Grand Central

[RiderSyl]

Thanks for the words of praise everyone, especially you Syl!!

It's going off again...

[95 block]

Oh you weren't being genuine? ;(

What do you have against the success of Grand Central?

[RiderSyl]

I'm seeing the same sort of setup in Grand Central that I saw in DEN and TBR, and we all know how much their successes 'benefitted' R/D.
I'd love to be wrong and see you all break the pattern, but with all I've experienced, I'm no longer the optimist when it comes to NationStates.

[The Ghost of Festavo]

I'm seeing the same sort of setup in Grand Central that I saw in DEN and TBR, and we all know how much their successes 'benefitted' R/D.
I'd love to be wrong and see you all break the pattern, but with all I've experienced, I'm no longer the optimist when it comes to NationStates.

How many elections did DEN/TBR have? None. What about RPs? I don't tecall any. Legislature? Nope. TBR/DEN were military regions. Grand Central is a region with a legislature, elections, games, RPs, etc that has a military. Grand Central is not DEN/TBR.

[Gibraltarica]

I feel honestly that while DEN was TBR 2.0, Grand Central is not. It has a lot of DEN members, but that's largely because of 94 being in it. The thing is, it's not a raider region, really. It's a native region that happens to be occupied by a lot of raiders. Furthermore, GC has a different form of government, system of leadership, and culture than DEN or TBR. It's largely, in my experience, people being friendly and having a good time. This is speaking as someone who is privileged enough to be a member of GC and also the leader of a friendly region to GC, so I may be just a bit biased. That being said, I feel that DEN's members have so much cynicism surrounding them that a lot of people won't even accept them as natives when they want to stop or rest from being a raider. To me, that sort of negativity is what alienates raiders at large from the gameplay forums and NS in general.

[RiderSyl]

I'm seeing the same sort of setup in Grand Central that I saw in DEN and TBR, and we all know how much their successes 'benefitted' R/D.
I'd love to be wrong and see you all break the pattern, but with all I've experienced, I'm no longer the optimist when it comes to NationStates.

How many elections did DEN/TBR have? None. What about RPs? I don't tecall any. Legislature? Nope. TBR/DEN were military regions. Grand Central is a region with a legislature, elections, games, RPs, etc that has a military. Grand Central is not DEN/TBR.

So because they were military regions and you're not, what happened to DEN and TBR cannot happen to Grand Central?
The fact you possess both this faulty logic and such a high position in the region only leaves more to be pessimistic about.

I feel honestly that while DEN was TBR 2.0, Grand Central is not. It has a lot of DEN members, but that's largely because of 94 being in it. The thing is, it's not a raider region, really. It's a native region that happens to be occupied by a lot of raiders. Furthermore, GC has a different form of government, system of leadership, and culture than DEN or TBR. It's largely, in my experience, people being friendly and having a good time. This is speaking as someone who is privileged enough to be a member of GC and also the leader of a friendly region to GC, so I may be just a bit biased. That being said, I feel that DEN's members have so much cynicism surrounding them that a lot of people won't even accept them as natives when they want to stop or rest from being a raider. To me, that sort of negativity is what alienates raiders at large from the gameplay forums and NS in general.

1) DEN and TBR were not "just raider regions, really. They were a game-loving region that just happened to be a raider region." They had people promoted up the ranks purely based on offsite forum spam games. I once had to reach a member of TBR's high staff before update by going to his Minecraft server. If the region wasn't so anti-RP, I'm sure there would've been a section for it too.

2) "It's largely, in my experience, people being friendly and having a good time." So were TBR and DEN. Now I'm not saying that every group that's largely people being friendly and having a good time is TBR and DEN, before someone decides to grab their nearest scarecrow and 'strawman argument' the shit out of me. All I'm saying is, what you said there is not a point in the "We're different than them" category.

