MTG Salvation

GG, hard fought game. Well played Proph you were incredible, I'm really impressed.

I hope Grapefruit is OK, he was absolutely up for the F3 fight so there's no way he just bailed on the game because he didn't want to give it a go. Something really important must have come up. It's a shame that definitely cost us the game, but we were always up against it in the F3 anyway and I think we gave it a good go from a very rocky D1 lurk-out.

While I am open to hearing from Shadowlancer on behalf of MTGS staff and new owners, the complete silence since the site rescue isn't promising.

I posted player number updates in the original thread, but it's clear that our playerbase is dwindling. We've had a few major system shocks that have caused massive losses on top of general attrition, and have yet to see any significant recovery from any of them.

I believe our best option is to migrate. While we have history and distinct style here, I think that our playerbase (and by extension host base) is too small. Current rates are just about sustainable, but one more major event (e.g. site sale) or period of empty queues could easily be a death knell. If we stay here, it can only be done by a genunine concerted effort to improve player numbers - and to get back to even 2016 levels we'd need to nearly double where we are now. Frankly, history has shown that we as a forum have completely failed to implement any (effective) effort to rebuild the playerbase in the past.

If we do move, I think MU is the best destination. As much as I appreciate the other offers we have received, I think a merge with forum of similar size and state to us would just kick the can down the road - it won't solve anything long term. With MU, yes we would be subsumed into a greater whole and risk our identity, but if we get our own space we can mitigate that, and with enough integration we can really try to change attitudes towards slower paced/longer deadline games.

Regardless of where we go, I think we need the following to make it a success:

• Active and enthuiastic Council members to coordinate the community and engage with destination site staff. Strong leadership will be required, and the council needs some refreshing.
• Games ready to go in the pipeline. Some MTGS-unique Specialties would be great, but we just need a backlog of something because if we go somewhere, host one game, then spend a month trying to find another game the move will fail. Hopefully the reception to our initial offerings will encourage other hosts to finish their games.
• Community buy-in. We need to move with as many people as possible (once you've played once with MU software you should be excited). But I would also like to see community integration - join the discord, play their games (especially the cross-site events). We want to not be hermits within the wider community - we want everyone to learn the joys of making one wallpost every 3 days.

Finally a reminder: much of our community is active on discord, which I imagine will be our hub no matter where we end up.

Quote from ignoramus »

I'm confused
Why is Grapefruit crossed out?
And vote: Axel
For reasoning I previously stated, and I haven't seen any other posts from them aside from those GIF posts.

The mod said

No, Grape being replaced by Indy in the above votecount doesn't mean anything gamewise, and is for (likely just my) amusement purposes only.

in the spoiler in #99, so it means nothing. Just the mod shirking his duties by having fun.

@Ignoramus: How familiar are you with this game's players? For example, you know Axelrod is experienced.

Do you have any other reads? For example on Grape who agrees that Axel is wolfy?

UPDATE: See #168 for updated data from 2010 to 2020 inclusive.

Introduction
The number of players playing Mafia on MTGS has fallen during recent years, shown primarily through the reduction in the number of games run. By observing and charting this decline, we can attempt to understand why the population has decreased, and facilitate discussion on what can be done to rectify the situation and encourage growth.

The aim of this study is to observe the number of players from 2010 to 2015 inclusive, to discover the extent to which numbers have fallen, when they fell, and to explore changes in the sub-populations of new players, returning players, and active players.

Methods
The total population data for players on the mafia forum consists of the username of everyone who played a game between the years of 2010 and 2015. Within this six year period, data was collected in quarters of three months: the first quarter being January/February/March. A game was categorised into its quarter set based on its recorded start date, derived from the date of the first post in the thread. Replacements were counted the same as players who started the game, even if they replaced during a later quarter.

