Quote from: Benoist;321254ENWord's support of 4e and WotC makes it less and less relevant on the OGL front, IMO. Or rather, all ghettos compared, it makes ENWorld now about as relevant to OGL products and general gaming as RPGnet is relevant to d20 games.

As for the lack of relevance to the general gaming public, I think the clique-ish, "better than thou" attitude of some of ENWorld and CM's members is taking care of it much faster than any critic ever could.

What support of 4e and WOTC do you think EnWorld and CM offers?

Quote from: Mistwell;321264What support of 4e and WOTC do you think EnWorld and CM offers?

A vast amount of moral support at the very least, in the form of sucking up to any and all WotC employees, shutting down any criticism of fourth edition and its design tenets, the overall policital correctness of the place to stop conversations, then the clique-ishness of CM to shut down unmoderated conversations. Etc. Ad nauseam.

Look, dude. We've been over this before and I know you're just asking to start arguing about it.

I'm only giving you the courtesy of answering your post so as to not let you completely in the dark, but now, I just won't address any of your "questions" and "remarks" about ENWorld, because you clearly have a horse in this race. I'm just tired of your constant shilling.

So... I just won't bother: you're right.
You win. Have fun bragging about it on the Asshatery thread of CM.

Just so you know, I won't be answering any of your provocations on this thread in the future. Thank you.

Quote from: Benoist;321267A vast amount of moral support at the very least, in the form of sucking up to any and all WotC employees, shutting down any criticism of fourth edition and its design tenets, the overall policital correctness of the place to stop conversations, then the clique-ishness of CM to shut down unmoderated conversations. Etc. Ad nauseam.

Look, dude. We've been over this before and I know you're just asking to start arguing about it.

I'm only giving you the courtesy of answering your post so as to not let you completely in the dark, but now, I just won't address any of your "questions" and "remarks" about ENWorld, because you clearly have a horse in this race. I'm just tired of your constant shilling.

So... I just won't bother: you're right.
You win. Have fun bragging about it on the Asshatery thread of CM.

Just so you know, I won't be answering any of your provocations on this thread in the future. Thank you.

Are you the French Canadian user formerly known as Odhanan?

Quote from: Mistwell;321271Are you the French Canadian user formerly known as Odhanan?

I am (though I must say to jdrakeh, I am not French Canadian, but a Frenchman through and through).
I am also aware the point was just raised on CM.
You do know there are PMs for that, right?

Quote from: Benoist;321274I am (though I must say to jdrakeh, I am not French Canadian, but a Frenchman through and through).
I am also aware the point was just raised on CM.
You do know there are PMs for that, right?

I didn't know it was a private matter.

Whatever cliquishness you think there is at CM, you're invited into the clique.  If you've felt unwelcome at CM, I'm sorry about that.

Quote from: Mistwell;321277I didn't know it was a private matter.

Whatever cliquishness you think there is at CM, you're invited into the clique.  If you've felt unwelcome at CM, I'm sorry about that.

It's alright. I answered, didn't I?
I'm not interested in being part of CM at all. I would surely end up being poor company there. At least, with me on this forum, you still have the option of ignoring me without spoiling any fun on the Asshatery thread. Thank you for the offer, though.

Quote from: Benoist;321278It's alright. I answered, didn't I?
I'm not interested in being part of CM at all. I would surely end up being poor company there. At least, with me on this forum, you still have the option of ignoring me without spoiling any fun on the Asshatery thread. Thank you for the offer, though.

OK, fair enough.

Starblazer Adventures was being sold at last GenCon (at least that's where I got it), although I don't know how that kind of pre-release falls with regard to the ENnies eligibility timing. And I admit, I was pulling for it too.

I was glad to see the Silver for Swords and Wizardry, though.

I'm just going to stay out of the debate about how meaningful the awards are, since I find my own Gold very meaningful to me.  I do find an apt comparison between the Origins Awards with the Oscars or Hugos (with the focus on designers and the vote among Origins attendees) and the ENnies and the People's Choice Awards (with the public voting) and those focuses will skew perspectives.

I will note, however, the statement from several speakers (I think the WotC rep was even one of them, but I may not be remembering correctly; I'm pretty sure Peter Adkison was, at any rate) praising the breadth of systems represented in the nominations, and I have to agree that this is a very good thing. Even with WotC's relative dominance, a number of others made a respectable showing (Dark Heresy, Song of Ice and Fire, Mouse Guard, and so on), and the nominations were a joy to see, and heartwrenching to vote on.

Eh.  D&D always seems to clean house at these award things if gamers get to vote on them.

