I haven't made a serious post or played a serious game on here for a long time, and since so much seems to have changed since then from my perspective, I figure today calls for a thoughtful message. Well, I'm not referencing any numbers and for all I know the number of active players may have gone up, but the community of players who took a humanities interest in the game, i.e. the role players, diplomacy map makers, and historical scenario makers, has been a skeleton of a corpse for some time, and the bones are turning to dust now. Community interest in the art of mapmaking, which is partially tied in with the interest in such real world topics because so much of history is geography, has also declined. I am aware that the competitive players generally don't give a damn about this, and they make up the majority of players, especially nowadays. (And it's certainly not helpful that a lot of these players are obtuse normies who consider anyone with taste to be a "troll or some kind of weirdo - looking at you, half the people that have me blacklisted). But I don't think the role playing community is (or at least was in its heyday) insignificant; in fact interest in geopolitics has been the exclusive reason a lot of players even played the game to begin with, and they were your map makers, scenario makers, etc. If you compare not just the number of maps, but the volume of forum discussion over all sorts of maps in 2016 vs today you'll see what I mean when I say that community is basically gone. There are maps, like that WWI map and Belgian's big diplomacy map that absorbed the bulk of the community hype at the time that are just abandoned and half finished now. I've had some brilliant maps in the planning phase for a while (extra-planetary maps, unknown barren places, and some war maps) that I'll probably never make for the simple reason that nobody will enjoy them. Those of you that still play make and play the interesting maps and scenarios, I hope you stick around just in case there is a rebound of community activity toward the role playing side.
I have no idea why it's declining. I really don't. It's so fun and loose, compared to the pure competitive nature of non-diplo games. When I was my most active, I didn't have much trouble filling up diplo games. Nowadays, I do. A lot of good players have retired, and it's sad to watch.
...so how about joining my diplo and stop whining?
There's nothing original about the risk concept, it's just that all the other risk clones are exceedingly bad. I would be more than happy to leave this community behind, even for a slightly less functional version of this game, if it meant escaping this rotten community.
Well most of the older playerbase are in their 20s? So naturally they are retiring from Warlight and becoming part of society. The question should be why aren't they being replaced by a new and younger generation? Is Warlight not attracting the younger audience?
The greatest disappointment about arguing with NPCs on forums is that the epitome of the "gotchya" is a forced comparison with some corporate media franchise I've never paid attention to and don't care about. The brilliance, if there is any, of some capeshit gif is totally lost on me.
The ever-present Bane in all of us: "Remember how life used to be before the 2008 housing crisis and the second era of internet memes? Yeah, I've been living on the lamb in the Appalachians ever since then, and I've come back to inform you that it's all cringe, man."
Simply put it's not a game meant to host "diplomacies", though nowadays there are mods to help with it. Most serious diplo players I knew just went into the realm of PDX games.
I don't think paradox games are an alternative to warlight. Paradox games appeal to people interested in the fine mechanical details of war, but they're not social-interactive games where you can come up with your own story.. and then attempt to act it out. Paradox games are way too involved for me; I would rather focus all my efforts on the psychology of war, which is what warlight strips it down to.
@King Clitoris
Like I said I have not the patience to swat at all you flies.
How adorable that you took the time to make this. And I also adore you for continuing to try to clown in this thread when it isn't even a clowning thread. By all means continue to post thanos gifs though, because the community needs to know how much of a gaping mouthed fanboy you are.
