I had a case when  premium player sends to me a private message and I was not able to respond. probably thought that I ignored it. Let's say you play 3 players game: two premium players and 1 non-premium- if somebody want alliance, which player you think he will offer it? it's easyer to offer it to premium so he can get respond and deal with. it's a bit unfair. or 2 premium vs 2 non-premium, they will see "nice, we can chat private and kick those guys out". But most agree with Toto, the private messages during the game in general should not be. Public alliances are allowed, and that is fair way to play.

to not be confused, I'm now on free trial premium :)

I disagree with the reasoning here about alliances. There was a past thread concerning alliances here: http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1246

The point I agree with is that alliances are normally entered into by weaker players against a stronger player.  In this case the truce is even normally non-spoken.  So, here, the PM's are more of a convenience than a true advantage. 

The other point I agree with along these same lines is the aptitude of players to circumvent the system; non-Premium members can achieve the same functionality as PM's, it will just take more effort to do so.  This theory is the same as luck stats and/or unit stats.

I'm willing to pay my $10 for PM's to save the hassle of creating a new game with the truce player, exchanging emails, writing snail mail, etc.

~ATH

Ozyman wrote:

How about if a private message was sent, other players saw "Player X whispered something to Player Y!"

As others said, it could/would be used more of an annoyance and scare-tactic than anything else.  And accusations would possibly be even more prevalent.

AttilaTheHun wrote:

This game is War...anything goes.

 

Now one feature I think would be amazing is a "SpyGear" that could be used maybe once a week or once every 10 games or something.  Enabling your SpyGear would allow you to read all other players' PM's in a particular game.  Could be used in the event some people have allied against you or you suspect as such.

War yes, I agree with that statement. 

"SpyGear", no PM's should be respected as Private, they may even contain personal information and should probably be regarded as such.  "SpyGear" as a card-type system that lifts fog or something, cool, lifting PMs, no.

Jumbolero wrote:

I had a case when  premium player sends to me a private message and I was not able to respond. probably thought that I ignored it. Let's say you play 3 players game: two premium players and 1 non-premium- if somebody want alliance, which player you think he will offer it? it's easyer to offer it to premium so he can get respond and deal with. it's a bit unfair. or 2 premium vs 2 non-premium, they will see "nice, we can chat private and kick those guys out". But most agree with Toto, the private messages during the game in general should not be. Public alliances are allowed, and that is fair way to play.  

Not sure many (if any) players would go to the extreme of hunting to see which player is Premium prior to offering an alliance.  Really players should be looking at the board and not who has what type of account in order to create an alliance.

Other sites I've seen had public alliances, those just look annoying in my opinion.

I very very rarely use private message for actual gameplay tactics, normally they in regards to other things on WG or not even WG-related.  PMs are just a convenience for the most part.

I don't know about Yertle but I hardly ever PM anyone anyway.  It's not that advantageous a large amount of the time to ally with anyone.  Sure sometimes when someone gets hugely powerful and you need to ally with someone to take them down a notch it's vital but you can post on their wall almost as easily and it should be the obvious strategy anyway.

Maybe another Top 10 player can chime in as well?

That's not to say that I don't use PM's.  I do, but most of the time it's to say "hey wake up, if we don't stop attacking each other it's over" type of thing when someone doesn't notice what's going on with the rest of the board.  Honestly I just post that type of thing publicly anyway.

Viper wrote:

I don't know about Yertle but I hardly ever PM anyone anyway. 

Yertle wrote:

I very very rarely use private message for actual gameplay tactics, normally they in regards to other things on WG or not even WG-related.  PMs are just a convenience for the most part.

By very very rarely, I would say I've suggested it less than a handful of times in my 1k+ games here, and even accepted/replied to others in only a dozen-ish times.  And the number of times I've even been PMed in regards to alliances I would say is less than 5% (probably way less).  I really don't think it's that common of a tool in the Top 10 CP players.

Viper wrote:

...Sure sometimes when someone gets hugely powerful and you need to ally with someone to take them down a notch it's vital but you can post on their wall almost as easily and it should be the obvious strategy anyway.

What I meant to say was the obvious strategy should be to put the powerful player in check. 

When I reread that it sounded to me like I was saying the obvious strategy should be to post on their wall.

PMs are good to have private, do not hinder and are not unfair to a standard member. period. already mentioned is the ability to team PM in a team game. if an idividual game you still have the ability to write on each other's wall, PM them your email address, etc. and really - if it's that obvious that you need to team up against a leading player and they aren't doing it; then its a CYA message you're sending anyway...

in other words: status quo is good in this case.

As a long-term non-premium member, I'm pretty sure that the only thing keeping me from being competitive is the live-game cap. (And the live-game cap is the only thing keeping me from being on the WG helpline thread)

PMs are a nice perk for people who chip in for premium membership, but it's not going to make you into a competitive player. 

In this case I'm anti-change and pro-people-giving-Tom-$10-if-they-want-this-feature.