Thoughts on the league

[vermont]

I'm wondering if anyone thinks that the league may actually have had a long-term negative effect on the game due to the hidden-forum aspect.

While there are lots of good effects, I'm wondering if having a majority* of new strategy posts/discussions happening in private forums only a few of us can see has actually slowed down collaboration on a whole. Or perhaps it's been better because people have been more willing to post their thoughts when it would only help people on 'their team?'

I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts on this.

* I have no idea how many posts are happening in other groups; over in the Isle we've basically solved the game and are just deciding whether to use our powers for good or evil. Xade and I are thinking evil.

[mikeEB]

The only Strategy posts worth anything on the Black Rose forums are the ones I wrote. The most recent of those was a collection of obscure FoD weaves and their defenses from 6 months ago. The one that would be most valuable were it public would probably be the permanency playbook; I won a couple of games in the 2009 tournament largely because I had it and the other player didn't. Aside from that series, a couple of very old articles by Toyotami (i.e. the art of goblin summoning) and some league rule one-offs, there isn't really much worth sharing.

I also have a very cool theoretical construct that might be useful if I would ever actually get the software working. Or just care enough to finish writing it down.

[salvor]

We don't have a lot of posts. The last one was written about a year ago, and I don't think that any of these posts are "worth" of posting. Just it was a short questions and answers. The only valuable our analysis were about SW/PW-open and FF/PD-open, both were reposted in strategy forum.

Actually I don't believe that that clans-stuff was bad. Even as all that in-covens discussion wasn't published, I should say that without covens there won't be such discussion. There won't be teaching programs etc.

Personally, I would be much worse player if I weren’t a biologin's aprentice.


P.S. How about revealing all that discussion after tourney? I believe that it's the best solution. Having in-coven discussion for several years, then opening it.

[succat]

Interesting question. I'd say it was already getting pretty slow around here even before everybody broke off into clans and started talking in their own hidden forums. I'll be honest, though - there's not a whole lot of strategy talk in our forum, and I may be partially to blame for that. 'Course you're probably thinking what kind of strategy could us Paramancers have to talk about, and I wont disagree. For me, it's simple. You open F/W, and as Toyotami once put it, it's ultra offense and ultra defense. Bombard you with para and do what I can with my other unfrozen hand, but that's really just what I do, as you already know, and I can't really speak for the other Paramancers. Oh, I'd like to know what you mean when you say that you guys have basically 'solved' the game. Please, elaborate.

Anyway, as for the league, I'm not a real big fan of it - never have been. However, I understand a lot of people think it's fun to make up different rules and play with handicaps, but for me it doesn't help me become a better player and play the way that I like to play. So I don't participate any more, but that's me. Personally, as far as clans go, I think it might be interesting if instead of splitting into clans based on something that doesn't make sense - like Black Rose or Isle of Black Arts, or whatever they're called - instead, form clans based on regions of where players are actually from. We have several great players from the Russia area - I say make that a clan - the SpireMasters, or whatever you want to call 'em. In the U.S. we have players on the east coast and players in the west - separate them into clans, or if there's not enough, heck, the U.S. will be it's own clan. Then you have the islands of Australia and Japan and who knows what else, players in Europe too, I think. Anyway, it'd be more meaningful to me if clans were based on something real. At least us Paramancers all have para in common, but even so, our styles within the clan are all pretty different, so in some ways how our clan is formed now doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I know it's supposed to be fun, though, and that's the main thing... so whatever players think is fun I guess will prevail... maybe. Two of the existing clans out there right now I've never been able to tell apart - I've always just considered it one big clan. I'm not sure... it's 'Black' something or rather, but you see where I'm going with this. No offense to any clan members, either, I'm just thinking out loud.

[ellipsis]

Aug 18, 2010 0:31:45 GMT -5 succat said:

Two of the existing clans out there right now I've never been able to tell apart - I've always just considered it one big clan. I'm not sure... it's 'Black' something or rather, but you see where I'm going with this. No offense to any clan members, either, I'm just thinking out loud.

Admittedly, I sometimes think of our clan as "The Yellow Colored Clan". That may be enough of a distinction, though, considering the current level of activity. Things like the existence of league or the way it's organized seem like they have much less of an impact on forum vitality than the player population, which is mainly low because the game has a steep learning curve and no graphics. If we had cute looking wizard avatars and made the game easy for new players to pick up, we would have players, and then an active forum, and strategy discussions would happen all the time, though most of them, admittedly, would probably be redundant.

[xade]

We used to have some solid discussion for each rule- it probably helped that we kind win every month- we are pretty ... awesome.

[saypin]

Succat, good idea to reform clans - more fast or even online blitz games.

[ourjake]

Like succat said, our forum doesn't do much. i usually think of para as unfolding as you go along, rather than having a set goal, and there isn't a lot of strategy there that can be discussed because for me it's just trying to read your opponent as well as possible. That said i do like the strategy discussion outside of (and in short term) paralysis. and it has helped me see things i don't normally, especially in regards to FoD/poison/disease