OETG's 1st Birthday - Current stat

[iDaire]

in relation to the talk about oEtG in EtG forums topic, any new threads about oEtG should be locked and any posts made in other threads, be reported to a moderator where the end result be determined by UTA or AA or whoever.
in chat, any lingering discussions on oEtG (longer than say, 5-10 messages) should have mod action taken. pm'ing in chat about oetg should be fine, and a quick, non-flamebait reference could be fine, but anything more than that could result in flame wars starting and therefore, should have mod action taken.

as a continuation of this, any sigs or avatars with an obvious relation to oetg should be requested to be taken down or removed.

What the hell?
I don't even need to read this entire thread to jump in here. But I read it anyways.
It doesn't matter whether or not you like OEtG. You can't just liquidate all traces of it and remove any aspect of it, especially with moderator action. That's oppressive. OEtG hasn't caused that much of a problem to cause such heavy acts of aggression and force to be taken on it.
I'm even reading Zanz was contacted with a message that asked about OEtG and it appears he's not answering by choice. If this is true, why continue such a pursuit that will yield so little a benefit? Plus, I'm betting you OEtG doesn't violate any rules of the forums, and as such should be allowed to have a couple of threads in the forums.
That's my opinion. I believe OEtG should be allowed to stay in the forums, but limited to four threads in General Discussion, six threads in Off-Topic, and a total of five threads anywhere else. Any forum posts pertaining to OEtG that goes past the limit should be locked and/or removed (depending on the amount of posts made). That's fifteen threads. You'd have to delete one to make a new one if you are at the limit. This is my opinion of a compromise of both sides. OEtG is allowed here up to fifteen threads, including the ones already made.

If I'm using the wrong term, by thread, I mean new topic.

[Naesala]

I think it's best council takes a look at this (including AA and UTA) rather than non-staffers and other staffers trying to argue out what can and cannot be done or spoken about. As such, I'll start a discussion and we'll make some calls.

[UTAlan]

34 things.

1: I personally have nothing against OEtG, pending a response from Zanz.
2: OEtG has its own forum. If it is true that Higs said one thread for OEtG, then I stand by that. I am not going to lock this thread for the time being, but please refrain from creating any new threads on that topic.
3: There is not and will not be any censoring of topics in chat, as long as rules are being adhered to.

Nae posted while I was typing this, so...
4: (2) and (3) will hold true unless Council/Admins come to a decision that contradicts them.

[Dm]

And if (3) is contradicted I'm gonna jump boat because that's no less than dictatorship. =P

[ZephyrPhantom]

*scribbles notes down for Communication thread 2.0*

Here's my current view on things - some of this may be redundant, but I'd like to state my thoughts on the matter nevertheless :

OEtG started as an independent project that attempts to take significant core mechanics from EtG in an attempt to create a game with similar gameplay but a different meta due to balance changes, additional cards, and card acquisition (booster packs vs a shop). In this aspect, the game has succeeded, however with the continuing problem that it requires Zanz's permission but Zanz has been oddly silent despite lurking on this forum (check his profile: here: he's been lurking up to Octoboer 2014, if that's to be believed)

This has caused multiple conflicts to rise up regarding EtG vs. OEtG; its purpose (independent game vs. backup EtG tool), how much it should influence the original forums (we had an admin decision but it's clearly not taken seriously - this thread is a good example of that), and ultimately how it should be developed, assuming it should be.

But let's push all those issues aside for a moment. I think the primary issue here is that this thread demonstrates that not one, but both sides can get emotionally out of hand when debating the topic - conduct in both chat and forums by pro-OEtG and against-OEtG shows that people are willing to both use personal attacks and faulty logic to get their points across. This leads into flaming and or hostilities that just become increasingly difficult to drop, because either a dev on the OEtG side thinks they'll get further by personally attacking someone against OEtG or vice versa.

I think dawn's suggestion has his heart in the right place, but as it currently is it's a bit too forced; OEtG itself is not an inappropriate topic - all the bad attitudes, on the other hand, are. At this point, it's the responsibility of the user to determine how level-headed they should be in regards to this topic - if they continue to start negative discussions that lead into flamewars, then the mods do have a right to step in. On the other hand, if everyone is talking constructively about OEtG, then censorship of that kind isn't necessary.

In regards to the actual issues listed before:

- First and foremost, I think OEtG developers need to follow the one thread restriction as a good show of faith in Higurashi's original descision. Based on what I've been told, Chapuz acted on his own, which seems to have caused this whole mess to begin with. Anything further is technically advertising for another game and toe-ing the line on forum rules.

- In regards to the legal grey on Zanz's word: I think it's safe to assume that Zanz won't be responding on this anytime soon, and I doubt that this or EtG's profitability are the things keeping him away from this game. That means the community has to decide what they want to do with the game; however, there are a lot of contrasting opinions on EtG that show reaching a group decision is far from easy. I personally think the Staff as a whole (Masters included, possibly) should come together to debate whether we should keep the one-thread rule in effect, or if further action should be taken regarding OEtG's development. (Note: I considered limiting this to Council, but I think it should extend to Staff as a whole to have a wider pool of opinions. This assumes everyone in Staff is willing to be civil if such a thing could be arranged.)

