Personally, if anyone cares, I gave up playing here because of RL constraints, but also because of a trend in the playerbase that I did not care for: away from a serious atmosphere of analysis to one of spammy joke posts and other reddit and 4chan style "internet banter." The place has become much more cliquish since I started here lo so many years ago and that's a big turn-off. I can't be the only one feeling this way - granted, the forum software is pretty terrible too, but we could've made that work if the games and (maybe, more importantly) the people playing them had been more enjoyable.
EDIT: I've beaten this point to death before, but I think the establishment of the mafia league is the root of this subforum's malaise. Cutting actual games and running league games that were usually substandard and included an arbitrary point system was the first step towards sucking the fun out of mafia on this site.
Not much that I wrote there has changed. Obviously I have a child now and so that's cut down my participation in all non-essential activities, but quite apart from that, I've been disengaged from playing mafia for a while because of the attitude I describe in the quote. As far as hosting goes (which if you know me, you know that hosting is the real fun for me), the bizarre new approach to queues has killed any interest I had in continuing to participate. The replacement of the FTQ AND the specialty queue in favor of the PCQ, which I have argued against since its inception despite winning PCQ #2, was the last straw for me. I have absolutely no desire to submit for the PCQ. I do not want my setup to be voted on. I do not think that system produces good setups (and I think the evidence of the last two PCQs clearly bears out that opinion.) Let the playerbase have their say by signing up - or not - for what I present them. I much prefer a queue where anyone can have a go, if they wait long enough and their turn comes up - in other words, the successful system we had for years. That's where I'm at. I can't see myself continuing to participate if things continue as they are now, and that saddens me, having been a part of the community here since 2008.
First of all I want to thank Ecophagy for the effort put into data collection and organization for us to determine the issues surrounding our dwindling playerbase. It obviously took a great deal of effort and helps a ton deciding how to prioritize fixes. So kudos and well done to you.
I've skimmed over most responses as I didn't simply want to parrot another, but I've seen a lot of good suggestions for patching up.
I am seeking Constructive criticism around methods used. Do people think that grouping the data in 3 month blocks is correct? Are the sub-population definitions correct? What other information would you like to look at (and feel free to use the data to run your own analysis). Also looking for volunteers to add 2016Q1 and Q2, as well as to help sanitise the data to remove some of the limitations and to improve data quality. Post here or PM if you want to help!
I think you presented the data as well as you could; the game lengths are average of around 3 months I suspect, so quarterly organization makes sense. I'm not too worried about the gimmick accounts fudging the data; I'm sure there are only a dozen or so such players.
Most importantly, how do we fix the situation? Some ideas:
Are there any more technical changes from Curse that would improve our quality of life?
Absolutely. This site has not been a friendly mafia platform since day 1 of the curse buyout taking effect. Sure, we have had some minor quality of life improvements, but in general we are beat out by more focused, better designed communities dedicated to the game we love to play. Until we can meet or exceed the standards set out by competing communities, our player base will continue to dwindle as players either stop putting up with the clunkiness we have here or go where it's done better. We simply don't offer the best functionality of the game, but we do continue to provide some the most ambitious game designers and unique storytelling. ISOs need to be simpler. Quoting needs to be simpler.
Could we advertise on MTGS? For example, write articles that would appear on the main homepage.
Paired with a Magic-themed Basic or Normal, this would be an awesome start toward building those player numbers back up in-site. Personally came here years ago initially expecting a magic-themed forum game; it clicks very well and can be easily done with the talented writers and hosts we have here.
We could advertise on Mafia Universe, as our site offers a very different niche of slow-paced, heavy analysis games.
I feel our crosstown series was fairly effective; we absolutely should keep in touch with the other communities. Once we have our forum issues exterminated, reach out to players in other communities and the digital games like Town of Salem and Starcraft 2 custom maps. Those are mafia players never exposed to the idea of a 2 week Day phase, just waiting for this experience. Invitational would be good, or maybe something less committal like IRC mafia or a mini.
Reconnect with other, smaller communities, such as DiesToRemoval, and any other splinter groups with Mafia players.
If all else fails, the forum software doesn't improve or gets worse, the player count continues to drop off, no games being run, etc. we have these communities to fall back on and have a little more control over the descent. Hopefully we glide down gently and all hop out on the inflatable life slide, but fully expect a crash and burn if the worst case unfolds. We can either be on page 98 of Time or the cover of Auto Trader. There's different strategies for both.
Personally, if anyone cares, I gave up playing here because of RL constraints, but also because of a trend in the playerbase that I did not care for: away from a serious atmosphere of analysis to one of spammy joke posts and other reddit and 4chan style "internet banter." The place has become much more cliquish since I started here lo so many years ago and that's a big turn-off. I can't be the only one feeling this way - granted, the forum software is pretty terrible too, but we could've made that work if the games and (maybe, more importantly) the people playing them had been more enjoyable.
EDIT: I've beaten this point to death before, but I think the establishment of the mafia league is the root of this subforum's malaise. Cutting actual games and running league games that were usually substandard and included an arbitrary point system was the first step towards sucking the fun out of mafia on this site.
Not much that I wrote there has changed. Obviously I have a child now and so that's cut down my participation in all non-essential activities, but quite apart from that, I've been disengaged from playing mafia for a while because of the attitude I describe in the quote. As far as hosting goes (which if you know me, you know that hosting is the real fun for me), the bizarre new approach to queues has killed any interest I had in continuing to participate. The replacement of the FTQ AND the specialty queue in favor of the PCQ, which I have argued against since its inception despite winning PCQ #2, was the last straw for me. I have absolutely no desire to submit for the PCQ. I do not want my setup to be voted on. I do not think that system produces good setups (and I think the evidence of the last two PCQs clearly bears out that opinion.) Let the playerbase have their say by signing up - or not - for what I present them. I much prefer a queue where anyone can have a go, if they wait long enough and their turn comes up - in other words, the successful system we had for years. That's where I'm at. I can't see myself continuing to participate if things continue as they are now, and that saddens me, having been a part of the community here since 2008.
I'm disappointed that you still feel this way. A lot of the people that were forming "cliques" (as you put it) are no longer active members of the MTGS community. Additionally, there's a lot less spam in games as of late, from what I've seen; it was a trend that died out within the past year or two. The Mafia League has also been disbanded. Really, the only thing I see here that you weren't too fond of was the PCQ being a thing, and we're currently in discussions of at least putting it on hold until we can further stabilize the numbers in the playerbase.
I know that in the past, you haven't particularly cared for me as a player (though I promise I'm nowhere near as obnoxious as I used to be!), but I've always particularly enjoyed playing in your games. Seasons was a lot of fun to replace into and solve, and I remember countless late nights in Ataghan spent scheming up my next dastardly plan on how to screw Xyre out of a Neutral win and carry my scumbuddies to endgame with me. Celestial was also enjoyable for me, largely because (I feel) I had a great performance in it.
At any rate, it'd be great to see another zindabad game in the queue someday in the future - just my 2 cents' worth.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I can't speak for anyone else, but my own decreased playing is due almost entirely to the fact that I simply have less time for Mafia than I used to. It wasn't the changed forum software (though it's definitely worse) or any kind of hostile environment.
That said, when I have been looking for a game, recently, I have also found it much harder to find a game. It may be a vicious circle kind of thing, but fewer players leads to fewer sign-ups and fewer opportunities. There's at most one sign up going at a time, and if that isn't something you're interested in, you're basically out of luck, and then the sign-up might take literally weeks to fill, meaning that you have to wait weeks just to see if the next thing is something you might want to play, and that's just not something any "new" player is going to do. They're just going to go somewhere they can play a game right now. I've played two games on Mafiascum this year, for the first time in years, just because I could.
So, maybe some kind of rolling sign-up for a basic-type game would be a good thing. To just allow people, including and especially new people, to get into something relatively quickly. I understand these kind of games can seem "boring" to more seasoned players, but they just might be key to a healthy and thriving community. And basic doesn't even have to mean boring or unthemed, though it should be less complex and more straightforward.
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Should we perhaps bring back some kind of altered version of the player contact list, where players describe from time to time what kinds of games they're interested in joining, given the chance?
I know I've been on the lookout for a good specialty mini for a while, and if a host reached out to me with a setup they thought was a good fit, I'd likely /in. But as is, there's no way for a host to know that there may be players hanging in the wings who'd like to play, if prompted.
As I mentioned to Feyd elsewhere, the specific function I was looking for in Search was text by author.
I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, ER.
Right now you run one micro at a time (hypothetically). I say "hypothetically", because while you have two in the chamber, none are set to fire and none are ongoing. My recommendation is remove micros from the queue system entirely. Say "once you get reviewer approval, you can fire your micro as soon as you want."
I want to also caution that it wasn't just flaming that was toxic. If you'll recall the game that had that altercation between you and ZDS, there's more than just flaming that can destroy the positive experience.
EDIT2: I couldn't think of a way to describe that without a specific example.
You'll find altercations like these to be inherent to Mafia/Werewolf, and to be an issue of individual ego, not of general toxicity. Maybe Az's ego and mine were excessively inflated by our reputation/successes here, but I would say a toxicity that inflates your ego is a lot better than one that puts you down (which, to be fair, does happen to some players deemed "bad", although thankfully not to the extent it does in, say, Mafiascum).
