Heading into the rambling to come, I want to say a couple things. First, if your a regular reader of this blog I do appreciate your patronage. I hope the blog brings enjoyment in some for or another to you. If the blog frustrates, angers, or somehow generates negative reactions for you then you probably should stop reading my opinions. There appear to be a fair number of people who enjoy reading, and even enjoy commenting and discussing the points I bring up. To those folk (who comment positively or negatively but enjoy themselves), kudo's and "good on ya!"
Onto the rambling itself, there are those out in the interweb who get awfully riled up on reading my opinions here and anywhere else. I have taken some time to read through their comments, responses, and opinions when and where I can find them. I do this in part because I enjoy observing people reactions, and many of the people I am referring to here have awfully extreme reactions. I enjoy observing others simply because it's interesting to watch some people overreact based on preconceived opinions and notions which are essentially baseless or false.
I had a whole long bit written up comparing the public opinion of me before, during, and after this whole transition of a game. I deleted that. I have a whole essay in mind based around the idea of "stop beating a dead horse", but decided not to go down that road. On both of those topics I wanted to try and help readers to see how things have progressed and provide some solid information they can use to ground some of their opinions in a base of facts. I thought that maybe helping others to perceive some of the events through my personal lens would benefit or enrich readers. I had this collections of information that has been shared with me via emails, forum screenshots, copy/pastes, and just general discussion which could all be referenced without implicating the sources.
Then I remembered who my readers are. My readers (appreciated and unappreciated) are the crowd. There is very little I can write here that will truly matter, as the crowd just wants a show. This was particularly true with my popcorn post. I will tell you that the popcorn post was exactly what it said. There were happenings (and still are to some extent) in the world of Wyrd that I am greatly amused at observing occur. It's utterly fascinating to watch these events birth, develop, and take on a life of their own. I am one of the crowd who is watching in this case. The reaction of readers who commented and readers who emailed me privately surpassed my own expectations and almost eclipsed my enjoyment of watching the developments at Wyrd. Simply pointing out that I was sitting back and laughing at some comedy led to a great deal of conjecture in conjunction with a great deal of digging into issues. Yes, some of the things you (the crowd) identified were in fact what I was bemusedly watching. Other things I am still chuckling at were not caught by those who responded.
I cannot promise any level of wisdom to pass on from my blog or from this article. I can share some of my experiences and perhaps parts of the crowd will gain additional individuality through those experience. Those who do may just gain a different perspective and there is the very slim chance that a very small number will gain the perspective to view the performance with the crowd along with viewing the performance of the crowd. Often the crowd is more absurd than the performance being staged.
My experiences and perspective through this "Wyrd vs Bill" thing have surprised me as well as reminded me of things I used to know and chose to ignore.
Sometimes it is the game and they are not your friends. This can be expanded beyond gaming, but then I would not be able to reference Eric's post, which is a good post. As a general rule the crowd will be disingenuous and applaud you as long as they are getting what they want. The crowd turns in a moment and members of the crowd will always feel better if they can work out how to lead you to the gallows.
The crowd doesn't listen to what you say or watch what you do. The crowd creates its own opinion and decides that is fact. Your words and actions only "flavor" crowd opinion to a greater or lesser degree.
Individuals are different from the crowd, but the crowd is constructed of individuals. Often the crowd-think overwhelms the individual think. Only the strongest individuals stay individuals in the face of the crowd.
Sometimes its not narcissism, you really are the focus. That will often be surprising to you and others will blame you for being surprised.
The crowd loves a show but hates change. It does not matter how genuine and honest you are, if your genuine stance changes at some point the crowd will rebel!
There you go, has that helped you gain a new perspective at all? Let the shouting, throwing of food, and general rabble-rousing begin.
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This is really getting old. This blog entry reads like an angsty college freshman's pseudo-sociology essay about how alienated and misunderstood they are. You actually use the term "crowd-think" without any sense of irony. It's smug, unoriginal, poorly written, and, most importantly, uninteresting. Please don't misinterpret this criticism as born out of anger; I just find this topic boring. It's your blog so obviously you can write whatever you want, but in my opinion you have a talent for writing about games, so I'm encouraging you to get back to the analyses and commentary that interested me in your blog and the GL to begin with.
