@ drano019 :

You are right. But let's not forget one important thing : even if Enriador has muted several players, that should not prevent them from giving their opinion, especially because this is Oli's site. Oli is the one who has the power to decide what can change here and it is probable that he keeps an eye on the forum.

Wow! I muted this thread as I do many after Enriador dished out accusations of lying (specifically my service to my country and my age and Dip experience) but then bragged about his number of games on other sites and expected us to take it at face value. I realized then that he wanted yes men to pat him on the back and not a serious critique of the flaws and poor motivations and reasons for the icon change. So I muted they thread. Rob (great name by the way as I to am a Robert/Rob) told me of this muting so I had to read the thread.

I'll go back to muting it now as I don't need the stress of this BS when it has only been a year since my heartattack and I am striving to avoid unnecessary conflict.

Enriador, I just want to echo that I too admire your energy and dedication to testing & designing. But I think it's unwise to dismiss people as you have. I think a generous reading of Drano's remarks would lead to a conclusion that he is genuinely trying to offer helpful useful feedback that is informed by experiences and I remain hopeful you'll come a realization along those lines.

I love tinkering with Diplomacy too, but I am under no illusions about the value of the immense work that has gone into designing the existing 'tried and true' variants. There is a reason they are so pervasive and successful!

This is true Retillion, however, Oli has given variant developers a long leash on what theycan incorporate, so I wouldn't necessarily expect him to intervene. It'll be on us to keep posting for the general public, even if Enriador chooses to keep us blocked.

>it's unwise to dismiss people<

I have the prerrogative to dismiss people who call others "asshole" and the like. I don't have to stand offense @FrozenDog, and I won't.

>he is genuinely trying to offer helpful useful feedback<

You aren't telling anything new.

I already recognized his feedback as helpful, more than once. But once @drasno took to insult I really don't have to read more crap.

This whole thing would be almost comical if Enriador wasn't being serious.

He continues to call me "drasno" despite me asking quite politely that he not do that. If he can't be bothered to call me by my proper name (Robert/Rob) or by my proper handle (drano or drano019), does he have any standing to talk about people insulting others? I mean, anyone who read this thread can clearly see he did just as much insulting as anyone else did, if not more. Does he truly believe he has the moral high ground here? Just as importantly, will the community allow him to continue to act as though he has the moral high ground without rebuke?

@FrozenDog, by the way, thanks for the gentle words. You have always been a very helpful and knowledgeable person, no matter what others might say about newcomers to vDip. Remember that.

@ Enriador :

One might think that you have the *right*, like any other player, to mute as many members of the vdip community as you want. But that is false because you are not "any other player" : you are a "developer", and even more than that, you are a "Golden developer". And that gives you *duties* and *responsibilities*. You have to listen to the opinion of the members of this community and to take into account that opinion, especially if that opinion comes from several veteran members. And if you don't like the way that opinion is expressed, you, as a "Golden developer", have to cope with that.

A true leader serves his community and does not use it for getting privileges for himself.
If you intend to use the power that Oli gave to you in order to change this site the way you want, with no regard for this community, you would make yourself a tyrant. And, sooner or later, tyrants are overthrowned.

Sic semper tyrannis

Careful Retillion. Millennials have privileges and rights, but never responsibilities or obligations.

I attempted to read all pertinent content on this thread to give my thoughts. I'll refrain from making comments about either of the "sides"... for now at least.

I am confused about whether the question under discussion seems to have become about whether a sitewide change a good idea, and if so what change is best, or whether this is simply a discussion of the icons Enriador is proposing for the Classic Redrawn variant.

I'm going to state a few facts before I give my thoughts.
This issue is one of style.
A change is not required, nor mandated. Any change to the site at large would have to be approved by Oli. For changes introduced in new variants, the variant creator/implementer essentially has majority say. I will provide comments here assuming that Enriador's intent is to solicit feedback on these unit representations for the classic redrawn variant.

Current Icons:
-Historicity: (poor) Mismatchedly inappropriate historically.
---The tank evokes WWII style, the ship looks like a Civil War ironclad.
-Functionality: (good) Both are functional.
---Confusion over what is an army and what is a fleet is something I have never heard about.
---Confusion over which unit belongs to which nation is also something I have never observed.
-Aesthetic appeal: (high) These models are simple, w/ subtle detail, do not add clutter and thus look the cleanest of the three imo.

