Questions to Yinshining

[Jon Miller]

hey Yinshining

I have some iimportant questions too

are you one body with two heads (a yin head and a shining head)?

or are you a duality like God is a trinity?

if this last is not the case what are you?

Jon Miller, perhaps available for emergency summaries (I type real slow though)

[yin26]

Theben,

I obviously share your concerns. One of the reasons the last list was delayed so long was that some people just bailed w/o saying anything. So I begged and some others really stepped up and helped.

I'm basically judging from the "END OF AUGUST DEADLINE" thread I posted. But looking at that, I can see some real trouble. As it happens, I simply won't have time to do summaries thanks to a nasty project at work, so we have some options:

1) Just send what we do have and let the other threads go until version 3, by which time we can hopefully find new TMs.

2) Beg people to do some summaries and send whatever we can get done.

Anyway, your stuff will definitely be sent, even if other threads have to wait for version 3. What do you think?

Jon,

Right now I'm one guy with one very hung over head. I don't know if you've ever had Korean soju, but it's 25%. Not too bad, I guess, but when you drink it like water, you pretty much send yourself to hell...

The Shining part of YinShining is a friend of mine who helped out a lot behind the scenes for version 1. And realizing I tried to do too much on my own last time (and the quality of the list went down a bit because of that), I wanted to get more people involved in a significant way this time.

Speaking of, you stepped in the line of fire: Slow typers are welcome, too!

[Theben]

How many of the thread masters have you heard from?
What will happen if the deadline comes & goes w/o a summary from a particular thread?

I'm growing concerned that a number of them will not be completed by the end of this month, and that mine & other's ideas will not reach Firaxis. I'm certain I'm not the only one who has this concern. In particular the UNITS thread has reached over 120 posts & this did not have a summary of the previous one!

[loinburger]

Hey Yin:

You need any backups for summaries (in case people bail on you), just let me know. I've quit my job and am back to Full Time Student, so I can help out whenever I'm not in classes or passed out.

[yin26]

techno:

I'm not sure you fully understand the hell you just signed up for, but I love you for it!

Seriously, though, writing these summaries takes a significant amount of time, but it's a labor of love. If you really are up for it, I'm more than sure I'll need your help. Of course, you'll be given credit in the list right along with the other TMs who didn't bail.

Big help. We all thank you.

Yin

[Harel]

Yin, could you pls explain how will the new forums work?
Will we post on the old forums ideas, and only edit the summaries ( which will appear alone on the new forums ), or maybe we will have fixed threads on the new forums and place our new ideas there?
Maybe it will work on the same idea at those forums, only that we will try to keep it more orderly? ( no people starting silly threads on there own ).

[yin26]

Harel (and everybody),

The idea is that I will take the names off the "August Deadline" thread and start with those: ONLY those guys will be able to post a new thread in this forum, but anybody can reply.

Then, for the "Summary/About" forum, only those guys can post summaries and nobody can reply. That forum will be used for keeping the summaries separate and updated in a "clean" way. Also, if we get good at that, sending a list will be easy because we can just take the summaries and put them together. Of course, the summaries will need to be in the correct format, like our first version.

Any questions or better ideas? Let me know...

Yin

[loinburger]

Hey Yin:

Is there going to be a Version 3 list summary sent eventually, or will the Version 2 be the last?

[yin26]

technophile:

Some of the guys who have been around a while, like Snowfire, look at Civ3's development to this point and feel that a version 3 might be a case of diminishing returns. It does, after all, take a lot of work to put these lists together.

I'm very curious what the reaction from Firaxis will be after we send list 2. I'll do my absolute best to get some feedback from them regarding whether or not they'd like another list and, if so, in what areas we should focus.

If that fails, I'll leave it to the Civ community here to decide. I'm sure Firaxis will still read any lists we send and, if possible, incorporate the doable ideas. So: Let's see the reaction after list 2 and let's also look at people's willingness here to continue.

[Maniac]

If there isn't going to be a list v3.0, I would like to know which ideas of us Firaxis are gonna use. Is that possible?

[yin26]

My guess is that the closest we'll get is a general "Thanks to all the people on the Internet who sent in ideas." Of course, WE will know whose ideas made in the game, won't we. Actually, Mark is keeping all this archived just for that purpose.

I've said it before. Mark and Dan run a great site.

[Maniac]

Yes of course we will know it, but only after we bought the game. But I would like to know some general things pretty soon eg Public Works or not, stacked combat or not, super 300 tech tree or not...

So that if Firaxis ignores an idea everybody wants, we can react before it's too late.

[yin26]

I've sent close to 6 e-mails begging Firaxis to see the same logic: Don't keep the fans in the dark...that's just begging for problems.

Firaxis likes problems I guess.

I know my word processor has a master document feature, by which you can keep separate chapters in separate files and link them to a master file. I don't know how MS Word implements it (I am 99.44% sure it does) it could help in several ways.

If you could do your compilation that way the chapters would only need to have text and simple formatting. Pagination, indexing, headers, footers etc are controlled in the master. Graphics like the globes could be done in separate title page files, too (plus header/footer control if MS Word master doc doesn't control). My backup word processor WordPerfect Suite 8 (came on computer) can't handle those graphics and some of the other things MS Word does, despite "import" feature. (Hah!) Those of us who don't have (and can't stand) MS Word could then access individual chapter files with WordPad for easier reading.

