SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread VII

[Simon_Jester]

I tell you what, Klavo, if it's a problem.

Just post what happened, rather than trying to write the story of it happening. That can be reserved as bonus material if possible, or dropped if you really Can Not Finish it.

Trying to be an author and failing isn't worth the trouble.

[Siege]

First of all I don't believe there is such a thing as "flogging a dead horse" when reminding people of their commitments, particularly when their failure to fulfill them means other players are left hanging indefinitely.

Secondly, if it's names you want: Ryan, Klavo, Rogue, everybody committed to chasing the Byzantines, everybody involved in that Alpha Centauri piece that still isn't finished, hell, all those involved in the stomp who failed to produce anything worthy of mention -- there's plenty blame to go around.

Sure, life can get in the way, but if that happens the very least I expect is that people own up to that fact and seek ways to resolve their ongoing affairs. As long as that doesn't happen I'm going to keep calling them on it. Because four months without even a hint of effort just smacks of bone-idleness.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Secondly, if it's names you want: Ryan, Klavo, Rogue, everybody committed to chasing the Byzantines, everybody involved in that Alpha Centauri piece that still isn't finished, hell, all those involved in the stomp who failed to produce anything worthy of mention -- there's plenty blame to go around.

Funny you mention those two storylines. First, I have considered just writing the entire Byzantine pursuit on my own and seeing how everyone else reacts to it; now that I have I actually have some time to kill, I might as well. Second, as one of the involved parties in the Alpha Centauri debacle, I'm willing to own up to my own idleness. Belka and Ford Prefect's Nation will be getting their due soon, hopefully.

[Force Lord]

Anyone up for some Congress of Earth/Nova Terra?

[Simon_Jester]

Shinn, I'd encourage you to write the pursuit.

[modhat on]

I hereby declare Ryan and Klavo to have abdicated their right to determine the outcome of the chase, due to prolonged absence. They should be consulted to at least some degree, in the sense that this is preferable; they have what might be called a "legitimate interest" in the outcome. But they no longer have a right to share creative control on equal terms with the players running the nations they are chasing.

I do not think it would be wronging them to basically declare what happens, and I do not expect anyone to wait on their writing any longer.

[modhat off]

FL, I'll put out a Umerian response for you this afternoon or evening. Perhaps the advice of an experienced (oh how experienced) diplomatician would be of help...

First of all I don't believe there is such a thing as "flogging a dead horse" when reminding people of their commitments, particularly when their failure to fulfill them means other players are left hanging indefinitely.

Whether the horse is dead depends on the nature of one's expectations.

There are people in this game I would undertake to co-write a story of thirty thousand words with. There are people in this game I would never undertake to do it with. Expecting that level of prolific writing out of the people who are never going to pull it off does leave you in the position of, oh, choose your metaphor- getting water from a stone, flogging a dead horse, et cetera.

Expecting some kind of plot resolution, though, that's another and fairer matter.

Secondly, if it's names you want: Ryan, Klavo, Rogue, everybody committed to chasing the Byzantines, everybody involved in that Alpha Centauri piece that still isn't finished, hell, all those involved in the stomp who failed to produce anything worthy of mention -- there's plenty blame to go around.

True- speaking for the Alpha Centauri piece, I've got most of the part I'm personally responsible for done, but only most- will see to it.

I'll also try to put some pressure on Ryan and Klavo. Rogue is not committed to chasing the Byzantines.

Sure, life can get in the way, but if that happens the very least I expect is that people own up to that fact and seek ways to resolve their ongoing affairs. As long as that doesn't happen I'm going to keep calling them on it. Because four months without even a hint of effort just smacks of bone-idleness.

I don't disagree- and actually, if you want to call people out with frequency and force proportionate to the degree to which they cause the problem...

[modhat on]

Go for it.

[modhat off]

[Siege]

Simon, I think you'll find that of the people I mentioned by name I expect very little indeed. But when they cannot even manage that pathetic quantum of effort that makes their failure to live up to commitments all the more egregious. I don't expect vast tracts of prose: I expect a bare minimum effort. We didn't get a bare minimum effort, we got nothing at all. If they can't even manage an "and it came to pass in those days..." rundown of what went down over the course of four months, then I wonder what those players think they're doing in this game.

