American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

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pbpb33
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American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#1 Post by pbpb33 » Thu Apr 15, 2010 1:09 am

I was recently looking for information on the latest award-winning AGS games, thinking maybe I'd find one or two new games to try out.

Unfortunately, unless someone is already familiar with particular AGS community blogs and websites, it can be a little tricky to find useful information about award winners from the last few years.

Some games are listed here:
http://www.americangirlscouts.org/AGSAw ... ?year=2006
While others, along with duplicate award year listings, are posted here, in what appears to be a totally different page format with awkward navigation features:
http://www.americangirlscouts.org/agswi ... wards_2009

And what's with the name "American Girl Scouts"? Maybe one or two people thought it'd be funny to use that for a domain name, but it's confusing for relative newcomers, like me, who might be interested in learning more about independent AGS games. Particularly when doing Google searches for terms like "AGS awards", for example, it is unclear whether search results in the domain name americangirlscouts.org are even relevant to what we're looking for. At least that was my experience, as someone not familiar with the ins and outs of the AGS online community blogs. Here's their explanation for this quirk: "This site exists because we like to tell stupid people that AGS stands for 'American Girl Scouts'" Hm, wonderful. Ha, ha.

Something else that has bothered me is that the award listings never say how many votes each of the nominees and winners received. This information is crucial for readers to be able to judge the worth of the awards process itself. I was left wondering: Was the competition close? Did only a handful of people actually vote? Was it only 35 people out of tens of thousands who actually download and play some of these games? How much stock should I put into these awards when trying to find a game to download and/or purchase? (note: I have posted about this in the past, and have nothing else to add now and don't wish to reopen previously covered arguments. Just wanted to mention it since it seemed related to the previously-mentioned concerns I had.) At least from what I have seen, the people posting the award winners have never shared any of this information with readers.

I don't like how many of those sites feel like insular, little clubs that seem to exist only for the same regulars. When I was looking around on the americangirlscouts.org site (and in pages that were NOT discussion boards, where it is expected to have people posting their opinions), I saw off-putting editorializing of a personal nature, particularly in their wiki pages. It seemed like a 4th grade gossip site, even if the posts are meant to be humorous rather than malicious.

A few examples:
http://www.americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/Pimping
"The excessive advertising of a game way beyond that appropriate for its artisitic merit. The most notorious examples of this are MillsJROSS with Ace Quest, alkis with Other Worlds and Vel with Who Wants To Live Forever. "

http://www.americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/Yahtzee
"Yahtzee became focused on both his writing and a comic book based on Arthur Yahtzee known as Yahtzee Takes On The World. Yahtzee also became a well known member of the AGS community, and it got to his head. He became rather arrogant and egotistical. Some of the members of the AGS Community began to dislike him. He eventually declared that he was too busy with his writing to work on games, and left the AGS community."

Just a thought for those people creating general AGS community websites: Please keep the annoying, insider, cliquish stuff on information pages to a minimum, if you want to attract new people to the AGS gaming community.

Aside from all that, I think it's great that people are making these AGS community websites... and, assuming they even see this, I hope they take my comments as nothing but constructive criticism from an adventure game fan.

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#2 Post by Klytos » Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:50 pm

Welcome to the AGS community. It's a strange place where it's best not to ask questions.

In my experience, I just ask anything I really need to here at AGDI, you'll get an answer and it'll actually be a good answer, not an insult.

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#3 Post by MusicallyInspired » Thu Apr 15, 2010 10:11 pm

The AGS boards have actually been helpful to me when I had questions (if you post in the noob board, anyway and don't follow the rules incorrectly by posting a newbie question in the tech boards). But yeah, it's a weird place. Strangely weird. I have no idea why most adventure gamers are so weird...

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#4 Post by Klytos » Fri Apr 16, 2010 5:39 am

To be honest, I have had some help at AGS. But I've also seen some major abuse and insulting of people for asking basic questions from some of the regulars over there.

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#5 Post by pbpb33 » Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:01 pm

Klytos wrote:To be honest, I have had some help at AGS. But I've also seen some major abuse and insulting of people for asking basic questions from some of the regulars over there.
Yeah, I was kind of put off when I saw some of the insider postings of a negative and personal nature, but maybe I just haven't really looked around those sites enough. Maybe I was a bit hasty or cranky when I wrote the first post in this thread... but it was just my initial impression. I felt like participating there would be like encroaching on a private gathering, though perhaps I was quick to judge. This is really the only AGS-related board I've posted on.. and, I have to say, the people here are always helpful and good-natured, even if I did seem to have sort of an inauspicious beginning here.

By the way, I think your website is great! All the info and previews are presented in such a fun way... I was scouring it the other day trying to figure out the name of the mystery project. I really enjoyed it... especially the "icon" menu for the KQ3 webpage. I'm not just saying it to kiss up... just want you guys to know that the effort is appreciated!

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#6 Post by Lady Pyro » Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:47 am

I know it's a bit off topic but I just read their page on Yahtzee. I didn't know he made the game 5 Days a Stranger! I played that years ago, It was great! Also I didn't realize there were so many sequels to it. I've learned something today.

I know what you mean about feeling like a forum or any place really, is a closed in little club. There used to be a comic shop by my apartment that did that. Everyone who worked there would play Warhammer and if you walked in while they were playing one guy would scowl and sigh before going behind the counter. The rest would stare at you until you left.
Man, I would tool around for a good 45 minutes just to make them angry.
Sorry, I know it's not quite the same thing. I guess I'm just feeling chatty tonight.

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#7 Post by Lambonius » Sat Apr 17, 2010 6:43 am

@Lady Pyro:

You should definitely check out all of Yahtzee's sequels--he really fleshed out an interesting storyline for that series that gets deeper with each sequel. They're all pretty great if you have the time to check them out!

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#8 Post by Lady Pyro » Sat Apr 17, 2010 2:07 pm

Lambonius wrote:@Lady Pyro:

You should definitely check out all of Yahtzee's sequels--he really fleshed out an interesting storyline for that series that gets deeper with each sequel. They're all pretty great if you have the time to check them out!
I defiantly will if I have time this weekend. I'm excited, that first game was great! (If I remember correctly)

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#9 Post by Quest For Glory Fan » Sat Apr 17, 2010 2:34 pm

Lady Pyro wrote: I defiantly will if I have time this weekend.
I'm not the kind of person to point out typos and such but this one always makes me laugh.

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#10 Post by Lady Pyro » Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:06 pm

No, I meant it that way. I do so with defiance! I will stick it to the man and play a video game :lol

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Re: American Girl Scouts? Thoughts on AGS community sites

#11 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sun Apr 18, 2010 12:43 am

In true Yahtzee fashion, too!

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