A question about the CBs for you "veterans" (in General)
QBBarzooMonkey
September 6 2005 1:17 PM EDT
Did CB1 go through the extreme growing pains that we seems to be experiencing here lately? Can the first 9 months of each be compared in any way? The end of camping is nearing 300 replies in 2 days, the NUB debate goes on and on and on. People talk of leaving, and veterans lament for "the good ole days" of CB1.
That last one is why I ask. There are endless threads, replies, whatnot, about CB1 being better, about "remember when", and a recent one about "this is what you're missing"...
So tell me - was CB1 always the sunny, rosy place I'm led to believe it is, or was there a period in its infancy just like what we're going through here? I'm just curious... :)
Lumpy Koala
September 6 2005 1:29 PM EDT
there were a thing called RESCALE that was supposedly due to Jon's faulty code back then :P And it happened twice :P
AdminJonathan
September 6 2005 1:38 PM EDT
every CB1 change month brought complaints and "this ruins CB for me" and "I'm leaving"
every one, right up until the end
i wasn't there in its "infancy", but i was there since '02... in a way i'm thankful i missed the downfall of it towards the end.
anyhow, while i was around, cb1 was just as turbulent as this. ppl left, ppl joined, vets whined at changes, newbs cried about vets being untouchable. it was this without tattoos basically. except here newbs actually have a chance of making it somewhere near the top. it was much harder, if not impossible, for this to happen in cb1. yea, the community was different, but times & ppl change, ppl come and go, etc. etc.
so, in summary, cb1 was like that ex-gf/bf we all remember so fondly... we tend to forget all the yelling, name calling, walk outs, etc. but we sure remember how hot s/he was.
QBBarzooMonkey
September 6 2005 1:44 PM EDT
Excellent analogy, 777! Makes perfect sense.
AdminShade
September 6 2005 2:38 PM EDT
every change is a bad one according to some people
but it is that change what makes this game far from being boring, every month or so you have a chance that you need to change something :)
QBsutekh137
September 6 2005 2:47 PM EDT
I was not at CB1 from the outset (member since May 2003), but I would still consider myself somewhat of a "veteran".
-- I do not miss CB1 in the slightest.
-- I don't really care about the NUB any more.
-- I am exceedingly happy camping is gone, dead, destroyed, kaput.
The only thing I miss here in CB2 are tournaments, and I would mainly just like to know why we cannot have them. Jonathan did a HUGE amount of work on CB1 making them easier to monitor, administer, and place restrictions on (like a BA usage limit), and now, for whatever reason, we don't have them. It is the single thing I hear about the most from other "veterans". I probably wouldn't even play (never did on CB1), but it is such a rich facet of play that I cannot get my head around its absence. I used to think it was because of the NUB until someone came up with a totally simple idea -- turn off the NUB for tourney characters. Better yet, just turn it ON for all tourney characters, since tourneys used to result in nice rewards anyway (that is why some people played in them). Am I missing something else new to CB2 that makes tournaments problematic?
Starseed^Lure
September 6 2005 4:10 PM EDT
Yup, this is what CB has always been like. People complaining/quitting every change month, because they "can't possibly have fun" with the newly implemented changes. It's quite silly.
Change is what this game has always been about. I'm usually in favor of almost every change. In fact, I can't remember a change that I thought "how dumb is that!". I've always said that the best CB player is the one that can most effectively roll with the punches of change month. For me it's never been about being biggest character.
I think that *we are* in a sunny age of CB. I've been having more fun in the last couple months than ever. I really enjoy planning out my character as best as I can and adapting it as Jon nerfs or buffs aspects of my group.
A lot of us also miss the players who left (Oishi; Trashcan; Fark; Myth; PK; etc)
Some change months hurt; some didn't; that's life; but I never remember Jon eliminating an entire facet of gameplay
AdminQBVerifex
September 6 2005 6:40 PM EDT
It's always like this every change month. Never thought I'd see Jon take camping out of the game, odd indeed!
Anyways I like it, and wish that there was something more in CB now. Like tournaments, or something more.. maybe something totally new and fun.
I'd prefer something new and fun that would benefit our characters in some way, and would be something both new and old players could participate it. Not just new equipment and little tweaks. I dunno, the time that we could loan tattoos was pretty interesting because it got us all involved with each other, and we actively sought out other people to use our tattoos, thus made our community rather interesting.
I'd love to see more of that (no, not tattoo loaning, just the CONCEPT of involving others), just because it makes it more fun to be here.
The clans are simply not enough for us, as there is no reason for us to even talk to our clan mates. The clans give us nothing except a bonus. I wish the clan system had something more to it then just giving us a bonus depending on how many points we got. Something that we could really get into. I dunno what. Look at other games, and the clan systems they have, and I'm sure you'll get some kind of idea.
Veri: sounds like it's time for my old idea of clan vrs clan fights....implementation would be interesting, but I don't think impossible. Just having folks have to meet at a certain time for a match would add something to the community nature of the game, and make your clan mates more than names on a board.
RAMPAGE
September 6 2005 7:23 PM EDT
Ahh the good old days when every change was greeted with "This gives Todd an unfair advantage" or Todd declaring "I quit".
I've been here almost 3 years(Real Life? What's that?) and I've come to think of CB as a set of scales that Jon is constantly trying to keep balanced while the rest of us try to tip them in our favor.
It would be so much easier to make a game where if you do A,B then C you will win it,but much harder to make CB where doing A,B Then C can win but so could doing C,A then B.
So far I think Jon has done a good job making it interesting.
Just remember people are always going to come and go from almost every game.
This post is obviously designed to give Todd an unfair advantage.
If you had been paying attention, JS, that would have been painfully obvious from the beginning of CB2.
Frod
September 6 2005 9:57 PM EDT
RAMPAGE has nailed it. What he's describing as known as a "convergent strategy", and it's the bane of game designers. Or one of the many...
Undertow
September 7 2005 12:02 AM EDT
Plus, he's constantly adding new scales to this strange multi-dimensional scale like object.
Like if it were a tank/mage scale, with all the hooks and weights, he could almost have it balanced, then he wants to add the VB, how does he add it but supply equal weight on the mage side?
So once it's balanced, we just have to shake it up again, that's how I look at supporter items.
It's like Jon constantly ups the difficulty of the task himself.
Todd
September 7 2005 8:17 AM EDT
CB has always been full of changes. It's what Jon does. CB isn't a game, it's a an avenue for social exploration to its creator.
Back in CB1, we had major rescales, major changes to gameplay, etc. Again, it's just what Jon does.
If you want stability so that you can pursue a single strategy for an extended period, then look elsewhere. Even with Jon's intelligence, his penchant for change outstrips his ability to manage the change, hence he invented these convenient "change months"
Oh, and CB1 was way better than CB2. CB2 simply sucks ;) heh.
QBBarzooMonkey
September 7 2005 9:33 AM EDT
But why? That's what I really want to know - what is so different so as to cause a veteran of CB1 to make that statement?
Having been around CB2 since near it's inception (Jan 28 as opposed to Jan 1st), I understand the constant change, the effort at balance while shaking things up, and all that.
What I really want to know is why Todd, and others, would say " CB1 is much better CB2 sucks".
Again, I'm just insatiably curious :)
Stephen Young
September 7 2005 9:39 AM EDT
I think Todd forgot his <sarcasm> tags around that statement.
Phaete
September 7 2005 10:06 AM EDT
'It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.'
Charles Darwin
NSFY
September 7 2005 10:20 AM EDT
BAH! Evolution is a left-wing conspiracy.
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