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Adrienne

Awards Committee
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Everything posted by Adrienne

  1. I think you need to take a look at those posts again, friend. Morf can expand on his first point himself if he so desires. In regards to the second, he wasn't referring to Grumpy. Y'all splattered that over every conceivable platform you could post split. He was referring to TI. I just can't help but think the greater issue is that either you can't read or you are willfully misunderstanding things. Or both. An illiterate person who willfully misunderstands things. Parti, we can do better, friend. 😘
  2. I don't know how you can say that when you look at the posts the man has to respond to. Something something remove the log from your own eye first....
  3. Unless you're in TKR... suckaaaaas
  4. Congratulations to your FA gov on their extended vacation. If you can't escape, at least someone got to.
  5. No, that was part of the point and one we've already agreed on 😛 You quoted my agreement even lol
  6. I don't think we're an exception. We're hardly the only alliance to have not shrunk over the years. My point is that if alliances have shrinking govs, that's a sign of other issues. It isn't due to increased technology alone. If it's temporary, might just be internal instability. Everyone has that from time to time. If it's permanent, that might be indicative of an over reliance on bots. That doesn't make all bots bad for the game or game health, just means some folks need to get their shit together and recognize that bots are tools, not replacements. I had just made high gov when you left. I've gone through the whole cycle since, to 2IC, leader, and been retired for nearly 2 years now haha. Time flies, indeed.
  7. Yes, we've always had a large gov. That doesn't negate the fact that our alliance gov hasn't shrunk because of increased technology. It's actually gotten larger over the years and we've even added a tech department. That was almost 5 years ago, old man 😛
  8. I'm not as young as you're making me sound 😛 I've been in this game a long time too. I've experienced plenty without bots. But just to elaborate on my previous example: I used to spend 3-4 hours every week or two during wars to keep track of member safekeeping manually. That's a lot of time. Is it doable? Sure. But can I be using that time much more effectively elsewhere? Absolutely. There's no doubt whatsoever that spending 3 hours a week with my members during a war is a much better use of my time than 3 hours a week on a spreadsheet.
  9. Of course I do. When I said leveling the playing field before, that was in reference to my first post and had to do between hard-core and casual players. I talked in the above post our difficulties with tech too and how it is luck of the draw to get someone who knows how to code. I get that. That's why I shared all of that. But I also don't believe you should effectively punish alliances for having those abilities to make things better/easier for them. Hell, one of our coders we have now has never coded before. He learned for this game and he is doing an incredible job. So this isn't something that people can't pick up if they truly want to. I want a common set of resources to level the playing field. I just fully disagree with the solution being to level the field by taking rather than giving. Hasn't decreased our gov or staff size at all. That is very situational and would hint at a different problem imo.
  10. Well, it's coded for Slack so logistically, not something that would work But jokes aside, our stuff is individualized to our alliance and we'd have to make changes to things to make them work elsewhere. In my first post though, I did say I thought having a basic suite of tools that all alliances can use would be amazing. I just don't think we should be limited to that. It might also surprise you that it's long been a dream of mine to have us make an open source suite of tools that any alliance can use. I know how difficult it is to develop tools for your alliance. We've struggled on the tech front too, despite being such a large alliance and having a larger pool of people with various skills. We have had some very talented individual coders throughout our history but over the last few years, we haven't really had the capacity or the manpower to focus on improving our tech to the degree we needed to to keep up better with other major alliances really until recently. We made do in other ways, thanks to our awesome gov and their dedication, but the truth is that we did fall behind on tech compared to others. I can only imagine how difficult it must be a smaller alliance. It is truly luck of the draw whether you'll have someone either with the ability to code or with the time and interest to learn. That's @Kosta's complaint and I totally understand and sympathize with that frustration. For the suite though, that's my dream. I would love to see it happen. I'm not sure we're in a position to do that currently as we're still catching up on our own game now that we do have a more solid team of people and it isn't my call really as I don't run the alliance anymore and I don't know how to code myself but maybe that is something we can do given some time. It's something I would like to see happen, at any rate, whether we do it or someone else does or Alex makes something. Tl;dr? If I could, I would. And I hope someday we can.
  11. I think you can clearly see that I read past the first sentence. Instead of trying to trivialize my response by making assumptions about whether or not I read it and am simply having a knee-jerk reaction, we can continue with the conversation? I never said they make or break things or that we would die without them. I said they add to the enjoyment of the game by leveling the playing field and by allowing gov to be able to spend their time on more important tasks and with their community. I have played this game seriously since 2017 and in some capacity since 2015. I have played this game without all the tools that people are blessed with now. I've seen bots evolve and my own alliance evolve and seen tasks, such as monitoring safekeeping, which I used to spend hours upon hours doing every week or two, now be completely automated. And as for the reliance bit, I think you must have ignored half my post so let me tell you again: I agree with the sentiment regarding an over reliance on bots. You shouldn't need them and you should know how to do things without them still but they do make life easier and there's nothing wrong with that. Having a calculator doesn't mean you shouldn't still learn basic math but it makes life easier. No one is stopping you from playing this game without bots if that's what you want to do. But bots as a whole are not the big bad evil your initial post appears to be portraying them as and you shouldn't be dismissive of them and calling for all bots to die because you don't understand what all they do and think it's better to raid old-school style. I see you in this thread learning more about them and softening/altering your stance. Keep learning and maybe next time, do that before calling for the death of all bots? You might find that once you do learn more about bots and what all they actually do, we're a bit more in agreement than you think we are currently.
