Long term health of mafiascum

[chamber]

I think a blitz queue probably resolves this issue, but I know it didn't go forward because there were issues. Perhaps enumerating those issues and looking for solutions should be on the table.

[chitownmvp01]

As a person who started on other sites, a huge reason why ms is dying is because of the standard two week long days. I started as a ToS player, and I moved to the Forum Mafia Section there, the phases range from 120/48 to 72/24. Nobody wants to come to here with these phase lengths, I suggest that some games have shortened dayphases, because ms won't adapt otherwise.

With respect, deadlines of that length are the entire draw to mafiascum.

Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but not much of one.

I would not play in a game with a day deadline shorter than four days, at absolute minimum--and even then, I'd be miserable and underperform.
I don't play in games with deadlines shorter than a week, and a week is still a dangerously short amount of time if I just so happen to have a week where I'm incredibly busy/have a V/LA.

Ten days to fourteen days is the amount I typically USE. So my preferred DEADLINE is 14-21 days, as to not always encounter a deadline rush. (If I have a 21-day deadline, I'm never using all 21, but I will probably fully utilize 14. If I have a 14-day deadline, I'd certainly try to get things wrapped up by the tenth day.)

I stopped playing mafia elsewhere because mafia that uses those shorter deadlines--which I used to be able to handle just fine--I simply can't handle anymore.

I know I am far from unique in that aspect.

Really? I'm from TOS as well and I play on MU ocassionally where the day phases are less than half the time. I get bored if the phases are too long. I know many people, myself included that say that they will never play here unless the day phases aren't 2 weeks. So I'm not sure why you think the deadlines draw people here. Also, V/LA can be abused by not being on at EOD.

[Ircher]

As a person who started on other sites, a huge reason why ms is dying is because of the standard two week long days. I started as a ToS player, and I moved to the Forum Mafia Section there, the phases range from 120/48 to 72/24. Nobody wants to come to here with these phase lengths, I suggest that some games have shortened dayphases, because ms won't adapt otherwise.

With respect, deadlines of that length are the entire draw to mafiascum.

Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but not much of one.

I would not play in a game with a day deadline shorter than four days, at absolute minimum--and even then, I'd be miserable and underperform.
I don't play in games with deadlines shorter than a week, and a week is still a dangerously short amount of time if I just so happen to have a week where I'm incredibly busy/have a V/LA.

Ten days to fourteen days is the amount I typically USE. So my preferred DEADLINE is 14-21 days, as to not always encounter a deadline rush. (If I have a 21-day deadline, I'm never using all 21, but I will probably fully utilize 14. If I have a 14-day deadline, I'd certainly try to get things wrapped up by the tenth day.)

I stopped playing mafia elsewhere because mafia that uses those shorter deadlines--which I used to be able to handle just fine--I simply can't handle anymore.

I know I am far from unique in that aspect.

Really? I'm from TOS as well and I play on MU ocassionally where the day phases are less than half the time. I get bored if the phases are too long. I know many people, myself included that say that they will never play here unless the day phases aren't 2 weeks. So I'm not sure why you think the deadlines draw people here. Also, V/LA can be abused by not being on at EOD.

FYI: Comparing this site to Town of Salem is not an Apples to Apples comparison as they hardly attract the same player base.

2 weeks really isn’t that bad, and most of the time on this site, only Day 1 lasts two weeks. In some games, D2+ can last a long time, but for most people, they want the game over by the end of D2, so D3+ tend to last for about 3-7 unless it is LyLo.

[zoraster]

I think a blitz queue probably resolves this issue, but I know it didn't go forward because there were issues. Perhaps enumerating those issues and looking for solutions should be on the table.

Sure. I think there are issues from both the mod and player side. I think if we can reduce the effort to to mod these games, that's half the equation. Automatic sign ups would help some in terms of getting people from signing up to playing faster. Easier and better automatic modding (which it does seem like there have been some gains in) will help too, particularly in a post-heavy environment.

