Warfish allows you to prevent people from joining your game who have been booted from too many games. You should have that here. A guy named BigShasta joined my game and he has been booted 96 times due to inactivity. 96! The title of my game was "FAST TURN TAKERS ONLY PLZ" and this joker joined and then promptly forgot to play. How do I prevent him from joining my next game? And the next one? Right? 

As BigShasta is not a premium member, you just need to set him as an enemy and he won't be able to join games you are in.

Thanks. Done. Still, I am sure he is not the only one. I would like the option.

I still vote against this, unless we put it at a reasonably high Boot number (ie nothing until 10+ boots) along with boots falling away after a certain time period.

This thread is also somewhat related to the boot conversation: http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/2351/Unilateral_surrender#post_5

Right now there is no deterrent to racking up large numbers of boots other than having a slight blemish on your profile that most players never check anyway until after the fact.  This is what I would consider a "passive" deterrent to getting booted regularly.  Generalissimo mentions what I would consider an "active" deterrent to high # of boots.  This doesn't necessarily have to be limitations to joining games but should be something significant.  Otherwise, who is going to think twice about getting booted vs. surrendering?  Of course I'm assuming here that the game loss resulting from a boot isn't consequence enough.

Like Yertle said, I think it makes sense to have some kind of "vanishing boot record" that let you regain your credit w.r.t boot record.  Combine this with a signficant-enough consequence for the boot threshold will, IMO, be a good solution for the boot issue.

Here's my proposal for the boot threshold and consequence:

>10 boots --> Unable to join Open Public Beta games (Standard and Premium)

>25 boots --> Unable to create/join additional Tournament games (Standard and Premium)

>50 boots --> Unable to create Open Public games (Standard and Premium)

>100 boots --> Unable to join Open Public games (Standard and Premium)

My initial thoughts.  

~ATH

 

No, that's not what I meant at all, Yertle, Attila. I didn't mean that big brother decides how many boots are too many to join certain games. I mean that individual hosts decide how many boots are too many to join their games. How could anybody possibly object to that?

Yertle wrote:

I still vote against this, unless we put it at a reasonably high Boot number (ie nothing until 10+ boots) along with boots falling away after a certain time period.

I think everyone is scarred by how badly this was implemented on ToS :)

One problem is if the system is too onerous on boots then players will just create new accounts.

tom wrote:

One problem is if the system is too onerous on boots then players will just create new accounts.

..and what's wrong with that?  They lose their ratings and records and have to start from scratch.

Maybe the system could be modified so it allows a number of boots over specified period of time before sanctions kick in.  The system looks at the the last x days, counts boots, and applies appropriate sanctions.  In effect, good behavior lifts the penalties.

I think some penalty for # of boots in last 100 games, or last 6 months (or something) is appropriate.  I see where ATH is going with this and it makes sense to have some sliding scale.  Also agree with Generalissimo that the game creator should be able to chose the setting.  Maybe have options for:

Allow anyone to join. (default)

Allow anyone with <10 boots to join.

Allow anyone with <25 boots to join.

 

And maybe an additional penalty for non-premium members so that they cannot create games if they have too many boots.

Ozyman wrote:

I think some penalty for # of boots in last 100 games, or last 6 months (or something) is appropriate.  I see where ATH is going with this and it makes sense to have some sliding scale.  Also agree with Generalissimo that the game creator should be able to chose the setting.  Maybe have options for:

Allow anyone to join. (default)

Allow anyone with <10 boots to join.

Allow anyone with <25 boots to join.

 

And maybe an additional penalty for non-premium members so that they cannot create games if they have too many boots.

I think i could support something like this where the number is out of last 100ish non-real time games. that way if I had a bad spill with vacation ending or something it doesn't really hurt me as i can work it off.

I like Yertle's idea where the boots fall away, for example every 10 games played without a boot removes a boot from your record.  Something like the points system for driving licences. 

In fact, if you want you can creat a points system and give players points for any type of infaction if you want, that way the 'points' would be separate from boots and you wont be deleting stats.  In this case you get a point for every boot.  And get -1 point for every 10 games played without a boot so you can redeem yourself.

