Do we need AoEZone?

[Davion]

At this rate, AoEZone become a relic of the past.

1, so it must never go away

 

[ChiYu]

I want AoEZone, because it is the only place where I can check some discussions that happened some years ago. And Liquipedia needs a site as source. A Discord channel is not a public source for references.
If no AoEZone, we need another place to store everything or it will be lost forever.
I know that many old forums are not very active. But some are still there and have less posts per day than AoEZone. So if not expensive, it is good to keep, even if a bit slow and not much happening every day.
If PkZ can no longer host AoEZone, maybe his son can help.

 

[AttilaTheHun]

If PkZ can no longer host AoEZone, maybe his son can help.

Seems like it is already no longer up to PkZ...

PkZ is no longer the owner

 

[HongeyKong]

Imagine in a wrld where aoezone doesnt exist, we cant read the posts from those couple clowns......

 

[IYIyTh]

I blame the willful disengagement in an effort to control and curate things.. Why engage at all when you can just remove community interaction outside of my curated stream? I personally think they are cutting off their nose to spite their face and have harmed themselves long term. Community engagement (positive and negative,) are a feedback loop that keep the community thriving. Community engagement is silo'd currently.

It's painfully obvious that Discord servers are astro-turfed into veritable cliques and not "the future." The AOE2 subreddit is excellent for information and low-level game discussion, but has moderation issues and "upvoting/downvoting," are really just opaque forms of censorship that have the ability to stomp out any moderately meaningful discussion/discourse. AOEzone remains the only neutral site, where people of various languages can readily translate if necessary.

Moderation could certainly improve, but not to defend pro players whose feelings are hurt when someone doesn't agree with their viewpoints on game balance. Or to prevent threads discussing with data why they can't close out game 5 or 7 in a series consistently.

The spam-posts, flame-baiting, outright flaming, and general harassment should have been addressed years ago -- along with the awkward spam posts from people who claim to hate AOEzone, or claim to not want to be here in an infinite fit of irony -- still being here. Despite sadness of PKZ's leaving, I welcome the opportunity appoint new moderators either willing or able to do so as this is not a new problem and I didn't see many (if any,) new moderators appointed over the last several years.

If someone is a community leader and popular, they are likely to receive more criticism than an average person. That's part of the tradeoff of popularity and notoriety. It's part of being a public figure/celebrity in a community with a massive following. You aren't going to change that reality by "moderating," it away, and frankly -- you shouldn't. Those (public,) discussions are what engages and drives the scene.

For example, if you're a tournament coordinator -- it's probably fair to scrutinize why you and your team received a significant majority of funding compared to other content creators during (and shortly after already planned events were to take place,) your tenure.

Is that "negativity?" I personally think not. Will there be some hyperbole, like someone saying "they sold their soul," by publicly promoting another game platform and then returning when it didn't pan out? I think that's showbiz. That's part of the nature of being a prominent public figure and employing a literary device such as hyperbole to criticize a very real and understandable feeling regarding what they'd prefer the prominent figure cover (content-wise.)

I don't believe someone actually believes said player caster's soul is in stasis, nor does the player/caster care about the statement.

It's like when people complain about "devs," and you find 2000000 people saying "support the devs spaghetti code very hard job why so toxic?" People don't know who the devs are. The criticism is impersonal. They bought a product. Product doesn't work. General sense of people responsible (not Technician Level 8,) are ladened with criticism.

Do people genuinely feel that those responsible for the released and current state of the game (including patch history,) do not deserve criticism? Where can you do that? On a streamers channel who publicly fumes anytime criticism of the game at all is mentioned due to their relationship with Microsoft and those on the QA staff? On a discord that is owned by a player who has a relationship with someone on staff or is buddies with MS friends? What about on a discord with several content creators who are financially incentivized to squelch any DE criticism regardless of the state of the game for fear of being blackballed?

People care about the game (the good and the bad,) and want a place to discuss/debate it with objective (re unbiased/unsilo'd,) moderation.

AOEZone has been and continues to be the best place for that with far fewer flaws than elsewhere.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

AOEZone has been and continues to be the best place for that with far fewer flaws than elsewhere.

Not sure how much longer that's going to be the case under the new ownership unfortunately. One of the two posts of mine yesterday that robo silently deleted was a personal attack, even if true, but the other one absolutely wasn't targeted at anyone specifically and had no justification for removal other than saying things robo didn't want to see. He deserves credit for not also banning me, but still very concerning for those who treasure this forum as a venue with unbiased moderation. It is something I know for sure would have not been removed under PkZ.

