A Bitter Pill for Derk to Swallow

Doug Garrett has a new podcast out where he talks to Derk and Aldie. Derk talks about attending the WBC and has a few pointed comments I would like to take issue with.

First: Derk says he met Malloc, the Ameritrasher and was never really impressed with his posts but found him to be a nice guy.

Malloc's posts are top shelf! Malloc has a voice of reason and calm in the same class as Ken B. Perhaps if Malloc posted more cat pictures he would find more favor with Derk?


Second: Derk cannot believe his eyes that so many people are playing "SlapShot" and "Wrasslin'"

It is very simple Derk. THESE ARE GOOD GAMES!!! They have withstood the test of time. They may even have been ignored as other games were tried but people still come back to these classic because they represent good gaming. "Slapshot" is 26 years old and "Wrasslin" has been around 18 years.

Do you REALLY think that 18 years from now people will still be playing "Puerto Rico" or "Agricola"? Maybe but I doubt it. You certainly won't see a group of 100 gamers playing these games as you see at the WBC!!!

The loss of the war by the Euro fans has been a bitter pill for some to swallow.

Damn it, I thought this was going to be about "DIRK", not "Derk" and that we were going to be talking about DRAGON'S LAIR.

Who the hell is "Derk" and why does he have such a difficult time believing that people would get together to play fun games like SLAPSHOT and WRASSLIN'? Perhaps he spends a lot of his time at those Eurogame events where players are too busy counting cubes to talk to each other, playing games designed to discourage awesome situations like The Whammer bodyslamming Mr Umpire. Or maybe he just has his head up his ass.

If I recall The Ultimate Podcast episode correctly Derk was the guy who "will probably beat you the first time he plays a game." A genius apparently - just ask him.

My favorite Wrassler was Hot Coco. He had tassle boots and was the Fifth Member of the Village People. Talk with a lisp and you could really freak guys out.

The Bushwhackers - say no more ..... well, there ain't much more you can say about Luke & Butch (two of New Zealand's more curious exports).

Guy sounds like a bag of dicks.

Michael Barnes wrote:

[...] playing games designed to discourage awesome situations like The Whammer bodyslamming Mr Umpire.

Ah, that's nothing. How about The Champ after some recovering some serious beat-up by playing two Specialty cards and after that throwing an unscathed Baby Face Harpo out of the ring with the use of a Power Surge and winning the game through Disqualifiction (because Harpo didn't get to play a Recovery card)?

Favorite Wrassler: Flying Phil. Reversed a piledriver played by Jimbo The Elephant Man in a Royal Rumble once. All in all Phil was the second from last Wrassler to be eliminated.

Slapshot is great. I love the goons.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Damn it, I thought this was going to be about "DIRK", not "Derk" and that we were going to be talking about DRAGON'S LAIR.

I was thinking of Boogie Nights ...

But it wasn't Dirk who had to swallow things ...

TheDukester wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote:

Damn it, I thought this was going to be about "DIRK", not "Derk" and that we were going to be talking about DRAGON'S LAIR.

I was thinking of Boogie Nights ...

"Who the hell is Dirk Diggler?"

Talk about your depressing movies...

--Mike L.

Hey -- a great reference to Dragon's Lair. I forgot all about that game, hours of fun. Wrasslin' is great fun. People get together and play it because it is fun and ridiculous, which is usually a good enough reason for me to do anything.

Geek of the Week #160 - derk
"Last week derk, who has recently rejoined the administration of our beloved boardgamegeek, asked if he could interrupt the normal Geek of the Week flow to answer questions."

Who ever said T.O.S. admins are completely impartial and never abuse their power?
(Oh, right, it was derk.)

derk replying to desertfox2004 Question #3 (do you and Aldie ever receive complaints ... that the site has lost its identity as a Eurogame site?) wrote:
But we definitely have seen many of the 'founding' members (for lack of a better word) leave. Usually because boardgamegeek has too many newbies and they can't stand the noise of people constantly asking questions about the illusive best Non-gamer Spouse Game (tm). The only people consistently grumpy about our content has been the Ameritrashers... One of the things that really pisses me off about our critics is they think we're influenced by such things. RiiiiIIIiiiight. One full-time programmer has the where with all to peruse and edit 5000 posts a day... We put secret code in the database to make anything with a German publisher jump up in the ratings. RiiiIIIiiiight.
But frankly, I've never understood that. Aldie has built sooooOOOoooOOOOoooOOOOOOoooo many tools to help you find the information and content that you wish. Personally, I think there's a significant factor of, "YeahbutI'mspecialer!" at work with that particular phenomenon. You wouldn't want to sully your street cred by replying a "I have $100 to spend" thread...

derk replying to desertfox2004Question #4 (How instrumental do you believe BGG has been in fostering the kind of cross-pollination that we have seen in the game design field over the last several years) wrote:
My completely and totally unbiased opinion is that it's been huge . Really. I'm not saying that such things wouldn't've happened on their own or in a different way, given different circumstances. Heck, as I recall, Christian T. Peterson admitted that TI3's megaturn mechanisms were due to Puerto Rico... Would he found out about PR if he didn't read about it here? Maybe.

Thought I'd quote the above two gems on the off chance anyone here missed them.

Despite having a BGG Suggestions Forum (which apparently ought to be renamed the Spin Forum) the reality would appear to be "One of the things that really pisses me off about our critics is they think we're influenced by such things." And the "One full-time programmer has the where with all to peruse and edit 5000 posts a day..." snide remark would appear to describe one admin's duties admirably. A while back derk posted some conciliatory statements that sounded like he just might be getting a more professional attitude. Yet here he is again, back to being his usual hypocritical self and totally contemptuous of the opinion of users. Nothing changes, still the same old huge arrogant ego .
(And yes, I know would display like that.)

The only thing that I'm "grumpy" about as it concerns BGG is a few of the users, not the actual content.

It took me a LONG time to realize that in actuality it's a very small but completely groupthinky bunch of very vocal douchebags who are actually to blame.


I still use BGG quite regularly, still post there, still research my games there. I may occasionally bitch about some of the users, but rarely, VERY rarely about BGG itself. I mean, we let you guys have at it in the forums because you can't vent that stuff on BGG without getting shut out or shouted down. And I don't think so many people would be "grumpy" if they could vent properly on BGG forums, *about* BGG or its users.


As a database and research tool, BGG is pretty much the cat's meow. I constantly wish I had a resource like that for my other hobbies, including video games and stuff like that. There are a few database-driven websites devoted to videogames but they are all small and spread out.

Speaking of vocal douchebags - seems somebody derailed Melissa at BGN . I skim BGN once a week or so to see if there is anything interesting and was rather surprised to see the last paragraph in Melissa's article. I actually like reading about convention trips - living vicariously and all that jazz, so this is too bad. Anyone, who like you know, might be a contributor there, and here, know WTF this is about? I looked around a bit but couldn't find anything.