What if they aren't allowed to vote for their own map, but are still allowed to vote?  Would they still want to?

Edward Nygma wrote:

What if they aren't allowed to vote for their own map, but are still allowed to vote?  Would they still want to?

Don't you think so? Most of them are players and Wargear enthusiasts as well.

It's weighing the odds against their own board winning, no?  It depends how much $100 and victory means...  I agree that everybody should have to play them all to vote, but as for designers voting...  I'd say let them vote, just not for their own maps.  Then they can opt not to vote, which is essentially a vote for their own map... sort of.

It seems like most people think it would be ok for the map makers to vote, so unless Tom steps in and says no, I think we should go with that.   There doesn't seem to be much consensus on whether map makers can vote for their own map, so I say leave that up to the individual map maker.  I think we have a pretty honest group here, so I doubt any are going to employ strategic voting, and hopefully there will be enough participation that one vote is not going to be a deciding factor.

Gimli wrote:

Well I would assume (and hope) that each boardmaker would vote for their own... it sorta cancels it all out, so why not? maybe one of them would admit that someone else's is better. at worst, no harm done, but giving them the freedom to choose would be deliciously democratic!

As for voting for my own map.  I am happy with my map, and I think it was the best I could do under the circumstances, and I got to try out some new things and hopefully improve my overall skills.  But I'm pretty sure it's not the best map.

With respect to participation levels.  I think it would help if you are in a game on one of the Pangaea maps, and you think that there might be someone in the game that is not aware of this contest, please make a post explaining the basics & direct them to this thread to vote.

So, I will not be voting for my map first, but I haven't determine where 2nd and 3rd will go.

Also, fyi - 1st place is only worth $60 (2 years of wargear).  2nd place is $30 (1 year of wargear).  3rd place is $10 (3 months of wargear).

Perfect, that is great.

I have not played them all yet, but Cumberdale once again came up with something really creative and different. And once again, a bunch of morons with the incapacity appreciate SG have deterred him with ignorant complaints. That discourages me. Can't really fathom how that affected him. I give him all 3 of mine, no offense to the rest. So I guess in effect I am abstaining through protest. :) But I do like the others. Good luck, and was a very fun idea.

PS Feel free in joining me to lobby Cumberdale to release his board. Had a fun, unique bonus system, and did something with the capitals rule that I had not seen done before. Too bad innovation is too much for many.

Gimli wrote:

I have not played them all yet, but Cumberdale once again came up with something really creative and different. And once again, a bunch of morons with the incapacity appreciate SG have deterred him with ignorant complaints. That discourages me. Can't really fathom how that affected him. I give him all 3 of mine, no offense to the rest. So I guess in effect I am abstaining through protest. :) But I do like the others. Good luck, and was a very fun idea.

PS Feel free in joining me to lobby Cumberdale to release his board. Had a fun, unique bonus system, and did something with the capitals rule that I had not seen done before. Too bad innovation is too much for many.

I feel the need to intervene here and say that this is pretty weak.  Cumberdale's board had a major flaw that he himself admitted and he stated that he would fix and release if he found the time.  Due to the fact that his life is busy, he obviously didn't find the time to get the board done in time.  Although there are many players who do not understand or like SimulGear, these sentiments were not the reason for the board failing review.

I do agree that the board was fun and creative and would have made a good addition to the site.

 I feel like I'm trying to decipher code here.  First of all, who is Clumberdale?  That's a WG name, right?  I can't find that player here.  Please call people by their WF names.  Second, What is the name of the board? Sorry, I'm bad with names.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure I was one of the Dev testers on that board.  As I recall, the designer was not happy with me because I thought I discovered a problem with the board and proceeded to attempt to "break" it by not moving out of the river.  

As I recall, he admonished me in somewhat rude fashion, claiming that I was ruining things.  I apologized, and moved out as requested.   But personally, I would not have passed that board "as is" if it were on the review board. 

Also, I and a number of players suggested fixes.  I agree with Alpha's points and I also agree that the board was creative and nicely rendered.

Geez, ..I hope we're talking about the same board.

P.S. I'm sorry that I'm not much of an aficionado of Simulgear.  I've played 10 or 20 games on it, and my feeling is that as a simultaneous Risk-style play engine, it is lacking.  Cause-effect play results feel counterintuitive.  I don't mean to hi-jack the thread.  My point is that if a board plays poorly (admittedly as a result of my subjective understanding of its mechanics), I can't in good faith give it high marks.

