Another Game Change

[Rozalia]

There is a very interesting view on Chinese history. The Chinese are famous for autocracy and imperial rule. But interestingly enough, the most powerful people (and the people who have the most influence) are those next to the emperor whispering in his ears.

 

Very good mention. There is a reason eunuchs were so despised and considered as a big reason for the fall of many empires. 

 

You are so right.  I have no idea how a group of advisers impacts the decision making of a leader.  I have no concept of how a self selecting group would be predisposed to group think.  I am clueless about how such a negative leader/advisory construct could impact the decision making process.

 

I would tell you that I might have some idea about these things based on having an MBA, which included numerous classes on leadership and group dynamics, and that I have led groups ranging in size from 6 to 250 people.  But, as you so adroitly pointed out, people can lie on the internet.

 

I've been agreeing with everything you say, a lot of sense in your words. Mensa in general in fact.

 

The purpose of the closed development subforum is so Sheepy can get REAL feedback on ideas he wants to implement, and NOT have to wade through giant piles of unproductive posts. It exists to clear out some of the noise to have a readable and followable conversation with good input. The fact you have spent this and the other entire thread complaining about the dev group is exactly why it exists.

 

Complete arrogance. If there is a significant rejection of what the "dev group" then maybe just maybe you aren't the towering colossi you guys believe yourself's to be? Just a thought. 

[stetonic]

Any group who has an influence in how the game is run.Should not have a nation within the game that can benefit from the changes.So if the PW cartel want to change the rules.Then delete your nation and become advisers to Sheepy.

Its not like Sheepy has a nation in the game that is sat at no1 coz he has control is it

[Clarke]

I wouldn't go that far Stetonic, cartels, (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) players sabotaging the game with bad ideas. 

It's all too far.

[stetonic]

If  iam right in saying Sheepy played (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) and had a bad time of it for what ever reason and made his own game.

Now other players have mentioned in various threads about how PW is becoming like (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways).I played (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) and in all honesty it is crap.I have stuck around playing PW daily coz it aint crap but if you keep changing the game coz of a dozen players getting together in there little hide away then more and more players will just say sod it.I will log in once a week if i can be bothered.

[Phiney]

You are so right.  I have no idea how a group of advisers impacts the decision making of a leader.  I have no concept of how a self selecting group would be predisposed to group think.  I am clueless about how such a negative leader/advisory construct could impact the decision making process.

 

I would tell you that I might have some idea about these things based on having an MBA, which included numerous classes on leadership and group dynamics, and that I have led groups ranging in size from 6 to 250 people.  But, as you so adroitly pointed out, people can lie on the internet.

 

Ive said it a minute ago and I'll say it again. Sheepy selected the first 30 or 40 people completely on his own based on input in the game suggestion forum. From there we have been suggesting more people to add (much less than was added originially) based on input to the game suggestion forum and with evidence supplied to sheepy that they should be added. this whole idea you have of "self selected" is rediculous. 

[LordRahl2]

 it takes is a request by someone already in the forum to be added.

 

 

"self selected" is rediculous. 

[Kurdanak]

 

Just like with the changes to the game, Sheepy reviews each suggestion for addition and makes the final decision himself, and a lot of the time he adds them without them being suggested by someone else. The amount of dramatic cynicism going around is utterly insane. If anything, it's proof that the Dev forum is completely necessary. Edited July 10, 2015 by Kurdanak

[Phiney]

 

 

Brilliant, you can take a small part of my comment out of context and ignore the rest where I explain it, good job. 

[LordRahl2]

Brilliant, you can take a small part of my comment out of context and ignore the rest where I explain it, good job. 

 

You are right.  Completely out of context.

 

 

Just like with the changes to the game, Sheepy reviews each suggestion for addition and makes the final decision himself, and a lot of the time he adds them without them being suggested by someone else. The amount of dramatic cynicism going around is utterly insane. If anything, it's proof that the Dev forum is completely necessary.

 

Again, you are ignoring the way that an advisory group and a leader interact.  There is tons of well researched viable material related to this out there.  There is already a strong tendency for select and closed groups to engage in group think.  The fact that they are self selecting additions to the group is another sign that the advisers engage in group think.  These statements are as close to a fact as you get in social sciences of this nature.  The fact that a huge portion of those excluded from the inner group disagrees with multiple decisions over time is proof that the Dev forum is completely broken.

Edited July 10, 2015 by LordRahl2

[TheNG]

 The fact that a huge portion of those excluded from the inner group disagrees with multiple decisions over time is proof that the Dev forum is completely broken.