- Re: These three points;

antiaverage should cease hosting etg.dek.im
serprex should cease development of oetg
Fippe should give up codevelopment of oetg

This is ultimately a matter of personal opinion, and to paraphrase what Napalm~ said a long time ago regarding this, there's really no way to please everyone and joining discussions regarding this becomes difficult because people will carry over their previous stance from the last OEtG discussion, usually without change of any sort.

I feel that OEtG would be acceptable as a proxy tool/replacement EtG in preparation for when EtG's servers fully go down. This has been addressed with the development of OEtGv (v for Vanilla), but I'm not fully sure of its status at the moment. Plenty of proxy tools for other card games are used to playtest decks by actual competitive players, so I think this would be an ideal middle ground; it keeps EtG's spirit alive without detracting from the game too much with the idea of an "alternate version" that some view as a ripoff.

As for ceasing development of the 'main' OEtG - that's something I think should be left up to Staff as a whole (again I emphasize the need for a  bigger pool of opinions than just Council).

tl;dr Thereisnotealdeergoreadthewholething

[Fippe94]

I am pretty sure this one-topic rule is not actually a thing, and if it is, why haven't Higu said anything before, since I have created several OETG topics before, including basically a copy of this one (which Chapuz had missed when he made this topic) and no one said a word about such a thing. Of course an excessive amount of topics should not be made, but that is true for any topic and has nothing to do with the nature of OETG.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I am pretty sure this one-topic rule is not actually a thing, and if it is, why haven't Higu said anything before, since I have created several OETG topics before, including basically a copy of this one (which Chapuz had missed when he made this topic) and no one said a word about such a thing. Of course an excessive amount of topics should not be made, but that is true for any topic and has nothing to do with the nature of OETG.

Staff General Discussion, Page 11. She clearly states the one-thread limitation here. I personally didn't say anything when the other Topics were created because they caused no negative discussion, but Chapuz's actions show that not following this rule can attract a lot more acid than it wants to. (From both devs and users, no less)

[Chapuz]

@Zblader:
1- I don't have permission to see that link you are posting to where Higu said that 1-topic thing. If she did somewhere else, I missed it, sorry.
2- Treating staffers in a higher rank as members outside of where they are staffing is an insult to the rest of us. Staffers aren't more capable of giving opinions just for being staffers. The Council treats this things, staffers just have a volunteering job where they are staffing, not outside.

[Fippe94]

I interpret that more like "I can't give more than threads, not gonna give a board" as opposed to max of one thread (note how she says a thread instead of one thread), I don't think she was talking about a direct limit. Also that was after several threads already existed (all but one was tourney threads) and she have never said anything to me, so no matter what she meant she seems to have no intention of enforcing any limit.

[ZephyrPhantom]

I interpret that more like "I can't give more than threads, not gonna give a board" as opposed to max of one thread (note how she says a thread instead of one thread), I don't think she was talking about a direct limit. Also that was after several threads already existed (all but one was tourney threads) and she have never said anything to me, so no matter what she meant she seems to have no intention of enforcing any limit.

Fair point. However I think it was easier to not enforce the limit when there was minimal conflict regarding OEtG. My point is that if disregarding this ruling does lead to arguments, like it has right now, it may be wiser to at least recommend that all OEtG information be kept to one thread in the vein of a 'soft limit', as opposed to a 'hard limit' like dawn's proposal.

[ARTHANASIOS]

I find this Guild idea with 3 Guilds instead of 12 truly intriguing and it would be nice if we did the same thing with the original EtG Guilds (IF they are revived first, of course).

As for complaints against oEtG, I think people are silly. Oetg could had been just a turn-based forum game or pseudo-PvPevent within the EtG forums, where people would play their turn by posting their move (much like Mastermind or whatever), using number generating programs where needed (like discord and mutations effects or deciding which card of your deck to draw) and the normal gaming rules (creatures dealing their damage total to the opponent's health at the attack phase etc.)...

In other words, people just complain because Serpex and Fippe created a code from scratch in order to enchance the experience of the EtG-based forum game they invented. If it was in a non-coded format but it was executed like any other forum game, no one would be complaining and that's silly imho...

oEtG is as unethical as War, Forum Brawl, any forum game that has EtG-basis or EtG-refference, the "Battle" forum game (which, btw, it could be considered a computer game by its own, much like oEtG) and the list still goes...

My personal opinion and just that...

[Dm]

As for complaints against oEtG, I think people are silly. Oetg could had been just a turn-based forum game or pseudo-PvPevent within the EtG forums, where people would play their turn by posting their move (much like Mastermind or whatever), using number generating programs where needed (like discord and mutations effects or deciding which card of your deck to draw) and the normal gaming rules (creatures dealing their damage total to the opponent's health at the attack phase etc.)...

In other words, people just complain because Serpex and Fippe created a code from scratch in order to enchance the experience of the EtG-based forum game they invented. If it was in a non-coded format but it was executed like any other forum game, no one would be complaining and that's silly imho...

oEtG is as unethical as War, Forum Brawl, any forum game that has EtG-basis or EtG-refference, the "Battle" forum game (which, btw, it could be considered a computer game by its own, much like oEtG) and the list still goes...

What the hell are you on and where can I get some