Square/Hexagon Icons:
-Historicity: (poor) Trades the anachronism debate for an abstraction debate
---imo doesn't buy anything over the current historical inaccuracies.
-Functionality (moderate) Less intuitive than current icons.
---Confusion over which is which isn't really going to be an issue, and if anyone has a problem with figuring that out, they probably shouldn't be playing this game. Still I have to grade these as less intuitive than the original models.
---Confusion over which nation is represented by which icon isn't an issue with these (for the classic game flag set at least, this would however be an issue for large variants... try deciphering US state flags on a map on a phone!! I will say colored backgrounds behind models aren't quite ideal either, but they are at least low clutter.)
Aesthetic appeal: (acceptable) While I am generally a sucker for flags on a map, I prefer models to abstractions.

Cannon/Steam Battleship models
-Historicity: (best) I think this idea represents the WWI age best.
---This instance of model is quite historically accurate.
Functionality: Sufficient (see next category for why I only rate these as sufficient)
---Confusion over fleet vs army wouldn't be an issue nor would identifying whose units are whose.
-Aesthetic appeal: (low) While I believe models provide a better representation than abstract icons, these particular versions make extensive use of black lines for detail and don't look as clean as the original models. High detail (through the use of black line contrast) adds clutter and actually detracts from functionality for a different reason. I play on my phone almost exclusively, and thus only a few pixels represent whatever playing piece is under consideration. That detail gets lost on such a small screen, and the units tend to fade (even with increased color contrast) into the background.

Stylistically (if considering a sitewide change), I would probably be in favor of changing to a good cannon/WWI battleship historical model representation.

Small font disclaimer: The intent of these comments is to be constructive, focused on the topic of feedback on the proposed designs vs current designs.

Thanks for the insightful analysis @Leif. I agree with 99% of it (minus the part about the abstract icons' aesthetic appeal, but of course I am biased).

>the question under discussion seems to have become about whether a sitewide change a good idea, and if so what change is best, or whether this is simply a discussion of the icons Enriador is proposing for the Classic Redrawn variant.<

1) Classic Redrawn is not a variant. It's a redrawing of the Classic color scheme to improve its historical flavor (for example, removing Corsica from Italy's color and making it French blue). That's the primary proposal, and should be applied to all Classic subvariants.

2) A secondary proposal was changing the stock icons for different ones. The discussion eventually reached a middle ground - as you summed up well - over a traditional cannon/gunboat pair. No consensus popped up (yet) about whether they should be applied to Classic only, to all subvariants but not Classic, to both or none.

3) I don't know how much these changes are welcomed by the community at large, or if our Supreme Overlord @Oli will like them or not, but nonetheless the debate raised very good questions and some excellent arguments regarding icons design, and I personally learned a good deal from it - it will certainly influence what I do in that regard from now on.

I too think it would be a good idea to read everyones posts, Enriador.

@Enriador:

I am surprised at you. You are being extremely disrespectful to Drano(not dranso, he very politely asked you not to call him that). You definitely need to read his post which I reposted for you earlier.

You are a developer and therefore need to listen to advice and criticism and tolerate it in the name of improving the site. I'm echoing what Retillion said here.

While I agree with a lot of your aesthetic choices I cannot back you considering the way you have ignored the advice of members who are significantly more experienced then either of us.

The unfortunate truth, which you don't appear to handle very well ;), is that a lot of RUFF and YCHTT's insults were spot on. Block me if you want, but you RUFF is right on a lot of scores.

I will proffer one additional observation:

If your intent is to spark discussion about your proposals as summarized nicely in the clarification you made in point 1:
“Classic Redrawn is not a variant. It's a redrawing of the Classic color scheme to improve its historical flavor (for example, removing Corsica from Italy's color and making it French blue). That's the primary proposal, and should be applied to all Classic subvariants.”

Then I question your purpose in making the following statement:
“I agree with 99% of it (minus the part about the abstract icons' aesthetic appeal, but of course I am biased).”

It almost sounds to me as if you wish to validate your bias as having greater validity that any opposing viewpoint.

I do not claim you have that intent, consciously or otherwise, but I point out the way it comes across in the hope such an observation may somehow be instructive as to why you have received the negative responses you have drawn from your replies to other feedback given you in this thread.

Put simply, Enriador has *no* right to enforce his icons on any variant he did not personally code. Classic is from webDip and nearly every other variant on classic was coded by someone other than him. He can do as he wishes with his variants but enforcing his will on othe variant developers is tyranny beyond the pale.

