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I just want to get something off my chest


TankHunter

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Ok, I know, this happens nearly annually, but what the hell.

The community is fucked for lack of a better phrase (or will be). It isn’t in this shape because of a lack of players (which is a problem) but because there is copious amounts of faction which only seems to grow. It does not generally show up in the forums, but it does in TS. It makes itself fairly apparent. One side in one area, and the untermensch in another. Some factious individuals are more than happy to take advantage of this. Billy half a year ago hit it on the head. There is faction, though his contention that it was between the “Newbies” and the “Vets” (who belongs to which faction, I have no idea about) is mistaken. The arrogant acts of a few which are done in at least a semi strategic fashion has been the main cause of this. I was hoping that these were a series of errors in logic, but it has become more and more obvious that they likely are not.

There are two factions, the haves and the have nots as I see it. Both sides are about evenly split, but one side has less centralization. The other is lead by one individual. Never have I seen these numbers involved in a factional pissing match here that there are now. As a result, the fabric of the community will only continue to tear along these lines as one faction alienates more and more neutrals and sucks in the rest to their fold. At the moment the heat is turning up ever so slightly, but I expect things can very well get worse in the future. At the moment it just manifests itself as petty bullshit with one faction taking advantage of certain undercurrents of friction which are already there (and which just so happen to be along factional lines) and spinning it as part of a larger issue than it is. Thus hoping to draw more people into the grand mire of bollocks. This does not help any considering that the two factions socialize very infrequently, and thus good intents risk being mistaken for malice, and half truths against one side or the other may turn into full truths in appearance. Another issue is that as a result of acts by members of one faction, members of the other are unwilling to cooperate with the other in higher-level events (I.E., VU vs VU events) or the likelihood of cooperation is highly reduced. The reasons for this I would rather not get into but those who know of this part of the issue, know of what I speak.

I make this post in hopes that the issue is thought about and dealt with by members of this community for my clandestine attempts failed in contacting the leader of one of these factions (the hope was to form some sort of pan-community event involving available VUs, but I never got far enough for that to be proposed). If this does continue, this will very well split the community eventually. I say this for smaller factional disputes risked the same result. Thankfully those were neutralized by the participants themselves before they got to a point in which social strings were snapped fully along sectarian lines. Though, the future partisanship that I see will not be neutralized I suspect if things get to where they were in previous fights. It will only get bigger, and uglier.

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For the sake of the community , be men and forget the past ,shake hands and have a vitual beer.

It saddens me to see the community split like this.

I also would disagree to a unit being led by one person, our unit for instance is based on a pool of thoughts and tactics. If some-one is unhappy with regard some form of tactic , it is discussed.

I think you may be blinkered in your views due to what has happened in the past.

Best Wishes

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I am writing in hopes to get something straightened that probaply should have been long ago, I will also try to be as conrete as possible. TH you seem to have an issue with Billy that I think is not my bussiness, or anybody elses here in the community - this thing should be sorted out between the two of you, and be restricted to you alone.

You were making obvious suggestions to the SB Generals, and as a founder and co-leader of it I feel its time to raise my voice. My biggest pain in the ass the some members in this community are obsessively against 1 or 2 particular persons in the VU, and because of this they hate and attack everything in connection with them, especially the VU. Heck even myself been labelled as being corrupt once in comments by "SBdefender".

By putting blame on a VU just because of a few members that you can't get along results in putting blame on everybody who is involved with this. Judgeing a whole community by only one of its members isn't very wise. We are completely open to everyone. Why not just hop in once TH to us and see how things are and get to know the rest of the guys, have a game, chit-chat stuffs like that.

I personally think VU's are the way to go for the online community, just because there needs to be some sort of organisation. The members of the Steel Beasts community are from all over the world - which means different time zones, different way of life, different age etc. There isn't a dedicated host, getting a game strarted takes eons, if there is a game going you cant join unless everybody goes back and start all over etc. - this doesn't make things better either.

I'm glad to say that we are able to arrange at least 1 big game per week with the germans (we use to have over 30 players recently :) ) - which has been going on for half year now.

TS during weekdays is pretty much deserted, I hardly see anyone online except for us.

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There's some pretty strong characters in this community. As the saying goes, if you want to predict the future, read a history book. Last time I was online a fair bit (around 2003) I saw plenty, plenty of friction between certain individuals. I dare say they're getting along fine now.

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I'd like to just add that I'm still relatively new with SB Pro.

However, Billy took the time to help me get my game setup (my router was all fucked up). He spent almost 3 hours helping me, and always invites me to play with the Generals whenever I'm on and looking for a game.

I dont really know the rest of the Generals team, but I've played a bunch of matches with them and they all seem welcoming towards new guys.

I'm not defending them by any means. Like I said, I'm new, but my initial contact with them has been positive. As has it been with most of the people I've played with...Even those crazy Germans. Lol Jk.

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This is a very good subject to be discussed. I also commend Tankhunter on starting this thread as there are some very large issues which need resolving which are not easy to address. The fact that it is being discussed is the first step though.

What has happened in the past is now history that is fact. IMHO, if some people have been offended by others then that is a matter for themselves and whoever the offender was to sort out like adults.

For the community to go forward, again IMHO, I think that some olive branches need to be offered as well as copious amounts of humble pie needs to be consumed.

At the end of the day we have each paid good money for a product that needs the cooperation of all of us to gain the maximum out of our investment. When we can learn to set our egos to oneside, like most of the community do, then I think whatever crisis it is that we are discussing at the moment will be more than halfway sunk.

Irish

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First to Daskal’s offer. I appreciate it, but my place is the lobby. I do not control it thus I cannot offer an invite, but I would gladly welcome you and others to engage in intelligent discussion there as Chance does frequently.