@M57: It's Cumberdale, not Clumberdale (cmon M57, cut and paste!!!), which was his name on WF, where he was equally legendary.

I hadn't thought of that loophole. Was that the main flaw? That someone could remain immune by not moving out out of the river? That's a good find - Dev players should aim to break the boards (I do, but I missed that one). Usually the mapmaker appreciates the find, so I imagine his comments were more out of frustration than personal rudeness (but I wasn't there).

@Gimli: His boards are great - I and others told him we liked his board, and I imagine he has thick enough skin where confused non-BAOers/SGers wouldn't influence a full retract of the board. I'm confident the board would have been in my top 3, but he pulled out and these other boards are interesting, so the show goes on (for us at least).

Hugh wrote:

 (cmon M57, cut and paste!!!), 

I'm such a loser.

..Dev'ers should aim to break the boards..

Thank you. I was doing my job.

..I imagine his comments were more out of frustration than personal rudeness..

I though the same thing at the time. There was a dead-line involved and he was probably not expecting someone to go about trying to break the board. I pretty much put my tail between my legs and retreated after I made my POV clear.

As a designer, it wasn't that hard to imaging myself in his shoes.  A number of good suggestions were made regarding how to fix it and I noticed that pretty much all of them would have required some significant changes to the graphics, so I was definitely feeling his pain.

Who bashes and fails a board on the assumption that people join games with a) zero interest in winning and b) zero interest in even playing it. That is 10 steps beyond uber-silly to me.  I guess all boards are broken then, cuz there is nothing to force all players from not just placing units and ending turns. Yeah you can say that at least in that scenario if one player wants, they might eventually be able to win. But if we are already going to make insane assumptions that one person would do it, might as well assume they all will. I am sure there are ways to deal with dickheads that will want to ruin a game, but who really does that? Not an acceptable reason to fail a board at all.

I don't care if you don't like SG. I care if people bash it and don't know it. If you try 1 (or a few) game(s), and then blanket the whole game style as negative cuz u got walloped and didn't bother to think before you played, I don't feel bad about calling someone lots of things. Just don't forget that you have to be pretty bad as outlined to get this. So please don't apologise unless you are one of those people. And if you are, you better do lots!! :)

and no, he would have found the time if not for all the negativity. who wants to do something that isn't much appreciated?

Gimli wrote:

Who bashes and fails a board on the assumption that people join games with a) zero interest in winning and b) zero interest in even playing it. That is 10 steps beyond uber-silly to me.  I guess all boards are broken then, cuz there is nothing to force all players from not just placing units and ending turns. Yeah you can say that at least in that scenario if one player wants, they might eventually be able to win. But if we are already going to make insane assumptions that one person would do it, might as well assume they all will. I am sure there are ways to deal with dickheads that will want to ruin a game, but who really does that? Not an acceptable reason to fail a board at all.

I wouldn't say all boards are broken. I consider a board to be broken if 

(1) Attacking usually doesn't improve your winning chances.

(2) Only placing gives you increased winning chances and only when the others attack each other.

In this case, a strategy purist like me will place. There is a board like this on here where I won two games by placing only, and then stopped playing because I don't like such games. Others may be motivated by things like fun, but I am motivated by winning and obtaining the best result possible (sometimes a draw)!

On quite a few boards, if you place only, you get killed. And if everyone else places, you can increase your winning chances through cards and continents. These boards are not broken (though they may suck anyway).

That said, the river loophole on Cumberdale's board doesn't seem too serious. If there are river-placers, I can go out into the world worry-free, because it will probably be drawn (b/c i can't lose! a draw is a draw even for the eliminated!) Also, I'll believe I can do better than a draw, so I'll go out of the river, believing the others will also. Only in exceptional circumstances (really bad initial position) would I say "I have almost no chance of winning, so I'll river-place". (But I WOULD river-place, because I am motivated by the best possible result, not by fun!)

Anyway, I made the suggestion a while back that the contest boards be autopassed because reviewers have made poor decisions to fail in the past, and because we don't have agreed upon criteria. The boards were made, dev'd, and reviewed under time pressure, so... 

