Social DGames Social | V/LA |

[#HBC | BadWolf]

yeah probably vOv just wanted to make it clear that i dont want to make people leave a site or anything

Kinda late for that....

I mean really J, Zen, others who I can't remember at this point.

 

[Maven89]

The fact that he asked me is more offensive than the actual answer.

I mean I get that, that little comment wasn't entirely related to the conversation at hand. I found your "depend on the horse!' comment in the ancon thread the highlight of the whole thing, but really, for future references, no matter what, always answer that question with "No".

 

[Dooms]

People are, indeed, overreacting. The thing is, everyone says they want to attract new people. But I guarantee that if given the choice, most of them would actually prefer to have all the oldschool people come out of retirement instead.

This is a stupid statement to make.

We've made people leave our community because of how crappy it is. Of course I want J to start playing again. This doesn't mean that I don't want new players in the community as well. It's not a choice. It's the outcome that we desire. We don't want one or the other. We want both, but with how our community is at the moment, we won't be getting either without a lot of improvement.

 

[#HBC | BadWolf]

Yeah I get that. But again seriously.

 

[#HBC | BadWolf]

This is a stupid statement to make.

We've made people leave our community because of how crappy it is. Of course I want J to start playing again. This doesn't mean that I don't want new players in the community as well. It's not a choice. It's the outcome that we desire. We don't want one or the other. We want both, but with how our community is at the moment, we won't be getting either without a lot of improvement.

In reality this community is dying and really it's our faults.

 

[Ashemu]

ryker, please respond in PM

i dont have much more to say here because i guess i just have thicker skin than a lot of people. sorry if im a **** because of it
the only times gorf actually bugs me is when he has a different opinion than i do about social issues and goes out of his way to be dehumanizing/bigoted then handwaves it as "trolling", which gets on my nerves on some level but im too detached from this community to really argue with him

i guess its more of a frustrated sigh/eyeroll than genuine anger though

 

[Dooms]

In reality this community is dying and really it's our faults.

It's not completely dead though. It's fixable. We have the right people that are willing to start working towards a better community. We can make the community as welcome for new players as possible and actually start advertising games in order to start building our community again. None of these things are out of the realm of possibilities as long as we (as in everyone) recognize the problems we have and start working towards fixing them.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Acrostic has a point about declining internet communities, but this one I do not think has reached that point yet as SWF's subject matter is still very mainstream and pulls in new users and our community can easily nab players still.

 

[BarDulL]

jesus christ this thread is moving faster than olympic marathon runners...i will respond eventually, but everyone needs to CHILL. come on what are we here for if not to have fun am i right?

bard story incoming later

 

[adumbrodeus]

I wholeheartedly agree with Joey and Ryker's sentiments. After seeing the AnonCo thread migrate to the V/LA thread, physically ask thread why they were putting up with it, and see people shrug it off as the mod's responsibility to prune the distasteful bits out of the discussion it's quite clear we've got a problem and have been thoroughly ignoring it right up until the point we can no longer afford to.


I will not rehash any of what has been said. But I will say one thing.







I'm going to be the realest I've ever been in the history of Dgames. This is not meant to be mean, but it is truthful and how I feel every time I see posts like this.


Who are you two.



Not literally of course, I know who you are, what your names are, I can see long archived games with your names in them; but why do you stay here. Why do you post here, specifically.

I realize of course you have friends from mafia games' past and like to talk to them, but you don't play mafia games or give anyone newer than that a chance to meet you in the way we'd meet you best: in game. I say this only because from what I've seen you both treat this like your personal Debate forum, a place to bring up either heavy or airy discussion or jump into an argument started by someone else. Yes it's a social thread, people are social in it. But at what point do we draw the line between this place being a thread to shoot the breeze about mafia with the people you just finished your game with or let people know you won't be posting in them for awhile, and a place to draw out a lengthy discussion about objectification in video games etc.

What stake could you possibly have in these discussions that extends beyond this exact thread or entirely theoretical mental exercises.

