Long term health of mafiascum

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Post Post #158 (isolation #0) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:39 am

Post by zoraster »

what exactly does it mean for a game to be high quality, katsuki?
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Post Post #163 (isolation #1) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 4:53 am

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I kind of disagree. I think there's a danger in going full bore on both in that it doesn't focus on MS's core competency and risks dividing the attention of the current userbase leading to reduced activity in both. I'm also not sure what we offer as a chat mafia place that other places don't have. We have no built in functionality, after all.

To what extent do we need or want to become a very different site? We're obviously not doing this to make money, so presumably we're here because we want to play mafia a certain way. I think that "certain way" has a huge and broad range of ways to play, but chat and forum mafia are fundamentally different animals.
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Post Post #174 (isolation #2) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 6:28 am

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I did advertising through google adwords a while ago with my own money as a test case, spending about 20 bucks. I think unless and until the site gets somewhat monetized (even lightly) that it's difficult to maintain an advertising presence though.

fwiw I'm all for statistics being automated, even if it was a simple "enter who is mafia, town, and third party and who won" for each game, then having a player's profile show win, loss records for each type. The issue is I'm not sure who's going to code that, and getting universal adoption would require some concerted effort beyond just the coding.
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Post Post #197 (isolation #3) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:31 am

Post by zoraster »

epicmafia tracks leaves but (1) doesn't prevent you from playing just embarrassing and (2) leaving a 30 minute game is probably about entirely different things than leaving a 2 month game.

Signups should be automated, too.

Once signups are automated, it'd be as simple as a moderator just choosing a role from a drop-down menu.


I'm obviously fine with this too, except that we'd still want to figure out a way to handle non-standard roles. But it actually might help if statistics were limited to normal games (or standardized roles, whatever form that takes) games. Might take away from creativity though as people focus more and more on stats, which may be a short term gain long term loss.
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Post Post #204 (isolation #4) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 9:38 am

Post by zoraster »

i found xylbot to be incredibly non-intuitive.
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Post Post #225 (isolation #5) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 11:00 am

Post by zoraster »

is that really that big a gain? I'd say the bigger thing that EM has is automatic vote counting and resolution. For MS you'd want it to only pull some unique code (e.g. the [.vote] tag) for voting from each post that comes in a drop down box with current players, and maybe lock the thread when majority is reached.
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Post Post #240 (isolation #6) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 4:48 pm

Post by zoraster »

In post 236, chamber wrote:
In post 225, zoraster wrote:is that really that big a gain? I'd say the bigger thing that EM has is automatic vote counting and resolution. For MS you'd want it to only pull some unique code (e.g. the [.vote] tag) for voting from each post that comes in a drop down box with current players, and maybe lock the thread when majority is reached.


I was working on an automated vote processing tool when thesp released his, at which point it felt like it would be kind of douchy to finish it >_>.


well, i didn't mean a vote counter. I meant something that automatically shows up-to-date information for a thread with votes and unvotes without having to use a mod for vote counts.
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Post Post #244 (isolation #7) » Mon Dec 08, 2014 5:48 pm

Post by zoraster »

In post 242, Majiffy wrote:
In post 240, zoraster wrote:
In post 236, chamber wrote:
In post 225, zoraster wrote:is that really that big a gain? I'd say the bigger thing that EM has is automatic vote counting and resolution. For MS you'd want it to only pull some unique code (e.g. the [.vote] tag) for voting from each post that comes in a drop down box with current players, and maybe lock the thread when majority is reached.


I was working on an automated vote processing tool when thesp released his, at which point it felt like it would be kind of douchy to finish it >_>.


well, i didn't mean a vote counter. I meant something that automatically shows up-to-date information for a thread with votes and unvotes without having to use a mod for vote counts.

Im not sure I distinguish the difference but there is an automated system on an offsite that will pm you the vc on prompt. Ill look into it.


One requires a moderator to be online and make a post. The other would be an integrated function that would display the vote count up to the current post no matter when the moderator last posted.

All other "solutions" I've seen have simply made doing a vote count easier on a moderator. Good, but no better than any other moderator who does the work to do a vote count regularly.
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Post Post #254 (isolation #8) » Tue Dec 09, 2014 5:16 am

Post by zoraster »

I don't think the karma system works within that framework. I don't think it works in EM especially if that's the basis for calling it a "karma" system. If you're thinking of something totally different, then I'm all ears.
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Post Post #272 (isolation #9) » Tue Dec 09, 2014 9:44 am

Post by zoraster »

text commands were a major part of it. The varying open nature of the setups was also a huge problem in the same way that can occur in EM only worse: knowledge of what a setup is, the roles used (and not really explained to anyone but the person who has the role), and how to play it became assumed.