  12. This. And you have 30 experienced players as well. We have over 150 players of all skills and experience levels and, as demonstrated by the size of our gov, we do put people to work. It's still a lot. However, if we can automate some of the tedium and make the lives of our gov and our members easier so that we can spend more time teaching them or working with our protectorates or any number of other things instead of doing responsibilities that could be handled by a bot instead, that's a better use of our time. I downvoted your post @Mars because your "solution" is naive and because blanket banning third party bots is ridiculous. No one overarching bot can handle every alliance's individual needs and doing so discourages creativity and innovation. I also think it's likely a pipe dream that such a bot will ever exist. I do, however, agree it would be a good thing if there were a basic suite of tools available for any alliance to use. But alliances shouldn't be restricted to those if they have the skills, abilities, and desire to do more. I agree with the general sentiment about discouraging over reliance on bots. You should not need the bot to do basic tasks and should know how to do things without them. But ironically, for many alliances, bots are a crucial tool in that they allow you to actually have the time to be able to teach your new members so that they can be independent thinkers within this game and learn how to play. Not to mention, they help you have the time to actually be able to spend time with and enjoy your community. And furthermore, leveling the playing field for casual players isn't the worst thing. This game would be a whole lot smaller and more boring without them.
  13. Yeah, guys, seriously, do a little reading. 150b is clearly an arbitrary figure and this seems pretty clearly a joke to anyone who was actually here at the time and paying attention to goings-on. In the announcement about NPO, they had 95b roughly in cash and resources removed from them and that was all traceable from production through the game from the new nations they brought in and the transactions they were making. If this is pertaining more to the second NPO thing, which seems like it would be more likely to be what was being referred to than the prior situation, even if still unlikely, was an even smaller amount and only impacted one NPO nation from memory. Which is hardly a framing of NPO as a whole. I think you should still naturally be smart about the decisions you make regarding tech and banks and your alliance's dependence on outside individuals and other alliances but taking this "claim" as anything other than the joke it was likely intended to be seems ridiculous. At least as far as the community is concerned. I can understand Alex wanting to do his due diligence but really, this seems a joke.
  14. At your own alliance's peril, friend Not condoning the NPO comparisons but yeesh. Find a threat that isn't so mutually destructive? We had him too, we know.
  15. Just for additional context, my list is a compilation of the smaller suggestions from the Game Suggestions subforum rather than a list of my own ideas, if there was any confusion there. Just because a suggestion is made however, doesn't mean it will be implemented. My list also shows which changes have been implemented. It's a bit out of date but I've been working to update it this weekend and will continue that throughout the next week or so to get it back in date. You can also see what changes have been implemented through the Announcements subforum here: https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/forum/3-announcements-updates/. I think updates are coming now more than ever though. I think there have been a lot of improvements made over the last year or two and while we've not had a monthly update from @Alex in a while, the work hasn't stopped. There are some things being tested on test server at the moment as well. He's also brought on additional staff this year, which he's never had before really. While I'm sure there are more things that can be done to improve the game, I'm a little confused at where this is coming from given the increased rate of updates over the last 1-2 years and the additional effort Alex has put in over that time frame. Is there an actual issue or is it the lack of transparency with regards to not having had an update since August, it looks? Perhaps we're overdue for that and that will let us know better where things stand?
  16. So what can we do to make it happen and make things better? One thing I used to do before I got too busy and spent less time on the forums was try to act as a positive voice on those DoE threads or really any new player/alliance thread. I still have the new player intros as pings on my account here. Work to drown out the negativity by telling them to ignore the haters and congratulate them. I can devote more effort to that again where possible and ask TKR to help too when I see it happening. I know this is merely one example but the broader idea still applies. When OOC/IC things cross a line, call it out, don't let it slide. Similarly, don't create witch hunts when you see things you don't agree with or think is wrong - talk to the person, it may well not be what you think, particularly if it seems out of character for that person generally. Going too far in either direction can be equally harmful. When things are becoming unnecessarily negative, try to be the person that is positive or at least kind. When it comes to things such as these, we should all be on the same side, regardless of alliance rivalries or sides in a war. It affects us all as this is all of our community. There are plenty of ways to express yourself and get your point across without being an !@#$. This doesn't just apply to the forums either. This can - and should - apply to discord as well. Be decent people. Don't hate on others. Keep things IC and when you see things crossing a line, don't let IC politics get in the way of standing up for others and making this community a better place. It only takes a few active folks to make a difference.
  17. Seconded. This thread has certainly been a wild ride and an interesting read, to say the least. Thanks for putting up with us, Syndi, and I'm sorry for some of the bs you've had to put up with on your way to being able to have a more productive discussion. It was nice chatting with y'all this morning on your discord as well.
  18. Glad to see you have been converted
  19. @Belisarius @Kurdanak I, too, was disappointed when seeing those shortlisting results. I am sorry the alliance representatives do not share your eye for art.
  20. From my experiences with them, I would not ever accuse t$ of having "utter contempt" for their allies. My experiences may be several months back and a bit dated at this point but t$ consistently made a point of trying hard to have good communication and include their allies' opinions and concerns into decision making. There is some good dialogue happening here in this thread and I do hope Syndi listens to the overall message and considers it, but let's not turn this into "shit on Syndi" session. No one deserves that and that's not what this thread should become.
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