 

I think this is a little bit of an exaggeration. The dev group hasn't been around for that long, and I believe this is the first major change since their inception that has generated such furor. So I'm not entirely sure where you got the "multiple decisions over time." There have always been people who have gotten mad when systems are changed, think back to the big changes to missiles and planes. Hell, when Sheepy nerfed tanks back in alpha, there were "Politics and Simcity" threads being dropped left and right with people moaning how increased tank maintenance and lower combat values would lead to the death of raiding. That has clearly not happened, nor have people stopped using missiles in warfare, as was predicted after the missile nerf. Sheepy made those decisions entirely on his own, and plenty of people were angry, but after things calmed down, some tweaks were made, and missiles and tanks are generally acknowledged to be fairly balanced. It is perfectly alright to be unhappy with the changes, but I would suggest trying to convince Sheepy to change them if you are convinced they are misguided, rather than taking your anger out on the dev forum guys, who don't enjoy sole influence over Sheepy or the future of the game, (as has been suggested numerous times) and I don't believe have bad intentions at heart.  Everybody lashing out at the dev forum people rather than trying to make constructive discussion about a system we've yet to experience in-game adds little to the process. Who knows, the spy changes may surprise us all, and if it truly is worse than right now, it can always be changed again.

Edited July 11, 2015 by TheNG

[PigInZen]

Speaking as a middle aged gamer with disposable income, changes make me LESS LIKELY to throw cash at this game.  It's frustrating as hell to drop $30+ a month for several months in a row only to find one's strategy for development to be mitigated by wholesale change to the game mechanics.  I will say this, unequivocally:  you can either have new players and player churn OR long-term players.  I have yet to find a game of this type that has both.  Hard caps reduce the incentive for players to remain for a long time.  Hard caps reduce competitiveness in-game, reducing incentive for players to stick around a long time.  I would love to know which type of player purchases credits - new players or older players.  I have an assumption but without any data it's just that.  But I suspect that older players purchase more credits.

 

Which should be considered when changing game mechanics.

[LordRahl2]

I think this is a little bit of an exaggeration. The dev group hasn't been around for that long, and I believe this is the first major change since their inception that has generated such furor. So I'm not entirely sure where you got the "multiple decisions over time." There have always been people who have gotten mad when systems are changed, think back to the big changes to missiles and planes. Hell, when Sheepy nerfed tanks back in alpha, there were "Politics and Simcity" threads being dropped left and right with people moaning how increased tank maintenance and lower combat values would lead to the death of raiding. That has clearly not happened, nor have people stopped using missiles in warfare, as was predicted after the missile nerf. Sheepy made those decisions entirely on his own, and plenty of people were angry, but after things calmed down, some tweaks were made, and missiles and tanks are generally acknowledged to be fairly balanced. It is perfectly alright to be unhappy with the changes, but I would suggest trying to convince Sheepy to change them if you are convinced they are misguided, rather than taking your anger out on the dev forum guys, who don't enjoy sole influence over Sheepy or the future of the game, (as has been suggested numerous times) and I don't believe have bad intentions at heart.  Everybody lashing out at the dev forum people rather than trying to make constructive discussion about a system we've yet to experience in-game adds little to the process. Who knows, the spy changes may surprise us all, and if it truly is worse than right now, it can always be changed again.

 

 

Thanks for the reply.  Well though out and reasoned.

 

How long has the BGE been around?  If a short time I am almost more disappointed.  That means the group was specifically selected to adhere to a specific set of ideas and based on what I have seen is generally an echo chamber.  This would mean that the selection was quite poor.  Sorry, but that is how it appear to an outsider.

 

You are unsure what I mean about multiple decisions over time you may have missed my short list: no raiding alliance banks, nerfing attacks (planes specifically), now spies nerfed.  If you are saying the BGE was not involved until recently then see the above paragraph.

 

'Sole influence' is not what upsets me nor did I ever say they made decisions/controlled him.  What upsets me is that there is a group that really appears to be insular and involved in group-think.  Advisory groups can be good, however, they need to represent really different viewpoints to be effective.  Based on the evidence of the community reaction here this appears not to be the case.

 

Lastly, there were constructive suggestions.  For example, roll back the changes on spies and the changes in general before the last major change.  They were completely ignored by the 'dev group'/BGEs.

 

People play a game based on the rules presented to them.  Changing the rules over and over should have really strong reasoning behind it and not been based on a whim.  Even a whim that has lots of behind closed doors 'evidence' behind it.

