Why do you play dominions?

[parone]

lol. but then again, it's hard to read that post and not think it was meant to be insulting. hmmm. i guess it doesn't matter though, does it?

[Foodstamp]

Winning is a lot of fun, but making it to the final stages of an MP game became something I dreaded. I would actually get anxiety if I put my turn off because I didn't want to hold up the game or ruin it for other people but I wasn't having fun doing those turns either.

The duel games Gandalf hosted were a nice change of pace, but they came with another set of issues, including people quitting the games early.

I went from someone who wanted to win in MP to someone who enjoyed the game as a simulation, pitting mod nations against one another, to someone wishing that another game would come along as exciting as Dominions was when I first got a hold of it.

That being said, I think there is enjoyment to be had at any level. This game is fun for the competitive spikes, the casual players with house rules, the modders and anyone who falls in between. I feel like I have had a chance to experience all that fun and I milked every penny's worth I could out of this game.

[YellowCactus]

I was driving down the street the other day and the car in front of me didn't go when the light turned green. After a minute, I honked my horn. The young lady driver looked back at me, flipped me the center finger, then traveled on her way. It kind of hurt my feelings. I really just wanted her to driver her D*mn car. She sort of made it personal with the hand gesture. But then I thought, maybe she's just a dumb-a$$? Anyway, I got home safe. The moral of my story is....not everyone you play with is going to be your friend.

As a third party to this little Dominions Drama, I can say that Parone's post was written in a tone which could attract attack. Fantomen responded to Parone's post with a demeaning post and her friends followed suit.

I'm sure your both great people in real life. Just don't stop your cars in my lane. I might flick you off.

[parone]

lol. how can you be so sure?

[YellowCactus]

Well, Parone is a 'Maine'iac. You guys are all weird in an awesome way!

Fantomen put a post in to patch things up. Got a cute avatar, and claims to be a viking...what's not to like?

[Lumix19]

This is not to insult Parone but do we really need to ask this question? At the most basic level we play Dominions because we enjoy it, otherwise we wouldn't play. Everything else is irrelevant really.

[parone]

lumix, im with you. i play to enjoy it. was just wondering if people had different ways of enjoying it. and got an earfull!!!!

yellow, i really do like vikings. i think i did a report on them in 5th grade, so point well taken.

also, i think a viking race would be good. i know, vanheim is supposed to be vikingy, but there all ethereal and magic and stuff. not much Odin in them. i always thought of them more like the ea Ulm build.

well, i guess i could just play ea ulm...and pretend

[Gandalf Parker]

I have played with friends, and even family members I live with. The games were very different than ones I have played with some people here.

The way that some people play, even say the game SHOULD be played, even swear that is how the game will BE played whether you want it or not.... well, it might be a good thing that we dont know them personally or consider them RL friends.

Im rather enjoying this thread. Such conversations used to get shouted down. The fact that we can even have this conversation shows some of the changes in the forum. A couple of particular attitude groups bled off and formed their own forums swearing that this one would die off. Sometimes they come back to tell us again, tell everyone to come to their forum, how much better theirs is, and generally seeming to make an effort to make this one die off.

But hey, different forums with different attitudes is what makes all of the forums better. Let everyone gravitate to whichever appeals to them and just say "good riddance".

[Fantomen]

No one ever forced anyone to play a certain way. What is being said is that certain strategies beat other strategies and if you handicap yourself with imaginary rules you won't win any games. That's not saying you should play a certain way, just that playing a certain way against good players will lose you the game. It's just like chess, refusing to use the optimal moves will lose you the game. Now if you want to win or not is up to you, just don't tell me I should play suboptimally against you just because you do.

To pit "playing for fun" against "playing to win" is a false dichotomy, everyone plays for fun. Also, most people play different kinds of games, casual games, competitive games, duels, blitzes, role playing games and so on. It is not a valid generalization to try and pin playstyles to players, especially not in the case of dom3mods and Shrapnel, because playstyle never had anything to do with the split. Heck, dom3mods was started by sombre who only plays casual "just for fun" games himself.

Complaining about other people ganking you is actually trying to force them to play differently, and so is not an example of playing differently yourself. No one is forcing you to gank anyone, and you can't tell them not to do it either.

If you don't play to win there is no reason to complain about anything anyone does to you in game either, you shouldn't care about that if you don't mind losing. So when someone complains about something under the guise of "playing diffentely", I don't really trust them. They are free to play differently without complaining, or to arrange their own games according to their own preferences. So why complain unless you actually want to win and are trying to force others to handicap themselves so your own suboptimal play stands a chance.

Regarding the forums, they are interfaces to the same community. You can make up imaginary differencies but you're kidding yourself if you're expecting different responses to the same questions. Especially if you bring a discussion from one forum to the other, it makes to difference where it is, it's largely the same people reading it. I don't think anyone is trying to kill this forum or any other, that's pure conjecture, probably trolling. It wasn't a group of a particular attitude that "bled off", it was a few people forced to set up an alternative because they were banned. Everyone would have preferred to stay here originally, both the idea that someone is enforcing a certain way to play or that anyone is trying to kill any forum is just conspiracy theories.

It's true that there was a grudge with Shrapnel the company, because of the bannings, but there was never a grudge with the forum itself, and since Shrapnel is out of the picture both in terms of distribution and moderation (they don't even answer support tickets anymore, so we can assume the forum is largely unmoderated by now), there are no actual barriers left.

[Edi]

With regard to moderation, this forum is still moderated. It's not quite as active as it was, with more activity shifting to other places, but it is still regularly checked and all reports are checked.

I never resigned my moderatorship of the Dominions 3 forums here, so I'm still doing it when moderator intervention is required. And when it's required, I'll moderate according to the guidelines set by Shrapnel Games.

In this instance it is, in my opinion, a good thing, because both the old official forum and the new official forum are thus managed by the same person, which ensures both a continuity of the community and a consistency of approach and behavior. I would prefer it if everyone refrained from fanning flames between different forum groups.

The Dominions 3 community (the community that originally formed here at any rate) has had quite enough shocks, upheavals and the broader community (with an influx of new people from various other corners of the net on the new official forum) does not need the resurrection of old grudges and interpersonal conflicts from here in any way, shape or form. The user base from here (including the people banned from here and who largely congregate at Dom3Mods) is a large, fairly coherent group that makes up a lot of the activity in the community, which will inevitably have an impact across forum borders if people do not keep that in mind.

The bottom line most of the time is that whatever happens at other boards is the business of those other boards and nothing to do with this one unless that business is deliberately brought over and/or intentionally made to have an impact (such as organizing board invasions or the like). Note that this statement is general in nature and would or should apply on almost any forum where it is posted.

In this case the roots of this thread are in what happened at another community, so discussion of some cross-forum business is practically inevitable in it. And as long as it stays reasonable, it's not a problem.