In addition to the total population, we wished to examine the subpopulations from which it is composed. Each player in the total population data was therefore assigned into one of three populations:

1. New players (have never played before the quarter)
2. Returning players (have played before, but not in the previous two quarters)
3. Active players (have played before, and at least once in the previous two quarters)

The total population data was acquired by manually copying and pasting playerlists into a separate .txt file for each quarter (yes really). This was then stripped of formatting and parsed using a python script into an excel spreadsheet, with each column containing a list of players who played at least one game during each quarter. This total population data was then subdivided into the above sub-populations via another python script, with the resulting numbers of players in each subpopulation for each quarter also present in the spreadsheet. Also included in the spreadsheet is the list of games included in each quarter, as well as a quick-and-dirty count of how many games were played each year. Note that three games were excluded from this analysis: CCMIX, as it was a hydra game, Social Engineering 2, for being a blind game with gimmicks, and Vanilla 2, for having an OP which has been completely mangled.

Results
The resulting total number of players, along with the number of new, active, and returning player who were involved in at least one game each quarter is presented in figure 1 below.


The overall population has fluctuated with no clear trend for most of the time period, before dropping off in 2014, in line with the active and new player sub-populations.

In figure 1, we can see that active players underwent a very gentle decline in numbers until 2014, when the numbers rapidly fell off. During the preceding years, there are clear quarterly alternating peaks and troughs at the same points in each year. A fairly similar response was seen in the number of new players each quarter, which likewise tailed off during 2014. However there was also a large trough in the number of new players during the latter half of 2012. Returning players have maintained reasonably constant level, apart from a dip in 2013Q1. They only fell off marginally in 2014, and in fact rose slightly towards the end of the year and into 2015.

Discussion
This report aimed to observe the number of players, by quarter, from 2010 to 2015overall and by subpopulation. It found a large decrease in player numbers, as well as other fluctuations in the player-base.

Active players
The active player-base was mostly stable between 2011 to 2014, undergoing only a gentle decline. The alternative peaks and troughs suggest seasonal ebbs and flows in player numbers, supporting anecdotal observations. 2014 saw a gigantic contraction of the active player base, which is most likely attributable to the change in forum software under Curse ownership, which was widely decried at the time as being unsuitable for Mafia. Going into 2015, this decline levelled off and the population stabilised, helped perhaps in part by technological improvements at the start of 2015 (such as the increased post per page count). There was a worrying dip in 2015Q3 in overall player numbers, but they immediately bounced back, possibly suggesting that the current player-base has stabilised sufficiently for the seasonal changes in demand to return.

New players
New player rates have seen large fluctuations, although with consistent peak heights. The drop in new players in 2012Q3 is difficult to explain: the summer of 2012 saw a huge amount of site-wide drama focusing on the closure of the Gutter and associated user bans. This did affect the number of active players (the cyclical trough in 2012Q3 is larger than previous drops) as some players were banned or voluntarily left the site, although it is unclear how site drama would impact new players: perhaps users were driven away from the site, or the drama monopolised attention of otherwise potential new players.

The number of new players seems to start to recover in 2014Q1 before following declining in the rest of the year. Worryingly, new players are still in decline, possibly due to a lack of new-player friendly sign-ups.

The main area of interest revealed through this data was 2014, as the decline from 2014 to present day has been more severe than any other and shows no sign of recovery. While I have been unable to find a full timeline for when events occurred, the transition to Curse happened around this time. This came with the change in forum software, which public opinion was incredibly negative of (and not without reason). However, a number of positive changes were made in first half of 2015 (such as the increase in posts per page), which helped to stabilise the player base to an extent by making the site more mafia-friendly.

Returning players
Returning players have stayed fairly constant and less subject to the whims of seasonal demand than active and new players. They were also only very gently affected by the exodus in 2014, and have actually shown an increase since the end of 2014 (although this tailed off right at the end of 2015). This provides some hope that Curse has improved sufficiently that some players pushed away by it might be returning.

All three populations showed a trough in 2013Q1. Although this is in line with a seasonal in active players, it is very unusual behaviour for returning players. At the end of 2012, MTGS was first sold to Curse, which could have put off potential returning players. In addition, the forum struggled with a handful of large games which took a while to fire, which led to the fusing of Normals with the League.

Limitations
There are a number of limitations with the data collection methodology. Primarily, no provision has been made for the same player using a different name. This means that each different name is counted as a separate player, which includes:

• Misspellings
• Abbreviations
• Name Changes
• Gimmicks

In each of these cases, the different name appears as a completely separate player, which causes inflation in the population, and subpopulations that may skew the results. The situation is very solvable, but is likely to be labour intensive, as it would require collecting the variations by hand before combining them.

