This is incredible! I don't even know how to go about responding to this.
Lucifer wrote:2020 wrote:First, the tactic of aligning at launch evolved very early at the start of fortress. I have been part of teams who have tried to develop alternative launches (fork, etc), but nothing has improved upon the efficiency of the aligned launch.... so far. But notice -- it evolved.
No it didn't. For about 4-6 months, nobody grinded at the start and people dreamed up all sorts of ways to make it work. Then one night, a particular player showed up to see what Fortress was all about, and within an hour or so started demanding people grind his trail. It took about 8 rounds to get people to do it, and it's still hard to do it safely. When new players show up, they don't do it because it's obvious, they do it because everybody else is doing it, or they're being told by everyone else to do it.
There was no evolution.
Do you think that I am using the word "evolution" to describe a process in biology? So, if not, then we have to use whatever is at our disposal in our minds to make the meaning of this sensible. Seems to me, you are using your logic and reasoning to support your criticism, even going so far as to use the term evolution with such force.
I really don't know what to say to this. Perhaps if we spoke I might be able to engage you. But in text... no way. It would involve us in paragraph after paragraph, and as I have said before, this form of intellectual banter resolves nothing at the level of sentiment or attitude.
Lucifer wrote:
This has proven true in various areas of my experience, encapsulated by a social business entrepreneur who said, "Collaboration is taking the next step for another person."
Ah, but he didn't say that collaboration is asking someone else to take the next step for you.
Phew. This I agree with.
Lucifer wrote:
I have seldom asked for technical improvements. I see the game as it stands, and design the player system in accordance. Of course, if the game was to scale to millions, we may need some extra systems put in place. But in all the time we have considered the idea, I have not been made aware of the technical issues. Mostly because anyone with technical skill is not accepting the design brief of making sure it can scale to millions of players.
You missed my point completely. My point is that much of what you like about the game wasn't planned, it just happened. You talk like z-man had this vast plan when he started to create Fortress back in 99 or whatever year it was. He didn't. He didn't intend net play either, but was talked into it (or something like that, see the WWWIA articles on the wiki).
Half of what you say is about someone demanding that others do things, like the your interpretation of the "evolution" (or whatever word you wish to use for this process) of the launch pattern, and the other half of what you say is like throwing up your hands and saying, "shit just happens". Sounds to me like you have a very strong will, useful in making decisions, cutting up the world, and perhaps forging ahead, as your advice to me appears to be. The consequence of this, is there is little grey area. And this grey area is where I work. The in-between space. This is why I am better in-person that over a text-interface. My boundaries are less fixed, conceptually, and personally.
Returning to your point. I am aware of your point. There is a balance in design between "not-knowing" (and artistic bent, or something coming from intuition) and "knowing" (the scientific foundation, based on stuff you already know and can fairly well predict). This makes designing a house somewhat easier than designing a social system. A house actually obeys "the laws of physical nature" or whatever you want to call it. Relatively easy to predict. A social system is somewhat more dynamic, unstable, and so the design process must be different because the medium is different. Computer architecture lies a little more on the physical side than artistic, and programming even closer, but again falling on the "knowing" side.
I do not have the same detail you have of what did and did not happen with Z-man before I even started playing this game. I am interested, as people were back then in the technical specs of what they were building, in the "social" specs of what we are co-creating. The language is different because the medium is different. Metaphoric comparisons are useful, but only so far, as you point out when you criticise the use of "evolution" above. There is something of a similarity about a future orientation, and attempting to "design" a game, or perhaps "invite participation in" a new way of doing things, like the ladle, however much it is actually denied.
The most important factor when dealing with social change is dealing with the attitude of people. I learned this at school, when teaching. Without the right attitude, learning often turns into a rather aggressive argument, like what we have here. With the right attitude, learning becomes streamlined. I am all for self-directed learning... the trick is to align so we can, as a collective, get further, faster. Oh, like at the launch. I was not forced to align. I saw, and copied. And with the patience of other team-mates, and especially Vanhayes, I managed to pick up the launch right at the start. It was not demanded, because I was happy to align. I wanted to learn.