[Ryan Thunder]

Simon, I think you'll find that of the people I mentioned by name I expect very little indeed. But when they cannot even manage that pathetic quantum of effort that makes their failure to live up to commitments all the more egregious. I don't expect vast tracts of prose: I expect a bare minimum effort. We didn't get a bare minimum effort, we got nothing at all. If they can't even manage an "and it came to pass in those days..." rundown of what went down over the course of four months, then I wonder what those players think they're doing in this game.

Attempting to write vast tracts of prose and then trashing it because they don't feel it does the parties involved justice.

There is also an understanding that the prose must be of good quality when dealing with other players with conflicting interests. I could easily say, "haruhiist battle force run down by Miratian interceptors" but i'm pretty confident that somebody would contest that and it would be turned down.

[Ryan Thunder]

Anyway, if you are fine with me just stating how I expect things to go instead of writing a bunch of prose, I am perfectly willing to do that. I have refrained from it because I thought you expected more.

This isn't to point fingers at anybody by the way. I'm only explaining what's going on from my perspective.

[Siege]

It is my opinion that you have lost the right to be involved in a significant way in the outcome of the chase, and Simon's earlier modhat statement mirrors that sentiment. We're at the point where I believe we either get things back on the road quick or we might as well give the whole thing up as a bad job, if it's not too late already. So I don't personally mind listening to what you had in mind for all this time but I don't feel Shinn et al should be required to pay particular heed to it. That's what you get for wasting four bloody months.

[Agent Sorchus]

Guys I have to say that the game is essentially dead. The problems are many, and essentially come down to the pace was slower than fucking real life. I cannot and will not participate in a game that has no going forwards. The other problem is that The entirety of fucking CN's nation and the subsequent beat-down was boring and full of no good things.

IF the game is to continue in this path I have only one more thing to do with it, and is my planned last post as of when I first thought up my nation. However I think it might behoove us to consider that we could just skip 5 years into the future and not write the intervening time at all. We would still have the mess of CN's nation pushing international tensions (Though for people like Siege who have more personal story-lines they want to engage in that have started I have no problem with those stories being posted.) It is just that the state of things has stalled too long to keep interest.

But hey on looking back I consider that the biggest single mistake of the game was not having the mods eliminate CN rather than the players. Ruins a good bit of story telling because everyone put everything aside to smite the idiot. (Which I know irritated Siege and some others who wanted to sit on the sidelines even though this delayed everything.)

Does anyone else think we should have a time jump in a new thread while leaving this one open for tying up loose threads?

[Simon_Jester]

The time jump is not, in itself, a bad idea, Sorchus, but I want a good deal of feedback on it.

Thinking it over... a shorter time jump might actually be better if we're trying to reboot, though. Because it avoids the question of "and what the hell were you doing for five years?" And it lets people with personal storylines pick them up as if nothing had happened- heck, they can write through a six month time jump without it being totally unreasonable.

"Six months have passed since the MEH war, and the situation among those stars has stabilized" would let us simply take things like White Haven's invasion plans and shift them forward in time a bit. Plotlines that have an actual future could be moved to begin in 3402 instead of early to mid-3401.

Then again, I really don't know what to do with this game that can actually work at this point. For myself, I have a few ideas that are almost purely internal, the countries actually surrounding my nation lost interest months and months ago, and my writing energy has gotten mugged by reality.

...

The question of pacing is a legitimate issue, and I have not been helpful with that. Then again, honestly a lot of people weren't even using the time they had; if one won't write more than two or three things happening to a nation during one year of game time that takes eight months of real time, I doubt one is suddenly going to write a dozen things happening to that nation just because eight months of real time now mean five years of game time.

The criticism of mod conduct regarding CN and the MEH is, I think, also valid (I messed up there too). In hindsight what we saw is a refutation of the idea of a player-enforced Norseman Rule; having players drop what they're doing to beat up an obnoxious fool doesn't make for good gameplay, and I think Siege and others were right to call it that way ahead of time.

Attempting to write vast tracts of prose and then trashing it because they don't feel it does the parties involved justice.

There is also an understanding that the prose must be of good quality when dealing with other players with conflicting interests. I could easily say, "haruhiist battle force run down by Miratian interceptors" but i'm pretty confident that somebody would contest that and it would be turned down.