That being said, a little empathy from everyone and towards everyone else would sure go a long way in making this community a lot more pleasant. Mafia may require some degree of thickness of skin, but if you can't accuse a player without making them feel bad or ruining the game for them, then the problem's with you, not with them being thin-skinned. And as for those "good players" who would shun "bad players", do everyone a service and help them become "good", instead of pushing them towards the exit.
I mentioned that game for two reasons: First, it's hard for me to manufacture examples on the fly and that one was a real example that fit well enough; Second, I think it was more than the normal conflict that pops up in Mafia -- I have read a good number of games, and that one's situation was not normal. I understand the rest of your points, and I'd rather stay at a high enough level that this doesn't become about the specific players involved (my major personal concern when I opted to use a real example), but I didn't want my point shrugged off as "that's how all games are".
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
There are zero games that one can enter right now. Yes, a big games just fired off a couple days ago but how long are people going to have to wait to join a game. There should be some sort of game signing people up at all times.
And the long days are no joke. Because of these long days people take V/LA and just wait till a more pressing time to engage seriously. It's bad for the forum.
So what day length do people think would be optimal?
Two weeks is very long yet still gives you time to do anything you need to do. We also should try and attract or even cater to active, high content players. We have a lot of regulars that spend a large part of the time V/LA. For some it's unavoidable but for most it's really not. I work 40 plus hours, go to school, write novels, take my gf out often and hang out with friends and still find tons of time to play. Even if I worked 60 hours per week it would be trivial to spend 15 minutes a day keeping up.
- Allow newcomers to introduce themselves in the sticky already dedicated to them.
I like this as an idea. We can use it as a combination welcome thread and player notification list, especially in conjunction with Newb/Basic games coming back. A combination of introduction thread and signup for a new player friendly game.
Quote from Axelrod »
I can't speak for anyone else, but my own decreased playing is due almost entirely to the fact that I simply have less time for Mafia than I used to. It wasn't the changed forum software (though it's definitely worse) or any kind of hostile environment.
This is not uncommon, and I think the gentle decline in active players shown on the graph supports that kind of attrition.
Quote from Axelrod »
So, maybe some kind of rolling sign-up for a basic-type game would be a good thing. To just allow people, including and especially new people, to get into something relatively quickly. I understand these kind of games can seem "boring" to more seasoned players, but they just might be key to a healthy and thriving community. And basic doesn't even have to mean boring or unthemed, though it should be less complex and more straightforward.
The reason we stopped doing this with Basics was because there were not enough new players to justify it, and signups were being slowed down by them. However, I do think that we should bring Basics back so that new players always have a game type to jump into. Maybe we could relieve the stress on the other queues by strongly suggesting that not-new players can only sign up for a Basic if they're not already in a game: this would mean that anyone not playing can scratch the itch easily, but we don't just keep firing Basics full of experienced players over other games.
Quote from Azrael »
So what day length do people think would be optimal?
3-4 weeks for Day 1, 2-3 weeks for the next few days, no more than 2 toward the mid/end game. I wouldn't want to impose absolute limits forum-wide, but I do think it's important for hosts to think about.
@Iso: My issues with size-based queues:
Size creep - if small games can be 14 players, almost all of them will be. At the very least, many will be >12, which makes the small games larger and longer than Minis. I don't think people who play Minis complain that 12 players is too small (apart from the slight extra design space 13 gives). You might disagree that size creep will occurr, but exactly how many 13 or 14 player Normals/Specialties have we seen?
Game homogeneity - with small games reaching 14 players, and large games recommended to be 16-18 players, there's only like 1 game Day's difference between them. This leads to games playing very similarly, and there being no major difference between the two queues.
Complexity Creep - Normal games would cease to exist, as every large game tended towards Specialty-level complexity. You may disagree, but old Normals suffered from it, and a great deal of Minis have additional mechanics, and would qualify as small Specialities. Increasing the small game size would also allow their complexity to increase. As complexity increases, we alienate players who prefer lower-complexity games and, most importantly, new players.
Predicting game type - As the queues merge, it becomes incredibly hard to predict what kinds of games are coming up, and even if game descriptions are kept up to date, game types come through irregularly. This means that if you want a low complexity game, instead of waiting for the next Normal on the queue to fire, it becomes much harder to work out which game on the large queue will be the next one you want to play.
Perhaps these issues are not as problematic as I consider them to be, but they are at least based on trends seen with other queues in the past. People will usually tend towards pushing design limits and try to fit in as many ideas into their game as they can. As restrictions get lifted, and small game size increased I fear that games will creep in complexity and distinct types will become hard to distinguish. Right now, each queue gives a solid idea of what kind of game to expect, and when those kind of games can be expected, while ensuring that all player-groups (especially new players) are catered for.
@Ecophagy-I'm curious on why you want four weeks for day one. I can pull comments from almost every game I've played in on this site complaining about the day one drag. What value does it create to have a month when most of the time will be spent with the players waiting till a couple days before the deadline to do anything?
I just think that 2 weeks isn't quite long enough for Day 1, but some people might want more than 3. I'd be totally fine with 3 weeks Day 1, and 2 weeks every Day afterwards. I certainly wouldn't go above 4 weeks.
Also if we want to motivate people to end the Day instead of dragging it out, we could use the system where time not used on one Day is added to the deadline length of future Days. That way not playing slowly in the early game gives you extra time when you need it.
So what day length do people think would be optimal?
Two weeks is very long yet still gives you time to do anything you need to do. We also should try and attract or even cater to active, high content players. We have a lot of regulars that spend a large part of the time V/LA. For some it's unavoidable but for most it's really not. I work 40 plus hours, go to school, write novels, take my gf out often and hang out with friends and still find tons of time to play. Even if I worked 60 hours per week it would be trivial to spend 15 minutes a day keeping up.
Except I feel that you put way more time into this game. Nothing wrong with that I actually really appreciate it. I wish more players were as active as you are. I personally wonder if because some of our games are so stagnant sometimes that is the reason what drives players away. IE it doesn't look very active. I'd like to see prods enforced slightly more, but I do agree I think 2 week days is a good time.
For anyone who saw the Ace Attorney game that just finished I thought that game overall was an excellent games in terms of speed and deadlines. I wish more games were like that.
@TS: I think Minis (and Micros) are the place to look for. With the exception of True-Name Mafia, I haven't seen any Mini game that isn't 3 mafia vs 9 townies. Micro's usually have open or semi-open set-up.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Prophylaxis »
Also modgaming Bur setups is kind of treading down a dark path
Oh, another thing, is there a such thing as a town vs. scum game? Without a bunch of neutrals. Because that would be really fun.
I would say that Minis are usually Neutral free, and Normals should really have very few to zero neutrals, and any they do have should be straightforward.
Didn't we used to run games of size 19 players and more? Or is that not the size creep you speak of?
I mean if we allow small games to be 14 players, you'd see more 14 player games than 12 player games. Large games getting bigger is fine, so long as the player base can support it.
Something I've noticed (as a newer player myself) is that we often get new players with no forum mafia experience joining into large games like MvW or Ace Attorney, and then struggling to keep up. I'm currently running a game similar to the training level games hosted on Mafiascum, and I'd be happy to keep rolling them out as starting points for newer players. Would just need 1/2 of the regulars to sign up to keep the game moving. I'd also be happy to share my setup notes if anyone else wants to run one.
There are zero games that one can enter right now. Yes, a big games just fired off a couple days ago but how long are people going to have to wait to join a game. There should be some sort of game signing people up at all times.
And the long days are no joke. Because of these long days people take V/LA and just wait till a more pressing time to engage seriously. It's bad for the forum.
most forums i've seen use 36 hr days and 12 hour nights. That's way too fast for me. A few have slightly longer deadlines. There's one, and only one place I've seen which have 5 day deadlines and 2 day nights. Mafiascum games are typically 14 days along with MTGS.
ALSO I COPY/PASTE INTO WORDPAD BECAUSE CURSE IS AWFUL AND EATS POSTS.
TS, there are plenty of games like that - have you read any older games? We're just firing a lot fewer games than we used to due to smaller playerbase, and as such, I think it's prompting us to want to flex our design muscles a little more. Personally, while Neutrals are some of my favorite roles to play, I do find it harder to find more unexplored design space for them, as of late. It seems that the better Neutrals are the ones that utilize the game's special mechanics - or at least, that's my take on it, lately.
For example, my upcoming PCQ, Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is a 16-player game with 4 mafia and 12 town.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Okay, guys - I just need to go on the record with this:
You sign up to host a super awesome PCQ/Specialty game that you poured your heart and soul into, and after months of reviewing, and months of waiting on the queue, you get your chance to run your game! All you have to do is wait for it to fill. Except, people are getting impatient and keep /outing of your game to join the totally awesome Mini or Micro that's filling up much faster!
So you wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
...
3 months pass. Do you still want to run your game? Maybe your circumstances changed and you're not able to host any more because of school or new responsibilities at work or something, and the game came up at the perfect time for you to be able to run it, and now you can't. Additionally, the players who initially signed up for the game are probably losing interest in your game, as well, because it isn't filling, and it won't fill.
You had a bad experience with the hosting process. I can't say that would make you likely want to return to host, for example, a smaller game later on with your less time.
