STOP WITH THE COMPLAINING AND REMEMBER WHY WE HAVE TGA.

[Mohojoe]

In all honesty I have pretty much ignored this thread. The title summed up everything that needed to be said. I'm sure many of you will remember the days of the old Warhammer forum and the rivalry between the AoS section and everything else. If you are relatively new here you might not understand why this forum was so desperately needed, so I will enlighten you.

New release/announcement was made. People would post about it. And then fans of other game systems would systematically complain about how awful it was, making it insanely hard to read details and share opinions.
Threads would be made to just complain about AoS while saying a different system was far better. In the AoS sun forum...

I also believe originally the base sizes spreadsheet ( one of the most useful tools here) was vandalised by players of other game systems and had to be locked to public editing.

Gaz was a mod there too if I remember correctly so I'm sure he can attest to how much better it is here.

To many, bens post might seem hard to swallow, but I believe it is just part of the struggle to keep this forum to the high standard and inclusive nature that it was created for.




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[Mr. White]

As a relatively new member, I don't have much to compare recent tone to, but I have always felt this place more positive than most.

The nurgle/overlord post exampled earlier was against the spirit of how I understood this forum to be, but I wrote it off as a one time slip in judgement. 

The only other gaming forum I've visited that I would suggest is more positive is Lead Adventure. However, that is almost a pure hobby forum with nearly all posts being about paint jobs and conversion work. So many disparate games are being played there, no one is in an uproar over balance...it's all about the hobby.

For what it's worth, I've recently started pulling away from other game forums and fb groups and hope to have TGA as my one home for online gaming discussion.

I love AoS and I dig positive, inspirational ideas and discussion around it. These are toy soldiers, so I'm into the rule of cool, not so much how competitive a unit is. To quote Bad Brains...."I've got that PMA!"

Ben, moderators, and usual suspect posters..thanks all for making this a fun place to enjoy AoS!

[Cerlin]

I think the problem is extremes.

Ben did not say do not critique, but be constructive.

Saying I hope X doesn't suck as much as Y is snarky and does not contribute. 

It is not blowing GW to say "I hope Y is strong out of the gate. Buying a new army like X and having it be subpar is no fun and bad for the health of the game and future releases." 

Then we are having an actual discussion, not just a complaint with nothing for anyone to respond too.

Would this be a solid interpretation of being constructive?

[Null Field]

On 8/17/2017 at 7:20 PM, Jharen said:

Perhaps I'm wrong but...

It's my understanding that the post isn't to dissuade people from discussing the positives and negatives of a topic, but rather it is to point out that 'discussion' is the goal.

If someone posts "I hate stormcast, so sick of stormcast, they're stupid."  That's just a person stating their negative opinion on something.  There's little to no attempt to drive a discussion within that statement.

We should take the time to consider our words and how they will add to the conversation instead of just wanting to kneejerk our feelings into a thread for the sake of being heard.

I don't think Ben is saying "don't disagree" or "never say a bad word about AoS", he just wants their to be civil discussion and growth in the community instead of bashing and hostile one-liners.

I agree and whats more is that some people will will make these kinds of deliberately inflamitory comments as a discussion starter because its a "good" way to get people to respond to you. But really it just creates an argument instead of a discussion. (This happens on the internet in general, I'm not saying it just happens here)  

[Praecautus]

How about a two tier forum with public and private sections. Anyone can join and post in public but have to apply to join the private section. Joining this requires the member to have posted we'll and constructively in the public part for some time. The decision to promote can be made by mods or a vote. The private section has a strong mod presence to ensure the right atmosphere.

This model is used by a lot of Manchester United forums as fans from othe clubs will troll. So the private section prevents them destroying all threads.

could work here too, especially if there is an incentive to join private e.g. All the (pre)reviews etc from those in the know are posted in the private part.

[Jharen]

56 minutes ago, Praecautus said:

How about a two tier forum with public and private sections. Anyone can join and post in public but have to apply to join the private section. Joining this requires the member to have posted we'll and constructively in the public part for some time. The decision to promote can be made by mods or a vote. The private section has a strong mod presence to ensure the right atmosphere.

This model is used by a lot of Manchester United forums as fans from othe clubs will troll. So the private section prevents them destroying all threads.

could work here too, especially if there is an incentive to join private e.g. All the (pre)reviews etc from those in the know are posted in the private part.

