Constructive commentary for Poly

[jnh140]

I'm simply annoyed with the endless 'steam sucks' discussion; its been done in half the threads, and basically its pushed me away from the website as a whole. I don't see the point of the discussions; detractors call it a vicious privacy stealing memory hogging virus hell bent on having nasty floor sex with their mothers and daughters, and they trumpet this disdain for digital distribution loudly and proudly at every opportunity, or make their own opportunity to scream about it some more.

No one has discussed anything about civilization in weeks, except to repeat the same comments about how much everything sucks "combat sucks 1 upt sucks engine sucks graphics sucks multiplayer sucks tech sucks" and to reiterate their hatred of steam. Yeah, theres stuff there that will be changed in later patches and expansions, as usual, ai can always use some work, but most of the problems folks have are easily moddable, which is the point when you release a moddable gaming platform like this.

Its too bad, really, some of the regulars around here are really great, notably ming and rah. Folks like you guys are what brought me back to poly before civ 5 hit the shelves, as I remember you from a few years back when I was rockin' BTS.

Anyway, I'm out--

[Zoetstofzoetje]

what's there to discuss? the game is simplified at present. we're all old-timers, we know the drill, the ins, the outs. none of us need strategy advice. when the game become interesting again, that's when discussions will come about.

[Robert]

There are very basic and simplistic games that still have a lot more strategy debates

[Lambiorix_be]

It's a combination of the game and the number of people. There is a number of people (a critical mass) required to keep the forum active, to start threads and respond to them. This critical mass will change depending on how good the game is; the more a game enthuses the people, the lower the critical mass will be.

If the game was Civ4 we'd have an active forum. If we'd the number of registered players that CF has, we'd have an active forum.

When I bought Civ5 I was full of optimism and very excited. Now, I think it's a decent enough game but it's not filling my spare time like it's predecessors. Partly this may be due to me getting older and life changig events like a kid and marriage that have happened. But it's more than that, the game doesn't excite me the way Civ4 did.

This length of time after civ4 was released I wanted to play it as much as possible. Not that bothered about civ5. It's decent but not as great a game as it's predecessors.

I'm hopeful that expansions will improve it.

I have the exact same feeling

[Fistandantilus]

what's there to discuss? the game is simplified at present. we're all old-timers, we know the drill, the ins, the outs. none of us need strategy advice. when the game become interesting again, that's when discussions will come about.

This is precisely the kind of attitude that 'scares' newcomers away imo. The game IS interesting in it's current form to a lot of people, unfortunately not to the regulars here.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

you're right Fistandantilus. that's why i keep saying that the problem is that we haven't managed to attract enough newcomers. i've reiterated this point again and again, yet the forum admins keep banging on about how they've done their job and that the issue is technology-related (e.g. width of forum topics, where to find news items)

when i make a suggestion as to how to attract newcomers, the admins complain that my suggestions seem unethical (e.g., posting on other forums about poly content, enticing lurkers to sign up)

it's time to wake up. laissez-faire will lead to nothing. don't take it from me, i'm just a successful entrepreneur with a phd in IT, i don't know ****.

[Robert]

yet the forum admins keep banging on about how they've done their job

Well, we did our job till the release of civ5.
Right now we are obviously failing.

when i make a suggestion as to how to attract newcomers, the admins complain that my suggestions seem unethical (e.g., posting on other forums about poly content, enticing lurkers to sign up)

The first one is something we expect our members to do
When we post a good article or have some news, go to other places and spread the word.