This is why I think allowing multiple sign-ups at a time is a terrible, awful idea.
People seem to forget that the people hosting our games are also our players. Look at how barren our queue is! If we chase away players, we also lose hosts, and vice-versa.
People keep suggesting we allow whatever sign-ups go at whatever time. If we permit this, then I must insist that we completely remove bigger games from our site. They will not fill. This is based in empirical data. I have seen this happen. To suggest that it will not happen is utterly naive.
Unfortunately, this also means that veterans such as ZeDorkSlipeur and Voxxicus will be alienated - which is not something I want to see happen.
I really don't know what the correct approach is, any more. If Eco's complexity creep fears are validated upon implementing a size-based queue, then we still lose those players.
Can anyone come up with an argument for why any one approach is the single-best approach to resolving this problem?
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
The issue we seem to be grappling with is that we need a variety of games - games that are low complexity, games that are small, games that are short deadline, games that are more creative, and games that are friendly to new players. But several of those various players don't have enough support to run all the time.
This is why I think a committee-managed or voting system or just a single unrestricted queue system might need to be the direction we need to go. Sure, we need newbie games every now and again. But the basic games were a huge manpower drain from other games, and got stale, and turned a lot of people off the game. The league was a great idea, but it too got stale. Normals threaten to experience the same problem.
We don't need a stagnant system. We need a more dynamic organizational method, which alternates between sizes and complexity.
The biggest problems I see with this suggestion is that if it becomes a total popularity contest, then we stamp out the minority voices (such as the aforementioned) and lose those players. We also can't exactly schedule our players to show up and vote, so the games that are selected may not necessarily represent what's desired by the larger number of players, either, which would keep them dissatisfied, as well.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Okay, guys - I just need to go on the record with this:
You sign up to host a super awesome PCQ/Specialty game that you poured your heart and soul into, and after months of reviewing, and months of waiting on the queue, you get your chance to run your game! All you have to do is wait for it to fill. Except, people are getting impatient and keep /outing of your game to join the totally awesome Mini or Micro that's filling up much faster!
So you wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
...
3 months pass. Do you still want to run your game? Maybe your circumstances changed and you're not able to host any more because of school or new responsibilities at work or something, and the game came up at the perfect time for you to be able to run it, and now you can't. Additionally, the players who initially signed up for the game are probably losing interest in your game, as well, because it isn't filling, and it won't fill.
You had a bad experience with the hosting process. I can't say that would make you likely want to return to host, for example, a smaller game later on with your less time.
This is why I think allowing multiple sign-ups at a time is a terrible, awful idea.
People seem to forget that the people hosting our games are also our players. Look at how barren our queue is! If we chase away players, we also lose hosts, and vice-versa.
People keep suggesting we allow whatever sign-ups go at whatever time. If we permit this, then I must insist that we completely remove bigger games from our site. They will not fill. This is based in empirical data. I have seen this happen. To suggest that it will not happen is utterly naive.
Unfortunately, this also means that veterans such as ZeDorkSlipeur and Voxxicus will be alienated - which is not something I want to see happen.
I really don't know what the correct approach is, any more. If Eco's complexity creep fears are validated upon implementing a size-based queue, then we still lose those players.
Can anyone come up with an argument for why any one approach is the single-best approach to resolving this problem?
Why wouldn't they just play in both? If they really want to play in the special, large game then they will, if not then they wont. Having minis or micros wouldn't stop me from playing in a larger game. The main problem is that the player base is super tiny! We shouldn't be catering to the tiny crowd you should CREATE the larger crowd that can support multiple games.
I think the problem is that looking at the game queues is putting the cart before the horse. If the fundamental problem is that we do not have enough players to fill games, the fix to that is not restructuring the queues again, it is getting more players. The data I have gathered shows that the forum now has significantly fewer players than ever before, and that this is very likely due to the transition to the new forum software from which we have never recovered. If this is the case, it must be fixable: the software has been improved, and MTGS as a whole has recovered.
One fundamental assumption I have made is that games follow player numbers. Talk of restructuring queues is entirely moot when we have literally 1 Normal and 2 Minis queued up. By bringing in more players, we also bring in more hosts and more demand for slots. The fundamental issue is with player numbers, and the very first thing is that we have no obvious way for new players to start a newb-friendly game. Yes, reinstating Basics will be a drain on other game signups, but if we manage that properly, the influx of players who actually have somewhere to start will, eventually, offset that. We have real live new players saying it'd have been easier if more newb-friendly games existed, how many are we losing because of this?
Reinstating Basics is not the silver bullet, but it's a start. We don't need to reform queues (again), or committees, or gambling the forum future on unsubstantiated opinions. The data says quite clearly we need more players if we are to survive as a forum. So lets focus on that. Who is going to step up and write an article for the main site? Who wants to play on MafiaUniverse and talk us up? Who wants to bring back old players they know?
Okay, guys - I just need to go on the record with this:
You sign up to host a super awesome PCQ/Specialty game that you poured your heart and soul into, and after months of reviewing, and months of waiting on the queue, you get your chance to run your game! All you have to do is wait for it to fill. Except, people are getting impatient and keep /outing of your game to join the totally awesome Mini or Micro that's filling up much faster!
So you wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
...
3 months pass. Do you still want to run your game? Maybe your circumstances changed and you're not able to host any more because of school or new responsibilities at work or something, and the game came up at the perfect time for you to be able to run it, and now you can't. Additionally, the players who initially signed up for the game are probably losing interest in your game, as well, because it isn't filling, and it won't fill.
You had a bad experience with the hosting process. I can't say that would make you likely want to return to host, for example, a smaller game later on with your less time.
This is why I think allowing multiple sign-ups at a time is a terrible, awful idea.
People seem to forget that the people hosting our games are also our players. Look at how barren our queue is! If we chase away players, we also lose hosts, and vice-versa.
People keep suggesting we allow whatever sign-ups go at whatever time. If we permit this, then I must insist that we completely remove bigger games from our site. They will not fill. This is based in empirical data. I have seen this happen. To suggest that it will not happen is utterly naive.
Unfortunately, this also means that veterans such as ZeDorkSlipeur and Voxxicus will be alienated - which is not something I want to see happen.
I really don't know what the correct approach is, any more. If Eco's complexity creep fears are validated upon implementing a size-based queue, then we still lose those players.
Can anyone come up with an argument for why any one approach is the single-best approach to resolving this problem?
Why wouldn't they just play in both? If they really want to play in the special, large game then they will, if not then they wont. Having minis or micros wouldn't stop me from playing in a larger game. The main problem is that the player base is super tiny! We shouldn't be catering to the tiny crowd you should CREATE the larger crowd that can support multiple games.
Not everyone has the time to commit to multiple games. Speaking as someone who used to play in 10 games at a time, even 2 games is pushing it for me, these days.
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@Eco: I would be glad to advertise for us on MU at some point.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I've done some recruitment off-site, and encouraged some similar-minded players to join me on some of the sites I play/host on, in order to possibly make recruiting to here even easier.
A kind of "If you enjoyed playing with X and Y, why don't you sign up for the game that's firing over on MTGS with us?" kind of thing.
One of the biggest problems we have with cross-site recruitment is our day phases. We are one of the only sites on the Web that have longer than 72 hours in a day phase. It can be a selling point to a certain kind of player, who doesn't have a ton of time daily to invest into the game, but still wants to play mafia on a relatively serious site.
The problem is that finding those specific player archetypes is not easy.
Those who have been involved with the cross-community game discussions have probably been made aware of just how unique we are in that regard. And how reluctant people are to sign up for games of that length.
Trying to target brand new players to mafia with basic games being re-created is one avenue to explore.
Involving ourselves in cross-community play and recruitment is absolutely another.
I strongly advocate reaching out to people who have played in the past privately and asking what it would take for them to play mafia here again. Perhaps a 'blast from the past' invitational game would get the mafia juices flowing again for some players? Curse interface is a real problem, though it seems better now than it was right after the switch. Some players having toxic attitudes is a real problem, but that's not impossible to deal with, if those players are talked to privately and implored to improve behavior for the health of the community.
I haven't been playing much on MTGS of late due to a combination of not having the time to dedicate to games (though the RL issues that kept me away for a year or so are thankfully gone), and just...not having games in signups that interest me.
I like the conventional normals. Large, simple games of mafia that don't have excess mechanics. Unfortunately we seem to be moving away from those, and that's sad. I encourage hosts to design games with the players in mind, rather than trying to design a game to showcase their game design skills. Sometimes, less truly is more.
As mentioned, we have been trying to keep Normals alive. Some of the more complex Normals lately - Stargate comes to mind - have stemmed as a direct result of complaints that Normals became stale and watered down after we implemented strict design criteria on them.
Yet now that we've spiced the Normals up a bit, people are voicing their distaste about it.
It seems there isn't a middle ground, here. Voxx, maybe you could make some suggestions for what we could do with Normals to appeal to both the players that want more and the players that want less? It just feels like we're in a lose-lose situation, here.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Do you feel that my size-based queue suggestion implements a fix to this concern?
Kind of?
The problem will come in if the size-based queues start skewing too heavily one direction or the other on complexity. It might be the best we can do, but I'm wondering if some sort of controls can be put in place to tweak things, as necessary, so it's not a completely hands-off system.
