Hi.
So I stopped posting on the forums for a week or so (OK I posted a tournament result and a partial result, that doesn't count). I'd like to share my thoughts after this.
First, my thoughts have not changed whatsoever since 24 hours after my last post, just like I didn't think they would. Maybe people will take me more seriously because I spent a week away from the forums, I dunno. That's their problem. I don't really care.
I think it's best for me to not look at the Dominion Online subboard anymore. So I'm going to unfollow this thread and I'm not coming in here anymore. If you have something you desperately need me to hear, posting it in this thread will not accomplish that. My opinions on the way this community has handled Making Fun's client and talking about it have not changed: it's not becoming of us and it's counterproductive. My opinions on the competency of MF's developers and how this community should attempt to communicate/deal with them have also not changed: they are who we have and they should be treated with more respect than we are giving them.
If you disagree with me, which I know many of you do, that's great, but I am right about this and you are wrong. You will not change my mind about this. My efforts communicating with MF have eventually resulted in several features that you wanted so badly that you all made a patch and whatever else to get -- something that doesn't need to be updated every release, but that's not going to happen anymore. I'm going to help them fix the things I care about. If you'd like to continue to have MF implement the things that you want, I'd strongly recommend taking a good hard look at the things that have happened here that have worked and selecting the few of them that have actually given fruit, and expanding on those.
I honestly didn't (and still don't) understand why people can't just say nothing when they disagree with me
I don't really know how to respond to this. But this looks like a real root of the problem.
^^This guy. Man, he really nailed it with this post. A few days ago I read this and I just wanted to give this guy a hug. I had some talks with a close IRL friend of mine who knows some things about the internet about this as a result of reading this post. I also skimmed over the stupidest fight I've ever seen between jomini and SCSN/LF in some other thread that I forgot. There's something to this and that something is what determines whether or not I will continue to post on these forums. I will soon start a thread in the Meta subforum about said something and hopefully a thing can be done so that I feel comfortable engaging in some discussion with you all again. I'd really like to continue to support Dominion videos, live streams, and competitive play (both online and IRL) through posting more on these forums, so I'm hoping a mature discussion can take place over there that will allow me to not hate every single person here forever. Seems like a pretty low bar so let's hope we don't screw that up.
Finally, before I remove myself from this metaphorical soap box, I'm just going to say that F.DS has changed a lot in the three years since I've been here. I've changed as well. Up until a few months ago I cared very deeply about these forums and the people on them -- I've met a few people IRL through these forums and have actual real friendships with some of them. Some people I've only spoken with online and I considered them real friends of mine as well. I think (and this is not open to your speculation, this is how I feel and you can't change that anymore) the reason I got so upset before is because people I respected and considered friends were acting in a way that I didn't know/think they were capable of. I had put my respect on some people here and I was disappointed when they acted in a way that showed me I had put too much respect in them. This happened on an individual level for several people but if you just pretend that the F.DS community as a whole is one person, it happened for that guy too.
So basically I cared too much about F.DS and F.DS wasn't the person I thought it was. What I need to learn from this is to appreciate F.DS for what it is, and re-assign F.DS its new place in my life, whatever that is. A valuable lesson we can all learn from my mistake is that no matter how many posts someone has, or respect they got for posting MS paint images or otter cards (or heaven forbid, actual Dominion insight *gasp*). No matter what someone's Isotropish rating is, or how many YouTube subscribers they have; everybody here says things that are insensitive, inaccurate, misleading, or maybe they're just mistaken. Don't take anyone's word for anything based on trust or their reputation: think for yourself and make the decision you think is right based on the evidence you find compelling. Bonus points if you come to the same conclusions as me, since I am correct about everything.
A lot of you mean well, and this doesn't apply to a lot of you. That's great. I'm just posting this here because I thought people might want to know. Not that it matters to me (see above and below) but if you don't like what I'm saying or that I'm saying anything, the most appropriate way to deal with that is just to keep quiet, or maybe send me a PM if you feel like it, just don't be a jerk.
I said this before, but I'm not looking for replies in this thread. PM me if you feel like there's something you need to say to me, or maybe go to the Meta subforum if you feel like you have something to add there. I may not get to making that post for a while, so don't go refreshing the page every 5 seconds waiting for it. Go play some Dominion or something.