Why you have an amazing community, and opportunity, right here in SotA

I really love the community here.

 

Right, then...that required some cleanup. Posts have been removed, warnings have been issued, etc. and blah.

Let's try and keep to the topic of the thread, which has to do with the quite excellent (generally speaking) community that has sprung up around SotA. Equally, let's try and keep the negativity about same, or about individual gameplay features, to a minimum. And by minimum, I mean "effectively zero".

 

Much appreciated! Back to our regularly scheduled program...

 

I had assumed you were referring to a specific piece of evidence, not just 'do a Google search'. Sure there are slews of general economic studies, but I thought you were referring to specific studies in the context of video gaming. You can't take a (debatable) phenomena in one context and then apply it to another and just assume the results are the same. I only was able to find a few peer-reviewed studies dealing with entertainment, and none of them in the context of computer games or Kickstarter.

I don't know the answer, but I can tell you how people act in "real life" does not necessarily transfer to their actions/reactions in a virtual setting. Hence my interest in this area of research.

 

Now, while there is no way I can make a judgement because I am not able to see the material that was removed, I am very concerned by censorship at any level. Unless the post was a block of profanities I would caution against removing posts, especially when users can be ignored. Removing a voice in the community is detrimental to the community, in my opinion. If all sides are not able to make their positions, objections, desires known then the community will stagnate, fracture, and diminish.

I think the changing nature of the conversation (the part I was able to follow) was key to the discussion of the opportunity of the game and the quality of the community. There is a fundamental difference between two groups within the community as to how certain aspects of the game will be shaped. If one path is chosen over the other, that will completely wreck the dynamic and shrink the participation rate. That is why this debate/argument/heated discussion is so important and why it should not require any "cleanup" assuming of course the post was not just profanity.

These positions are not mutually exclusive, working solutions can be achieved that satisfy all. The problem is that the solution that satisfies all in this particular case has not been fleshed out to the best of my knowledge. This whole PvP thing will wreck the community if its not solved in the most eloquent way.

It comes down to, as it has for a long time, two groups. One group wants risk, the other wants none. If the decision is made to remove risk, there goes a large portion of the player base in an automatic fashion. But if the decision to keep risk is made, there is no automatic loss if the mechanics are crafted carefully. Thus the way to do this is to focus on the solution that includes risk. Perhaps allow a player to make decisions that eliminate virtually all risk if he or she so chooses, but then also limit the maximum level of rewards possible for that person who chooses no risk.

The point is the discussion needs to happen, it shouldn't be squelched and the solution needs to be one that doesn't include elements that automatically eliminate people.

 

I'm not a mod here, and don't seek to speak for them, but as someone who's moderated forums before, I'd also say that topicality is important, otherwise you run the risk of the same subject being raised endlessly on unrelated threads.

That conversation does indeed need to happen and, as far as I've seen, it's being had in other places on the forum. However, in the context of this thread, that debate is entirely OT.

 

I'm not so sure its off topic. I think I made a pretty good argument for why it is perhaps of crucial importance on the topic of the quality of community and the opportunity thereof for continued quality.

 

I agree, in general, with your concerns. But the issue here is less one of censorship — there are subforums in both the General and Dev+ forums, wherein detailed and incisive discussions about every aspect of gameplay in this or any comparable game can take place — and more one of maintaining a semblance of order.

This isn't a specifically gameplay mechanics-oriented topic, or at least was not begun as such. This topic began as an attempt to give due praise to the community and fandom that have sprung up around SotA, many of whom have made some very excellent contributions and/or have done some rather notable things. There is neither a need, nor any point, to hijack the conversation into being about any particular user's disappointment with the direction any particular gameplay system seems to be headed, and indeed such discussions as those are more properly suited to the respective, topical subforum for said.

Is it censorship, then, or is it a matter of saying "not here"? One tends to think it's the latter; nobody is being prevented from voicing their displeasure with proposed game mechanics, but there are appropriate places within the forum for the airing of those concerns; venting to the somewhat captive audience of any particular thread, regardless of whether its topic pertains to the game mechanic in question, is an example of a non-appropriate approach to voicing that displeasure.

That said, there are still expectations regarding respectfulness and suchlike, which are documented in the forum rules. Use of profanity will obviously be moderated, but swearing is hardly the only form of disrespect possible in a written context. Imputing sinister or morally dubious motives to the development team, or to any other forum user or group thereof, for example, is frowned upon and will likely trigger moderator action.

 

What you say is reasonable. I was under the impression that anything would fit under the OP's spacious title, and since the OP was engaging in the back-and-forth I assumed a tacit agreement that it was appropriate.

 

There's a difference between genuine engagement and getting pulled into a tangential digression from topic.

 

On the Ignore function... a question for those that have used it. Is the ignore symmetrical or asymmetrical?
In other words, I ignore another user, can they still see and comment on what I've posted even if I have chosen not to be bothered with theirs?

Hopefully it's symmetrical, and My post will also be hidden from the user(s) I ignore.

Does anyone know?

Thanks and sorry for the minor hijack... It's a question I've been trying to get answered and others here seem to have experience with it. Even the Moderators haven't been able to tell me.

<cough> speaking of tangential digressions from topic...

 

It doesnt have to be identical to have the same effect

 

Lets test it out. Ignore/Block me. I'll come back in 5 minutes and check your posts and see if it works.

 

Done.

 

I know you cannot see this, but...I still see your posts sir.

 

But assuming that the effect is the same in a wildly different setting, without rigor is bad science.
For example, in the real world there is a justice system with punishments for crimes. In the real world this works in conjunction with a general moral compunction against harming random people passing down the street, and most people can make their way through the world without having to look over their shoulder for attackers and having the first judgement they need to make about any encounter with another person determining whether or not this person is going to attack and kill them and then loot their corpse.

In UO the same general idea doesn't work the same way.

 

Then the ignore function is asymetrical and of limited use.
Thank you for the test.

 

No, but you do have to show that the underlying mechanism is the same. I do research in economics, psychology and sociology and I can tell you that you cannot just say 'X happens in A' so 'X happens in this thing that on the surface seem kinda like A'.

I was honestly curious if there was some good research out there, because frankly this is a relatively new topic of which I know of only a handful of work being done.

 

Way off topic, but I'm very interested in how virtual culture, virtual currency, and virtual goods compare to their 'real life' counterparts. It's something that really hasn't been explored much.

 

Engaging in "back-and-forth" that regularly included telling the main offender that he was off-topic, ie: to get on topic and stop ruining the thread, or take his disappointment with the game elsewhere. Thanks.