So, take this with a grain of salt, because I'm aware that my opinions / tastes when it comes to mafia are, by the by, a few standard deviations away from the mean.
I've played a couple times here, and I'd definitely consider doing so again, but there are a couple stumbling blocks.
1. The biggest one, by far, is that there are very rarely the types of game that I'd want to play available to sign up for. This is definitely a minority opinion, but to me mafia is about the informed minority vs. the uninformed majority, and that's it. I don't like Neutrals, I don't like roles that mess with the mechanics of the game, I don't like rules that change the basic concepts of votes, phases, discussion, etc. I like the unique confluence of logic, behavioral psychology, and persuasive writing that is mafia, and I don't like anything screwing with that.
This leads to me not wanting to sign up for big games, which are inevitably complex - even SG-1, which was billed as a "Normal", had an Ascetic Absorbing SK or something like that and a town role with 2-shot Resurrection. Both of which are just, like... nope. Nope nope nope. On the other end of the spectrum are Micros, which seem to be 80-90% mechanics / theory exercises, which, again, not really my jam.
In my experience, Mafia player preferences usually group into one of roughly 4 types:
1) Very basic games with minimal mechanics/flavor. In my experience, this tends to attract two types of players - new players who are still learning the game and intimdated by the complexity of larger game types and a small but vocal brand of very experienced player who prefers to remove most of the uncertainty about the setup (via low mechanics or open setups) in order to emphasize behavior (and sometimes setupbreaking). Interestingly, this includes quite a very of the very best players I've seen (notably Yosarian2 and petroleumjelly on 'Scum and Caphriel/Sotek/Acionyx on FantasyStrike).
2) High-power, moderate complexity games with a (often strong) flavor component but few/no special mechanics. Think Apocalypse, or The Hobbit, or Animal Mafia; Cyberpunk is on the extreme end of complexity for this type. I tend to like this type personally, and two of my favorite games of all time (OGML's Medieval Mafia and channeldelibird's Stargate SG-1 Mafia, both on MafiaScum) were this type.
3) Specialties, i.e, games with a strong central mechanic or mechanics with varying levels of complexity layered on top. Generally benefits from having at least some flavor/complexity on top, though I've seen a few games that focused narrowly on the central mechanic and were able to appeal to players who like simple games. MTGS does these right, IMO; MafiaScum traditionally throws these together with group 2 games in the Theme queues, which drains playerbase away from Normals.
4) Bastard games (Cult/Jester games go here, even without other bastard mod elements). This group overlaps with groups 2 and 3, but not group 1, since bastard mod elements are usually anathema to players who want to minimize setup uncertainty. I can personally attest that there's an audience here, since I built a modding career on MafiaScum by a game series with bastard elements.
Specifically the bolded part. I cut my teeth playing with those guys on FantasyStrike, and that style of heavy analytical play is the perspective I'm coming from. I don't have a tenth of their experience, but when I think about the kind of mafia player I'd like to be in a couple years, I'm 100% holding up a guy like Acionyx as my ideal.
So, all that being said, I'm looking at the last, say, 6 months of signups, and I'm seeing... basically Off the Grid, and that's it, as games that I'd be enthusiastic about playing.
Is Problem. At least for me.
2. The interface. Having recently finished up Game 7 of the Champs series over at Mafia Universe, the difference is just... stark. Curse sucks, etc, I won't go into that as it's been adequately covered, except to confirm that, yes, I'm a player and the interface here actively makes games less fun.
It might sound drastic, but you would guys consider just... running all your games over at MU? Like - keep everything here, discussion / signups, all that, but when the game fires, just send a link to the game thread at MU with the role PM. Boom. Problem solved.
Or maybe that's hopelessly naive, I have no idea.
I just know that playing with the tools they've got at MU versus playing here is quite emphatically night and day. And Curse isn't just bad, it's actively bad, as in, the site interface seems to actively fight playing mafia, rather than just being like, say, vBulletin, which is just "sure, fine, whatever".
3. Phase lengths. SG-1's Day One lasted literally months. There were extenuating circumstances, and I do like the idea of longer phases in general, and I'm even one of those guys with a job that demands no-phone/computer for a lot of my work hours, so yeah, in theory, long phases are great. But there's definitely this self-correcting feedback loop where the indeterminate, multi-week Days kind of lead to stagnation. No sense of pressure / everyone plays at their own pace, but it's a vicious cycle, where lulls in the game are kind of contagious. Shorter (but not short) phases give players a sense of purpose, and focus. My ideal phase lengths are 5/2 - a week to get through a Day/Night cycle. I've played shorter, and longer, and of course MTGS shouldn't just abandon its signature thing, but if you want to attract a larger crowd, maybe having every single game have the expectation of multi-week Days isn't a great thing, if only for sheer lack of variety.
4. Community standards. This one is a little nebulous, and I've never personally had a bad experience with a player on this site, but I've read or at least skimmed just about every game over the last 6 months or so, and there have been multiple times in most of them where I thought to myself, "why isn't the moderator telling people to chill out?" Obviously, "what is acceptable behavior in a mafia game" is waaaaaay beyond the scope of this post, but on a very basic, very holistic level, I don't think you could argue that MTGS has seen some fairly toxic spikes on the ol' data set over the last stretch of time. I'm not sure if it has to do with site culture, or what, but very rarely do I see moderators acting as, well, moderators. Absolutely mafia is a game where things are going to get heated, people should feel free to play their own style, etc, but like. There are lines. I'm sure somewhere on this site you even have them written down, as rules. I'm not out to make MTGS a hugbox or North Korea or anything, but it's at least worth mentioning that when I've considered signing up for games, it's turned me off a bit thinking about some of the fights / behavior / angles that were allowed to escalate and escalate and escalate without a moderator stepping in and going, "hey, you guys are being douchenozzles, stop it."
Anyway, when I think about signing up for a game here, those are the four things that make me pause. They're in order - the main thing is game type. I really, really favor behavioral analysis and hate anything that gets in the way of that, and have a strong preference for games that are stripped down to just... mafia. The interface / phase lengths are not great, but tolerable. The community health stuff is whatever, and certainly not a unique MTGS problem, but seemed worth at least pointing out from a somewhat outsider's perspective. Really, it's not that games are super toxic at all times, it's just a puzzling lack of front-loaded expectations, or community enforcement where the majority of the playerbase is like "this is not okay", or the moderators are quick to step in and do their thing... it's just a bit eyebrow-raising, since it seems kind of like a no-brainer for community health.
I second Voxx on the neutrals thing. i'm a nwer player and I've jsut never seen the appeal of games with 1)multiple neutrals
2)powerful neutrals
It just takes too much away from town vs. scum.
And yeah, the time controls are insanely long and get complained about in each game.
Also we should hold people more accountable to actually posting. The player base has to keep reminding mods to prod people OVER nad OVER again. Do other sites have as many prods as here? I'm curious.
Same, except, as bad as Curse is, I don't think it's a good idea to run our game elsewhere. This forum will die if all it becomes is a front for another site, either because people will go to the other site directly or because the MTGS admins will terminate us (for advertising / pulling traffic away).
Same, except, as bad as Curse is, I don't think it's a good idea to run our game elsewhere. This forum will die if all it becomes is a front for another site, either because people will go to the other site directly or because the MTGS admins will terminate us (for advertising / pulling traffic away).
If we all agree to move does this actually matter? Or even a majority?
If we move, the community freezes at it's current size (or smaller, because not everyone will move). Any new players are not MTGS players, they're MU players who happen to like playing with us. Over time, our community erodes as people leave and our games become MU games. It might keep our community around on life support, but it also dooms us.
Ok. So we need to hammer out solutions to these issues:
1. Newb games/recruitment/player contact list
2. Appropriate mix of complex vs. core games
3. Appropriate mix of short and long deadlines
4. Encourage moderators, hosts, and the community to utilize report post features and to police overly negative play.
5. Stance Towards MU
Proposals:
1. The original incarnation of the player contact list was a terrific tool, but it took a lot of time to update.
What we might consider putting in its place is a player contact list that we just discard and refresh every three to four months. Or just use a single thread and let it get massive - whatever works.
Within it, players can sign up for basic or "core" games, which will fire upon the demand threshold being met. Players can also state if there is a particular game type they're looking for, and when signups go up, the host can contact those players, if he or she sees fit. That will also help our hosts and the council gauge what types of games the playerbase is looking to play in, in close to real time, gauge how much latent demand is out there, and provide a good spot for new players to sign up for games. We can also use it to fire games of any queue type without waiting for the previous game to end, if there is demand to support it.
To implement, we would need either one of the current or a new mafia secretary to monitor the thread and identify when sufficient support for a game type to fire may exist, and get a mod to sticky/unsticky as needed.
(How's that, Eco?)
2. Per the above, I think that method would result in a good mix of both complex games and core games. As part of the bargain, once we bring back basics, I don't think there's any reason to put complexity restrictions on normals, and those can go back to being purely size-based. (Sound good Iso?)
3. Could we institute a rule in which the playerbase in each game gets to vote on what kind of deadline they want, ranging from three days, to two weeks, to unlimited, or a sliding scale that provides additional time during the early phases of the game? Or would we rather break that down by game type, so that core games get variable deadlines and the rest stay as is?