Especially you Acrostic. If you feel like natural decline is a foregone conclusion in online forums, why are you here. The Dgames as a whole you were an active part in is dead, so either you're going to do something to reform it and bring some life back so that you'd like to play or... sit here and waste space for the majority of people who have never gotten a chance to know you? No response from you on this topic was ever was warranted, that would imply you had a direct stake on the state of actual Mafia games or their attractiveness to newcomers.

You wanna be real, so I'll be just as real.

For myself and my personal stake, I've been in 3 games since I came back, ya sure I don't play as often as some people but to suggest that this means I'm somehow not part of the community without a personal stake is 100% bull.


But frankly, your question exemplifies a lot of this room's issues. That absolute in-group mentality, part of what made this room great to play in was that we had a constantly rotating group of interesting players who kept in the community via social contact but weren't always necessarily playing, but when there was a game they wanted to play, they sure as hell jumped on it.

If people enjoy the social interaction they stick around and remain a part of the community, but if they're not hanging out here, do you really think they'll ever play again? I enjoy mafia but when I got disconnected from the social aspect, I left for a really long time and the only reason I dropped in to play was because I happened to run into FF on league of legends.

If you force people to constantly be in games, they'll get burnout (I did, which is part of the reason why I lowered the number of games I play in) and then people are gone forever.

This mentality displays an incredibly strong ingroup/outgroup sentiment that's cancerous to attracting new players and keeping older players engaged in the community and therefore, still playing. The social thread and other social contact points of the community aren't just about shooting the breeze, they're vital points for recruitment and retention, and with this elitism towards people who aren't currently in games or even might never be in games again, you drive a potential audience away.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

What potential audience.

 

[adumbrodeus]

People who may not be particularly interested in mafia right now but because they still hang out in the community might decide to join games at a later date.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

People who may not be particularly interested in mafia right now but because they still hang out in the community might decide to join games at a later date.

Are you talking about yourself.

 

[Maven89]

Or anyone who clicks on Dgames wondering wtf a dgame is

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

for me right now i still love everyone here but i feel i dont have much to offer and don't contribute to the social thread as much because i've felt a disconnect that is somewhat because i felt nobody really wanted to play with me so i took a step back and im trying to be less emotional/dickish and hopefully i dont come across that way too much and ive always tried to make it clear that i dont mean it personal in-game but i digress

read that as a full sentence without taking a breath.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

People who think the Badwolf issue solely stems from the brony call outs and the Anon thread fail to see the greater systemic issue with Badwolf mafia games which was that he was almost always policy lynched because people were unable to read him or adapt to his play style. The fact that Badwolf policy lynching was such a frequent thing and people would vehemently deny it happening despite participating on it in the majority of games is indicative of a lot of players just being straight out naive that joining a new game would actually bring about a new experience. What was the point of playing in new setups if the result was going to be a Badwolf policy lynch between D1 to D3.

 

[#HBC | BadWolf]

for me right now i still love everyone here but i feel i dont have much to offer and don't contribute to the social thread as much because i've felt a disconnect that is somewhat because i felt nobody really wanted to play with me so i took a step back and im trying to be less emotional/****ish and hopefully i dont come across that way too much and ive always tried to make it clear that i dont mean it personal in-game but i digress

read that as a full sentence without taking a breath.

There is a definite difference between you and a lot of people, Soup. Everytime you've played a game with me at least I know that you've explained that you get hotheaded in games. I can understand that. What I don't like is the fact that Gorf came into game instigating.

 

[Jdietz43]

You wanna be real, so I'll be just as real.

For myself and my personal stake, I've been in 3 games since I came back, ya sure I don't play as often as some people but to suggest that this means I'm somehow not part of the community without a personal stake is 100% bull.


But frankly, your question exemplifies a lot of this room's issues. That absolute in-group mentality, part of what made this room great to play in was that we had a constantly rotating group of interesting players who kept in the community via social contact but weren't always necessarily playing, but when there was a game they wanted to play, they sure as hell jumped on it.

If people enjoy the social interaction they stick around and remain a part of the community, but if they're not hanging out here, do you really think they'll ever play again? I enjoy mafia but when I got disconnected from the social aspect, I left for a really long time and the only reason I dropped in to play was because I happened to run into FF on league of legends.

