Oh no! Enriador "muted" me. How will I sleep tonight? How will I make it into work with all the heartbreaking loss?
I may be many things, but a hypocrite is not one of them. My positions are entirely consistent. For a whiny snowflake, bemoaning insults, Enriador sure feels free to throw them around to others. My intital post on this thread was not insulting at all. I typically ignore posts from this guy, but after seeing the forum page blown up with his tit for tat, cut and paste debate style I got frustrated and weighed in. In my comments I noted my perspective of his work, while complimenting his industrious efforts. My perspective of his work is that it's not resulting in beneficial products, just numerous ones. I also noted that he's not interested in conversation or feedback about his efforts, as evidenced by his ability to even consider a differing opinion.
Enriador comes to VDiplomacy, not to play, but to post countless forum threads concerning his variants. He presents them in the fashion as if he's soliciting feedback, but he's not welcoming any comments except those praising his work. He's like a musician screaming at an audience because they aren't engaging with the music, or a artist raging at viewers who don't fawn over his painting and sculpture. This sheds a great deal of light on his credentials as a creator. The inability to absorb and process criticism of works which you put on public display for review is an arming show of narcissism.
I did "dare to say" that Enriador's voluntary work is rubbish. It is. I avoided saying this for many months because it's clear that he's passionate about what he's doing, and that passion properly channeled might one day develop something great. That will not happen without some reflection on his part, and a willingness to study his subject matter more than he has. Conversations with him clearly reveal that he has minimal understanding of the hobby and it's various communities. I did dare to say this, because I dare to say what I'm thinking. If all people want to hear here is a bunch of sycophants, they've come to the wrong place.
I did praise David Cohen's work as a variant designer. He's been at it for two decades or more, and he has created some of the most popular variants in the hobby. His Known World 901 map is extremely popular here. David is also an experience player and game master, capable of understanding the various mechanics and nuances involved in variant design. Benjamin Hester is cut from the same cloth, with similar credentials and reputation in the Diplomacy community. This isn't me saying so. Go to the Diplomatic Pouch and research the variant page. Ask people who play the game in establish and respected communities and tournaments. Yes, I said that to the guy who coded someone else's design into the Web Dip software. There is a huge difference in map/variant design, and the ability to write code. We're talking apples and hand grenades here. I'm not criticizing the design of Maharajah, Spice Islands, or East Indies variants, nor the coding of said products. I think this stuff is great. It remains unclear what exactly Enriador did, but if he was helpful in getting them coded here for play, that's great. That does *not* make this trove of Classic redrawn variants quality products.
Nopunin10did is not a pillar of the hobby. Enriador, may like the guy, but that doesn't make him a pillar, or his proposed scoring system above question or criticism. His plan was not "obviously well done" at all. nopun, rolled into a conversation here with no actual experience playing in this community, citing the need for a scoring system (like his) base upon what he says they do in tournament play. Right off the bat the fallacy that a scoring system is necessary is propped up by the comparison to tournament play. It remains unclear what tournament nopun participates in since no one actually know who this guy is. The fact remains that tournaments need a scoring system as a vehicle for playing multiple games/rounds over a weekend. The objective in tournaments is to play 2-3 rounds of shortened duration games (limited by real time constraints), determining which players to place on the final board. None of this is necessary in Diplomacy community with stand along games unaffected by such time constraints. Tournaments and community play are entirely different animals, once again apples and hand grenades. What no pun and the president of his fan club are incable of recognizing (perhaps because they don't actually play here) is that VDip games have become infected by a lust for ratings/points rather than a focus on the core concepts of the game: victory by solo/prevent others from victory by solo. When these primal components of the game are lost Diplomacy becomes bastardized or worse, and entirely different game. It's like playing chess and telling players that the objective is to kill the other player's queen, and creating a rating system that values queen captures so much that players stop trying to put their opponents in checkmate.
the 1900 variant is an established and tested product. Somehow Enriador and nopun want some credit for someone else's work there too. I criticized it's implementation here with victory conditions below 50% of the total supply centers because of the propblems that VDip already has with points and ratings. While I do not like the variant, I did not criticize it's design. I simply opined that *if* introduced to VDip, that it should be coded with victory conditions at the greater than 50% of total centers. This is absolutely possible, and not without precedent when bringing PBEM variants to the WebDip platform. Naturally Enriador and nopun shit all over the concern, in spite of having zero experience with the points and ratings issues we have here. The reality is that lowering the victory conditions below 50% cheapens the value of solos across the community. It also plays into the entire PPSC model, where players stop focusing on stopping solos because they will earn more points by losing.
This is not a matter of alarmist theory. The community has seen it's core players leave in droves over the past few years because the quality of play has become so corrupted by points/ratings driven behavior. Enriador and nopun are two chief voices shouting down any calls for fixing the cancer, although it's unclear why, because neither has any experience of note to have an educated opinion on the matter. Less vocal voices like Chumbles and ubercatcher weigh in form time to time, bemoaning the fact that they see things differently. Seeing things differently is one thing. Changing the game into something else is not perspective. The objective of Diplomacy is to solo without allowing you opponents to solo against you. If we were in a chess club with people changing the objective to queen capture, then purists... (fuck that) chess players would rise up and object, and rightly so.
As one final note to ponder for those in doubt here. When Retillion and I line up in 100% agreement, the stars are in alignment. And he like many others here, who Enriador dismisses, actually has first hand experience backing up their stated opinions.