- You are popular because the former FWP members went out of their way to make Forgotten Wars a household name. Were it not for jcompton, I assure you, most of you would be on TeamBG. I certainly would.
Small flaw in that theory: Jason Compton wasn't the founder of FWP. There's nothing to indicate it wouldn't have become a success if he hadn't been around.
There's also absolutely nothing to suggest that other sites such as the Gibberlings Three, the Chosen of Mystra and the Black Wyrm lair wouldn't have existed if it hadn't been for FWP.
That's actually something I find myself thinking about every so often. If I had a time-machine--or alternate-dimension-machine, I suppose--I'd like to see what would've happened had the development of Kelsey not put FWP on the map, and
WeiDU as well. We wouldn't've seen the rennaissance of
NPC mods that followed, as the trend in those days seemed to be "okay, we've got item packs down to a T, now let's do giant quest mods!"
I don't want to be as egotistical as to say that no one would've come along and done the same/similar things to galvanize modding if Jason and I hadn't been around, but I
can say that it wouldn't've been anyone at FWP at the time.
This may all seem rather off-topic, but it really does relate to the topic at hand. See, things back in the day went roughly as follows:
- Ken and Neil didn't get along.
- FWP was basically Neil and his buddies' "TBG smellz" site.
- By association, Ken didn't like anyone at FWP. Jason and I sort of blundered into that accidentally. (Although I'm sure there would've been confrontation in the end anyways, but that's straying from my line of thought.)
So yeah, the two of us helped Weimer create
WeiDU, under FWP's banner, and Ken took exception to there being a really sweet tool out there that wasn't under his sway. We can only speculate as to his reasons for being so irrational, but for a large part, I think it's because he disliked Jason so much. It was a long uphill battle to actually let people know about
WeiDU, since Ken and Co. censored everything that was said about it at TeamBG, the largest site back then.
Now, what's happened here is not Jason saying, "Hey, look, everyone! It's an awesome tool that will revolutionise modding!" It's him making a joke about Bruce being manlier than Irenicus. The problem is that it's censorship based purely on the fact that the person with power dislikes the person making the post.
So that's about the gist of things as I saw/see them, and an explanation for those of you who don't think the history of
IE modding seems relevant to this argument.
Is the world a better place for having
WeiDU? Hell yes.
Is the world a better place for not having a lame joke about Bruce the Cockney Barfighter(s)? *Fucked if I know.
Will the world be a better place if, theoretically, a future post is deleted simply because the people in charge of the status quo don't like the guy who made that post? I contend that it won't. I am very passionate that history does not repeat in the way it did, because it caused a hell of a lot of frustration, let me tell you.
*In-joke alert! Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where that line is from!Here's to
SHS being a place where one is free to express one's ideas, despite their unpopularity.