On Ruleset Philosophy, United Rulesets, etc EDIT: JUST READ THE SUMMARY

On Unified Rulesets, Nationals, Locals, the Individual, Motivation, Necessity, and Communities

Download of the full Word Document: http://www.mediafire.com/?p7n3qpujmuxczq9

READ THE SUMMARY, THEN IF YOU WANT ELABORATION, READ THE PARTS AFTERWARDS. THE ONLY NEEDED READING IS THE FOLLOWING COUPLE OF PARAGRAPHS, THE REST IS OPTIONAL, BUT PROVIDES MUCH MORE EXPLANATION. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS AFTER THE SUMMARY, JUST POST WITH THEM. OR JUST REPLY AFTER THE SUMMARY I GUESS. Just makes sure to READ THE SUMMARY

c:


The Summary

[COLLAPSE="summary stuff"]Part one, Communities and Necessity
Communities are what we should strive to build, and help make flourish, as without them, we have nothing to, well, strive for as far as competition goes. Competition needs a community to survive, so we must nurture our community. Depth isn’t what we should strive for, either, but depth tends to be necessary for a community to strive, so, as a result of trying to find the best thing for our community, it will tend to involve adding things that increase depth. But it doesn’t HAVE to.


Part two, Beneficial
The most beneficial thing is the best thing overall, and the most fundamental question that we should use in our attempts at achieving our stated goal, “Helping our community flourish the best it can,” would be, something along the lines of, “What are the pros and cons of this, and how much effect do they have?”

Part three, The Individual
There’s a more fundamental version of the previously stated goal, one that advocates literal selfishness, however due to its wording, and its nature, arguing for this to be the best goal is self-defeating, and hurts more than it helps. However it’s necessary to define the goal, in case its specific nature becomes relevant to a debate, and the fundamental nature of it becomes very important. This leads to the question of what exactly the “community” is.

Part four, The National Community, the Regional Community, and the Local Community
The Local Community is the combination of individuals in close proximity to each other, and a group of Local Communities contribute to a Regional Community, and a group of Regional Communities contribute to the National Community.

The question of what “community” refers to is dependant on the individual in question, and which community is most important to him. But for the vast majority of smashers, the Local Community has been the most influential and important one, and most problems with National and Regional Communities stem, logically and evidentially, from problems with Local Communities, and Individuals. It’s not black-and-white, it’s all different depending on the Individual who is experiencing their community, but overall, the National Community gets hurt more often from issues with a large amount of Local Communities than vice versa.

With this conclusion, the following question that is probably a good idea to ask would be: “To what degree is this true?”

Part five, Motivation
Motivation is key to a Local Community staying alive, and if important people lose motivation for whatever reason, their community has to pay for it as well. And let’s note that a weaker community has a smaller chance of getting new members, and retaining them.

Part six, Unified Rulesets
Because of everything listed in the previous sections (and summaries), and the conclusion that Local Communities are very important to the overall community, and to the motivation and well-being of the Individuals within the community, I would say that a rule demanding that people use a united ruleset, or else their community loses potential growth, is completely and utterly detrimental to the community as a whole.

Conclusion
Well if you want to read more from me on the subject, just read the entire essay. If you want to discuss things, go ahead and ask questions, or make replies. This is meant to build discussion, so I'll try and nurture that the best that I can, without trying to cut back on content. This topic was made for the discussion of a series of thoughts, and their significance on what we should do as a community. I apologize if my summaries were not clear enough on the topics outlined in the actual essay. Thank you for your time.[/COLLAPSE]



Foreward

[COLLAPSE="foreward and guidelines stuff"]I would like to start by saying that this is the first post I’ve made on these boards in a long time with an even close to serious intention behind it. I expect by the time I’m finished, this will be very long, but I will sum it up for readers, with my conclusions, and the questions I give, that lead to those conclusions.

EDIT: So I'm cleaning this up a bit. I'm putting as much emphasis as I possibly can on the summaries, without deleting any of the extra elaboration. I make a lot of topics as clear as I honestly can, and I feel it'd be a pity to gut any of them. So those who don't need elaboration, go ahead and read the summary, and post your response, or your questions. You do NOT need to read the whole thread, but if you care to, you might find a concept phrased in a way that you find useful for your understanding, or something to that affect.ENDEDIT

I do wish to note upfront that part 6 is just one step after parts 1-5. There are many other things that the thoughts introduced in 1-5 could be applied to, but part 6 is the one I wanted to address first, it’s definitely not the “conclusion” on any of these subjects haha.

And I would like to note that anyone who wishes to discuss this topic does NOT need to have giant wall of text debates. From this point on, concise, clear questions and answers are not only encouraged, but they are what I will be giving. I know not everyone wants to write nearly as much as I just did lol




Guidelines for Posting

I would really love to discuss these topics openly. Ideas flourish best when challenged honestly by all other ideas. It’s very similar to basic natural selection, and neuroscience, and even the metagame of competition, such as this fighter that we’re discussing.

Honesty is perhaps the most important thing to have in the discussion of ideas, but not at the cost of other beneficial traits in discussion, in conjunction with them. I expect honest inquiry of every relevant thing to what I bring up, including discussion of relevance itself. At least I hope that I get discussion on this.

My goal is to start beneficial discussion on ideas, concepts, topics, and questions that I feel are not discussed enough, or not at all in some cases. I’ll start by bringing up a few premises, end by taking those premises and forming a few concise questions, and then forming my own conclusions on those questions.

The only responses I would like are ones that are very clear in their nature and of what they’re responding to. As such, if you have an issue with any of the things that I say, on any of the topics, do not simply respond to the words I say, make it clear what your intention is with what I say, why your objection is a relevant one, and, very important, make it clear EXACTLY what it is you have an issue with.

I’ll clarify on this a bit. My post is, for the most part, separated into three parts: Premise, Question, and my personal Conclusion, and they go in that order for a reason. The questions are based upon the premises, and the conclusions are based upon the questions. If you wish to discuss the nature of my premises, please, please, please do not respond to my questions, and my conclusions in the same post. You will very likely just be wasting both of our time if you do this. As the questions are based on the premises, and the conclusions are based on both the premises and the questions, then we have to make sure we’re on the same ground as far as the premises go before moving on.

If you agree with the premise, and you agree that the questions are relevant, before posting anything else, answer the final questions. Then we can move on and have discussion from there.

An exception to this would be if, say, you agreed with the overall feeling of the premise, but you decided to point out some error in factual data, or something to that effect, something that you believe isn’t especially relevant to the questions. Because then we can have a discussion on the further topics, without having the baseline of those topics change during the middle of the discussion lol.

I’m open with discussing why I feel this method of discussion is necessary, or at the very least more desirable than the alternatives, for this thread, but if you decide to talk about the way we discuss things, start with that before addressing anything else, and make it clear that you’re talking about this exact aspect.

If we are speaking a different language, then we will accomplish nothing. We need to both start from the most fundamental part of our disagreements on the topics before we move on. We need to reach the lowest common denominator before anything. Clear, understood communication is an absolute must for good discussion.

Since I feel it might be important, I’ll also use this space to address what I hope isn’t an issue. This thread is very relevant to the URC Ruleset thread, but I don’t feel it should be in that thread for a few reasons.

This thread is not exclusively related to the URC Ruleset thread, clear communication is so important for this thread, that it being in a thread where discussion of completely unrelated things could dilute that immensely.

And one final thing. If a discussion starts (man I really hope this thread doesn’t get completely ignored haha), for the sake of accessibility for readers, and for getting into a discussion, I will, the best I can anyways, have sets of links at the beginning of each of my replies, linking to each of the posts related to the discussion.

