Change SOC name (poll updated)

[PLAYER57832]

Concise description:
Change the name SOC/ Society of Cooks to "Classic map school"
Specifics/Details:
Change name to classic map school or Classic training ground.
and specify that this is a school to learn particular types of maps, both standard and team play.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
As several have mentioned, the cook's name can be taken as derogatory as well as funny.
More importantly, though, it gives new players the impression that there is some "master" playing style that all should learn. It increases the already heavy bias against the unique CC maps,the likes of which are not found on any other site. Of course, these unique maps are not going to appeal to everyone, but is it really beneficial to the site as a whole to so actively steer people away from them?

In some cases, it absolutely makes sense. I would not suggestt anyone start out on Waterloo or Iraq War. However, AOR2 is VERY easy to learn, as long as you pay attention to the rules and don't just assume it is to be played like a classic map. Even maps like Lunar War or Age of Merchants, perhaps Oasis & Fuedal, etc are all pretty easy to learn. Not necessarily easy to master, but easy to learn.

Under the current training mode, people are thrust into the map that has the most skilled cadre, that is about the most competetive map here. Worse, to the uninitiated, there is no real and clear guidance on other maps. Sure, the initial blurb talks about options, and you see a brief explanation of the playing styles in the introduction, but to get a real idea of what is actually offered here, requires finding the maps basically on your own or with recommendations from other players. Other players are an iffy source, particularly since the older players who play classic often have already decided they just don't like those "strange" maps.

Its fine that people like classic. We have classic and all its various clones and near clones because it is a popular type of play. However, I am not talking about taking anything away from the Classic maps. I am saying that we need to expand and offer alternatives because classic maps, even the style of play that is effective on those maps just is not what everyone wants. We have diversity, why not celebrate it instead of almost seeming to hide it, once you get past the initial front?

EDIT.. changing poll, there are now 8 votes for keep as is, 5 for change name to something else and only 2 for change it to what I suggested. I am changing the poll to include the most popular suggestion.. CC Training Academy

[Geger]

I suggest : CC-Academy

inspired by this thread : viewtopic.php?f=341&t=144200

[macbone]

Player, first of all, thanks for your feedback. When Andy approached us about changing our name from the Society of the Cooks to something a bit more inclusive, we tossed around several ideas, but we decided to stick with SoC due to the name recognition, among other things.

As for why we teaching Escalating Terminator, we feel that by teaching Terminator on the Classic map, we're playing on a map that most CC players have seen before, so it's familiar. Yes, competition is fierce on that map, but we believe that good, keen competition improves play substantially. We teach Terminator to give new players a confidence boost, since it's a bit easier to get some points in a Terminator game than to try to win it all in a Standard game, although we have in the past year expanded our settings to include Standard as well.

Although we do teach Standard and Terminator Escalating games on the Classic map, we've talked before about opening up our teaching to other Classic-style maps, but we tend to come back to the point that if you can learn to play Escalating games on Classic, you'll do well on any of the Classic-style gameplay maps. Perhaps in the future we might open up training to maps with other types of gameplay, like Conquest maps, but for now, we're not going to teach on a map that we're not 100% confident in teaching.

We didn't invent the Escalating Juggernaut, and we certainly don't claim that it's the only way to play Escalating, but we haven't found a better strategy yet.

We use our team training to expand to other maps, so yes, you might encounter Dawn of Ages or Battle for Iraq in one of our team training games. We also expand the settings we cover in team training.

Also, in the SoC Grad lounge, we frequently tackle other styles and maps and discuss more advanced strategy. We had our Hive phase about half a year ago, and I still have flashbacks from then. Recently, we were playing around with Assassin games.

And the SoC is by no means the only place to improve gameplay. The Mentoring program isn't limited as we are in the settings we teach, and many clans offer their own training academies as well.

I hear what you're saying. In the future, I'd like to see the SoC expand to include other gameplay styles as well, but again, we won't be teaching those until we can stand 100% behind our playbook, and until that happens, we'll use our team training and grad areas to experiment with other maps and settings.