I just wouldn't use xylbot as a base. If you're going through the trouble of doing an entirely different interface, it'd be better just to craft an MS version.
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Post Post #287 (isolation #10) » Wed Dec 10, 2014 10:53 am

Post by zoraster »

I don't think surveying people after they finish their game is a bad idea. There are only a small number of people like LF who have objected to the large theme surveys and I think I've gained a fair amount of insight from that plus provided imperfect feedback to the mods in my queue.
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Post Post #302 (isolation #11) » Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:44 pm

Post by zoraster »

it might be best practice, but it'd be a pain in the neck for the listmod to do. Though theoretically you could have each game mod send a link to the survey each time someone dies.
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Post Post #313 (isolation #12) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 2:52 am

Post by zoraster »

personally I don't think forums look particularly dated, but I do think that the header looks extremely dated. Plenty of people still use forums and forum-like things. Reddit is basically a rearranged forum.

But this:

Image

Looks VERY web 1.0. from the low res graphic to the courier new-esque typeset it's just old.
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Post Post #315 (isolation #13) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 2:57 am

Post by zoraster »

do you have a replacement in mind? If so, you certainly have my permission for what little that's worth
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Post Post #319 (isolation #14) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:16 am

Post by zoraster »

I don't really see an advantage to having a bunch of sign up threads. If it were automated you could see how it would work as only active games would have threads and you could color code them by game type or what not and then the game would have a button to press to "enter game" and a button to "list players in game" (basically a game lobby), but with manual entering and with the current forum look it's really just too messy.
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Post Post #324 (isolation #15) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:27 am

Post by zoraster »

i mean it may be, but I don't think having tons of sign up threads is any less confusing, and it substantially reduces the chance of a newbie finding his or her way into the newbie queue. Something like this might work:

Image

At first it could simply be that those threads act exactly the same (except there would be an area for mods to enter in players signed up that would update the OP and the sign up number and a toggle for the game status) and the join this game button would automatically make a /in post and take you to the end of the thread, the replace into the game would either take you to a PM to the mod or type /replace. The thread could function exactly as before (in that if you click on the thread it takes you to the OP with info etc). It could also serve as the first step toward automatic sign ups. It'd still be curated by the moderator, but it would start the process of moderators entering into the system who is playing in what games.
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Post Post #326 (isolation #16) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:46 am

Post by zoraster »

keep in mind that I have very little idea about what requires minutes of work vs. hours of work vs. days of work. I try to guess at it, but I just don't have the experience coding to know.

If having a major advancement is in reach we should figure out a way to make that happen. Given automated sign ups have been a unicorn, I've always assumed they were more mythical than realistic so my discussions have been how to make the best of what tools we have rather than theoretically what we could have. If you're telling me that's not the case, that changes basically everything.
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Post Post #337 (isolation #17) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:13 am

Post by zoraster »

yeah i mean i love that graphic.
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Post Post #343 (isolation #18) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 8:13 am

Post by zoraster »

I actually agree with chamber, but the no-coding involved solution appeals to me even less. I've looked at chamber's start and I like the look of it though.
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Post Post #347 (isolation #19) » Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:16 am

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i'm not entirely opposed but burying the newbie sign ups even more seems like a backward step
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Post Post #385 (isolation #20) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:07 am

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mods, particularly in theme games, have lots of lattitude for deadlines. People are definitely allowed to run 1 day deadline games as a theme game if they want
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Post Post #387 (isolation #21) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:17 am

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it's not. it's set at what is probably the median deadline. and historically that's fairly short (3 weeks, 1 month and unlimited were used in the past). The deadline has shifted down from the default 3 weeks that it used to be, in fact.
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Post Post #402 (isolation #22) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 8:46 am

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100. 250 if you include Faraday alts. (I actually don't know)
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Post Post #406 (isolation #23) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:42 am

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that's not how i see that graph data. That's more 2011. And I really think the long crash in early 2012 harmed the site immensely. There were probably other long term things going on that make being a forum hard, but the crash was a "turning point."

That said, 2007/2008 does represent the largest growth point in the site's history. I'm not sure what caused that.
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Post Post #412 (isolation #24) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 10:14 am

Post by zoraster »

We aren't going to institute queues just to see what happens. I'm loathe to just add more queues as I think our player and mod population barely fills the number we have, so I'd rather see a new queue replace an old one than just keep adding queues.