While I get where you're coming from, and it certainly works in other forums, I disagree.

In my opinion what you're proposing is a division of a healthy community in response to possibly a few bad apples.  If someone can't be decent and polite and follow the rules of this forum then they have many other options available to them on the internet.  It's just that simple in my opinion.

What TGA offers is an open, fun, friendly, and inviting place for people to come together and discuss our passion for a hobby and game we love.   We don't need to earn the right to a decent community here, you just sign up and you're in.  We are expected to work towards preserving and nurturing it though, and most of us can do that simply by setting a good example and following the rules of conduct.  I don't think that's asking too much to be honest.

[Fulgrima]

I would say that it is the Forum owners right to specify what sort of discourse they wish to take place and that should be respected.  However the decision and tone does feel very corporate.

[kozokus]

On 17/08/2017 at 9:32 PM, Ben said:

Unfortunately it seem that along with the success of a thriving and fun community comes people who just want to moan and complain about the very thing that they spend so much time involved with.  

To the contrary of you, i am quite happy seeing whiners and liers.

The reason is that according to my experiences, this is a very good sigh of the good health of a game. It means : 

• The community is getting bigger and the X% of people that are the more vocal and the more biaised are more numerous and can talk to each other.
• The game is interesting from a competitive POV, because no one talks about the balance in a non competitive game.
• The game is BALANCED ! Because if it wasn't, the commentary about balance would have been constructed and developped. In thoses cases, the whiners only talk about a single experience most of the time that (of course) totally exclude bad luck or a lack of skill.

 

I take two videogames example, both very good.

AgeOfWonders 3 : The game is a combat focused 4X, a flawless design, a masterpiece out of this world, It is enjoyable, roleplay tactical and beautiful. The community is very restricted as the games tends to take a long time (many hours) and require a very good understanding of the mechanics. The forums are full of gentlemens discussing the game with passion and constructive talk.

CompagnyofHeroes 2 : The game is a RTS focused on positioning and micromanagement of a small number of squads and vehicles. A single misstep can cost you the game and victory is always deserved. The game is fun, tactical and very demanding about your understanding of the mechanics. The games are 12-20 minutes long, a very nice format. The community is/was very big and the forums are an atrocious soup of acid, tears and napalm. Flames are everywhere and trolls bath in it. Every whining found is origin on "i lost my last game vs X, nerf it!"

 

What i like is that AoS is getting bigger by the number of whiners we get.

Sadly thoses are still trolls and i hate them with all my soul and want their death.

The price for having a good game with a big community....

 

[Chikout]

Just listening to Warhammer live. Pete Foley namechecked tga directly, so the people at the very top of aos in GW are reading this forum. 

So a polite well argued criticism is likely to been taken on and discussed by the GW team.

[Ben]

Thanks for the tip.  Do you know at what time? 

[Naflem]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

Just listening to Warhammer live. Pete Foley namechecked tga directly, so the people at the very top of aos in GW are reading this forum. 

So a polite well argued criticism is likely to been taken on and discussed by the GW team.

Seemed likely to me, and in addition to that there are a number of individuals who participate in this forum that have their own podcasts where I've heard interviews with GW folks, and other individuals who I have seen featured on Warhammer Live,  and others who are members of the GW playtester team.  Ergo, reasonable criticism here (not like, WHY THE HELL ARE THUNDERERS 140 POINTS! .....although, why the hell are thunderers 140 points), even if it isn't directly read by a GW staffer, it might also get back to them by word or month or turn into a question asked of them in an interview podcast, or something else like that.  

[Black_Fortress_Immortal]

I think GHB2 is a giant step into the right direction.  I seriously don't know what is causing all of the whining!

[Tidings]

@Ben I'm super grateful for the existence of this forum and group of regulars who contribute to it daily. I've only recently gotten back into wargamming and am really happy to have an online community that I can discuss things with. Hopefully I have not jumped out as a negative person, because I do like to discuss things and am not shy about voicing my opinions. I try to avoid 100% negativity in my posts and I make an effort to back up my opinions with reasonable logic.