Your point is about the issues with other channels for discussing is spot on of course. Whining about AoEZone being toxic has always been fundamentally about suppressing valid criticism of how the game has been handled the last 3+ years by those who feel threatened from this due to their personal sympathies or professional affiliations.

 

[robo]

One of the two posts of mine yesterday that robo silently deleted was a personal attack, even if true, but the other one absolutely wasn't targeted at anyone specifically and had no justification for removal other than saying things robo didn't want to see. He deserves credit for not also banning me, but still very concerning for those who treasure this forum as a venue with unbiased moderation. It is something I know for sure would have not been removed under PkZ.

I did not "silently delete" any of your posts. If a post is removed for moderation reasons the user always gets a notification about what was removed and why.

You may (or may not) notice that today is Saturday, and the most recent posts show as being from Tuesday, now what is more likely, no one posts anything for 3+ whole days, or the fact that AoEZone was down most of yesterday means that it must have been reset to a previous save state removing every post during that period?
This has happened before when PkZ was managing the forum btw

If your post was breaking any rules, good thing it was wiped clean and didn't need to be removed by a moderator.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

I did not "silently delete" any of your posts. If a post is removed for moderation reasons the user always gets a notification about what was removed and why.

You may (or may not) notice that today is Saturday, and the most recent posts show as being from Tuesday, now what is more likely, no one posts anything for 3+ whole days, or the fact that AoEZone was down most of yesterday means that it must have been reset to a previous save state removing every post during that period?
This has happened before when PkZ was managing the forum btw

If your post was breaking any rules, good thing it was wiped clean and didn't need to be removed by a moderator.

Oh cool, I am glad to hear that. Obviously much better than the alternatives. I was not aware deleted posts are notified with a moderation message as a matter of rule so I will keep that in mind. The forum was not down any of the times I checked it yesterday and I saw posts from recently when I looked today so I did not realize it had been through a state reset. That is definitely not something reasonable to attribute to the ownership change I agree.

The post was probably more borderline than really breaking the rules, since I didn't use any profane language or say anything untrue. It was just drawing attention to your apparent disinclination to clarify when asked by @T-West directly who the new ownership is. Obviously I think we can all make some educated guesses on that front but the lack of response just speaks to the same old pattern of poor communication with the community that has pretty much always been there. There is very much a perception that those involved in an official capacity are less concerned about being an honest link between Microsoft and the community than they are about lording their special status over others.

 

[Drunken_master]

well i gotta defend robo on this one

PKZ should been the one who made an anouncment that he give aoczone a new owner

 

[lecracheursagacite]

well i gotta defend robo on this one

PKZ should been the one who made an anouncment that he give aoczone a new owner

Yeah he should have, but that does not excuse robo, as a presumed representative of the new one, from not answering when asked.

 

[Progeusz]

it must have been reset to a previous save state removing every post during that period?

Is there any way to retrieve them through some cache or w/e? There were some really interesting posts that disappeared.

 

[Rayne]

Is there any way to retrieve them through some cache or w/e? There were some really interesting posts that disappeared.

If you’re referring to my post in response to Andrew’s about the #1 stuff I saw over years and parallels (saw your mentioning before aoezone went down), I can actually recreate that again in that topic or by pm if you’d like. I can also make it better as I was recovering from a headache when I wrote it. Would be very long though, not sure how many people are into long reads.

There’s something interesting I’d add from an old chess interview with Garry Kasparov who was #1 for 20 years that opens eyes on what it took to be #1. That’s where it gets longer, but I believe it applies to other sports/pursuits.

 

[robo]

Yeah he should have, but that does not excuse robo, as a presumed representative of the new one, from not answering when asked.

That is not my information to share. If they do not wish to advertise who they are, that is their business. I simply didn't want people complaining/harassing PkZ about site issues when it is no longer his responsibility.

Is there any way to retrieve them through some cache or w/e? There were some really interesting posts that disappeared.

no idea

 

[kalpit00]

sadge if aoezone dies I shall end as a Well Known Pikemen. Not sure how "well known" i am in this community but hey if this journey ends here, so be it. Thanks for this forum pKZ!

 

[govs]

Lets speculate who the new owner is, Trump, Bezos, Robo, MS or some random dude? Its not likely a profitable site to own but I guess we will never know since it is registered by a proxy ISP in Arizona (godaddy.com) .

 

[AoeWololo]

Aoezone's usp is that it's a safehaven away from insufferable topics like:

-Wow I finally made it to 1000 elo!
-I keep losing, why is this game so hard???
-We need civ X!
-OMG thank you so much developers for keeping this game alive!!
-Insert super funny meme
-We need more automation!

