Why is the Mini Theme Queue unpopular?

[Gamma Emerald]

I feel like the queued games are pretty constantly behind
This comes from a lot of prior checks, maybe it’s better now. Just, probably something to keep an eye on?

[zoraster]

I'll bring it up with the listmods. OP updating tends to be the lowest priority, but it is good to keep these things updated more often.

[Kerset]

I think that mini theme lost popularity exactly when open queue stopped being dead. There was an increased interest in reformed queue, so someone had to suffer.

[Kerset]

No anime games in signups

unironically also this ^

[Psyche]

i know there are plenty of bots i've suggested that would be hard to make, but something that tracks queue /ins and updates whatever in light of them seems something easy to implement if just doing that manually is any trouble at all

[OkaPoka]

I think that mini theme lost popularity exactly when open queue stopped being dead. There was an increased interest in reformed queue, so someone had to suffer.

I think this is it, we might not have the playercount to support all the queues and additionally when a queue dies down it tends to have a reinforcing effect.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

I think the fact that games that dont fill in a timely fashion end up staying in the queue for a very long time is part of the problem

^ this

nobody wants to sign up for a game that won't fill

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

which is kind of a catch-22 lol

[NorwegianboyEE]

nobody wants to sign up for a game that's not anime themed.

Fixed that for you

[skitter30]

GAME 1
Owners Market Blitz (0/13)
Moderator: Gypyx
Owners Market Blitz

Players
me 1Owners Market Blitz (0/13)Moderator: Gypyx Owners Market Blitz Players

this game has been in the q since may 9

TheFuzzylogic99's game may begin sign ups

this game since may 20

Both of these games have 2 days, 10 hours, 16 minutes to fill before they're pulled

they both have another 2 days until they're pulled, which seems excessively long for me, especialy for the first game that has been in the q for over a month. i think this is part of the problem

[callforjudgement]

I think the Normal queue has been stealing from the Mini Theme queue. The complexity of Normals has been getting higher and higher over the past several years, as has the set of allowed roles, and I think it's fulfilling much of the demand for more complex games that the Mini Theme queue would previously have handled. Meanwhile, the "weird/experimental" games (the other thing that mostly went through the Mini Theme queue) have now become a staple of the Micro queue, because if you're doing weird things with a mechanic, it normally makes sense to first try it out at a smaller size.

So the main purpose of the Mini Theme queue is now for "games based on source material", and I think the majority of our player base cares more about the mechanical and scumhunting aspects of the setup than they do about it having a flavour that they recognise from somewhere offsite (especially because there are plenty of mods here who are capable of making perfectly good flavours from scratch).

There's also something of a "mod expectations" issue, at least for me: when I do try to make a game based on source material, I can never get it into a position which I think is good enough / does enough justice to it, and thus end up simply not running it rather than running it anyway and making a game that i think isn't up to standards – I don't really want to take an existing theme and stick it onto an otherwise Normal setup that's unrelated to the theme, and I think the players don't either, but tying them together properly is something that can be surprisingly difficult.

[MURDERCAT]

Mini theme should be 9-15 players

[Isis]

I think that would result in more 16p games

[Jake The Wolfie]

I think one unsolvable problem is that it's just easier to sign up to a normal game than a theme game. You can mindlessly sign up to a mini normal, but you actually have to do your research before finding out what's inside of a mini theme.

[Isis]

They're not competing businesses or something

[Kerset]

They're not competing businesses or something

what is your theory?

[Jake The Wolfie]

They're not competing businesses or something

I agree with you here, they aren't competing businesses. However, by the virtues of the Normal queue and the vices of the Theme queues, one is more popular than the other.

[Gamma Emerald]

14p is still mini numbers imo

[Gamma Emerald]

part of the reason I say that is I played a HORRIBLY JANK 14p normal that has 2 mafia and an SK iirc, and only was made 14p because it was made after the rule change that make SKs disallowed in mini/micro normals
so like, I don't want people thinking that's an acceptable option

[Isis]

I'm not sure it should be treated as a problem that the mini theme queue is less popular relative to other queues. There has to be a least popular queue.

[Jake The Wolfie]

I'm not sure it should be treated as a problem that the mini theme queue is less popular relative to other queues. There has to be a least popular queue.

This is true, yes.
It is also true that the Mini Theme queue performs well below what we would expect it to do, and that's the issue we're trying to address here.

[Flea The Magician]

Honestly, the mini theme is my favourite queue.

Large games get overwhelming for me, normals are boring but I'll rep in if I'm bored enough. Open Games are mechanically interesting to me as some weird things can happen there and people know what they're going in for.

[nomnomnom]

the mini queue has been frozen for 5 days now despite a game being hammered

[Lukewarm]

the mini queue has been frozen for 5 days now despite a game being hammered

I ended up here for a similar reason. Not the game that hammered 5 days ago, but the game that should have gone into sign ups to replace it 5 days ago.

I saw your game get hammered, and have been checking back every day, waiting for the next game so I can sign up for it. The game looks cool, and it already has 6 pre-ins, so I can't even pre-in for it:/

[T3]

The listmod doesn't seem to do anything with the queue oor the site in general often. Obviously stuff happens in life, but if you won't be here then declare vla.

Like I wonder if for each queue there should be a "co-listmod".