Here are some comments sent to me from mv_gimmick:
Ned's was very different from my first experience because Civ 1.0 was something that looked more as a collaborative experience and combined both social and challenge mixes roughly equally. I think the reason was that Civ 1.0 had so many more "newbies" that we could essentially break traditions, write new paradigms, and do what we felt was interesting and fun. So there was just fun and interests all around.
Ned's was a baptism. It was rather difficult because simply going against the norm was a means of ostracization. Because any deviation from "accepted practice" made you grounds for elimination, regardless of what may happen. While I admit that I made mistakes and had to learn from my game, there was a subconscious culture that underlied the current of the game and made the social parameters so much of a bigger weight than anything else in the game. Essentially, the last five or six games on MS I've seen, given a roughly 70-20-10 split on social mechanics vs challenge performance and miscellaneous factors that I find a bit off-putting.
I get that the game is based on Survivor so that there's a lot of alleviations made in order to adapt it for a forum game, but I think the prevailing mood and a high hurdle for beginners is extremely difficult.
For example, I get that there are idols, but for those unfamiliar to forum culture wouldn't know that there are places that you would look generally to find clues and hints and eventually, to the game itself. Many players suggest that its part of the baptism that new players will come to understand in general, but it's one of the predominant ways to weed out newcomers to begin with. Starting from Ned's moving forward, I think that roughly 40% of newcomers in a game get weeded out within the first three votes.
And I get people play games to win and play to have fun. It's especially difficult because of the emotions vested and the manners used in order to get in the game. One thing I would appreciate is for people to feel the semblance of an equal footing. In the tv show, people are dropped in a place without prior knowledge, experiences, and limited frame of references to make their mark for engaging entertainment. It would be nice if we could carry that over to these series as well, but that's a bit difficult if the demography isn't more flexible in their mindsets.