If you force people to constantly be in games, they'll get burnout (I did, which is part of the reason why I lowered the number of games I play in) and then people are gone forever.

This mentality displays an incredibly strong ingroup/outgroup sentiment that's cancerous to attracting new players and keeping older players engaged in the community and therefore, still playing. The social thread and other social contact points of the community aren't just about shooting the breeze, they're vital points for recruitment and retention, and with this elitism towards people who aren't currently in games or even might never be in games again, you drive a potential audience away.

Fair points. And I don't intend to force people to play mafia.

My point is: how much is too much in this thread. I know I actively don't post here of my own choice because it gets so tiresome, and I'm personally fine to just play in games and have the social part be after games and in skype calls outside the forums etc. But I can't help but wonder how many people come in here expecting us to be actually talking about mafia over social justice and morality.

You're here to be social, I respect that. But it's the mafia social in particular. My question is: do we have to be talking about these things here at such length when they aren't inviting. We're generally mature here, but if we continue to force this place to be "adults and debaters only" then that's all we'll ever see come in our doors. If I walked in at a random time to V/LA, I would think I wandered into SWF Debate Hall.

I'm cancerous to your preferred Dgames because I play in the games to get to know people largely without posting in social. My in-group is people who play mafia, including those who are new. When people join a mafia game I'm in, they become a part of my in-group. The in-groups largely overlap, but they aren't the same. How are we catering to people who want to see if they enjoy playing mafia if what they see instead is diatribes they can go other places for and find equally thick internet discussion on a myriad of topics.



tl;dr
Is there such a thing as "off-topic" in this thread, and if there isn't why not. I'm interested in people who will play a game with me, and at the end of the day that's technically what this board is for, existing social relationships notwithstanding. The last thing I want to hear out of people is "I tried to talk about mafia and got drowned out by walls so I left."

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

There is a definite difference between you and a lot of people, Soup. Everytime you've played a game with me at least I know that you've explained that you get hotheaded in games. I can understand that. What I don't like is the fact that Gorf came into game instigating.

So a few bad apples ruined the bunch?

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Or anyone who clicks on Dgames wondering wtf a dgame is

How did you get here btw?

 

[Maven89]

I was reading about SSB 4 and clicked here thinking it was related somehow to smash. Then I looked around a little and signed up to the forum because mafia looked fun. Now I'm just pretending I'm a legit dgamer and hoping no one catches on that I've been here a month

 

[adumbrodeus]

for me right now i still love everyone here but i feel i dont have much to offer and don't contribute to the social thread as much because i've felt a disconnect that is somewhat because i felt nobody really wanted to play with me so i took a step back and im trying to be less emotional/****ish and hopefully i dont come across that way too much and ive always tried to make it clear that i dont mean it personal in-game but i digress

read that as a full sentence without taking a breath.

Nailed it.

But you should stick around even if you don't wanna play. It can't be as bad as when you got the modkill record.

Are you talking about yourself.

I'm signed up for a game so no.

But I'm talking in general from people here are between games to people who said that they don't really wanna play mafia anymore.

People who think the Badwolf issue solely stems from the brony call outs and the Anon thread fail to see the greater systemic issue with Badwolf mafia games which was that he was almost always policy lynched because people were unable to read him or adapt to his play style. The fact that Badwolf policy lynching was such a frequent thing and people would vehemently deny it happening despite participating on it in the majority of games is indicative of a lot of players just being straight out naive that joining a new game would actually bring about a new experience. What was the point of playing in new setups if the result was going to be a Badwolf policy lynch between D1 to D3.

We've dealt with bad players before, that's not the issue.

Whatever badwolf's level of play does to the game is no excuse for the way he was treated and that type of behavior hurts the ability to create a retain a playerbase.

Fair points. And I don't intend to force people to play mafia.

My point is: how much is too much in this thread. I know I actively don't post here of my own choice because it gets so tiresome, and I'm personally fine to just play in games and have the social part be after games and in skype calls outside the forums etc. But I can't help but wonder how many people come in here expecting us to be actually talking about mafia over social justice and morality.

