STGOD 2k8 Moderators

[Beowulf]

Since it appears that half the moderators in the last game won't be doing so in this one, we should determine who should moderate this one.

[Academia Nut]

Well, since he seems to have taken a bit of control already, might as well nominate Hotfoot. And while I'm not sure if he would want it or not, I suppose I should at least mention the fact that Covenant has been doing a lot of good work in the planning threads too.

[Dark Hellion]

I would like to second Covenant if he would accept it. He has been willing to really lock horns on issues, and come up with solutions to those conflicts.

[Covenant]

I'd nominate Hotfoot and Nitram, and while I won't issue a Sherman statement, I'm not going to nominate myself. I've been an eager poster but I wouldn't want my vision for what the game should be to ruin other people's fun. It's not like I'm automatically qualified just because I've yelled a lot, but that'd be up for the other modders to decide.

[Academia Nut]

Dude, yelling is what mods do. The fact that you're right most of the time is why we think you could make a good mod. Still, it's up to others to voice their opinion on your worthiness.

[Adrian Laguna]

*nominates Beowulf*

Because someone needs to balance Hotfoot, the man's rulering up the place too much.

Beowulf for mod!

A vote for Beowulf is a vote for fun!

Hotfoot = Scrooge!

Beowulf for mod!

[SirNitram]

I'm going to have to oppose Beowulf, on the basic fact that he tends to get sudden cases of absenteism due to his employment. It'd be best if the mods don't have a record of vanishing suddenly.

[Spyder]

Seconding Nitram.

[rhoenix]

Seconding Hotfoot.

[Beowulf]

I'm going to have to oppose Beowulf, on the basic fact that he tends to get sudden cases of absenteism due to his employment. It'd be best if the mods don't have a record of vanishing suddenly.

Since when? Cases implies plural. The only time I've disappeared is when I left for basic.

[A-Wing_Slash]

Hotfoot, Nitram, Covenant, and Beowulf have all been nominated and seconded. I've no problem with any of them, but it would seem proper to get a consensus and possibly a vote on who we want moderating. Any thoughts?

Also, can we run with four, or do we need an odd number of mods so that they can settle inter-moderator disputes?

[Covenant]

I wouldn't think there's going to be much Moderator on Moderator action. I think it's pretty fair for people not to moderate on issues they themselves feel extremely strongly about--and so long as people don't make sweeping pronouncements and stick to specific instances, even a goofy ruling won't be more than a momentary trouble.

[Academia Nut]

I approve of all these mods, although so far only Covenant and Beowulf have actually showed up lately in the threads, so one wonders if they are still interested in the job. Nitram will probably show up, but Hotfoot has been pretty quiet lately. If Hotfoot does decide he wants the job, then the fact that he doesn't appear to be playing would help with any mod disputes as he would be the "neutral" party in any in-game disputes, I would hope.

[SirNitram]

The main reason I've stepped back on the rules discussions is very simple: Last time I stepped in, people thought I was issuing a Moderator Decree when I was tossing my opinion in.

[Academia Nut]

Okay cool, although we would have listened to you like bright eyed children listening to the wisdom of their elder had you deigned to speak. We want you as a mod because you are experienced and have much sage advice to pass on.

[SirNitram]

Okay cool, although we would have listened to you like bright eyed children listening to the wisdom of their elder had you deigned to speak. We want you as a mod because you are experienced and have much sage advice to pass on.

The problem is that I've never regarded the SDNet STGODs as really successful. Here's what I find the troublesome parts:

1) Bangbus. No attempt at rules has really addressed the fact it's a reverse-prisoner's dileema. We try, but it remains the same: Commit enough forces to bring someone down, and you'll promptly be savaged by a group of people who apparently can spool up from standstill to war in an eyeblink.

2) Ridiculously drawn out diplomatics. If you only have one or two lines in a post, it's my personal feeling you should be violently stabbed. And the people who very obviously try to draw out negotiations into multi-page affairs are just as bad. It fucks up the rhythym of the game, especially when two people are trying to get their war on, but someone complains their nation, in these lengthy negotiations that have to go into the main thread, is behind.

3) Monolithic alliances. Because some people are more interested in some conceptualization of 'winning', we get ridiculous alliances that simply serve to prevent war.

ANd then there's the personal peeves.

4) Carbon-copy races. Is Dahak playing? He's playing people who download themselves and never have to worry about silly things like dying. Rogue's in? Here comes Nashtar, same as always. The sheer lack of creativity here is galling. Creativity is not pulling planet names from your ass. Creativity is coming up with different societies.

5) The one-shot nature. It's a continuous single thread, or it dies. No one ever puts it away until everyone has a while free. This results in people wandering off, or becoming bored with 2 and 3, or any number of problems.

[Academia Nut]

Well at least we know your opinion on that subject. I suppose at least with this game the guys leading the charge are primarily the newbies so we haven't worn out our imaginations yet. And at least we've gone into this with the objective of "Let's make this game a fucking blood bath". And at least now that you've shown your ire for the slow diplomacy there will be encouragement to work things out beforehand. There definitely won't be any galactic summits this time either.

[Beowulf]

I think part of the problem with 1 is the lack of epicness... essentially, because powers aren't big enough, losing a bit is the same as losing a lot, because the result is the power is gone.

