6 minutes ago, WWPDSteven said:

This is going to sound crummy, and I don't mean to rain on your feel good parade... I've been involved in a whole lot of different games and their communities in my days! Aside from 40k who seem to accept that they are, in fact, the worst (jk!)... every community says these exact same things.

I agree though! Worlds was great and people were chill... but I find that is the norm for most of these silly games. Maybe a bit of confirmation bias?

Well, that's just the thing. We've got to strive to be the best, and we can't do that if we don't believe that we can be. Maybe we fall short, maybe we meet our expectations.

The point is we need those expectations. We need to set our sights high. We need to say we are the best community, because it reminds us of what we should always strive to be.

I want you to believe in us, Steven. I want all of you out there to believe in us! Will that make us the best if we believe in ourselves? No, but it is a necessary first step to get to that point.

Edit: Hell of a thing to get to the top of a new page.

Maybe I'm just crossing over into old-man-hood and that kind of stuff hits me like a bunch of hogwash now. The Armada community is as good as any other community (and better than some!).

Maybe I'm losing some credibility as I'm not singing Kumbaya at the campfire right now The issue I see is that "Those guys who plays X are so much worse than us! They looked like they weren't even having any fun!" does us both a disservice. For us, it makes it harder to sell the game as we approach it from a position of superiority. Further, it makes us less inclined to try something new which might be to our liking!

17 minutes ago, WWPDSteven said:

This is going to sound crummy, and I don't mean to rain on your feel good parade... I've been involved in a whole lot of different games and their communities in my days! Aside from 40k who seem to accept that they are, in fact, the worst (jk!)... every community says these exact same things.

I agree though! Worlds was great and people were chill... but I find that is the norm for most of these silly games. Maybe a bit of confirmation bias?

This I can verify. Coming from many other communities, there are few that are truly toxic. At large events, Armada has a solid level of camaraderie which is really cool and makes me wish I could make more of them.

It's not singing Kumbaya around a campfire, it's setting the culture for our group.

I'll give an example. I have worked / volunteered for a few Fire Department / EMS agencies in my time. I'm going to talk about 2 in particular. In one, the department worked on a "good enough" principle. They weren't the best, by any measure, but that was okay. They were good enough to do their job, right? Did they need to train? Well, you certainly could if you wanted to. But why bother? New equipment? The old stuff is fine, it still works. New tactics for fire fighting? The old guys know what they're doing, we don't need to learn anything new. The fire goes out in the end.

The other department, they set themselves a goal. They would be the best. Do you need to train? Absolutely! Go out and get all the training and certifications you can get! Fire Fighter I is the standard for the State? Everyone better have Fire Fighter II within 2 years. New equipment? Make sure we have everything we need to do what the public need from us. New tactics? We've got folks going out and learning from other departments, from the industry leaders. We can bring back what we've learned, see if it is evidence based, and see if and how we can apply it to what we do.

One of these departments is struggling with recruitment, with fielding enough trained personnel to run their trucks. The other has no issues with staffing, and has independent metrics showing itself to be one of the best departments in the State, and among the top volunteer departments in the country. These are two departments that literally share a border with one another.

And it all started with the culture of the department. If you are okay with being what you are, that is what you will be. But if you strive to be the best, you give yourself the opportunity to get to that place. So yeah, I'm going to believe that the Armada community can be the best community in gaming. And you should too. And then we should work together to make it so.

So maybe I wasn't clear in my response... I definitely did not say "Don't try to be the best." I said stop spouting nonsense that we "are" the best and every other game community out there don't know the kind of fun we have. That's just silly.

I absolutely agree with your point. Organizational culture is difficult to steer once it's off course. Armada isn't off course by any measure in my opinion. Perceived forum toxicity has been there since day one- save for our rose tinted glasses. My point is, it's a bit silly to think we're the ONLY ones who are so cool and welcoming and friendly. They all are. Let's make sure we keep it that way!

Anyhow, I apologize. I'm just becoming a crotchety old man and now that I've read the same stuff I've read 50 times before in other game communities it just makes me roll my eyes I do my best to put it into practice every day, and every game I play. I try to be the best opponent I can be, and that gets me through the day!

1 minute ago, WWPDSteven said:

Anyhow, I apologize. I'm just becoming a crotchety old man and now that I've read the same stuff I've read 50 times before in other game communities it just makes me roll my eyes I do my best to put it into practice every day, and every game I play. I try to be the best opponent I can be, and that gets me through the day!

Sounds like you're setting a good example for the new guys then! Roll your eyes all you like, you're doing good work.

First of, I admit that too often I have over stepped the mark and said things I shouldnt have. I get that, and appreciate it when people call me out for it. I am however really struggling at the moment, and for a very simple reason. Continuously I am being called out in every thread going at the moment as the issue here. Either I am being directly named or heavily implied that its my fault. Sure some of it is, not all of it.
And yet the best thing for me to do is stay silent and just take the beating. Its still hurts.