You're here to be social, I respect that. But it's the mafia social in particular. My question is: do we have to be talking about these things here at such length when they aren't inviting. We're generally mature here, but if we continue to force this place to be "adults and debaters only" then that's all we'll ever see come in our doors. If I walked in at a random time to V/LA, I would think I wandered into SWF Debate Hall.

The problem with setting up the thread like that is it doesn't foster organic social interactions which are what generally what causes retention over longer periods. If it's forced to just be about mafia this thread would quickly die and then skype would be the only connection, at that point those who aren't involved in that group would leave pretty quickly ith few exceptions.

Social threads are pretty standard in this regard, they cover whatever topics people feel like discussing, while they'll certainly drop into topics about the game, the marth social thread is just as happy talking about say, fire emblem as they are about marth. Nobody on SWF expects on topic social threads, social threads are there for shooting the breeze among forum regulars.

I'm cancerous to your preferred Dgames because I play in the games to get to know people largely without posting in social. My in-group is people who play mafia, including those who are new. When people join a mafia game I'm in, they become a part of my in-group. The in-groups largely overlap, but they aren't the same. How are we catering to people who want to see if they enjoy playing mafia if what they see instead is diatribes they can go other places for and find equally thick internet discussion on a myriad of topics.

You entirely misunderstand, it wasn't your lack of interest in social interactions and the like which is cancerous, it's your "who are you" statement that is.

Saying "you have no right to talk about this because you're not in the in group" whatever the reason is the kind of cliquey behavior that is absolute poison to developing consistent new blood.

This has nothing to do with whether or not you wanna participate in the social environment outside games, my point in regards to that is a general benefit, not that everyone has to participate.

But if you sh** on people you perceive as outgroup just because they're outgroup, don't expect your ingroup to grow.

 

[Maven89]

I think Joey and Jdietz are the two opposite sides of this community. One is mainly here because they like the people and the other is here mainly for games. Community should be able to cater to both imo

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

yeah badwolf is about the best example of bullying this room has seen, which got depressingly personal. the only thing that comes to mind that came close is vinyl and im not even sure he was picked on much outside of his performance in some games :/

glad to have u in the #hbc still homie

i had no problems with vinyl except for the fact that he refused to play mafia games to its truest definition, and for that reason i had the largest problems with him.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

But I'm talking in general from people here are between games to people who said that they don't really wanna play mafia anymore.

Like who. If I was interested in getting J to play mafia games again, I would do something like make a Kingdom Hearts setup and shoot him a PM and make it really appealing to try to get him back into a game. Then I would consider whether I want to make it a private or not and consider casting players that he would like to play with or trying to think of players that would give him the most enjoyment. After he comes out of the game feeling good, hopefully I leave a stimulus that makes him want to play more games.

Of course you're talking in general, because everyone is talking as if this was an intellectual issue and they want to brush off their Ph.D in Humanities in order to show how well rooted they are and to just share their own opinions to make themselves feel good. Posting how you feel and what you believe makes yourself feel good because sharing it to a wide community almost seems to validate it when you see your own post in a medium. The problem is that everyone else in a wide range general humanities discussion isn't actually discussing about how to patch Decisive Games. They are talking about the issue intellectually in a manner that makes themselves feel good because at the end of the day they are primarily interested in making themselves feel good and attaining some of that instant gratification that makes their lives a little more livable.

If we were really focused on getting J back, Sangfroid back, or Badwolf back then we wouldn't be posting here in general but considering methods to manipulate them into thinking that this community is worth it even though I personally fail to understand how someone can genuinely pursue options to patch a community they think that in context to what it was can be considered garbage. Personally speaking when I see garbage, I throw it out. If you think Gorf is seriously garbage, then make moves to throw him out. Report all his posts and bait him into getting infractions so we can throw him off the site.

Being actually interested in making changes is hard. Doing work voluntarily is hard. Having actual convictions you're willing to pursue is hard. If most people had the determination and concern to actually go through with something, most of the time they wouldn't be speaking in generalisms or all chatting to stroke their own individual ego.