That still leaves the fact that it tends to lead players to be in fewer games at any given moment, which is a big problem, but at least that's only one thing to worry about and address.

[chamber]

Can you elaborate on why you think players being in fewer games is an issue? (or a big issue).

mod and queue burden do sound like real problems that would need to be addressed though.

[davesaz]

If active games per player decreases keeping players constant, then the available player slots could end up being less than available game slots.

I don't fully get how this isn't offset by players freeing up faster via being removed from games faster, nor do I get why having shorter deadlines inherently decreases active games per player.

[zMuffinMan]

I get bored if the phases are too long. I know many people, myself included that say that they will never play here unless the day phases aren't 2 weeks. So I'm not sure why you think the deadlines draw people here.

It's kind of like chess - you've got bullet (think marathons), blitz (think <72-hour day phases), rapid (think <8-day day phases) and classical formats (think 9+ days in a day phase).

MS mainly caters to people who prefer a classical (longer time allowance) format.

It rarely caters to people who prefer other formats (and there's probably a lot more people who prefer quicker games nowadays so that's not necessarily a good thing).

mastina is right in that the appeal has been mostly for people who prefer having a larger amount of time in day phases. But yes, there are obviously a lot of people who dislike this and prefer playing faster games.

I personally prefer longer amounts of time in a day phase (the format on MU, for example, is way too short for any real test of skill in mafia IMO, and longer day phases allow for a lot more strategic depth) but I don't mind playing quicker games every now and then just because they can be fun with the right player list (though I likely wouldn't come out of them thinking "wow, that was a well-fought victory" or "wow, the skill level in that game was pretty high" - that's not to say there isn't skill involved or anything, but it's clearly a different ball game than when you're given more time to think, plan, weigh options, etc).

[mastina]

Really? I'm from TOS as well and I play on MU ocassionally where the day phases are less than half the time. I get bored if the phases are too long. I know many people, myself included that say that they will never play here unless the day phases aren't 2 weeks. So I'm not sure why you think the deadlines draw people here. Also, V/LA can be abused by not being on at EOD.

Longer deadlines draw people here because there is a demand for that kind of game (in particular, from individuals older than the typical mafia player, as the general mafia player demographic is teenagers and longer deadlines appeal to adults who have full lives).

mafiascum is one of the only sites in existence catering to that crowd. Maybe, MAYBE if you searched around you could find another location with similar day deadlines to here, but they are few and far between. (And the few which

do

exist, universally you'll find had their mafia games founded by a current or former mafiascum player.)

Sites where you have games last for minutes (maximum a few hours) are common enough.
Sites where you have games last for days (maximum a couple of weeks) are the default used across the internet.

You can find those in any location. Thus, mafiascum would have nothing unique to offer if our default game type was that. (Newbie games? Other sites have them. Open games? Other sites have them. Theme games? That's the default type of game on other sites. Normal games? That's the closest we have to something unique, but other sites have plenty of more "vanilla" games so it's far from unique.)

But sites where you have the longer deadline are a rarity.

Sites draw people in when there is something unique they have to offer. Sites draw people in when there is something they can offer another site cannot. Other sites offer games which last minutes/hours and/or days/weeks. But we're fairly unique in offering games which last weeks/months.

In short, we offer a service unavailable elsewhere--and people who want that service thus come to us.
If we didn't have that service, we wouldn't have any service unavailable elsewhere--and thus, people have no incentive to choose us over any number of alternatives.

Also, challenge yourself. Try keeping mafia in your mind for the next five years of your life. You can quit it and restart it as many times as you'd like. Five years from now, see whether you prefer the faster games or the slower games. If you actually keep playing mafia that long, I'm willing to bet you that you'll understand

exactly

what we're talking about.

[mastina]

That having been said

, while mafiascum will always have games of longer deadlines, we do have shorter-length games.
2-3 times a year, we have marathon games lasting minutes/hours. In some mafiascum-related communities, you can also find chat-based mafia games. (A classical example was xylbot.)
Moderators occasionally run Blitz games with games lasting days/weeks.