[Rozalia]

I think this is a little bit of an exaggeration. The dev group hasn't been around for that long, and I believe this is the first major change since their inception that has generated such furor. So I'm not entirely sure where you got the "multiple decisions over time." There have always been people who have gotten mad when systems are changed, think back to the big changes to missiles and planes. Hell, when Sheepy nerfed tanks back in alpha, there were "Politics and Simcity" threads being dropped left and right with people moaning how increased tank maintenance and lower combat values would lead to the death of raiding. That has clearly not happened, nor have people stopped using missiles in warfare, as was predicted after the missile nerf. Sheepy made those decisions entirely on his own, and plenty of people were angry, but after things calmed down, some tweaks were made, and missiles and tanks are generally acknowledged to be fairly balanced. It is perfectly alright to be unhappy with the changes, but I would suggest trying to convince Sheepy to change them if you are convinced they are misguided, rather than taking your anger out on the dev forum guys, who don't enjoy sole influence over Sheepy or the future of the game, (as has been suggested numerous times) and I don't believe have bad intentions at heart.  Everybody lashing out at the dev forum people rather than trying to make constructive discussion about a system we've yet to experience in-game adds little to the process. Who knows, the spy changes may surprise us all, and if it truly is worse than right now, it can always be changed again.

 

All very nice but when you get given a formal 24 hours to "convince", anyone who disagrees knows what the score is. As such I dispute your claim as we have not even been given the chance to be "constructive".

[Phiney]

Thanks for the reply.  Well though out and reasoned.

 

How long has the BGE been around?  If a short time I am almost more disappointed.  That means the group was specifically selected to adhere to a specific set of ideas and based on what I have seen is generally an echo chamber.  This would mean that the selection was quite poor.  Sorry, but that is how it appear to an outsider.

 

You are unsure what I mean about multiple decisions over time you may have missed my short list: no raiding alliance banks, nerfing attacks (planes specifically), now spies nerfed.  If you are saying the BGE was not involved until recently then see the above paragraph.

 

'Sole influence' is not what upsets me nor did I ever say they made decisions/controlled him.  What upsets me is that there is a group that really appears to be insular and involved in group-think.  Advisory groups can be good, however, they need to represent really different viewpoints to be effective.  Based on the evidence of the community reaction here this appears not to be the case.

 

Lastly, there were constructive suggestions.  For example, roll back the changes on spies and the changes in general before the last major change.  They were completely ignored by the 'dev group'/BGEs.

 

People play a game based on the rules presented to them.  Changing the rules over and over should have really strong reasoning behind it and not been based on a whim.  Even a whim that has lots of behind closed doors 'evidence' behind it.

 

I can answer some of this.

 

April 10th the group was formed, with Sheepy picking around 30 people. 

 

The bank looting switch off was not a game play decision, it was the result of a bug and Sheepy has said numerous times he plans to turn it back on soon. 

 

I wouldn't mind you expanding on the AF nerf. It was nerfed vs ships but only in line with the rest of the attacks and I think most can agree (and do) that ship damage from AF is much more balanced now and better (talking about bias, here is someone with no ships that vastly benefited from AF being awesome against ships that rallied for AF to be nerfed vs ships). I don't know what else was nerfed? Perhaps the top amount of damage you could do with planes was slightly nerfed, but with the huge tightening of the damage range they actually do a lot more inf damage on average now. 

 

There really is a wide range of opinions in the dev group, and a lot of heated discussion has been going on regarding spies (not quite as heated as this one, but not far off really). The Dev group didn't come up with this solution together, Sheepy did based on the discussion going on. 

[LordRahl2]

I can answer some of this.

 

April 10th the group was formed, with Sheepy picking around 30 people. 

 

The bank looting switch off was not a game play decision, it was the result of a bug and Sheepy has said numerous times he plans to turn it back on soon. 

 

I wouldn't mind you expanding on the AF nerf. It was nerfed vs ships but only in line with the rest of the attacks and I think most can agree (and do) that ship damage from AF is much more balanced now and better (talking about bias, here is someone with no ships that vastly benefited from AF being awesome against ships that rallied for AF to be nerfed vs ships). I don't know what else was nerfed? Perhaps the top amount of damage you could do with planes was slightly nerfed, but with the huge tightening of the damage range they actually do a lot more inf damage on average now. 

 

There really is a wide range of opinions in the dev group, and a lot of heated discussion has been going on regarding spies (not quite as heated as this one, but not far off really). The Dev group didn't come up with this solution together, Sheepy did based on the discussion going on. 

