How much commitment do we require?

[Porochaz]

The problem comes with perceived flooding. I have time to read a thread, even an active one where players are posting a few times a day. I might not post on every given day, but if the thread is 5 pages ish per day long, thats fine. (excluding day 1 where I expect it to be more) where I was having trouble playing and modding was there was players who were getting into 30-40 page arguments over the dumbest shit. Then there were the players who just voted and nothing else. And both playstyles got away with it. When modding I was tampering with playstyles, telling people to calm down and accused of favouritism when A. they didn't know what I was doing in regards to other players, B. in my view the other players weren't being nearly as bad, C. were the cause of others acting out and D. were the recipients of more complaints than others. (it wasn't a good game)

This makes it no fun for me. Especially when I come in from work and within 24 hours I have 40 pages to mod over. Who has time for that? With a full time job (at the time) and other hobbies, I can't afford more than a couple of hours of Mafia a day, and nor should I. It's a hobby, I blame MS partially for causing me to get lesser grades in uni because I did all-nighters. (time check - 4.13am at the moment) It's not good or healthy. People usually spend a few hours a week on a hobby, not approaching a day a week! Remember that was in 08/09 and I was in at most 4/5 games which were posting significantly less frequently. (albeit with significantly more analysis and content per post - rightly or wrongly)

What are the things that a player should be doing for you to say that a player is playing the game? (to what extend should they read the thread, what kind of quality of posting do you expect, what quantity of posting do you expect, how aware should they be about what's going on, how much do you expect them to think about the game, etcetera)

My opinion changed on this as the meta changed. I used to think every post should be read. But having been through those multiple long page arguments and the occasional page of one liners from one poster - skipping those parts are fine. I expect insightful posting, not masses of content but enough to know they are interacting meaningfully with other players.

What are the things that a player should be doing for you to say that a player is playing the game well?

Posting insightful content. (a one liner can be insightful) Responding appropriately to questions and posting enough to avoid being prodded.

How much time would you expect a player to spend on each of the points above?

Depends on a number of factors - enough time to read the thread, comment, start a new topic if the ones being discussed don't interest... if the other players have been active then it may take longer, but as I am adamant it's a hobby no longer than a couple of hours at most, and furthermore less time if you have spent more time on it recently.

How would you expect that time to be distributed throughout a week?

Again depends on the activity of players, the type of game, etc. A few hours a week seems reasonable.

To what extend do the answers to these questions differ between individual games?

Answered above

Is there a difference between what you would like the site to require, versus what games on this site actually require?

Absolutely, otherwise I'd still be playing. Games currently require more of a time commitment than I can give, and unless it's changed recently more of a commitment than most should be able to give. Thats due partially I think to stricter deadlines and posting rules and partially to do with the really active players being allowed to dictate the pace of the thread.

[Porochaz]

@Porochaz: I'm not 100% sure I understand what you're saying. On the one hand, you claim that you were doing all nighters on mafiascum in 08-09 already. On the other hand, you seem to say that the commitment requirement became bigger in recent years. If you were doing all nighters, then surely you were spending more then a few hours a week? To what extend is the problem that you currently have less time available?

The commitment I was spending on site was too much back in the day, doing all-nighters was all sorts of wrong. I did it because I was in too many games, analysing probably too much, I spent hours ensuring I had written posts correctly. etc. etc. I directly attribute my failure at uni somewhat to what I'd call an addiction to this site. I'd spend time here rather on study, I'd stay up late analysing what Yosarian2 said on page 45 rather than sleeping. Stay talking to people on scumchat than socialising outside. Not blaming anyone else here, but myself. But it's easy to get lost in this site, I'd be certain that Im not the only person who feels that way.

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The few hours a week is what I'd say is a reasonable amount of time to spend on site. Not what I was doing. Mafia is a commitment, so there does need some time devoted to it. I think a few hours is plenty. I think the commitment has become bigger in the last number of years and I attribute that partially to the fact that deadlines and posting frequencies were more relaxed back in the day, and I think one of the side effects of sorting this was to push people into posting a lot more volume, requiring the commitment to be greater. Not that Im shitting on deadlines and prods, the site has(/had, I've not been paying attention) a huge flaking problem. But a constantly looming deadline does mean there is a clock forever ticking and pushes players to post more frequently. Also the fact that playing on your mobile has become a bigger thing means that wallposts are now a thing of the past.

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I don't have a problem right now. I don't play. Partly due to burnout, I also realised that my analysis was being viewed as scummy, because the site had developed a hatred of meta, which made my commitments a waste of time, site meta evolved - I didn't. I spend a lot of time writing posts, I always have, yet it's very easy to get lost in two players arguing over why they hate each other rather than playing the game - something that happened a surprising number of times. I'd get told I never posted yet I was, you just couldn't find them sandwiched in the 50 posts in a row from Furcolow. It's a very demoralising experience.

I could have gone a couple of ways, I could have reverted back to that person who stayed up all night, trying to keep up and playing with those players who flood the game, usually with contentless void or I could do something different. So I solved the problem and stopped playing. I haven't played a game in years, so I don't really know how things have evolved further, but when I left the playing part of the site behind, I really did so with no regrets.