How are you enjoying the slow death of TWC?

[Aexodus]

They’re pretty trigger happy about deleting editing, or closing threads in my experience. It’s pretty easy to avoid notes and infractions though.

[saxdude]

It's probably because those threads where full of ****ty content that by all accounts should be closed. Considering the amount of threads still open that are like that I'm surprised anyone see's moderation in TWC as anything but lax.

In 2009-2012, sure, but not now.

[PikeStance]

When it comes to D & D I prefer to read the comments section of a magazine I read. A great combination of knowledge and comic relief making reading it fun and informative. Debate here get way too personal and humor tends to be sardonic.
Infractions are easy enough to avoid if you focus more on the message than the poster, but as i said, people get too personal.

[pannonian]

At the risk of another circular discussion, I will respond one final time on this. My comments came directly from citizens who told me why they do not bother with citizenship at all. The quote' "It is not worth the extra aggravation." If you want to ignore that be my guest. The bottom line is citizenship gives you a badge, access to Curia no one cares about, and make proposals that will most likely be ignored for years.

When I approach member about citizenship, I have standard copy and paste in which half of it is hardly true anymore. I just hope they don't actually noticed. Most do not care anyway. They just care for the award and go away. Some do participate in the Curia (modestly). Selling citizenship is a lot like selling a used car in which you know something is going to break soon. All you have to do is read this thread. But hey, it is sure easier to pretend what people saying is BS isn't it?

Just giving another on the subject of citizenship, and an apology to the Curia.

My patron is imb39, the most prolific patron on TWC. He went out of his way to promote me to the CdeC, and kept close tabs on me afterwards. While I wasn't then aware of how close, I did get the feeling of being valued. Which, to some extent, mirrors the ideal patron-client relationship from Roman times. Anyway, I appreciated this, and when my say had some weight on the site, I approached some members with the offer of patronage to show that I appreciated what they were doing. Hence my sig of imbling, and my three clients. To me, citizenship is a mark of appreciation between patron and client. I've tried to make imb proud, and I recognise that my that my clients have made this site better in their own way.

And now for my apology to the Curia. You've mentioned the Content Age elsewhere, and I was responsible for the Curial interface with it. Previously, Moderation had practically been the only seriously recognised staff branch, save maybe for tech, which is its own weird world. Content was ostensibly a staff branch, but it did not garner anywhere near the same recognition. Around 2008 or so, I pushed for an expansion of the citizenry with a focus on content staffers and providers. I also pushed for greater recognition of the GAC section of CC as well, patronising Sidmen as the leading light of the RPG forum (which I understand Pontifex effectively runs now). This sounds like it's invigorating the Curia, so why the apology?

Also going back to 2008, I became head of moderation at a time when Hex was particularly inactive, with a largely inactive moderation staff as well. The experience was highly unpleasant, and I resolved to set up as professional a moderation branch as I could get a volunteer force to get. In subsequent times, in my capacity as a Hexer, I've encouraged Content to follow this model as well, and have periodically gone into the Curia to appeal for willing workers to join the various staff branches. This, unfortunately for the Curia, has drained it of much of the energy that might otherwise have contributed towards making the Curia an effective partner to staff. In addition to the Tribunal being highly effective in holding potential moderation abuses in check, this has taken both energy and purpose from it. I've tried to redress this by encouraging staff, particularly moderation as that's my specialist area, to think about non-staff suggestions as well. Unfortunately for the Curia, my professionalisation of moderation was too effective, and when staff works so much better than the Curia, what incentive is there to follow the Curia?

Maybe the Curia no longer really holds power. But I equally think that accusations that the Curia has been worthless this past decade are wrong. If nothing else, it has provided us with a ready recruiting point for enthusiastic staffers. And even now, it allows the community to express its appreciation of fellow members.

[EmperorBatman999]

Perhaps this is as good of a thread as any to share some recent thoughts I've had, specifically about why I stopped being active around here but also about a growing personal interest in returning to modding.

In fact, I have somehow, almost out of nowhere, found a new creative spark that seems to be driving me towards going back to making mods again.

