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von Marwitz

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The unknown is how many people actually play ASL. Without that information everything else is just speculation. I'm not even sure if it's possible that know that figure. I suppose copies sold would give a starting point, obviously does not equate to the number of actual players.
Some more food for speculation:

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von Marwitz
 

olli

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The unknown is how many people actually play ASL. Without that information everything else is just speculation. I'm not even sure if it's possible that know that figure. I suppose copies sold would give a starting point, obviously does not equate to the number of actual players.

Your point is well taken. How does a person learn that VASL exits?
A lot learn from FB Forums which are now used more that Consim and here, there are several groups there now Including a design one and a SK one
 

Robin Reeve

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FB is another resource.
But much more volatile than a forum.
I don't think that GS and FB (or the Slack or Discord groups) are comparable.
 

bprobst

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I know nothing about Facebook. Is the price monetary or just a blot on your soul?
Once you join Facebook, you lose all legal rights to your soul. It may not be a "blot", per se, it just doesn't belong to you any more. A lot of people seem fine with that.

I can well believe ... indeed I'm certain of it ... that there are ASL players who have never, ever tried any form of "online experience" for ASL -- not even browsing a discussion forum or signing up to a mailing list. At most, they might use an on-line retailer to purchase their ASL products. Such people are 100% satisfied with their ftf games and don't need anything else. There's a very good chance that they only ever play the same opponent (which might be themselves), or a small local group of opponents. They're not interested in going to tournaments (and probably would know nothing about them, other than whatever they see written in the ASL Journal).

Whether these people constitute a majority of ASL players is the great, unknowable question. We can speculate on it forever, but we'll never get anything close to a definitive answer.

And then, of course, there are the people who know all about VASL but simply aren't interested in using it (for whatever reason). It would be marginally easier to get an idea of how many players fall into that category, but only marginally. You could try and run online surveys but of course there's no guarantee that you'll get anything approaching enough data to be able to speculate reasonably. (A lot of people may browse a forum without ever participating.) I personally know of several ASL players who do play VASL (at least sometimes) but never read online discussion forums.

So ... basically Pitcavage makes a statement that's meant to sound authoritative and thoughtful but is actually quite meaningless. He doesn't know and can't know the answer to the question that he puts forward, and no-one else can know the answer either. All it does is try to cast "shade" onto the question of whether VASL is "important". I repeat my earlier translation of his comments: since VASL isn't important to him, he's assuming that it can't be important, period.
 

von Marwitz

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I know nothing about Facebook. Is the price monetary or just a blot on your soul?
The price is your data that FaceBook accumulates and uses not to your advantage but to the advantage of its customers at your cost. At this point, monetary considerations may kick in, but these are indirect. Moreover FaceBook is not up to its responsibility with regard to what it allows your data to be used for. Just one word - 'Cambridge Analytica'. One case, no exception. If this weren't enough, FaceBook allows and promotes the dissemination of outright lies and content that helps to divide and to radicalize society because such content is viewed more often and thus generates more revenues for commercials that FaceBook earns its money with - to hell with ethic considerations. FaceBook repeatedly abuses its dominant market position. FaceBook evades taxes beyond all bounds of indecency. The list could be continued.

I wouldn't use it even if they paid me good money for it.

von Marwitz
 
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Pitman

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Again, a great many ASL players are not really part of the online ASL community at all. I see this on a regular basis when I get e-mails from people who, having played ASL against their buddy for decades, decide on a whim to google Advanced Squad Leader, happen to come across my site, and are amazed that there is this world of ASL they knew nothing about.
 

bprobst

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We heard you the first time you made your, for the sake of argument let's call it a, "point". It doesn't get less meaningless the more you repeat yourself.

The actual point is that you say "a great many" as if that's definitive proof that it's a bigger number than anything else. You don't know, and can't know, what proportion of active ASL players that your "great many" actually represents. (Nobody else knows, either.) So please report back when you have something useful to say.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Again, a great many ASL players are not really part of the online ASL community at all. I see this on a regular basis when I get e-mails from people who, having played ASL against their buddy for decades, decide on a whim to google Advanced Squad Leader, happen to come across my site, and are amazed that there is this world of ASL they knew nothing about.
They come online to tell you they're not online?
 

Michael Dorosh

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We heard you the first time you made your, for the sake of argument let's call it a, "point". It doesn't get less meaningless the more you repeat yourself.

The actual point is that you say "a great many" as if that's definitive proof that it's a bigger number than anything else. You don't know, and can't know, what proportion of active ASL players that your "great many" actually represents. (Nobody else knows, either.) So please report back when you have something useful to say.
Aussie Pitman has a point. If you'd like to share one or two of these emails, it would be of interest.
 

