Problems with the Queues

[callforjudgement]

I think one of the problems with games not filling is floods of overly similar games. The Open Rotation problems have been mentioned (this is something that I've been trying to solve by trying to create new Opens, but I mostly do it at Micro size), but both Micro and Mini Theme have, within the recent past, had gluts of very similar games in effect (crazy/bastard/role-madness Micros, and uPicks for Mini Theme). There's nothing wrong with those games in moderation; the problem is that if you have several similar games in a row, then players who like those sorts of games will be all tied up, and players who don't will have nothing to play.

Most of my modding recently has been an intentional attempt to balance the Micro queue, i.e. if I see a glut of some sort of game, I'll try to mod a different sort of game. I'm not sure there's enough of that going on, though.

I have a specific suggestion for the Open Queue: if an Open setup is run and no particular problems with balance or fun are noted, it automatically gets added to the rotation, and gets removed again if problems develop. This should help increase the amount of variety in the queue and doesn't seem to have much of a cost; in theory it might be a bit less balanced but I'm not sure that old setups are any better balanced on average than new ones anyway. (We could also do with looking at how Micro-sized Opens work; they're more appropriate for the Micro queue than the Open queue, but the Micro queue doesn't have an "Open rotation" so they aren't getting queued as often as they should be.)

[callforjudgement]

Oh, and a simple fix to mod permission issues: why not just give mods permission to start threads when their game enters signups? Not necessarily with the intent of the mod

using

it until the game fills, but simply as a way to remove one potential source of delay in the process.

[callforjudgement]

My guess is that the risk of abuse is nonexistent in practice. I could go create a thread in Mayfair Club right now. I wouldn't without permission from the list mod, though.

[callforjudgement]

Possibly the best option here is to drop some Tinies into the Open rotation (if there's a way to handle the resulting mod experience issues, e.g. by allowing them to run three in a row). Vengeful 5p used to be there, after all.

I think there should probably be (some/more) Micros in the Open rotation too; the Micro queue doesn't get enough of them (often forcing me to spend time modding rather than playing to balance the queue in question), whereas the Open queue doesn't have enough variety, and that might help with both issues. Again, you could let the same mod run two in a row in order to handle mod experience isseus.

[callforjudgement]

Surely just having White Flag into the Open rotation would guarantee it came up now and again? If you have a queue just for one setup it'll take a while to fill after people start getting bored of it (Newbie is a special case here).

[callforjudgement]

Yes, the thread exists in the wiki group, and hasn't been touched in weeks.

I started it as a wiki group member, by request from NRG and listmods. The obstacle was exactly what you're describing -- I don't know what different standardized roles should do. I proposed the idea of us as a wiki group just making the call by what we think it should be, and I was told it was up to the NRG, and to wait for the Normal changes.

This was actually part of why I applied for NRG -- I was hoping to speed up the process that would allow me to finish the wiki overhaul.

Until I receive some word across every normal role what "standard" means, I don't see much purpose in preemptively publishing (or crowdsourcing the work).

This is a high priority for me too but I have no idea what you're doing because I don't have access to the wiki group, despite several attempts to apply, both via official channels, and via complaining in threads that the relevant people are likely to be reading and hoping they do something. (This is another of them!)

I was planning to write a role PM generator myself, unaware that there was a wiki group who were trying to do the same thing.

For what it's worth, the changes to the role PM generator have broken {{SetupPage}}, and thus a large number of pages about setups. I've made some changes to try to make it a bit more backwards-compatible but we're probably going to have to edit all the pages manually at some point.

(There are a few other features that are probably necessary, e.g. custom wincons per faction rather than needing to write them out each time. Also, there's a lot of scope for improvement in the code. However, I have nowhere to discuss this as the wiki group discussion isn't public.)

I'm willing to specify role PM wording myself if necessary, but there isn't a group within the NRG for standardising wording at the moment, nor any process in place for it. So I guess we'd need implosion to specify how he wants role PM wording to go forwards.

[callforjudgement]

and I can't find a list of ALL pages that use it.

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:SetupPage

If you're on Discord, I've set up a Wiki channel for better realtime communication. It's mostly for me/wgeurts/Lycanfire/NSG. Shoot me a PM if you are and I'll add you.

I don't use Discord; I much prefer IRC, although I'm rarely on that nowadays too.

I was under the impression that the NRG had continuously been working on standard wording for the past few months. Hearing that I've been waiting on absolutely nothing is incredibly disappointing (and obviously not disappointed in you).

We've been working on standard

definitions

of roles (many of which I've been editing into the wiki recently), but that's mostly for newly whitelisted roles (the long-standing ones, like Cop, are fairly well-defined already). That's quite different from standardising the wording, though; normally we look over a mod's role PMs to check that their wording matches the standard definition, but there's more than one way to express a standard role definition in English.