3) What alienates raiders at large from GP forums and NS in general is that this is a game about politics and we're trying to play army. Or navy. Or train robbers, apparently. Gameplay is full of politicking, NS is full of politicking, and personally as someone who enjoys raiding with my peers I don't want politicking. I want "GO!" "in" ".. did we hit it?" "WE GOT IT!" "WOOOO BOY!" "YEAH!" "I LOVE YA FAM." "<3" "Great job guys!" etc etc.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

3) What alienates raiders at large from GP forums and NS in general is that this is a game about politics and we're trying to play army. Or navy. Or train robbers, apparently. Gameplay is full of politicking, NS is full of politicking, and personally as someone who enjoys raiding with my peers I don't want politicking. I want "GO!" "in" ".. did we hit it?" "WE GOT IT!" "WOOOO BOY!" "YEAH!" "I LOVE YA FAM." "<3" "Great job guys!" etc etc.

Which means Grand Central is obviously not DEN.

[95 block]

I'm seeing the same sort of setup in Grand Central that I saw in DEN and TBR, and we all know how much their successes 'benefitted' R/D.
I'd love to be wrong and see you all break the pattern, but with all I've experienced, I'm no longer the optimist when it comes to NationStates.

There is nothing similar between the DEN/TBR set up and Grand Central's. Sorry Syl, you're sorely mistaken. Anyone that has any knowledge of the two different organizations can tell you that, buddy. You're no longer an optimist? Well I'd invite you to GC to give you a good dose of it, but I'm not to sure how welcome you would be there. Which is sad because we are aiming to be the most welcoming region in NS.

[Revall]

I've been in Grand Central for awhile now and it's nothing like TBR/DEN and I was part of TBR for a few months. The culture and structure is entirely different and the GC military is still largely in the process of organizing and getting off the ground. Whereas the sole reason one would join TBR would be to raid, there are a myriad of reasons to join GC and even for a raider like myself the military would be at the bottom of that list.

We've also got a great leadership nucleus and lots of smart and active individuals including defenders, independents and the unaligned who are intrinsically invested in the region.

GC is pretty chill.

[The Ghost of Festavo]

Some of you may forget that Grand Central was a very prosperous region in it's own right before the demise of DEN/TBR. If you wish to look at history and compare GC to anything, compare it to itself.

[Solorni]

I remember

I miss the old founder, Stationman too though

[The Ghost of Festavo]

May he rest in peace.

[95 block]

I remember

I miss the old founder, Stationman too though

We all miss him. We have a thread dedicated to honoring him if you ever want to come pay your respects.

[Gibraltarica]

1) DEN and TBR were not "just raider regions, really. They were a game-loving region that just happened to be a raider region." They had people promoted up the ranks purely based on offsite forum spam games. I once had to reach a member of TBR's high staff before update by going to his Minecraft server. If the region wasn't so anti-RP, I'm sure there would've been a section for it too.

2) "It's largely, in my experience, people being friendly and having a good time." So were TBR and DEN. Now I'm not saying that every group that's largely people being friendly and having a good time is TBR and DEN, before someone decides to grab their nearest scarecrow and 'strawman argument' the shit out of me. All I'm saying is, what you said there is not a point in the "We're different than them" category.

3) What alienates raiders at large from GP forums and NS in general is that this is a game about politics and we're trying to play army. Or navy. Or train robbers, apparently. Gameplay is full of politicking, NS is full of politicking, and personally as someone who enjoys raiding with my peers I don't want politicking. I want "GO!" "in" ".. did we hit it?" "WE GOT IT!" "WOOOO BOY!" "YEAH!" "I LOVE YA FAM." "<3" "Great job guys!" etc etc.

1) So you're saying there would've been RP if they hadn't been anti-RP? First of all, that's a hypothetical, second of all, that's a contradictory hypothetical. As for the offsite forums, well, everyone needs to kick back and relax once in a while. That doesn't change the fact that that was not their primary purpose and that in fact most people there did not come to spam. Also, people having interests outside of NS does not indicate regional culture outside of raiding. It merely indicates the interests of the people involved.

