If you don't think they care and don't like the campaign, then don't play. Don't come in here and drag down the level of the discussion with your frankly pointless and spurious position. "CB/BoW doesn't care" isn't an argument, you can't prove it, you can't evidence it, you won't accept any evidence or feelings any other way, it's just a cynical bit of whinging, and all it does is make the campaign less fun. You know what happened last time? Lots of people decided to stop playing. Was it BoW? CB? No. The reason lots of people stopped was because the relentless negativity of the player base just became too much to want to put up with. The worst part about this campaign is the endless complaining, whinging, baseless emotive criticism and arguments that fill every part of the community when their side doesn't quite do as well as they hoped because mean ol' Bostria is shitting on them or something. I'm sick of it. Just play some fucking games, have fun, and put batreps online. That's all this is. That's all you got to do. If you don't want to do that, then don't! Lots of people do not! That's fine! You are under no obligation to take part in this entirely voluntary campaign!
We still don't know what impact the asymmetric scoring has actually had. We probably have to wait until @Bostria announces the results as part of the Gencon seminar (alongside the RM100, right Carlos? Right?!?) to fully understand it, and even then, if the points are only motivation and don't count in the totals, we can never have confirmation or the system is entirely useless next time. The concerns on the fluff railroad may not be unfounded from wotan, but the more vague and reactive nature of the fluff side this time would seem to indicate a different approach.
It's a possibility, I'm not sure if it's likely or not, but the refusal to correct it, especially after a phase change would be reasonable if the extra points were morale bonus or didn't stack with extras for rating, commendation, linking etc... On the other hand, if we assume that every faction has roughly the same rate of discounted reports the factions with bonuses will lose out more than those without, because any unlinked doubles, blue on blue or incomplete reports will be a greater loss. We'll have to wait for the results and see.
I'm not playing in it. I saw how what the players actually did was disregarded last time. Why would I contribute to that? To me it sounds like you're saying "Just ignore the flaws with the system and we won't have to worry about it!" I'm not particularly interested in doing someone's legwork for them and hyping a half-baked campaign system. And I'm not. What bothers me is that these campaigns are marketed to us as one thing and then actually implemented as something different.
What he's trying to say is that there are better ways to offer solutions than calling the developers "uncaring". That if you don't play, why should it even bother you? And for someone who doesn't want to do legwork, you do strides in putting the event you're not even participating in in a bad light. This year, they included what we did as Haqqislam in their Campaign Updates. They recieved our Chronicler's document and incorporated some of our point of view into the narrative. So if players were disregarded last campaign, they are not this one. Because people learn from experiences and take constructive criticism better than negative comments.
To excpand on what @Danger Rose said, everything we wanted from a story point in Haqqislam was included in CB's point of view and it was great. We saw what happened last year with the miscommunications, and this year we included a position in the HHC devoted PURELY to communications to CB, and to provide them detailed updates/documents both from an ooc and IC perspective what Haqqislam was doing and why. This is why we did not "conquer" Kommstadt in the last phase, we "aided nomads in their defense" CB took what we told them because we communicated to them. It is also important to know we are playing in the campaign, we are not driving the campaign. It was never sold as a means of changing background and fluff but as a means of driving it. There is a distinct difference, and people over the last 3 campaigns now simply are not understanding this. We are playing in their story, we are not creating it. We are simply providing depth and narrative scope, not changing the narrative. Within your faction come up with a story line that complements the campaign, chronicle it, and communicate it with CB. CB and BOW are not omniscient, they cant read all of the reports and understand what is happening.
You really did a great job with that then. We asked ourselves sometimes about that, if they could ask us about what we were doing to document it. If i had known they were going to be so pleased to take the info i would have done it, we just thought that wasnt the case. I take notes for next year. And again, well played Haqquislam.
Well played yourselves, it seemed Ariadna as a whole was very responsive to your high command orders and it really showed! Y'all were a large mobile force!