Again, thanks for your feedback, player, and if you want to run your ideas past our senior brass, feel free to PM dhallmeyer, Iron Butterfly, or me, and we can go over your suggestions in greater detail.

Edit - Yes, definitely kittens. =)

[KoolBak]

McBoned!!

*so much cooler than pwned*

Thanks for that post - very concise

[greenoaks]

SOC are 3 meaningless letters to those new to the site.

i like this

I suggest : CC-Academy

or perhaps CC Training Acadamy to make it clear to all what the group is about.

[PLAYER57832]

Player, first of all, thanks for your feedback. When Andy approached us about changing our name from the Society of the Cooks to something a bit more inclusive, we tossed around several ideas, but we decided to stick with SoC due to the name recognition, among other things.

As for why we teaching Escalating Terminator, we feel that by teaching Terminator on the Classic map, we're playing on a map that most CC players have seen before, so it's familiar. Yes, competition is fierce on that map, but we believe that good, keen competition improves play substantially. We teach Terminator to give new players a confidence boost, since it's a bit easier to get some points in a Terminator game than to try to win it all in a Standard game, although we have in the past year expanded our settings to include Standard as well.

Although we do teach Standard and Terminator Escalating games on the Classic map, we've talked before about opening up our teaching to other Classic-style maps, but we tend to come back to the point that if you can learn to play Escalating games on Classic, you'll do well on any of the Classic-style gameplay maps. Perhaps in the future we might open up training to maps with other types of gameplay, like Conquest maps, but for now, we're not going to teach on a map that we're not 100% confident in teaching.

And, I guess this is just my primary point. I fully agree that for you to concentrate on classic, even the styles you selected is best for one broad-based training program. I like that you added teams. However, as you note, it just is not possible to teach every map, every style, etc.

The name is actually a minor point. It came up in the farmer thread and I thought I would post it as a suggestion. It seems the name SOC is popular.

We didn't invent the Escalating Juggernaut, and we certainly don't claim that it's the only way to play Escalating, but we haven't found a better strategy yet.

I may have sounded like I thought differently, I don't.. not for the classic map. I stopped playing it just becuase it takes too long, etc. I just like other maps better and play other maps a bit better. Personal choice, I have no bones about trying to make conquerer. If that were my goal.. I would probably do a LOT differently!

We use our team training to expand to other maps, so yes, you might encounter Dawn of Ages or Battle for Iraq in one of our team training games. We also expand the settings we cover in team training.

OK, I was not aware of this. Even so, someone has to be involved with SOC for a bit before those come around. I would not suggest either Dawn or Battle for initial maps, but there are quite a few others that would work great.. and by "great" I don't mean that there has to be another training program, I just mean something like " if you decide you don't like classic and want to try something different... try AOR2, Arms Race!... etc., but be sure to read the legend, because the play on these maps is very different from on classic."

Also, in the SoC Grad lounge, we frequently tackle other styles and maps and discuss more advanced strategy. We had our Hive phase about half a year ago, and I still have flashbacks from then. Recently, we were playing around with Assassin games.

And the SoC is by no means the only place to improve gameplay. The Mentoring program isn't limited as we are in the settings we teach, and many clans offer their own training academies as well.

I hear what you're saying. In the future, I'd like to see the SoC expand to include other gameplay styles as well, but again, we won't be teaching those until we can stand 100% behind our playbook, and until that happens, we'll use our team training and grad areas to experiment with other maps and settings.

Again, thanks for your feedback, player, and if you want to run your ideas past our senior brass, feel free to PM dhallmeyer, Iron Butterfly, or me, and we can go over your suggestions in greater detail.

I guess the main issue I have here is not that I see anything wrong with SOC as it is, right now. Its that I think we may be losing people who might stay if they tried other maps first. Sure, a lot of people come here looking for settings and play that is similar to a board game. However, even though CC has a lot more than that to offer, it is hard for a new person to know that.