You're being your own worst enemy here, I think. Quality of prose is an issue, potentially, but everyone involved would rather have had an answer within a week in bad prose then than a literary masterpiece now. Whether Sorchus is right about this game being beyond resuscitation or not, sitting on something for four months is a good way to kill it, whether it's games or anything else.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The simplest way to go forward, is to deal with the chase, and we move on from there. It doesn't matter whether we have a time skip or not. Deal with the chase. A single one line sentence ought to do the trick with minimum flair. If you want flair, by all means write it.

Or we can just let inertia do the job of killing the game, because I sure as hell am lacking enthusiasm for a lot of things lately and I know at least a few share that sentiment.

[Agent Sorchus]

However you want to fix this it needs to be done now. It is the holidays and people might actually have some time if they want to continue with this.

Also Simon, I want more than Six months because we have done that level of time leaps before in this game, mostly so people can 'prepare' in universe for coming events. This should be nothing of the like. It should be a legitimate jump forward so that things can happen out of the limelight and things can effectively change. More time for events to potentially have happened to change up the status quo is a decent thing. Also a greater jump allows for more players to return if they wish since they have to be atop recent events far less than a short jump.

I'm just going to float an idea from way back in the original discussion thread. Redo the maps and make active players a little closer. Eliminate the ADHD states so that people can have active neighbors. No this isn't in universe a good idea, but screw that. Keep the idea of the map the same but shake up locations.

Also I would do this but I do not care that much if the game were to come back (rather I want it to either come back or for life-support to be aborted with Do Not Resuscitate written in bold), but perhaps a PM survey of interest is in order? PMs simply because I doubt most players who have left even come close to reading this forum.

[Siege]

I don't know if the game can be saved, but I'm willing to give it a try; FL's idea of a summit could be a way of gauging interest and generating a few new leads to pursue. I don't mind a timejump of a few years (my storylines are not dated so they do not hinge on being set in any particular year), and I'll also echo the call for giving the map a once-over.

[Force Lord]

Gah. Word of warning, guys, today my mom confiscated my laptop while I was asleep (she thought I was using it too much) and hid it somewhere. Since the laptop is where I installed AIM, my ways of communicating with you will be limited to this forum as well as PMs. I'm now using the family computer, but it's in my sister's room and my sister sometimes closes the door to it when she's in, so the only other way for me to know what's going on here would be through my video game consoles, an awkward way to do things. I may have free time, but taking advantage of it will be more difficult without my laptop to use. Just FYI.

[Simon_Jester]

I've sometimes written bits of post drafts by hand when away from a computer and typed them in. It doesn't work well for long pieces, but you've been quite successful at getting things done in-game without running to thousands of words of prose, FL.

So you might choose to try that.

I don't know if the game can be saved, but I'm willing to give it a try; FL's idea of a summit could be a way of gauging interest and generating a few new leads to pursue. I don't mind a timejump of a few years (my storylines are not dated so they do not hinge on being set in any particular year), and I'll also echo the call for giving the map a once-over.

I'm a little reluctant to reshuffle the map, because finding an arrangement we can agree on would be difficult and because it could easily 'invalidate' a lot of past story-lines. I don't really want Umeria's interactions with the Prussian League to become a "never-was," even though LoC9 is no longer actually playing the game. Likewise, the Koprulu Zone and its immediate neighbors have so much history between them that rearranging them would do more harm than good- what would Solarians be without Bragulans, or vice versa?

However you want to fix this it needs to be done now. It is the holidays and people might actually have some time if they want to continue with this.

This is a good point- if we want to jump-start, let us jump-start now.

Also Simon, I want more than Six months because we have done that level of time leaps before in this game, mostly so people can 'prepare' in universe for coming events.

...I am sincerely confused by what you are talking about. When have we fast-forwarded as much as six months with the implication that you're not welcome and encouraged to have things happening 'inside' the jump?

The most we've done is jump from one quarter of the year to the next, and even then the jumps are non-explicit.

This should be nothing of the like. It should be a legitimate jump forward so that things can happen out of the limelight and things can effectively change. More time for events to potentially have happened to change up the status quo is a decent thing. Also a greater jump allows for more players to return if they wish since they have to be atop recent events far less than a short jump.

