Holton
-
Posts
310 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Posts posted by Holton
-
-
1 hour ago, Keegoz said:
I like how people get mad that we use diplomacy and don't just fling ourselves into a war every time there is a issue. Whilst the rest of the world literally is only using diplomacy or even better being practically inactive so they never get into any disagreements to begin with.
Not to mention it takes 2 to tango so maybe you should ask all these mysterious people as to why they don't just hit us. Either they like their pixels too much as well or their threats are bs to hide the fact that they like their pixels too much. Either way Thalmor's decision to step down was not made over a single issue, it was made over multiple, one being his ever-increasing busy RL situation which will hit next month.
Quite right.
Anyone knocking KT for avoiding war better triple check to see if they're doing so from a glass house.
Hint: If you're not in Arrgh, you're in a glass house.
-
6
-
-
16 minutes ago, Frawley said:
The biggest issue with your analysis, is that it presupposes that a conclusion from a material analysis of another world is a starting point for the analysis of this one. The existence of Userites & Feederites is established by the use of Francoist methods in that world, but it is only valid under certain assumptions, specifically:
1. Where certain 'Regions' are definitionally special, as is the case with Feeders.
2. That by virtue of this status, the relationship between those in control and those without power is involuntary
3. That this class conflict is unavoidable, even after a popular revolution, but that only alliances that have gone through such revolution are placed to recognise this fact.Its pretty clear that when you consider the material conditions of Orbis, that 1 & 2 are invalid at the very minimum (3 could be valid, if argued differently), and therefore you draw a false equivalence between the situations. Vladimir acknowledges in his later introductions to Proper Francoist Thought that these facts do not exists in other such games, and thus the conclusions of the analysis are not valid elsewhere.
If you wanted to apply Francoist principles and come up with half a logically consistent argument, you could look at P&W like this. (I am not supporting this btw, and the data doesn't exist to substantiate item 2 at the very minimum)
1. Leadership within alliances appears to remain static over time
2. This leadership is demonstrably not in the interests of the average individuals
3. Most individuals who are not leadership are either too inactive to change this situation, or understand that living without an Alliance (or a small one) in the state of chaos, is a larger imposition on their sovereignty (e.g. being raided constantly is worse than the occasional leadership driven war)
4. That due to the raiding outside established alliances, there is a defacto involuntariness in the relationship between leaders and the members.Now this could be construed as a start to an equivalence between the systems, but it falls apart pretty quickly once you consider how regularly new alliances come into being and indeed succeed in (mostly) removing themselves from the 'state of nature', or how easily it is for individuals to change allegiances
Anyway, your analysis is bad, has the wrong starting point, and is not Francoism. Get your own ideology.
Try reading past the title before attempting to refute.
-
Only a matter of time until something happens!
JK we all just want to pixel hug while Arrgh and shifty raid everyone
-
1
-
-
Here's hoping y'all are more active here than in (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways)
-
3 minutes ago, Buorhann said:
Just organize a massive spy hit on NK and their allies. They'll just end up blaming Mensa again.
all of ex-mensa should do a big spy hit on NK just for this
-
2
-
-
Dark Brotherhood vs Assassin's Order?
-
2
-
-
19 minutes ago, kosmokenny said:
6:01 Queen Ms time
-
5
-
-
Please, don't let the complaining of the peanut gallery stop you from bringing things into public light.
Public drama is something this game has been sorely missing and the sad people here who would rather the game be entirely conducted behind closed doors are the same who would see this world dead.
-
6
-
-
3 hours ago, Henrich said:
Someone from VE should give their expert opinion
Under-appreciated burn.
7 hours ago, Hope said:press f for Valkyrie. how’s that democracy working out
Yeah how is letting the players actually participate working out?
Drama, excitement, activity, possibly even fun??!?!?!?!?! Yeah dumb shit happens but that's par for the course when you're actually doing things. A lot better than most alliances can say these days.
-
3
-
-
A hilarious reaction to events.
-
1
-
-
41 minutes ago, Roquentin said:
So the leaderboard would be the alliance rankings rather than score and people would be drawn to those?