If you want to run a really short game, I highly encourage you to do so. The Large Theme queue is the perfect place for a very short deadline game as it would allow you to play large mostly balanced games with fewer killing roles.

I understand the point that in order to attract people who like short deadlines it we would need to provide a consistent stream of short deadline games, but there also needs to be demand from our current players.
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Post Post #417 (isolation #25) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:18 am

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Sure, I'm always happy to chat, though I'm not the best true reviewer for games at the moment. But any general listmod stuff i'm almost always up to talk about.
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Post Post #423 (isolation #26) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:41 am

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It's always been slower, and we've always dealt with new players complaining -- many of whom go on to appreciate the slower pace. I think you have to understand that while newbie games are important for getting players to stick around, they're even more important to introducing new players to the way Mafiascum plays mafia (there is some question as to whether the semi-open nature does this, but little question that 2 weeks is more indicative of the experience than 1 week).

I also question whether really short newbie games really achieves what you think. One of the benefits of the longer games is that players who do newbie games are checking the site for longer. In that time, new players are more likely to venture outside of the newbie game, whereas providing a close and quick end goal may limit the newbie experience to just that game. The goal is integration, not just attraction.

As just an aside that has nothing to do with the quality of your ideas: could i interest you in a couple of paragraph breaks, Horse?
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Post Post #424 (isolation #27) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:43 am

Post by zoraster »

In post 422, fferyllt wrote:
In post 417, zoraster wrote:Sure, I'm always happy to chat, though I'm not the best true reviewer for games at the moment. But any general listmod stuff i'm almost always up to talk about.


I'd need to start with some thoughts and discussion about how short-deadline games would fit into a queue that's designed for slower-paced games.


Sure, but I don't really see any hang ups. The biggest is if you think quick games are supposed to be more shoddily made (or to be more generous: swiftly assembled) and all the requirements are a bit onerous.

The other thing to consider is that mods of very quick games have to be VERY on point. Updating a vote count once a day probably is insufficient.
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Post Post #432 (isolation #28) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:02 pm

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In post 425, saulres wrote:
In post 423, zoraster wrote:One of the benefits of the longer games is that players who do newbie games are checking the site for longer. In that time, new players are more likely to venture outside of the newbie game, whereas providing a close and quick end goal may limit the newbie experience to just that game.


I haven't checked, but isn't there a large need for replacements in newbie games, and mightn't that need be due to the longer games?

In other words, your assumption that players in newbie games check out the rest of the forum while they're playing the game. I'm questioning whether they're just checking out.


Probably, though I think you'll find that the vast majority of replacements are up-front replacements that occur either before the game actually starts (never pick up their role pm, etc.) or within a few days.

In post 426, fferyllt wrote:
In post 424, zoraster wrote:
In post 422, fferyllt wrote:
In post 417, zoraster wrote:Sure, I'm always happy to chat, though I'm not the best true reviewer for games at the moment. But any general listmod stuff i'm almost always up to talk about.


I'd need to start with some thoughts and discussion about how short-deadline games would fit into a queue that's designed for slower-paced games.


Sure, but I don't really see any hang ups. The biggest is if you think quick games are supposed to be more shoddily made (or to be more generous: swiftly assembled) and all the requirements are a bit onerous.


It's things like the level of WOTM that would be needed to prevent a game from cratering under the common level of replace-outs/flakes in the first week of a typical large theme game. Gameflaking at MS is something really phenomenal compared to other places I've played.



Yeah. Generally I'm receptive to almost any system of enforcing a "good" player list except for those designed to get certain players slots over the pre-in limit.

In post 427, HorseDetective wrote:
In post 423, zoraster wrote:It's always been slower, and we've always dealt with new players complaining -- many of whom go on to appreciate the slower pace. I think you have to understand that while newbie games are important for getting players to stick around, they're even more important to introducing new players to the way Mafiascum plays mafia (there is some question as to whether the semi-open nature does this, but little question that 2 weeks is more indicative of the experience than 1 week).

I also question whether really short newbie games really achieves what you think. One of the benefits of the longer games is that players who do newbie games are checking the site for longer. In that time, new players are more likely to venture outside of the newbie game, whereas providing a close and quick end goal may limit the newbie experience to just that game. The goal is integration, not just attraction.

As just an aside that has nothing to do with the quality of your ideas: could i interest you in a couple of paragraph breaks, Horse?


