It's a policy of mine to avoid new games as a general rule, but I've had some thoughts for things to write that would be newer to me at least. Murky in detail and motivationally deprived as usual, alas.
It's a policy of mine to avoid new games as a general rule, but I've had some thoughts for things to write that would be newer to me at least. Murky in detail and motivationally deprived as usual, alas.
Like Majora, I'm not a huge "new games" man myself. I would love to play Empire TW at some point, but for now I have Shogun 2 with all expansions, and though I've had/played it for well over a year already, I don't imagine being in need of a new title for another few years, at least. I play games to their greatest extent before moving on. Hence, why I am so many TW titles behind
I mean I would not consider ETW a very new game haha
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It's new to me
To be honest, I can't remember the last game I got when it was released. Actually, scratch that, I do. It was Starcraft II, and my computer couldn't handle it, so it sat on my shelf for 6 years until I had gotten a new computer. Since then, I decided I'd stick with games two generations behind. They've got all the patches to work out the kinks, there are good mods for them all ironed out, and I honestly don't need flashy graphics as long as the mechanics are well worked out.
Put shortly, I'm a cheap ol' man!
I've basically never played remotely new PC games until two years ago. I was stuck on my old family computers for years until I bought myself a decent gaming laptop before going to college, and even then I basically only play Borderlands II and Overwatch on it which aren't too crazy. If I tried to play a really demanding game from like 2019 this laptop would probably explode.
Also sad to see how dead the writing comps are. I've been gone for quite some time but has it been usual for them to not get entrants for a month+? I remember I tried starting a group writing thread months ago when I first came back to TWC and didn't get any entrants into that so I suppose so.
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Things have been eerily quiet for a bit now. Last year there was pretty regular life from at least a small group (myself, Alwyn, Turk, Swaeft, Cookie, Derc, and Skotos come to mind), but the back half of those listed have not been around much. I think Swaeft might be a bit more busy with staff stuff, Cookie is working on getting back up to his AAR, Derc is taking a break, and Skotos has been gone for a while. My hope is that things will pick back up again, as I know some of these lads are still around and active, they are just taking brief breaks from writing because they recently finished some larger piece, or have been busy with real life. But gg, just start posting things! And link them here so I (and others) don't miss them. I mean, I find that a lot of these trends feed on themselves, where a lull in posts makes the WS forum less interesting, which makes some people check it less, which takes some motivation from writers, leading to fewer posts... But if we break the cycle a bit, I think we can revive some of the interest. And honestly, all you really need is a half-dozen more active people to give the whole area a sense of life and richness. Cause others will still post periodically, or periodically join in on competitions, and that's all you need if you can count on 4-7 people to always start the ball rolling!
I mean I joined both the competitions but even still they lack the minimum to go to vote.
I was doing this but its not really possible for it to go the way I want (the idea of it is shown in the two previous threads linked in OP) if there's literally no one else to participate in it. TBH even when the forum wasn't dead none of the previous projects that were basically the same idea really took off. I think the furthest we ever got was like 6 pages on one that I can't even find.
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I know what you mean about playing games a couple of generations behind, Kilo11, that can work well.
Activity in writing competitions tends to ebb and flow. As Kilo said, there are times when we have a group of people regularly entering and then times when people are taking a break. It doesn't take a lot of people to get a competition going. For example, we have one entry for the MAARC LXXXVI, and I have a hunch that we're about to have another. If we can get just one more after that, we'll have enough to run the MAARC.
[Edit to add] Here's a reminder of the competitions which are open for entries...
Tale of the Week 296: Hero of the Hour (1 entry needed for the competition to run)
MAARC LXXXVI (1 entry needed)
The Third Writers' Study Occasional Competition: Poetry Night (1 entry needed)
MCWC XX (1 entry needed)
It would be great to see more entries!
Last edited by Alwyn; May 25, 2020 at 02:16 AM.
Holy that competition has been sitting for a year and a half? You might legitimately win for year+ old submissions
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The MCWC hasn't run very often in my time on TWC. It runs on demand (when we have enough entries) and people don't demand it very often.
