So, at the end of April my ISP, without notifying me till the night before via an sms to my stick modem, told me they were migrating to a different technology... EVDO to 3g... and even after they migrated it took them forever to get me a new modem and to get the new network working.  I used more then a week of vacation while I was trying to sort that out and then after we went into May I had to think of some other way of getting on routinely and had to start creating WIFI with my phone and paying a lot (more then usual) to be able to play my turns more tediously due to poor connectivity to the phone's data network while I waited for them to replace me with a new modem to migrate me to the 3g network... Which didn't work at first.  Anyway, under your proposed system I'd definitely have eaten more then a week at '0-cap' before I sorted out alternative solutions and would have used 200+ VPs.  What number of VP do you think would be a fair allotment per year of premium membership?

berickf wrote:

So, at the end of April my ISP, without notifying me till the night before via an sms to my stick modem, told me they were migrating to a different technology... EVDO to 3g... and even after they migrated it took them forever to get me a new modem and to get the new network working.  I used more then a week of vacation while I was trying to sort that out and then after we went into May I had to think of some other way of getting on routinely and had to start creating WIFI with my phone and paying a lot (more then usual) to be able to play my turns more tediously due to poor connectivity to the phone's data network while I waited for them to replace me with a new modem to migrate me to the 3g network... Which didn't work at first.  Anyway, under your proposed system I'd definitely have eaten more then a week at '0-cap' before I sorted out alternative solutions and would have used 200+ VPs.  What number of VP do you think would be a fair allotment per year of premium membership?

What if you had 400 VPs with a 25 VP/per day cap?  That would give everyone over two weeks of no-questions-asked vacation time.  And the person that carries a 15 game load (that would be me), would get 4 weeks of vacation. 

So if we consider that 1 month is the standard, equilibrium looks to be at about a 14 game load.  Under that, members don't have to give it a second thought and they'll have a month of vacation time.  Over that and that number starts to slide down to a guaranteed  2+ weeks for those with 25 or more games, with the potential to squeeze quite a few more days if they can manage things.

Generally speaking, I don't think it should be such that a player with a decent game load doesn't have to give it a second thought - What would be the point of taking on a new system if that were the case? Part of the point is to get at least the heavy users to consider using some game management. That said, even if the system doesn't force game management, the other features and advantages alone add up to compelling argument for a switch to a VP based system.

Considering the heavy users.. what do you think of a good behavior incentive like roll-over VPs to a max of 600?  If you had something like that you could do something like 300 VPs per year with a 25 game cap - and the 25+ game crowd could earn 3+ solid weeks of vacation time.

300 = 10 game load/12 days at a cap of 25

400 = 13.33 game load/16 days at a cap of 25

500 = 16.67 game load/20 days at a cap of 25

600 = 20 game load/24 days at a cap of 25

Being that I am a heavier user from time to time, and have experienced 2 emergencies situations in the last three years...  And I do go out of my way to play when I can, so, those were extreme circumstances.  But, given my own habits I tend to lean more towards the higher end.  I think that a 600VP/20 cap would be most in line with the one month as it is now, (obviously since 600/20 = 30 days and therefore would accommodate all users to a month and reward light users more!) but, if we are trying to encourage more game management, I think that 500/25cap would be a fair compromise and are also nice round figures!  Or, if you want to force more management at the lower end and really press for 400 VP, then set the cap at 20...  That could work too because it still gives 20 days of guaranteed protection, at a minimum. 

To tell you the truth, and I know I'm probably the exception around here, but I don't use vacation for planned vacations because I have my laptop and modem and have no problem in my usual places of vacation from, worst case scenario, driving to where I can pick signal and taking my turns on schedule.  If I go on a safari deep into a wildlife reserve, then, I should be able to plan for that, but, last time I went on a safari like that I was still using Conquer Club and that worked from my phone.  WarGear doesn't like to work from the phone... But maybe I could do the WIFI over phone thing again like I did in May, as crappy as that was... not sure... Anyway, For my circumstances it's the emergencies that scare me.  Where I live, and I do a good job of mitigating these risks, but the electricity is always at a threat to go of and does so several times a day, which is not a problem, but when it goes for an entire day or more, I have to go out of my way to find somewhere with a generator to plug in to.  There was a time when the internet would die for long periods too, but, they seem to have sorted that out for now, except for my April/May internet adventure this year!  For a time I just stopped playing lightening games because of my internet, but, I'm starting to venture back into them again...  So, you can see why for me getting a VP/Cap at at least 20 is my priority when I look at the numbers.  If you wanted to go for a low VP extreme, you could even do a 300VP/cap12 if you wanted to really force management for low game number players who wanted to get the most out of their VP, but this would still protect now medium as well as the previous high game number players to only shave a little off their one month if they decided to use it like regular vacation at the cap of 12 as that would still give such players 25 days.