This is probably the best answer so far to this whole "BoW-Campaign-Sucks-Debate-Chroncile" that ensued at the end of Wotan as well...and has never changed its tone until now. It's just mind boggeling to me how much energy a single person can put into his personal vendetta with this campaign system. Don Quichote couldn't have done it better. Maybe let me add to this: as we are not changing the fluff there is no winner concerning "writing history". I just do not see why having "the perfect metric" for determining a winner should be so important...that's just numbers/stats and actually not what such a campaign should be all about. Focussing on interaction and contacts on aninternational scale makes this event so very interesting and engaging. It's not that hard: just enjoy it. People put so much efforts into posters, videos, threads...all the things that are not directly related to scoring points. It's fun first, competition second. It won't work the other way around...that's what we have tournaments and ELO rankings for. The other thread already offers some intersting thoughs for the next campaign...aiming at letting people strife for something and achieve something...together (should have capitalized that word). I'ld rather have a campaing where everyone can leave with the feeling that they somehow have won...and if it's only just "winning" new "online friends". Edit: removed name
There is a lot of discussion about size regarding the hyperpower. I agree with you all that Pano has not the community size the Panoceania nation has in the fluff. If you add the late releases and news it is quite easy to understand that Pano is not receiving new units / sectorials / lists as JSA (army box), NA-2 (new sectorial armies), Nomads (Tunguska) or even Yu jing (Yuandun CBL). I don´t say that this justifies Pano to underperfom compared to Wotan but it is normal for players to have the desire to play with the newest units or factions and Panoceania is not the actual trend at the moment. In any case, it has been clear that Ariadna has been able to mobilize the players to defend their planet and follow the background and at the end this has turned into a clear victory. Glory to them for a great job!!
I @Silagast hit it. Pano player base got drained from all the new stuff that came out. I know some local pano players played their Ariadna to fit the theme of the campaign, and others still probably took up NA2 (which also had a high pop count). I was surprised that I was not surprised at Pano's decreased numbers. Looking back we have had a LOT of new stuff drop between Wotan and Kurage which did a good job of disseminating the player base.
Well, some of the attractive of the campaign is the "life" that players put in it. Some few make videos, another ones do posters, some more discuss about fluffs and the lore (very helpful for me, because I really want to know more about it)... Perhaps some are too rude and the things can go roughly. But that's all. For few days some became "High Commanders", and discuss with the players about strategic, alliances and attacks, that's cool. I understand about the hard work of BoW to manage a worldwide campaign, the sistem perhaps is not the best, but they try his better to do it. Being the referee is never easy. And yes, some players play the campaign because, what I understood, that can have "some kind of impact" in the fluff. Perhaps not an impact, but it can be a reference. Remember the bad performance of YJ in Wotan, that become a reference for the Uprising events. Yes the uprising must have to happen, the fluff between YJ/JSA was screaming it, but perhaps that could not be that awful for YJ if we could do a better performance. Sorry If I'm out of the topic.
Exactly! You CAN affect the story...not that we WILL affect the story. And I also don't see why this would be a "selling point"...this is not marketing. We are not paying for anything here... A campaign needs some background story to work but to say that CB promised to somehow include every development of the campaign into their background is just disingenuous. It's their fluff...they (or maybe just HE) decide what they will incorporate.
Well if it's disregarded if it doesn't match up with their pre-determined story, then there's no affect on the story. You're not describing the situation correctly. Not with money, but with time. CB needs to justify why people should spend their time on it. Not everything. But a railroaded plot is not fun to participate in.
That is exactly what I was describing...and I can see nothing bad with that. CB is not obliged to let players have an impact on the fluff. Simple as that. Then don't! Your time, your decision. Then don't! Participating in a "railroaded" campaign is somewhat more fun than participaiting in a "circularly railroaded" discusson that will lead to no final understanding as I disagree on your premise that a campaign can only be fun if it meets your expectations. It has met mine to a degree for me to have a good time. There is certainly room for improvement, but lamenting about it dosen't help anything. So I'm out.
