what about the future?

[Eximius Sus]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

I was replying to Fantomen (which should be pretty clear, as his is the above post), rereferencing, and then inverting, my own quote, to make it clear that it wasn't seriously applicable to Shrapnel Games.

"Fascism" = the mentioned Nazi party.

Appologies for any confusion, but I didn't find it difficult to read or understand, even after rereading it several times.

But you brought up the Nazi Party? 10 commas per sentence does not make for clarity. If you wish to be clear use simple sentences. (full stop)

Let me see if I can paraphrase you.

1) Shrapnel has the right to make rules and enforce them on its forum.
2) The intent of the rules is to have order and politeness.
2) Shrapnel is not being fascist in doing this enforcement.

Would that about sum up your argument? I'm still wondering who you think disagrees with these points. It does not appear to be Fantomen.

It looks a lot like what Fantomen was saying is that a number of people are refusing to learn from these episodes. And on both sides.

Equating an internet forum with a corner store is disingenious. The revenue models are completely different. If you want to use a simile, try a dance bar. You make money by selling drinks. More drinks = more money but at some point it's too rough. Then you clamp down. But damn few bars permanently ban the heavy drinkers. Send em home in a cab, or to the drunk tank maybe.

Shrapnel makes money by selling games. Games sell by being in the news and print and word of mouth. Does order and politeness put a game on the map of the internet? I doubt it. Take MachineGunJoe's example. The highest ranking thread on Google from this forum is Crossbows and Longbows. Definitely not a polite ramble about let's just all get along.

[Gandalf Parker]

Dance bar might not be bad.
They want people who walk in to see it as a friendly place to meet people, talk, dance. They might offer alcohol but dont want to be seen as a drunk bar. So rowdiness is quickly squashed and escorted out. Repeated rowdiness is indeed banned. In my experience, in numbers fairly equal to forums.

In both cases there are some important points. The owners get to decide what kind of place it will be, what kind of impression it will give, and how much moderation will be done over the members. Any rules and enforcement will be a give & take as far as numbers. But the most important thing to keep in mind is that if the dance bar is too tame and controlled for someone there is definitely a bar down the street for the wilder crowd. Both bars benefit.

As for the profit scheme, THIS is the forum that people most end up at who have NOT bought the game. Whether or not anyone thinks it will work is one thing but can it really be doubted that if it comes to friendly vs open that the friendly is more sales conducive? Right but rude should definitely exist on the net (somewhere) but I dont think its a "sensible" argument that it should be here.

[TheConway]

As a relative newcomer, I really have to say that I find the attitudes on the forums pretty similar. The only real difference I see is that there seems to be a fairly low tolerance for deliberate misinformation and malicious trolling on dom3mods. This isn't enforced by mods, rather it seems the community of experienced players there feel free to post decisively to deal with such episodes. Having been a moderator on a different forum, I really don't understand how a community like this can function when the only times I see moderators is on the buglist or when somebody gets reported. On the forum I moderated for, moderators were expected to be active, contributing members of the community whom people could respect. From my own searching and lurking, this does not seem to be so much the case here. However, I see no reason to not enjoy whatever fruits both forums may offer.

[Gandalf Parker]

It used to be. Then it entered a dark period.

Interesting reference to "low tolerance for deliberate misinformation and malicious trolling". That was one of the old complaints. But they referred to it as fun ribbing and sarcasm (even when it was with people who were brand new here and had trouble seeing it).

But yes, thats going to be one of the advantages of split forums. One of the things that forum will serve is being for low tolerance for deliberate misinformation and malicious trolling. More power to them.

[Foodstamp]

How long are we going to continue to beat this dead horse?

[Gandalf Parker]

But look at the new people its bringing to the forum.
Isnt that what we want?

[Folket]

I skipped 15 pages and what happened to this thread? It seems to be talking about something else then the future of dominions.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yep, it went from the future of Dominions to the future of the Dominions forums.
Not at all the same thing (altho some might think it is).
My apologies to Pocus.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Yep, it went from the future of Dominions to the future of the Dominions forums.
Not at all the same thing (altho some might think it is).
My apologies to Pocus.

On the topic of the future of dominions, and the future of Illwinter. I'm still a bit disappointed that Illwinter keeps the new project so close to their own chest. A dev blog would make most of us more interested.

[Gandalf Parker]

I can see the point of something. I dont think it would be a blog. At best, maybe a rarely updated comment text page like the Dom3 progress page is.

But everything has its pros and cons.
I do believe that such things do as much to discourage as encourage development. The smaller the development team, the larger the impact of every comment. Depending of course on the developers themselves.