AG2 Prologue

[Basiliscus]

I'd like to register my interest in AG2, I've made a Bricklink order for a bunch of lime parts as I plan to join MANTIS, and hopefully I will get a prologue build up over the Xmas holidays.

Appreciate its a busy time of year for everyone, but it would be great to get an idea of how similar AG2 will be to AG1 in terms of roles, factions, etc.

[Professor Thaum]

We're in stand by now... don't stress

[Basiliscus]

13 hours ago, Professor Thaum said:

We're in stand by now... don't stress

Thanks for the update, I've been able to reduce my valium dosage this morning following on from your reassurance! 

[mccoyed]

Would be great to have an update for this now that GOH Book 3 has been announced.

[Bob De Quatre]

I don't have the time to do all the things that need to be done to launch aG2, and I won't have the time to maintain the game after the launch...

[mccoyed]

Bob, if that's the case then the responsible thing to do is step down and let someone else take over. Why should all the AG players sit around waiting for you to have time? Delegate, my good man. Delegate.

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by mccoyed

[Bob De Quatre]

On 7/10/2018 at 9:33 AM, mccoyed said:

Bob, if that's the case then the responsible thing to do is step down and let someone else take over. Why should all the AG players sit around waiting for you to have time? Delegate, my good man. Delegate.

 

It's not that I don't want to deleguate, but that I don't have candidates to take over...
And I would still have things only me can do.

[Jody Meyer]

What are you looking for in a candidate? Maybe I can help out. Retirement has it's privileges, time being on of them.

[mccoyed]

10 hours ago, Bob De Quatre said:

It's not that I don't want to deleguate, but that I don't have candidates to take over...
And I would still have things only me can do.

Have you asked for volunteers from AG to help? I'm sure there are a bunch of us who can pitch in on the day-to-day running of the game. I understand that EB staff are the only ones who can do certain things (contests, etc) but it's not like you can't be reached for that stuff is it?

Otherwise, this is a major flaw in the way RBGs are being run on Eurobricks. AG and GoH are currently suffering from decline due to the inactivity of EB staffers and long-time leaders. Everybody understands life gets in the way but to me it's either take the poop or get off the toilet, Bob. You should cancel AG2 if you aren't willing or able to empower others to keep it going.

[LucByard]

I think it's a fair point that with all the coding involved, there's a lot of stuff for AG that kind of lies on Bob's shoulders. I don't know if anyone else has the knowledge to continue that work without him.

But it's also a fair point to say that if AG is now shelved indefinitely, the best thing to do is just say it. I don't think any-one doubts Bob's desire to do AG2 but life gets in all of our ways... frequently in my experience and if point number one is true... Then AG has had its day.

At least then anyone who keeps building and telling stories knows the basis upon which they do.

 

[mccoyed]

My position is: drop the coding. Let AG2 be like GoH for the next series and revisit the "game" of it all down the line when there's more time.

[MKJoshA]

6 minutes ago, mccoyed said:

My position is: drop the coding. Let AG2 be like GoH for the next series and revisit the "game" of it all down the line when there's more time.

Well, there's nothing stopping us from continuing to build in the AG world. Want to do a mini-collab with me to add to the Kawa story?

[mccoyed]

If it doesn't interfere with what I'm doing (big plans), sure. But I'm the only one consistently posting right now. I know I'll see more from Luc because we've been talking about it for months. Everybody else is in a holding pattern -- just like on GoH until recently. I don't want EB's RBGs to keep being this:

[Mesabi]

@Bob De Quatre, I'm sorry to hear you're unable to continue, however I completely agree with @mccoyed. If life has gotten in the way, we understand. Ska For Hire relinquished command of BoBS to the Brethren court, and BoBS has run fine since he has taken an absence. 

I would be willing to help out, and several other people have offered in this thread. Shall we consider setting up a pm?

[Jody Meyer]

I would love to help out, PM is fine. I can help with Photoshop stuff as well as excel coding. Anything really. My real life is never getting ahead, my wife and I have been both fighting cancer so distraction helps.

[MKJoshA]

On 7/21/2018 at 4:11 PM, Mesabi said:

@Bob De Quatre, I'm sorry to hear you're unable to continue, however I completely agree with @mccoyed. If life has gotten in the way, we understand. Ska For Hire relinquished command of BoBS to the Brethren court, and BoBS has run fine since he has taken an absence. 

I would be willing to help out, and several other people have offered in this thread. Shall we consider setting up a pm?

Well, Ska didn't relinquish command so much as there was a mutiny and not much he could do after that. I'd hate to see the same thing happen with AG.

[mccoyed]

People like Ska and Bob need to have a backup plan. It's totally understandable that life gets in the way of hobbies and all of this is voluntary anyhow. But communities don't survive when power over them is disproportionately in the hands of a handful of people who a) can't handle anyone else being in charge and b) routinely abdicate their responsibilities. It's not personal, but I do want to challenge the mindset I keep seeing that there's any excuse for any of this or that we should be patient for years on end because a few people are too busy and too disorganized to keep things running in their own absence. If this was a business it would be out of business.

 

[supertruper1988]

15 minutes ago, mccoyed said:

People like Ska and Bob need to have a backup plan. It's totally understandable that life gets in the way of hobbies and all of this is voluntary anyhow. But communities don't survive when power over them is disproportionately in the hands of a handful of people who a) can't handle anyone else being in charge and b) routinely abdicate their responsibilities. It's not personal, but I do want to challenge the mindset I keep seeing that there's any excuse for any of this or that we should be patient for years on end because a few people are too busy and too disorganized to keep things running in their own absence. If this was a business it would be out of business.