Conclusion
In conclusion, player numbers have fallen dramatically from 2010 to the end of 2015. Prior to 2014, decline was very gradual, with a series of peaks and troughs and active player numbers maintained a healthy cycle. However, the move to Curse and change in forum software in 2014 had a dramatic impact on the player base, and although this seems to be stabilising, there have been no signs of recovery, with the numbers of all three groups remaining low.

Given the current situation, it is imperative that we, as a forum, group together to work out what can be done to increase player numbers. The most important area to focus on is new players: their numbers have fallen incredibly - to only three new players in 2015Q4 - and appear to show no obvious signs of recovery. Although the number of returning players has remained fairly consistent, we should be looking to grow their number as well, primarily by trying to bring back the large number of players that left during 2014. Key to any growth strategy is ensuring that new and returning players can be converted into active players, which are the most important overall demographic to the continued health of the site.

Eco, party-pooping reviewer, strikes again

Hi everyone. I am regrettably announcing that after just over seven years, I am retiring from the Mafia council. It's been a satisfying honour to help guide the subforum through its ups and downs over that period, but after so long I can no longer muster the motivation and engagement required to properly fulfil the responsibilities of the Council. However, with the current combination of experienced hands and enthusiastic new blood, I have every confidence in the Council and the subforum going forward.

As part of my retirement I will be transferring control of the discord server to current Council member SilverCrys, who will probably look at instating some moderators on it.

I will still be around on the discord, and I will doubtless continue to play occasionally. I am still keen to review games, and will always be open to discussing mafia theory and mentoring.

My sincere thanks to everyone I've worked with: councillors, secretaries, and forum mods alike. Special thank you to all the players and game hosts past and present: without you we wouldn't have our wonderful little corner of the internet, and I am so proud that I have helped look after it.

Here's to the future.

Eco.

Team Mafia Game 1 - The Death of Stalin Mafia

Struggling for Power 4/12
Killjoy
Sheepsaysmeep
shadowLancerx
Vaimes

Facing Stalin's Wrath 8/12
Roz_the_eevee - Lavrentiy Beria - Head of NKVD Security Forces, Vanilla Town - Lynched Day 1
LastWhisper - Vyacheslav Molotov - Minister for Foreign Affairs, Town Tracker - Killed Night 1
Wheat_Grinder - Anastas Mikoyan - Minister for Trade, Vanilla Town - Killed Night 1
Nancy Drew 39 - Georgy Malenkov - Deputy Party Leader, Mafia Goon - Modkilled Day 2
Gemma - Georgy Zhukov - Head of the Red Army, Town Vanilla - Modkilled Night 2
Rhand Hunger - Maria Yudina - Pianist, Town Vanilla - Lynched Day 3
Lissa - Vasily Stalin - Son of Stalin - Town Vanilla - Killed Night 3
Regfan Dels_8 - Lazar Kaganovich - Minister for Labour - Mafia 1-Shot Backup Roleblocker

Events
Start of Day 2
Start of Day 3
Start of Day 4
Game Over
Full Setup


Rules

1. Follow MTGS Rules. In particular, no flaming. Please report posts you believe break the forum rules rather than arguing in thread.
2. These games will have a very low tolerance for rudeness and toxicity. Please think carefully before you post and try to foster a pleasant playing environment for everyone.
3. The Spirit of the Rules is more important than the letter: if you think you have found a mistake or loophole, talk to the mod about it before you post.
4. Questions, Comments, or Complaints for the mod should be addressed to them in private. Do not bring accusations of cheating or rule breaking to the thread
5. Please try to avoid angleshooting. This includes things like discussing the real-world reasons behind replacements or activity.
6. DO NOT edit or delete your posts.
7. DO NOT post if you are dead (not even "bah" posts).
8. DO NOT post in the thread during Night.
9. DO NOT directly quote or screenshot your role PM or any communication from the mod or any other private communication. You may paraphrase this information. Check with the mod if you even the slightest bit unsure.
10. DO NOT attempt to use the wording, structure, or content of any roles PMs to try and deduce alignment.
11. Do not "Thank" posts.
12. As long as the game is ongoing, do not talk to anyone about the game outside of the game unless your role PM explicitly allows you to.
13. No funny stuff, like cryptographic claims, tiny/invisible text, trust tells etc.