To give a better example of what this means, say we’re ten posts into a discussion. At the beginning of each of my posts, I’ll have small links (I’ll use BB code to make sure they don’t take lots of page space haha) to every single post in that exact discussion, all the ones that lead from the beginning, up until where we currently are.

That way we don’t have people getting lost with where we are in the discussion.

Alright, I think I can finally start this with confidence, and a good conscience.[/COLLAPSE]


Communities and Necessity
[COLLAPSE="part one stuff"]
I feel this is a good place to start with my first premises. I don’t think anything else can be honestly addressed before these are cleared up, and each of these three are related to each other.

So recently I was having a discussion on a forum that’s devoted to something completely different than smash, when a thread about items in competitive smash brothers came up. These were people not versed at all in competitive smash brothers. Full of their own biases, but biases unshaped by what could be considered the standard here.

They were all completely unsure why items should be banned. Yeah maybe they’re random, but you can still win through skill. So what if random chance has a strong effect, what does that matter?

Some would definitely say that that’s not competitive, and that’s understandable, but I think it’s inherently wrong.

Anything with a winner and a loser could be legitimately competitive (there are some exceptions based on information that I’ll lead to later, but they aren’t especially relevant, so I won’t expand on them. The point is that the vast majority of the time, if something has a winner, and it has a loser, it’s competitive).

The definition of competitive is a tricky one, but definitely important. Some would say that something without depth is “uncompetitive”, and that if something has more depth, it is “more competitive”. Now, of course, words are to convey meaning, and there’s nothing wrong with conveying this meaning. But I prefer not to use competitive in this context, as it leads to confusion. We have words for “more depthy”, such as the one I just said. For the purpose of this discussion, when I say competitive, I’m not referring to the depth of something, I’m referring to whether something is, well, part of a competition or not (something that I would say is almost a… binary state. It is competitive, or it isn’t).

You can make anything competitive.

I’ll treat the statement I brought up as if it said “Items should be banned because they reduce game depth!”

For this, I would like to ask the question, “Why is game depth a necessary thing in competition, so necessary that we base our ruleset off of it?”

My answer for this is that, quite simply, it isn’t an inherently necessary thing for competition. I challenge anyone to find a game more depthy than Ocarina of Time Bingo, a category that requires so much game knowledge, done on the fly, along with tech skill, and general execution, that the incredible amount of depth it has almost randomizes results to an extent, and has that to keep the game even fresher.

But game depth IS a necessity for competition to happen. Why is that? What’s the most important part of a competition?

That there are actually entrants, a community to go to the competition.

I believe this is the most fundamental, important… axiom, you could say, as far as rulesets go.

Why would there be anything more important to a competitive environment than there actually being a community to play in it? If there is no community, there won’t be tournaments held to play the game. All of this is for naught if the community doesn’t exist.

An exception to this important axiom, I would say, is The Individual, but I’ll get to that later.

None of us have anything to gain by being here if there’s no community to play the game. And here’s an example.

There’s a game called Scooby Doo Classic Creep Capers, and I am literally the only person who speedruns it. It has no community what so ever. There is nothing for me to gain by talking about what its rules should be, and nothing for anyone else to gain by me talking about it, as no one else plays it lol.

Here is where depth is important. If a game has no depth, it’ll stagnate (or never flourish at all), and lose its community.

Now, why should this group of casual players ban items if they like them? Well… they shouldn’t. Their community flourishes best with items on, they’ll enjoy it more, and get the most out of it with items on. Our community clearly isn’t this. If we had items on, our tournament scene would be hurt.

If you were to host a bunch of solely items tournaments, simply people wouldn’t come lol. Your scene would work best if it had a ruleset that it works best with.

There are no principles/universals, in this context, where actions in their normal form are best in every situation.

Best is entirely subjective, and based on the community witnessing it. What might be best for a community of casuals may not be best for people who want to push the limits of the game, what might be best for me might not be best for you, etc I think you know what I’m saying.

So my answer to the question “Why is depth a necessity for competition?” is that it isn’t inherently a necessity, but in the actual world it might as well be a necessity, as without depth, and a kind that the respective community would enjoy or care about, a community will never form, or the community that does form will eventually break apart out of boredom.

And that a ruleset should not be based on depth, not inherently. We should look at the positives that depth gives us, and base our ruleset on stimulating those positives the best we can.

Summary of this part:

Communities are what we should strive to build, and help make flourish, as without them, we have nothing to, well, strive for as far as competition goes. Competition needs a community to survive, so we must nurture our community. Depth isn’t what we should strive for, either, but depth tends to be necessary for a community to strive, so, as a result of trying to find the best thing for our community, it will tend to involve adding things that increase depth. But it doesn’t HAVE to. [/COLLAPSE]

Beneficial
[COLLAPSE="Part two beneficial stuff"]
But answering this question brought me to my next question: “What is the best thing for competition and a community?”

I don’t think we can answer this on a broad scale, with anything other than, “Whatever it takes to stimulate the community in the best way it possibly can be, in the long run/overall.”

But this isn’t a very satisfactory answer, and in its current form it doesn’t help us much at all. With a question that goes “What’s the best option?” it’s a bit redundant to have the answer be, “The very best of the options,” lol.

I think this is an important thing in itself, though. It shows us that this can’t be answered on a broad level. This question shows us that, at least to some relevant extent, the best thing for competition and a community varies based on the competition and community that it’s fixing. It’s a fluid thing; it’s all relative.

So what I’ve attempt to establish at this point, and I’ll conclude this part by saying that my conclusion is this:

The goal for the community, is to have the community thrive the best that it can, at whatever cost is most beneficial to the community. This is, however, in the long run. Short bursts of thriving, then sudden stagnation would be worse off (most of the time anyways), overall, than the opposite.

What this, I think, leads us to, at the very least, is the thing that we should use to decide this goal. We’ve established our goal, so now our job is to try and achieve it. I would say that the first step in achieving this goal, is to ask “How can we achieve this goal?”

This question kind of leads to another redundant answer, in that we achieve this goal by doing whatever it takes to achieve this goal. What this redundant answer tells us, though, is that, once again, our methods of achieving this goal must be more situational, right? If there is no universal answer, other than an inherently redundant one, then the answer must take place on a more… case-by-case basis, correct?

What this line of thought now leads us to, I would say, is that now in situations relevant to the health of our community, we have a method of checking what can help in THAT situation. When something relevant comes up, we have a new question for each relevant thing: “Is this thing beneficial, detrimental, or indifferent overall for our community?”

Now, we aren’t quite there yet, but we’re close. I think that this question is also flawed, at least in its wording; because it assumes that something would be purely detrimental, beneficial, or indifferent for the community overall, and doesn’t take into account a combination of pros and cons. I would say that this is true at a… literal, fundamental level, to an extent (there’s one objection I have to this, that I’ll cover in my section on “The Individual”), but that on a practical level, we can’t just look at a situation at face value, and always be certain whether something will be detrimental, beneficial, or indifferent. Well, we can, but if we want to, this question definitely leads us to needing to ask a different one. So it’s definitely not the most fundamental we can get, and fundamental is what we need to start with.

To figure out what the most fundamental question I can think of that’s relevant to problem solving; I think the simplest way is to start with a hypothetical situation.

Let’s say we have a situation where we need to pick one option of how to run our tournaments over the other, and we ask the question “Is this thing beneficial, detrimental, or indifferent overall for our community?”

