The main idea of a game is to have fun. The person who created monopoly didn’t base the game around winning. Sure, there is going to be a winner, but the game was based around having fun. This same idea applies to every game. If the game becomes nothing more than winning, then how does a player go on if they don’t win? There must be some part of the fun that they still play the game for; if it’s seeing your friends and hanging out, or traveling across the nation and meeting new people. Nobody plays just to win.
By that logic no one would play the lottery. If you don't win, you
keep trying. I have friends outside of the game. As much as I love all my pokemon friends, I travel to play the game and WIN the game- seeing friends is a nice thing too, but not why I showed up.
You're right, Ryan, in saying that there's no good reason for great players to cough up their lists.But you're wrong to write off people who don't invest as much time into the game as having worthless opinions. You're "better" than they are. So what? I believe that they have the right to ask for the SDs, just as those with the knowledge of those SDs have the right to withhold them.
I don't write off their opinions because I think I am better than them. I write off their opinions because they show ignorance about the subject for which they claim to have knowledge of. They know nothing of SDs but claim to know the best thing to do with them. How does that make any sense? Wouldn't the people who actually MAKE the SDs probably have a better understanding of what is best to do with them?
I've yet to see any post here showing that displaying an SD will help the game. The only thing anyone is even left to argue (since all other points have been rebuttled) is whether or not withholding SD "duds" hurts the game. Like I said before, what is the point of even posting a dud? So that some other player can use a dud and be unsuccessful? Isn't that more detrimental to the game than anything else? If I test a possible SD and it fails, why let anyone else see it? It's a bad idea. Why share bad ideas? Anyone can make a bad idea. They're not hard to come by. They're all over. I don't see how sharing bad ideas will help the community, and no one has shown any good argument as to why sharing bad ideas would help the community.
And correct me again if I am wrong, aren't you on record for calling the article sub-par?
Real nice, man. That comment was made in a private area of the forum. You're not supposed to disclose what is said there. It's private for a REASON you know. Let's just copy what's said in private areas of the site all over to make a point! The article, compared to the others, didn't get the same furnishing. It needed more work, which it unfortunately didn't get. Zach and Jimmy hadn't written archetype articles before, nor did they ever have the ability to use pictures or other functions to wildly before- why would they be expected to fly with them on the first go? I said it needed work, and I think compared to other articles it does. It's not as pretty.
I never said the CONTENT needed work, I stressed it was aesthetically needing work. Next time you feel the need to make a point, do the following:
1. Make sure you're right (it helps to know about the very site you're moderating before you say there isn't an article when there clearly is).
2. Make sure to keep private information private.
Oh and Jimmy? Thanks for condemning the majority of the game just because you feel your superior. Your not a better person than anyone else just because you've done well in this game. The people on this forum might not give back anything of large quantity in the future, but it's only because people like you that don't allow them to grow as players by giving back to them in the first place.
Yes, people like him who write up articles for new players. Exactly. You don't give back, so you don't allow them to grow, so you're a bad person too, right? You wrote an article about your trip to nationals? Wowee, how did that help the community, or new players at all? At least Jimmy wrote an article. He's done a million times more to help new players grow than you have.
Instead of making all these posts chastising pros for not helping out (which they do, so you're completely off) you could help out yourself. You've posted ONE deck idea in the forum for the past YEAR. You've written ZERO articles for new players. You keep ranting on and one about how lacking the community is for new ideas, and good people to give ideas but you're a prime example (pun intended) of one of the people you so adamantly speak against. You don't post new ideas. You don't write articles. You make absolutely no sense to me. You're the ultimate example of a pot calling the kettle black. Here you are telling people they need to contribute more ideas and such to better the community, but you're not even doing what you're preaching. Why is that? You want others to do things (and half of them are but you ignore it) but don't do the things yourself.
But the path that the game is going down is not healthy at all. More and more people are adopting the practices of the more skilled players and forming groups and keeping their ideas secret. The community ceases to function. The community tries to cope with whatever is left, but it isn’t able to function without the added contributions from other people.
How is that the case? This is what I see. You notice a trend, which is more competitiveness. I see another trend that is going on at the same time: the number of players is booming. What happened when competition was cut off (15+ couldn't compete?) the game died. Competition is healthy and essential for the game. As competition has increased, so has participation. It seems to me that the conclusion you've drawn is dead wrong and contrary to what the data shows. There seems to be a positive correlation between level of competition and number of participants, which refutes your idea that the community is becoming stunted and hindered by increased competition.
The game has gotten more and more and more competitive in the last 3 years, and the numbers have all grown every year for the past three years. How would one reach the conclusion that competition is a hindrance to the health of the game? I don't see the logic. The only logical deduction is that the more competitive the game is the healthier it is!
That would mean that, in conclusion, combining every point:
a. more competition, better
b. there is no reason to share SDs (it does not help the pro or the noob)
c. there is no reason to share dud SDs (why share a bad idea? it's not like they're hard to come by. They're duds for a reason, they should be ignored and have something else tried in its place)
So, in conclusion, if you want to assist the community most do not disclose SDs, do not disclose bad ideas, and be as competitive as possible (while still retaining SotG).