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Standards?


jerdge

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I believe the "standard of war" flew out the door with the MK's NPO pre-empt. If you want to start a reform movement go ahead though. I'm behind you 100% friend.

The pre-empt movement was certainly a blow, but quite a bit remained. You have to admit this pretty much drains it to zero though.

Source: Just an ordinary DoW

Sorry (or you're welcome) if this is short, but my time isn't much either.

Standards, you (both/all) say? That's a discourse that may have a leg to stand on if covered with IC propaganda and hypocrisy (which are nothing bad by themselves, anyway).

But I suspect there was an OOC tone to that exchange. As a casual observer from a neutral point of view I saw any standard that we (as a community) may have had going down the drain years ago. The ancient Pacifican Hegemony already didn't respect much the players (e.g. EZI), and what standards they maintained were mostly just form. After the inter-reign of the DH-SF rivalry the form was thrown out of the window as well, when every pretension that this is "politics" was erased by the lulzy "it's just an horrible game let's grief these idiots" attitude. Any narrative was finally erased by (for example) the intentionally story-less "Everything. Must. Die." and the intentionally lulzy "for Dave!" wars.

Incidentally, note that respect for players didn't come back at any time (e.g. personal attacks on Hoo/Kait).

Please don't talk to me of standards. Please.

(Sorry for the rant, you may now go back to your regularly scheduled click-click-click, I go back to my boring other pastimes... :) )


EDIT:

Personal attacks or EZI aren't the focus of this entry, anyway: I am talking of fair play. Fair play would (should) arguably lead to respecting the game and to maintaining standards so that the game remains acceptably meaningful for everyone that's interested in that. But you don't get that if people disrespect and trample all over the other players, and point and laugh at any attempt to play the game as a game of "politics".

When power is in the hands of those that find the game stupid and worthless, good just as an occasion to vent their lesser instincts, and their friends support them just because they're "friends" (i.e. for OOC/RL reasons that have nothing to do with the game mechanics), you obviously don't get fair play anymore. Everything becomes acceptable and the whole game becomes an extension of external dynamics, which inevitably leads to the irrelevance of any "standard".

CN hasn't any scarce resource we can fight over. It's driven by the raw grab for power for the sake of it, by made up ideology/beliefs and by grievances. When the drive becomes completely OOC - power is a tool to grief, ideology is a mockery and grievances are RL-based - you get what we have now: the lack of any standard or fair play.

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While you definitely have a point, that's not the type of standard we were referring to with that exchange. Specifically, we were talking about the standard to which wars are literally fought. Working treaty chains, coming up with a battle plan to outplay the alliances lined up against you, strategic dow's that are meant to maximize damage to others and minimize damage to you based on the ties individual alliances on the other side hold, etc.

Basically, what we were discussing was the fact that chess aspect of war was one of the most important parts of this game, and while it was certainly injured before, its now totally gone.

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While you definitely have a point, that's not the type of standard we were referring to with that exchange. Specifically, we were talking about the standard to which wars are literally fought. Working treaty chains, coming up with a battle plan to outplay the alliances lined up against you, strategic dow's that are meant to maximize damage to others and minimize damage to you based on the ties individual alliances on the other side hold, etc.

Basically, what we were discussing was the fact that chess aspect of war was one of the most important parts of this game, and while it was certainly injured before, its now totally gone.

Oh boo hoo the value of being a massive treaty whore is gone, how will CN ever recover.

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Oh boo hoo the value of being a massive treaty whore is gone, how will CN ever recover.

I have absolutely no idea why you posted this as a reply, since the amount of treaties an alliance holds has no bearing on what I said. I'm guessing you were going too quickly and misread?

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Its

While you definitely have a point, that's not the type of standard we were referring to with that exchange. Specifically, we were talking about the standard to which wars are literally fought. Working treaty chains, coming up with a battle plan to outplay the alliances lined up against you, strategic dow's that are meant to maximize damage to others and minimize damage to you based on the ties individual alliances on the other side hold, etc.

