Introducing the Planetary Vanguards

I don't think it's fair to say concerns are being dismissed. It's just hard to know whether the concerns are founded until we've had a "probation period". Say, a fortnight, where the community, vanguards and Uber see whether this improves communication or not.
I agree that you could argue the list of members is not necessarily relative to experience or enthusiasm, but as has already been said, it's merely the people who chose to band together and write to Uber. Didn't they say they would consider new members? I'm sure people such as yourselves Brian, WOULD be more than eligible.

Is my phone acting up or has one of the most deserving people left the PVs? Maxpowerz use your word and explain please?

I suffer from social anxiety disorder.
I was not expecting the role, and unfortunately after the initial shock of "hey your a vanguard" wore off "anxiety" kicked in an i shut down to the point where i had to ask to leave..
There was no internal issue with me, it's more of a personal "Hey i need time to deal with this" issue..
I hope that helps clear things up..

Yeah that's fine man take your time. As I mentioned you thoroughly deserve some recognition for all the work you do helping people on the forums And I commend you for it.
This just makes me want you in there more.

i think it was easy for me before on the forums because i was mostly "Invisible" and slowly making friends at my own pace..
When the vanguard thing kicked in i just felt way too overloaded.
i was no longer "Invisible" and that i think shocked me the most..

I'm actually impressed with the amazingness of Planetary Annihilation and the effect it has had on me socially,
Before hand i was very un-social, i never talked to anyone outside of my immediate family and emplyee's inside my small business.
But here i am making friends, helping with issues and just generally learning to socialize (im also learning german too)..
*High 5* uber....

Obviously it's going to be a bit of a bumpy ride for me, but as a 31 year old father of 2 (soon to be 3) i think it's actually about time i learn some good social skills..

This stuff is fantastic! Great effort by all involved!

Honestly, genuinely surprised to learn about this.

Man, that sucks, I take being able to socialise with people for granted sometimes...It's heartening to see that this game and its community has helped you come out of your shell a bit

It's a shame we never see stories like this in the news, as opposed to "teen guns down school mates, oh look he played computer games!" :/

Anyway, yeh, Planetary Vanguards, an interesting concept

Seriously as pointed out by several times above (and in previous topics in these forums) such a poll will not work unless you can force a representative sample of the communities to vote. And note I said communities, that's not just the forum users (Reddit PA, Steam PA, Kickstarter backers), you would need something like 10,000 votes based on the number of backers to get something that represented even 25% of all backers. And you must force people to vote or make it in their interest to do so. Otherwise only those passionately for or against the idea (and generally those against as a result of human nature) will bother voting and a vocal minority will dominate the poll. Based on previous polls I'd expect no more than a few hundred to vote otherwise (and 300/40,000 is a very small percentage).

If the car has crappy tires and broken windows one may not be happy giving it a test run.

Do we look that broken? ^^

Haha nah couldn't resist after his analogy.

Hmm,

I fully understand that there is the necessity to have speakers of the PA gamer community to facilitate a shift from quantity to quality in the communication with the devs.

What I don't understand is, why did nobody ask the community: "Do you trust these people?".

If one wants to represent the community in some way, the community should at least trust him. Its not relevant whether this person reads the forum on a very regular basis. Its not relevant whether this person is a friend with some other - maybe already trusted - person. The only thing that matters is whether the community trusts this person.

But if you trust in Uber, can you not trust in their selection?

As we've said, We're not so much the final group as the people that Uber are entrusting it's implementation with, if making the program work means making changes, we'll be making changes.

Mike

Yeeh Car analogies:

We are looking at a few pictures of a car with 12 (now 11) dudes stating that it's the car that will fix all of our travel problems. Who the 12 dudes are doesn't appear until page 5 of this thread. The car guidelines don't appear until page 4 of this thread. The original and very relevant start of the car initiative is a letter composed by the 12 disciples and shrouded in mystery.

A test run will be made, but it's not stated how long this test run will be, what the standards are, and who judges it. Also no data will be colected or distributed of this test run! Woohoo!


Translation:
In my opinion this is a very crappy start for the Vanguards.

1: The contents of the letter that started this all aren't made public.

2: The members of the Vanguard aren't introduced in the OP until someone suggested it.

3: A CoC only appears at page 4 of this thread.

4: The Vanguards never officially acknowledged a test period, nor how long and what it's standards could be.

5: The Vanguards have stated multiple times that they will not be registering what their forwarding to Uber will entail, even though they are representing en presenting the ideas of the community. The community has no way of finding out if their ideas are represented in a fair and balanced manner.

6: The Vanguard have only been around for 2 days, already one of them has left the group.

7: The Vanguard will (as it appears in their CoC) get information that at that time can't be shared with the rest of the community. Then why share it with the Vanguards in the first place?


Some more questions:
25: Will the Vanguard be using Realm resources in any way for Vanguard activity. This entails The Realm Teamspeak. I'm especially interested in what Realm community leader and Vanguard Wrongcat and Realm PA lead and Vanguard Greppy have to say about this.

A few good points, questions are answered at a decent pace and the effort seems to be there. The execution is just lacking and the lack of accountability towards the community shocking.

I don't think trust is the issue here. Well at least not for me. I have in some stage been in contact with most members and they are great people and will do a great job. Should some have gracefully declined? Yes, but if they put in the work great. Best of luck with it.

Having been an ex member of the Realm and invited several times back to their teamspeak for large games and discussions I know that the large majority would welcome vanguard meetings and be honored to have them there. Maybe a few disgruntled members won't be so pleased.

Obviously I'm not up to date with the Realm situation, but I know once you were realms PA leader and are now not. Feels to me like there is some bad blood there and these forums shouldnt be the place to argue or discuss them.

yeh gotta agree there

but also with this I have very few posts but I'm here at least 2 times almost everyday reading its just that alot of the time someone has already beat me to the point i was going to make so they get a like not a repeat post unless I particularly agree ^^^

With the results of this selection... I dunno. This selection isn't really a selection but whoever cosigned this letter was put in. Some of the people in the Vanguard are very deserving of being in the Vanguard. Some, not quite so much.

This is one of my main concerns. And my main concern is how the Vanguard keeps on dismissing concerns and not addressing or attempting to provide solutions for the concerns that have been brought up by several people, including some influential forum members.

They mentioned the letter in this post, but Cwarner mentioned that it isn't the nicest letter to be stickies on the front page.

Also what "data" are you expecting? They said they will relay information to the community from uber, and they haven't had chance to do so just yet. Maybe wait till they have a tid-bit of info so they can then share it?

They have the letter, and are still undecided on it. I would give them time to mull this one over .

This Planetary Vanguard is a work in progress. I'm sure they didn't know what to expect or have "Standard" for community members when there founding started.

WHat do you mean by Register? like, have a forum thread with the posts they register as sent to uber and they are looking into it?

He left the group and stated his reasons, Its not the first time in the world that this has happened.

So they can pull these tid bits of information and give a Brain status dump when uber is absolutely sure that those ideas are coming to the forum posters. I don't see another reason other then to relieve stress from uber from having to make those threads themselves.

When I read through the posts in this thread, many are on the topic of trust. Take the car - analogy for example:

judging quality and capabilities of something has a crucial effect on the trust I have to something.

From the dictionary: trust - firm reliance on the integrity, ability of something, someone

So, at least for me, this is about trust. I don't say that I don't trust the current vanguards, but I also can't say that I do. Seems that they have to prove that they are trustworthy