Gimli wrote:

and no, he would have found the time if not for all the negativity. who wants to do something that isn't much appreciated?

It sounds like you know him personally and you know it did affect him. I would say that I saw a number of positive comments, I'm pretty sure it would have been in my top 3, and I wish he had not listened to the one or two naysayers (who you portray as "bashing" him, which I hope isn't actually true!), and I wish that the board were in the contest.

Well this has a longer history than wargear. Before Cumberdale, BAO at warfish was quite unknown (pretty sure that is quite accurate).

Boardmakers sure don't make boards for the money. And while they gain satisfaction from being creative and such, they really do it for others. So you can only have thick skin to a point. I did make the same point though about worrying about the positives, and that he serves a rabid niche group.

M57 was criticizing the board before he joined the test group, and all he did was prove a non-realistic theory in what a bunch of idiots could do. I would also like to throw out there he is already extremely prejudiced against SG, as he has invented his own complicated engine that is going nowhere. Very combative towards I guy I like, but there needs to be some accountability here for harsh, unjustified criticizing.

With the bonus scheme of his board, there is not incentive to turtle. Attack bonuses fell rather fast, so if your river spots were surrounded, in 2 turns your chances would be around 2% if I were to guess. You need to get out fast, get the prime real estate before others win and block you out with the better defensive odds and the better bonuses. But if you wanted to sit there for a few turns, that would not break his board. You take one territory outside the river, and its a capital.

Lastly, you may have misunderstood my comment about all boards are broken. " I guess all boards are broken then, cuz there is nothing to force all players from not just placing units and ending turns."  M57 is throwing out an extremely implausible theory: that someone will purposefully be a dick and not play, and thus the board is "broken". But if we are to be allowed to assume any extreme implausible scenario, then from that assumption he works with, then I am saying all boards are broken. But only from that theory. I sure don't accept it, just pointing out his starting assumption is the only thing broken here.

As for Alpha, you may have to recheck what you think he admitted. He has no idea what you refer to. Cuz he sure doesn't view the capitals and river situation as an issue.

as for this comment "I feel the need to intervene here and say that this is pretty weak." i can't really guess what you are actually referring to out of my big chunk, but I will guess you did not either read or did not understand my post previous. So nothing for me to actually say, but I guess I should let you know I did read it.

M57 was criticizing the board before he joined the test group

Really?  Where?

 I would also like to throw out there he is already extremely prejudiced against SG, as he has invented his own complicated engine that is going nowhere.  

LOL --       >>rock and roll emoticon<<  You may be right.. I may be crazy.

I have no agenda against SG.  Heck, I practically named it (I would have preferred the name for my engine, but my primary objective was to help the site).

I just don't get what makes SG so wonderful, ..not at WF, and not here at WG.  But I understand and respect that it has a following.  It just seemed to me there were better alternatives worth developing.

The point was once made (not by me) that Tom and the WF membership could put together a superior alternative if we started from the ground up, but consensus was to mimic the WF offering for a number of reasons, among them..

1. It's too time consuming to develop something else on a site that has other fish to fry (pun intended).
2. There were a number or WF BAO players that might not play here if there wasn't a similar offering.
3. There were a number of WF boards that could be ported over.

I will still play the occasional SG board just to see what's being developed, etc.  And I will continue to give it my best shot.

On the other hand, I will, both in Dev games and in Review Games, hold the highest standards I can where mechanics of play are concerned.  The possibility of stalemates and draws on any board (whether Standard or SimulGear) are flaws in my opinion.  I will make that abundantly clear, and I will will not pass boards that do not live up to these standards.

Lucky for you Gimli, my non-pass will never be the kiss of death.  It only takes one "Yea" vote for a board to pass.  In fact, everyone can "bash" a board (to use your poorly chosen verb) except the one person who is willing to pass it, and guess what?  The board passes!!  So what IS your beef?  Not only that, but let's say I won and refused to pass it.  Well ..guess what?  The convention of the winner passing is just that ..a convention.  Anyone can pass it!

Cumberdale (hey, I did that without cutting and pasting) essentially agreed with what seemed to me to be the consensus opinion, admitting that the board needed more work, and withdrew it from review.  If I had a nervous breakdown every time that happened to one of my boards, guess what?

      >>rock and roll emoticon<< ..but I just may be the luuuunatic you're looking for..,,