These games are available on mafiascum. They're just not the default, and never will be.

[chamber]

I also prefer slower games, but at some point we have to recognize that our main source of people used to be other sites, and if they are all playing in a faster format, we might get some of them who want things to goa bit slower, but most of those people would just stay away from mafia on the other sites in the first place.

I do think there is probably an issue of too many queues if we open the blitz queue (I'm wondering if it might already be the case that we offer too many different game signups at once, and adding more too that list likely doesn't help it) So perhaps one conversation needs to be around what queue(s) go if we overcome the technical issues the blitz queue has? Merge the normal queues and merge opens into micros (given that I believe the micro opens are the most popular anyway)?

[zMuffinMan]

I'm not sure you need a blitz queue, per se. You just need to be a lot more open to letting more moderators run faster games (making it really obvious that there are certain activity requirements, though). I don't think it should prevent longer games being run, but it definitely should be more apparent that, hey, you don't

need

to run 14-day deadlines (I'm not sure, but I suspect a lot of people might do it just because that's what everyone else does and they're unwilling to break the mold or they think they need to do it as well for whatever reason).

As a side note, I don't really see why there needs to be so many queues (at least right now, with how slowly some queues fill). I get that they're for different types of games, but I don't think that matters. The newbie queue is one thing, but I don't really see why there's a need (or even a real demand) for so many other queues over, say, one unified queue.

I've also never really understood why marathon forums

have

to close and only be open every now and then (obviously if it starts affecting activity levels for players in other games, that's going to be an issue, but managing your time is something people already need to do when signing up for multiple games).

In any case, redesigning how the queues work is definitely an idea that should be considered. I'm not sure on the best way to do it, though. Even something like an "anything goes" queue might be an idea to consider, if only temporarily (e.g. no modding requirements, no setup requirements, no player list requirements, no deadline requirements, global rules in effect). It will probably produce some pretty awful games, but I think there's some merit to the idea too. At least considering ideas like this is a step in the right direction, though (IMO).

[chamber]

I'm not at all attached to even having queues, but getting rid of them has never had traction so one needs to work with the options they have.

I agree that we have too many queues for the current player base, they offer additional options but they also spread the player base out. It should be noted this is more about the number of games in signup than it is the number of queues, though.

We've tried opening the marathon forum permanently previously. You need a high concentration of players to be there for hour(s) during a given time window for them to fire. When we left it open forever, they just never got ran at all.

As for why a blitz queue, it encourages people to run that kind of game. I think there was some success with hydras, where previously every mod just seemed to allow them by default, but by having list mods ask explicitly during signups, it made more choose no hydras. Perhaps something similar can be done with deadlines? Not sure. Of course all of the problems that Zoraster mentioned would extend to any method of increasing the number of blitz games, not only to a queue.

[zMuffinMan]

With regards to the marathon forum, it's possible that in the past there wasn't as much demand for shorter games in general, let alone marathons; that may not be the case now (although maybe it will still turn out the same if it's always open).

I mostly agree with the other points. The reason I suggest a blitz queue wasn't a necessity is that there may be other ways to encourage that sort of thing (a question about deadlines is one way of potentially making people open to the idea, yeah - I'm not sure about other ideas, but I agree there probably are too many queues at the moment (considering the current player base) to add another one on top of the already existing ones).

[chamber]

It's possible that the main issue with the marathon forum when it was open constantly is another technical hurdle; properly notifying people someway other than there just being a new topic. But at some point we need to limit the scope of which issue is being tackled. Can't do everything at once.

[Zachrulez]

Unless I'm unaware of something, deadline lengths are mostly up to each individual moderator. If a moderator wants to run games with 8-day (or less) deadlines, they can, can't they? (I guess there's some unofficial rule that you shouldn't use really short deadlines but I don't think it's written in stone anywhere.) Just find moderators who are willing to do this.