2. It's different. DEN and TBR were largely raiding in order to have a good time. Their primary goal was raiding. That is not GC's goal at all. GC is a native region that focuses on non-R/D gameplay. It's not even comparable to DEN, which was nothing but an army, heck, it didn't even have a government past the HC.

3. I think you're projecting your interests onto every raider, first of all. Not every raider hates politicking. I'm actually okay with politicking. The problem is that the forums as whole hate raiders. You can't deny that. I hear people almost every other day on the raiding side of R/D saying something to the effect of "the forums are cancer" and the reason why is obvious. The forums are filled with fenda bias. Part of that might just be that natives are more likely to support fendas (for obvious reasons), but part of it is definitely that the forums are implicitly biased against raiders. I see this every day when raiders are unfairly subjected to accusations by people who don't know what they're talking about, and surprise, surprise, they're innocent! This is not to defend predator abusers, they got what they deserved, but to make the point that everyone assumes that raiders are bad people.

[Queen Yuno]

I love grand central, the elections were FUN, there was participation from everyone, the campaigns were amazing, the political parties were active, I've met so many friends, the RP is wonderful, and........

We're not a raider region. I don't remember the last raid we have. But that's fine, it's not our focus. We have a ton of other stuff to participate in. It's one of the most active forums, active communication, there's no boredom here.

I like it here.

~yuno

[RiderSyl]

<snip>

3. I think you're projecting your interests onto every raider, first of all. Not every raider hates politicking. I'm actually okay with politicking. The problem is that the forums as whole hate raiders. You can't deny that. I hear people almost every other day on the raiding side of R/D saying something to the effect of "the forums are cancer" and the reason why is obvious. The forums are filled with fenda bias. Part of that might just be that natives are more likely to support fendas (for obvious reasons), but part of it is definitely that the forums are implicitly biased against raiders. I see this every day when raiders are unfairly subjected to accusations by people who don't know what they're talking about, and surprise, surprise, they're innocent! This is not to defend predator abusers, they got what they deserved, but to make the point that everyone assumes that raiders are bad people.

Okay, I'm going to need to focus all of this on your third point, because your third point has enough inaccuracy in it to make a 2014 Kaboomlandia blush. You start by accusing me of "projecting", which I admit, yeah, when I speaking as a raider that I'm mainly speaking for myself, but my god if what follows from you isn't the most "projecting" I've seen in a long, long while. I need to break this shit down.

The forums as a whole hate raiders? I can't deny that? Hold on, let me check something. Yup, it's not in the handbook, the OSRS, or the ToS. I can deny that! They hate raiding, sure, and the fact raiders can exist in the game, yeah, there's a lot of that in certain circles. But I have very rarely had someone hate me on the forums because I'm a raider. In fact, I can count the number of times I've had someone hate me on the forums for being a raider on one hand. Counting the number of times someone's liked or loved me on the forums for being a raider would require more fingers and toes than I have on my body without taking a nice dip in a radioactive pond.

Raiders all say 'the forums are cancer'? I know people that have nothing to do with raiding that say that. It's not the fact that they're raiding that lead them to these opinions, it's the fact they're players that grow to dislike the shit-slinging festival that most of the forums turn into. Usually. Some don't like the mods. Some don't like other things. They're players, they're people, there's all different reasons we come to hate the NS forums, but the end statement you're going to get from all of them is pretty much the same.

The forums are filled with defender bias? I'm sure Benevolent Thomas would love to hear all about how that defender bias to pushed him to success with The Grey Wardens. I'm sure the FRA would love to hear about how the defender bias on the forums that helped them get along with the UDL. I'm sure every defender and anti-raiding roleplayer would LOVE to hear about how the defender bias on the forums is getting those R/D Summit changes implemented so fast! The forums aren't filled with defender bias, your comment is filled with wronger wrong.

