MicroEconomics (wallposty)

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MicroEconomics (wallposty)

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:00 am

Post by popsofctown »

Micros are the littlest mafia games. They're a game size with a particular point in mind - as small as possible with the mafia still size 2 so it's still mafia with partnership in it. They end up at 9 players because the steps needed to get down to 7 or 5 are not the steps that people want to take 24/7, but that doesn't mean they aren't aimed at a certain size, not quite like someone just kind of threw a number off the top of their head like uh 17, 23, 40.

Micros have special properties that make them both popular to play, and unpopular to mod. It is such a curiousity, the likes of which Alice has never seen through her Looking Glass. As a player they offer:
Spoiler: beneficios
-lowest commitment (both in weeks in duration the game will last and minutes per day spent on the game)
-usually fastest queue time
-lightest minimum experience to feel comfortable
-lowest probability of a blacklisted or greylisted other player in the game
-fastest time to death
-fastest time to completion
-(arguable) most well understood balance and anti-swing among the game sizes
-highest guaranteed minimum impact of your own slot

As a mod they offer:
Spoiler: problemas
-the most of youse! (more total mods are consumed to run the micros that need running, proportionally)
-lowest chance to watch a specific user you're superfanning run the tables on everyone
-least flexibility on knobs and levers for designing a setup that expresses your individuality. I don't
think
I should have to tag this arguable. It's hard to put a traitor in a micro, it's hard to put an SK in a micro, it's hard to run micro multiball.
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It shouldn't be so surprising that the micro queue could end up tagged, "empty mod queue", then, when you think about such things.

The mod queue isn't actually empty, right this second. Right this second, it is offering a Nightless Jester game and a Post Restriction game. There is nothing wrong with either of those, I'm probably going to re-iterate that about eleven times. But it gives me some pause. Obviously these are both to varying extents niche games. I actually have specific reasons I might be interested in the Post Restriction game, and I can't sign up for any type of game right this second anyway due to upcoming V/LA, so this is not a whine thread, let me tell you. But it gives me some pause. I think, "what if, one day, MoI, the majestic beautiful beast that maybe doesn't exist anymore but maybe, somewhere MoI does exist, what if he comes back, and he decides, I want to play a mafia game, I want to try this stuff out again, I want to light up pops's world, but I want to start with something light, where's a small basic game?" And the choices are jesters and post restrictions.

The micro queue is not the only setup firing micros, of course. The "real" micro queue is the newbie queue, which is always clipping along at a good pace. SE demand for the newbie queue is very high (although I've noticed replacements are a perpetual problem, there's an overdue replacement request in there right now) largely because people like micros. Probably this should continue because the newbie queue is important and keeping lots of shepherds around for the sheep is good. But if my fictitious MoI has to wait in a long line that might do him no good.

There are also other queues where mods are allowed to mod micros. Three such queues! There could be four if Untrod Tripod would let me mod 2 scum 5 VT mountainous and label it a Large Theme but he just won't be cool about it. But the normal queue, mini theme queue, and open queue often don't have micros queue'ed even though they are allowed (I see no such games in queue, or waiting in line, on a quick check). This is because they are allowed to run other sizes, and those modsided detriments to running a micro still apply. Open queue is the queue most likely to fire a micro, and it's not coincidental that it's the queue where mods are most likely to run a setup they didn't design themselves.

For the normal queue there is also the whole: "You may run a game that qualifies as a Micro in the Mini Normal queue, but you must have the prerequisite experience to run a Micro and it will only count as running a Micro for experience."
Which if I had to come up with any semblance of productivity in my postwall I would speculate should be rephrased or removed. Even if the policy stands, I will say, when I toyed with the idea of modding something months back, I thought, ok maybe I will try something very small and basic, and I saw that line and thought, oh no, I'm not sure exactly what this means but it sounds like modding a 9p that went through the NRG is the awful against-all-recommendations thing to do to the site. But now if anything it really seems to me that supply and demand would call for fewer people to be dissuaded from running a micro.

I am probably one of the bad people, I am currently modding an 11p but I join some micros. So possibly my own playing/modding ratio demonstrates the weird micros-are-player-sided bias. I worry for every micro that is getting instahammered like a cockroach, there's a micro that several people would have wanted to play, but that never actually got designed, queued, or modded and so therefore there were joys never had. I also think quite possibly that people playing and enjoying lots of micros can enhance everyone's enjoyment of minis and larges; minis and larges could be more manageable and fewer of them could manage to drive themselves off a cliff if people go into games familiar with eachother due to micro Y or micro Z.

