Where are all the "Big" names?

Probably not. Don’t have time for puny cards games :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes

To be honest I understand what your saying but this is also the attitude driving some folks away from the game. All these Netrunner sites and pages trying to be policed by people, and saying stuff like “goofy or beginner” stuff. There is this undertone of people trying to drive out the real nerdy guys or people just trying to have fun or nerd out on some flavor of the game. No wonder people quit the game. It’s like people have to discuss rules,tactics,game play, strategy, all business all the time or they get the Netrunner police jumping all over them

1 Like

There’s a place for goofy, fun or fluff stuff, and nothing at all wrong with that.

I myself posted up a link to my RPG podcast in another thread, which has exactly funk-all squared to do with competitive Netrunner, but was of interest to several people.

I think the issue may be where the non-serious replies get mixed in with some people trying to discuss some competitive stuff. Don’t cross the streams and I think everyone is good?

Probably worth remembering the About Us tagline “Stimhack is the top Netrunner strategy site online, containing articles, tournament decklists, gameplay videos, a huge forum and more for the benefit of the Netrunner community.” - so there’s a certain bent towards serious strategy and tournament play, but the site is a broad church.

It would certainly be possible to set up an “Informal” category or something to dedicate forum space to talking about fluff, funsies or anything not dedicated to competitive if that would help.

I can’t speak for x3r0h0ur, but my own niggle would be that a lot of threads have devolved into random natter - which is fine in a thread dedicated to a general chat, but less good in a post discussing a finer point of play or strategy. IMHO.

6 Likes

I understand, the issue also is every site and page is trying to take its self to serious. I will say this attitude or mentality has policed the game. If the objective is to retain mostly serious players the community has done that. I for one am on the side of growing the game. In all fairness though it’s partly the games fault it’s a high skill level game that mainly retains tournament players disguised in geek flavor.

Yeah, this. I don’t know if there are any other recovered World of Warcraft addicts here (odds are there are probably one or two lurking about), but there was/is a forum called Elitist Jerks that was, for a long time, the source for end game theorycrafting. They had threads about other stuff, but the strategy threads were moderated with an iron fist the likes of which I have never seen before or since to ensure that the discussion was laser-focused on the topic. As such it was an incredibly useful source of strategy information.

The impression I got of Stimhack when I started browsing it a good while ago was that it was a very similar source of high level discussion, albeit with less need for strict moderation (in that it was mostly self-moderating rather than heavy on the banhammer for minor infractions). If I wanted to talk fluff or jank with the other scrubs, there were Facebook groups and Reddit, but when it was time to put my try-hard pants (and that’s UK pants) on, Stimhack was the place to get the pure, undiluted good stuff.

It doesn’t feel that focused any more. The good stuff is still here, but it feels like I’m wading through a lot more fluff to get to it than I used to.

(Usual disclaimer of I still love the site, best place to get info, miles ahead of the other places, etc etc etc)

7 Likes

Much as I loved EJ (I too received a warning for posting to say ‘thank you!’), such a place could only exist because of its insane moderation. Netrunner is a small game, and outside of Stimhack there are very few places to go and talk about the game. People are going to come here to post all sorts of things. Not all of it will be right, high-level or on topic. Unless someone wants to either dramatically change Stimhack or set up their own EJ-style forum, we’re always going to see the forum filled with posts that are far from discussing optimal solutions for the game.

I think that there is a place for fluff and fun, for sure. It used to be that stimhack was for high level discussion, and now that more have migrated in, that has become watered down. I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m saying the content of the site has shifted to a more fun and causal feel. I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing.

I just know that the “Big names” want to play competitively and prefer to discuss things seriously, and eek out that last 5% of a deck’s power. If stimhack isn’t the place for that anymore, then fine…but understand that high level players don’t have a lot of incentive to stick around if the site has become more casual-with-a-comp-twist.

I do not agree that a competitive attitude has policed this game to death. The death is because FFG blows at supporting and promoting the game. In fact, I haven’t seen anyone policing this site for seriousness in ages. I’ve also never seen literally any other site do any policing of the “quality” type. It would be nice to have 1 site that does it.

10 Likes

Honestly I just blame Slack 100%. It feels a lot more effective for discussion.

2 Likes