Thing is, I think I'd rather permit the choice- you can choose to have your nation continue arcs it was already involved in, or choose not to.

White Haven just invaded a neighboring state- granted, one the DM has to run, but he surely has the right to some input on the question of whether the war takes place six months after all the previous stuff he wrote happening in his game, or five years.

Also I would do this but I do not care that much if the game were to come back (rather I want it to either come back or for life-support to be aborted with Do Not Resuscitate written in bold), but perhaps a PM survey of interest is in order? PMs simply because I doubt most players who have left even come close to reading this forum.

I'd have to make room in my PM box before doing this because I expect more replies than I routinely keep openings (I have a lot of back PMs archived). But I could do that.

I'm just going to float an idea from way back in the original discussion thread. Redo the maps and make active players a little closer. Eliminate the ADHD states so that people can have active neighbors. No this isn't in universe a good idea, but screw that. Keep the idea of the map the same but shake up locations.

If we're going to do that... we don't we just openly declare intent to start SDNW5, negotiate a new (rather loose) ruleset, and start over from scratch, with some of us possibly playing essentially the same nations but in a new strategic context?

If we're going to redraw the map from scratch, I think we might as well start over because any major changes to the map would be game-changing for the active players; imagine if you suddenly found yourself next door to the Koprulu Zone.

[KlavoHunter]

Well, finals should just about be over for everyone, and we'll have some holidays to enjoy and get some un-stressed writing time in, and pick the game back up from where we left it. Would it be too much to hope for a Real BEEEFmas Miracle? Maybe even Shroomie Claws will grace us again with his presence!

[RogueIce]

But hey on looking back I consider that the biggest single mistake of the game was not having the mods eliminate CN rather than the players. Ruins a good bit of story telling because everyone put everything aside to smite the idiot. (Which I know irritated Siege and some others who wanted to sit on the sidelines even though this delayed everything.)

I would like to take a moment to be smug and say that I (as a mod) wanted to do this over the MEH stomp, but not everyone agreed.

So there.

But I'm not going to blame anyone for that, because what's the point? We can all point fingers at various people and various things, but it won't help.

That said, I will offer a mea culpa to you all. There was, in fact, an OOC agreement made on the chase thing, of sorts: the Klavos and IUW were allowed to catch one of the running fleets, but nobody important was aboard (at least, that's my memory of it). Unfortunately, that was not communicated in here or the IC thread. So, sorry from me and everyone else involved on that.

Of course, whether that's still being held to, I have no idea.

Anyway...

I think that condensing the map is a good idea. With that though, it might as well be a reboot of the game. Maybe not a hard reboot, but a soft one. I mean, nothing says you can't continue on with your current nation as it is, and hey, if your neighbors or whoever you interacted with continue on as well, not a whole lot will have changed in writing terms.

Still, I think it's a good idea to do a map cleaning, and thus a bit of a reshuffle of things. Both to clear out the never-were players, as well as give a chance for players (like me) who were involved but have found, for various reasons, that the ability/will/desire to continue on is not there - without having to burden Simon or whoever with what to do with the "empty" nations. Plus, clearing up map space would certainly help if you want to look for new players, which is itself probably not a bad idea, and a reboot (of sorts) would make letting them come in a little easier; plus the extra map space makes for an easier situation than trying to fit them into the limited space we have now.

So, yes, I am kind of advocating putting SDNW4 (as it presently stands) to bed. But that doesn't mean declaring it dead. Call it SDNW4.5 or whatever, if you want. Like I said, you can certainly keep your countries and interactions (if your neighbors follow along) intact and make it as It Happened. Letting you use most, if not all, of what was written.

Now, that said, rebooting is probably unavoidable. But it doesn't mean a total waste of what was written. I mean, I think we'd agree that the MEH stomp was a Bad Idea, and that and events surrounding it can certainly go away. But that doesn't mean total abandonment: you could still have the Eye and stuff there, though perhaps with a new history of How It Came To Be as one example. And, of course, you're free to shuffle up international relations to whatever degree you choose if there's a New Start, as it were.

