Planned Changes: Newbie Game Deadlines

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Post Post #50 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:14 am

Post by ruru »

In post 44, mastina wrote:mafiascum is, to my knowledge, the only site which caters to the crowd of individuals with those particular habits: having real-life obligations such as full-time jobs, families to look after, finances to take care of, etc.; not being able to read too much content in a limited timeframe. (I know that, personally, I have an endurance limit of 20 pages/24 hours. If a game produces more than that amount, I simply can't keep up with it and my performance suffers as a result.)

These players are not, inherently, by definition the same as Geriatric players, but there IS a fair amount of overlap in that this is a service only mafiascum has to offer--'younger' players, so to speak, can find shorter games anywhere.
I still kinda read this as "Everyone else should have less fun so that I can play"

Like everyone I've talked to so far in {2018 newbies, open queue players} doesn't like 2 week deadlines

Constantly being AFK for days at a time is
a) much less skill-intensive for scum as there's less realtime interaction to mess up
b) super annoying to the other players when the walls of "catchup" show up, makes people not want to read the game

So I don't really see how encouraging it improves "standard of play" either?

Why not have separate geriatric newbie games that run simultaneously to regular newbie games, assuming the demographic you're talking about exists? The minority shouldn't get to arbitrarily enforce deadlines that the majority find unfun.
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Post Post #51 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:26 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

I don't think the newbie queue can support two separate types of games firing.

As a grumpy old-timer myself, to me, it seems like... the younger generation of players prefer faster games, so by not adopting, we'll just die off eventually.

For those old time players who prefer slower paced games, we have the geriatric ruleset (which could use some fine-tuning but is otherwise the best solution we have).

I'd rather have newbie games move faster and retain more newbies than have my own "get off my lawn" rant entertained at the expense of the site.
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Post Post #52 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:36 am

Post by Micc »

Its funny how we have threads upon threads talking about how the site is dying but whenever a change gets proposed there is so much resistance . If this is what the new generation of players want (penguin's surveys and my personal experience seem to say it is) then its in the site's best interest to cater to that. If your not actively getting younger then you're getting older and slowly falling behind the times. This fact remains true whether you're a professional sports team, a fortune 500 company, or a forum mafia community.

Don't be the grumpy old dinosaur that falls behind the times.

predit: yeah what reck said.
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Post Post #53 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:38 am

Post by Faraday »

seems like a great idea, maybe it'll even spread into other queues and we'll retain more players as a site
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Post Post #54 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:41 am

Post by ruru »

In post 3, mastina wrote:One, the quality of play in newbies is likely to drop--if not from newbies themselves, then from veteran players who need/are used to the extra time. Many ICs are going to find themselves suddenly having it be ten times harder to do their job. Even SEs who have been around long enough are going to struggle; with this change, their play is going to be notably lower than it should be given the game type. (In a newbie, we are meant to show off the best of mafiascum play, and the best of mafiascum play does not work well on a tight budget.)

That, not going into how some people who would otherwise gladly IC/SE, with this change, will instead of going in and performing poorly, opt to simply not IC/SE at all because they know the above would happen if they did. (Such as myself.) Leading to less ICs/SEs signing up.
Also like in my newbie game the IC barely posted anything, got voted to L1 while he was AFK, remained AFK while the wagon dissolved, and then got policy lynched at the deadline (which was actually even more than 14 days due to an extension)

So lol
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Post Post #55 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 5:54 am

Post by AnonymousGhost »

Following this.

Haven't played in any newbie games recently, but here are my thoughts regarding the deadline differences between Queues:

Newbie games serve as an introduction and after a player has made the introduction, then going into other Queues (which would presumably retain their 14 day deadline) wouldn't be as much of a culture shock.
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Post Post #56 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 5:59 am

Post by Zachrulez »

In post 34, T-Bone wrote:That goal doesn't matter if newbies are leaving because they don't like the length of games.

You're making the argument that 14->7 is too drastic a change.

Have you considered it from the opposite angle?