Every day, raiders are unjustly accused? What a travesty! I wonder if any other groups in NS are the victim are these terrible false accusations? ... Almost all of them? Okay, so it's not really a raider problem, it's just a problem. You probably just see it more with raiders because they're low-hanging fruit for the "boys who cry wolf"s of the internet.

Your final point, at last, is that everyone assumes that raiders are bad people. I'll give you a little bit of that one. Most people may assume that, what, with raiders' main effect on the game being messing other people's stuff up when it's not secure. However, if this entire thing was leading up to make the point that everyone assumes raiders are bad people, you didn't make your point. All you did was start lobbing bullshit at the nice peachy tan walls of the Grand Central station thread, and that's just not very nice now, is it?

[Queen Yuno]

*jumps on syl* lies! you luv politics! xD
I clearly remember voting for you as 2nd top vote in one of those campaigns you did, so I know it :3

[RiderSyl]

*jumps on syl* lies! you luv politics! xD
I clearly remember voting for you as 2nd top vote in one of those campaigns you did, so I know it :3

And after dealing with those political campaigns, I can say I really, really hate politics.

[Drop Your Pants]

And after dealing with those political campaigns, I can say I really, really hate politics.

Then you're playing the wrong game.

[RiderSyl]

And after dealing with those political campaigns, I can say I really, really hate politics.

Then you're playing the wrong game.

As I've come to realize.

[RiderSyl]

Also, on-topic:

I'm seeing the same sort of setup in Grand Central that I saw in DEN and TBR, and we all know how much their successes 'benefitted' R/D.
I'd love to be wrong and see you all break the pattern, but with all I've experienced, I'm no longer the optimist when it comes to NationStates.

There is nothing similar between the DEN/TBR set up and Grand Central's. Sorry Syl, you're sorely mistaken. Anyone that has any knowledge of the two different organizations can tell you that, buddy. You're no longer an optimist? Well I'd invite you to GC to give you a good dose of it, but I'm not to sure how welcome you would be there. Which is sad because we are aiming to be the most welcoming region in NS.

I'm satisfied with this reply. No similar setup means GC isn't as likely to go down the same road as DEN/TBR, and that's great. I offered nothing but my own outsider opinion, and being wrong about something or someone doesn't come as a surprise to me anymore. I'd just be careful with the thinking that was uncovered here that just because Grand Central isn't a military-only region, that it cannot be subject to what brought about the fall of DEN/TBR. Any region with a military can be vulnerable to it.

Anyway, with no sarcasm this time, good luck.

[95 block]

Anyway, with no sarcasm this time, good luck.

Thank you Syl! Now that we have worked on some issues through healthy and therapeutic communication I would welcome you with open arms into GC. (Which makes our goal of being the most welcoming region in NS all that much easier). I'll definitely take your warnings to heart about protecting GC from the evils that plagued DEN/TBR. You can ask many people and they will tell you I was for the people of those two orgs and tried to keep it a fun and safe place as best I could.

[CityDerail]

*** Important Announcement @ Grand Central Station ***

"Your attention please. This announcement has been cancelled for today only. CityDerail regrets any inconvenience caused."
--Tyegëa, CityDerail CEO: "Nunquam Paratus"

[Queen Yuno]

*jumps on syl* lies! you luv politics! xD
I clearly remember voting for you as 2nd top vote in one of those campaigns you did, so I know it :3

And after dealing with those political campaigns, I can say I really, really hate politics.

Yeah... I know, sorry senpai..
but...that was just one time in your region. It doesn't really happen elsewhere, and it's definitely not going to happen here. So.. Don't lose hope, Syl ! *~* follow your passions!

random:
are you going to start raiding again? *yun hopes*

[Ikania]

I'm in GC, and I've joined a party. I would call myself satisfied.

Unfortunately, there is a suspicious lack of ouzo. 0/10 would not train ride again.