Been awhile since I had a good forum dustup. Let's see if I can do better.
Am I misreading you here? Of course devs have the power to completely change player behavior through design changes. But that's not the point of yours I contend. Rather, I contend that dev power is not the only effective change agent, nor the greatest one.
A random person has no power playing a game. But even a small collection of people can (and do) change games through their power of influence, let alone larger swathes of a playerbase.
On an individual, player-by-player basis, I wholeheartedly agree. But groups of players individually committing similar actions (i.e. not necessarily organized with each other) or coming to similar conclusions on their own, exert significant influence. Regardless, this misses the point. ...Which I think you also allude to here:
Ignoring the personal potshot for a moment, you say you responded to me saying that players exert influence on developers to make game changes. I don't see how that's a whole different paradigm based on your assertion that:
You say devs have the power in their hands, and are the only ones with power in their hands. That's the distinction with which I contend.
I read this paragraph four times, and the meaning I took from it was, players cannot change a game environment nor the player community unless the players have power to technically change that environment and directly control players in that playerbase. Is that right? Because if it is, we can attain greater clarity on where we disagree. Which brings us back to this:
I don't think you're stupid, but I do think you bring a stubborn insistence to define power (in this context) as technological control, contrary to examples of other successful exertions of power. If I misread you, then I welcome more clarity.
"Am I misreading you here? Of course devs have the power to completely change player behavior through design changes. But that's not the point of yours I contend. Rather, I contend that dev power is
not the only effective change agent, nor the greatest one."
you can say that a group of players have power, but they only have "power" if the devs allow them to have power. a group of players can be really annoying and pick at devs trying to get them to add/remove something from their game, but its up to the devs whether they think the change being presented to them is good for the game. you can call that "power", but then we would just have to agree to disagree there. I do not see that as power, if the developer does not agree with your change your "power" would dissipate.
this power can be useful, it can change the community and such but I simply believe this power isn't enough for the community to self-dictate. in the statement you are replying, i acknowledge that people have influence but it isnt enough to dictate a community.
"A random person has no power playing a game. But even a small collection of people can (and do) change games through their power of influence, let alone larger swathes of a playerbase."
they have the “power” to suggest changes, they do not have the power to enact such changes. the “power” is inherently different. the power you need to dictate a community is the power to enact changes, which the community (most of the time) doesn't have. once again, it depends on the game. wow as an example, you can talk about "twink integrity" and shame people for using consumables, but you can't stop them.
"On an individual, player-by-player basis, I wholeheartedly agree. But groups of players individually committing similar actions (i.e. not necessarily organized with each other) or coming to similar conclusions on their own, exert significant influence. Regardless, this misses the point. ...Which I think you also allude to here:"
once again, the community can have influence, but that influence is not sufficient to self-dictate themselves if they do not have the tools at hand. you can suggest changes, you can cause the game to change over time, but if the devs fucked off and something needed change you can't do anything. (most of the time).
“Ignoring the personal potshot for a moment, you say you responded to me saying that players exert influence on developers to make game changes. I don't see how that's a whole different paradigm based on your assertion that:”
"You say devs have the power in their hands, and are the
only ones with power in their hands.
That's the distinction with which I contend."
i said devs are the ones with power in their hands after I said they are the ones who have to control the environment because the community can not do it themselves if they don't have power. its very clear in the statement that I'm talking about situations where the community has no "power" in the mix. why would you qualify a situation and then after that situation you talk about a situation that you were not talking about before? "Most of the time, people who watch movies eat popcorn with their movie! (this is just an example not a representation of what i believe) But also, movies rhymes with broom keys, so we should be talking about broom closets". I was talking about the dynamic of devs having all the power, and exclaiming that the community has no power in that dynamic of the devs having all the power (which is a large majority of the time).
“I read this paragraph four times, and the meaning I took from it was, players cannot change a game environment nor the player community unless the players have power to technically change that environment and directly control players in that playerbase. Is that right? Because if it is, we canattain greater clarity on where we disagree. Which brings us back to this:”
yes, a player can not change the environment/what people do if they do not have the power to change the game mechanics or punish people.
“I don't think you're stupid, but I do think you bring a stubborn insistence to define power (in this context) as technological control, contrary to examples of other successful exertions of power. If I misread you, then I welcome more clarity.”
the power you need to dictate a community is the power to change the environment. You have to be able to control others if you want to change how others play a game, you could influence people to change how they play but there will be groups of people who will not change. Your “power” as a individual or as a group is useless against those people, the only power that can change the entire community is the power to enact change. You could say “well if I suggest to the devs to change the game in a way, is that not a simple cause and effect?”, but I would just say that your influence is dependent on if the dev agrees with you. Its also not your action, it was the developers decision to enact that change. Because you brought up the change to them doesn’t change the fact the dev has the power to add the change or not.
im 2 lazy 2 read all this shit
so ill just assume its communist propaganda
true, edy hacked his account. I’m surprised he hasn’t called me a fascist yet