Then you can set your system discussed above based on the points a player has. 

Jesus, you people must love some big government.

 I started this thread suggesting that individual hosts could decide how many boots are too many for their games. Now you busybodies want to construct a whole bureaucracy of rules for boots.

Generalissimo wrote:

Jesus, you people must love some big government.

 I started this thread suggesting that individual hosts could decide how many boots are too many for their games. Now you busybodies want to construct a whole bureaucracy of rules for boots.

No, it's just rather than the Game Creator setting the number of boots (which I would contend is awkward and problematic) there is something simple that allows you to select to excluded players if they have more than a certain number of boots (with that number being set and boots falling off a record after a certain time period or criteria).... my guess is that it does not correlate directly with the loving some big government.

I'd like to change my answer.

I think there needs to be an individual mandate.  Every player must sign up for boot insurance.   This can be paid either via real world dollars or with championship points.  These are put up as 'stake', and if you get booted are re-distributed to other players in the game.  Distribution is based upon a weighted average of games played at wargear, # of forum posts, & # of turns in the game in question (the weights in question are of course set by the game host when the game is created).

Booted players can appeal to the board review committee or to the Commander in Chief himself (Tom).   Religious and hardship exemptions can be given, but must be applied for before the game starts or at least 10 round-maximum time periods (calculated by # of non-eliminated players * max turn length * 10, or see form RMT-1) prior to the player in question getting their first skip.

If you don't like it, you can move to some other pretend-war website, or create your own (it's been done before).  "Love it or leave it", I say.

 

Funny Oz -

I strongly suspect most of the boots at this site are from people who will never return - so any system like anything mentioned will have a minor effect on our games.

Boots are annoying, but are less common than when I started a couple of years ago.  It's fairly common now to finish large games with no boots -

Ozyman suggests that game creators could filter for things like <10, 20, 30 boots etc, but who wouldn't always select the lowest number, especially if a "last 100 games" rule applies to boot count.

A37 says that booted players are mostly one-offs and there's nothing that can be done about that. Nevertheless, repeat and habitual offenders need to be discouraged.

A system that let's them restore their good standing is healthier than one that irrevocably penalizes them, yet they need to be in a position to easily restore their good standing. 

I notice that BigShasta is a Standard Member.  How about if a Standard Memeber's max game count was cut in half when the "last 100 game boot count" gets too high?

I personally don't have a problem with putting a 10 game limit on Premium Members whose 100-game-boot-count gets too high, but I can see where some might object to the idea of penalizing paying members.

Jumping in here because i accidentally revived this thread:

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/895/Boot_vs_Surrender

before I noticed that you guys were already discussing it here.

I agree with

M57 wrote:

Ozyman suggests that game creators could filter for things like <10, 20, 30 boots etc, but who wouldn't always select the lowest number, especially if a "last 100 games" rule applies to boot count.

A37 says that booted players are mostly one-offs and there's nothing that can be done about that. Nevertheless, repeat and habitual offenders need to be discouraged.

Generalisimo has a good point that it would be a nice option during game creation.
Or possibly, something that could be a setting on your account.

I think we need a 2 pronged approach though.
There is no way to know what you're getting into if you join someone else's game. So there needs to be some way to discourage the habitual offenders. (good point Ozy)
Both with points AND their ability to create games.

slowly eliminating boots from your record would resolve the worries of long-time players who have them from playing for years.

i absolutely agree with this post from renjason. Am a big fan of Generalissimo's original idea that a person's boot count should be something a game creator can filter against.  also, a boot should DEFINITELY affect your overall score more negatively than a loss or a surrender, accidental or otherwise. 

We got three guys choosing to boot in a game I'm in now, and does it ever diminish my enjoyment of this otherwise wonderful site.  Borrrrriiiinnnnnnng.

Plus one

I agree with it effecting your score. Like a boot giving you an additional -10 or something.  Being skipped is kind of your warning to try to not neglect the game again.

That being said this idea is not something I'm passionate about. I continually do have a game getting slowed down in some form or another but it doesn't really effect my experience that negatively. If I was trying to play through games faster I would just join games with a 1 day timer.