Now I’ll ask the next question following that: “How will we go about learning if this thing is beneficial, detrimental, or indifferent for our community overall?” My answer would be, “We ask what are the beneficial and negative traits that this position has, and how important/how much effect do we feel they have.”

So the final question that I have formulated is this, in its most concise form: “What are the pros and cons of this action?” Which, once those things have been discussed, is to be followed with the question, “How much effect do these pros and cons have?”

Now here is my test to see if this is the most fundamental a question can universally be, and we’ll use my previous example of a ruleset difference.

So we have a hypothetical proposed ruleset change (or even a change in how venues should run, or really anything related to the community). If we were to ask the question “What are the pros and cons of this action?” to a hypothetical, context-less situation, is there ANY more information we can gather from this question, or anymore questions it leads to?

I can’t think of any, and so it seems, to me, that this is the most fundamental question we have in our search for completing our goal.

So wait, we have the goal, and the most fundamental question necessary in achieving that goal. What’s next?

Summary of this part:

The most beneficial thing is the best thing overall, and the most fundamental question that we should use in our attempts at achieving our stated goal, “Helping our community flourish the best it can,” would be, something along the lines of, “What are the pros and cons of this, and how much effect do they have?”[/COLLAPSE]


The Individual


[COLLAPSE="Part 3 The Individual"]So, I said several times I would speak of the exceptions to this, because there’s one (and it’s the only fundamental one) that I can think of.

This completely leaves out opinions on the individual level! And individuals are what make the community. While I advocate deciding what works best for the community, I think there’s some elaboration on what the goal should be. A community of disgruntled individuals won’t last. I’m elaborating here instead of earlier on just for the sake of ease, to be honest. The information stated in the previous parts is useful in further identifying what goals there should be at the smallest level, the individual one.

There’s an… addendum of sorts that could be added to the goal of helping the community grow. The reason our goal should be to allow our community to grow is actually more to benefit the individual than anything. If there’s no community, then no individuals will play the game, as the community is made of the individual.

So I would, to an extent, rephrase the main goal to be “We should do, in an honest form, what’s best for ourselves, as individuals.” I am, in a sense, advocating selfishness.

There’s no reason not to do what’s best for yourself in the long run, and I would say that this can present an exception to what’s best for your local community, but I would say that it does so very rarely. The well-being of the community as a whole, and of the other individuals around you, is so intertwined with your own well-being (at least as far as is relevant to the topic of smash lol) that what’s best for the whole happens to, usually, be best for yourself.

For an individual, the well-being of the community is, essentially, completely subjective, so if worst comes to worst, it’s not an inherently bad idea for an individual to do something that could hurt the community in other people’s perceptions, but it very much tends to be.

This definition, almost utter selfishness, can be a bit of a misnomer, though, and has a tendency to hurt more than it helps. Selfishness isn’t simply on the surface, in the short-run. Sure, maybe you could run like 3 tournaments with a rule set that heavily favors you, and you could win like… $400 or something, that would help you for a few weeks. Then after your community is in fragments, you’ll get no more, and neither will others.

I don’t even like to call it selfishness as much as… intelligently doing what’s best for you. I don’t like the implications that selfishness gives, since the most purely selfish act, the ones that are done for the sake of your best possible long-term well-being are, the vast majority of the time, also acts that an equally selfless person might perform.

Because this goal gives such a bad impression, and tends to confuse more than it helps, I will abandon it, and continue with the previous concept of the last goal: “The best thing to do is what’s best for the community.”

You could even say (I suppose this sentence is intended to be more ironic than serious) that I abandon that goal because of my selfish idea to communicate properly, and I would rather use a term that doesn’t necessarily give the EXACT idea I’m trying to portray, if it means that people are far less likely to be confused. I would say at a fundamental level, this goal is more justified, or correct, but on a practical level, far less useful for even achieving itself.

However, this begs a new question. What does “community” exactly refer to in our stated goal?

Summary of this part:

There’s a more fundamental version of the previously stated goal, one that advocates literal selfishness, however due to its wording, and its nature, arguing for this to be the best goal is self-defeating, and hurts more than it helps. However it’s necessary to define the goal, in case its specific nature becomes relevant to a debate, and the fundamental nature of it becomes very important. This leads to the question of what exactly the “community” is.[/COLLAPSE]


The National Community, the Regional Community, and the Local Community


[COLLAPSE="Part four National/Regional/Local communities"]So what we’ve seen so far is that for competition to work, a strong community is necessary. The most fundamental goal is one that, in the long run (basically what would be best with every single thing considered), benefits the individual the most. This isn’t a useful goal, because it leads to confusion, and the use of it weakens its own purpose, but I would argue that it IS the most fundamental, defendable goal. And the actions that would come from such a goal would be, in almost every case, the same, or very similar to one with the previously stated “Community first” goal.

What does “community” refer to? While there can be many kinds of communities, I would say that the “community” refers to “which community is most beneficial to have as strong as possible.”

I’ll elaborate on this in a moment, but first I’ll introduce the three main communities, or at least the ones that are conceptually most relevant to us (the competitive players reading this post.) I could elaborate more on what I mean by “us,” but I think when I actually talk about the three communities, it’ll be relatable enough for everyone else that it’ll be clear what I mean.

There’s the first community, the Local Community. This is the group of people who… well they meet up and play the game sometimes, host tournaments, smashfests, often are close friends and such, etc. The Local Community is the one that’s… well the one you attend the most. The people here form their own small group of people who are related to each other with, at the very least, one hobby: They play the game together. It’s still competitive, they all try and get better than each other, and the Local Community is where most personal growth is made (well in a sense, I’ll comment on this in a little bit).

The Regional Community is kind of the community that is the hub of all the Local Communities in the area. Sometimes the Regional Community is several states combined, and the Local Community is kind of the best from one state. Sometimes the Local Community is the best from some section of a state, and the Regional Community is the combination of all of those Local Communities.

Of course there can be sub-communities within the Local Communities, and there can be sub-regional communities within what could be considered the region. For example, there’s the Montebello community, and the LAX community in SoCal (along with some others), and they all together form the SoCal local community.

SoCal, NorCal, and Las Vegas together could constitute a Regional Community, but the combination of California as a whole, Oregon, Washington, Las Vegas, and Arizona could all be considered Regional Communities, too.

I don’t think I really need to get especially technical with the definitions of the difference between communities, I could define it a little bit further, but I assume this is relatively clear, right? If not, feel free to ask, and I’ll clarify specifically the best I can, but this post is already getting incredibly too long, and I don’t need to overpopulate it lol.

Without the Local Communities, the Regional Community is very likely to not exist. If an entire Local Community starts losing players, or as a whole stops playing, it can affect the Regional Community very strongly (or even the other Local Communities more closely related to it, but not JUST part of the same Regional Community).

If, say, one player from Montebello stops playing, it could easily lead to a lot of Montebello no longer having motivation, or a means, or place to play, which can weaken the motivation of others in communities related to Montebello, and in turn, weaken those communities.

We can see that places with a strong Local Community are very often the places with players who do best at the larger communities. And I’ll get back to this in a bit as well, but I need to introduce the third major community.

Then there’s the National Community, which is, pretty much, a combination of all the Regional Communities. There’s the International Community, also, but I don’t even need to go there.

The National Community is often where people find ideas, and get creative. Because it’s the stage for the best of each style, and idea, then it’s often the most consistently good place to find unique playstyles, or tricks and stuff. This creativity stems from large groups of people, each of those groups are part of their own group, that does their own thing, and experiments on their own.