4. If you see it, say something. Most of the active players in the forum have been following this conversation. View it as a recruiting issue.
5. I think we need to have some kind of presence or relationship with MU, because it doesn't have to be a one-way street where only one site or the other benefits. A lot of the newer players who have been making things interesting around here, are players from other sites who stumbled onto us one way or another, liked our playerbase compared to the others that are out there, and wanted to stick around. Even in our relatively pared down state, we have an awesome group of players here, which playing in the MU invitational only underscored for me. The more we mingle with other sites, the greater chance we have of drawing in those guys to play not only on their home sites, but here as well. We have a critical mass of talent here, and talent draws talent.
For that reason, I think regularly scheduled cross-town games, as Askthepizzaguy suggested, are an obvious choice to help market ourselves. Do we have any volunteers who would like to coordinate with him on organizing that?
I also think that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to run a limited amount of other games on mafia universe on a periodic basis - games that we bill as "long deadline" games, perhaps, that we open up to other MU players to try out. Again, the objective being to both expand our own playerbase, but also to help build up MU by offering a quality of game design, and a unique play experience, that few other sites can match. Perhaps we run the PCQ games over there, since those will tend to be the most distinctive and draw in more of our experienced players, and we can tailor the PCQ games in response to feedback more readily than we can tune our other queues.
EDIT: Cross-referencing my comments on Annorax's proposal in the council thread:
Quote from annorax »
Kind of, but more focused on ongoing narrative. We have proven serialized games and serialized stories. We have one-off games that could be developed into serialized stories. I'm thinking of a queue that focuses on that, running alongside the FTQ. I'm thinking of a queue we can really sell to players to get them talking on other sites & bringing players in. I'm thinking of a queue that banks on what we're really good at & focuses it on growing our community.
FTQ gets the new, great ideas. This queue would build on the ones that have the popularity and design space to be built into more than one game. It'd be a queue for sequels and reboots so that they're running as often as possible and bringing players in from outside to experience what we've all experienced makes MTGS mafia unique.
I think it's an essential part of building an experience; after all, have you really experienced our flavor of Mafia if you haven't played a Star Trek: Myriad Universes game (hate tooting my own horn, but if people are still signing up for the series four games in, I have to be doing something right), Cyan's Impossible Mafia, any of Seppel's games, or any of the dozens of other games we've had that ooze innovation and creativity? Creative setups are something we're really, really good at, and that's something that I think needs to be more accessible to new players, especially experienced ones coming from other sites.
We've got a lot of creativity, we're not doing much to get the word out about it & bring players in, and I think this queue can do exactly that.
Hmm. Hold up a moment guys, I think Annorax is really onto something here.
It's not just that we're trying to start another FTQ or PCQ. He's talking about the way we market ourselves, and emphasizing our strongest designs and story-telling elements in an intentional manner. Not just for our own consumption, but for recruitment.
For instance, what if we ran a trilogy of games based on xyre's designwork? They could feature similar flavor and design, and I could imagine word-of-mouth and excitement building as the trilogy progresses. Not enough spots to sign up? Well, we've got all these other fine games available back on the mothership...
Now, let's say we got intentional about the way we offered those games, and did it on MU. Maybe in one of the cross-town games Askthepizzaguy proposed, for maximum impact Hell, I'd guess that even just as a spectator event you might have a few dozen people just observing. Think about the potential for recruiting.
I'd be interested in possibly trying a hard limit of 2 weeks per game day for a few games and see what the feedback is like, as an experiment.
The most common complaint I've seen is when days drag on forever, because there is no impetus to progress the gamestate, so it leads to people just kind of half-heartedly arguing in circles.
- What Eco posted. Restructuring the whole forum and community does nothing if we don't have any players.
- Some less permissive time limits on days. I think a month is acceptable for D1 of a large game (let's call that more than 18 players) but fewer players should necessitate a shorter deadline.
- The return of the basic queue.
- More recruiting - we can have Mafia banners or other sigs to encourage people to check out Mafia as we post on other parts of the site, write an article for the main page, etc.
- Reviving the FTQ as Annorax discusses.
What I don't agree with:
- Running MTGS games offsite. Nope. Not at any point. We may as well shut up shop if that's the plan. Especially the idea of running our best, FTQ-worthy games on other sites.
Here are my suggestions:
- We all make more of an effort to focus on recruiting on-site and off-site.
- Revive the Basic queue, and here's my spin on it: create Mini Basics (12 players) and Large Basics (18 players.) This way, new players can get experience with the mechanics of mafia in a small, basic setting before progressing to the dynamics of a larger game when they're ready. For many newer players in the past, they played basics for a while, cut their teeth, and then jumped into a Specialty as their first large game, which promptly saw them flounder out of their depth and get D1 mislynched. With a Large Basic, they can do the 18-player thing without ending up victim of a super-experienced, critical playerbase and/or confusing or unique game mechanics. Plus, the Large Basic can replace the Normal Queue for people who like a less complex game with more people.
- Now that we have small and large basics for newer players or people who prefer less complexity, let's revive the Specialty queue as it was before (signup and wait your turn based), but roll the present Mini queue into it. It will no longer be a size-based queue, but a complexity-based one.
- Revive the FTQ, go back to the old system where qualified reviewers voted on FTQ submissions anonymously, and discontinue the PCQ.
One advantage of the FTQ that I do miss, is that the reviewers could give you an unbiased opinion on how well designed and balanced the game was, and I think the committee did a pretty good job vetting setups as a group. With PCQs, you might not have as good of an idea what you're getting into. I think initial versions of the PCQ required reviewers to give their opinions, which didn't happen this go around.
If we move towards using the FTQ to market games more systematically, then the committee could also step in to guide that process.
EDIT: I think there's barely support for large games, and a modest level of support for basic games, so combining the two seems unlikely to be well-received. Mostly because of size. Mini queue, as is, is extremely popular for precisely the same reason: size. If we're eliminating complexity restrictions on normals and most other game types, we should be able to see plenty of hosts who decide to run their specialty level games in those queues, and/or submit them to the FTQ or PCQ, whichever survives.
And when it comes to specialty games, running 2x (or 3x?) the number of FTQ queue slots compared to what we used to do, rather than going with the standard specialty slot, is probably the safest way to assure a good supply of high-quality, vetted specialty games. Specialty queue sans committee vetting could always be a little bit dangerous, and if we have the both a supply of "themed" games going forward, as well as one-offs, plus the 2 1/2 years of setups from the latest PCQ just hanging around in the wings waiting for their shot, then we should definitely have adequate supply to sustain it.
Actually, I really like zindabad's idea of Small and Large Basics. Large Basics are basically just relabeling our Normals, but I think that that will make them more accessible to newer players. Additionally, I agree that the FTQ committee was good to have, as we almost always had submissions (sans a few times, IIRC). I think the problem with the previous FTQ was that we didn't have enough advertising for it, so we only ever got a small handful of submissions every time we did it.
So: What if we re-implement the Basic queue, allowing for small and large Basics (which will mean that players can get their Normal fix, and we have something accessible to newer players), re-implement the FTQ while still dropping the Specialty queue, which will motivate players to create more cutting-edge games for the players who want those, drop the PCQ, and keep Micros where they are?
Oh, and for deadlines: I still like "# of living players + lynch threshold" in days for Days and 72 hours for Night, though with smaller games, I think 2-3 weeks is fair for Day 1.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
1. Yes, I like it. I agree with ZDS that the tags should be clearly stated before hand, to make it easier for people looking for players to parse. I also like the idea of discarding the entire list every 3 months, it means that it's more likely to be accurate and up to date. I also recommend that we make sure to record the data so we can quantify player demand, and how it changes over time.
2. No, I do not like it. My concerns with size-based games are still not addressed, and I don't believe that Basics are in any way a substitute for Normals. Normals form part of a natural progression from Basic to Specialty, and cannot be replaced by Basics. This leads to the concept of large Basics. I do not believe they are a good idea: there is a wealth of design space between a Basic and a Specialty where Normals sit. One of the main reasons the League was killed was because the games had become large Basics which people didn't want to play (but felt forced to for League points), so I simply do not feel the demand for an entire queue of them is there. Will some Normals look like large Basics? Absolutely, and that's a good thing. But they won't all look like that, and many will explore the plentiful space that is more complex than Basic roles but significantly below the realm of additional mechanic Specialties. They act as a stepping stone between the two games: nothing to groundbreaking for a new player to wrap their head around, but sufficiently imaginative and intricate to challenge them AND keep experienced players who want non-Specialty level games engaged.
3. We could, but that's a lot of admin. I think we should instead make sure hosts know what their intended deadline length is, have it discussed during review, and enforce it more stringently. I would also suggest making games more resilient to modkills, and being harsher with chronic lurkers (but that's for the host to decide).
