M57 wrote: I filter my email, my water, my coffee, and my carburetors. I'm a filter fan.

+1

PS Vataro, I was thinking more like.. just stop time.  Sunday just doesn't exist, which means that Friday when you leave work and Monday when you come in will be ~40 hours for you normal office types, which leaves 8 hours to take your turns before skips/boots.

IRoll11s wrote:

M57 wrote: I filter my email, my water, my coffee, and my carburetors. I'm a filter fan.

+1

 

PS Vataro, I was thinking more like.. just stop time.  Sunday just doesn't exist, which means that Friday when you leave work and Monday when you come in will be ~40 hours for you normal office types, which leaves 8 hours to take your turns before skips/boots.

That could be wacky, it's been Player A's turn at 40 hours for 24 hours?!  Of course hitting 2 days + without a skip would be awkward for a while too.

M57 wrote: I filter my email, my water, my coffee, and my carburetors. I'm a filter fan.

+1

IRoll11s wrote: 

PS Vataro, I was thinking more like.. just stop time.  Sunday just doesn't exist, which means that Friday when you leave work and Monday when you come in will be ~40 hours for you normal office types, which leaves 8 hours to take your turns before skips/boots.

 I think that's a possible solution.  I think that's how vacation should work too.

Yertle wrote:

I'm pretty much against the other % thingy that M57 suggested, I'm quite anti-complicated at the moment.

But just because something seems complicated to one person shouldn't stop what would be a feature into the site.  Risk is complicated.

And it's not like once Creature - Undo comes onto the battlefield it has Cumulative Upkeep GG

EnixNeo wrote:

Yertle wrote:

I'm pretty much against the other % thingy that M57 suggested, I'm quite anti-complicated at the moment.

But just because something seems complicated to one person shouldn't stop what would be a feature into the site.  Risk is complicated.

And it's not like once Creature - Undo comes onto the battlefield it has Cumulative Upkeep GG

I agree, just because I think it's overly complicated doesn't mean it doesn't have any merit, but my guess is that I wouldn't be the only one that thinks it's complicated when it really doesn't have to be complicated.  Overly complicated stuff is not good for a site IMO.

Not really sure what you meant in the last sentence :P

Yertle's argument against complication is complicated.

I agree with it, though. I love complication, but I think settings should be hard numbers, so as to be consistent. Honestly, its gotten to where I can't really even follow the logic of the suggestions regarding boot times and extensions anymore. I did like the simple "No Boot Sundays". And if that means "Sunday" is 48 hours long from Noon GMT Saturday to Noon GMT Monday so that the whole world feels included, then that's fine, too. (Lightning games exempt from boot exemption)

Sadly, I agree with Yertle here. I am also anti-complicated (mostly in my case due to native stupidity).

I do like the 'Sundays don't exist' compromise. Just freeze the turn timer for 24 hours. That's a level of complexity I think we can all live with.

I'll make my last case for one more button/toggle/pulldown option

Hosts can, when starting a game, choose either

Invite:

1.  All Public Players (default)

2.  Players with similar or better average turn times than mine (click here for explanation)

Another idea might be along the lines of:

1.  All Public Players (default)

2.  Experienced Players Only (5 or more games)

Obviously, the last choice would not be available to players who haven't played 5 games yet.

On a related note: I wonder, does Tom or anyone know what how many people join WG, initiate a game, and never come back..??  I'll bet it's quite a few.  I wonder if you shouldn't be able to start a game until you've finished at least 1 game.

Seeing as there looks to be an anti-complicated movement afloat here.  What do folks think of an "Advanced Settings" pop-up type menu?   Causal players who start games would still see a very basic menu of options.  Name of Game, Public/Private, TimeLimit, Fog, ..and done.

To make it even more user-friendly, Advanced Settings are all set to a default.

People could change the card structure, fortify structure, all the usual suspects, plus some others (like my idea).  Even making Sunday a "Day of Rest" could be an option that would show up on the list of games board (I'd be real curious to see what that icon would look like).

You could make it so that changes to any (or certain) Advanced Settings nullifies the game as being a ranked game.

I think we're all largely opposed to anything that starts looking like the Warfish queue system. Honestly, it was the most broken piece of shit I've ever seen. It's very frustrating to have different people all seeing different lists of games for marginal reasons.

Perhaps once the site is running enough traffic to support it, we could look at something. But right now, fracturing the queue into fast people and slow people any more than lightning games already do will simply make the player pools too small.

Besides, I think the general consensus is that this is a RISK by Mail site, and expecting games to resolve in one sitting is unrealistic. We do, however, have the lightning games for people who want to try. I don't think I've ever even had a tabeltop game of RISK finish in one sitting; and that's with all players sitting at the table. Usually its at least an 8 hour/ 2 day affair.

In sticking with consistency, No Boot Sundays need to be always on or always off.

Modifying other advanced settings has been discussed elsewhere. I'll defer to Yertle for finding those threads. Some are cool. Some aren't. I believe the ultimate goal is to make it an author option to decide which can be changed and by how much.

Vataro wrote: It's worrisome if it gets too complicated, yea.

I think skipping sundays and monday morning would be a good idea. I think Monday at noon is a reasonable amount of time, even for those who don't log in on the weekend. If it becomes too difficult for them then, maybe they should considering taking half a day of vacation time ;).

Many people do not get vacation time, I hate that this answer keeps popping up.  Also, people shouldn't need to take vacation when they're not on vacation.  More lenient boot rules should work - the hardcore elite are the vocal few on this site (as in other sites), there are a ton of people who play but don't use the forums, if those are the ones getting booted, we're going to lose a lot of player base simply because 2 days is not enough time.  