Often the most growth in ideas and creativity come from things that happen in the National (or even International) Community. However the honing of these ideas and tricks rests very largely in the Local and Regional Communities.

This is largely because there’s so much time between when the National Community meets up, the vast, vast majority of practice is done at the Local and Regional Community level (and of the two, much more for the former, for the same reasons.)

And because the Local Community is usually where people start out, and get to know the game, this is whom they tend to play with the most, and have opportunities to play with the most. This is also where most motivation to play the game stems from. If you don’t have a strong Local Community, and have to travel 2 or 3 hours to play with the Regional Community, who all play with their own Local Community, you’ll naturally not only progress slower in the game, but, most of the time, you’ll have lower motivation than the rest of the Local Community (there are some exceptions to this, and for good reason, but this is also what often causes a lot of damage to Regional Communities in general.)

It’s no coincidence that strong, tightly knit Local Communities bring out the best talent. Their best talent goes and plays with the best of the other Local Communities, and learn new things to hone with their own Local Communities, and then the strongest regions tend to bring out the best talent for the same reason on the national scale(of course people from not-strong regions can become good, it’s definitely not impossible, unheard of, or unexpectable haha.)

With these things set, I would say that these are some of the largest contributors in a region’s death, and as such, a weakening in the national level.

If players in the Local Communities start quitting more often, then those Local Communities are weaker (their players that remain, if they do, get less practice, and potentially have less motivation (but conceivably more motivation, in some cases, but I think in most, it diminishes motivation if none of your friends play anymore lol,)) and bring less talent to the Regional Community, and the Regionals bring less to the Nationals.

This could clearly lead to less creativity brought to the National Level, and fewer new or revolutionary ideas, which can logically lead to the game being atleast to some degree, more stagnant, and basically just contribute to the Local Community problem.

I doubt it’s any secret that the most revolutionary or surprising things happen at the National Level. Sure, some techs are thought of at the Local Level, and spread on forums elsewhere, but for the most part, the greatest inspirations almost always come from either the Regional Level, or the National Level (especially).

How many people have revolutionized the metagame for everyone by ONLY playing at the Local Level? And how many have done so by bringing those ideas, playstyles, and tricks to the National Level? Armada wasn’t nearly as impressive to everyone in the world before he came to America and showed the world collectively what he could do.

It does seem moderately clear to me that creativity thrives, and grows at the National Level, and technical skill, and mastery of fundamentals tends to happen at the Local Level. I know, atleast with me, I never went away from a national or a regional thinking “Oh I learned so much about controlling my character!” (well I always would to some extent, but the thing I’m about to mention that would happen was significantly more present at nationals than it was at locals, in comparison to how much tech skill I would learn) I almost always went away from it more with “Wow, I saw so many good tricks and ideas that I should utilize and learn on my own time.” However most of what I learned at local tournaments had more to do with the basics of the game and such.

Because of all these things, I would say that for the individual, almost unanimously the Local Community is the most important for their well-being within the game, and when I refer to “best for the community,” I’m referring mostly to the Local level.

However the Local Community isn’t only useful for the individuals within it; once again, Regional and National communities tend to only thrive, and learn the most about the game, when they’re filled with strong Local Communities.

I don’t have much of a major question to ask in this part, but I suppose there’s a relevant one, related to my conclusion. How much more relevant is the well-being of the Local Community to the individual than the National Community is?

I can’t say for certain, and it would definitely vary from person-to-person, but I in my experience, the loss of a Local Community tends to be far more devastating to an individual than the loss of a National Community, but they all definitely contribute to each other. And some people would likely be exceptions. People like Mew2king thrive off of the National Community, and if there ceased to be nationals, he would probably be far more hurt than if his Local Community (if he even has a set one lol) were gone.

I could elaborate on this if need-be.

The summary for this part is:
The Local Community is the combination of individuals in close proximity to each other, and a group of Local Communities contribute to a Regional Community, and a group of Regional Communities contribute to the National Community.

The question of what “community” refers to is dependant on the individual in question, and which community is most important to him. But for the vast majority of smashers, the Local Community has been the most influential and important one, and most problems with National and Regional Communities stem, logically and evidentially, from problems with Local Communities, and Individuals. It’s not black-and-white, it’s all different depending on the Individual who is experiencing their community, but overall, the National Community gets hurt more often from issues with a large amount of Local Communities than vice versa.

With this conclusion, the following question that is probably a good idea to ask would be: “To what degree is this true?”[/COLLAPSE]


Motivation


[COLLAPSE="Part five Motivation"]So this part is short, and deals with an important, but relatively quick to lie out, issue that is related to the previous issue.

Sometimes a Local Community goes through a change that causes some player to lose motivation in the game. Perhaps they still play the game, but much less seriously.

This loss of motivation affects the rest of the community very much, and indirectly (or perhaps directly in some cases) can affect the motivation of others in the community in a negative way, which can then just add to the motivation problem from the first, motivation-less individual.

I’ll give a short anecdotal example (just because it’s on my mind. Yes, I know anecdotal evidence tends to not be reliable, but it can also be very useful in situations that heavily deal with individuals, and perception, and how those things affect everything else,) then be done with this part.

So I was watching Jiano’s stream recently. For those who don’t know (probably most of you), Jiano is a player from, I believe, the Midwest, in Melee. He played as Captain Falcon and was somewhat well known in game, and was talented and did well. He actually got 3rd place at the second Pound tournament, behind M2K and stuff.

So anyways, he was playing Mario 64 or something, and having a conversation with Cosmo, an Ocarina of Time speedrunner, but was an avid Melee player as well, and from the Midwest too. One of, if not the, best Zelda main in Melee when he played (perhaps there’s someone I’m forgetting, but he’s a really good player, and I think he’s the best Zelda by default despite this, because I don’t think there have ever been any other relevant Zeldas, who got good results lol).

They were both talking about how they really enjoy Melee, but it’s pretty much dead near them, so they have no motivation to play, or travel for it. And, of course, if two good, important parts of a community quit or stop being motivated, it’ll end up affecting the other remaining player’s motivation in the game as well, and decrease their likelihood of improving fast, and still enjoying the game. If there’s any scene there to get demotivated in the first place, anyways.

And loss of motivation is usually (keyword is usually, there can be a few exceptions) most devastating to Local Communities, who are more tight-knit than the National Communities. Most problems with game stagnation begin with issues in the Local Community.

I dunno, I think you guys probably get the concept here, too, so I’ll finish with this part.

Summary of this part:
Motivation is key to a Local Community staying alive, and if important people lose motivation for whatever reason, their community has to pay for it as well. And let’s note that a weaker community has a smaller chance of getting new members, and retaining them.[/COLLAPSE]


Unified Rulesets


[COLLAPSE="Part six United Rulesets and stuff"]So while all of the things I mentioned before are very important, and can be applied everywhere as far as keeping a community alive goes, this is a very important thing, that I feel should be addressed in this thread. And, I think after thinking about the dangers of hurting the Local Community, this is probably the first good place to apply all of this.

For the sake of atleast attempting to be as unbiased as I can (I’m clearly human, and biased to some degree, but my goal is honest discussion of what’s the best thing to do, and as such, I’ll try my best to present everything as honestly as I can).

So I guess we’ll start with the question “What is a unified ruleset?”

A unified ruleset, in simple terms, is a ruleset where people worked together to get a ruleset that everyone in the country is to use.

Some argue that the benefits for this are not having new players be daunted by each region having their own rules, tournaments being more consistent, professionalism, and for regions to always be practiced with the rules that nationals use.