I did play classic the first time I came here. I found CC through a Risk Search, so classic was a natural. BUT, I never would have stayed, never would have gone premium if it were not for Age of Merchants and Coral Cairns.. even crossword. I quickly found that I faced some very, very good players on classic and turned to other less popular maps, where I won more often.

As I said, I am never going to, really have no desire to be conquerer. I like the chat, the forums , etc. But I really do like all the variety maps, the ones that often get criticized by some of the standard-adherents.

This is really my main point. Sure, I did think changing the SOC might be a good idea, but however CC does it, I think we need to do a better job of helping new people to find their niche... whatever that niche may be.

Also, to be honest, I think that will help solidify any problems with.. err that company we all know. After all, those other maps have very, very little to do with the original!

Edit - Yes, definitely kittens. =)

[PLAYER57832]

SOC are 3 meaningless letters to those new to the site.

i like this

I suggest : CC-Academy

or perhaps CC Training Acadamy to make it clear to all what the group is about.

It was named that initially.

[chapcrap]

SOC are 3 meaningless letters to those new to the site.

i like this

I suggest : CC-Academy

or perhaps CC Training Acadamy to make it clear to all what the group is about.

It was named that initially.

Well let's go old school then!!

I support the name CC Training Academy

[macbone]

Really? It was initially named the CC Training Academy? That's news to me. I'll have to check with some of the guys who have been around since the beginning. We ought to have a historian on staff. =)

Names have roots, identity, purpose behind them. New players might not know what the SoC is, but they get a PM about it, and players who have been around awhile know what the SoC does.

PLAYER, you bring up a great point about other maps, and I'd extend that to other settings as well. There's a post in the Training Grounds right now about Flat Rate, which is much different from Escalating, and a setting we don't teach. We should make sure to tell students that they can apply our teaching to a wide variety of maps (and they should explore them), but that we only teach Escalating play.

My first game as a young Freemium that really gave me confidence using the Escalating Juggernaut was a Standard Escalating game on Charleston, actually, not even a Terminator game, which was the only setting we were teaching then. When I first joined, I was like you, avoiding Classic because there were so many other players who played it, and it's still a tough map to play on.

But the thing is, the way we teach our students is to have them post their thoughts and give them advice on whether they have good ideas or not. So even if the competition is fierce, they still have coaches on the sidelines who can help them improve their play, and they don't have to go up against tough players on their own.

I think the SoC sometimes comes across as dogmatic - Read the First Four Moves, Know the First Four Moves, Live the First Four Moves. And if you try to apply them in a No Spoils game, you're going to get burned. (But you know, they work ok on Pelops and Feudal Escalating with some tweaking). The point is to provide a basic introduction to strategy using a map we all know, and then from there encourage the student to branch out. I would hope that none of our students only played Classic. Even wacicha and mpjh played other maps and settings when they were running the SoC, and we often joked that the our gauge of our students' quality was how low they could get mpjh and wacicha down to in rank (of course, mpjh is now a cadet, but that's a completely different story, one I won't go into here).

I don't think I actually won many games as a student, maybe only one. But the training's served me well up until the present, and I'm confident that we're teaching students a way to play smart and earn rank and confidence without farming for points. At the end of the day, that's good enough for me. =)

[greenoaks]

SOC are 3 meaningless letters to those new to the site.

i like this

I suggest : CC-Academy

or perhaps CC Training Acadamy to make it clear to all what the group is about.

It was named that initially.

when was it named that?

Names have roots, identity, purpose behind them. New players might not know what the SoC is, but they get a PM about it, and players who have been around awhile know what the SoC does.

names also change to reflect changes in what a organisation does. the only thing SoC has going for it is it reflects the roots of the organisation. roots the group changed its name to get away from because they believed they were now a training acadamy for all of CC.

i propose the name CC Training Acadamy as it gives a pretty damn clear image of what the usergroup represents, whether you be young or old (in CC years)

[Dako]

I think it came from the sig "play a cook today, lose to sergeant tomorrow" or some like.

[Leehar]

We use our team training to expand to other maps, so yes, you might encounter Dawn of Ages or Battle for Iraq in one of our team training games. We also expand the settings we cover in team training.