Newbies are coming from sites that at most, have 3 day deadlines. I'd say 3->14 is a much more drastic change than 3->7 Once someone is playing at 7 days, then we can probably gradually bring them up outside of the newbie queue to where we as a site want them (10-14). But making that jump from 3 to 14 or even 10 is daunting.
They're not going to jump the rest of the way up. They are the site's future moderators. They'll be the ones running 7 day games. If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.
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Post Post #57 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:10 am

Post by skitter30 »

In post 39, MichelSableheart wrote:The strength of mafiascum, as I see it, is it's ability to cater to players who don't have the time available to post multiple times per day.
Our expectations have been that an active player makes at least one post a day
. If we set a one week deadline, that means that a player who meets those expectations will post 7 times during a single day. Is that enough to play the game?
i don't know if that's a super reasonable assumption; if people only post once each irl day i start wondering if they're active lurking and/or going to flake, depending on the content of that one post. and if people look like they're going to flake i'd prefer if they repped out earlier than later so that we don't have an empty slot for long periods of time later in the game.

like i feel like the argument 'ms caters to people who can't post super frequently and thus lowering deadlines in the newbie queue is not representative of the site as a whole' is kinda silly because i don't think that large numbers of such players, like, actually exist. beyond asking for an extension because of a replacement, i really can't think of a scenario where people were asking for a *longer* deadline. i can think of lots of times where people were complaining that the day was dragging and that they just wanted to come to a decision already, or that there's no reason to wait out the clock.

i feel like some of the people in this thread are talking about the typical player from like ten years ago or whatever, and not the players who actually play now.
In post 45, Toomai wrote:There's something I call "the school rollover problem": changing the 5th-grade curriculum based on the results of the 5th-graders doesn't help anyone because next year it affects the current 4th-graders, who may be wildly different. In this context, we might be shortening the deadlines based on one group of newbies' preferences, but might end up later finding that the next group of newbies (the ones actually affected by the shorter deadlines) really want longer deadlines.
i really doubt that this is a problem; most people i talk to who don't like ms is because of the long deadlines and i can't imagine that trend will randomly change in the near future.
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Post Post #58 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:11 am

Post by AnonymousGhost »

In post 56, Zachrulez wrote:They're not going to jump the rest of the way up. They are the site's future moderators. They'll be the ones running 7 day games. If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.
Not to point out the obvious, but... The newbies that stick around, and
I mean stick around for the years to come
, will age and become the adults we are now with busy lives, jobs, families, college, and whatnot - if they're not doing it already.
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Post Post #59 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:11 am

Post by ruru »

In post 56, Zachrulez wrote:If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.
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Post Post #60 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:13 am

Post by chamber »

How much harm do you think could come out of shortening things to 1 week from 2, zach? I think it might shift the site to shorter deadlines overall, but the fact of the matter is, people with limited time already need to hide away in the geriatric games (myself included). And by having an influx of players, we at least have people that will grow up and get more busy to continue to fuel games for people in that demographic.

Edit: and now I feel like I dogpiled on you because people ninja'd me. Sorry for that.
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Post Post #61 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:06 am

Post by Alisae »

In post 56, Zachrulez wrote:
In post 34, T-Bone wrote:That goal doesn't matter if newbies are leaving because they don't like the length of games.

You're making the argument that 14->7 is too drastic a change.

Have you considered it from the opposite angle?