I’ll go into the benefits of each one individually. I’m sure there are more arguments in favor of a united ruleset, but these seem to be, as far as I can tell, the most common, and most important ones.

So not having new players be daunted by each region having their own rules is rather self-explanatory. If new players are daunted by such things, they’re potentially less likely to come to more tournaments, and if new players don’t join the community, the community WILL one day die, and the community will fall apart exponentially faster as time goes on, as people leaving as an understandable affect on more people leaving.

However I can’t really say I’ve ever heard even anecdotal evidence of people being daunted by each region having its own rules, and almost not going to more tournaments because of it, even when there was a BBR-endorsed and suggested ruleset that most people didn’t follow. But, whatever, I’ll just assume that this could happen, because it does sound possible to some degree.

Then there are tournaments being more consistently run. This is a benefit, I suppose, in that people can expect how a tournament will go more often. Gives people the chance to be more inherently prepared, which has positives, but it can also lower the amount of variance in what a tournament can feel like, and could contribute to stagnation.

To be fair, I doubt it would contribute much to stagnation, and perhaps too much variance is more damaging than too much of the same, but in the same vein I doubt that tournaments being more consistently run, and being more often very similar would contribute much to players staying interesting, and keeping the community alive. I’ll grant that it could happen, though, and perhaps outweighs the cons.

Professionalism…. Yeah, this can probably help grow the community, seeming better in front of the Fighting Game Community couldn’t ever hurt, and that’s where professionalism applies. Perhaps that’s helpful, but given the Fighting Game Community’s usual hatred for our whole series, and what little effect a unified ruleset would probably have on professionalism overall… I’m not sure I agree with professionalism just to have professionalism. I mean a good quote Dunno I guess it doesn’t hurt, but it does seem like a relatively minor bonus. But, whatever, it’s a bonus nonetheless.

Communities having the same rules as their nationals…Yeah, this can clearly be beneficial, players could get better faster and such. But also we can’t forget that having too strong of a standard can prevent experimentation, and learning what works better in the practical world. And many would argue that one of the contributing factors in why Japan did well at Apex against us was because their stages trained their basic gameplay more than our stagelist does.

Regardless, that’s a debate for another thread, I’m merely listing the benefits in a simple way, along with some simple counter-arguments against them. I’m not pretending at all that those counter-arguments are particularly conclusive, they’re pretty minor; I just want all of the information I can think of regarding each of the point of views to be represented.

I’m cutting this a bit short at this point, so I’m sorry if I didn’t present the arguments for that well, but I figured like 6 paragraphs and around 400 words are enough on presenting an opposition’s argument, while feeling intellectually honest, and I doubt I’ll spend significantly more attacking that argument in particular.

However the current united ruleset we have, the Unity Ruleset Committee’s ruleset (how the committee comes to its decisions, whether their qualified or not, etc are a debate for another thread, NOT this one, so don’t bring that up, this part is just on one of their rules), also has one extra rule.

This extra rule is that NO ONE who hosts a tournament can have their tournament even be considered to be a sticky, or a featured tournament, on either AllisBrawl, or Smashboards.

This rule gives a sort of incentive to hosting a tournament with their ruleset, but it could be said that it’s a rather warped incentive. It’s an incentive in that something that didn’t used to be relevant at all, is now made relevant by a group of people’s arbitrary decision. It’s less like giving someone money for doing something extra for you (an incentive. Well sort of. There are lots of kinds of incentives, but this is just a vague, contextless, analogous incentive), and a bit more akin to taking someone’s rights away, and telling them they can have those rights back only if they do what you want.

This doesn’t especially matter inherently, though. If it’s best for the Local and Regional Communities (the communities that shape and nurture the National Community), then it’s just the best thing to do, right?

But what if that’s not the best thing to do? What if this kind of incentive is really just damaging to the community, and not just on the National level, but MOST evidently on the Local and Regional level?

Before I elaborate some, I’m going to bring up the general argument for a united ruleset that it trains people for nationals.

How can we know what kind of ruleset would be most beneficial for every single community? And not just know that, how can we know that other communities would be SO unable to pick a ruleset that would prepare them for a national that we have to do it for them, for the sake of the community?

And if a community, to sustain itself and gain new members, has to resort to a ruleset that no one within the community actually prefers, isn’t it likely that players within that community are significantly more likely to lose motivation in the game, or become disgruntled with it, just because they don’t like the rules they have to play by, and so they’re more likely to quit, or their gameplay is more likely to become less creative, and their community gets stagnate, and eventually either suffers much damage, or dies? Or, hell, even just loses a few really important role models?

But if they don’t use that ruleset, there’s a good chance that they’ll miss out on having new players come to the tournament (and for atleast some piece of evidence that losing a sticky or featured tournament can have a huge affect on how many new players come, go here. JUST the first minute and a half, where he talks about his experience as a TO, and the difference that a sticky, with even less effort into the tournament, can make. Everything else in his video on how the URC works is debatable, and not the point of me linking it. The point of it being linked is to point out his experience as a TO, and what a sticky does for his community’s chances at getting new players). They’ll lose publicity, all because we want a unified ruleset? They’re losing publicity because we’re intentionally taking it away from them, unless they do what we want?

I’ll quote the late, brilliant, Christopher Hitchens on this (not an exaaact quote, maybe he used very slightly different wording, but the intent behind the quote is very much the same). It’s on the subject of Christianity, but it’s rather applicable to rulesets, and not getting stickies or as much publicity unless you follow someone’s specific ruleset.

“Christianity deems that you are CREATED sick, and ORDERED to be well.”


I cannot say objectively whether this would MOST DEFINITELY be damaging to the community or not, I’d like to stay humble to atleast some extent, but given everything I’ve spoken about here, it seems like a good, believable conclusion.

The near-forcing of using a united ruleset seems to cause significantly more detriments than it does benefits, ESPECIALLY a united ruleset that is so controversial, that almost everyone disagrees with atleast one part of it. And this is given that the benefits are based on the assumption that a Local Community is unable to pick a ruleset that works best for THEM personally, so they must be assigned one.

I’m sure you (the reader) can think of atleast a few influential people to certain communities that are quitting due to recent changes in the Unity Ruleset, and the way it’s forced upon everyone in the community, under threat of stunted Local Community growth.

So I suppose my conclusion from all this, and on this subject specifically, is that the rule where people who want publicity MUST use the Unity Ruleset is completely detrimental to the growth, upkeep, and sustenance of Local and Regional Communities, and detrimental to the Individuals who it is being forced upon.

Discuss? (and in the manner outlined in the start of this)

My summary of this section:
Because of everything listed in the previous sections (and summaries), and the conclusion that Local Communities are very important to the overall community, and to the motivation and well-being of the Individuals within the community, I would say that a rule demanding that people use a united ruleset, or else their community loses potential growth, is completely and utterly detrimental to the community as a whole.[/COLLAPSE]



The final thingie (I guess)
[COLLAPSE="The Last part/conclusion sorta"]If you wish to respond to this summary, at the very least, I suggest you read the ENTIRE section titled “Unified Rulesets” first, just to prevent any backtracking, as this is the most detail-based part of the whole essay, and I can’t portray all of it in just a summary. Every other part, a summary could be possibly be sufficient enough to help with the discussion.