The vast majority of people won't be active for in-game benefits. Baseball players with 100 teams are a minority and would be the most active people in terms of in-game playing. Spammers are a minority too and as forums have fallen out of fashion, there's much less spamming and very few people who care about their post counts . The type of people who want dedicate time to games do so due to having a different attitude to the game because there isn't always going to be a reward. It can be more a waste of time than anything. You could offer a decent amount for spamming or grinding and someone who doesn't want to do it otherwise won't.
I believe the tried and true method of keeping these type of games alive is the best way to go. These games will always appeal to a niche. You can't really flip the dynamic into a mobile-game attitude or it'll really kill what makes the game great - and keeps it populated.
If I wanted a quick occasional waste of time, I would go play Clash of Clans or something. These games are meant to be hashed out on forums as this entire venture is effectively a text-roleplay-thing.
-
1 hour ago, Roquentin said:
This probably the best solution presented so far. The mainstream PW meta is to grow as much as possible, so people avoid risk since carries potential inhibition of growth. Cities being indestructible rather than making it easier to take losses makes people more invested in building/growth and then they're either stuck in that mindset or biding their time to do anything. We have the leaderboards already here, but they don't really exist on an alliance level. If you could have some alliances going for most casualties, some going for most infra destroyed most wars, etc. The issue is, I don't see how meaningless points would alter the current game culture. It would require people to alter their mindsets, which is the harder part.
Well the meaningless points directly tie into rank.
So it both incentivizes fighting for the #1, and allows way more options in getting there (or contributing to getting there).
So they don't offer an in-game boost per se, but I personally believe that the top alliances are often the ones new players turn to when picking a first home. Just a quick pitch though. Rewarding activity is shown to raise activity - people will literally log in just to spam to raise their post count, for instance.
-
Credit due to those who came before for the inspiration to write this post.
Introduction: Francoism, as a concept, began over fifteen years ago. It was crafted, molded, and shaped to fit the material evidence presented before it. Over those fifteen years, the term has become convoluted and some may say distorted or even completely dismantled. This writing will set out to analyze the new material evidence that our more modern world presents us.
The New Classes: The originator of the philosophy used two terms that I will now invoke: Userite and Feederite. These terms may not carry their meaning into new worlds, but they still carry the intent. The Feederite class (the individual nations), seeking to harness and work with the means of production (forming alliances in pursuit of higher goals) has been re-shackled by their oppressors. The Userite class that seeks to suppress, intimidate, bribe, lull, or otherwise exploit the Feederite class is just as real now as it was then - though they take different form.
The Great Deception: The greatest deception of our time was the Userite convincing us he did not exist. The Userites have slipped through the protections we once erected to shield ourselves from their exploitation. They have deceived us - perhaps even themselves - into believing that security could only be achieved through unity. Unity can only be achieved through the surrendering of freedom. And finally that freedom was tantamount to a dream - ethereal and unattainable. They did this is many ways, some even offering elections so the Feederites could choose who would shepherd the flock - all while remaining the sheep.
The Art of Oppression: You may be saying 'I see no oppression' but that is in lockstep with the Userite intent. The oppression of the Feederites is as real now as it was then. The Userites collect nations under their banner using words like 'OPSEC' or 'classified' to obfuscate their actions until they've already committed your nation to their path. They hide away from the "useful idiots" and make the decisions for the collective without so much as a vote. They offer the pretense that democracy, free speech, and even knowing what they intend to do with your own nation is a waste of time and actually counter-productive to their goals as a whole. All the while, presenting these ideas as par for the course for any "competent" grouping. Most go so far as to suggest that a true feederite alliance cannot exist. That the many must be controlled by the few and there can be no other way. It is in this world that we currently live and accept.
The Truth: The fact remains that no alliance could operate without individual member cooperation. The individual of this world is the Nation - the Feederite - not the alliance. The Truth is that the alliance is an extension of the Nation's voice. Not the opposite. Every member, no matter their age or disposition, has a right to the determination of their fate.
While these words may no longer be called Francoism by its practitioners, the ideals cannot be denied. It falls to the Feederite to wake up and determine their own destiny or continue to be condemned to a world where a select few make all our choices for us.
-
3
-
-
This is entirely due to boredom but if I get good info on something I will make an effortpost about it.