2 hours ago, WWPDSteven said:

Perceived forum toxicity has been there since day one- save for our rose tinted glasses.

That was actually why I necro'd. A certain someone had a massive go at me for being the entire reason why the forums have recently turned sour and that they themselves have only ever posted positive for the game. I shouldnt have necro'd the thread, however, I hope you can see why I might have been highly incensed upon seeing that thread from over a year ago. I was actually hunting for old strategy posts to bring back to life on my blog at the time.

I dont have respect on this forum for my post count, far from it. I dont have respect from the majority either. I have respect from the people I have directly helped along the way. You may be suprised to hear this, but the newer players on this forum do not lurk in the main forum thread, they live in the fleet sub forum, offtopics sub forum and painting sub forum. This is why Dras gets so much respect from a lot of the forum, its not anything he does in the main forum, its the work he does in the painting and rules sub forum. For a very long time I used to comment and advise on every single fleet build in the fleet sub forum. I did this for a very simple reason, these are the people we want to draw into the community by showing ourselves to be friendly. Its the same reason I try and help people with Vassal when I can.

Sorry, this seemed like a thread where I could get this of my chest.

42 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

A certain someone had a massive go at me for being the entire reason why the forums have recently turned sour and that they themselves have only ever posted positive for the game.

I think this might just be a major disconnect for some of us. It feels a lot like you're implying that because Reinholt made a thread about his thoughts on the MC80 in an effort to start a discussion about it (which was successfully had), that was somehow indicative of him being negative in the community.

And maybe this will be something we forever don't see eye to eye on because we just swim in different soup. To me, continually brushing issues you see in something under the rug doesn't do that thing justice. We all really love Armada. It's a great game and there's been lively times had playing it. This recent outpouring of "negativity" has been from people who really have a passion for this game, WWPDSteven being a great example, and because of that want to fix the issues they've found in it.

If you actually disagree with the issues they've found, which seems to be where some community members are coming from, that's totally fine. We can discuss that and maybe try and sway each others thoughts, but at the end of the day, whatever, there's just a fundamental disagreement.

If, on the other hand, and bear in mind I'm not accusing anybody specific of doing this, you are disagreeing to keep the community upbeat and positive you are doing nobody a service. Armada has issues. The meta has issues. All games do. Part of having passion and love for a game is having the the willingness to face it's flaws and work to overcome and fix them. There's a vast difference between this outlined, structured, polite, well-reasoned, data-supported style of presenting arguments, and the style we've seen in the past (Nelsongate), which are less of all these things. I feel like, maybe the best way we can build a positive community, is to more often assume the presenter is the former rather than the latter. It's plastic spaceships, the stakes aren't that high to give people a polite benefit of the doubt, rather than just immediately writing them off with a Ben or Nelson joke.

tl;dr: If by positive community, you guys mean we need to get in a circle and collectively jerk Armada and each other, I'm not only out, I think that's actually harmful to the game, and by extension the community, in the long run. I feel like we can all agree on this point.

3 minutes ago, WuFame said:

I think this might just be a major disconnect for some of us. It feels a lot like you're implying that because Reinholt made a thread about his thoughts on the MC80 in an effort to start a discussion about it (which was successfully had), that was somehow indicative of him being negative in the community.

He specifically had a go at me for always being negative, and that he himself had never posted anything negative. I remember that, I dont expect anyone else to. He can delete his first post all he likes, it wasnt a discussion starter, it was the same as everyone of his posts ever.

"This thing is awful because...."

Tell me how that is anything but negative. He doesnt even offer ideas on how to fix things, its always a simple put down with no evidence just feelings whilst saying that he objects to anecdotal data. I'm sorry but I just cant handle that very well, I dont see where the benefit it is in any of those posts. Your right, starting a discussion is a good thing, however only if it is a constructive discussion.

"I/We are having an issue here, what can we do to fix it?" vs "This is just awful"

Those are not the same thing, or even close.

3 hours ago, WWPDSteven said:

Anyhow, I apologize. I'm just becoming a crotchety old man and now that I've read the same stuff I've read 50 times before in other game communities it just makes me roll my eyes I do my best to put it into practice every day, and every game I play. I try to be the best opponent I can be, and that gets me through the day!

Dude, if you are a crotchety old man, I must be ancient.

5 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

He can delete his first post all he likes, it wasnt a discussion starter, it was the same as everyone of his posts ever.

"This thing is awful because...."

Tell me how that is anything but negative.

Because it wasn't. I'm literally the first reply in that thread. I was there. I read the entire thing when it happened and plenty of the OP is quoted in the replies further down.

Rein had an opinion and shared it in an extremely structured way. He used hyperbole for effect, sure, but that doesn't count against him. He shared his thoughts and then continued to discuss the issue with people throughout the thread.