Michael Dorosh

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The price is your data that FaceBook accumulates and uses not to your advantage but to the advantage of its customers at your cost.
Facebook is free to use. They definitely profit from accumulating data, but they can only accumulate what you put into it.

If this weren't enough, FaceBook allows and promotes the dissemination of outright lies and content that helps to divide and to radicalize society because such content is viewed more often and thus generates more revenues for commercials that FaceBook earns its money with - to hell with ethic considerations.
Yes, but only if you permit yourself to educate yourself solely via Facebook, or can't distinguish between memes and sourced news. Actually, it is interesting if one's circle of friends is large enough to see just how many alternate points of view are expressed on third party news sites. Facebook may not advertise those sites, but when other individuals post from them to their feeds, it can be edifying.

FaceBook repeatedly abuses its dominant market position. FaceBook evades taxes beyond all bounds of indecency.
My understanding is that this is true. It's no less true of other business spaces - grocery, fast food, retail - where things are going the way of the monopoly (many don't realize in Canada for example that Sobeys and Safeway are the same company, or that most of the shoe stores in the local mall have the same corporate owners). If you were to suggest this is far more dangerous in the case of Facebook I would agree. But it's also possible to use the service with a relative amount of safety, and for me, the benefits outweigh the risks. Access to the various discussion groups there chief among them - where you're more certain to be dealing with "real people" with actual names rather than just icons, which tends to diminish the use of 'online personalities'.
 
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Martin Mayers

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Facebook is free to use. They definitely profit from accumulating data, but they can only accumulate what you put into it.



Yes, but only if you permit yourself to educate yourself solely via Facebook, or can't disseminate between memes and sourced news. Actually, it is interesting if one's circle of friends is large enough to see just how many alternate points of view are expressed on third party news sites. Facebook may not advertise those sites, but when other individuals post from them to their feeds, it can be edifying.



My understanding is that this is true. It's no less true of other business spaces - grocery, fast food, retail - where things are going the way of the monopoly (many don't realize in Canada for example that Sobeys and Safeway are the same company, or that most of the shoe stores in the local mall have the same corporate owners). If you were to suggest this is far more dangerous in the case of Facebook I would agree. But it's also possible to use the service with a relative amount of safety, and for me, the benefits outweigh the risks. Access to the various discussion groups there chief among them - where you're more certain to be dealing with "real people" with actual names rather than just icons, which tends to diminish the use of 'online personalities'.
Largely agree with you.

Go to Weatherspoons (a chain of very popular pubs in the UK, because they are cheap, and therefore attract your more lower working class of people). The views you'll hear in there are no more or less outrageous than some of the stuff on Facebook.

I like FB. You can't be in a band, or embark on any kind of marketing of more 'niche' items such as ASL without being on there. It has it's detractors and some issues. Meh, as you suggest, doesn't everything. People should see the shady kind of stuff that goes on in the Corporate Insurance world (I am an officially outed 'whistle blower' for some dodgy practices I've seen).

I know of at least half a dozen new ASL tourney players who have attended UK tournaments in the past couple of years solely due to seeing my noisy advertisements on FB.
 
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Martin Mayers

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Again, a great many ASL players are not really part of the online ASL community at all. I see this on a regular basis when I get e-mails from people who, having played ASL against their buddy for decades, decide on a whim to google Advanced Squad Leader, happen to come across my site, and are amazed that there is this world of ASL they knew nothing about.
Can't agree with this anecdotally based evidence.

I don't think there is a single UK player who attends tournaments that isn't aware of Gamesquad. I find it hard to believe people live in such a shell.
 

Actionjick

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We heard you the first time you made your, for the sake of argument let's call it a, "point". It doesn't get less meaningless the more you repeat yourself.

The actual point is that you say "a great many" as if that's definitive proof that it's a bigger number than anything else. You don't know, and can't know, what proportion of active ASL players that your "great many" actually represents. (Nobody else knows, either.) So please report back when you have something useful to say.
Whilst doing research (??) for the Today in ASL History thread Wiki stated that there have been over one million copies of SL/ASL sold. That is a hazy starting point to determine how many ASL players there are which might eventually lead to a rough estimate of VASL use or knowledge of it.

Lots of variables and unknowns. I'm sure the one million figure includes all the modules and the important estimate would be how many copies of the ASLRB and BV were sold. Will have to discuss this with Captain Bacchus tonight.

This thread has devolved into some interesting and silly directions. VASL, no matter your opinion about it, is here to stay and given the current situation anyone who cares about ASL should be grateful it's available.
 
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