Not much that I wrote there has changed. Obviously I have a child now and so that's cut down my participation in all non-essential activities, but quite apart from that, I've been disengaged from playing mafia for a while because of the attitude I describe in the quote. As far as hosting goes (which if you know me, you know that hosting is the real fun for me), the bizarre new approach to queues has killed any interest I had in continuing to participate. The replacement of the FTQ AND the specialty queue in favor of the PCQ, which I have argued against since its inception despite winning PCQ #2, was the last straw for me. I have absolutely no desire to submit for the PCQ. I do not want my setup to be voted on. I do not think that system produces good setups (and I think the evidence of the last two PCQs clearly bears out that opinion.) Let the playerbase have their say by signing up - or not - for what I present them. I much prefer a queue where anyone can have a go, if they wait long enough and their turn comes up - in other words, the successful system we had for years. That's where I'm at. I can't see myself continuing to participate if things continue as they are now, and that saddens me, having been a part of the community here since 2008.
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
I've skimmed over most responses as I didn't simply want to parrot another, but I've seen a lot of good suggestions for patching up.
I think you presented the data as well as you could; the game lengths are average of around 3 months I suspect, so quarterly organization makes sense. I'm not too worried about the gimmick accounts fudging the data; I'm sure there are only a dozen or so such players.
Absolutely. This site has not been a friendly mafia platform since day 1 of the curse buyout taking effect. Sure, we have had some minor quality of life improvements, but in general we are beat out by more focused, better designed communities dedicated to the game we love to play. Until we can meet or exceed the standards set out by competing communities, our player base will continue to dwindle as players either stop putting up with the clunkiness we have here or go where it's done better. We simply don't offer the best functionality of the game, but we do continue to provide some the most ambitious game designers and unique storytelling. ISOs need to be simpler. Quoting needs to be simpler.
Paired with a Magic-themed Basic or Normal, this would be an awesome start toward building those player numbers back up in-site. Personally came here years ago initially expecting a magic-themed forum game; it clicks very well and can be easily done with the talented writers and hosts we have here.
I feel our crosstown series was fairly effective; we absolutely should keep in touch with the other communities. Once we have our forum issues exterminated, reach out to players in other communities and the digital games like Town of Salem and Starcraft 2 custom maps. Those are mafia players never exposed to the idea of a 2 week Day phase, just waiting for this experience. Invitational would be good, or maybe something less committal like IRC mafia or a mini.
If all else fails, the forum software doesn't improve or gets worse, the player count continues to drop off, no games being run, etc. we have these communities to fall back on and have a little more control over the descent. Hopefully we glide down gently and all hop out on the inflatable life slide, but fully expect a crash and burn if the worst case unfolds. We can either be on page 98 of Time or the cover of Auto Trader. There's different strategies for both.
Great idea. Not sure if RSS feeds are still a thing, but setting up those too would be sweet.
Data collection never hurts, and neither does acknowledging a valued relationship with a fellow player you miss seeing around.
I'm disappointed that you still feel this way. A lot of the people that were forming "cliques" (as you put it) are no longer active members of the MTGS community. Additionally, there's a lot less spam in games as of late, from what I've seen; it was a trend that died out within the past year or two. The Mafia League has also been disbanded. Really, the only thing I see here that you weren't too fond of was the PCQ being a thing, and we're currently in discussions of at least putting it on hold until we can further stabilize the numbers in the playerbase.
I know that in the past, you haven't particularly cared for me as a player (though I promise I'm nowhere near as obnoxious as I used to be!), but I've always particularly enjoyed playing in your games. Seasons was a lot of fun to replace into and solve, and I remember countless late nights in Ataghan spent scheming up my next dastardly plan on how to screw Xyre out of a Neutral win and carry my scumbuddies to endgame with me. Celestial was also enjoyable for me, largely because (I feel) I had a great performance in it.
At any rate, it'd be great to see another zindabad game in the queue someday in the future - just my 2 cents' worth.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
That said, when I have been looking for a game, recently, I have also found it much harder to find a game. It may be a vicious circle kind of thing, but fewer players leads to fewer sign-ups and fewer opportunities. There's at most one sign up going at a time, and if that isn't something you're interested in, you're basically out of luck, and then the sign-up might take literally weeks to fill, meaning that you have to wait weeks just to see if the next thing is something you might want to play, and that's just not something any "new" player is going to do. They're just going to go somewhere they can play a game right now. I've played two games on Mafiascum this year, for the first time in years, just because I could.
So, maybe some kind of rolling sign-up for a basic-type game would be a good thing. To just allow people, including and especially new people, to get into something relatively quickly. I understand these kind of games can seem "boring" to more seasoned players, but they just might be key to a healthy and thriving community. And basic doesn't even have to mean boring or unthemed, though it should be less complex and more straightforward.
I know I've been on the lookout for a good specialty mini for a while, and if a host reached out to me with a setup they thought was a good fit, I'd likely /in. But as is, there's no way for a host to know that there may be players hanging in the wings who'd like to play, if prompted.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
There are zero games that one can enter right now. Yes, a big games just fired off a couple days ago but how long are people going to have to wait to join a game. There should be some sort of game signing people up at all times.
And the long days are no joke. Because of these long days people take V/LA and just wait till a more pressing time to engage seriously. It's bad for the forum.
Two weeks is very long yet still gives you time to do anything you need to do. We also should try and attract or even cater to active, high content players. We have a lot of regulars that spend a large part of the time V/LA. For some it's unavoidable but for most it's really not. I work 40 plus hours, go to school, write novels, take my gf out often and hang out with friends and still find tons of time to play. Even if I worked 60 hours per week it would be trivial to spend 15 minutes a day keeping up.
I like this as an idea. We can use it as a combination welcome thread and player notification list, especially in conjunction with Newb/Basic games coming back. A combination of introduction thread and signup for a new player friendly game.
This is not uncommon, and I think the gentle decline in active players shown on the graph supports that kind of attrition.
The reason we stopped doing this with Basics was because there were not enough new players to justify it, and signups were being slowed down by them. However, I do think that we should bring Basics back so that new players always have a game type to jump into. Maybe we could relieve the stress on the other queues by strongly suggesting that not-new players can only sign up for a Basic if they're not already in a game: this would mean that anyone not playing can scratch the itch easily, but we don't just keep firing Basics full of experienced players over other games.
3-4 weeks for Day 1, 2-3 weeks for the next few days, no more than 2 toward the mid/end game. I wouldn't want to impose absolute limits forum-wide, but I do think it's important for hosts to think about.
@Iso: My issues with size-based queues:
Perhaps these issues are not as problematic as I consider them to be, but they are at least based on trends seen with other queues in the past. People will usually tend towards pushing design limits and try to fit in as many ideas into their game as they can. As restrictions get lifted, and small game size increased I fear that games will creep in complexity and distinct types will become hard to distinguish. Right now, each queue gives a solid idea of what kind of game to expect, and when those kind of games can be expected, while ensuring that all player-groups (especially new players) are catered for.
Also if we want to motivate people to end the Day instead of dragging it out, we could use the system where time not used on one Day is added to the deadline length of future Days. That way not playing slowly in the early game gives you extra time when you need it.
Except I feel that you put way more time into this game. Nothing wrong with that I actually really appreciate it. I wish more players were as active as you are. I personally wonder if because some of our games are so stagnant sometimes that is the reason what drives players away. IE it doesn't look very active. I'd like to see prods enforced slightly more, but I do agree I think 2 week days is a good time.
For anyone who saw the Ace Attorney game that just finished I thought that game overall was an excellent games in terms of speed and deadlines. I wish more games were like that.
I would say that Minis are usually Neutral free, and Normals should really have very few to zero neutrals, and any they do have should be straightforward.
I mean if we allow small games to be 14 players, you'd see more 14 player games than 12 player games. Large games getting bigger is fine, so long as the player base can support it.
most forums i've seen use 36 hr days and 12 hour nights. That's way too fast for me. A few have slightly longer deadlines. There's one, and only one place I've seen which have 5 day deadlines and 2 day nights. Mafiascum games are typically 14 days along with MTGS.
ALSO I COPY/PASTE INTO WORDPAD BECAUSE CURSE IS AWFUL AND EATS POSTS.
I recall seeing an article written about "complexity creep". Sometimes a person wants just a plain old game of mafia. NORMALS typically fit that mold.
For example, my upcoming PCQ, Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is a 16-player game with 4 mafia and 12 town.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
You sign up to host a super awesome PCQ/Specialty game that you poured your heart and soul into, and after months of reviewing, and months of waiting on the queue, you get your chance to run your game! All you have to do is wait for it to fill. Except, people are getting impatient and keep /outing of your game to join the totally awesome Mini or Micro that's filling up much faster!
So you wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
...
3 months pass. Do you still want to run your game? Maybe your circumstances changed and you're not able to host any more because of school or new responsibilities at work or something, and the game came up at the perfect time for you to be able to run it, and now you can't. Additionally, the players who initially signed up for the game are probably losing interest in your game, as well, because it isn't filling, and it won't fill.
You had a bad experience with the hosting process. I can't say that would make you likely want to return to host, for example, a smaller game later on with your less time.
This is why I think allowing multiple sign-ups at a time is a terrible, awful idea.
People seem to forget that the people hosting our games are also our players. Look at how barren our queue is! If we chase away players, we also lose hosts, and vice-versa.
People keep suggesting we allow whatever sign-ups go at whatever time. If we permit this, then I must insist that we completely remove bigger games from our site. They will not fill. This is based in empirical data. I have seen this happen. To suggest that it will not happen is utterly naive.
