tom wrote:

RiskyBack wrote: 

P.S. tom, if you want I can make a Facebook Page for Wargear. Yeah, I'm probably not the person you want doing that but I thought I'd offer.

Sure, go for it Risky. Let me know what you need from me.

Uh oh... :)

I look forward to this Risky!!!

asm wrote: Wow, map aesthetics and customizable game options would have NEVER been the two things I'd guess would be seen as WarGear's weaknesses.

I'd say the customizable game options is very valid.  Currently when creating a game the Host only has the possible option of changing Fog setting.  I'd really like to see complete customizable settings for Private games just like WF has (now whether you have to pay for the map or whatever, could be another discussion).

There is a clear difference between the sites in that respect:

Here the setup and rule customisation is done by the board designer and the board is tied to those rules. There's a huge variation in possible rules / gameplay types available but once they have been set, the person who starts the game doesn't see that.

On the other sites, the only thing the designer does is create a board image. The person who starts the game defines everything else. That's why it looks like they have more options when in reality if you look at the available startup options on CC or LG they are very limited compared to here or WF (other than the AI which LG has).

The reason for that decision was to make sure that all game rules were thoroughly tested to make sure they are both fair and playable on each board - this is tied into making sure the game rankings are fair and aren't abused. It's also so that the process of starting a game is as simple and user friendly as possible.

tom wrote:

The reason for that decision was to make sure that all game rules were thoroughly tested to make sure they are both fair and playable on each board - this is tied into making sure the game rankings are fair and aren't abused. It's also so that the process of starting a game is as simple and user friendly as possible.

And it's good in this way.

But I agree with the tester on the boards' aesthetics part. Peeps like pretty things (even if most of the pr0 players doesn't care).

Oh and I'm looking forward to the fbook page.

tom wrote:

The reason for that decision was to make sure that all game rules were thoroughly tested to make sure they are both fair and playable on each board - this is tied into making sure the game rankings are fair and aren't abused. It's also so that the process of starting a game is as simple and user friendly as possible.

This is incredibly important. For a simple RISK-clone, being able to fudge around all the rules on a per game basis may be trivial, but for the rules-intensive maps with artillery borders, capital-conquering, varying levels of fog, scenario based setup, and more; leaving the ability to tweak those rules in the hands of the host is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Just look at all the broken tournaments on Warfish.

You can either give strong customization abilities to the authors and get exciting, fresh gameplay and then limit the game hosts. Or, you can give strong customization to the game hosts, but then have to limit the capabilities of the authors. If you give a wide variety of design options to authors and strong game customization to hosts, you will frequently end up with unplayable or unfair games.

I definitely agree with Ranked games and even possibly Tournaments (although there aren't tournaments here yet, some more options might be cool). But why not allow more customization for Private games? Some things would/should be locked (ie Capitals/Starting Scenario) unless Mods could be built.

You know, Dennis, its your review site, so you can do what you want with it, but I've played at least a few games on all those sites except Risk attack. (Well, I played half a game on Conquer Club. The interface was so laughably bad that I abandoned it. You're a retard for rating that site highly (yes, personal attack (yes, yes, nested parens))). And I can say with all confidence in my own subjective view (who doesn't, right), that your rating list has absolutely no value to me. In fact, its terrible. It looks like you've perhaps hamstrung yourself with some kind of an algorithm that's improperly weighted. That, or you have bizarre taste. Either way, I'd choke on my mouse batteries before I'd consider your list legit.

And that's all Wargear bias aside. This site still has a lot to add before its a real top contender.

Yeah. I see what the problem is. Those maps are 'pretty' but none of them have integrated aesthetic gameplay. They're nice to look at in a vacuum because the way they look while actually being played is not taken into account.

I'll wager that every single one of those maps, while in the middle of an actual game, either A) looks ugly as sin, B) looks confusing as hell, or C) both.

Oh, and giving 40 to map quality on Warlight while 32 on Wargear shows that your entire system is fundamentally flawed. Credibility fail. Warlight maps couldn't be any more plain if they tried, aesthetically. Technically, they don't offer interesting or particularly strategic gameplay. If someone asked me to summarize the maps on Warlight in a single word, it would be "Suck."