And, once again, if anyone wants me to elaborate on ANY part of this section, I’m perfectly willing to. It’s very late, and I’ve written 17 pages in Word, single spaced on this subject in the past like 4 hours (I’ll include a download link for anyone who wants to download the Word document with this whole essay in it, at both the top and bottom of the thread), so I’m gonna get to bed now lol

If you’ve read this far, thank you for hearing me out, and if you’d like to discuss it, I’m perfectly open to doing so, but, once again, please do so according to the parameters listed at the beginning, that way this can actually accomplish something. I could’ve gone into other topics that are also relevant to some extent in this discussion, but I decided to limit it to these, as it was already getting very long, and these are by far the most important.

Thank you for your time, and here is a link to the full Word document of the essay: http://www.mediafire.com/?p7n3qpujmuxczq9

And I apologize if anything I say is not clear or anything, in this essay I've definitely sacrificed some potential quality just so I could finish the thread in a reasonable time, and have it not be any longer than it already is lol

"[it] deems that you are created sick, and ORDERED to be well." ~Christopher Hitchens

EDIT: And to be clear, the position I'm advocating isn't one against suggested rulesets (those are perfectly fine, and I understand those. Or even a unity ruleset with lots of TOs backing it, but not one where we limit the abilities of a Local Community to satisfy our own needs, as that not only hurts them, but us as well), but it's one of advocating that groups of people use the ruleset that works best for them personally, as they're more likely to stay motivated with a game, and thrive better with a ruleset they like. So I suppose my final question would be to the reader: "Do you agree with the conclusion? And if not, why?"[/COLLAPSE]

I'll go over this today at work and more or less posting to subscribe

Subscribing to read later.

So would removing the sticky rule (thereby removing one of the premises of the argument that bridges to the conclusion) go a long way in solving the issue you presented here?

^ Unfortunately I dont think it would be that simple.

I've only read the summary portion so far, but Ill get back to this. Interesting write-up so far, the wordings different but ive been an advocate of similar basic concepts as well.

Given the premises and the following conclusions presented, you're going to have to explain to me how it isn't that simple based on his line of logic.

Removing the sticky incentive would allow for more variance to accommodate unique region requirements I would think. I just wonder if any real testing has been done on the power of stickies or are we just taking people's personal accounts of it as science?

For some reason, you asking me to review this brings the phrase "Collidescope Eyes". I'll see what I can do with this monstrosity...

Lux's post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13983271&postcount=4

So would removing the sticky rule (thereby removing one of the premises of the argument that bridges to the conclusion) go a long way in solving the issue you presented here?

Click to expand...

Yes, I think it would. I think another sliiiightly smaller issue is that people in the URC have to use the URC ruleset to be allowed to stay in it, right?

I think that's detrimental to experimentation as well haha. If a bunch of TOs want to band together and use the same ruleset that's fine, but I think if an important TO wants to join the group, and bring a different point of view to the discussion while doing for their community what's best, they should be able to do that without being unable to join the group haha.

It's not quiiite as big of a deal, but definitely detrimental in similar ways. I mean if the URC is supposed to be what a bunch of TOs think is the best compromise of a ruleset to be used for suggestion (or to force onto people), they can still accomplish that goal, while appealing to what their Local Community desires and needs to survive.

It's actually the sticky rule that I'm arguing entirely against in this essay; I 100% approve of suggested rulesets for new TOs to use, or potentially for nationals to use (I think internationals should probably have a ruleset that appeals a bit more to the internationals coming, I guess a bit like the Apex ruleset did, that way they have further incentives to come, and we can experience their creativity and ideas first hand more often.)

I didn't get to the "URC members have to use this ruleset" part (and I'm not compleeetely sure that that's actually like... a rule, but I'm pretty sure it is because I really don't want to argue against like 5 different points of view or something at one time, so I dealt with the sticky rule first. And apart from those two rules, I can't see any major issues with the URC, or really any ones that are especially detrimental.

I think rulesets should be a bit like state's rights, we could have a strongly suggested-by-TOs ruleset, but when it comes down to it, what's best for the community is what's best for the individuals within the community. A one-size-fits-all ruleset would be detrimental if we could appeal to some extent to every single individual. Each Individual doesn't have much direct influence in the National Community by himself (or at least the very vast majority of them,) but they can have a lot of influence in the Local Community, where they can make a difference and stuff.

We shouldn't squash the motivations, opinions, and influence of the Individual or the Local level for the sake of maybe improving the National Community. It's a self-defeating idea, and can (and does) weaken every level of community.


Cassio's post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13983481&postcount=5

^ Unfortunately I dont think it would be that simple.

I've only read the summary portion so far, but Ill get back to this. Interesting write-up so far, the wordings different but ive been an advocate of similar basic concepts as well.

Click to expand...

Yeah it wouldn't be solely the sticky rule we should get rid of, these concepts should apply everywhere, and this seems like the current most damaging thing threatening our community, so it's the first addressed.

Assume that by experimentation and experimentation alone, a Local Community finds an amazing ruleset for them, and it is in some way radically different then the Regional/National communities ruleset.

How are they expected to interact with it? Espicially when upon suggesting it quite literally a handful of people have to say they won't go to a tourney with X new rule legal (or put up some frail/horrible argument like this) and it won't be used, the majority of the time?

Arcansi's post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13987597&postcount=10

How are they expected to interact with it?

Click to expand...

Who is the "they" in this question?

Espicially when upon suggesting it quite literally a handful of people have to say they won't go to a tourney with X new rule legal (or put up some frail/horrible argument like this) and it won't be used, the majority of the time?

Click to expand...

I'm not entiiirely sure what you're asking.

I'll try and reelaborate on what it sounds like you're saying, and you can tell me if that's right, and I can respond maybe? So is what you're saying kinda like:

Let's say that a Local Community found a ruleset that was perfect for them, but it warded off travelers from out of state/region from coming to regionals with that ruleset, what should the Local Community do?

If that's your question, I would say that they should probably do what works best for the the growth of the community. It's not an actual situation, so this answer would also be equally hypothetical, but if anything, the best thing in a lot of cases would probably be to compromise on their ruleset, and change it to something that the travelers would be willing to come to.

Like you wouldn't get people coming from out of state often, and compromising your ruleset a bit so it's closer to what they use is probably a good idea, anyways, so that they can thrive and show you what they've learned. You probably wouldn't need to change your ruleset to theirs just to be able to keep up with them, but perhaps you would. And if that's what your community needed to do to get its best results, to have it grow and flourish the best, then that's what they should do

A bit like how we compromised our rulesets for Japan to come here and stuff. You probably don't need to use their exact ruleset, but it almost seems like common courtesy that if you're getting a lot of out-of-region (or especially out of country) players, that you'd adjust your rules to be something that they'll like more. Enticing other communities to come and play is almost always a good thing.

But if you deem that sticking to your ruleset that's amazing for your community, at the cost of losing out of region players coming to play at your tournaments, is better for your community than compromising some, then go for that, too. You'd probably find out if it'd be worth it by polling the actual players who are going to the tournament

But very likely, I misunderstood the question, so feel free to elaborate on what you were trying to say, so I can be sure that I understood what you were saying haha

Doesn't the URC have some kind of experimentation thing where you can run a different ruleset and as long as you gather data on it, your tournament can be stickied?

That probably doesn't get rid of the issue but it at least mitigates it a bit.

Doesn't the URC have some kind of experimentation thing where you can run a different ruleset and as long as you gather data on it, your tournament can be stickied?

That probably doesn't get rid of the issue but it at least mitigates it a bit.

Click to expand...

Sort of, but it has to be a "well reasoned" experiment, with the intent of getting statistics on unusual rulesets, and it's decidedly not a means of people using a ruleset that works best for their community, to gain popularity, and for convenience. It even states that those who attempt to abuse it at all will be banned from it.