D&D owns RPGs.
Magic owns CCGs.
Warhammer 40K owns minis gaming.

Its just how it is.  They have the most active playerbases in their respective genres and if they do a product eligible for a vote they are gonna garner more votes than anyone else just by sheer popularity.

Its better to just look at what is nominated as others have mentioned and not put too much weight into it.

Much like any other award winner its really nothing big anyhow.  Some folks like it, others don't.  It may be good, it might be ass.  

But I have never really seen any nerd product (or even non nerd product) award winner get too much of a boost from winning an award.  

If you hate rap/hip hop and Hip Hop Album X wins the best album Grammy you still probably won't buy it or care.  Maybe a bit spergy if you hate rap/hip hop that much perhaps.

Consumer vote awards usually just have already massively popular things winning.  

Heck I bet in this case many Ennie voters never even played or bought anything outside of 4th ed D&D/WotC products.

I think WotC sucks eggs mind you, but they have the rights to do a few games I like.  (Such as Heroscape which wouldn't have anything recent if it wasn't for them, though where Marvelscape boosters or post Expansion 9 product is nobody knows.  And SW Minis is a good bit of fun even if I quit buying boosters.  I like the new terrain sets and want all 4 not that the game does well enough for most stores to stock it.  And their deal to give away the SW Minis Clone Wars starters if you buy X dollars in product was a dang smart move.  Magic players easily drop that much coin on your average week.  Hell, buy a Fat Pack get SW Minis Starter.  Solid idea.  Their Dungeon Tiles are one of the few genuinely GOOD consistent deals in gaming.  10 bucks for 4 pages of double sided hard cardboard gaming tiles.  Want more?  Printer/Scanner/Copiers are cheap as chips now and even Color Lasers are only around a half a gee now.)

Oh well.  Because of board comments here and there I want to look into Mouse Guard both the RPG AND the comic which looks lovely, almost a darker heroic take on that old Redwall novel series.

Quote from: Balbinus;321255Quixotically, I don't think they are relevant, but I'm still a bit annoyed that a quickstart won best free game.

I don't think quickstarts should be eligible for that prize, they're not full games.

Well done S&W though.

I agree.  It's irritating that a piece of crippleware could beat out a full-fledged game.

Kudos to Swords & Wizardry nonetheless!

Quote from: tashkal;321332Starblazer Adventures was being sold at last GenCon (at least that's where I got it), although I don't know how that kind of pre-release falls with regard to the ENnies eligibility timing. And I admit, I was pulling for it too.

You have to keep in mind the final voting is the people's choice voting. Smaller (in some sense...) titles with little market penetration have a disadvantage when it comes to the final vote.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;321450You have to keep in mind the final voting is the people's choice voting. Smaller (in some sense...) titles with little market penetration have a disadvantage when it comes to the final vote.

Oh, I know; in truth, this is one of the things I worried about with the podcast award.

On the quickstarts in the Free Product category, I'm on the fence. I looked back to see how prior years nominations went, and was reminded that a year or two back a nomination went to Black Industries' web site, and past winners have included Portable Hole Full of Beer and the Game Mechanics' initiative cards, so they clearly don't limit "product" to games. I do personally feel that full games in the category should have an advantage, for obvious reasons, but I don't want to denegrate quickstarts entirely, since they're basically short adventures meant to teach the basics of the game they're from, and they're not necessarily just dash-off crap-fests. So maybe Best Adventure? Do enough of these get made to justify their own category? I don't know.

Quote from: tashkal;321458and was reminded that a year or two back a nomination went to Black Industries' web site,

and it's still a mystery why it didn't win.

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuck;320833Its one of those things where being nominated is the real prize.

Once you get past the judges, then it turns into the People's Choice awards and the biggest name companies are going to garner most of the popular vote.

Of course, its completely self-serving of me to think that

No, I think that's valid.

The judges had 41 different systems entered this year - about 26,000 pages in close to 300 products. I'm really glad to see it getting away from d20 and embracing the indie games. I think the nominations do an awfully good job of separating the wheat from the chaff and highlighting the best books of the past year. I also think the top ten in each category would be almost as useful as a shopping list, especially in the Best Game category.

Oh, and why the hell aren't people talking about how damn sexy that master of ceremonies was*? That's the real news. Hmmph.

 - Piratecat (3 or 4-time judge, and ENnies MC, for those keeping track of such things)

* Don't answer that.

Quote from: One Horse Town;321460and it's still a mystery why it didn't win.

Cause not enough people voted for it. Remember: judges nominate the top 5, and then it's a fan-based popularity contest. Which is cool, as it encourages community-building, but not necessarily indicative of which of those five products is "best."