 

You are right I maximized the rules of the game to my advantage through spending time and effort on trial and error in actual in game play/war.  By changing the rules to enhance people who want to maximize their pixels you hurt the people who actually play the game to have fun/win(if either is actually possible).  Game stability>'balance'.  Feel free to check but yeah the AF has been nerfed.

 

You can say that there is diversity of opinion among the BGEs but the players cannot see it.  Making it an insular group as I have said,  I asked for the discussion log at the beginning of this debate.

 

However, thanks for the less aggressive reply.

[Buorhann]

Also, I'd just like to add in that the AF Nerf was a necessary hit.  Granted I hated it since I'm a huge fan of it, but considering the expenses and utility of AF - it was needed to balance it out.  I'd even argue that ships need some sort of buff as well ( I'd prefer to see them have a small defensive power against air attacks tagged on their calculation, basically to represent anti-air guns on their ships ) as they're still not all that great to have other than a few for blockade purposes.

 

That's diverting from the topic at hand though.

[Phiney]

You are right I maximized the rules of the game to my advantage through spending time and effort on trial and error in actual in game play/war. By changing the rules to enhance people who want to maximize their pixels you hurt the people who actually play the game to have fun/win(if either is actually possible). Game stability>'balance'. Feel free to check but yeah the AF has been nerfed.

 

You can say that there is diversity of opinion among the BGEs but the players cannot see it. Making it an insular group as I have said, I asked for the discussion log at the beginning of this debate.

 

However, thanks for the less aggressive reply.

I know we're getting off topic here, but I'm really interested to know more. I don't really understand your response on the AF nerf.

 

I get that you're saying those who play the war system should have an advantage through understanding, and I completely agree there which is why I suggested taking down the battle simulators shortly after the announcement, but surely it's better to have a balanced war system than an imbalanced one 100% of the time? I mean I'm speaking at someone who has used both the old war system and now the new one pretty extensively, and everything about the new one seems more balanced and better to me. An airstrike before could do either 40 inf damage or 500 inf damage for me, which was ridiculous and made missiles and nukes a much better and more trustworthy option. Maybe in the lower levels the spread was much less so you didn't feel this variation as much. Am I on the right track or am I misinterpreting what you're saying? Have you after trying the battle simulators seen an overall average decrease in AF inf damage at your level?

 

Also, I'd just like to add in that the AF Nerf was a necessary hit. Granted I hated it since I'm a huge fan of it, but considering the expenses and utility of AF - it was needed to balance it out. I'd even argue that ships need some sort of buff as well ( I'd prefer to see them have a small defensive power against air attacks tagged on their calculation, basically to represent anti-air guns on their ships ) as they're still not all that great to have other than a few for blockade purposes.

 

That's diverting from the topic at hand though.

Have you looked at the inf damage you can cause with ships? Max ships (more expensive but take up less improvement slots) can do a fair bit more inf damage than Max planes which is quite a nice use.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Phiney

[TheNG]

Thanks for the reply.  Well though out and reasoned.

 

How long has the BGE been around?  If a short time I am almost more disappointed.  That means the group was specifically selected to adhere to a specific set of ideas and based on what I have seen is generally an echo chamber.  This would mean that the selection was quite poor.  Sorry, but that is how it appear to an outsider.

 

You are unsure what I mean about multiple decisions over time you may have missed my short list: no raiding alliance banks, nerfing attacks (planes specifically), now spies nerfed.  If you are saying the BGE was not involved until recently then see the above paragraph.

 

'Sole influence' is not what upsets me nor did I ever say they made decisions/controlled him.  What upsets me is that there is a group that really appears to be insular and involved in group-think.  Advisory groups can be good, however, they need to represent really different viewpoints to be effective.  Based on the evidence of the community reaction here this appears not to be the case.

 

Lastly, there were constructive suggestions.  For example, roll back the changes on spies and the changes in general before the last major change.  They were completely ignored by the 'dev group'/BGEs.

 

People play a game based on the rules presented to them.  Changing the rules over and over should have really strong reasoning behind it and not been based on a whim.  Even a whim that has lots of behind closed doors 'evidence' behind it.

 

I believe Phiney has discussed your first couple paragraphs, so I'll respond more to the second few. As I tried to say in my last post, judging the effectiveness of the dev group based on the initial knee-jerk reactions of people to an idea they helped create is flawed, given that the same furor has happened during similar system changes that Sheepy did entirely by himself. People have always reacted this way to a change, which I think is mostly resistance to change, but can suggest a change may be misguided. I would avoid judging the effectiveness of a proposal or a group on public opinion, it doesn't provide an accurate representation.