DennisG wrote:

There are almost 50 maps but the quality is still quite low. Users can upload their own unofficial maps which might explain the low quality.

Well, we haven't peaked yet, but I'm very excited about recent and future developments.  You should really try Light Cycles, Castles, and really, E.Nygma's latest duelling map looks quite exciting to me.  

Anyway, I'm really sorry that whatever 5-10 maps you must have sampled for the review were of such low quality.  I would have thought most of our maps would have stood up against such careful scrutiny.  I mean, I guess I'm biased, and your eye is perhaps keener than mine. I'm really quite curious what maps you based your well thought out opinion on:

What?!?!?  Are you fucking kidding me?  No, I think you meant to say, ``there are almost 50 maps, but the quality is yet to be determined, because my head has been too far up my ass while writing this piece of shit `review' to find out.''

The one thing I will say is that it could be hard for someone new to the site to pick out a high quality, relatively simple map. Dennis happened to pick one of the site's oldest maps (Battle USA) and a relatively complicated map (gods of the Titans).

I'm not sure of the best way to direct new players to good starting maps, however.

Wow, this has turned into a roast! Now, where did I put that bag of marshmallows...

uuummmmmmm.....I think that list only includes open table games and not private games. He could have played lots of maps as private games I think.

Hugh wrote:

DennisG wrote:

There are almost 50 maps but the quality is still quite low. Users can upload their own unofficial maps which might explain the low quality.

Well, we haven't peaked yet, but I'm very excited about recent and future developments.  You should really try Light Cycles, Castles, and really, E.Nygma's latest duelling map looks quite exciting to me.  

Anyway, I'm really sorry that whatever 5-10 maps you must have sampled for the review were of such low quality.  I would have thought most of our maps would have stood up against such careful scrutiny.  I mean, I guess I'm biased, and your eye is perhaps keener than mine. I'm really quite curious what maps you based your well thought out opinion on:

GamesPlayedByDennisG

 

What?!?!?  Are you fucking kidding me?  No, I think you meant to say, ``there are almost 50 maps, but the quality is yet to be determined, because my head has been too far up my ass while writing this piece of shit `review' to find out.''

This does somewhat validate his notion that with all maps (currently) being displayed as equals, its pretty easy for someone new to the site to show up and try two games, one being old and good looking but not great, and the other being complicated and un-RISK-like. And then walking away.

tom wrote:

There is a clear difference between the sites in that respect:

Here the setup and rule customisation is done by the board designer and the board is tied to those rules. There's a huge variation in possible rules / gameplay types available but once they have been set, the person who starts the game doesn't see that.

On the other sites, the only thing the designer does is create a board image. The person who starts the game defines everything else. That's why it looks like they have more options when in reality if you look at the available startup options on CC or LG they are very limited compared to here or WF (other than the AI which LG has).

The reason for that decision was to make sure that all game rules were thoroughly tested to make sure they are both fair and playable on each board - this is tied into making sure the game rankings are fair and aren't abused. It's also so that the process of starting a game is as simple and user friendly as possible.

This is actually not the case with other sites.  On CC and others, each board which has bombardments, one way attacks, or other map specific rules are tied to a master rule set.  Players cannot change how the board works, connections, bonuses, etc.  I have only seen one site that allows you to adjust the bonuses on a map.  On CC and others, the map author does infact define the rules that can applied using an xml file.  The bottom line is that WG has some of the fewest game options available.  You can't parse your way out of it.       

Cramchakle wrote: You know, Dennis, its your review site, so you can do what you want with it, but I've played at least a few games on all those sites except Risk attack. (Well, I played half a game on Conquer Club. The interface was so laughably bad that I abandoned it. You're a retard for rating that site highly (yes, personal attack (yes, yes, nested parens))). And I can say with all confidence in my own subjective view (who doesn't, right), that your rating list has absolutely no value to me. In fact, its terrible. It looks like you've perhaps hamstrung yourself with some kind of an algorithm that's improperly weighted. That, or you have bizarre taste. Either way, I'd choke on my mouse batteries before I'd consider your list legit.

And that's all Wargear bias aside. This site still has a lot to add before its a real top contender.

