I meant to make a forum game, but I found some signs across the discourse to suggest that it was discouraged. For example,
(I actually rather liked that forum game idea by @EpicDwarf as well… anything with language in it, really. I don’t like to challenge admins, but I don’t know if I agree with @Geoffers747’s decision there, regardless of how many likes his decision got.)
And I think I’ve seen other signs as well, although I can’t remember exactly when and where.
So, is this the case? Are forum games discouraged? If so, why? Would it be because it’s so much work for the admins to go through all the resulting posts?
Its not discouraged as long as it dose not get out of hands and follows the rules of the forum.
At a certain point some games have come a bit to close to breaking rules and at others the admins will determine that a certain game will probably break the rules withing a few post and they take the liberty of closing it before it get that far.
Take the current forum game as an example.
The rules are that you state why the post is bad but you may say nothing that implies that the user that made the post is bad. once the forum game results in name calling and such it will be closed down.
I hope i have the correct impression of this.
The reason many of the map games where closed where due to bickering and name calling and only two of them due to the game masters not felling up for the task anymore.
That’s good to know, although given that, I still don’t entirely understand the ruling on the forum game I referenced in my above post. Still, thank you for your reply—that’s more or less what I expected, and it means my forum game idea would probably be fine. I hope so, anyway. I’ll give it a go.
Forum games are like Marmite. You either love them, or you hate them.
Personally, I hate them.
As for why they appear to be discouraged, I should imagine its down to the administrative workload of managing them to make sure people behave appropriately.
Taking the map game as an example. 2800 posts of what appears to be incoherent babbling to the outsider…
Something i might have neglected to mention is that @Geoffers747 has a personal vendetta against all topics with a title map game because of that first map game…
This is why there is a secret pm map game so that the admins won’t have to deal with it unless it gets out of hands and we report a post.
@Froggy: Well, I don’t think those two extremes are the only possibilities. My attitude is sort of lukewarm toward most of them; I’ve only made a few posts in one. In my case, though, it depends a lot on the specifics of the game in question. I tend to like games with a linguistic theme, for example. Well, it would still depend on the details.
But yes, I understand the problem with some of them. The map games do seem like a nightmare for admins.
@Elderon: which means the PM solution might be a good one. Probably.
Like I said before, I’m going to give it a go, and I’ll just see whether I will bring Steffers Geodamo’s wrath down upon myself or not.
Well… my version of forum games are sprawling campaigns based off the GURPS rpg system with battle maps, full character sheets, and a open-choice moral system. Not sure those fit here…
From what i’ve noticed in other forums (I’m basically constantly running a version of this on said forums), as long as they stick to their own thing, they really don’t cause a problem.
Then again, I know all the players in my forum game very well (And the Admin of the site is a player), so if the bickering and fighting starts (Which it rarely does), it doesn’t take much to calm everyone down.
If they would run properly they would be fine, but history dictates that they turn into contests of oneupmanship and bickering. You only have to read through some of the earlier games to see that it devolves into some sort of “he said she said”.
Plus there have been arguments etc. so it’s just easier to lock them up.
Also, we discouraged them for a time as there was the first public release and subsequent builds and we felt that attention needed to be placed on bug reports, questions etc. and the forum games were distracting (especially with the bickering).
As for the bad grammer game, yer, I just didn’t see the point in that one personally.
If they’re a genuinely good game then fine, but a lot of them so far have been very mediocre in premise.
[size=8]Question me again @Phagocytosis and you will truly know what it is to feel pain. [/size]
Right, I understand. I do hope the forum game I’m about to propose isn’t going to cause any such problems. If it is, of course, feel free to close it down right away.
As for bug reports, those are coming as well, but now that I’m using Fraps (so as to be able to play full screen and with game sounds), the uploading-to-YouTube process seems to be taking much longer than before. Still waiting on that presently.
Isn’t that a bit subjective, though? I wouldn’t think they should all be required to appeal to the admins personally. @EpicDwarf was of course interested in it as the poster, and I think I might have enjoyed it a bit.
Oops! Only read that last line after posting this. Ruh roh! Hopefully this counts as “still” rather than “again”.
Not that you can see it or confirm it but in my opinion the secret map game is the best one yet. no bickering or anything, i think the big thing is that there is no separate thing for discusing. That and the fact that there is a limited amount of players and the once usualy causing the fuzz is not taking part in it.
Yeah… i’ve noticed that a lot as of late, mostly it’s just forum games and discussions about history repeating itself… Not really exciting stuff about the game. Not that I’m really against forumers just having fun, it’s just nice to come here and talk about the game.
In all honesty, taking the decision outside of the context will look odd, I admit that. So, in the context of the time there were a lot of forum games around, perhaps the top 6 or 7 threads were all forum games which means you have to scroll down a bit to get to actual content related to Stonehearth.
Secondly, yes I admit that it was somewhat subjective, but we felt that it was nipping the thread in the bud, a thread that was dedicated to essentially typing nonsencial ramblings.
Also a bit of insight into @SteveAdamo and my thought process - you have to think about what it is new users will see when they come here. They’ve just downloaded the latest alpha, have questions, want to get involved with game discussion and then pop onto the forums to see 5 or 6 forum games populating the top, forum games that don’t really have much to them, and then if there is arguing, or immaturity etc. in those threads it gives off a certain first impression that might make people want to either remain lurking or just stay away.The map games are a really great premise, the execution has just been poor in the public ones apart from @Xavions to a certain point. On top of new users, you have existing users that perhaps don’t wish to get involved with forum games, it can be annoying for them that the games occupy the top spots constantly.