to.  Then things fell apart.  That project leader was too picky.  Everybody else's work had "bugs".  So that would become a reason why Windows shouldn't be supported, "too buggy".  Like his own code didn't have bugs!  Like I didn't spend time fixing his bugs, so that Windows builds would work.  Got tired of hearing why this or that couldn't happen, because, bugs.  We had words, relationship over.

Ok, now you know a lot about what I think.  But what about negativity and my AARs?  Here's what I will do.  I will look at my recent AARs with screenshots, and decide for myself which ones I think, are not negative enough to be dealbreakers for putting on the HOME page.  Ignoring the last posts.  I'll remove the pointy boilerplate parts of those, if not necessarily the dry conclusions.  I'll come back with my list, and we'll see if there's any overlap with your own world views.

The problem is, I did do a year's worth of free work already.  It doesn't make me eager to do more work, or discard old work, unless there really is so much negativity as to render something unusable.  If we have totally different opinons on what's "acceptable and valuable content", then this is not an attractive venue to work in.  There has to be overlap between what we think is worthwhile, especially for huge hours I put into stuff, and have already put into stuff.

[Buster's Uncle]

-I will note that I'm pleased with the shift in tone - not so much in the degree to which it actually engages my suggestions as opposed to making the same arguments I was seeing eight+ days ago.  Took a couple of years, but the internet long ago cured me of any notion of fun or winning having arguments on the internet; I still decline to be in this one.

However, you're not wrong about a low-turnover Front Page looking lame and dead, and you're not wrong about Civ6, either, which was an even bigger waste of time and work for us than BE, and considerably further off-mission for us.  I got a subforum theme I'm sorta proud of out of that, for a major chunk out of six months of my life and no traffic I noticed (besides Nicholai coming over to spam 6 news linking back to WPC, which turned into some amusing news-scoop one-upsmanship when I reciprocated and actually kinda led to a little breakthrough in some old interforum politics and a link exchange that I'm proud of nagging certain parties into - no traffic, though).

I'm conflicted about whether your edits and two new posts constitute enough improvement to, say, improve my recent stubbornness so far as to follow your suggestion about hitting the promote button on the two AARs you deem worthy in the new thread.  I will level with you and say that I don't know what good the Front Page is -barely, IMO,  would be worth the couple minutes it takes me each time if the content promoted came with oral from Scarlett Johansson and a free legal copy of SMACX with all the fan patches installed and a diskfull of scenarios.  I MAY truly unbend that far, 'cause I do want you happy and doing your thing -and I do not contemplate un-stubborning lightly- but that's a pretty far piece from me being satisfied enough to be pimping your stuff on the Facebook and the other forums, which I DO believe could do enormously worthwhile eye-drawing with the right stuff to use for bait. That's going to take more.

I'm thinking about it, trying to decide how I feel.  Stay tuned.

[bvanevery]

My view is, the HOME page needs to demonstrate Life by whatever means necessary.  It is sort of a mimimum building block for anything else you want to accomplish.  I can't promise you any kind of traffic because of an AAR, whether the 2 "most suitable" ones I've already written, or any future one.  I do know that dead HOME pages don't attract anybody, they repel.  The only thing worse is a dead forum.  As you know, I'm here because all the other SMAC forums are dead.

Promoting things on Facebook is beyond my expertise.  I don't even do Facebook, I don't believe in it.

Promoting things elsewhere on the internet, is a learning curve I'm willing to go up to some degree, because it would be useful to know for my existence as an indie game developer.  For many years I've refrained from bothering because I didn't have a product to sell.  However I've also languished as far as inspiration.  I think there's a degree to which "buzz" can stimulate effort, although one must remember to make actual products.

I tried to do Reddit for a time, but I just get too bored with general toxicity over there.  They do have an active game design forum though.  I tend to nod off when it becomes things I've heard a lot of times before.  It's definitely a productive place for some kinds of aspiring game designers, who maybe haven't already talked about everything under the sun yet.

I recently started looking at the Paradox AAR forum.  Maybe there is something to learn there.

I wonder how Pandora is doing lately?  Their community didn't look healthy last I checked.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yeah, you're right about all of that.  I don't believe in Facebook, either, but am on there anyway for several reasons, mostly that it's a powerful promotional tool, notwithstanding being a moron's Big Brother that figured out entirely too much about me from riffling through my junk email account.

I DO have some actual on-paper mass marketing/PR credentials, a degree in communications/broadcasting and some professional experience in newpaper journalism, and RL experience fairly successfully working local free media promoting a chess club.