 

Its a good thing its not then  

I understand the sentiment and I signed up to play AG1 then found out I was having a baby and did 0 builds. I would suggest that maybe a different outlet could be found for your passion to build. I realize this is fun but saying that these volunteer mods and admins are not doing their "job" is crazy talk. No one has to provide you an outlet for your passion. 

If you want to see change, look into alternatives, build some test servers that can handle this type of game, show what you can do. Then offer it to the admins as an alternative. Expecting them to do something for free just because it was once offered for free comes across as naive and entitled. That is the opposite of the LEGO message. 

[MKJoshA]

35 minutes ago, supertruper1988 said:

Its a good thing its not then  

I understand the sentiment and I signed up to play AG1 then found out I was having a baby and did 0 builds. I would suggest that maybe a different outlet could be found for your passion to build. I realize this is fun but saying that these volunteer mods and admins are not doing their "job" is crazy talk. No one has to provide you an outlet for your passion. 

If you want to see change, look into alternatives, build some test servers that can handle this type of game, show what you can do. Then offer it to the admins as an alternative. Expecting them to do something for free just because it was once offered for free comes across as naive and entitled. That is the opposite of the LEGO message. 

Well said!

[mccoyed]

Wait a minute. Didn't I use the word "voluntary"? Why are you preaching to me when we're almost saying the same thing? You've got me all wrong.

The business analogy is about showing that things die when they're neglected. They shut down. They end. If we agree that's a problem, and we seem to judging by the posts of others who did actually play AG1, we need to look for causes and solutions so that we can a) prevent the problem in future and b) deal with it when it becomes a problem. Bob doesn't owe me anything nor do I expect him to cater to me. That is not what this is about. It's just about the fact that volunteering to be responsible still makes you responsible. Backing off without a contingency plan is irresponsible. Your characterization of my "sentiments" is inaccurate. I don't believe it has to be Bob that "does something for free". The only one who believes that is Bob. I want there to be a structural solution, which means allowing other people to step up when volunteers like Bob have to step down.

Your post is unnecessarily confrontational as is, but it's a little condescending on top of that for you to suggest to me that I should do x, y, z when you have no idea what projects and proposals I've already been a part of. Others can attest to that. Even AG started with planning that I contributed to and posts I made ~3 years ago about starting a scifi/space version of Guilds of Historica. Over the years, many such plans have been made. Some don't get support and die out, others become big successes like BoBS or AG1. Eurobricks has a structural division of its volunteer labour: staff and admins who are closely involved with projects like AG1. You can't cut them out and they often aren't around to be pitched on things, hence the issue of long hiatuses with AG2 and GoH.  GoH has a team of people who are willing to delegate responsibility to others and step back from their old roles as they no longer have time. That's a solution. BoBS did active recruiting among active members of other games for its own staff. That's a solution. Other solutions and volunteers have been suggested in this thread. What solution are you offering, exactly?

[Mesabi]

2 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

I understand the sentiment and I signed up to play AG1 then found out I was having a baby and did 0 builds. I would suggest that maybe a different outlet could be found for your passion to build. I realize this is fun but saying that these volunteer mods and admins are not doing their "job" is crazy talk. No one has to provide you an outlet for your passion. 

Eurobricks is here to provide us a creative outlet for our lego hobby. And yes they are volunteers, but just because one is volunteering is not an excuse to not do a good job. (This is entirely hypothetical here, @Bob De Quatre is a fine moderator) If I decide to volunteer at a food shelter, and was doing a poor job, I can't use the excuse of "well I'm just a volunteer"

3 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

If you want to see change, look into alternatives, build some test servers that can handle this type of game, show what you can do. Then offer it to the admins as an alternative. 

Doing so would require the approval of Bob De Quatre or another moderator, which is not (yet) a given. Bob even said, 

Quote

It's not that I don't want to deleguate, but that I don't have candidates to take over...
And I would still have things only me can do.

 

3 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

Expecting them to do something for free just because it was once offered for free comes across as naive and entitled. 

If Eurobricks suddenly went "paid only" would we be entitled to protest? 

Additionally, you are misreading Mccoyed here. Mccoyed is asking for a leader of a game to be prepared for life events, because they are doing something for them. Let's pretend AG is a road. The Road needs construction, so it's closed. We should expect the road to reopen, right? because otherwise we're stuck doing detours.

Yes, everyone can write their own stories, and build there own things. But games are a chance for builders to work together as a team and share in a community. You take that community away, and people will be unhappy.

In Brethren of the Brick Seas, as a tribute to AG, we named the 'asian' area, the Kawashita peninsula, since so many of us had great memories of playing AG. That's the kind of thing the community does. It makes good memories and experiences, and I'd like to see that continue without being accused of being entitled or naïve.  

3 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

That is the opposite of the LEGO message. 

Lego is a toy. It's message is to build things. ;)

[Stash2Sixx]

Everyone play nice please.

[mccoyed]

9 hours ago, Stash2Sixx said:

Everyone play nice please.

No worries. I've said what I wanted to say. I don't have any hard feelings toward anyone so I'll back off for now and see what happens next.

[Mesabi]

Sorry @Stash2Sixx 

[Professor Thaum]

Maybe a good new for the start of the new school year ?