 

As for the actual spy changes, I agree other constructive suggestions have been made, though Sheepy has chosen to go with this version. However, it isn't set in stone, if enough people believe it is flawed and can ruin the game, plus can provide good reasoning behind their stance, Sheepy can and usually will, take a second look. For example, during Sheepy's sweeping missile changes, one of his major changes was having all three superiorities (air, land, blockade) in a war prevent missile launches. Plenty of people despised the idea, myself included, and were quite vocal about it. Sheepy read through all our reasoning, and next morning announced he had scrapped that particular idea, after it has been rolled out with the rest of the changes. The same thing can happen here, if enough people opposed can provide something other than passive aggressive "lol lets cap everything I'm so edgy" threads, then Sheepy will no doubt take some time to reconsider.

 

As for the dev group, I agree with you that the presentation of them and the spy proposal has been mismanaged. And as you point out, the group could have various issues, and it is a decent point. If nothing else, this whole affair has demonstrated that the suggestion process can use improvement, and that is a discussion we should have. However, I think that having it right now isn't a good idea, as we can see, the usual anger over a sweeping change, combined with the somewhat mishandled announcement and people playing blame the dev group have all combined to create a pretty toxic environment. I think we should separate the spy changes the dev group helped create from the debate over the dev group and suggestion process, so that the spy changes can stand on their own. As I said before, they may yet surprise us, and there is plenty of opportunity to change them before implementation. I think we should at least give the proposal a chance, we can always make more changes.

There will always be time to reform the suggestion process, and I do think it should happen, but what is going on now isn't productive. I think the 24 hour timeframe is a mistake, but how will it change when any constructive comments are drowned out by people predicting the collapse of p&w altogether?

 

All very nice but when you get given a formal 24 hours to "convince", anyone who disagrees knows what the score is. As such I dispute your claim as we have not even been given the chance to be "constructive".

 

Though 24 hours isn't a huge amount of time, you have plenty of time to dispute and try to change the spy proposal. Sheepy announced it to give the wider community a chance to debate it, if you are really that opposed to it, it doesn't take 24 hours to come up with a reasoned argument against something if you try, we saw valid counterpoints posted a few minutes after Sheepy's announcement. Make your case and present it, simple as that, as plenty of other people have already done. You have plenty of chances to be constructive Rozalia, but you've so far wasted them posting in plenty of passive-agressive joke threads. If you really oppose this change, you have your chance, but if you just want to sit back, complain, and blame people, keep doing that. But don't expect that will keep Sheepy from moving forward with these changes.

[Phiney]

I will say the 24 hour thing isn't set in stone, I mentioned it as sheepy said he was planning to implement this tonight and then the dev group persuaded him to wait a bit and tell people about the idea first. I don't think sheepy ever said 24 houes in particular so that may have been my fault when I meant it as an approximation based on his keenness to implement this change.

[LordRahl2]

I know we're getting off topic here, but I'm really interested to know more. I don't really understand your response on the AF nerf.

 

I get that you're saying those who play the war system should have an advantage through understanding, and I completely agree there which is why I suggested taking down the battle simulators shortly after the announcement, but surely it's better to have a balanced war system than an imbalanced one 100% of the time? I mean I'm speaking at someone who has used both the old war system and now the new one pretty extensively, and everything about the new one seems more balanced and better to me. An airstrike before could do either 40 inf damage or 500 inf damage for me, which was ridiculous and made missiles and nukes a much better and more trustworthy option. Maybe in the lower levels the spread was much less so you didn't feel this variation as much. Am I on the right track or am I misinterpreting what you're saying? Have you after trying the battle simulators seen an overall average decrease in AF inf damage at your level?

 

Completely agree about the battle sim.  Should not have been posted or available to anyone (Malone(sp?)/Sheepy excluded).

 

Balance?  Balance is generally bad.  I have played numerous games like this.  Lets go back to 1998-2000 MMORPGs: WWII, Utopia, Space Empire.  You can no longer find these btw...they are all dead.  Utopia was sold and now is some crappy game so don't be confused.

 

Every time those games tried to balance the game it resulted, eventually, in a rock paper scissors contest.  The best and most engaging iterations of those games provided bonuses to players and teams that payed attention and coordinated in the META.

