An Open Letter to "Help Me Build an Army" Threads

[Nooblar]

To community members who have posted or are thinking about posting one or more threads asking people to build an army for them:

Recently I have noticed a lot of threads asking community members to build an army for them. Most of these threads are pretty much clones of each other--"I'm having a battle against X person, so build me an army!" followed by a list of available figures. Sometimes the poster doesn't even thank the people who bothered to help him out. I'm not singling out any one person here, nor should people who have threads currently active think I'm aiming this specifically at them.

Now, by all means, I'm not dumping on asking for help in constructing an army. I've done it myself a few times. What I'm amazed at is the minuscule amount of work put into making these request threads. For one, I rarely see any previous effort put in besides making the list of available cards and favorite units. And as I mentioned above, sometimes the OP doesn't even give so much as a "thank you" to people who were kind enough to make a suggestion. (Mega kudos to those people for being so nice.) Even worse, I also occasionally see the suggestions shot down for one trite reason or another!

This is a community I care about. I don't want to see server space/bandwidth dragged down by some thread which is a clone of fifty other threads that had no effort put into them either. Please put some effort into creating something on your own first, then ask for critique. Use the search function to find existing threads about your favorite units. If you still can't find what you're looking for, try working up some solutions on your own first. And, as always, please be polite and thank people who post in your thread. The people who are responding to your threads are spending time helping you which could easily be spent elsewhere doing something for themselves. Like I said, this is a community, and we all are responsible for building each other up here.

In summary, please use site resources wisely (site supporter or not), put some effort in first, and always be polite. Thank you.

Nooblar

[Grungebob]

I rate this thread excellent!

[Nooblar]

Thanks, GB!

[1Mmirg]

Originally Posted by Nooblar

This is a community I care about. I don't want to see server space/bandwidth dragged down by some thread which is a clone of fifty other threads that had no effort put into them either. Please put some effort into creating something on your own first, then ask for critique. Use the search function to find existing threads about your favorite units. If you still can't find what you're looking for, try working up some solutions on your own first. And, as always, please be polite and thank people who post in your thread. The people who are responding to your threads are spending time helping you which could easily be spent elsewhere doing something for themselves. Like I said, this is a community, and we all are responsible for building each other up here.

Nooblar

Excellent post, Nooblar. (Thanks to NEMT for pointing it out to me.)

Let me just reiterate that there are dozens of army ideas and strategy suggestions for just about every unit you can think of--a search will likely reveal many excellent options (like the Strategy Guides--see link in the Index, in my sig below--or a "What's Your Army for X" thread).

If you are just looking for a generally effective army, then one excellent source is the Competitive Army lists of armies that have actually been in tournaments and how they did (the link is in my Index, below) or just gamjuven's competitive army building tips (also in the Index).

You want to try to make something competitive from scratch and using some well thought out theory-scape, check out Jexik's What's in an Order Marker (yup, in the Index). And this is just the tip of the iceberg--there are several excellent ways to start building an army using Scapers' resources.

Even with all these great resources, we all hit times where we are trying to think outside of our own perspective (we want to get Ah-ha moments from someone different view or mindset), so of course there is a place for asking about ideas and trying things out on the Scaper audience. Many of us honestly and obviously love to think through armies. Please share your army ideas with us.

But do please also take the time to research and think through what you are trying to do. Suggesting an army (or armies) is generally a lot better than just saying hey, "I love the zombies, what should I do to make a kicking army with them?"

I love seeing army discussions here at Scapers; thanks to Nooblar for giving us some focus in how to best do this (and, yeah, this thread is now linked to in the Index as well ).

[Soul Shackle]

Nice post, Nooblar, and if 1Mmirg put it in the Index then it's linked in my sig too... sort of.

Rep up when I reload.

[Nooblar]

Thank you for the kind comments, everyone! 1Mmirg, thank you for expounding on what I said, especially since I don't want to sound mean. The community definitely encourages army discussion, but we do mean discussion

[its me lol]

Thank you. I hate it when people get shot down.
There should be more!

[rym]

Originally Posted by Grungebob

I rate this thread excellent!

Ditto, GB.

[Agent Minivann]

+Rep from me. This could be something stickied in the competitive armies forum.

[rym]

Nooblar, thanks for a great post. I've tried to be very positive in responding to those aforementioned posts. It's hard to do that when you see it over and over. Hopefully, your post here will help get the point across.
Again, good job.

[Revdyer]

More thanks from me, too, Nooblar. I hope your excellent suggestions will be heeded.

[Ugly-Caco]

"Heroscapers is the number one Scape resource around, but it shouldn't be an excuse to be lazy in making your own maps. At least develop some fair map building skill--you're a scaper for crying out loud. Help yourself first before declaring you're helpless. If you feel that you really do suck in making maps, use search."

-voice in my head

-Edit
I just realized this is about "build me an army" and not "build me a map." I posted this about 1-2 am. I was pretty groggy but can't sleep then. I usually sleep at 3-4am, but weeks and weeks of 4 hours daily sleep makes you a pseudo zombie. Man...bloopers. I'm not going to delete this. Though this stupidity is immortalized...the point is still there (I think). Forgive me folks.