An ongoing thread that I'm sure spurred this post is the "Real Talk About the Double Turn", where I have been very active. If your goal is to banish this sort of thread from even existing, I'll be sad. It's been eye-opening to see arguments from all perspectives. If your goal is to keep the comments in the thread more constructive and less whiney - that's totally understandable, and I'm all for that.

In either case, thank you for aiming to keep this community fun and positive!

[Sleboda]

If I may, I would like to add some food for thought..

What is "obvious" to one is not obvious to another. There is no common sense, and sometimes things need to be explained, at the very least through examples.

Well-meaning people who love the game and just may not calibrate their filter to match that of others could easily get on the bad side of a discussion and not ever know why.

Fine, that happens, but it would be reasonable to explain (privately perhaps) to them why their expression is a touch off base. Maybe they will understand, maybe they won't, but there is no harm in trying.

 

I, myself, still carry a permanent 'ding' on my TGA profile for a post I had no idea was ding-worthy. Instead of a helpful "hey Joe, how about you consider this that or the other instead next time" I just got whacked.  No help.  No explanation.  It stings - and I LOVE this forum and the game.

Sometimes babies are thrown out with the bathwater.  Yes, there are plenty of babies in this world and nobody will miss a few here and there, but it seems a shame to slight folks with no warning when they don't even know why.

This is Ben's forum, and gosh darn it, he deserves all the praise in the Mortal Realms for making it, and it's his place to do with as he pleases, but man, how about a little bit of guidance on what crosses a line and what doesn't - cuz it's not as simple as "read my mind - it should be obvious."

 

 

[karch]

This was bound to happen as the community grew larger. People complaining has been a part of warhammer ever since people sat down to have a beer after a game of warhammer.

Ignore the obvious bait, take the high road, etc. applies now just as much as it did years ago.

 

[heywoah_twitch]

I like gentle reminders of mod philosophy for a forum like this. Also I'm new to the hobby and to tga so I've only seen it how it's been for the past month. I'll think about this as I post in the future, but it won't be hard to stay positive since I'm excited about AoS!

[Fr0]

I've frequented many forums in my day, I'm getting to be an old flatulence who was around before internet was much of a thing; I recall the days of Portent and my much loved days at Druchii.net (Ben, Chris T and many others I remember there was a real sense of community back then) Gaz and company from TWF, hell even GW's site had a tiny forum composed of like 15 people. People will complain at some point and there is nothing wrong with raising issues constructively, but whinging for the sake of whinging is just irritating, and not conducive to a healthy community. I'm reminded of the kneejink reactions to AoS when it first came out..

I'm not sure why Ben is being painted as some iron handed fascist, he's saying take your posts to the cesspools they belong in - there are plenty of vitrol laden toxic websites that encourage this behaviour, we don't want it here. Nobody is under scrutiny, you won't be banned for voicing an unpopular opinion in a constructive manner. Just follow the basic rule; DBAD.

This site was intended to foster a healthy gaming community, and imagine a new player coming across one of those posts and deciding "nope, guess this game is teh suck". Can we just keep sharing our love, thoughts and passion for the game?

 

*edit hilariously enough f.art and j.erk were censored. lol

[Melcavuk]

Personally I agree with this topic whole heartedly. I enjoy the positive tones of this forum and like seeing new topics debated on their flaws or merits. It is only when entirely unrelated posts (often recurring posts) end up in topics that it sways toward embittered (any new release post where the response is "still not X" with X being their army)

 

its hard are to find a largely positive and supportive community for AoS and thus far this has been the best. 

 

Thanks for keeping it positive guys!

[SentinelGuy]

On 18/08/2017 at 6:02 PM, Naflem said:

Speaking of toxic people, them new clan Pestilens abilities look freaking sweet.

 

too soon? 

Well, to be honest, I think this poster deserves a ban. This comment adds nothing to the discussion.

The reality is that most people aren't dedicated whiners or fanboys, but somewhere in between and their posts tend to be a mix of both. I don't really see the problem as long as they don't constantly voice the same thing over and over for weeks.

Turning the forum into an echo chamber of positivity won't really help in the long run because some of the people deemed whiners and asked to leave may well have good ideas about gameplay or be masters with a paint brush and we'll never get to experience that.