 

So no, I do not want balance.  I want active players and alliances to figure out the optimal solutions and propagate them.  Those who pursue less optimal strategies, often due to less engagement, do not fare as well.

 

Planes vs Ships and the dynamic there made the game-play interesting.  The fact that infra damage from missiles was a better choice at X level is a great example.  I could have two econ projects (less optimal) and the game mechanics would punish me for that in war vs a MLP/ID player.

 

See the game-play is a factor.  Large ship numbers could do large infra damage but they must be protected by larger AF.  The AF needs to remain large enough to defend so maybe it cannot engage in offensive ops.

 

Choices were available that are no longer as valid if they are valid at all.

 

Bottom Line: Reward those that spend the time and effort to figure out and maximize the rule set as it is.  Guessing about future changes kills a game that does not reset.

[Dwynn]

Just going to weigh in on this thread here. The dev group, believe it or not, has quite a bit of debate in almost every thread that gets made. The only time there's not debate is when it's obviously a change that needs to be made.

 

The spy system needed to change. Personally, I'm still not satisfied with it. It's a step in the right direction, however I don't feel it completes what needed to be done.

 

I think part of the issue that I've noticed in these threads is that people are upset they're just now finding out about the dev group. It's been around a few months. People who were non-productive or counter-productive were removed. The group really does appear to care about the growth of the game, even though many of the members have various viewpoints on what should and should not be done.

 

The members that are there, have proven time and again to give well thought out suggestions and feedback to changes. It's also not set in stone.

 

One thing that won't help your case into becoming part of the group however, is to attack the group based on your own assumptions. The talk of group-think etc are laughable.

[Rozalia]

I think part of the issue that I've noticed in these threads is that people are upset they're just now finding out about the dev group. It's been around a few months. People who were non-productive or counter-productive were removed. The group really does appear to care about the growth of the game, even though many of the members have various viewpoints on what should and should not be done.

 

One thing that won't help your case into becoming part of the group however, is to attack the group based on your own assumptions. The talk of group-think etc are laughable.

 

Speaking strictly for myself I knew of the dev group already for some time. Took no issue with it then so why now? Well when their answer to rejection is the claim that they are so enlightened that their opinions are worth more then our own then that is when I start taking serious issue. When are those individuals going to be removed for their harming of the community and trustworthiness of the dev group? Not going to happen obviously. 

 

Well I for one would not want to join such a group anyway if their behaviour today/yesterday is any indication.

[Dwynn]

Speaking strictly for myself I knew of the dev group already for some time. Took no issue with it then so why now? Well when their answer to rejection is the claim that they are so enlightened that their opinions are worth more then our own then that is when I start taking serious issue. When are those individuals going to be removed for their harming of the community and trustworthiness of the dev group? Not going to happen obviously. 

 

Well I for one would not want to join such a group anyway if their behaviour today/yesterday is any indication.

 

And while I can see how Phiney's comment (that has been quoted multiple times) can be considered boasting, throwing a temper-tantrum on the forums is tantamount to nothing.

[Rozalia]

And while I can see how Phiney's comment (that has been quoted multiple times) can be considered boasting, throwing a temper-tantrum on the forums is tantamount to nothing.

 

Not just him, but it really doesn't matter going into it any more when it is brushed under the rug as an irrelevance. We'll in time see how capital was wasted on this. 

[LordRahl2]

The talk of group-think etc are laughable.

 

This is the attitude that annoys me most sir.

 

Let me lay out my assumptions about this group:

The group is insulated - valid

Salient norms exist - valid

Homogeneity is high - mostly valid (you may quibble if you desire)

Leadership is directive - valid (you may not get this one if you have not read the applicable material)

 

So those are 'my own assumptions'.  What do you take issue with?

 

Have you read Janis' seminal work on the topic?  I recommend it.  After you have given it a go expand your understanding by reading Baron.  Baron's model/version is more applicable here actually.

 

No the talk of group think is not at all laughable.  You may not see it, probably because you are not looking for it or aware of it on an intellectual level.  Additionally, I would suspect based on the rest of your post that you are a member.  It is VERY hard to identify the phenomena when you are a member participating in it.

 

I guess a very well debated and an almost universally accepted theory is laughable when it plays out on an internet browser game.  If that is what you meant than I apologize.  I do not think it is what you meant.

 

Members of the group denying that they are participating in group think would be the expected result rather than an outlier.

 

In your other post you mention that Phiney's attitude was boasting.  Maybe - I would call it deriding.  However, your post is dismissive which is, in a way, worse.