It hardly mitigates it; you'd get one or two tournaments tops with a ruleset that works with your community (and can't have too many rule changes from the unity ruleset, so if your community doesn't like most of the unity ruleset, that's too bad). After that, it'd be clear you were using the experimentation program to get around using the unity ruleset.

If a TOs goal is to make his community the best it can be, and doesn't feel the unity ruleset would help with that (outside of the rule requiring that you use it to gain more publicity), then AT BEST the experimentation gives the incentive to lie about your own intentions.

I mean, I guess in some situations it'd mitigate it to some extent, but you'd hardly be able to have a unity event, with your community's ruleset, for very long before you wouldn't be allowed to use the experimentation rule lol. So I would guess that it hardly mitigates it at all, with all the limitations it has and such.

theunabletable said:

Who is the "they" in this question?

Click to expand...

Local Community X.

I'm not entiiirely sure what you're asking.[/QUOTE]

That was wrong, but ill elaborate.

Basically, say Local Community X finds a good ruleset through experimentation, that contains some controversal/otherwise 'big' rule change(s).

How would this community ever get this ruleset to be accepted on a National, or even Regional scale?

It doesn't seem like a community could, likely. And if they can't, then they've just practiced nothing for a good amount of time, and all the extra local community members they got will never/very unlikely to move up to regional/national community, and then why have gained it?

It doesn't seem like a community could, likely. And if they can't, then they've just practiced nothing for a good amount of time, and all the extra local community members they got will never/very unlikely to move up to regional/national community, and then why have gained it?

Click to expand...

They don't really... need to.

The goal with this isn't to help find a national ruleset. I still think it's fine to let the URC create a ruleset to be used at a national level (and it's fine for nationals to not use that ruleset if they want to).

What I'm advocating here is that a Local Community does what they think will work best overall for them, creating an environment that helps motivation flourish.

Perhaps if they find a ruleset that they really like, but feel it won't help them at a regional or national level, they should use the regional or national level ruleset, or a compromise between the two or something.

Like it's not just Local Communities finding a ruleset that they really, really like, it's Local Communities using the ruleset that they feel will be most beneficial for them overall. If that involves compromising and using a more standard ruleset, so they'll be better when they go out of region, then that's probably what they should do.

But it's not for us to decide what other communities should do, we have no idea what might make them work best, they would know much better than we would.

If them using an experimental ruleset that they like, but they can't use at a regional level, was damaging (perhaps it wouldn't be, the training learned in the experimental ruleset might apply everywhere else really well), then they probably shouldn't do it. They would know better than we would, though

And in practical play, most communities would likely have relatively similar rulesets. Some might use the Japanese ruleset, some might just unban MK, some might ban RC/Brinstar, some might legalize Luigi's Mansion or something. It doesn't seem all that practical that someone would find this incredibly obscure ruleset that is just fantastic for them, y'know?

Do you get what I'm saying?

YAY FOR CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Will read thread later

Didn't Brawl used to be kind of like this anyway?

I do agree that the URC is, in a way, detrimental. I don't think it is in the same terms you do, however I do understand what you're saying. My biggest problem with the URC is one I have with the entire Smash community and is one that has existed since before the URC. I view the URC as a tumor-like growth on an insular culture that purposefully excludes itself from outside reasoning and refuses to view its own flaws as bad. In the most polite terms applicable the Smash community's biggest problem is the Smash community and its unwillingness to get over itself. Any and all attempts to form a reasonable rule set for the game has been done by socially maladroit dimwits who don't understand what Smash is like outside of competition in their own terms, and I feel the URC has acted in accordance with that community and not the larger part of the gaming community which is its ultimate failing. Every time the gaming community at large has extended its hand you've bit it and then complained that "that isn't how we play", with no understanding that you're the minority of people who play Smash Bros and that to the outside gaming community at large you look ridiculous with your rules and attitude toward players outside of your community. It may be slightly asinine of me to think this, but the URC doesn't need to appeal to the Smash community since it is the Smash community, it needs to appeal to people outside of the community to save face. The rules need to be both fair and marketable or else having a rules committee doesn't really matter.

^The problem is that first, we can't agree on what constitutes a reasonable ruleset, and second, the gulf between a reasonable ruleset (as I see it) and what the Smash community is used to is huge, and many of the best players would rather stay on this side of the gulf or even go FAAAAAAAR into the other direction (Japanese ruleset) because, like a certain Dr. Seuss character, they just *know* they don't like the proverbial green eggs and ham despite having never really tried it.

^exactly

On one side, you have "ban only what's been proven broken" and on the other, you have "ban everything that we think might be broken."

Well, I agree that is part of the problem. The other problem is that whenever someone else comes along with different rules there is a huge backlash and a bizarre sense of alienation about the whole thing (see Evo, MLG, or basically anything outside of Smash Boards ****fests).

On top of the community being indecisive about what it wants it's actively against what it doesn't. Nobody is allowed to make any sort of claims outside of a few arbitrators who essentially selected themselves. The whole thing was a mess at conception.

^
What we need is a dictator, albeit a responsible and efficient dictator .

Haven't you read Aristotle? Benevolent Monarchy inevitably falls into Repressive Dictatorship

Of the three major types of government (Monarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy) I would say that we are Oligarchy-based in a sense (i.e. the BBR, URC, etc.) but mostly purely democratic (which leads to utter chaos... case in point, the French Revolution).

Wow, that Government final still has me thinking too hard lol

The Ben's post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13991048&postcount=17

Didn't Brawl used to be kind of like this anyway?

I do agree that the URC is, in a way, detrimental. I don't think it is in the same terms you do, however I do understand what you're saying. My biggest problem with the URC is one I have with the entire Smash community and is one that has existed since before the URC. I view the URC as a tumor-like growth on an insular culture that purposefully excludes itself from outside reasoning and refuses to view its own flaws as bad. In the most polite terms applicable the Smash community's biggest problem is the Smash community and its unwillingness to get over itself. Any and all attempts to form a reasonable rule set for the game has been done by socially maladroit dimwits who don't understand what Smash is like outside of competition in their own terms, and I feel the URC has acted in accordance with that community and not the larger part of the gaming community which is its ultimate failing. Every time the gaming community at large has extended its hand you've bit it and then complained that "that isn't how we play", with no understanding that you're the minority of people who play Smash Bros and that to the outside gaming community at large you look ridiculous with your rules and attitude toward players outside of your community. It may be slightly asinine of me to think this, but the URC doesn't need to appeal to the Smash community since it is the Smash community, it needs to appeal to people outside of the community to save face. The rules need to be both fair and marketable or else having a rules committee doesn't really matter.

Click to expand...

You would say that we have a chance of being respected in the FGC at this point?

It seems pretty ingrained, the hatred that the FGC has for us lol. So much deeper than the Brawl-Melee divide that appealing to something they might appreciate if they listened seems kind of hopeless, and probably wouldn't help us at all lol.

Are the pros of appealing to a community that for like 8 years has wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with us worth the cons of people not enjoying the game as much at a local level?

Inferiority Complex's post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13991099&postcount=18

^The problem is that first, we can't agree on what constitutes a reasonable ruleset, and second, the gulf between a reasonable ruleset (as I see it) and what the Smash community is used to is huge, and many of the best players would rather stay on this side of the gulf or even go FAAAAAAAR into the other direction (Japanese ruleset) because, like a certain Dr. Seuss character, they just *know* they don't like the proverbial green eggs and ham despite having never really tried it.

Click to expand...

