Some boards over time get removed for various reasons.  It would be nice if those boards still received a homepage, maybe just with graphic and rules - but were simply unavailable for play.

It leaves a bit of an ugly top-ranked trophy in the profile (a red x), in addition clicking on it results in a long wait and an ugly HTTP 500 Internal Server Error page.  Even if you wanted to allow boards to be deleted completely, it would be nicer if it pointed to a "this board has been removed from wargear or unshared by it's creator etc."

ie. http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Lord+of+the+Gear+Rings

Btw. What happened to LOTGR? That's one of my favorite boards.

Thingol appears to be trimming maps and active games.

Aw dang, last I checked he had removed SOME maps, now it appears he has removed ALL maps.

So many cool maps/scenarios gone :(

can't tell which ones he designed. they're all gone. seems to me there should be a history under his page as to which boards he's had live either currently and retired. 

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

Amidon37 wrote:

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

+1

Thingol did say to me that he'd put them back up before he quit completely.

Amidon37 wrote:

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

I'm thinking of pulling Appomattox Campaign - its mechanics are archaic by WarGear standards. It was created before we had factories (and even abandon I think).  Its attempt to achieve a certain type of game-play was over-ambitious given the tools of the time.  That, and it's ugly.  I think I'm too vain to want it attached to my name.

M57 wrote:

Amidon37 wrote:

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

I'm thinking of pulling Appomattox Campaign - its mechanics are archaic by WarGear standards. It was created before we had factories (and even abandon I think).  Its attempt to achieve a certain type of game-play was over-ambitious given the tools of the time.  That, and it's ugly.  I think I'm too vain to want it attached to my name.

same with whittle 'em. but still think that there should be a way to see what's been retired. if there was a good board retired, it might be brought back with some petitioning (assuming designer was still around)

Thingol's maps are generally things of beauty. Why pull them? Does the designer need to keep doing stuff after they are live?

Amidon37 wrote:

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

I've pulled a map or two due to quality / gameplay issues years after release. Connect Some, anyone?

Anyway, it happens that maps get past the designer, the review board, and even the community for a while that then someone cracks and it goes to suck. Or, in the case of Connect Some, it was released before there were any checks in place and it just needed to be brought in from the wild.

Either way, I'm glad there was a way to kill the thing off, though perhaps a "retirement" function where the map is still viewable but games can't be played on it would be better.

Amidon37 wrote:

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

I agree, with one of the main reasons being that it "locks" Championship Points for the board as no one can attempt to overtake the leader.

I understand the use cases where a Designer may want to pull an old board, but if it does go completely Retired then it would be nice if it was still available somehow with potentially some way of starting games on it.

I'm 1st on one of his boards and a close 2nd on another (where Thingol is #1).  I understand that it's his creative property.  But, it feels a bit like he's taking his ball and going home without any explanation.

I think whether a developer should be able to disable their board (ideally this is for a good reason, in fact perhaps a good reason needs to be required to do so since in some cases there are maps that are wildly popular and it lessen the WG experience) is different than the question of removal of a map.

ie. a deterministic board suddenly has a discovered solution whereby the player who goes first (or second) always wins the game.  This board should be disabled. But not removed - it's annoying when you are top ranked on a board and you get a little "x."  It's annoying to click a link and get a 404 error.  I just think it's ugly.  It should point to the home page of the disabled board, with a reason on the page that says why the board is disabled (but perhaps one can still play private games on that board with the players making the convention that nobody takes the win-button territory or something). 

Yertle wrote:

Amidon37 wrote:

I've never been a fan of designers being able to pull a board completely.  This only reinforces my opinion.

I agree, with one of the main reasons being that it "locks" Championship Points for the board as no one can attempt to overtake the leader.

I understand the use cases where a Designer may want to pull an old board, but if it does go completely Retired then it would be nice if it was still available somehow with potentially some way of starting games on it.

Hello,

I wasn't even aware that boards could be pulled until I came upon this thread, but I completely agree that the main problem is that it "locks" the championship points, as Yertle has stated.  This makes CP a rather uncompetitive stat in the long run, which goes completely against the purpose of keeping stats in the first place and especially one as highly regarded and given as much exposure as CP!  As more and more boards get pulled, and I have no idea how prevalent this is, But if enough points were gained on each then that's potentially 20+15+12+10+8+6+4+3+2+1=81! points lost per pulled board that can no longer be competed for!  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if 5, 10, 15 or 20 boards have been pulled that hundreds of points have been "locked" in and can no longer be competed for!  I understand that perhaps some of these boards may have been pulled for design reasons that led to the realization that they were biased or non competitive in their game play and others may have been pulled simply at the whim of the owner, but, I suggest that the best way to deal with this is that if a board is pulled that its CP points are pulled with it to maintain the integrity of the ranking system.

Cheers,

Erick

It does seem a shame that CPs worked hard for could disappear, and potentially for no good reason other than the whims of the designer.  While on the one hand berickf is right, my gut tells me that there is not much harm is letting the player retain at least a percentage of those points.  Call it a Retirement Plan.

There's 250-300 boards on this site.  If a couple are pulled that's not really locking up many CPs and the most it can prevent you from getting is 20 points.  Let's not be dramatic here.  There's people in the top 10 list with 200 points... that's top ranking on 10 boards. 

With at least 250 boards to play on I wouldn't worry about a small number of boards being removed, there's still plenty of room to compete on.  Most boards won't be removed unless there's a real problem.

it would be nice to be able to clean up the boards page a bit tho.

off-the-cuff here: maybe those boards wanting/needing to be pulled get put into full-fledged 'retirement barracks', those that the designer thinks aren't real fun/look terrible/whatever get put into an 'AWOL' status (still can be played, but similar to beta boards you have to specifically call them up to look at them)

hell this could be expanded to those that are currently broke but being worked on put into the 'VA hospital' or some such relevant terminology. basic training for the map foundry/workshop...etc 

Cramchakle wrote:

I've pulled a map or two due to quality / gameplay issues years after release. Connect Some, anyone?

Anyway, it happens that maps get past the designer, the review board, and even the community for a while that then someone cracks and it goes to suck. Or, in the case of Connect Some, it was released before there were any checks in place and it just needed to be brought in from the wild.

Twas a good decision to pull that one. The old Connect Some (other site), however, was really fun.