Apparently you didn't read my my interface review of ConquerClub.  While the base interface of CC is indeed poor, the users have augmented it tremendously with addon and scripts.  The map has been made clickable, eliminating the drop down boxes, there is tons of extra analytical information, and a variety of format and aesthetic options as well.  Someone even made a script that makes the chat section float separate from the page.  Having only played half a game there, I can see why you are ignorant of the additional options.  However, as a reviewer, it's my job to seek out that info.

And you are welcome to discount my list as much as you like.  But the fact remains that my site is on the first page when you search for the terms 'play risk online' and a myriad of permutations on that.  Where as WarGear isn't even in the first 30 pages.  You will also notice that mym site is on the first page when you google 'wargear.net'.  So whether you patronize my site is irrelevant as 250 people a day do.  PlayRiskOnline.net sends over 100 people a day to the #1 ranked site.  If Tom prefers I can delist WarGear if it's such an issue.

You are welcome to create your own review site and give WG all aces, just don't expect anyone to find it or read it.

By the way, I registered and played a bunch of games here months ago under a different name.

I think the best interests for WG are in not squeezing sour grapes, but making this site a contender.

First of all (and I can't believe that I am the one saying this), you guys need to be more subtle. As Dennis smugly points out, he has chosen quite the handy domain name. So calling him names may not be our cleverest move.

That being said, I'm not sure that there's any way around the fact that in all probability it's a total waste of time to convince him of anything. If the accuracy of his ratings aren't important enough to give the same amount of time to each site on the list, there's jut nothing we can do about that.

Example: ConquerClub's tremendously poor interface is not a weakness for that site, because it is possible to download and run a ton of other shit, that somebody on that site somewhere told you to, that's hopefully not a virus, that almost brings it up to par. However, when a total beginner signs up on WarGear.net, it may take longer than 3 minutes to find a map to play on that suits that person's tastes. Win: CC

Now, I have never looked at this playriskonline.net, so this is no more than idle speculation, but ever since I heard of it I sort of suspected that it may at base be nothing more than a shill for whatever one "Risk" site Dennis originally hails from. Keep this in mind when evaluating his arguments. What better promotional tool for your site than a supposedly objective third-party rating site that consistently gives your site the best marks? Think about it.

I mean, whatever. Dennis has a site, it gets a lot of Google hits, he says what he wants to say (objective or not, doesn't really matter), and that's that. We have no real control over it except to make WarGear the best, most enjoyable community online Risk-esque site we can. Anything else is sort of a waste of time.

People will find WarGear via a google search, or they won't. I think it's pretty straightforward to build a vital community 'virally' by existing users inviting their friends, coworkers, classmates, neighbors, etc. I personally have brought at least a half dozen personal acquaintances to the site so far, and I'm sure others have brought far more. A community built this way will, in the long-run, likely be be stronger than a community built off of random strangers wandering in from the series of tubes known as the internet. Just something to keep in mind.

I think our maps here are good but that doesn't mean we should start attacking Dennis G just because he thinks others are better. It's his site and his opinions and since he has played multiple games on multiple sites, I think he is better qualified than I am to rate them.
Nobody is ever gonna accuse me of not being one to fly off the handle in defense of something but in this case, it's not warranted. The guy is doing the site a service just by including Wargear on it.
When Risky is the one to try and be the voice or reason everybody is pretty screwed.
Dennis, thank you again for your site and for including Wargear on it. I disagree with some of what you said but I think you are dead on with a lot of it. I know that I forget that the maps that I design are played by 100's of people that I don't know with different takes on things than I or my friends may have and I respect that (at least right now). We hope that you don't take our passion about this site against the site itself. It's still new, growing and expanding and I think each time you login you will be surprised by the work tom has done.

As my Mother RiskyAfterDrinks always says, "Don't piss on me unless I'm paying you to do it!"

DennisG wrote:

This is actually not the case with other sites.  On CC and others, each board which has bombardments, one way attacks, or other map specific rules are tied to a master rule set.  Players cannot change how the board works, connections, bonuses, etc.  I have only seen one site that allows you to adjust the bonuses on a map.  On CC and others, the map author does infact define the rules that can applied using an xml file.  The bottom line is that WG has some of the fewest game options available.

I'm not too sure what all this is supposed to mean. Let me see if I can parse my way out of it.