It may not be that they have tried it, or similar things to it. It's likely a matter of "different strokes for different blokes".

There are plenty of Brawl players who don't go to tournaments, but try and get better at the game, while playing with items, on Hyrule or something. Their way of playing the game isn't wrong, or worse than ours. It accomplishes their goal just fine, and for us to assume that the solution to our goal is the same as the solution to their goal seems a bit... arrogant in my mind.

Akaku's post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13991114&postcount=19

^exactly

On one side, you have "ban only what's been proven broken" and on the other, you have "ban everything that we think might be broken."

Click to expand...

I think it's a 2 dimensional thing, not so binary.

There's not just two sides. There are people who believe in selectively banning things that are random, or have a lot of random effect, but don't believe in banning other stages with other hazards. There are some who want to ban anything that's especially intrusive, but leave in stages that aren't so bad, such as PS1 and Lylat.

There are people who believe in keeping items legal, but banning things that their community finds to be "unfair" or "cheap". Maybe those things wouldn't be unfair to another community. But wouldn't you say that if everyone's making a big deal about Falco's chain grab, and your community REALLY wants to ban it, it might be a good idea to do so, or to stop using it?

You won't have anyone to play with at all if you don't lol. They'll lose motivation and stuff.

The Ben's second post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13991124&postcount=20

On top of the community being indecisive about what it wants it's actively against what it doesn't. Nobody is allowed to make any sort of claims outside of a few arbitrators who essentially selected themselves. The whole thing was a mess at conception.

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I think referring to us as "the community" is an issue in itself. The Community doesn't know what it wants, but all the Local Communities that it's comprised of know what they want (or atleast to a much greater extent than we do at a national level). Not only do they know what they want, but if they were able to do what they want, it would be direct-victimless!

To add on, in response to all of you:

Trying to make a national ruleset is a bit like trying to make a soda that everyone prefers, just so we can reap the benefits of having one universal soda in the whole country. Surely a unified soda has its benefits.

But equally surely, there's no way that the soda is everyone's ideal soda, the majority would likely prefer variants of that soda. If we could have 30 sodas, without distribution issues, that would all be atleast close to what everyone would want, wouldn't you say that that would make everyone happier and stuff?

Dunno, seems a bit silly to me to try and force one ruleset upon everyone, when perhaps most people don't want that ruleset, and there wouldn't be a penalty for everyone having a ruleset they prefer.

theunabletable said:

You would say that we have a chance of being respected in the FGC at this point?

It seems pretty ingrained, the hatred that the FGC has for us lol. So much deeper than the Brawl-Melee divide that appealing to something they might appreciate if they listened seems kind of hopeless, and probably wouldn't help us at all lol.

Are the pros of appealing to a community that for like 8 years has wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with us worth the cons of people not enjoying the game as much at a local level?.

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I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the FGC is compared to who actually plays Smash. Appeal to the people who play Smash (not Smashboards users, that's totally different) and build the community from the people who are closer to Nintendo's intended market. The fact that you'd have a respectable community would go a long way. It isn't that the FGC has no respect for Smash Bros, they have no respect for crybabies who trash major events and throw fits.

The Ben's original post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13991048&postcount=17
my post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13993283&postcount=23
The Ben's newest post: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=13993347&postcount=24

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the FGC is compared to who actually plays Smash. Appeal to the people who play Smash (not Smashboards users, that's totally different) and build the community from the people who are closer to Nintendo's intended market. The fact that you'd have a respectable community would go a long way. It isn't that the FGC has no respect for Smash Bros, they have no respect for crybabies who trash major events and throw fits.

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Yeah, you're for the most part right I would say.

But what I was mostly getting at, is wouldn't you agree that... well that ship has kinda set sail already? haha (EDIT: By this I mean gaining respect from the FGC as Smash players. Although to be fair, most of the criticism I see against smash isn't about the players, but really is about us playing a "party game". But you are right, that a lot of it has to do with lack of respect for the players)

I definitely agree with appealing to the people who play smash, and not smashboards users. It's smashboards users who tend to want everyone to have a uniform ruleset. That's what we should like... do, and I think what I brought up is a contributing factor.

I'm fairly sure the reason the FGC doesn't like smash is because of the players rather than the game.
It's because of the way we make our rulesets, and the way smash players are always like "RESPECT US GUIZ" to them....

A lot of the "lol stop playing a party game and pretending it's a fighting game" stuff is just trolling.

The rest of the FGC doesn't ban everything they think just might possibly have a slight chance of being broken in certain situations. They start with everything, and ban what's proven broken. If we did that, it would get a little bit of respect, although it would be too little too late imo.

But why do we care about the rest of the FGC? We are a party game

I don't have anything to really say to either of those posts lol. They aren't really related to what I'm trying to say in this thread or anything.

So is the general consensus that I'm just correct?

Ghostbone said:

A lot of the "lol stop playing a party game and pretending it's a fighting game" stuff is just trolling.

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Sorta. One of the issues with the Smash community is insisting "NO ITZ LIEK STREET FITER CUZ U HITZ PPL N STUFF" when clearly it isn't.

Back on topic though. I'm not going to speak for the rest of the people but I agree with theunabletable with the assumption that no microcommunity (tm) is treated lesser than another. While the "Smash as a fighting game" guys and the "Smash as a party game" guys are totally different people I think they should at least show support and appreciation for each other since it really takes both to keep the series going.

Is the only point your making that the 'sticky if and only if Unity' rule should be removed in order to promote small rule changes within local communities? If so, I guess.

That's the only conclusion I've made so far from the premises outlined in the opening post. There are more that could be made, but I felt this was the most urgent, and the best place to start, and that trying to make more than one point with a post might make something that's already convoluted, perhaps even more convoluted.

So my goal is to solve this problem first, and then continue from there.

theunabletable said:

So is the general consensus that I'm just correct?

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I think this guy has some insight on the subject. ^^

While I had to skim it a little to prevent mind-melt, I enjoyed reading this. Very well thought out, if slightly difficult to read due to "stream of consciousness" formatting.

Great post.

BPC said:

I think this guy has some insight on the subject. ^^

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I've edited the top of the post a bit (with the insistence from The Truth/Cassio (this isn't exactly what he was suggesting, and I'll probably more thoroughly go through the post another time, but I tried to make sure that people who don't care to read much can just read the summary, and then continue on), putting more emphasis on the summary.

You do NOT have to read the entire thread, you can go ahead and read the summary, and tell me what you think of the short concepts brought up in it. I just really hate the idea of deleting entire content for the sake of conciseness haha. I'm gonna keep experimenting with making my summary more clear, and putting more emphasis on just reading the summary.

If it all doesn't work, perhaps I'll make another thread for just the summary, and have that thread link here, in case the person wants elaboration.

Raziek said:

While I had to skim it a little to prevent mind-melt, I enjoyed reading this. Very well thought out, if slightly difficult to read due to "stream of consciousness" formatting.

Great post.

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Perfectly understandable to skim it haha.

Do you feel that the summary sums up the concepts in the whole thread well? And do you think that putting more emphasis on the summary might get more people to read just the summary, and continue the discussion from there?

Anyways, thanks for your input.

I know I must be onto something fundamentally sound if I have a concept that you (and you have completely different views on pretty much everything else possible from me lol) agree with me on

I feel like it's one of those concepts that doesn't require deep game analysis, which means it's a concept/conclusion that anyone can legitimately give input on, regardless of their abilities in the game.

You may wish to apply some collapse tags to the OP. Just a thought.

omg that is a fantastic idea.

Tell me what you think? c: