opportunity to freely discuss ongoing games clk here plz

[Zachrulez]

The point of this thread more than anything was to collect a large hoard of users into a secret network of secret hydras so evil and so insidious that mafia as we know it is broken down forever. Sadly, this truly sincere and noble effort has failed due to the valiant rule clarification work of zoraster and "others".

Does the hydra network even need to be secret to prove the point?

[Hoopla]

The point of this thread more than anything was to collect a large hoard of users into a secret network of secret hydras so evil and so insidious that mafia as we know it is broken down forever. Sadly, this truly sincere and noble effort has failed due to the valiant rule clarification work of zoraster and "others".

ok. i'm in for that too then.

[Psyche]

I am sure that a number of mods will allow me to have a many headed hydra as long as only one of the heads ever posts in the thread.
Especially mods that don't think being able to talk privately about the game to my compatriots counts as an advantage or otherwise affects the character of the game.

But if what I'm doing isn't secretive and can be easily controlled/limited, then the entire project is only moderately evil and insidious.

[quadz08]

and now people play in three or four headed hydras. That is commonplace.

I don't think that's true? I can think of a couple examples but with the exception of triforce they've all crashed and burned.

Pretty sure triforce was a crashandburn type of experience, tbf

[Psyche]

you guys clearly haven't met Serene2

[xRECKONERx]

The no talking about ongoing games rule made sense when hydras weren't a thing. While zero tolerance with regards to talking about games was a bit over-the-top, you have to draw the line somewhere, and that's the easiest place to draw it. The introduction of hydras has eaten into that territory - it started out as a rare thing and people dismissed it, but it has gradually grown as a concept and now people play in three or four headed hydras. That is commonplace. I think it's naive to expect it to stop there. And while it's not common for people operate hydras like "me and two scummers, but I'm the only that posts, I just talk to them about the game when I feel like it" I expect it to happen more.

If you think it's pointless to talk about things before they are actually

things

, fair enough, we'll talk about it later when they start happening more. But I think it's interesting to think about now. I'm not necessarily opposed to hydras, more that if you're relaxing that rule for people to play as a hydra, why not relax it for singular users?

It's like when Grimm & I hydra'd for the Reckoning 3 invitational. He didn't want to have to post, or have responsibility, or read the game, but he wanted to be able to talk with me about the game.

Or the ScumHaus hydra we created as "members of ScumHaus" so that we could all talk about an ongoing game, even though really the members of the hydra were pretty much whoever wanted to join.

What about Screaming Death Clan? When we ran that hydra, there were usually only two of us playing in a game, but it's a hydra that

technically

allows for four people to pop in and do whatever.

Hydras are just problematic. Whether it's distinguishing the voices in the hydra, or the fact that two players occupying one slot can create

dissonance across one slot

to obfuscate their play/reads, or the way that I've seen too many hydras end up just being "one person posting from an alt"... they have too many potentially sticky scenarios where they shouldn't be allowed in normals.

[zoraster]

That seems like a pretty reasonable argument.

[Mr. Flay]

he no talking about ongoing games rule made sense when hydras weren't a thing. While zero tolerance with regards to talking about games was a bit over-the-top, you have to draw the line somewhere, and that's the easiest place to draw it. The introduction of hydras has eaten into that territory - it started out as a rare thing and people dismissed it, but it has gradually grown as a concept and now people play in three or four headed hydras. That is commonplace. I think it's naive to expect it to stop there. And while it's not common for people operate hydras like "me and two scummers, but I'm the only that posts, I just talk to them about the game when I feel like it" I expect it to happen more.

Except hydrae vastly predate the current draconian Ongoing Games rules?

[callforjudgement]

As a mod, if you want to talk about my ongoing games, I'll make you a QT (or private thread now, I guess) to talk about them (with other people interested in talking about them), so long as you promise to keep everything said secret-from-public until the game is over. Given that you aren't involved in the game and aren't allowed to talk about it publicly, the game can't be prejudiced unless someone involved is cheating. This isn't very different from what Psyche's suggesting here, and is a lot less controversial.

You aren't going to be able to get a vast secret ongoing-game-discussion club going because the mod would need to know about and approve all hydra heads. I know that when hydras enter my games (which doesn't normally happen unless the game ends up unexpectedly wildly popular), I insist that all heads of the hydra confirm. A secret massive hydra would quickly find the levels of confirmation required in that obnoxious, I imagine (not to mention you'd be limiting the games that any of the members could play in). You'd also have the typical ongoing-games problem of wanting to use your knowledge gleaned from the hydra discussion in other games, but not legally being able to articulate why.

[Junpei]

psyche is one of the smartest players on this site, so it doesn't surprise me at all that he thought of this.

I like this thread, good job.

[Psyche]

ughhh

that's it
im locking this bitch
the secret hydra is

full

[Psyche]

after a possibly successful year of secretly hydraing or not-hydraing we are opening our actual or hypothetical roster once again

[Psyche]

oh and in order to mesh the secret hydra more securely with site rules a new rule was agreed upon that requires that all games you mod while part of the secret hydra network explicitly stipulate in their rules that secret hydras are allowed and okay

[Oversoul]

oh and in order to mesh the secret hydra more securely with site rules a new rule was agreed upon that requires that all games you mod while part of the secret hydra network explicitly stipulate in their rules that secret hydras are allowed and okay

Good luck with that

[Psyche]

it will have to be a secret rule now that i think of it

[elusive]

Agreed that secret hydras are rubbish, and that secret alts are too. Both should not be abided.

I am on team kagami here.

1. Draconian ongoing game rules actually depends on the Mod\player to enforce it. Sometimes its warnings, sometimes its modkills, sometimes its "nothing."
2. Don't be a dick rule actually depends same as above.

Uneven application of pressure can lead to ...things. Such as testing the boundaries of rules which seem malleable and ever moving.

Hydras obfuscate the game in multiple ways:
- Two players (or more?) talking and making reads and taking up thread space.
- Singular players who believe in the neo-nascent independent movement have to argue\study\work with two people playing as one so far more effort
- Hydras seem to function in one or more of these ways:
- one partner posts, the other lurks
- one partner posts, the other partner counter posts
- both partners post ad nauseum
- partners don't seem to agree on things beforehand
- partners refer to mysterious conversations taking place in a QT
- if the data shows that hydras are not any better at the game then why do hydras exist?
- if the data shows that single players are not any better at the game then why do single players exist?

Certain games have enough issues with needs for replaces which would make it seem like a one player\one slot ratio might help with that.

IF the Underground Hydra Movement had clear defendable goals like making lurkers a non-entity then we, the Collective, might rethink the stances on this correlation of symbiosis.

[Psyche]

hmmm

*pretends to or actually checks probably nonexistent hydra payroll for elusive's name*

[saulres]

I keep clicking here but so far no admins have told me it's okay to talk about ongoing games.

I want a refund.

[Psyche]

[REDACTED] handles refunds

[DeathRowKitty]

/in if I haven't already

[elusive]

hmmm

*pretends to or actually checks probably nonexistent hydra payroll for elusive's name*

As if the Collective would ever deal with something so bourgeois as checks or uneven application of rules.

[Psyche]

this is not the comintern get out

[Muffin]

hydras in your games privileges those well-known and well-connected within our community. In that sense, they are unfair. A faction of people like my new and secret buddy reinoe is unfairly disadvantaged against a faction comprised of the people from the Commune and Polyhaus and Scumchat and the Commonwealth and so forth.

It has been proven and stated multiple times in various hydra discussions that hydras perform no better than average. If you think that hydras of people who know each other and/or can communicate with each other in real life

do

perform better than average, I at least would welcome data demonstrating such, so that we could then update our policies according to the new information stating that hydras can, in fact, provide an unfair advantage.

Actually what's been shown with the data is that there is no evidence that the hydras studied performed better than average. This is emphatically

not

the same thing as proof that hydras are not advantageous.

Suppose I put together a hydra with me, reck, nachomamma, fate, yosarian2, DGB, and some other above-average players. Let's say we are not a secret hyrda, but I do all the playing and just ask them for advice now and then. Are you honestly suggesting it wouldn't give me an advantage over just me playing solo?

[zoraster]

can you point to the data?

[Muffin]

IIRC it was posted on the forums in one of the many statistics threads. I'm sure if you use the search you can find it.