 

[YodaIamm]

Aoezone's usp is that it's a safehaven away from insufferable topics like:

-Wow I finally made it to 1000 elo!
-I keep losing, why is this game so hard???
-We need civ X!
-OMG thank you so much developers for keeping this game alive!!
-Insert super funny meme
-We need more automation!

Adding

- I finally beat moderate AI, Yay

 

[Funito]

I want AoEZone, because it is the only place where I can check some discussions that happened some years ago. And Liquipedia needs a site as source. A Discord channel is not a public source for references.
If no AoEZone, we need another place to store everything or it will be lost forever.

It's fun remembering the past lifes of the formers angry teens that now talk as if they are a CM who was told to protect their stock value and you know they may never say nothing real again

 

[Shakal]

-Insert super funny meme

-insert repost of super funny meme

 

[AttilaTheHun]

Aoezone is dying, but reddit seems to be death. So we are left with the official forums?!

 

[chris_voobly]

Aoezone is dying, but reddit seems to be death. So we are left with the official forums?!

Reddit is just on strike:

Reddit Strike Has Started | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

 

[archxeon]

Not sure how much longer that's going to be the case under the new ownership unfortunately. One of the two posts of mine yesterday that robo silently deleted was a personal attack, even if true, but the other one absolutely wasn't targeted at anyone specifically and had no justification for removal other than saying things robo didn't want to see. He deserves credit for not also banning me, but still very concerning for those who treasure this forum as a venue with unbiased moderation. It is something I know for sure would have not been removed under PkZ.

Your point is about the issues with other channels for discussing is spot on of course. Whining about AoEZone being toxic has always been fundamentally about suppressing valid criticism of how the game has been handled the last 3+ years by those who feel threatened from this due to their personal sympathies or professional affiliations.

I guess this is what some people would call "toxic"? Such accusations without evening asking first. If I were new here, I'd assume you had irrefutable evidence.

 

[Umdeuter]

I think Nicov's post was very accurate.

As usual, these people who consistently act with no respect make up bullshit of others being soft and their own lazy "opinions" being valuable counterpoints to some sort of mainstream. When it's quite simply: you have no respect for people and people realise that and nobody wants to engage with ****heads like that.

It's not at all about that casters and players don't like criticism. I think we have a very adult scene that deals mostly very well with critical opinions. People can take trash talk, people are self-critical, opinions diverge all the time. None of that is a problem except here.

Because here the amount of lazy a**hole posts is insanely high. It's not about critical opinions, it's about tone. Even when you're following a discussion here with a neutral opinion, it's terrible to read. A massive amount of posts show that the posters have more problems with themselves than with whatever they decided to **** on.

The tone is ridiculously negative, aggressive and unforgiving. The people who create a tone like this want to be destructive, not constructive. They help only themselves. And make this here a bad place because they don't care.

Keep telling yourself that you have valuable opinions that nobody likes to hear because everybody is so soft. Or maybe try to be half as self-critical as you expect all others to be.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

I guess this is what some people would call "toxic"? Such accusations without evening asking first. If I were new here, I'd assume you had irrefutable evidence.

It would have been toxic if I did not acknowledge my error in response to robo's clarification, explain why I didn't realize what had happened so he could understand I was not intentionally disregarding alternative evidence, and express my happiness that this is what had happened rather than what I initially thought.

 

[YodaIamm]

I think Nicov's post was very accurate.

As usual, these people who consistently act with no respect make up bullshit of others being soft and their own lazy "opinions" being valuable counterpoints to some sort of mainstream. When it's quite simply: you have no respect for people and people realise that and nobody wants to engage with ****heads like that.

It's not at all about that casters and players don't like criticism. I think we have a very adult scene that deals mostly very well with critical opinions. People can take trash talk, people are self-critical, opinions diverge all the time. None of that is a problem except here.

Because here the amount of lazy a**hole posts is insanely high. It's not about critical opinions, it's about tone. Even when you're following a discussion here with a neutral opinion, it's terrible to read. A massive amount of posts show that the posters have more problems with themselves than with whatever they decided to **** on.

The tone is ridiculously negative, aggressive and unforgiving. The people who create a tone like this want to be destructive, not constructive. They help only themselves. And make this here a bad place because they don't care.

Keep telling yourself that you have valuable opinions that nobody likes to hear because everybody is so soft. Or maybe try to be half as self-critical as you expect all others to be.

your post is reeking of same things which you are accusing others of