Long term health of mafiascum

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Post Post #669 (isolation #0) » Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:19 pm

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are those mutually exclusive?
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Post Post #680 (isolation #1) » Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:05 am

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Cyclic was fun. Pity about the tigers.
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Post Post #683 (isolation #2) » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:47 pm

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Post Post #899 (isolation #3) » Sun Jun 24, 2018 2:05 pm

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Not every game on MS uses a 14-day deadline - some games I've been in recently have used 8-day deadlines.

The problem with 14-day deadlines isn't the length, per se. You don't need to use all 14 days - it's just there if you want to use it. The problem is that people have more freedom to be lazy because of that, though.
Because
there's no sense of urgency to actually get things done, people skate by on prod dodges and promises to do things some other day. That's bad for game health in general.

8 (or even 7) days seems like a fairly reasonable amount of time to generate a decent amount of content (which is less likely to happen with much shorter deadlines) while still allowing for variable activity levels. Plus there's a bit more urgency to get things done but not so much that you have to rush through day phases with little information from some players (though, again, you have the option to do so if you wish).

Something like 3 days is far too short for a lot of players (at least on MS, especially those that go V/LA over weekends and whatnot), but 5 days might be fine if you could guarantee a minimum activity level for players (and didn't have many replacements).

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.
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Post Post #906 (isolation #4) » Sun Jun 24, 2018 6:02 pm

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In post 901, chitownmvp01 wrote: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).
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Post Post #910 (isolation #5) » Sun Jun 24, 2018 8:58 pm

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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).
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Post Post #912 (isolation #6) » Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:27 pm

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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).
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Post Post #915 (isolation #7) » Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:55 pm

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In post 913, chamber wrote: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).
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Post Post #921 (isolation #8) » Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:15 pm

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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).
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Post Post #923 (isolation #9) » Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:38 pm

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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).
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