Is it possible to have a notes to self section underneath a board to keep track of strategy/key events?

This is not a bad idea.  I could see myself using it in heavily fogged games where I test the waters by hitting a territory to see who owns it.  5 days later, Uhmmm....

An easy implementation would be to make it so that you could send a private note to yourself in the game message board.  (Premium members only)

Yes, would like notes to self. Secret message self would suffice.

Yep - done.

tom wrote: Yep - done.

Probably don't need the Private Message Received Email when it's a self note.

Yertle wrote:

tom wrote: Yep - done.

Probably don't need the Private Message Received Email when it's a self note.

Note to self: Read "note to self".

M57 wrote:

Yertle wrote:

tom wrote: Yep - done.

Probably don't need the Private Message Received Email when it's a self note.

Note to self: Read "note to self".

*Smack*

11's, could you please do me a favor......
I logged onto this thread so I could see if anything was ever figured out because this issue still annoys me but it took me to the last of 5 pages and at this point it is about Notes to Self.
My mission for you, my snarky friend:

Read through this entire thread create a 11's Cliff Note Version so without doing any substantial reading I can see if anything got accomplished, how we got sidetracked and finally be entertained.
Thank you in advance for you efforts in this endeavor.

I'd like to see something come out of this as well - my current preference is for newbies not to be able to join general queue games until they have finished a game. Once they have Finished one game then they are treated the same as everyone else. Possibly there could be an option when creating a game to make it joinable to newbies or not.

This weeds out all the issues where new joiners join a set of games and then never return to the site (for whatever reason).

My concern is making sure that this doesn't result in less newbies being converted into regular players because either they don't have sufficient games to join or all the games they join are full of other newbies who either never return or don't know how to play.

I think the way to manage this has to be some form of 'welcoming committee' who guides folks through the first game. IMO correctly implementing this would vastly increase the number of joins who stay to become regular players.

The way I think this could work:

1. Have an experienced player in each starter game who has high powers: the ability to boot players whenever, change things around maybe to demonstrate the large capability of the site, etc. Truly interested new players can't be held back by players who just join and leave, it would be the experienced player's responsibility to manage this.

2. It would have to be pretty much instant gratification. This would be greatly improved by a chat system, in which the welcome committee is available to play somewhat real time games, or at least talk with new players and welcome them as soon as they join Wargear. It could still work otherwise, but it would be very helpful to have the chat. The idea here is to show new members that the Wargear community is active and helpful, something that I think might be lacking right now unless they visit the forums.

If it was organized right it wouldn't really be all that much work for the committee, but it would have to be watched because it could easily become overwhelming.

Still looking forward to the 11s cliff notes though... ;-)

tom wrote: I'd like to see something come out of this as well - my current preference is for newbies not to be able to join general queue games until they have finished a game. Once they have Finished one game then they are treated the same as everyone else. Possibly there could be an option when creating a game to make it joinable to newbies or not.

This weeds out all the issues where new joiners join a set of games and then never return to the site (for whatever reason).

My concern is making sure that this doesn't result in less newbies being converted into regular players because either they don't have sufficient games to join or all the games they join are full of other newbies who either never return or don't know how to play.

I agree with your concern.  Why make them have to finish a game?  That could take weeks ..or months.  I know I've said it before, but why not just 5 or 10 moves?  Under normal conditions that could take a week or so, and visiting the site those 5+ times demonstrates adequate interest IMO.

I know you don't want to make it too complex, but you could have 5+ moves to enable joining multiple games, and finish one complete game in order to create a game.

I'm likely an exception to the rule (actually I'm an exception to a lot of rules - so says my wife), but I was creating and even developing games here before I had finished a game.  Even the 5 move rule would have been agonizingly slow for me (but I would have put up with it).

Yep I agree we could definitely go with the 5-move rule instead of a full game.

I'm thinking that part of the joining process is to start a game on a predefined board, that gets sent to a list of 12-18 'Gear-heads' (of which i wouldn't mind being included). This is similar to how the Review board works, the board is submitted and everyone gets the invite. This would ensure the game goes somewhat quickly, that all the gear-heads play at 50% their normal effort to give the poor chap a chance. Then you can implement the X-turn policy if that's what you want.

This, of course, would all be explained in the nifty-difty-ooper-duper-welcome-to-the-site-flash-thingy.

I had this guy who joined about 6 games I was in. He took turns in 2 of them because they started quickly and then got booted from all of them. This made me sad.
I don't know how much having an Experienced player in games will really help. I've offered help and suggestions to N00bs but if they never comeback it doesn't really help too much.
Personally, I think that Nudges would help out. People join some games and don't get to play right away and then a day or more later they get an email about it and just ignore it at that time and forget all about the game. If there were Nudges at least we could try to get the people to login again.
Now let's not make them all snarky like on ToS. I think that just a reminder that the players could send out and the autoskip/autoboot doesn't happen until at least 24 hours after a nudge was sent as long as it is after 48 hours. That way Friendly games don't have to worry about boots because they don't happen unless a nudge was sent.
Anyways, that is my suggestion. I still want Cliff Notes of this thread.

Bengal and 'Top's suggestions echo remarkably closely the idea I suggested weeks ago - possibly in this very thread (no idea). I got shouted down by the rest of you, so I expect the same response to their ideas.

Shout!
Shout!
Shout at the Forums!

What if we just had a requirement where you couldn't start a game, couldn't be in more than, oh, five games, and couldn't be in a tournament until you complete *one* game? That way, a new player could still participate in the site, but the amount of damage done from a "reg & dump" would be minimized?

Oatworm wrote: What if we just had a requirement where you couldn't start a game, couldn't be in more than, oh, five games, and couldn't be in a tournament until you complete *one* game? That way, a new player could still participate in the site, but the amount of damage done from a "reg & dump" would be minimized?

oh wait, we've got most of them implemented already, that's right!

couldn't tell if that was sarcasm or not, so i responed with some of my own!

It wasn't - it's been a while since I was a "new user". If those measures are implemented, what are we complaining about? As the site grows and gets more regulars, the boot problem will take care of itself most of the time. If you can't handle boots at all, go play a tournament game.

That's pretty much my position as well. WG will grow over time and this will be less of an issue.

Praying for the future to fix a problem in the present? That don't sound right.