But really, for most of the individual stories done, how vital is the MEH stomp? To be certain, I can't say anything about what you've got planned or in the works, but I don't think it would require a total scrapping. You can - once you've gotten a handle on who's going to be staying, who will be going, and maybe who will be joining - massage the Galactic History to suit.

And it might not hurt to do some rule massages. I don't think a total rewrite is needed; most of the basic mechanics work well enough (the abstracted point system) but maybe a chance to clarify certain points and put people on the same page.

But this is just an idea, leaving it here for discussion and I'll respond if I can or whatever. But yes, I am more-or-less advocating a reset (soft or hard) and remaking of the game as SDNW4.5 or even SDNW5, whichever you prefer. I honestly think that'd be better than just a time skip, because we all know there are empty nations out there and I think it would help to fix that. In the process, I also feel it'd be unavoidable to invoke 'reboot' by doing so. So that's what I'm essentially proposing. The scope of said reboot is what's left for those who can continue on.

Though I will not, of course, exclude those of us who did participate, even if we don't plan on it in the future. I think that is nonetheless an important voice to be heard: we do, still, have a stake in the game after all. Even if it is to allow ourselves a graceful exit instead of leaving an empty NPC nation on the map.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, let's give it a little time before we decide on that- maybe see if we can get things rolling again without Drastic Measures over the next week or two.

I'm willing to discuss Drastic Measures (i.e. a reboot/new game), and maybe soon I should start a thread about 'lessons learned' and what we might try to do right in the next game in terms of the rules and mod style to keep things from going wrong the same way twice.

But I don't think that's necessary yet- just an interesting and plausible idea to consider.

[RogueIce]

So, with what I said above about bowing out, Talking with Simon changed my mind. As far as a total leave the game, anyway, which I'd rather not do.

That said, I would continue on, as Simon puts it, "As a relatively low-pressure thing." I would still like to participate in the metaplot as it continues, maybe poke my nation's head up if somebody wants to collab and/or I get individually motivated and approach someone else, that sort of thing. But certainly not a major role.

Which, yes, I kind of assumed with the MEH stomp and I realize now, with hindsight, was a bad idea on my part. So I'm sorry. I own up to my mistake and now I know better. Don't know what else I can say other than I'm sorry.

Still, that massive of a so-called "collaborative effort" probably isn't a great idea to begin with, unless there is a very compelling reason for it. The MEH did not provide such a reason. Not that big storylines or players working together is bad, but I think to involve that many people on something carries with it great risk, and we should certainly carefully consider the outcomes before embarking on something like that again. Because with that many people involved, even one player being tardy can grind the whole thing to a halt. And with so many players involved, it naturally creates implications in the aftermath that can affect even uninvolved players.

As we have, of course, seen demonstrated.

So personally, I'm in favor of just retconning the MEH stomp itself. But that's up to you guys. I'm not averse to just having a time skip with a quick "Here's what happened" either.

As far as altering the map goes, however, I do think to do so requires a retcon/reboot of some sort by the very nature of doing so, because we'll be taking out nations that, in theory, should have existed and now no longer do, as if they never were. As well as, of course, if you change positions and find yourself with new neighbors. Now, clearly, how much of a retcon/reboot this entails depends on who and what gets changed around. But if we go down that road, we might as well examine it fully.

[Agent Sorchus]

I'll get back to some of this more tomorrow but This one little part I want to snip and snipe apart from the rest.

I'm a little reluctant to reshuffle the map, because finding an arrangement we can agree on would be difficult and because it could easily 'invalidate' a lot of past story-lines. I don't really want Umeria's interactions with the Prussian League to become a "never-was," even though LoC9 is no longer actually playing the game. Likewise, the Koprulu Zone and its immediate neighbors have so much history between them that rearranging them would do more harm than good- what would Solarians be without Bragulans, or vice versa?

The prussians are the worst example you could have given since they have almost nothing in story that wasn't written by you to make them look worse. A way to work around them is to fold a number of similar states into one with parts of all, like the RIS and prussians and some others* into one nation and where we refer to any it would be known that the collectivized nation is the one referenced to now.

*no i dont' know who else might be folded, all I remember is that the RIS is the nation of a banned member and can easily be gotten rid of as I am sure there are others like it.