I'm very much the same Kilo, I almost never buy a game when it just comes out. I neither have the money nor the PC to run them so why buy them. (I've never had that much money and since I was 16 most of my funds went to going to bars with my friends; priorities straight, right )
Ah Alwyn, I see a worthy opponent has entered the MAARC, *insert "Our battle will be legendary!" meme here*. Now where will we find a third?
In a way all competitions are on demand. We run them regularly because there used to be more of a demand for them than there is now. Why this is? I don't know. There are less writers on a whole then there used to be, that's a factor for sure but I would be interested to know why less people enter these days (there are a number of great AARs who are active but don't really participate and I'd like to understand why so that we might improve ourselves). Perhaps a consultation thread could be opened to find out any issues with the competitions, if there are any interested in participating in a brainstorm for this?
I have something cooking for Poetry Night (so geg I'm coming for you too) but it would be lovely to see more entrants around the board.
Last edited by Turkafinwë; May 25, 2020 at 04:58 AM. Reason: less or fewer I don't know
I think part of this might be newer writers not really knowing about the competitions, and partly from newer writers not feeling terribly confident about putting themselves forward. One thing I think staff and more experienced writers could and should do is to reach out to those new folks and push them toward the competitions. There are good reasons for themselves for taking part, and it helps improve the community as a whole. To be honest, I would be very happy to see at least one nomination in each competition, where it is someone nominating another's work, rather than your own. This is not to say we shouldn't nominate our own stuff, but just that it would be good to see us nominating worthy pieces from people who are too shy or unsure of themselves to put a nomination up on their own behalf. And some of the best AARs have in fact first gotten out there that way. If I remember correctly, Skotos wasn't sure about his when he started, and I asked if I might nominate him, to which he said "Fine". He wasn't convinced of the general quality of his writing, but I was blown away by it and put him out there. That year he won AAR of the year. So I think it is important that those who are more familiar and confident in these fora make an effort to actively include the folks who are being quiet and shy. Obviously, we need to get permission, but that's a small hurdle.
I am also working on something, but it's hard for me. Poetry is not generally my strong suit. Although I have written a couple songs, and I guess they count as poetic as well. Maybe if push comes to shove, I'll just put one of those up....
I appreciate the bump. I’ll probably toss something new in in the next 1-2 days
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I don't want to sound as if I'm disagreeing with Kilo11 (because I'm not disagreeing with him!) but I think it's generally worth encouraging people to enter for themselves before you ask if you can nominate them. Sometimes all a new writer needs is for someone to offer them encouragement. That's certainly what happened to me. I would never have entered the MAARC if Merchant of Venice hadn't said he thought I should. I was new, I didn't feel as if I was part of the WS community properly, and the idea of joining in with the community's competition felt a bit presumptuous to me. So being invited to join in by a member of the community made all the difference.
I think, in fact, that commenting on other people's writing, and encouraging them, is a really good way to make the WS a place where people want to stick around and post their writing (and, perhaps, enter the competitions). I know some people do that regularly - thank you to those people. Everyone else - including me, because I haven't managed to comment much lately - please comment on other people's writing. It really makes a difference to people if they feel their work is being read (or watched, in the case of videos) and appreciated.
I didn't even know there was a new competition until someone badgered me about joining on discord yesterday . Maybe an announcement would help attract new participants?
That being said though, I have no talent for poetry so I'm going to have to sit this one out as well. Unless we're allowed to plagiarize, in which case I have quite a few submissions in mind
Last edited by Akar; May 26, 2020 at 07:21 PM.
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Geg, the hero we don't need but definitely deserve
Ubisoft are offering Far Cry 5 free this weekend (May 29 to May 31) with a discount for those who want to play it after that. If anyone plans to try this, it would be great to see an AAR.
Do you know if you get to keep it if you DL it for free during this time?
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3 options
"The day I died"
"The Awakening of the Centaurii"
"The way of the Abider"
tell me which intrigues you the most, thanks
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