I mean we used to have text such as:

The Raian's suidical attack on Halite's shield had momentarilly
distracted the Atlantean forces. Two billion warships, and it would take
some time to kill them all, even with ships as stupendous as Fourth
Empire Planatoids. But in many ways, the technology of the Fourth Empire
was less sophisticated than their Milky Way counterparts, and there was
indeed a glaring deficiency in sensors.

[Covenant]

The problem with getting rid of extended diplomacy while also removing the idea that someone can 'win' is that you have a game with no purpose other than writing extended combat sequences that have no real meaning. There needs to be some kind of goal for people to aspire to. I'm not saying that I like diplomacy (I'm deliberately creating a somewhat bizzare faction just so I can avoid the talky talky posts), but making injunctions against it would really keep people away.

I'd be all for running these things like a wargame, with very little dialogue and just a lot of action, but then we need to either ramp up the speed of the game dramatically and allow for a foe to be crushed and removed... or what? People are generally too hesitant to do much of anything, but besides turning the moderators into Sauron and The Emperor out to stir up trouble and cause the players to fight with each-other, the best we can do is provide a carrot for attackers and hope to get the ball rolling.

Epicness would be fine too... people just need to agree. Honestly the theme is not something imposed on us. We can do any setting we like. Part of the reason I pushed for a fantasy TGOD was because you could have million-man armies slugging it out across vast fields of war, and it'd be pretty epic, and it'd also be something new.

Are people playing for some reason other than combat? Are they playing so that they can protect their balls long enough for everyone else to fight, so they can plant their flag on the heap of corpses and 'win', or so that they can get involved in a seriously big battle somewhere and have some fun? I'd like to get some warring going.

[SirNitram]

Note that I'm not saying 'No diplomacy' or 'No trying to 'win''. I'm saying that diplomacy where it becomes one-liner back and forths that hold up the game while you could have used PMs, IMs, or what-have-you is bad. I'm saying the bangbus is bad.

And Beowulf has something of a point. We are left with games that feel very small.

[Covenant]

Well, let's open the patient back up and heal what ills him. Seriously, the Empire idea crumbled as soon as a million people wanted their own pet nations shoehorned into the plot rather than taking a scoop of Imperial and adding their special sprinkles to it. It's obvious it's not a good fit.

Instead of an Empire that sits in a small 50 ly bubble or whatever, let's make one that spans several galaxies and was some sort of 'elder races' alliance that's now just gone all to shit. People can keep the Empires they have, we'll allow ships up to 100 points in size, add an extra zero to the monthly production, and a reinforce the 'aggressor' bonus to apply only to those people who begin their first battle on foreign soil (essentially).

How would that sound?

I don't like the carbon-copy Empires either, or the too heavily "This Is Based On a Sci-Fi Show" Empires either, but I don't want to get yelled at, so I won't make any mention of 'real' aliens or anything. If we open things up to really bizzare or really mundane both, and throw in large doses of epic, that might help people out.

...would anyone offer me bonus points if I promised to throw my entire starting fleet at someone? ;D

[Beowulf]

Also need another zero to the initial fleet size if we do that. Otherwise, we'd be able to build about 4x the initial fleet size in the first turn.

I'm also a tad annoyed at the carbon copy nations. I at least attempt to file the serial numbers off the pieces I stole, as well as trying to steal widely. Lots of writers do so. I think there's 3-4 different places I stole from for this one. Now those that manage an interesting twist, I don't have a problem with. Both the Ruckers and the Haruhi fleet are interesting twists.

[Covenant]

Partially, people want to do more humorous nations. Partially there's no established theme so one person can make Potato Men from Mars inspired by Dr. Who while someone else is making something gritty and grim like what happens when Admiral Adama plays Warhammer 40k. These don't always mesh well. And admittedly, few people are free from criticism--it's not even originality, really. Certain people have pet Empires or pet themes that they like and want to continue playing. I don't want to be an ass, but even the Enclave is something Nitram brings up a lot, and in various forms, and last time I copied the idea of my Empire right off of a Calvin and Hobbes comic.

That might annoy someone. As was said, sometimes you can run with it and make it work. It's hard to tell people they can't be an Empire of their choosing though. Asking them to make up an Entire society can be hard to swallow, especially if it may be utterly destroyed by a few stupid mistakes or a bangbus. Nobody wants their darlings obliterated by a few retards from nextdoor.

[Academia Nut]

Scrapping the setting might be a tad much, but increasing the points by an order of magnitude might not be a bad idea if people are concerned that there will be a lack of epic feel. We will probably have to either jump up the planet sizes or their production (and thus defensive) capacities by an order of magnitude as well.

Although at some point you're just throwing big numbers around. At least Neph had the right idea last game that you can have a 1pt unit with thousands of ships in it. Really, really crappy ships, but the point still stands. You can make a fight epic if you have two ships or two billion, it just depends on how you portray it.

And I intend to make everything epic. Including view point characters writing about how their day went

[SirNitram]

A better idea there, Covenant, is to simply replace 'ships' with 'fleets'. A 1 point fleet would be pirate chasers. A 50 point one would be the biggest collection of heavy warships most nations can field. Replace 'Oversized shipyards' with something representing an ease of creating vastly larger flotillas.