OK, I was not aware of this. Even so, someone has to be involved with SOC for a bit before those come around. I would not suggest either Dawn or Battle for initial maps, but there are quite a few others that would work great.. and by "great" I don't mean that there has to be another training program, I just mean something like " if you decide you don't like classic and want to try something different... try AOR2, Arms Race!... etc., but be sure to read the legend, because the play on these maps is very different from on classic."

We've played AoM for teams, but I don't really like Arms race for a team game because you start with so few terr. that it often comes to luck on whether you die quickly or not.

Also, Conquest maps are fine after a fashion, but when they devolve into a stacking battle it also often becomes meaningless...

[PLAYER57832]

A lot of good comments.
I guess the old forum name was Training Grounds, not training academy, (but I think the academy was the training portion?)
Anyway, As I said, I am not against SOC. I think it is a good program. Its just that its not for everyone and for obvious reasons never will be able to cover all the maps and styles. I made a new thread, in the Discussion forum, with an idea for a vetted mentor program. I would appreciate comments. I know we have an unofficial mentor program, this would be something more official.

Changing the poll to reflect the most popular name. This will mean you will have to revote, though.

[Victor Sullivan]

I think a more effective solution is to PM dhallmeyer, as that would be his call, not anyone that has anything to do with the Suggestions forum.

-Sully

[TheForgivenOne]

I think a more effective solution is to PM dhallmeyer, as that would be his call, not anyone that has anything to do with the Suggestions forum.

-Sully

Already passed this along to dhall via PM.

[Victor Sullivan]

I think a more effective solution is to PM dhallmeyer, as that would be his call, not anyone that has anything to do with the Suggestions forum.

-Sully

Already passed this along to dhall via PM.

Ah! Sehr gute!

-Sully

[Symmetry]

Looks like a no-brainer fix to get started on a larger problem. But yeah- just a simple fix, easily implemented.

[emelar]

O O O O H H H, N O O O S . Change the SoC name? But.... the nostalgia! the roots! the familiarity!

[greenoaks]

O O O O H H H, N O O O S . Change the SoC name? But.... the nostalgia! the roots! the familiarity!

if you want that then you support a name change back to Society Of Cooks

but as has been mentioned the Society Of Cooks believe they have outgrown that function so don't want that name

[wacicha]

Society of Cooks..

Simple but meaningful... Just Sayin

[chapcrap]

Society of Cooks..

Simple but meaningful... Just Sayin

Not everyone is a Cook... Just Sayin

[greenoaks]

Society of Cooks..

Simple but meaningful... Just Sayin

CC Training Acadamy

Simple but meaningful... Just Sayin

[Symmetry]

It's an easy fix, and a popular change. Nostalgia is a good reason to keep the name only if the name is important to established players. If it's meant to bring players to the site, or better put, to get new players to stay, it's not a great reason.

[Dukasaur]

It's an easy fix, and a popular change. Nostalgia is a good reason to keep the name only if the name is important to established players. If it's meant to bring players to the site, or better put, to get new players to stay, it's not a great reason.

"Nostalgia" is putting a negative spin on it. How about, "tradition" or "flavour" or "continuity."

I think it's a terrible idea to take a name that is unique and replace it with something bland and generic.

Would you rename Oxford to "College in Big Town in Northeast England" just because there are no longer any oxen fording there?

[Symmetry]

It's an easy fix, and a popular change. Nostalgia is a good reason to keep the name only if the name is important to established players. If it's meant to bring players to the site, or better put, to get new players to stay, it's not a great reason.

"Nostalgia" is putting a negative spin on it. How about, "tradition" or "flavour" or "continuity."

I think it's a terrible idea to take a name that is unique and replace it with something bland and generic.

Would you rename Oxford to "College in Big Town in Northeast England" just because there are no longer any oxen fording there?

Perhaps, but really when it comes to attracting new players to the site, or simply getting them to stay, any of those terms are largely irrelevant.

No?