The online stuff isn't high-difficulty level, just needs shamelessness and high energy/persistence getting the URL out there, for SEO, among other things, and the chief difficulty having to do with the ocean of noise one seeks to be heard in (also, aspie Wikipedia editors are a barrier, but one I've had a little success navigating after long study).  It's all simple in principle, labor-intensive in application - and tricky about the details at each and every place to offer links to welcome content and not be deemed spam.

[Buster's Uncle]

-I've asked the other three admins to have a look at Miriam makes me shiver and slow transporting and give me a second opinion.  "I'm WAY too deep into the trees to see the forest", I said.

Basically, you're in automatically in if any of them can find a little time to look and give me a thumbs-up.  If there's no action on that by Wednesday lunchtime, I'll probably do it anyway.

[Buster's Uncle]

Now, as to the Pollyanna stuff, actually we don't have much difference in instinctive attitude --- just, long, bitter experience has taught me that a little of that in the right places makes for a happier life in your worldview, and better treatment at most times and places brought to bear in your communications habits.

Like, to most people, "How are you?" actually means "Hello" most of the time.  It's not a lie to reply "Just fine, thank you!" if they didn't really mean to ask and you're not actually all that fine.  -My problems may not need airing or be someone's business just because they asked, for one thing, and they probably weren't really asking. [shrugs]  As a default mode of behavior, being pleasant-seeming pays off big-time, isn't considered a lie by the general population, but more like if you don't, you're being inconsiderate of people who meant "hello" and then get bummed out by brutal honesty.

(Incidentally, IRL when I remember all that in the face of a "How ya doin'?" -I still slip and tell the truth too often- I'll sometimes respond with "Do you want an honest answer or a pleasantry?" which usually gets a laugh and a roughly 50-50 split on which.  The pleasantry is always a VERY perky "Just fine, thank you!" avec girly head-tilt, which also gets laughs.)


And when it comes to marketing/PR/sales sort of issues - my integrity ain't for sale.  -But a spoonful of sugar and all that is part of our culture and our language that nobody thinks to explain to us low-social-instincts nurdz types is usually understood for what it is, and is being pleasant and positive and not a lie.  I take lying seriously as the next spaz who isn't a dirtbag, and this stuff was very, very hard for me to figure out over a decade later than most mundanes internalize in their late teens w/o ever having really thought about it, and against my instincts to implement.  Putting the best face on things in promotion is just the way it's done - discussion of bugs and crap AI and such is for Theory of Everything, and in no way discouraged there, ever, but still not the part you push out front and wave about when you're looking to draw people and build the community.  It's only a lie, the being-positive stuff the masses like -and nurdz respond just fine, too, if you do it right and adjust your levels according to who you're talking to- when there's an intent to deceive.  That is no part of anything I've suggested.

[Green1]

Speaking of work on AARs....

- It takes a lot of time.
- It is unpaid (with the exception of VERY LUCKY, VERY TALENTED, and hard working youtubers, twitch streamers, and esports lottery winners). Even then, most make pocket change if anything. So, it has to be FUN.
- Can generate some interest on sites.
- Is actual WORK and can affect enjoyment.

Now, I have had A LOT of unfinished stuff. I feel you. Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes my interests shift. I have the bad habit of biting off lots more than I can chew, getting into it, then making a fool of myself. Unfortunately, if it comes to feeding my family and dogs, dealing with career stresses, my side projects suffer. Last two to three years have been worse than usual. So much so, that while I do have projects I am afraid of even mentioning them because I am afraid I will be accused of "yet another thing I can't deliver", so I keep silent about it till I have something to show.

I do know this, though. Even if I had issues with the management of the place that hosts whatever stuff I put up (and I have dealt with a few places), I would not say anything about it on the project itself. If they want to put it on a front page, cool. It is not my decision. Not that it matters. No offense, but this is a fairly small fan forum board. Guess it's kinda cool, but it does not get you a job typing game articles for Massively, Kotaku, or even Civ Fanatics. It's a fun, geeky little thing.

If I were you, I would ask BU to remove both your rant and BU's public discussion of moderation. That way, it makes you look better and does not look like drama. The only ones who like drama are trolls, not folks wanting to see if Miriam sucks (which she doesn't) or EPIC MIRIAM OWNAGE. Otherwise, it makes both you and the site people look bad unnecessarily.

Then continue to do the AARs if you are having fun with it, don't if you are not. But don't crud up the place if you aren't having fun. the readers don't want that, you don't want that, the management don't want that.

GOOD LUCK!

[Buster's Uncle]

...Huh.  I saw Green posted at this hour and braced myself - he's a pal, b, but chaps me hard all the time when he wants...

(I've had history with a chap -same one who made he hate PMs early on- who loved editing key posts and disappearing stuff to a really dishonest level, and I'm not comfortable with that sort of thing - but no objection to moving it to the "shall I continue" thread...)