Or 4 days isn't enough to prevent a boot, or they log on every 2 days to take turns and miss their window both times.

I can handle it, most people can handle it, but a lot of people sometimes dissappear for a few days or don't use their computers.  I've done this before and been glad that WF gave me the grace period of other players who knew I was generally fast with my turns.

It's a small time investment, but not everyone can handle it all the time - why are we so strict here?  This is not a real-time site, we have lightning games for those who want to play it, but I would rather have my games go at a slightly slower pace once inawhile - than have someone booted and completely screw up the game.

I strongly dislike having a game screwed because someone's turn was skipped or they were booted.  It defeats the purpose of starting the game if people randomly drop out.

This happened to me when an ACTIVE player was booted because they were gone for a few days, and while -I- wouldn't have booted them, the computer decided to "move the game along" ie. end it that round because we lost a player and it upset the balance of player power.

I started this thread because I had 2 games where the game was basically ruined by a boot for all 3 of us left. Smart players don't waste armies on Neutrals if they don't have to and we all know Neutrals cheat. I feel all of your pain and so I have come up with a plan that I call The Risky Plan:

- Expand initial autoskip to 4 days
- Have Nudge email sent at 2 days that isn't snarky but says how many games it is their turn in and explain about the autoskip/autoboot.
- Autoboot after 2 days following an autoskip.
- Autoboot resets after your turn is taken so you have another 4 days.

I think this should help the weekend issue and also give players opportunities to take their turns without drastically forcing people to become daily players. In fact, you could login once a week and keep you games alive with this plan.
Andernut, the reason that I am a fan of the autoskip/autoboot idea is because many people (myself included) don't check all their games when it's not their turn. I would like games to move along and I don't like having games that are just dead because of a player not taking turns. I understand that players booting is preferable and I agree, but I don't think it works.
I would like you all to support The Risky Plan and advertise your support on your blog and/or put a sign in your front yard.
Vote YES for The Risky Plan

Actually, I do vote yes for the Risky Plan. It sounds reasonable and just along the lines we need. I too am suffering in a couple games from boots that have completely shifted the balance in favor of one person (and not me in any of them! >_<).

And Andernut, my comment was actually made half in jest. I only recently got premium myself, and agree that vacation time should only be used as such. Nothing we come up with is going to solve the problem completely, but we need to be able to find a balance between catering to those of us who take turns regularly and those who only log in once or twice a day.

People could change the card structure, fortify structure, all the usual suspects, plus some others (like my idea).

Except...I recently created my first map that (hopefully) takes full advantage of the fact that I have almost complete control over every setting on the board except for Fog.

Changing ALMOST ANY other setting would completely ruin the delicate balance that I've (hopefully) created, making the board either a joke of a win for the player who goes first or a grind-out stalemate with no possible winners.

I'm not against giving the map maker the ability to set some or all of the map settings so that they can be changed by players, but ultimately the control should remain with the map maker.

In one sense the current system is harder for a map maker, in that you can't simply create one magnum opus map and spam 15 different mods.  It only took me 9 months to come up with my first map idea, so who knows how long it will take me for another.  Having control over every setting though definitely gives you much more ability to stretch the limits of the current system.

As for the other suggestion, you can read:

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/104p1/Auto-Boot

I don't know what the final resolution was but you really should see what was already discussed as far as boots.

In the end it's difficult to create a system that:

1. Is simple.
2. Caters to the people who want fast fast fast and also to the people who just want to casually play every day or so.
3. Deals with one-off sign-ups.
4. Balances standard vs. premium.
5. Manages the portion of the user base that can only play on weekdays.
6. Keeps games moving.
7. Prevents games from being thrown to a random player because of defections.
8. Prevents abuse of the system.

I apologize for my first response to you on this topic where I told you something along the lines of 'deal with it'. Uncalled for.

I'm cool with either Risky's plan or the "No Sunday Boots" option. In Risky's defense, I'll note that some people don't work traditional M-F work schedules, so the simpler "No Sunday Boots" option might not do much good for them.

and if anyone needed proof that Sundays are slow:

Not to mention I haven't had but a few turns to take all day! How am I supposed to not get work done if WG isn't there to distract me? :(

I feel the frustration with the boots mid to late game but i think that the system that is set up right now is working very well for most scenarios.

At the most the default could be set to the 5 day boot instead of the 2. it seams that quite a few people are concerned about being booted on the weekends. if a player doesn't play weekends then the 5 day boot games are the best choice for them.

I do like the idea of a nudge email sent at 1/2 the boot time

but if we are talking about a new player that joins a few games and doesn't stick around then i like the idea of a reward system that unlocks different features/boards on the site (this was discussed in a different thread, that i cant find, in regards to the free month premium being a reward instead of automatically given to a player as soon as they join WG)

Vataro, I just have to point out your other tabs that you had open when you took that screenshot: Surface Plasmon Resonance? Focus on Plasmonics?? Talk about a slow Sunday... ;-)

(PS, I'm writing this in the lab write now, and it's 9PM on Sunday night, and I'm gonna be here a while...)

Haha, yea. I was trying to get a little background knowledge for a paper I'm supposed to be writing. It's not going so well =/.

Risky: When I say put boots in the hands of the players, I mean allowing ANYBODY to direct-boot after pre-determined time, not vote-to-boot, but direct-booting. If you make the turn-timer RED and noticeable in some way when it has reached a certain time-frame, you can take a look and decide whether to boot or not.

Again, if the solution is that said person gets booted because they had a slow week, I'd rather avoid that solution in say a 3 player game. If it's got 6 players, then maybe I'd take advantage of the solution with my solo-boot option.

I'm fully in support of keeping games moving, but not at the expense of destroying that game for remaining players.