This seems to be the thing missing here, in this discussion,
the willingness to find out. That's why I want to have a "live chat", so that we can see how much this is true. Because, from our textual interaction, this does not appear to be the case. There is very little been said here that makes me thing, "Oh, right, these guys actually want to hear what I have to suggest", apart from the obvious, "write it down". It's almost like going to a company and suggesting a new idea, and they say, put it in writing and send it in. Do you know what happens with those types of communique...?
Lucifer wrote:
My point remains -- who started the notion of kings? Or gods even? I would be surprised if the answer you might give is that it was started by some divine being. I am more scientific, and tend to think it was an emergent phenomenon as we evolved. That is, self-organised, over thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of years, of course.
Um, again, sorta. It's a bit of both. Tribes have always had leaders, and it was those leaders who became the kings and queens. I'm not seeing how any of that was ever self-organized. At some point, there was agreement that a particular person would lead, and tradition built up to fortify the position. I don't see how that makes it self-organized. It was also obvious, because the one thing that is obvious is that once you have more than one person involved in any pursuit of any kind, someone has to lead. I would consider my marriage self-organized because we don't have a particular leader, but oftentimes she or I will step up and the other will follow, but that's always situational.
There are two forms of leadership. The one where one dude thinks they are leaders, and the one who ends up leading because people follow them. These are quite distinct. Things, as you notice too, get tricky, when a leader who was followed by popularity ends up wanting to remain as a leader, thus shifting from the second to the first. This has been described as "power corrupts".
And yes, a marriage, one that has any potential for long-term success (he said, though only based on hearsay and happen-chance), is one where there is mutual partnership. At least in the modern world where there is much of a desire for equality. The trick, as you no doubt experience, is appreciating difference, and yet confirming unity.
That's the kind of discussion I want to have. A mutual partnership. Actually, I want something more, I want us to have already agreed before we talk, that we are a partnership. Not a, "let's wait and see" kind of partnership, like following an enemy wall who can at any time throw in a kink and core-dump me. I want a certain amount of commitment, based on past experience (ie, that I am good for it), enough trust, so that when we go forwards together, there is a respect, trust, and alignment -- no kinks, core-dumps, no team-killing! Because, being critical at the outset of a relationship will not lead to marriage. It won't even lead to a second date...
And despite stuff I've done and how I have behaved over the years, to have this thread, this interrogation, this questioning of my method, reasoning, design, manner, motivation... has been incredible. Something may come of it, but it has to be of equal intensity
in the positive direction, to compensate for it. I haven't just stood here, spent my time dealing with each and every point, as you have with the points you have brought up variously, Word, Sine, Z-man and Lucifer. I have dealt with each and every point. I have clawed myself back from negative infinity -- and I still think I am in the negative for some people, for some reason.
Lucifer wrote:
Ah, wait a moment -- they wrote books. They made the decision to write books, not actually do it.
There you go again being presumptuous. ESR and the others I alluded to didn't just sit around, dream up ideas about the open source world, and then write long posts on forums hoping to get someone else to enact their ideas. Quite the contrary, that's what YOU are doing.
No, instead they followed the pattern that stands for basically all IT authors: first they did something, then they got recognized for it, so they wrote books to share their experiences so that others could learn. They have authority BECAUSE OF WHAT THEY DID.
AND WE ARE PLAYING THE FIFTY-SIXTH LADLE TODAY! And bizarrely, instead of getting credit for it -- god knows I haven't asked for it until now! -- but at least I could get enough respect so that when I suggest I have an idea for how we can take things forward, it is met with a positive reception. NOT BEING SHOUTED AT LIKE I AM AN IDIOT. Or before that, told like some kid who doesn't know, go and study this book or that book, or this author, or that source of authority.
I am still standing. And the request is still open. I am available to talk. And perhaps in a more human form of engagement, you shall not treat me in this way. It would be interesting to see if you end up shouting at me, or dismissing my points so easily. If that happens, so be it. But I shall only talk if there is respect, and a genuine interest in engagement. And this, I can tell in a more human-form of communication. Not text on a forum. For some reason, we are degraded in this medium, we are dehumanised...