As regards Scot. My acts are the acts of just one. I have no say in the matter of faction. In fact I mentioned my attempt to try and reduce faction in the start of this thread. Though acts of others may have the power of many behind them. If you feel otherwise about myself, then I can only guess as to where you get the belief. Anyway, the matter is neither here nor there. I posted the thread in hopes that the community itself thinks of the matter of faction and acts accordingly.

In reply to Daskal again. My issue is not with a group, for a group is that, a group. It consists of many individuals. My distrust of an individual in a group is just that, my own distrust. It hardly rises to a level of faction. My distaste of others also applies. As regards Sbdefender this was likely a symptom of the condition of which I speak (or more accurately type).

Lets get away from myself (which was the entire intent of the thread, not to discuss myself, but rather a more important issue such as the state of the community in total). The community was rarely if ever split along the lines of VUs. It would be split along various non-VU based factions, but not particularly between VUs. Though this is what I bet is happening now. There have been a number of small acts which are minor in the grand scheme of things, but which have poisoned relations with others. These are not in relation to two who have a tendency towards abridgment and to act out, but of another individual. I suspect he knows of whom I mention.

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I think the upcoming "Neutralia" project will definitly be able to give new fuel to online gaming.

"Neutralia" That's a blast from the past. I didn't know that Dr. Device was back. I haven't seen him in a while. It would be nice if he were to bring back his campaign.

I was kind of suprised though, that I never heard anything from the Generals at all when I offered operational control of Danish and Canadian forces in the Counterstroke campaign. Anyone wanting to participate with that is still welcome.

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I didn't know that Dr. Device was back.
Neither did I. PzBtln 511 talked to someone who talked to me about doing this some time ago. Wonder if they, or anyone else who did Battlefield:Neutralia, or before that, Rule the World, know about this.

If not, someone should touch bases with them. They had a lot of good ideas, which isn't surprising since it was their campaign(s).

Shot

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"Neutralia" That's a blast from the past. I didn't know that Dr. Device was back. I haven't seen him in a while. It would be nice if he were to bring back his campaign.

I was kind of suprised though, that I never heard anything from the Generals at all when I offered operational control of Danish and Canadian forces in the Counterstroke campaign. Anyone wanting to participate with that is still welcome.

As for Neutralia - I don't want to go into details right now - because I'm not in charge, but I can tell you that something big is coming along, which is going to stir up the water a bit. So stay tooned ;)

As for Counterstroke - there was nothing intentional in not taking part of that, its just that weekends are mostly off for our members. I personally wanted to participate, but I just don't have the time for it - my girlfriend is not letting me :( She is the CO on the weekends, and a pretty strict one too ;)

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As for Neutralia - I don't want to go into details right now - because I'm not in charge...
You or whoever is will still want to talk to the various members of the 29th who ran both Rule the World and Battlefield: Neutralia, presuming that your Neutralia thing is to bear some resemblance to either of the aforementioned.

Shot

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I ran* Rule the World, and Dr. Device ran Battlefield:Neutralia if I'm remembering the names correctly.

Daskal, please contact me if there's any way I can contribute to the new project. Mine didn't turn out the way I'd hoped but if advice or old files can help you, they are yours.

* I had enormous amounts of help, of course, and can tell you about that if the information is useful.

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Hi all,

Daskal sent me a pm about this thread. So if there are any questions about the project "Neutralia" by PzBtl 911, just let me know.

Although this is the wrong Thread for this, I wanna let u know that we invested hours of work yet. We build geographical, industrial, politic, infrastructural and landscape-maps of "Neutralia". We are nearly finished with making rules about the strategic and tactic warfare on the island of Netralia. In the nearer future a website will go online (we have the idea to manage this in English and German). The greatest piece of work left, is to create all the maps in a kind that fits to the "strategic" map. The main-map is divided in 88 Hex-fields, each has its own 15m² map. As u might know, this is much work to do.

If anyone wants to support us, let us know. Daskal has allready got lot to do, because we create "virtual news" for Neutralia and the 2 states on it every week. I designed a history and a realistic background.

If u wanna have more information contact me thrue pm or email. Perhaps we could start an extra thread for this if the response is big enough.

To read the news english "press releases" from Neutralia, just visit www.steelbeasts.eu and look for the news-ticker on the top. Here u can find the first press release (translatet by Daskal). The rest of the news will be available in English in the near future i hope ( @ Daskal :-) )

So lets see how many people will join, now to support, and later on to bring Neutralia to life.

Last but not least: we have a server available and are able to host up to 100 players, so its gonna be a really interessting thing if many players will "habitate" Neutralia :-)

excuse any mistakes, its just my school-knowledge :-)

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Seine Englisch ist sehr gut, which is more than I can say for my Deutsch. I approached both Hell_Hound and Dr. Device about doing a CIA Factbook-esque article for Neutralia. If you're interested, I could blow the dust off of it and send it along.

I also helped with maps, rules, the AAR that accompanied RtW, and so forth. If I can be of assistance in one or more of those areas, feel free to prevail upon me.

Shot

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"Our" idea of Neutralia is based on nothing happend before. So we created a complete new "world" with new rules. There is a ressource-management-system, a chance to improve thrue research (we created a tech-tree) u will have the possibility to buy new tanks by spending Industrial Points (IP) which are earned by holding the Hex-fields (each of it has different values, for example because of ressources like coal or oil)

You see we have done a lot, support is needed in creating maps fitting the Neutralia-map, translating from german to english, bulding skins for the two states on Neutralia (Flaggs were done allready) and what we need the most are interessted people to make Neutralia a success.

I hope its no problem for the former creators of the old version of Neutralia that we gave it the same name...

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