Besides that, sometimes a quick moan is part of the natural course. An example would be my local club nights - we go to the pub and wait at the bar talking about the latest cool kit and then somebody will say something like "hopefully they turn out better than Sisters of Battle" (I'm the local SoB 40k player and they know it drives me crazy). At the end of the day I don't feel the need to key their car on the way out or tell them to leave the club. For all the current failings, most of us do still live in a democracy of some sort with freedom of speech. You want to ban that?

Another example - a new player comes to club and wants to start AoS. He's a mature gamer with kids and limited time and money. I tell him to visit TGA because this is where he will feel most welcome getting started and he goes home and reads up on armies and stuff. Now if you ban negativity he could very well go out and buy an army that sucks. He doesn't know that because TGA has banned people from speaking Ill of GW, so he spends his limited time and money building and painting an army only to find that it's no fun to play and he keeps losing. The other players try and weaken their lists, but the new guy notices and then feels bad because he is making other people play what they don't want to play just so he can possibly win a game. It ends up being a bad experience for everybody and could have been resolved by the new guy being able to read up on what works and what doesn't via TGA. For all the people moaning about the moaners, this forum still handles complaining better than any of the others, it's usually more gentlemanly and it's why I do read TGA, even if I don't post much.

What I'm saying is please don't ban debate. To my mind there's no difference between sycophantic drool posts over GWs latest releases and monstrous page long whine threads. Neither initially adds much to the discussion but there are often times when the cloud has a silver lining which some other poster draws attention to.

[Jharen]

@SentinelGuy Nobody is trying to ban debate, the mods have already said that's not the case. It's more about reminding people to not be an echo chamber of negativity.  Negativity doesn't mean being against something or saying you don't like something, or that you feel something is under-powered etc.  But there's a huge difference between explaining how you're unsatisfied with something and discussing those qualities, and just saying "This sux it's stupid they need to stop being lazy and fix this and stop stealing my money!".  There's a HUGE difference.

Now sure in a pub you can chill with friends and say something snide or negative, that's a fair point.  The difference is that they don't record you saying it and then put it on loop on the TV for everyone who enters the pub to see.  That's what happens in a forum though, once it's posted it's public and everyone who walks in is possibly going to have to see that, even the people who come in long after you leave for the day.

I think (I hope) every reasonable member of the community (and those to come) know what is expected of them behavior wise.  It's not about making everyone only say good things, it's about maintaining a constructive environment that isn't flooded with ragey angsty comments.

[Stealth_Hobo]

I just want to echo (pun intended) what Jharen said, negativity can turn into echo chamber just as easily, if not more so than positivity. We all probably know how toxic gaming forums can be at their worst.

As a personal anecdote, back when I was looking into AoS and discovered TGA, the overall positive buzz this place had was one of the reason to convince me to come back to the hobby, so there's that.

 

[Naflem]

1 hour ago, Jharen said:

@SentinelGuy Nobody is trying to ban debate, the mods have already said that's not the case

Actually the OP in this thread hasn't said anything since the first post.

[Ollie Grimwood]

Actually the OP in this thread hasn't said anything since the first post.

Yes he did. He made about 4 other posts.

I think this topic may have reached its conclusion.


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[Arkiham]

1 minute ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

 

Yes he did. He made about 4 other posts.

I think this topic may have reached its conclusion.


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did that like 2 pages ago lol 

[Criti]

On 8/21/2017 at 9:52 AM, Fulgrima said:

However the decision and tone does feel very corporate.

Agreed.

There was a sweet spot hit just before the vitriol that made the board interesting to read, but not a big "let's hug it out" circle.  I get that we'd like to get back there, but I think this announcement takes it too far to the "Everything is Awesome" phony mentality.

In fact, given the low quality of posts coming out since this announcement and the general response lately of the mods to the interesting responses across multiple threads, I have come to the conclusion that this "community" is being pushed toward being nothing more than a "Stepford Wives" style illusion that can be trotted in front of GW so Ben and Co. can show them what a "good job" they're doing "promoting the community."

Where there used to be 2-3 posts a day that are worth reading, there are now less than 1 a week, and it's a real effort to create interesting conversation anymore.

I've made the decision to vote with me feet and will be walking away from this board until at least the new year.  I'll force myself to look at least once at that point, but if it's anything like the game "sunshine and lollipops" it's currently being pushed toward, I don't see myself coming back.

To those I've had good discussion with, fair thee well.

Criti, signing off.