Newbies are coming from sites that at most, have 3 day deadlines. I'd say 3->14 is a much more drastic change than 3->7 Once someone is playing at 7 days, then we can probably gradually bring them up outside of the newbie queue to where we as a site want them (10-14). But making that jump from 3 to 14 or even 10 is daunting.
They're not going to jump the rest of the way up. They are the site's future moderators. They'll be the ones running 7 day games. If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.
This is a good thing and before you say it isn't you don't play anymore so...
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Post Post #62 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:17 am

Post by ruru »

Another benefit of shorter games is faster queues, assuming players play the same number of games simultaneously
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Post Post #63 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:35 am

Post by Alisae »

In post 62, ruru wrote:Another benefit of shorter games is faster queues, assuming players play the same number of games simultaneously
I don’t think I understand this.
a Newbie cannot play more then 1 newbie game at a time if they are in their first newbie game.
I mean, it might fire faster if those newbies come back for more sure, but more games isn’t really an upgrade or a downgrade? Keep in mind its the same people playing the same game.
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Post Post #64 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:43 am

Post by Zachrulez »

In post 61, Alisae wrote:
In post 56, Zachrulez wrote:
In post 34, T-Bone wrote:That goal doesn't matter if newbies are leaving because they don't like the length of games.

You're making the argument that 14->7 is too drastic a change.

Have you considered it from the opposite angle?

Newbies are coming from sites that at most, have 3 day deadlines. I'd say 3->14 is a much more drastic change than 3->7 Once someone is playing at 7 days, then we can probably gradually bring them up outside of the newbie queue to where we as a site want them (10-14). But making that jump from 3 to 14 or even 10 is daunting.
They're not going to jump the rest of the way up. They are the site's future moderators. They'll be the ones running 7 day games. If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.
This is a good thing and before you say it isn't you don't play anymore so...
It was a serious suggestion.
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Post Post #65 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:49 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

In post 23, Nexus wrote:
In post 20, Plotinus wrote: If you haven't posted game advancing content in 7 days (on 14 day deadlines) or say 4 days (7 day deadlines) you get replaced, even if V/LA.
I have an issue (in general) with this idea. I think that it's not the game moderator's job to say if you're posting game advancing content, because that's overstepping the bounds. If a player wants to just prod dodge then it's a valid tactic and it's up to the rest of the players to decide what to do with that.
I think a fairly good blanket policy is this: if the post could be made in another topic and no context/quality is lost, it doesn't count as game-advancing (so prod-dodges don't fall under it, but practically anything wrt the specific game does.)
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Post Post #66 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:50 am

Post by ruru »

In post 63, Alisae wrote:
In post 62, ruru wrote:Another benefit of shorter games is faster queues, assuming players play the same number of games simultaneously
I don’t think I understand this.
a Newbie cannot play more then 1 newbie game at a time if they are in their first newbie game.
I mean, it might fire faster if those newbies come back for more sure, but more games isn’t really an upgrade or a downgrade? Keep in mind its the same people playing the same game.
Without loss of generality, assume everyone plays exactly 1 game at a time

The queue will pop with frequency proportional to
N/L
where
N
is the number of users and
L
is the average length of a game

It's an upgrade because people are less likely to get bored waiting a week for queue to pop and then flake
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Post Post #67 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 8:04 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

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Post Post #68 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 8:10 am

Post by MarioManiac4 »

for what it's worth as someone who mods and sometimes plays newbie games, i think this is a worthwhile change to increase newbie retention rates.
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Post Post #69 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:16 am

Post by Ircher »

In post 48, T-Bone wrote:THIS is what the average game on this site looks like. 4 or 5 players who quickly have twice as many posts as the rest of the players in the game. THAT is what we need to prepare newbies for. Not some fantasy world where we are all adults who barely post and need longer deadlines to produce posts. Michel, your example player can't play here with 2 month deadlines. That is what mafiascum is now.
Ummm.... I don't think the referenced game is really indicative of the normal length of mini games page-wise here. While threads do somewhat frequently reach over 100 pages by the end of the game, there are very few minis that have 200+ pages, and simply scanning the Completed Mini Theme games forum shows this to be the case.
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Post Post #70 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:49 am

Post by Zachrulez »

In post 64, Zachrulez wrote:
In post 61, Alisae wrote:
In post 56, Zachrulez wrote:
In post 34, T-Bone wrote:That goal doesn't matter if newbies are leaving because they don't like the length of games.

You're making the argument that 14->7 is too drastic a change.

Have you considered it from the opposite angle?