-
Crowdsourcing is the new thing these days.
If you have something that the world needs to see but can't post because of your alliance affiliation or friendships or whatever, send it to me in-game or in a PM here. I will post it for you along with a critical analysis of the situation and my personal speculation on what it all means.
Hopefully I'll get some juicy tidbits to stir up drama. At worst, I expect to learn some alliance leader's fetish.
Good day and good luck.
-
2
-
-
On 11/4/2017 at 0:46 PM, Keegoz said:
No one wants to be the bad guy. Very few alliances have much ambition and those who do are severely limited by those who hold most the cards.
Not only does the game lack antagonists, it lacks tangible goals that can compete with the tangible goals of growing your nation. If we have goals, other than the #1 spot and bragging rights, I think we'll see a political "boom" of sorts where people become interested in risking growth for the potential benefit.
We don't have scarce resources that give tangible benefit to compete over, but other iterations of nationsims have shown that we can't because it allows the dominant players to form an impenetrable hegemoney while the losers stay on the bottom.
So what can we do to correct this? What beneficial, but also scarce, resource can be created to fill this purpose without destroying game balance? I think the philosophy of player-created content has stagnated. If a lot of people don't care, then the philosophy fails. So we need something, but what?
One thought I've had is meaningless points. Rather than the indirect method of climbing alliance ranks (growth and strategic war / damage avoiding / mass recruiting), we have a direct method of ranking. Said method could be measured in "alliance points" which expire after a set amount of time (to prevent stagnation due to dominance).
You can gain points in several ways:
- in game awards such as highest infra, most nukes, oldest nation, etc.
- gaining or looting treasures
- winning individual wars
- winning alliance wars (have mods add points based on outcome or have an actual in-game alliance war mechanic)
- Posting actively on the forums
- Buying cities and certain thresholds of infra (every 1000 infra gives you points)
- etc.
Having multiple methods of gaining points allows different types of alliances to be relevant to the rankings. Size matters, wars matter, generation and consumption of resources matter, raids matter, posting matters (even spam), growth matters. Etc. The benefit being you can directly impact your alliance rank but only by doing MORE than just existing and growing, but growing can still contribute.
Meaningless points is one of the best ways to motivate without impacting game balance. It's been shown to work in other games. It could work here.
-
6
-
-
Not reading all 7 pages but simply put:
Everyone made too many friends, and chose poor enemies.
Inactive Syndicate, disbanded Mensa, pacifist Rose, 'conservative' NPO, Sit-on-my-hands TKR, neutered Arrgh, disbanded TEst, quit-the-game Alpha... The list goes on.
It doesn't really matter unless the masses do something about it though. Get angry and do something.
-
I guess, even while paperless, we can't expect a war to go unanswered by counters.
No one can do anything interesting because the rest of the world wants to jump in and intervene.
-
It seems like once TEst got smashed, the world decided that paper-collecting FA had been vindicated.
We now see the results of people being reactionary. The treaty web has never been more of a mess.
-
Rook looks like he's had one too many pints
-
Ah yes, another opportunity for the self-empowered few to exercise their authority over the voiceless masses.
-
if exploitation is an issue, turn off the ability to make money from baseball. No need to refund anything to anyone because the real investors have been using it to exploit your game anyway.
-
5
-
-
Firstly, please don't let this game's mechanic be dictated by a stupid forum poll.
Secondly, the theme of this game always struck me as "Quick Recovery". Meaning if you lost a war, you could rebuild without having lost literal irl years of effort (tech from (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways)). This has made wars much more frequent and the game more fast paced. A good thing. Spies are one of the few categories that don't fit that theme. You can kill 10-20 spies per operation but you can only recruit 2-3 per day. I think a lesser change, but on two fronts, would bring more balance to spies: Boost recruitment from 2-3 to 3-4, and nerf spy deaths by like 10%.
This brings the game closer to balance in multiple ways, without bringing an axe to a surgery.
-
How does one expect an Inquisition announcement? I thought nobody expects...
-
2
-
You wake up and your SO is Roquentin
in Orbis Central
Posted
What would you do if you woke up one day and your gf/bf rolled over and looked at you and said "I run the NPO. I've hidden it from you knowing that you play PnW as well."