We've dealt with bad players before, that's not the issue. Whatever badwolf's level of play does to the game is no excuse for the way he was treated and that type of behavior hurts the ability to create a retain a playerbase.

You clearly don't care so why bother pretending that you care. I can read through you. You aren't fooling me. I'm not wasting time with you stroking your own intellectual ego. You don't even know what games I'm talking about nor do you care about how such games play out. Badwolf is a stage prop and a means to you making your own point. You don't give a **** about Badwolf and I'd be surprised if someone actually did not because we're talking about Badwolf, but because there are few people who ever reach a status where you actually give a **** about them especially on the internet and I can tell that Badwolf is definitely not in your bro-list but a prop you're using to make a general point that has absolutely zero impact to any actual change.

The problem with setting up the thread like that is it doesn't foster organic social interactions which are what generally what causes retention over longer periods. If it's forced to just be about mafia this thread would quickly die and then skype would be the only connection, at that point those who aren't involved in that group would leave pretty quickly ith few exceptions.

Organic social interactions are easy. I think you're fake. Therefore I will let you know that I think you're fake and you will have a reaction to it because you think I'm insulting you. Then I will clarify that I'm not being insulting, I just presume that you're so used to the forum being a place where you can instantly gratify yourself via verbal fellacio that you never considered the fact that you were fake in the first place. Of course forcing anything other than what people really want to talk about would be by definition the opposite of organic. For example you had to force yourself in stating that there would be 'few exceptions' although what you really wanted to do was put the period after the word 'quickly.' You used a caveat because you don't want to appear radical, you want to appear fair minded because you are stroking your own intellectual ego. That's what this is.

Social threads are pretty standard in this regard, they cover whatever topics people feel like discussing, while they'll certainly drop into topics about the game, the marth social thread is just as happy talking about say, fire emblem as they are about marth. Nobody on SWF expects on topic social threads, social threads are there for shooting the breeze among forum regulars. You entirely misunderstand, it wasn't your lack of interest in social interactions and the like which is cancerous, it's your "who are you" statement that is. Saying "you have no right to talk about this because you're not in the in group" whatever the reason is the kind of cliquey behavior that is absolute poison to developing consistent new blood. This has nothing to do with whether or not you wanna participate in the social environment outside games, my point in regards to that is a general benefit, not that everyone has to participate. But if you sh** on people you perceive as outgroup just because they're outgroup, don't expect your ingroup to grow.

Turn this into a Venn Diagram. You know you want to do it to show that you know about Venn Diagrams and have a Ph.D in Humanities.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

I mean, there's definitely a problem, but now I feel like people are over blowing it. This place isn't just going to throw **** at anyone who shows up. I showed up and outside of Chaco calling me a ****** in game I haven't had any harassment, and I played like **** my first game. Outside of that people have generally been pretty nice. I stand by everything I said before and definitely think something needs to be done before we start to advertise, but it's not that bad.

At least what I've seen this September

did you read my story

do you understand why i say the things i do

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

for me right now i still love everyone here but i feel i dont have much to offer and don't contribute to the social thread as much because i've felt a disconnect that is somewhat because i felt nobody really wanted to play with me so i took a step back and im trying to be less emotional/****ish and hopefully i dont come across that way too much and ive always tried to make it clear that i dont mean it personal in-game but i digress

read that as a full sentence without taking a breath.

Honestly, whenever you aren't ******** out of control in a thread (or pontificating about the level of play here in dgames), you're enjoyable to play with. You can manipulate your meta well enough to be a solid scum player while also putting in work as a town player. You're leaps and bounds above the guy who threw UTrick'd1 practically singlehandedly through a series of bad decisions. I never wanted you to quit but it's clear the game was getting to you. It's good you're taking that step back.

