(03-06-2014, 06:24 PM)Brogan Wrote: Got to ask, but how many people quit playing because of posts they read from other players? I talked to Phil a number of years ago and asked him why he never used an open forum for players and his response was in general they are bad for the game. Personality conflicts, lies, bluffing and what not can be common.
Certainly forms are nice to get games started and pass out contact information, rules updates, and other news.
Thoughts?
Lord Brogan
You pose that question in a forum. Why?
Individuals get mad. They did it, before electronic forums existed, and they have done it, ever since electronic forums came into existence. A forum provides a means of communication, a way for individuals to communicate. They allow for communication between individuals, even if their respective personal schedules vary from person to person.
Countless games feature forums, and for very good reasons. It sounds more like Phil, perhaps, didn't want to bother with it. Not having a forum certainly didn't seem to be to the benefit of the game, itself. Part of the fun associated with playing games is sharing tales about the games, themselves, with others interested in the same subject matter.
Forums are utilized by people, not just for games, but for discussion on virtually any and every subject. That's because people often find them to be useful for facilitating discussion and exchange of ideas.
There's more than a little irony in Phil running a game that benefits from people lying and bluffing. Yet, forums are bad, because people lie and bluff? It is worth remembering that the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
Many forums evolve and grow into something more. They become a retreat, of sorts. They become a handout. They become a destination. They become important in people's lives, relevant to people's lives, through their entertainment - namely, games.
Imagine, if you can, if every game in existence that currently had a forum were to abruptly shut down. Would gaming benefit, if they did?
If forums didn't exist, then in all likelihood, Suspense & Decision magazine wouldn't exist, either. After all, it was preceded by the PlayByMail.Net forum. That very same forum preexisted the PBM Wiki, also.
If this Alamaze forum didn't exist, how would the players communicate with one another? By e-mail? By post card?
Currently, this forum has ten thousand, two hundred and two postings in it, as I sit and write this message. Would the game be better off, if none of those messages had ever been posted?
People live their lives, as individuals, and it is as individuals that they develop their respective personalities. Human beings tend to be rather opinionated creatures. Furthermore, free societies, in particular, tend to be oft-disputatious societies. People can, will, and quite often do tend to disagree about virtually anything and everything under the sun. This tends to be the case, regardless of whether games are at issue or not.
Is it better for players to have a choice of whether to utilize a forum, and to decide for themselves, whether such a thing possesses positive value to them, or is a one size fits all a better way of doing things, and particularly if that one way is to fore go the use of a forum, at all.
If Alamaze did not have a forum, players would simply create one to fill that void.
Buddy/Ignore List