Five years ago, I more or less quit modding entirely and pretty much withdrew from being an active participant on the site, with some exceptions such as a brief (and yet incomplete) foray into AARs writing. I quit for a number of reasons. My modding didn't branch anywhere beyond Napoleon Total War, although I've considered (and to some degree started planning) making mods for Rome 2 and Attila. When NTW began to fall out of popularity to be replaced by the newer games in the series, I felt like I was getting a smaller return for the time dedicated making mods. At the time, I was working on a rather ambitious submod for The Great War, which specifically envisioned a Spanish Civil War campaign using TGW's assets. The problem was that the project required skills that were beyond my knowledge then, particularly involving the heavy complexities of Startpos editing. Furthermore, I could not effectively keep a team together to delegate the work to people who were better qualified and shared a similar vision that I had. Perhaps most importantly, however, was that I was going off to college and no longer had the kind of free time I did when I was in school, and my interests then drifted into other areas of study, and I almost stopped gaming altogether during those years. If only to confirm my new path, my computer had a severe crash during my first semester of college and I lost almost all of my mods and the materials used to make them. This got especially tough when the site transferred over to the newer format, and all my downloadable attachments for my mods were destroyed in the process.

But this Summer, I graduated and soon will be heading to Graduate School for my Master's degree in History. I have been mostly idle for the Summer, with no other creative or academic projects to hold me down, so I had some time to enjoy Empire and Napoleon, partly using my old mods. I realized how much I missed working on such projects, watching how a project shapes up and then eagerly waiting for its public reception upon completion. I then had some ideas about new mods to make for Napoleon and Rome 2, but I am concerned that there isn't an audience for them anymore. I want to share some design ideas with people who I think might be interested, but I don't know who to talk to anymore. I have already begun work on one project and even have even begun conducting research for another. But then there are all the problems that come with trying out new tools and skills to make your mod possible, only to run into problems still. Alas, that must be the modding process though. I have four weeks of Summer left, so hopefully I can get at least one of those projects done in time.

I alone won't turn around this site, but I hope I am not the only one who still has an interest in revisiting this site to make and enjoy mods, or to contribute to the community in other aspects.

Edit: As it turns out, I made a post almost a full year ago that talked about kinda the same stuff, but I forgot all about it.

[Roma_Victrix]

"How are you enjoying the slow death of TWC?"

With a bit of cilantro, cuman, paprika, cayenne, and guacamole, but that's just me.

[Stone Cold Shogun Panther]

Will TWC ever go back to it's old days of a lot of posts that I always hear about?

[Facupay]

Will TWC ever go back to it's old days of a lot of posts that I always hear about?

No, but don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

[Ferdiad]

Will TWC ever go back to it's old days of a lot of posts that I always hear about?

Forums as a form a media are just disappearing tbh.

[Godfrey I of Leuven]

What's the alternative?

[Pontifex Maximus]

Memes I guess

[Adamat]

What's the alternative?

Reddit, discord, etc.

[Godfrey I of Leuven]

Memes I guess

One day, we'll make a Pepperidge farm meme on TWC.

Reddit, discord, etc.

I actually completely forgot about Reddit.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Remember when TWC used to remember? Peperidge farm remembers

[Aexodus]

Ooh I ‘member

[Copperknickers II]

Reddit, discord, etc.

I use Discord for work, but are there actual Discord communities out there? How do you even find them? Is there a TW one?

[Aexodus]

There’s thousands of discord gaming, twitch, political communities with thousands of members on Discord

[Ishan]

Forums as a form a media are just disappearing tbh.

Pretty much this. Forums are old news. Internet has evolved in the passed decade and the sense of community has faded a lot.

[saxdude]

Man I do not like reddit, the mechanics of it seem so messy to me. At least I've never been able to give the time to understand them, and the insular nature of it is a double edged sword.
Discord is ok but for a small community, I can't imagine the sheer mess it would be of a more than a few hundred posters, not really a community at that point.

[bohema]

Steam has taken a lot away from here too.