 

[Maven89]

Yes. That post was about how negative the place is. I think you might have misunderstood because all I was saying was the place isn't that bad when it comes to new players. But again, I'm just one and I've been here a month, but people were acting like any new player that visits would be held down and gangraped

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

for real tho imagine how lovely this place would be if acrostic and adumb put each other on ignore for a week

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

1. Yes. That post was about how negative the place is. I think you might have misunderstood because all I was saying was the place isn't that bad when it comes to new players. But again, I'm just one and I've been here a month, but people were acting like any new player that visits would be held down and gangraped

You look smart. You're savvy enough to the point where people question or assume you're an alt. You look solid enough at the game to be at least as good as some of our mid-tier members once you settle in. You also don't subscribe to weird fringe interests or garner any social stigmas. You've basically avoided the whole gauntlet of stupid **** that we throw at newbie members. You're not in the majority for that reason.

 

[Jdietz43]

You make good points @ adumbrodeus . And I don't mean to attack you as a community member or anything, far from it, I'm trying to figure out how to be inclusive to people who are concerned primarily with games and how to play them who are specifically not interested in this exact kind of discussion which some people including myself find offputting and secondary to games.

But no, in this case I was wrong. I see instead what I've been expecting out of the social thread simply wasn't and hasn't ever been what it's been for. Navigating what Acrostic has lovingly defined as verbal fellatio is mostly why I don't post here, I'm just not interested in that depth of discussion, and I get my regular chatter in other places. I literally just don't care to wade through it to get to mafia related issues and topics.



I think I found a new need for the forum in that case.



@#HBC | marshy
@#HBC | Red Ryu
@Raziek


Would it be possible, and/or can I get permission to create a sticky thread that would be solely for discussing mafia games, the theory of mafia games, how finished games panned out future and present, and how we make and play mafia games role etc. to foster the concept of mafia games in general?

Yes I'm dead serious. I think it's the kind of something we didn't know we were missing until we had it.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

for real tho imagine how lovely this place would be if acrostic and adumb put each other on ignore for a week

Ban Acro.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

creating more threads doesn't really help, especially ones about discussing mafia games. most people would be interested in discussing ongoing games, which they can't do publicly for obvious reasons. i don't like that thread idea.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Ban Acro.

your salt is astronomical, are you european?

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

your salt is astronomical, are you european?

Don't be a moron.

 

[Maven89]

You make good points @ adumbrodeus . And I don't mean to attack you as a community member or anything, far from it, I'm trying to figure out how to be inclusive to people who are concerned primarily with games and how to play them who are specifically not interested in this exact kind of discussion which some people including myself find offputting and secondary to games.

But no, in this case I was wrong. I see instead what I've been expecting out of the social thread simply wasn't and hasn't ever been what it's been for. Navigating what Acrostic has lovingly defined as verbal fellatio is mostly why I don't post here, I'm just not interested in that depth of discussion, and I get my regular chatter in other places. I literally just don't care to wade through it to get to mafia related issues and topics.



I think I found a new need for the forum in that case.



@#HBC | marshy
@#HBC | Red Ryu
@Raziek


Would it be possible, and/or can I get permission to create a sticky thread that would be solely for discussing mafia games, the theory of mafia games, how finished games panned out future and present, and how we make and play mafia games role etc. to foster the concept of mafia games in general?

Yes I'm dead serious. I think it's the kind of something we didn't know we were missing until we had it.

Tie the firs post into a newbie/General guide!

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

you take me far too seriously

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

This is not a time to be avoid being taken seriously.

 

[Jdietz43]

Tie the firs post into a newbie/General guide!

Can/would do if it ends up being a good idea.

creating more threads doesn't really help, especially ones about discussing mafia games. most people would be interested in discussing ongoing games, which they can't do publicly for obvious reasons. i don't like that thread idea.

True, and we wouldn't allow that obviously. But it would be a niche that isn't currently filled by the currently catch-all social. We might be surprised by who would want to talk about what interesting things went down in games past or game-creation theory... or even just "wat do I do in mafia halp".

 

[Maven89]

Can/would do if it ends up being a good idea.

It is and anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

Honestly we could just have an /mini que thread with an archive section and then a mafia discussion/guide thread, as long as it's clear that you cannot discuss ongoing mafia games and the mods 100% enforce that rule with infractions and maybe temp bans from other games/forced replacements and so forth