'On CC ... each board which has [some subset of rules] are tied to a master rule set'
Okay... so just like WG

'Players cannot change [things the player should never be able to change]. I have only seen one site...'
Red herring. Who ever suggested that one should be able to screw with borders and continents when starting a game? Who ever would?

'On CC ... the map author does infact define the rules that can applied'
I guess I'd have to sign up and try this to find out - does this mean that the map author not only sets up the board and the rules, but then further specifies which of the rules he has set up can be customised when starting games and to what values? Yikes. Tom, Cram, anyone who has played on CC, can you confirm this? Additionally, Tom and Cram have claimed that there are far more rules options available on WarGear when creating maps than on CC, a claim which sounds very reasonable to me and which Dennis chooses to ignore.

So if I'm reading this right, what is meant by 'The bottom line is that WG has some of the fewest game options available' is that while the game designer has many, many more options for dreaming up creative new ways to play, and the vast majority of users prefer straight-ahead world domination maps anyway, the person starting the game cannot choose blind-at-once initial troop allocation or fortification to any connected territory. Got it.

By the way, I caved and looked over Conquer Club. You guys should really check this out, because it swings the balance of my opinion of Dennis waaaay over towards the 'fucking retarded' direction: http://www.conquerclub.com/public.php?mode=instructions3

All these vaunted game options available amount to:
Different maps
Winning by eliminating the most players rather than taking over the board
Team games
Initial troop allocation (NOT territory selection): simultaneous blind-at-once or automatic
Simultaneous play available
Card scale options: Three choices available
Fortification options: Three choices
Fog of War: On or off
Private Games
Tournament Games
Speed Games

So, let's see. Compared apples-to-apples solely in terms of what the person beginning a game can do, in order. Warger:
Has, more and better.
Doesn't have. I'll leave my opinions about the value of this game mode aside.
Has, with many more options
Doesn't have (all set up by map author, many additional options)
Doesn't have (being worked on)
Doesn't have (all set up by map author, many additional options)
Doesn't have (all set up by map author, many additional options)
Has, with many more options
Has
Doesn't have (being worked on)
Has

So, the breakdown. Of the 11 amazing options CC offers, WG has:
2 identical
3 that are far superior
3 that are set up by the map author rather than game starter and are much more robust
2 that are not currently available but have been listed for subsequent updates
1 that is unique to CC and pretty strange.

So, leaving aside the fact that the map authors on WG can set up games (using only the site's own natural interface!) that are leagues beyond anything possible on CC, and evaluating the options available just to someone creating an account and firing up a game on either site, that's probably somewhere between a slight advantage to CC and a wash. If you choose to take into account the actual range and variety of options under which a game can actually be played on WarGear, WG comes out way ahead and that's a fact. It appears to me that the 'parsing' is actually being done by the person choosing to evaluate certain subsets of options and ignore most others.

DennisG:

DennisG wrote:By the way, I registered and played a bunch of games here months ago under a different name.

Given your comments in the early portion of this thread, this is an incredibly disingenuous claim, since the number of boards available for play on WG since whenever that was has increased exponentially although you appear to have ignored that entirely in writing your 'updated' review.

DennisG wrote:I think the best interests for WG are in not squeezing sour grapes, but making this site a contender.

You've obviously not read anything else in this forum.

Sorry Risky...

RiskyBack wrote: I think our maps here are good but that doesn't mean we should start attacking Dennis G just because he thinks others are better.

Agree.

RiskyBack wrote: It's his site and his opinions and since he has played multiple games on multiple sites, I think he is better qualified than I am to rate them.

Obviously false. If his arguments in defense of his opinions are rebutted, the opinions themselves become worth less (not 'worthless,' necessarily)

RiskyBack wrote: Nobody is ever gonna accuse me of not being one to fly off the handle in defense of something but in this case, it's not warranted.

Disagree, but open for debate. I like arguing, you probably don't as much.

RiskyBack wrote: The guy is doing the site a service just by including Wargear on it.

Totally wrong. If what he writes is inaccurate to WarGear's detriment, it's less than a service.

RiskyBack wrote: We hope that you don't take our passion about this site against the site itself.

Agree.

RiskyBack wrote: I think each time you login you will be surprised by the work tom has done.

Demonstrably false, empirically disproven.