Deadlines and Activity

• Each Day last two (2) weeks. This may decrease as the playcount does. These deadlines are unlikely to be flexible.
• Night will last 72 hours.
• A lynch requires a simple majority. Once this is reached, the Day will end after a short Twilight (in which players may continue to post)
• If the Deadline is reached, I will pretend everyone not voting does not exist: if there is a majority vote, that player will be lynched. If not, the Day will end in a No Lynch.
• Each player is expected to post content at least once every 72 hours. Saying "Catching up" is not content. Failure to do so will result in being prodded. Repeated prodded will lead to replacement or modkill without warning - at a penalty to your team.
• Please do not monopolise or spam the thread. Players used to a significantly faster pace of play are requested to play with patience and the consolidation of thought that our deadlines allow.
• Players are allowed to post less if they let the mod know that they are unavailable beforehand.

Voting
This game will use my super fancy vote counter. As a result, votes MUST follow some simple rules in order to count. These rules are detailed here. Fundamentally, so long as your vote is within its own set of bold tags, you should be fine. If your vote is not counted, simply revote. I will try and point out and explain invalid votes.

Team Mafia Rules
The full list can be found here
Summary:

1. You may talk freely within your private channel, but you may NOT copy/paste anything out of it
2. Private topics will be made public post game unless you have a very good reason
3. Try to avoid mentioning the contents of your private channel. If you must reference a private discussion DO NOT name who said what.
4. In public and mafia chat, you may only reference public Mod-confirmed information about other ongoing team games. DO NOT speculate or comment on events or actions in other games - especially not alignment reads.

MTGS Team Mafia 2018

Results & Post-game

TEAMS

1. Team N1 NK - Voxxicus(c), Newcomb, Regfan
2. Fake News - Gemma(c), Nachomamm8, Tammy
3. Team Very Old Water - Osieorb18(c), Vezokpiraka, Wheat_Grinder
4. Made Men - Killjoy(c), Kpaca Anaklusmos, TubbaFett
5. Team Not Particularly - Arapocalypse(c), Randwolfsubout, Lissa
6. Team Cassandra - Rhand(c), Cantripmancer, Grapefruit21
7. Lethargy - SheepySaysMeep(c), Transcend, Trobairitz
8. Team Nowhere - ScarletCelestial(c), D_V, LastWhisper
9. Sheep in Wolves' Clothing - Tomsloger, shadowlancerx, Empoof
10. The Freedom Hedgehogs - RE1031(c), Shinichi, Roz_The_Evee
11. Ghost Town - Kanji(c), Nancy Drew 39, Scarlet Rage
12. Dafties - Manasi(c), Vaimes, and MarkoRaj

Replacements

• Sentenza
• Anaklusmos
• Hunger
• 7hawk77

FORMAT

• Teams consist of three players
• Three games will be run simultaneously, each populated by one player from each team
• The size of each game equals the number of teams entered
• 7 Teams => Micros
• 9 Teams => Small Minis (e.g. Off the Grid)
• 12 Teams => Regular Minis
• More Teams => Normals
• Game deadlines will be 2 weeks for Days, 48 Hour Nights. They may be shortened.
• Role PMs will be randomly assigned to all players (i.e. teams will not choose their role PMs, and there is no guaranteed distributiion of alignments).
• The team that wins the most games wins overall. I am open to ideas of how to break ties.

SIGNING UP

• Sign ups will run for 1-2 weeks, and a lot depends on the demand. I will place a nominal cap of 16 teams, but more realistically we need to hit 7 in order to run real games.
• You can sign up as a team or as a free agent. Full teams will be given priority, so Free Agents are recommended to actively find or create a team. If sign ups peter out and we can hit a game-size threshold with it, I will randomly create teams from Free Agents.
• No Hydras. No Gimmicks. No Alts.