The 2nd one is something we're indeed trying (but failing) to do. The Arena is supposed to get lurkers to sign up, so is the List. The honest truth right now is that we are focused on transfering the remaining important data from the legacy server to the new servers so that we can shut the expensive legacy server down by the end of the year.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

why don't you just make a back-up copy of the legacy server hard disk? i'm somehow not excited about the prospect of seeing what some guy said in 1997. it can wait for another day.

if the server transfer is taking up your time, do realize that you are now missing out on benefiting from a key event - the civ 5 release. we're in the immediate aftermath now, so not all hope is lost (yet). but the prime time for rejuvenating the membership is here and now.

i'm not saying that you're failing - i appreciate that you and your fellow admins are running this forum for us, and you should it as constructive critique. if i didn't care, i wouldn't say anything about it.

i'm just getting upset at seeing discussions like
1 - gee, we seem to have a problem
2 - ah, it's the background, let me fix that for you
3 - no no, it's not the technology, it's you
4 - right, so let's adjust the pixel size, there, all better now
5 - no, you need people using the technology!
6 - *ignore*, right so i think we can make symbolic links on the news items to forum posts

this is similar to how pale, cold-pizza-fed programmers lurk in dark basements, adding kernel support for obscure hardware to the linux kernel. meanwhile, through their work, the supposedly evil companies they work are enabled to wield vast business empires, and increase shareholder value.

i'm suggesting this: stop thinking like a programmer, and light that cigar.

poly has one resource that no other forum has: a large elite group of experienced civvers, with encyclopedic (if usually tacit) knowledge and feeling for the game.

now the big question is, how do you employ that knowledge as to rejuvenate the forum.

well, that's enough from me for today, i'm off to the restaurant and the swimming pool

[Purple]

I was a faithful reader and occasional poster here and to a lesser extent at CFC in the pre-5 days, but tapered off in participation as Civ4 became long in the tooth. When Civ 5 came out, I returned to find this site radically changed in appearance and seemingly in organization, too. I don't know what happened to cause the changes, whether political or simply evolution, but it wasn't what I was expecting, and so I looked for other resources. CFC hasn't changed as much, and the 2K forums seem very lively and informative, especially with 2K reps posting there.

I'll come back from time to time, but for now, I go to 2K first when I have questions, or when I'm killing time between moves .

I'm not sure how my experience will contribute to a revival of interest here, but I just wanted to register the fact that I miss the old Poly. And BTW, The background seems totally useless--distracting even, but that's a cosmetic issue, probably not very important in the greater scheme of things.

[DaShi]

The background tends to turn a lot of people off, especially newcomers. Making it the default option is a mistake, imo. It gives the forum the look of an amateur fan site. However, you can turn it off through your settings.

[Egbert]

Seriously. There needs to be firmer moderation and a willingness to permanently ban miscreants. I imagine a newcomer would make a sharp exit and go join up with the other, tamer, site. (Umh, there will be complaints but those complaining will almost certainly be those who most need to be on the receiving end of some vigorous moderation).

There is a very considerable quantity of quality material on this site, mostly buried in threads. It may help if the strategy advice was somehow more accessable. Perhaps lifting the best articles out of threads and keeping them all indexed in one place, a sort of "strategy central". But without the rest of the thread. (The other sites War Academy is a good idea, we need something better but I am not sure exactly what).

The regulars here seem less interested in discussing Civ5 than they were in discussing previous Civ games. Nevertheless there still seems to be a big market out there. The opposition seems to be doing well so I suggest Poly is also capable of thriving.

Edit. It might be an idea to move this thread to the Off Topic. The first thing one sees when one goes to the forum is a thread titled "Is this forum dying?". Not exactly the best impression for a newcomer.

[fed1943]

I read this thread several times as I think it's useful...if something done about.

I would be sad if Poly doesn't go on. So,

Until now civ5 is weak. Perhaps will be great in the future, or not.

Anyway, and until then, why not try another game? Perhaps a demogame BTS could help to keep interest. Or some other.

What do you think?

[ColdPhoenix]

I've started replaying Dragon Age: Origins.

I'm now enjoying gaming again.

[GodSpawn]

Well I stopped visiting here because this now seems to be the site for people who don't like Civ 5. I actually do like Civ 5, so I usually go to Civfanatics now.

There's plenty of people there that don't like Civ 5, but there isn't the overwhelming majority of naysayers that we have here.

It's a shame, but I guess it's just the birds-of-a-feather thing going on. I actually do feel I've been driven away.

*flaps off*

[Nikolai]

Errr..... CFC is quite the Civ5 whiners/haters heaven.