Unfortunately, this also means that veterans such as ZeDorkSlipeur and Voxxicus will be alienated - which is not something I want to see happen.
I really don't know what the correct approach is, any more. If Eco's complexity creep fears are validated upon implementing a size-based queue, then we still lose those players.
Can anyone come up with an argument for why any one approach is the single-best approach to resolving this problem?
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
The issue we seem to be grappling with is that we need a variety of games - games that are low complexity, games that are small, games that are short deadline, games that are more creative, and games that are friendly to new players. But several of those various players don't have enough support to run all the time.
This is why I think a committee-managed or voting system or just a single unrestricted queue system might need to be the direction we need to go. Sure, we need newbie games every now and again. But the basic games were a huge manpower drain from other games, and got stale, and turned a lot of people off the game. The league was a great idea, but it too got stale. Normals threaten to experience the same problem.
We don't need a stagnant system. We need a more dynamic organizational method, which alternates between sizes and complexity.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Why wouldn't they just play in both? If they really want to play in the special, large game then they will, if not then they wont. Having minis or micros wouldn't stop me from playing in a larger game. The main problem is that the player base is super tiny! We shouldn't be catering to the tiny crowd you should CREATE the larger crowd that can support multiple games.
One fundamental assumption I have made is that games follow player numbers. Talk of restructuring queues is entirely moot when we have literally 1 Normal and 2 Minis queued up. By bringing in more players, we also bring in more hosts and more demand for slots. The fundamental issue is with player numbers, and the very first thing is that we have no obvious way for new players to start a newb-friendly game. Yes, reinstating Basics will be a drain on other game signups, but if we manage that properly, the influx of players who actually have somewhere to start will, eventually, offset that. We have real live new players saying it'd have been easier if more newb-friendly games existed, how many are we losing because of this?
Reinstating Basics is not the silver bullet, but it's a start. We don't need to reform queues (again), or committees, or gambling the forum future on unsubstantiated opinions. The data says quite clearly we need more players if we are to survive as a forum. So lets focus on that. Who is going to step up and write an article for the main site? Who wants to play on MafiaUniverse and talk us up? Who wants to bring back old players they know?
Not everyone has the time to commit to multiple games. Speaking as someone who used to play in 10 games at a time, even 2 games is pushing it for me, these days.
-
@Eco: I would be glad to advertise for us on MU at some point.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
A kind of "If you enjoyed playing with X and Y, why don't you sign up for the game that's firing over on MTGS with us?" kind of thing.
One of the biggest problems we have with cross-site recruitment is our day phases. We are one of the only sites on the Web that have longer than 72 hours in a day phase. It can be a selling point to a certain kind of player, who doesn't have a ton of time daily to invest into the game, but still wants to play mafia on a relatively serious site.
The problem is that finding those specific player archetypes is not easy.
Those who have been involved with the cross-community game discussions have probably been made aware of just how unique we are in that regard. And how reluctant people are to sign up for games of that length.
Trying to target brand new players to mafia with basic games being re-created is one avenue to explore.
Involving ourselves in cross-community play and recruitment is absolutely another.
I strongly advocate reaching out to people who have played in the past privately and asking what it would take for them to play mafia here again. Perhaps a 'blast from the past' invitational game would get the mafia juices flowing again for some players? Curse interface is a real problem, though it seems better now than it was right after the switch. Some players having toxic attitudes is a real problem, but that's not impossible to deal with, if those players are talked to privately and implored to improve behavior for the health of the community.
I haven't been playing much on MTGS of late due to a combination of not having the time to dedicate to games (though the RL issues that kept me away for a year or so are thankfully gone), and just...not having games in signups that interest me.
I like the conventional normals. Large, simple games of mafia that don't have excess mechanics. Unfortunately we seem to be moving away from those, and that's sad. I encourage hosts to design games with the players in mind, rather than trying to design a game to showcase their game design skills. Sometimes, less truly is more.
As mentioned, we have been trying to keep Normals alive. Some of the more complex Normals lately - Stargate comes to mind - have stemmed as a direct result of complaints that Normals became stale and watered down after we implemented strict design criteria on them.
Yet now that we've spiced the Normals up a bit, people are voicing their distaste about it.
It seems there isn't a middle ground, here. Voxx, maybe you could make some suggestions for what we could do with Normals to appeal to both the players that want more and the players that want less? It just feels like we're in a lose-lose situation, here.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
People want to have some amount of high-complexity normals, and they also want some games where they just get to play basic mafia.
We're going to need to implement a system that provides for both, not just a single variety all the time.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Kind of?
The problem will come in if the size-based queues start skewing too heavily one direction or the other on complexity. It might be the best we can do, but I'm wondering if some sort of controls can be put in place to tweak things, as necessary, so it's not a completely hands-off system.
I've played a couple times here, and I'd definitely consider doing so again, but there are a couple stumbling blocks.
1. The biggest one, by far, is that there are very rarely the types of game that I'd want to play available to sign up for. This is definitely a minority opinion, but to me mafia is about the informed minority vs. the uninformed majority, and that's it. I don't like Neutrals, I don't like roles that mess with the mechanics of the game, I don't like rules that change the basic concepts of votes, phases, discussion, etc. I like the unique confluence of logic, behavioral psychology, and persuasive writing that is mafia, and I don't like anything screwing with that.
This leads to me not wanting to sign up for big games, which are inevitably complex - even SG-1, which was billed as a "Normal", had an Ascetic Absorbing SK or something like that and a town role with 2-shot Resurrection. Both of which are just, like... nope. Nope nope nope. On the other end of the spectrum are Micros, which seem to be 80-90% mechanics / theory exercises, which, again, not really my jam.
Basically, what Taredas was talking about here:
Specifically the bolded part. I cut my teeth playing with those guys on FantasyStrike, and that style of heavy analytical play is the perspective I'm coming from. I don't have a tenth of their experience, but when I think about the kind of mafia player I'd like to be in a couple years, I'm 100% holding up a guy like Acionyx as my ideal.
So, all that being said, I'm looking at the last, say, 6 months of signups, and I'm seeing... basically Off the Grid, and that's it, as games that I'd be enthusiastic about playing.
Is Problem. At least for me.
2. The interface. Having recently finished up Game 7 of the Champs series over at Mafia Universe, the difference is just... stark. Curse sucks, etc, I won't go into that as it's been adequately covered, except to confirm that, yes, I'm a player and the interface here actively makes games less fun.
It might sound drastic, but you would guys consider just... running all your games over at MU? Like - keep everything here, discussion / signups, all that, but when the game fires, just send a link to the game thread at MU with the role PM. Boom. Problem solved.
Or maybe that's hopelessly naive, I have no idea.
I just know that playing with the tools they've got at MU versus playing here is quite emphatically night and day. And Curse isn't just bad, it's actively bad, as in, the site interface seems to actively fight playing mafia, rather than just being like, say, vBulletin, which is just "sure, fine, whatever".
3. Phase lengths. SG-1's Day One lasted literally months. There were extenuating circumstances, and I do like the idea of longer phases in general, and I'm even one of those guys with a job that demands no-phone/computer for a lot of my work hours, so yeah, in theory, long phases are great. But there's definitely this self-correcting feedback loop where the indeterminate, multi-week Days kind of lead to stagnation. No sense of pressure / everyone plays at their own pace, but it's a vicious cycle, where lulls in the game are kind of contagious. Shorter (but not short) phases give players a sense of purpose, and focus. My ideal phase lengths are 5/2 - a week to get through a Day/Night cycle. I've played shorter, and longer, and of course MTGS shouldn't just abandon its signature thing, but if you want to attract a larger crowd, maybe having every single game have the expectation of multi-week Days isn't a great thing, if only for sheer lack of variety.
4. Community standards. This one is a little nebulous, and I've never personally had a bad experience with a player on this site, but I've read or at least skimmed just about every game over the last 6 months or so, and there have been multiple times in most of them where I thought to myself, "why isn't the moderator telling people to chill out?" Obviously, "what is acceptable behavior in a mafia game" is waaaaaay beyond the scope of this post, but on a very basic, very holistic level, I don't think you could argue that MTGS has seen some fairly toxic spikes on the ol' data set over the last stretch of time. I'm not sure if it has to do with site culture, or what, but very rarely do I see moderators acting as, well, moderators. Absolutely mafia is a game where things are going to get heated, people should feel free to play their own style, etc, but like. There are lines. I'm sure somewhere on this site you even have them written down, as rules. I'm not out to make MTGS a hugbox or North Korea or anything, but it's at least worth mentioning that when I've considered signing up for games, it's turned me off a bit thinking about some of the fights / behavior / angles that were allowed to escalate and escalate and escalate without a moderator stepping in and going, "hey, you guys are being douchenozzles, stop it."
Anyway, when I think about signing up for a game here, those are the four things that make me pause. They're in order - the main thing is game type. I really, really favor behavioral analysis and hate anything that gets in the way of that, and have a strong preference for games that are stripped down to just... mafia. The interface / phase lengths are not great, but tolerable. The community health stuff is whatever, and certainly not a unique MTGS problem, but seemed worth at least pointing out from a somewhat outsider's perspective. Really, it's not that games are super toxic at all times, it's just a puzzling lack of front-loaded expectations, or community enforcement where the majority of the playerbase is like "this is not okay", or the moderators are quick to step in and do their thing... it's just a bit eyebrow-raising, since it seems kind of like a no-brainer for community health.