ReplyDeleteTo spell it out in the terms you use, this individual (me) wants less show and would prefer to read posts about games, including Malifaux if you omit the vitriol and stay clear and analytical in your feedback. I have zero interest in Wild West Exodus, but even that is more interesting than these posts about your tiff with Wyrd. As I wrote in a previous response to your blog: "Really it's none of my business nor is it my responsibility to try to patch together a coherent chronology of the actions on each side so that I can come to some judgement about who behaved correctly. My concern is not whether you were in the right, but with the way you have expressed yourself of late." You seem adamant in your assertions that you're taking the high ground. I'd prefer that you stop talking about it and just do it: move on to talking about games again. I continue to check this blog because I figure this spat can't last forever, and eventually you'll return to writing content about games.
Erik,
DeleteThanks for the feedback. I suspect you missed the point of my post by your "without any sense of irony" comment.
As for returning to games, I suspect that will come about in time. As my gaming has dropped drastically lately I am still looking for the next game I am interested in playing. Once I settle in on something that catches my interest and has the meat to blog about it will certainly move to a focus just as Malifaux, 40K, and WHFB have previously been.
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ReplyDeleteEDIT: Trying to figure out how this damn reply works with my google account.
DeleteWhat I said was:
I look forward to it and will continue to keep an eye on your blog to see what you turn to next. As I mentioned in the past, I'm particularly interested in the rumored "Inquisition" GW skirmish game. I know you've been playing some Netrunner, but what about looking into some boardgames? My user ID on BGG is "Erik T.A." if you want recommendations. It's not the same as tabletop mini gaming, but perhaps you'll find something to tide you over.
The problem with any new GW game not called Fantasy or 40K is that they will hype the hell out of it for 6 months then drop all support. There have been plenty of GW skirmish games(Mordheim, Necromunda, Inquisitor) out there and they have all fallen by the wayside.
DeleteGW doesn't want to be in the business of Skirmish.
Mordheim, in particular, was an excellent game and I think some of Malifaux's success lies in its ability to fill the void left by this and other specialist GW games. From GW's perspective, a 40k skirmish game could also compete directly with regular 40k sales, especially because a significant number of 40k players stay involved in the hobby side of it and aren't at all attached to the rules themselves. A 40k skirmish game could be a much more affordable way to game in the 40k universe. Despite the potential for undercutting their own sales, GW may want to make a serious attempt to compete in the growing skirmish game market. You may be right that they'll fail to support their product once it launches and GW certainly has a poor track record in this regard, but I can't help hoping that a 40k skirmish game could become one of GW's primary game systems. Other than M2E, which I'm really enjoying, there just aren't other skirmish games out there that interest me and "Inquisition" is the only thing on the rumor horizon that has the potential to draw me in.
DeleteMordheim was an utterly horrid game! The game part resulted in boring battles with little to no tactical depth to them and the factions were horribly unbalanced. What it did have was a brilliant campaign and experience system but the game itself was a complete dreck. I've played/play actively more than a dozen skirmish systems and Mordheim was by far the worst of the bunch. And "by far" I mean by a really, really wide margin.
DeleteI certainly didn't mean to imply that it would hold up amid the diverse skirmish game offerings available today. When it came out GW was one of the only shows in town and Mordheim was one of its best games. Totally unbalanced from our vantage point almost 15 years later, but when it was released at the tail end of the extremely broken 5th edition of WHFB it didn't seem so bad. So when I say it "was and excellent game," I really do mean "was." I'd certainly never consider playing it now as there are far better options available these days, but I appreciate it most for the groundwork it laid for other skirmish games and Malifaux in particular.
DeleteYeah, Mordheim as a game was an exercise in looking the other way when it came to balance. I still miss playing it though, mostly because of the stories. The fan released revision that came out in 2010 does a good job balancing the game, but it's a bit charmless.
Delete@Erik I've played a handful of boardgames but they are in three categories currently. 1. Games I have in my collection and not a lot to blog about there. 2. Games that really didn't grab me. 3. Games I am play testing and contributing suggestions for that I cannot blog about yet. On the GW side I drifted from GW several years ago and much of their new stuff has not really grabbed me at all.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. We're all GW refugees these days, though hope springs eternal that they'll someday figure out how to express their amazing 40k IP in a ruleset that isn't absurdly tedious.
DeleteStrictly from the point of view of ip and fluff g-dub's been in something of a nosedive as of late. Everything from the the SoB blood bath, to the fist bump, to the necrons turning into space tomb kings, to Farsight fielding ethereals, to the increasingly obvious ass pulls from nowhere with the centurions and the rest of the never-before-seen-shiny-new-toys. Games gone to some very weird places since I first picked it up
ReplyDelete