Alex987

Turns out there is actually such a thing as negative publicity :|

'Tis true; I often find myself confused in my old a- wait... where'd my pudding go?

An adroit, insightful analysis as always Tywin. Keep fighting the good fight.

Wat

Innovation is only useful if it improves how things are being done. "Innovation" is not only inventing different methods but different, better methods. If truly better methods were discovered instead of just different methods, it would probably become more widely utilized if the inputs required were sustainable/acceptable.

I think the common notion that leaders have gotten progressively worse throughout CN history is an exaggeration. And it can be realized in the context where the bemoaning of the lack of leaders is almost always mentioned - in OWF threads where people are campaigning against their rivals. It's easy to insult enemy leadership when comparing it to a ghost of the past that can't be proved or disproved. And once it's said over and over enough, the idea sticks beyond just rhetoric. I don't believe much of it beyond the obviously logical decline in general CN population, that leads obviously to an absolute decrease in the amount of "potentially excellent" leaders, but not to a relative decrease as a percentage of total nations.

It's different for everybody. Some are happiest as kids, some are happiest as adults. Some have the best years of their lives when they retire, while some have them in high school.

Eh this kind of thing requires consistent help from Garlusconi :|

Let's just be clear that the proposed solution ITC is making the US less democratic. It may very well be the right thing to do, but it should be recognized that that is what's being proposed.

Your rant seems to come from a combination of disillusionment and generalizations, chief of which came through in the second sentence. Any reasonable person in any system will say that their system is not perfect, and I think you overestimate blind patriotism. One factor on why nothing gets done is because the country is practically split 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans. But the main problem is that the system of primaries passes on candidates that are moderate for their party, but not for the nation as a whole, and then it becomes a choice between lesser evils for many of the moderates. But it's been this way as long as direct primaries have existed, it's just becoming more apparent now. The bigger problem I believe is the gerrymandering and ridiculous incumbency rates in Congress, but these also haven't started now. This stagnation is what is part of the problem though, and a lot of it is the system rigging itself to resist change. And the only real way to fight it is to give the voters enough information to know who is supporting the system's self-fulfillment and who is fighting it. And the responsibility for that kind of information falls on the media, and we definitely need a better one. Once that changes, I believe the dominos will start falling more than through any other means.

Lol, Liam is #1 for guys? What?

CoD: Good Replay Value? Must be, because the same game has been coming out the past 3-4 years. Last somewhat original CoD was WaW, then it just became cookiecutter.

First of all, Halo wasn't a very good game at all. The majority of the popularity from Halo stemmed from how connected it was to online play in Halo 2. Voice messages, private games with some customization (later expanded to Forge in Halo 3), and superior matchmaking. All of the features surrounding the game surpassed the norm at the time, while I found the game itself quite average. Also, the trailer didn't really tell anything besides the typical spiel designed to excite with little actual substance. Meh, I'm keeping neutral until I actually see something. That was just 4 minutes of developers talking vaguely (as they usually do) about how revolutionary and uncharted their game is, and how they want their game to be fun (no duh). I almost never form my opinion on trailers anymore, it's just too misleading. My depressing 2 cents

Haha no LexLuthor Myth was calling me "lexxy" because he thinks it's a funny nickname for Alex :| And Myth stop stalking me like you're DLT or something.

While being a jerk is generally unpleasant, I don't think it's a majority reason on why people are leaving the game. People stop playing games when they become boring and same-old after a while. It doesn't take long for CN to become monotonous, so in my opinion it's quite a testament to what we have going on here (rather than a sad reflection), that it all simply lasts so well. When people get bored with a game they stop playing. To me what's interesting is when the game population gets small, the individual impact that each person has on the world increases. Each person is no longer a cog in a large machine, and they can have a very real and substantive impact. The sooner people realize that, instead of following the bandwagon that CN dying should increase with time, the better off everybody will be. Boredom -> Less people -> more individual impact -> more for an individual to do -> less boredom. It should slow down when people realize. That is, assuming they are interested in having an impact at all.