People tend to want to swim with the tide so if the tide is 14 day deadlines that's what most mods are going to run. It's actually quite difficult to get people to run something else without designing something specifically to be run that way. (Like the Blitz queue)

You could make deadline length a qualifier in the queues. Something a mod has to answer and advertise when they put a game up for signups. Even the mere act of thinking about deadline length might mitigate people choosing to simply go with what the "accepted site culture" is.

[zMuffinMan]

But at some point we need to limit the scope of which issue is being tackled. Can't do everything at once.

Agreed, though I only really brought it up tangentially (and it's better to float different ideas than not, IMO, even if they aren't immediately considered).

[Maruchan]

Basically people want fun nighttime shenanigans vice scumhunting and debating

To be fair, you can have fun nighttime shenanigans (aka role madness) while still having scum hunting and debating.

Yeah but its difficult to do so in 72 hour desdlines

[Psyche]

Merge the normal queues and merge opens into micros (given that I believe the micro opens are the most popular anyway)?

merge the micros and blitzes

[T-Bone]

I would like to remind people that Blitz games are an explicit function of the Mini Theme queue. I occasionally see threads where people go "we should have blitz games"...but the fact is we do. People don't run them. I did Blitz month in November, which was great. We had a bunch of Blitz games. But before that...I had 2 blitz games come through my queue my entire tenure. There doesn't actually seem to be the demand for it that people think there are. Anyone at any time can go to either theme queue and run a Blitz game. It just doesn't happen in practice.

I'd like to see more blitz games, and that's why I go out of my way to encourage them. I am probably the biggest proponent of blitzes on site. Despite that, I recognize that the desire just isn't there. Despite giving blitzes their own month (which I will do again this year regardless) we failed to maintain interest for even the entire month.

[BlackStar]

I would like to remind people that Blitz games are an explicit function of the Mini Theme queue. I occasionally see threads where people go "we should have blitz games"...but the fact is we do. People don't run them. I did Blitz month in November, which was great. We had a bunch of Blitz games. But before that...I had 2 blitz games come through my queue my entire tenure. There doesn't actually seem to be the demand for it that people think there are. Anyone at any time can go to either theme queue and run a Blitz game. It just doesn't happen in practice.

I'd like to see more blitz games, and that's why I go out of my way to encourage them. I am probably the biggest proponent of blitzes on site. Despite that, I recognize that the desire just isn't there. Despite giving blitzes their own month (which I will do again this year regardless) we failed to maintain interest for even the entire month.

Maybe they're not that popular because they're not as visible as the other queues. When I first joined the site, blitzes had their own queue. I didn't know that we still had them here until this post because I don't play mini theme games.

[Ircher]

I would also like to note that even for the marathon forum last time we had them....

Lots of people played during the first half of the weekend, but by the last day, everyone's interest had basically disappeared. THus, I don't think having a Blitz queue as a regular queue is goning to be a really good idea in the long-run.

[zMuffinMan]

The fact that the current player base isn't as interested in blitz (or marathon) games doesn't surprise me. In terms of growth though, that shouldn't matter if people who aren't already participating in games here are staying away because they don't want to (exclusively) play longer games and that's the image they have of this site.

The lack of visibility might be an issue, especially if there's a number of people who play elsewhere because they

think

MS doesn't allow blitz games (or because mods simply don't run them for whatever reason that happens to be).

[T-Bone]

It's a mod-supply issue. If more mods wanted to run them, they'd be more visible.

[zMuffinMan]

Right. But that might be for a number of reasons and there might be things that can be done to make mods more likely to run them (e.g. the question idea that chamber mentioned). The blitz month idea is another option (though I think lots of games in a small burst might throw some players off as opposed to just having them run sporadically and figuring out ways to make mods more willing to do that).

Plus regardless of the cause, the effect is still the same (which is the problem).

[chamber]

The name of the theme queues doesn't help. I understand that what we mean by theme is actually non-normal. How many new people understand that?