Newbies are coming from sites that at most, have 3 day deadlines. I'd say 3->14 is a much more drastic change than 3->7 Once someone is playing at 7 days, then we can probably gradually bring them up outside of the newbie queue to where we as a site want them (10-14). But making that jump from 3 to 14 or even 10 is daunting.
They're not going to jump the rest of the way up. They are the site's future moderators. They'll be the ones running 7 day games. If you're looking to cater to them you might as well just go all the way to blitz deadlines.
This is a good thing and before you say it isn't you don't play anymore so...
It was a serious suggestion.
I mean I personally hate the idea of shorter deadline games becoming the norm on the site, but once I get past accepting that the site is catering to people who are not me and who are actually playing... it makes more sense to just use the deadlines the current gen of newbies want.
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Post Post #71 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:31 am

Post by T-Bone »

Play more so we can cater to your tastes.
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Post Post #72 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:39 am

Post by Zachrulez »

In post 71, T-Bone wrote:Play more so we can cater to your tastes.
That was definitely not the direction the site was moving in while I was still playing and it's definitely not the direction it's moving in now. But yeah I'm not playing anymore so more power to whatever you decide to do. :cool:
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Post Post #73 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:45 am

Post by Umlaut »

I support this change. I agree with others that 7 days is somewhat shorter than I would have gone with if I were making the rules, but I've gradually come to feel like 14 days is excessive, particularly for micro-sized games. And I agree that the #1 complaint I've seen from newbies in-game is the day lengths. If this leads to shorter customary deadlines across the site then it will be because that's what people prefer to play; and as long as there are old-guard players who prefer longer deadlines there will be old-guard mods catering to that.
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Post Post #74 (ISO) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 11:39 am

Post by nancy »

In post 26, Plotinus wrote:
In post 23, Nexus wrote:
In post 20, Plotinus wrote: If you haven't posted game advancing content in 7 days (on 14 day deadlines) or say 4 days (7 day deadlines) you get replaced, even if V/LA.
I have an issue (in general) with this idea. I think that it's not the game moderator's job to say if you're posting game advancing content, because that's overstepping the bounds. If a player wants to just prod dodge then it's a valid tactic and it's up to the rest of the players to decide what to do with that.
I implemented it after a micro i modded where there were 3 town slots who had posted nothing but "I'll get to this later" every 47 hours for weeks on end so i couldn't replace them. It was really frustrating.

I hear what you're saying though and I think it would be really easy to overstep, so I try to be really really lenient with what counts. naked votes count. unvotes count. saying "x is kinda scummy" counts. answering a question or asking one counts, even if it's not a satisfying answer (that would be overstepping). most (probably all) ways of interacting with another player count.

You can still prod dodge in my rule set. The easiest way is probably a post like "i'll get to this later but I think i'm still happy with my vote." or "Got prodded; Plot is scum." and then later if they want they can say "oh that was just a prod dodge, I didn't really mean it." You can be a minimal content poster and skate by just fine.

Since I started paying attention, I've found that most of the time when someone posts "i'll get this later," that post doesn't count for activity but they still wind up posting something before they get into prod range, so it doesn't come up.

I've been using this ruleset for over a year and the only complaints I've gotten were that I was too lenient (counting an unvote as game advancing, for example). I think it's had a positive effect on the games I've modded, it encourages people to be more active.
I like this rule so much. The first time I saw it in one of your games, I started using it in all my games, too. I think it's super useful.

I think I like the deadline change, newbie games seem to have become a lot more stagnant compared to how they used to be, and I think it's harder for newbies to play in a slow setting compared to experienced players because slow settings are good for more thoughtful play and newbies don't really know how to do that yet, most of the time. (A lot of our newbies seem to come from ToS and EM these days?)

Am assuming you would change prod ranges and such. I can foresee a potential problem getting replacements in time but hopefully that won't happen too much. Maybe it would be a good time to implement some other things to punish people for replacing out, but I don't know how that's possible since it's only 1 queue.
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