Hope that semi-helped.
2)powerful neutrals
It just takes too much away from town vs. scum.
And yeah, the time controls are insanely long and get complained about in each game.
Also we should hold people more accountable to actually posting. The player base has to keep reminding mods to prod people OVER nad OVER again. Do other sites have as many prods as here? I'm curious.
It's almost like he's me, except, not.
Alright, I think the joke has run its course.
Goodbye NotVoxxicus, hello Actual Me.
HEY VOXX CHECK OUT MY JOIN DATE BRUH
rekt.gif
But...it's so shiny.
Maybe just a few?
If we all agree to move does this actually matter? Or even a majority?
1. Newb games/recruitment/player contact list
2. Appropriate mix of complex vs. core games
3. Appropriate mix of short and long deadlines
4. Encourage moderators, hosts, and the community to utilize report post features and to police overly negative play.
5. Stance Towards MU
Proposals:
1. The original incarnation of the player contact list was a terrific tool, but it took a lot of time to update.
What we might consider putting in its place is a player contact list that we just discard and refresh every three to four months. Or just use a single thread and let it get massive - whatever works.
Within it, players can sign up for basic or "core" games, which will fire upon the demand threshold being met. Players can also state if there is a particular game type they're looking for, and when signups go up, the host can contact those players, if he or she sees fit. That will also help our hosts and the council gauge what types of games the playerbase is looking to play in, in close to real time, gauge how much latent demand is out there, and provide a good spot for new players to sign up for games. We can also use it to fire games of any queue type without waiting for the previous game to end, if there is demand to support it.
To implement, we would need either one of the current or a new mafia secretary to monitor the thread and identify when sufficient support for a game type to fire may exist, and get a mod to sticky/unsticky as needed.
(How's that, Eco?)
2. Per the above, I think that method would result in a good mix of both complex games and core games. As part of the bargain, once we bring back basics, I don't think there's any reason to put complexity restrictions on normals, and those can go back to being purely size-based. (Sound good Iso?)
3. Could we institute a rule in which the playerbase in each game gets to vote on what kind of deadline they want, ranging from three days, to two weeks, to unlimited, or a sliding scale that provides additional time during the early phases of the game? Or would we rather break that down by game type, so that core games get variable deadlines and the rest stay as is?
4. If you see it, say something. Most of the active players in the forum have been following this conversation. View it as a recruiting issue.
5. I think we need to have some kind of presence or relationship with MU, because it doesn't have to be a one-way street where only one site or the other benefits. A lot of the newer players who have been making things interesting around here, are players from other sites who stumbled onto us one way or another, liked our playerbase compared to the others that are out there, and wanted to stick around. Even in our relatively pared down state, we have an awesome group of players here, which playing in the MU invitational only underscored for me. The more we mingle with other sites, the greater chance we have of drawing in those guys to play not only on their home sites, but here as well. We have a critical mass of talent here, and talent draws talent.
For that reason, I think regularly scheduled cross-town games, as Askthepizzaguy suggested, are an obvious choice to help market ourselves. Do we have any volunteers who would like to coordinate with him on organizing that?
I also think that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to run a limited amount of other games on mafia universe on a periodic basis - games that we bill as "long deadline" games, perhaps, that we open up to other MU players to try out. Again, the objective being to both expand our own playerbase, but also to help build up MU by offering a quality of game design, and a unique play experience, that few other sites can match. Perhaps we run the PCQ games over there, since those will tend to be the most distinctive and draw in more of our experienced players, and we can tailor the PCQ games in response to feedback more readily than we can tune our other queues.
EDIT: Cross-referencing my comments on Annorax's proposal in the council thread:
Hmm. Hold up a moment guys, I think Annorax is really onto something here.
It's not just that we're trying to start another FTQ or PCQ. He's talking about the way we market ourselves, and emphasizing our strongest designs and story-telling elements in an intentional manner. Not just for our own consumption, but for recruitment.
For instance, what if we ran a trilogy of games based on xyre's designwork? They could feature similar flavor and design, and I could imagine word-of-mouth and excitement building as the trilogy progresses. Not enough spots to sign up? Well, we've got all these other fine games available back on the mothership...
Now, let's say we got intentional about the way we offered those games, and did it on MU. Maybe in one of the cross-town games Askthepizzaguy proposed, for maximum impact Hell, I'd guess that even just as a spectator event you might have a few dozen people just observing. Think about the potential for recruiting.
The most common complaint I've seen is when days drag on forever, because there is no impetus to progress the gamestate, so it leads to people just kind of half-heartedly arguing in circles.
That mindset does not come from town.
- What Eco posted. Restructuring the whole forum and community does nothing if we don't have any players.
- Some less permissive time limits on days. I think a month is acceptable for D1 of a large game (let's call that more than 18 players) but fewer players should necessitate a shorter deadline.
- The return of the basic queue.
- More recruiting - we can have Mafia banners or other sigs to encourage people to check out Mafia as we post on other parts of the site, write an article for the main page, etc.
- Reviving the FTQ as Annorax discusses.
What I don't agree with:
- Running MTGS games offsite. Nope. Not at any point. We may as well shut up shop if that's the plan. Especially the idea of running our best, FTQ-worthy games on other sites.
Here are my suggestions:
- We all make more of an effort to focus on recruiting on-site and off-site.
- Revive the Basic queue, and here's my spin on it: create Mini Basics (12 players) and Large Basics (18 players.) This way, new players can get experience with the mechanics of mafia in a small, basic setting before progressing to the dynamics of a larger game when they're ready. For many newer players in the past, they played basics for a while, cut their teeth, and then jumped into a Specialty as their first large game, which promptly saw them flounder out of their depth and get D1 mislynched. With a Large Basic, they can do the 18-player thing without ending up victim of a super-experienced, critical playerbase and/or confusing or unique game mechanics. Plus, the Large Basic can replace the Normal Queue for people who like a less complex game with more people.
- Now that we have small and large basics for newer players or people who prefer less complexity, let's revive the Specialty queue as it was before (signup and wait your turn based), but roll the present Mini queue into it. It will no longer be a size-based queue, but a complexity-based one.
- Revive the FTQ, go back to the old system where qualified reviewers voted on FTQ submissions anonymously, and discontinue the PCQ.
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
If we move towards using the FTQ to market games more systematically, then the committee could also step in to guide that process.
EDIT: I think there's barely support for large games, and a modest level of support for basic games, so combining the two seems unlikely to be well-received. Mostly because of size. Mini queue, as is, is extremely popular for precisely the same reason: size. If we're eliminating complexity restrictions on normals and most other game types, we should be able to see plenty of hosts who decide to run their specialty level games in those queues, and/or submit them to the FTQ or PCQ, whichever survives.
And when it comes to specialty games, running 2x (or 3x?) the number of FTQ queue slots compared to what we used to do, rather than going with the standard specialty slot, is probably the safest way to assure a good supply of high-quality, vetted specialty games. Specialty queue sans committee vetting could always be a little bit dangerous, and if we have the both a supply of "themed" games going forward, as well as one-offs, plus the 2 1/2 years of setups from the latest PCQ just hanging around in the wings waiting for their shot, then we should definitely have adequate supply to sustain it.
So: What if we re-implement the Basic queue, allowing for small and large Basics (which will mean that players can get their Normal fix, and we have something accessible to newer players), re-implement the FTQ while still dropping the Specialty queue, which will motivate players to create more cutting-edge games for the players who want those, drop the PCQ, and keep Micros where they are?
Oh, and for deadlines: I still like "# of living players + lynch threshold" in days for Days and 72 hours for Night, though with smaller games, I think 2-3 weeks is fair for Day 1.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Maybe a set of 6 minis where things are kept simple and newer players can hone their skills.
1. Yes, I like it. I agree with ZDS that the tags should be clearly stated before hand, to make it easier for people looking for players to parse. I also like the idea of discarding the entire list every 3 months, it means that it's more likely to be accurate and up to date. I also recommend that we make sure to record the data so we can quantify player demand, and how it changes over time.
2. No, I do not like it. My concerns with size-based games are still not addressed, and I don't believe that Basics are in any way a substitute for Normals. Normals form part of a natural progression from Basic to Specialty, and cannot be replaced by Basics. This leads to the concept of large Basics. I do not believe they are a good idea: there is a wealth of design space between a Basic and a Specialty where Normals sit. One of the main reasons the League was killed was because the games had become large Basics which people didn't want to play (but felt forced to for League points), so I simply do not feel the demand for an entire queue of them is there. Will some Normals look like large Basics? Absolutely, and that's a good thing. But they won't all look like that, and many will explore the plentiful space that is more complex than Basic roles but significantly below the realm of additional mechanic Specialties. They act as a stepping stone between the two games: nothing to groundbreaking for a new player to wrap their head around, but sufficiently imaginative and intricate to challenge them AND keep experienced players who want non-Specialty level games engaged.
3. We could, but that's a lot of admin. I think we should instead make sure hosts know what their intended deadline length is, have it discussed during review, and enforce it more stringently. I would also suggest making games more resilient to modkills, and being harsher with chronic lurkers (but that's for the host to decide).