Also, when I did use MS Word on the computer at work it took so long to load 182 pages and repaginate (which MS Word does on loading because of the printer driver, and occasionally when you do a GO TO page#) that I would give up in disgust.

[Theben]

Tell me about it. I had to organize 144 pages of stuff (on MS Word).
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 25, 1999).]</font>

[loinburger]

and I'm still condensing my 120 pages...

[Koyaanisqatsi]

What are you guys summarizing? I've got the longest thread here, and don't expect it to come out nearly that long.

[Maniac]

Bell :

How will the summary look like? A part containing the ideas of Theben and Jon Miller and than a section called Quotes containing Harel's and my ideas?

And, Yin, there are several threads where it's ages ago that something has been heart of the TM. Will they have a summary? Since Civ3 is already being programmed, this list will be the most important and influential and thus every thread should have a summary.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

How will the summary look like? A part containing the ideas of Theben and Jon Miller and than a section called Quotes containing Harel's and my ideas?

There will be two sections, one that is an integrated summary of all ideas, and one that is the summaries you and Harel posted. All I was really looking for on those were the final decisions, not really the reasoning, so what you posted will be fine.

[Maniac]

Bell, answer for you on the SE thread.

Yin, (or Shining1 is also ok. This is after all Questions to Yinshining) has Religion still a TM? Raingoon, MBrazier, I and Will have worked out an entire religion model out there and it would be waste if it didn't come in a summary and in the List.

[yin26]

I agree it would be a shame if all the threads don't get summarized. Barring any specific feedback from Brian and crew, this most likely will be the most influential list.

But as far as TMs, the people who posted in here are it...so we might need to find some volunteers if we want all threads represented.

[loinburger]

If that's the case, I suggest the lucky victim gets crackin, because there are only four or five days left for the summaries to get finished. They could always get postponed, but what's the fun in that...

No dice on me taking another one, either, and the same probably holds true for most of the TM's. So: M@ni@c, you volunteering?

[Maniac]

Technopile, I don't know if I am the right person for summarizing because I might bias my own ideas.

But there is a religion model and I'm willing to send it to Yin's hotmail, but that doesn't really count as an official model because, although most of the ideas of the List v1.0 are in the model, there are some others not. So it's not a complete summary. Will and Harel (wants a SE Religion category) don't agree with it.
If I just do an addendum to the official religion model, saying that some people still want religion SE etc, is it all right?

And what is the last day of sending summaries to Yin?

[yin26]

I think both Shiny and myself are willing to wait as long as we know work is being done. A few more days won't hurt the list, so if people are interested, please just let us know so we can wait.

The 'official' deadline is Sept. 1st.

[Shining1]

Yeah, Sept1 is a good place to start. Once we have at least a few summaries to start working on, we'll have a much better idea of what needs to be done.

Fortunately, I've got a week or two of holidays starting from tommorrow, so I should be around the forums to see what turns up.

Brian wants list version2 to be a work in progress rather than a seperate entity, so it will probably take some work to sort out the new ideas from the old. Anything the Thread masters do to help with this (especially the established threadmasters from the original list) will be extremely useful.

Personally, my view is that there should be a list version3.0, but that it should be a more long term affair, over say the next 6 months. If we can get around to convincing gamespot or a similar zine to give us a plug, this may help.

I will email Brian about this, and find out what his views are if at all possible. If not, then version 2.0 should be the last list for a long while.

[Harel]

Shining, I have to disagree!
Either people want the next list to be many months from now, or never to exist at all: a final list of a sort, when we only update the threads on the new, orderly forums.

This is just plain wrong! It will kill the great movement we have here. When we finished the first list, it was just a week before Yin told us to start originizing for the second list. It kept things moving. Every time there is no "dead-line" in the forums, people don't post at all.
The difference is between 5 posts an hour, to 5 posts a day, at best. I know, since I try to check apolyton several times a day.

When I am summarizing, like right now, I am booming with new ideas. I haven't posted anything new in my economy thread for weeks, but when I started doing the summary I had a dozen new improvements to people ideas and new suggestions.

My point is, that I think that when we do finish this list, we should jump right up and go for the third. With the new forums that will keep the summarizes all nice and spiffy, we could really push things forward. And people just keeping joining in the forums, brining new blood.

Therefor, I think a fine date for the third list would be the start of the new millenium , three months from now. My guess is, this is the time that Firaxis will start moving forward with the civ III project, creating a new web-page and starting to publish it's ideas and info.

My 2.54649 cents worth.

[Ecce Homo]

My new MISCELLANEOUS summary is soon finished, but I wonder one thing:

Many of the early suggestions should fit better into other threads. Should I post them in these threads? Should I include them in my summary?

Thank you in advance.

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

[yin26]

Ecce Homo:

You might have seen that some threads have lost a TM, so I'd hate to lose ideas in your thread. If you can, please just summarize what you have and then we can hopefully organize a bit better for a version three, assuming people want to do one.

Thanks for all the time you're putting into this.

Yin

[Ecce Homo]

I came to think of the GAME ATMOSPHERE thread. Is it disbanded or just temporarily vacant?

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo