Clearly this issue has elevated into unreasonable heights. Almost nobody besides Baloteli and some SABS members are interested in it and, quite frankly, I'm glad for that, because it's a useless argument.
Maybe the problem of this argument is a simple misunderstanding. The
point of this group is to round up the best saboteur players in the site. How do we decide who are the best, you may ask? Simply put, we do it depending on the way they play the game. Don't get it wrong. Saboteur is a unique game in an aspect of balance between two randomly put teams: if a member of team A does a certain move in a way he/she thinks might be a good move, but because he/she is an unexperienced player (later on called:
newb*), that move actually helps team B. This sometimes escalates into an argument from the team members (if they are used to playing without newbs) for helping the other team. Every game would be like that, but all other games in BGA are played "free for all" instead of team-based.
Famous Yorgad's TIPS are
not a section from the bible of SABS or any kind of spiritual enlightenment manifest which the group follows. Such thing does not exist. TIPS are not even "official" tips owned by the group. They're just Yorgad's opinion with which most of us happen to agree, because they were created considering experience. However, they
are a good criterion for distinguishing good players from newbs because they are not really subjective. It is a
fact that putting a cross to curve is - in 95% of cases - a waste of otherwise universal card, knowing that there are curves which are only good for curving. Unless you are a sab. Sabs don't need any rules except the one that would say "don't get the gold".
I understand that sometimes good players get a little over the edge and rage against someone who makes a mistake, especially a mistake which costs the round. I used to do that often myself, therefore, most of my TDs are for that same reason. The thing is, we are not elitists who despise people who play badly. We just don't want to play with those people who make lots of mistakes, until they get better - because, since this is a team-based game,
their gameplay affects
our fun. It is also true that good players make mistakes from time to time. It is true that we don't judge good players in way we judge newbs when they make mistakes, because we know them - they are good players and they rarely do mistakes or those mistakes are petty (We treat differently those with whom we play for the first or second time because we don't know if they are good or not-so-good players generally). We know each other, we share good gaming moments among each other and we remember those moments. We become friends. If you are familiar with how humans interact with each other, you should know that people tend to forgive the ones who are closer to them. It's natural and normal.
Personally, I remember when Baloteli shouted at me because I told I don't want to play with him. I'm not yet sure if he understands it was not personal, even when I told that. I don't want to play Saboteur with
lots of people, that's why I am a member of SABS. It does not mean that I will never want to play with Baloteli. I haven't played with him for a long long time and I have no idea if he is now a good or a bad player.
Shopliftersunite said it is disrespectfull to tell new or not-so-experienced players how must they play. Is it disrespectful to tell them what are the best tactics to raise their chances to achieve victory? Maybe it is disrespectful if someone tells how to play in a disrespectful way (as I told before, it can happen in case someone gets angry, because the mistakes made by newbs affect everyones experience) - but that's a whole different matter.
Finally, blaming SABS because some of their members, in your opinion, behave badly is making no logical sense whatsoever. The group is just a band of people and their administrators do not even represent the group. Every member represents it and they do it differently. Maybe there are some who behave badly, but tell me - how does that make closing entire group legitimate?
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*
newb (or noob, for that matter) is not an offending name in my post or whenever I use it anywhere. It means "newbie" which indicates someone being new at something. I, however, use it here also as a way to call not new, but still inexperienced players or those who failed to learn from their experience.