5 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

He doesnt even offer ideas on how to fix things

That's not a requirement! Identifying an issue doesn't require you to have a solution before you discuss it.

Edit: If you wanted to pick a negative thing Rein has said, I'm sure you could find one, but that MC80 topic was not it. That was an extremely positive, community building thread, especially for me, since it was probably the first time I stepped heavily into this community, and not to pat myself too hard, but I feel like I've at least had useful things to say on occasion (not often, but occasionally).

I dont want to get into another argument about it.

Understood, Gink.

As an addition to bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and others. If you actually care about extending the voice of this community further and promoting the ideas and topics discussed here, you do a great disservice by not accurately and fairly discussing the topics and opinions contained herein, even when they are not your own.

12 minutes ago, WuFame said:

Understood, Gink.

As an addition to bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and others. If you actually care about extending the voice of this community further and promoting the ideas and topics discussed here, you do a great disservice by not accurately and fairly discussing the topics and opinions contained herein, even when they are not your own.

"Catching" somebody accidentally letting an unfiltered opinion slip is the just about the most shameless poo-slinging tactic out there, and I hate it. But then, I tend to think the same of this kind of "hot mike gotcha!" thing in actual news. Are we here to discuss each other's ideas, or to attack each other's character?

I wrote lots of stupid, ill-considered crap in notes to myself, which is what this obviously is. Indeed, the very fact that Biggs went to the lengths he did in the post itself to be even-handed is evidence of putting into practice what he's saying: have whatever outrageously partisan opinion you want, just be nice about how you say it, and try to keep an open mind.

35 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

accidentally letting an unfiltered opinion slip

Sorry, but accidents are generally corrected, Ard. That screenshot was taken today, two weeks later. My point still stands.

Funny enough, I didn't actually even realize that was Biggs. That makes the entire thing a bit ironic...

Edit: Also worth noting, I didn't actually take it to be an accident. To me, it came off like a humorous way to get an opinion through an article that was purposefully avoiding any opinion on the subject. I'm not omniscient though.

Second Edit: At first I had no idea what you meant when you said Biggs was being even-handed, when he didn't even mention the debate in that article. I realize now he wrote another article later on the actual debate. I had missed it. It was indeed even-handed. Credit where it's due.

My creativity adding ice on your discussions has its limits.

Wait! I got it:

7 hours ago, xerpo said:

On this side, I'd love to see how community and FFG stop calling WORLD champioships to NATIONAL USA championships. Since is virtually impossible for thousands of players all around the world to travel to a local USA store to compete for that.

How can you name a world tournamet an event with 95% of the participants being from the same country?

You mean like the "World Series" of baseball? Or how the team that wins the Super Bowl are called "World Champions"? I think that's more the US mentality that we are the center of the world rather than FFG trying to screw over international players...

*sips my iced tea* and I am just over here, one of the worst offenders on this forum and I get away with it all... Mwuhahahahahahahaha

Edit: You know what? I'm just gonna remove my comments on that. They aren't helpful.

I'll reiterate to be clear, I was not actually out to make a personal attack on Biggs or mud-sling. I do occasionally follow Steel Squadron HQ. I assumed it was a joke, a "haha, I left this in this description that's obviously inflammatory". I did follow up by reading Biggs entire article covering the topic, which Ard referenced, and it was extremely fair and even-handed. It was not, however, the article I screenshotted, which was posted a week or so before his analysis.

Again, my point still stands, though I may have done it disservice by being ignorant both that Steel Squadron was Biggs and that he actually did fairly cover both sides. For those two ignorances, I offer an apology.

I had some people equate me to Nelson.

I'm still here. (To the great dismay of some people).

I want to also take this time to remind people not to talk from a position of power. I've had quite a number of times I've seen command-form talk used, or military superior talking to inferior type talk used. You are not in the military here, the person you disagree with is not an inferior officer to you. This is some crazy sort of egotistical one-ups-manship that our culture thinks is acceptable behavior for men over the age of 25. I've also seen some (not as much as other games thank goodness) older folks patting themselves on the backs for being older folks and being generally superior to younger folks while pointing out all the annoying and irritating things that younger folks do (in some part because of their lack of money, time or anything else). This is sickening. Please stop this. Do not ever do it.

That's exactly how to act like the group laugh, bar club bully of the old white boys club. We don't have many young players. We definitely don't have many female players. In a lot of gaming groups, there also aren't that many non-white folks. Don't be that jerk.

---

Now that I've covered don'ts and negatives I think really needed to be stated, I'll also say something more constructive:

Do help be good ambassadors for the game for women, folks of colors, young people, etc. Is mini gaming really that different or weird compared to board games?

If the young folks are doing something not socially acceptable, let them know and be a teacher! If they're discouraged and losing, try and show them a thing or two. If they're constantly beating you and it feels bad, well.. take it in good stride, learn a thing or two and 10-1 them the next game!