Firstly, I wasn't sure where to post this, so Mods, feel free to put it in the Off Topic forum if that's more appropriate.

Where are we at as a community right now?

It seems like our great SWM community is on very shaky ground. We have 2 really, really excellent sites run by community member for commnity members. Why are there so many issues between these 2 sites? I am a proud member of both Bloomilk and Gamers. I think they are both fantastic forums and resources for us all. One of the best things about these 2 sites is that they fill different needs for the community, and becuase of that, they are far richer resources than any 1 site could possibly be.

I do not, and never have understood the mindset of people who only belong to 1 group and want nothing to do with the other. Many of us are members of both of these great sites. Many of us are 'exclusive' to one or the other. Is Gamers perfect? Of course it's not. Is Bloomilk perfect? Not at all. But, there are many great things to be said in favor of both sites. Am I saying that EVERYONE should be active members of both sites? No, that's not realistic. But I do not understand the outright hostility that members of one group show towards the other. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. WoTC killed our game, and the only way we can keep our game, and thus our community alive is if we work together as ONE star wars miniatures community. We will either survive and thrive together, or we will fail on our own. Don't get me wrong, there is blame on both sides for the fractures that exist within the community. No one of us is perfect. However, a lot of people seem to have grudges and predjudices against certain groups or individuals that are simply juvenile.

No 1 member of this community is more important than any other member. We are so lucky as a community to have people in our midst who are working and struggling to keep our game going. They care about the community, they care about you. Shinja keeps this site running because he cares about the community that exists here. Dean makes his descisions as dci/gamers content manager with the community's, and thus your best interests first in his mind. There are lots of other people who have done and are doing things for this community, for you. Look at billiv15. He sacrificed his opportunity to maybe win the Gencon championship, in order to judge it. Think about that for a sec. He's one of the absolute top players going, and he volunteered to stand aside in order to judge, and allow others to play. There are lot's of others I could mention, but the post would go forever.

A lot of the people who work the hardest for me and for you are also the same people who are derided and criticised the most. That's kind of sad. So I guess what I'm trying to get accross is, have respect for your fellow community members, have respect for those among us who sacrifice time and money to make our community and game all it can be. Respect other sites, and their users, respect each other. Am I saying agree all the time? No. But RESPECT others and the work they are doing for you please. Sorry for the long post.

It seems that the people who don't get along are a very small group of individuals. However, these few individuals have a significant pull on the fate of this game right now. Until these few people work out their differences, there is not really anything we can do as a community other then do our best to stay neutral, and ride out the storm. Give support where we can, and hope that this will eventually be settled when it is.

I don't think there is any one action anyone can really do right now. People fight, they cool down, and they either get over it or they don't. Im sure they'll let us know when something changes.

Thank you Sashlon.

I would like to add a few comments to this. For SWM players like Sashlon, who lives in Australia, and myself, living in England (well, in the moment Germany), the online SWM community is a life line. I only know two other people IRL who play this game: my brothers, who I don't see very often. Sashlon has mentioned to me in the past that he plays mainly with his son, and I think he has a friend or two who also play occasionally. Other than that, this is it. I play on Vassal as much as possible, and I come to the forums with the desire to associate with people who share my hobby. It makes me feel like the money I have spent on minis is worth it. It makes me feel like all the space they take up in my room isn't wasted, even though I seldom play with my actual minis.

We don't have the wonderful opportunity many of you guys have of being members of regular play groups. I have never met any of you, but I know that many of you know each other in person, and get together at least at regionals and gencon where you can all play and geek out with each other. Now, maybe I am looking for british players in the wrong places, but I have not been able to find anyone. I have the wonderful chance to live in Germany for a few months where there is a semi active SWM community, and I intend to play as often as I can arrange with the players here I have already made contact with. But come June, and it is back to lonely old England.

Thus, it upsets me to see rifts and arguments in my greater, worldwide community. It makes me feel like, at some point I may have to choose between different parts of a collapsing community.

So, basically my point is, you guys are my lifeline to the game. I am even getting a copy of the V-Set, even though I doubt I will ever participate in organised play. And until I can convince my friends to start forking out lots of money to play with me, you online guys are my playing group. I would hate it for this group to shrink and disperse(sp?).

It's a possibility, and would make sense among the typical "Lucas is just a money grubbing old guy" sort of comments I usually see in many places.

However, it's sort of off topic for this thread.

Wow, it's so cool to see the spirit of considoration and respect for others that people have shown in their posts on this thread.

Lol, I typed it very late at night, nad wondered this morning as my computer booted up what might have become of it. There's alot of great things about the community and how to be a better community member being said, so that's really encouraging.

@ Kenred: It could well be true about Lucasfilm upping the cost of the lisence, but it doesn't really change anything, the point I was making is that other people killed our game, so we need to work together to keep it going.

@ Disturbed: You're right, there are often more active topics on Bloomilk. And like me, I'm sure you look for different things from the 2 sites, and you're right, some of us have more than one screen name lol, mine is barney_rubble17 on Gamers lol. I'm not sure why lol.

That's very true.

One of the sadest things I've seen regarding the SWM community is the fact that many of the top players and many of the most experianced players are on Gamers and many of the newer/younger/less experienced players are on Bloomilk (yes I'm generalising there are exceptions I know), and there isn't as much in-game mentoring as there might be if these 2 sites were not at odds. Take Dean, he is such a cool guy to play against, I have learnt so much from the games I've played against him on vassal, but of course there's this big negative perception out there, and he doesn't get to 'teach' the game as much as he could otherwise. That's a sad thing for the community.

*Unrelated*

Wow I just went past 200 posts and didn't realise it lol

Maybe this disconnect is part of the problem? You can see how phrases like "private forums," "dwarfs bloomilk," "Gamers regulars are busy" can be perceived as elitism.

Jugular

To fix an issue you have to deal with the truth's. INTERNET TRAFFIC is a HUGE issue I believe. The rift is a only between a few people, therefore, the issues should already have been resolved if the people wanted them to be. The only issue for me is i want the v-set on the squad builder with the mouse over stat's like the majority of the people in the community. I personally am going to buy the v-set and try to run tourney's around my neck of the woods to keep peeps interest in SWM. Lets just be action based about keeping the community strong and hope squad builder gets the v-sets.

May the Swartz be with you

I'll give you a small picture. :)

There are currently 204 topics, with a total of 3283 posts in the hidden Design section of the forums over at Gamers. This is ONLY for working on the V set. So, if you figure that major work on the set started about 5-6 months ago, that's an average of 500 posts per month, or 17 posts per day. When you consider there are mostly about 6 or so people on average working on the project (lots more than 6, but that's about the average of those posting in the design area), that's 3 posts per day from each of those people. And honestly, the major work on the set started in like June and July, so you can push that to more like 5-6 posts per day from each of the majorly involved people. (EDIT: Plus, we're talking big posts here most of the time too. Not just one liner little things. Usually stuff with lots of thought and time put into it) Plus, time on top of that for play-testing outside of time on the forums, etc. It's a LOT of time involved. Plus, we probably have no less than 50 people total contributing to the project directly, between the Designers, Playtesters, Quality Control, Graphics, etc.

Most days I log onto Gamers and I hit the 'View New Posts' button, and there are 10 times as many new threads in the Design area as there are for the entire rest of the forum, lol.