"tobias", "drasno", "ubercatcher"; I'm half tempted to have seeing how my name gets misspelt as the sole reason to post :p

Joining the 'there is no reason to change icons, especially for a purely personal aesthetic view' chorus. As suggestions for implementation on any variant you design and implement, Enriador, sure, go with your own personal preferences. But please do not attempt to force the rest of the site away from something that functions perfectly well (as you appear to be doing when stating your proposed changes should "be applied to all Classic subvariants.")

That's not to say your ideas are entirely without merit - I cannot count more maps being available as a negative (even if I would be forced to manually correct the victory conditions to render the map playable, but that's a different discussion entirely). Even (cosmetic) variants of variants is adding to the site. But please, limit contentious improvements based on personal taste to those new variants, rather than pushing to modify existing ones.

(not even going to touch the mute debate)

The funny thing is many people call me "ubercatcher" by accident. RUFF did it in this very thread.

>to read everyones posts<

Unfortunately I don't have time to read anything from those who dared claim absurd things about my personal life. If you want to, please, be my honored guest and reread it as much as you like.

>being extremely disrespectful <

I don't think so. I have been called illiterate, asshole, millennial and some things more just for daring disagree and having my own opinion. And I am the one being disrespectful?

Bad news for some:

1) I am not changing.

2) I am on vDip to stay.

It's harsh, I know, but I am sure the butthurt fools who attack one's person rather than one's ideas will manage.

Or maybe not. Don't care.

>need to listen to advice and criticism <

That's precisely what I try to do, with numerous examples across this very thread and a dozen others. What's your point?

>ignored the advice of members<

1) I didn't ignore the (few) pieces of good-natured advice they gave me. I said it many times before...

2) I don't have to accept anyone's advice. Anyone who ever designed anything (from a school poem to a paper for your master's degree) knows not only the value of advice, but also that advice can or cannot be considered - advice from internet strangers is not divine will, or your mother's last dying wish (or whatever).

It's ultimately the author's call. If you disagree, please, do yourself (differently this time)! I will be glad to help however I can (and perhaps you know that from experience).

3) Some of these specific members were very agressive towards myself. Repeating: I don't have to read shit.

I am on vDip to have fun, and I would rather use my limited free time doing meaningful work for the vDip community rather than lose time with petty arguments in the forum. As I said before, those who want to trade insults should get lost and play elsewhere.

4) You claim these members are more experienced that you and I. I honestly don't know what drasno, Ruff, and YouCant ever actually did for this place (besides, well, helping fill out games and mumbling in the forum). I think Retillion donated at some point?

They don't have to do anything for vDip, of course, it's not their obligation or responsability. But I have my doubts about these big-mouthed figures, pardon me.

>insults were spot on<

An insult is never "spot on", especially when coming from community members that, supposedly, are experienced and well-meant, and are targetted among a debate that saw excellent arguments being developed by all sides.

If you do believe that insults are worthwhile (how disappointing!), then I will happily mute/block you off as well.

>validate your bias as having greater validity that any opposing viewpoint.<

This is a false statement @Leif. I believe both viewpoints are equally valid, and you can see the proof of it with your own eyes (I made icons for both viewpoints). Not sure why you ignored this fact.

I have the right to disagree that the abstract icons are aesthetically "acceptable" - I think they do look great. Sorry, that's my (subjective) opinion and you won't change it. =)

>why you have received the negative responses <

I suspect the primary reason is that some folks don't enjoy receiving answers. I embrace feedback and countless times heard the vDip community (among other Diplomacy communities) and changed my work to fit their advice, even when disagreeing. However some folks here got genuinely shocked someone dared to disagree and have their own take on things.

And honestly @Leif, if you cared to reread the whole thread, the discussion about icons has been completely ignored by these recalcitrant troublemakers for a while now and you know that.

Their primary purpose now is to derail the thread and try to judge me as if they had any right or power to do so... Poor devils; as I said before, I ain't going anywhere.

>how my name gets misspelt <

@mousse, wouldn't think twice about that one. =)

>force the rest of the site <

This sentence tells something about the extent you read the thread, @mousse. Surprising, actually.

I never forced anyone to do anything, that's a blatant lie. As I said over a dozen times, these are *proposals*, not orders.

>stating your proposed changes should "be applied to all Classic subvariants."<

This is completely false.

I was very specific about what changes I suggested "be applied to all Classic subvariants". The changes are the MAP changes, that so far were fully supported in this thread and not a single soul raised their voice against them.

I wish it was discussed more, as this is my favorite topic, but not many here are willing to trade ideas.

These map changes recolor smallmap/largemap in order to... oh, forgot it - I already wrote about it in the very first page. Go there, will you? ;)

Regarding the icons, I made it very clear that it's up to the community at large and the website's administration if the new unit icons should be applied to variant X or Y, or even if they should be applied at all.

I don't understand this particular contribution to the thread, sorry.

>limit contentious improvements based on personal taste to those new variants, rather than pushing to modify existing ones.<

If I see something that can be improved (cosmetically) on an existing variant, I *will* propose and incentive modifications - whether they are accepted is another matter, but the proposal will be made.

To my fellow vDippers -

I think this last post shows a lot about Enriador's personality. He is unwilling to admit that he has at least an equal share in the blame for much of the thread, and casts himself purely as a victim here. He is discounting extremely polite responses by some of the newcomers to the thread, and even threatening more blocks and mutes simply for someone (uber) trying to say that, hey, they maybe said it harshly, but some of the things they said were right. I will admit I share some blame on here, and I could have chosen not to respond in kind to provocation, but Enriador refuses to admit the same. This reeks of immaturity to me, and it's a sad state of affairs for someone who is so willing to put in the time and effort to modify and port maps to vDip.

All this said - Does anyone know how difficult it is to change what icons are on maps? Or would be willing to teach me to do so? Or where I can find a fairly easy walkthrough for a n00b with zero coding ability or experience? Because if Enriador feels he can up and change anything he likes, well then, can't someone just come right behind him and re-do *his* maps too? It's petty, but perhaps it would help him to understand people's opinions a little more if it happened once or twice.

Maybe you would all like to calm down, discuss your personal antipathies through PMs and don't spam this nice Forum? We are pretty lenient with our Forum Moderation here, but personally I just find this quite annoying.

@GOD -

Well, since Enriador has muted a bunch of us, we can't exactly discuss things with him in PMs, so discussing with the community via forum is our best outlet. Also, when we're trying to talk to many people at once about a single topic, it's kind of hard to do via PM.

Would it be better if we made a separate thread or something? This is a topic that concerns the community if a member who is highly visible with their development is going to do things like this.

The only person changing anything here is Oli. If he does, he does, and we can just follow through with it.

The unofficial vote currently has 12 votes, I don't expect it to become much more. Comparing that to the 476 active Players we currently have on the site, those are hardly the numbers that would count as the people's voice. Besides, the classic layout side is leading.

How Enriador and any variant developer is creating his or her maps, including Units, is their own choice, nobody is forced to Play the variants later, if they don't like them.

All These Points have been stated several times by all parties involved, the rest are mainly personal issues and Feelings that have been hurt.

So since nothing new will be contributed to the Topic, might as well let it be good?

I just cannot understand how much drama you can create about such a small issue. Last words from my side to this discussion, have fun :D

I made a proposal, seem by some as bad, by others as good, by others as meh. I have no ill will towards anyone here and truly wish to have a nice debate.

Thereby, I shall insta-mute/block off-topic posters in order to keep my mind focused on the thread's issues, avoid lengthening the spam and stop myself from potentially offending someone.

For those who want to discuss the new map/icons:

1) This is the latest set I posted. I included a literal representation of the icons as envisioned by @VaeVictis (it follows Avalon Hill's traditional choice of cannon/gunboat). I also modified them according to two parameters suggested by the community: grey outline instead of black, and a slightly higher contrast against the power's own map color.

https://imgur.com/a/BTOYlq1

2) This is how the new map would look like, with outlying islands being assigned their historical ownership:

https://imgur.com/a/O3q1GlB

>since nothing new will be contributed to the Topic<

I think we have plenty to discuss about icon design (in general) and the historical (in)accuracies of the map(s). After a hundred replies the thread still got some excellent insights by people who entered the discussion later, so maybe it still has steam.

>unofficial vote currently has 12 votes<

Small observation: the poll (currently 5 vs 7, indeed a small size) is outdated by a good deal, as it didn't include the hard-won consensus of cannon/gunboat as a possibly superior alternative to the tank vs square.

The topic of the entire discussion is literally cosmetic, it does not affect the gameplay in any way.

He even argues with a Mod. I feel a silencing might be in order.

Well there is nothing wrong with arguing :)

Unless you are arguing with Enriador. Then he mutes you and retreats to his safe zone.