Everyone go queue micros in the Normal queue and Theme queue please. Every time you don't a fairy dies.
Last edited by popsofctown on Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:04 am

Post by FakeGod »

I love reading these kinds of articles!
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:40 am

Post by Micc »

I appreciate the call for more attention to micro sized games for moderators, but I don't understand why you're encouraging micro sized games to be run in Normal or Mini Theme queues? One of the biggest draws to moderating in the Micro queue right now is how quickly you can get through the queue. Moderators are just going to end up waiting in line longer if they go to the other queues.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:49 am

Post by Oversoul »

It confuses me that there really doesn’t seem to be a consistent basis for how the queues are run.

Like I played a micro normal in the micro queue and then two months later two micro normals were played in the New York queue. ???
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:57 am

Post by Micc »

Mostly its that flexibility helps to keep some balance between queues. Given a choice, mods are going to take their games to the more empty queue.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:05 am

Post by popsofctown »

I have a player-oriented stance so I view time that moderators spend waiting for the game to be next in the queue as a zero-cost cost. If you have to wait eight months to queue your game no one in their capacity as an individual player is being negatively impacted at all. I suspect very few people leave site with the but-for cause that they had to wait too long to moderate a game (maybe that's biased and inaccurate thought)

However if people put micros in the other two queues occasionally, it's possible to have 3 non-newbie micros to choose from sometimes. That makes it more likely that one of the three is offering something appealing. Which I view as really good because two groups of players vulnerable to not signing up for any game at all are highly interested in Micros - returning veterans and sophomore newbies.

It is not very
realistic
for me to expect anyone to do this when they could get through the micro queue much faster, I'll admit. Don't let anyone say popsofctown is sane!

I still strongly and enthusiastically encourage people to also keep the Micro Queue filled and backlogged with awesome setups. I considered that to be taken as a given.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:32 am

Post by Oversoul »

My last micro was poopoo’d to oblivion :,(
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:46 am

Post by popsofctown »

CotG might be the most fun I had all year which is why I dedicated monthly setup challenge to it (though I had to round it out with other options)
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Wed Oct 23, 2019 4:37 am

Post by Errantparabola »

micros are my favorite games to mod :>
did another ms user do something lovely? recognize their achievements here!

Today's modern mafia consumer demands dozens, nay, hundreds of roles that are vanilla cops.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:15 am

Post by Psyche »

So it's totally within my ability and
even my interest
to develop a tool that can automatically mod micro games — selecting setups from a pool, sending randomized role pms, managing votes, resolving abilities. If I can be convinced that there is a *real* need for more moderators such that a tool like this wouldn't just idle in a repo somewhere or, worse, crowd out real interest in running games by human moderators, I will commit to implementing and maintaining such a tool. I just need to know the effort would be worth it.

Is there really a structural lack of mods, or is this just a onetime thing?
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:31 am

Post by Plum »

This post inspired me to design and sign up to Mod a Micro Normal. I'm interested in designing and running some Normal games and there's appeal in a short Mod queue and being able to queue and run one while running a Mini or Large Normal. I just hadn't given the Micro queue much thought - it wasn't on my radar for some reason.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:45 am

Post by Errantparabola »

In post 9, Psyche wrote:Is there really a structural lack of mods, or is this just a onetime thing?
Think that it does have ups and downs, as recently as several months ago there was a moderately sized queue (4-5+ in length iirc). could be biased but i dont necessarily see modding a micro as inherently less desirable to a mod bc i think there are a good amount of pros in comparison to say, running a large
did another ms user do something lovely? recognize their achievements here!

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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:49 am

Post by Psyche »

yah a lot of the benefits listed in the op for playing a micro also go for running a micro
in general both players and mods might want a low commitment experience
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:35 pm

Post by Alisae »

I would love a dedicated queue that would run 1 set up monthly
so 1 month it would be a cop 9er setup and the next month could be a different setup
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:47 pm

Post by Alisae »

I think a good name for said queue would be the "Vanilla" or "Basic" Queue, mostly because the setups that were run monthly would always be super basic.
It would also be cool if the list mod themselves was always running a game to make sure that there is always a game in sign-ups
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:13 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Both the open queue and micro queue list mods have demonstrated willingness to do that actually. It's not a hard rule but it's the defl facto dynamic. They aren't letting the queue stay empty more than a day or two
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:25 pm

Post by Alisae »

good listmodding listmods :3
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