Basically, what we were discussing was the fact that chess aspect of war was one of the most important parts of this game, and while it was certainly injured before, its now totally gone.

To be fair it's been gone for while. You have your friendly neighborhood shroom to thank for the current political climate and the death of "sportsmanship"

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yes yes, i got that. But what i dont understand is, where is the "unfair" part?

Sorry for not having replied earlier, but my phone "ate" my reply and I couldn't then get back at your question until now.

I was talking of "fair play" as in recognizing that the (political) game is worthy and to be respected because it's what the community of players get their fun from, thus it would be a good idea to let the strategy remain meaningful, to follow your treaties (maybe even interpreting them "conveniently", but at least not outright ignoring them), to declare war for a reason (that makes sense in game) and so on. The unfair part would be in playing the game with utter disregard for the political simulation part. While it's true that everyone is entitled to play CN as they like (as long as they don't break the game rules) it's also true that a gaming community centered around a simulation suffers a lot when a significant group of players completely disregards the simulation part, short-circuiting it by heavily substituting the simulation dynamics with OOC and RL drives. It's especially problematic and disruptive when these players get influence and intentionally and systematically undermine the credibility of the simulation (also managing to intentionally insult several people in the process, on top of it).

It's the freedom we've been given by the mods, if you will, that becomes a double-edged sword when misused.

While you definitely have a point, that's not the type of standard we were referring to with that exchange.

Maybe I misunderstood, maybe I was confused/unclear, maybe both. The above reply might help in understanding what I was meaning: I don't think it's completely different from what you were saying, although I also extended the scope of the discussion and I tried to provide an explanation of why we're where we are.

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While you definitely have a point, that's not the type of standard we were referring to with that exchange. Specifically, we were talking about the standard to which wars are literally fought. Working treaty chains, coming up with a battle plan to outplay the alliances lined up against you, strategic dow's that are meant to maximize damage to others and minimize damage to you based on the ties individual alliances on the other side hold, etc.

Basically, what we were discussing was the fact that chess aspect of war was one of the most important parts of this game, and while it was certainly injured before, its now totally gone.

MK and friends succeeded in being so utterly loathed, that 30-something alliances decided to just skip the treaty chains and wipe the lot of you out in one fell swoop.

Quite the achievement in and of itself.

I strongly doubt the standard is "lost," it's just that you all really pissed us off to the point that we're going to hit hard and fast and not let up until you are ground into a fine powder.

It is the nature of our enemy that enabled us to coordinate and cooperate to this extreme degree. Do not lose sight of that.

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Sorry for not having replied earlier, but my phone "ate" my reply and I couldn't then get back at your question until now.

I was talking of "fair play" as in recognizing that the (political) game is worthy and to be respected because it's what the community of players get their fun from, thus it would be a good idea to let the strategy remain meaningful, to follow your treaties (maybe even interpreting them "conveniently", but at least not outright ignoring them), to declare war for a reason (that makes sense in game) and so on. The unfair part would be in playing the game with utter disregard for the political simulation part. While it's true that everyone is entitled to play CN as they like (as long as they don't break the game rules) it's also true that a gaming community centered around a simulation suffers a lot when a significant group of players completely disregards the simulation part, short-circuiting it by heavily substituting the simulation dynamics with OOC and RL drives. It's especially problematic and disruptive when these players get influence and intentionally and systematically undermine the credibility of the simulation (also managing to intentionally insult several people in the process, on top of it).

It's the freedom we've been given by the mods, if you will, that becomes a double-edged sword when misused.

Thats the answer i wanted, thanks.

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MK and friends succeeded in being so utterly loathed, that 30-something alliances decided to just skip the treaty chains and wipe the lot of you out in one fell swoop.

Quite the achievement in and of itself.

I strongly doubt the standard is "lost," it's just that you all really pissed us off to the point that we're going to hit hard and fast and not let up until you are ground into a fine powder.

It is the nature of our enemy that enabled us to coordinate and cooperate to this extreme degree. Do not lose sight of that.

Funny how everyone seems to totally ignore MK and Friends then.

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