Information required for sign ups:

1. As a Team
• Team Name
• Team Captain
• List of Team members
• Each team member must also confirm participation
2. As a Free Agent
• Any information that might help you get selected for a team
• Remember to close/edit your post if you join a team.
• You may also use the #lonely-hearts channel of the MTGS Mafia discord for LFT posts
3. As a Dedicated Replacment
• Availability for replacing
4. As a Mod/Assistant
• I will require 1-2 game moderators and helpers, especially if we get above 7 teams.
• Would ideally have a setup that fits 7, 9, or 12 people that we can use.

Starting the New Year off with a bang and a new release! https://github.com/Ecophagy/VoteCounter/releases/tag/V0.5

This version 0.5 update contains:
-A console that lists valid and invalid votes
-Votecount is now sorted descending by votes received, with Not Voting always printing last
-Allowed "Unvote. Vote X" syntax.
-UI reshuffle

And now some grandstanding!



Thanks everyone for playing, and I'm glad everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves since, well, that was the point!

Quote from Ecophagy »

Do the Mafia still win at parity if they have no ignites left? Can you ignite and mark the same Night, and if so does the player marked that Night die as well?

Excellent questions

Yes and yes

Quote from Ecophagy »

GG, hard fought game. Well played Proph you were incredible, I'm really impressed.

I hope Grapefruit is OK, he was absolutely up for the F3 fight so there's no way he just bailed on the game because he didn't want to give it a go. Something really important must have come up. It's a shame that definitely cost us the game, but we were always up against it in the F3 anyway and I think we gave it a good go from a very rocky D1 lurk-out.

Sorry for bailing. I was unwell and slept for most of 3 days straight. I just couldn't post through it. You came in so well and almost saved the game for us and definitely made it a ton more fun for me. Thank you so much Eco. Sorry I couldn't bring the win home.

GG to town. I thought we had you completely fooled at one stage but you all kept grinding away and eventually got pretty close. I'd like to think I'd have had a shot to convince Proph at the EoD but it felt like he was getting pretty close. It was really fun playing with all of you. Thanks!

And thanks to HR for hosting! I really enjoyed the flavor!

If it is decided to stick around here playing mafia for the time being, my suggestion is only having one active game at a time, maybe with a second in sign ups ready to go. My original community started out with a plethora of active ongoing games, but as activity dwindled we discovered that just one active game was enough to keep the community going strong. With a lower occurance of new games it helped hype the excitement of the each new game. Too many games with not enough users takes away from the urgency to get people in sign ups. And there is still mafia universe or other sites for those that need more than one ongoing game at a time. I personally don't enjoy mafia universe, mafiascum. "Mainstream" mafia sites. I prefer the smaller close knitted communities where you get to know the people you play with better. Bigger sites I think are more intimidating. Just thought I'd come and chime in, me a random nobody new to this community

*cough*

/in

The real roleblocker was the friends we made along the way.

Thingyman made a podcast about the championship.
For those of you that are interested in it, I found it a very nice talk.
They talk mostly about the championship itself, but there’s also some interesting mafia theory in there.

This is his post on MU:

Quote from Thingyman

Episode 1 (Guests: DWetzel, GeneralHanderchief, Beck and Dels)

Thank you to everyone who tuned in! We had more than a hundred people watching, which is very exciting. I hope to see all of you again next Sunday at 4 PM EST.

Find the episode here. I will also upload it to YouTube later, and see if I can get an audio version out to Spotify, iTunes or something.

Episode Summary
I talked with four former champions - DWetzel, GeneralHankerchief, Beck and Dels - about the Season 7 setup, the game line-ups, winner predictions, the jury system, spectator chat and advice for new players to the series.

Eco as well.

It's here!

The 2019 MTGS Mafia Awards Podcast in .mp3 format, featuring a special interview with Axelrod!

With special thanks to Bur for hosting, Osieorb18, shadowlancerx, tomsloger, and Axelrod for doing the talking and double thanks to Osie for editing!

Here's a spoiler for those who don't wish to enjoy the podcast:
Congratulations to all of our winners and thanks to everyone for playing Mafia with us!

Creative Commons Credit:

Cold Funk Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Alternate Formats and Bloopers:
2019 FLAC
2019 Loud FLAC
2019 Super-Loud FLAC
The Mamafias (Blooper Reel)
The Mamafias FLAC
The Mamafias Loud FLAC

So, who wants to review/write PMs and help host an Azrael specialty?