[Simon_Jester]

The prussians are the worst example you could have given since they have almost nothing in story that wasn't written by you to make them look worse.

I must protest that when LoC9 was involved in the story, he was quite capable of making himself look worse, and that I at least managed to come up with some Prussian characters who had sympathetic characterization. While yes, I did create a few too many 'idiocracy' people out of Prussia; I was caught in a bind in both cases where I did so, and my writing skills were even less practiced then than they are nwo.

A way to work around them is to fold a number of similar states into one with parts of all, like the RIS and prussians and some others* into one nation and where we refer to any it would be known that the collectivized nation is the one referenced to now.

*no i dont' know who else might be folded, all I remember is that the RIS is the nation of a banned member and can easily be gotten rid of as I am sure there are others like it.

The RIS got retconned out of existence, basically.

One problem with this is that I can't figure out a way to rearrange the map to put all the active players close together that doesn't drastically alter the geometry. We can't simply, say, delete rows 11 through 20 and squash the two halves of the map together. So whatever 'new map' I or anyone comes up with will be the subject of extensive debate, much more so than the original map which evolved organically over time.

Another problem is that national histories and strategic postures change when they get new neighbors. Suppose I move Umeria right next door to the Refuge? The Refuge is actually quite paranoid and suspicious about Umerians and their transgressive mad science habits; this would change Refuge strategic posture, because the consequences of having Umeria on their coreward border are different (in their eyes) than the consequences of having the defunct League of Free Stars or the Hiigarans there.

These problems aren't insurmountable, mind you. But between them, we'd have to retcon out much of the game history and (if we care about consistency) retcon in all sorts of things that no one mentioned before when the map was drawn differently.

At which point we might as well call our massive exercise in retconning and reshuffling "SDNW5." Then we could take the opportunity to make resolutions about what not to do that messed us up before, to bring in new players who could add something good to the table (I have one candidate in mind at least), to reinvent our nation-concepts if we choose while preserving SDNW4 material as fluff if we choose to do that instead.

That's about what was done between SDNW1 and 2: most everyone started over on a new world, along with a number of new players, and with the freedom to add or subtract whatever features they chose from their old SDNW1 national 'canon.'

[KhorneFlakes]

Simon, a few posts ago, summed up what has happened I believe is happening to everyone. RL is sapping my creative energy and time. I dunno about a SDNW5 - I think that if people want to, we should probably finish up the storyline about the EYE OF TERRA and the MEH, but given how much people seem to be having the same troubles as me, I think it may be a good idea to simply retcon the MEH issue if we can't come up with a reasonable idea to deal with the MEH storyline and the plot issue of the aforementioned EYE OF TERRA.

When I think about it, I'm fairly divided on the issue. I'm not sure what we should try to do. Maybe going onto SDNW5 instead of trying to fix to current situation with all the retcons and story issues and stuff might be our best idea.

You get what I mean? I think the real issue, as I said in my first paragraph, is that no one really has the time or the creative energy at the moment to help fix things. SDNW4 isn't dead, but it's slowed down and none of us really seem to be available enough to commit themselves to the game. Maybe we should just take a breather, so to speak, and wait until people have the time again.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not opposed to taking a breather, either- but I want us to think about this.

Personally, I'm not sure that "finishing the MEH" would be a good plan. As a storyline, the entire MEH war has been beset by delays, bad-spirited behavior, mutual hostility and suspicion among the players, and slow writing. Letting people devise their own storylines as if the MEH had never existed would probably work better, as would simply declaring the MEH war and its aftermath over and the situation in those sectors "stabilized."


Also, even if the game has 'slowed down,' this shouldn't prevent people from posting even if they do so infrequently- if we all somehow agreed to stop posting at all, what's the guarantee that we'd ever feel like starting again? Would we start again all at the same time, or would we have a few people ready while others were unready? Would we be waiting up for people who post little or nothing for many months at a time? Because surely then the people who are more prolific will simply get bored and move on to other things, neglecting the game entirely.

[Siege]

Obviously a map reshuffle should be done by excising those portions of the map not used and drawing those that are closer to one another. So the K-Zone stays; so do Umeria and Prussia, but the three would end up closer together, so as to increase the potential for interaction, and to do away with the current state of "who gives a hoot about those people they're on the other side of Known Space".