Genuine question, and I guess this is aimed at maybe fferyllt who has the experience from both, but is playing 1-week days significantly different to playing 2-week days? Intuitively, they don't seem worlds apart to me. I don't feel like if I played a 1 week game then a 2 week one I'd be unable to participate or have no idea what was going on. Surely the way Mafiascum plays is more dependent on site meta than deadline structure? and if so, can't site meta be learnt in 1 week days?

I guess I just don't agree with your second paragraph; although it's an empirical claim that could be easily tested and I could probably be proven wrong fairly easily: my guess is that (most) newbies will not feel comfortable moving outside into other games queues until they've at least finished or got relatively far into their first newbie game. It's certainly how I felt, and I don't feel like this is a particularly facet of my personality/attributes alone. If you want to integrate people, getting them through one finished game with less chance of drop-outs and at a reasonably good pace so they can move on to the rest of the site sooner seems like a draw.

Apologies, I have terrible tendency to drop paragraph breaks when I'm sort of thinking aloud - I type my thought process as it occurs, leading to rather rambling posts. I'll attempt to clear up afterwards more thoroughly. :) Also, just to stress, I'm not being super insistent on this or anything; I just thought you might appreciate my view as a, uh, 'failed' newbie. If it's out of the question, then I'm pretty happy just to discuss other things which probably also had marginal impacts, like site design.


You'd be amazed at how hard it is to actually collect data. Regardless, plenty of newbies start signing up for games before their newbie game is even over. Fewer get really into general discussion, but that's to be expected.

I'm not sure 1-week deadlines are necessarily that much worse than 2, but it doesn't allow the game to breath as much. Personally, I'm generally in favor of players feeling constantly time pressured without feeling like there's no time.

The other thing to realize is that as a site dedicated to mafia we have a LOT of games going on at any one time, and players play in quite a few. A not unusually active player may play 15 games in a year. They have to do so at a sustainable pace, and so one reason that the deadlines have historically been even slower is to allow games to function where people only post once a day, every other day, etc.

---
P-edit: Yeah. I'd love for newbies to start playing in other games as long as they don't do "sign up for all the things." Newbies will get a lot of what they need from a newbie game within the first week or so of playing.
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Post Post #438 (isolation #29) » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:03 pm

Post by zoraster »

I think it's worth pointing out that PLAYERS are in control of the timing too. If players want to end a day every 36 hours they can.
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Post Post #444 (isolation #30) » Thu Dec 18, 2014 2:12 am

Post by zoraster »

I think both of those responses do not take into account the several pages worth of posts I've made focusing on mod enforced deadlines. My point was only that players are still ultimately in control of the pace of a game. There is a lot to be said for the slowest-common-denominator in practice.

In post 443, Shadoweh wrote:Related, saying that the people who stay here get used to and learn to appreciate the deadlines as proof that they work is biased. Of course they acclimate to the deadlines. They're the ones that stayed. You're not going to hear much from the ones who didn't.


The flip side is that you have no more unbiased data than I do to say that those who left would have stayed if the deadlines were shorter on the site. Or more particularly that MORE people would have stayed with shorter deadlines. Biased or not, we have the player population we have. It's worth analyzing that.
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Post Post #447 (isolation #31) » Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:52 am

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"Do you wish you could yell at your friends on a more frequent basis on all matter of trivial things? Join Mafiascum today!"

Also, maybe I shouldn't say this but... I kind of think the name Mafiascum does us no favors.
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Post Post #450 (isolation #32) » Thu Dec 18, 2014 11:50 am

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i don't even mean that. It just sounds... weird. and like.. i'm not sure people who just play party werewolf or whatever know what a "Scum" is, do they?
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Post Post #458 (isolation #33) » Thu Dec 18, 2014 5:02 pm

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In post 456, Phoenicks wrote:Zoroaster, maybe this is unfair: I get the feeling you don't want to make any changes, and won't hear any arguments in favor of them.


not in the least. I'm pretty receptive to changes, but I'm not receptive to "let's just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" because we also have to consider maintaining our present state as well as grow future ms members. Any change needs to be pretty well thought through.
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Post Post #464 (isolation #34) » Sat Dec 20, 2014 8:29 am

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In post 462, Phoenicks wrote:What do you think of my queue proposal? Please tell me what about it needs more thought. (That's not angry rhetoric, I mean it earnestly.)


which proposal? there have probably been a dozen or so ideas in this thread.
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Post Post #487 (isolation #35) » Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:28 am

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that is totally a reason we shouldn't have large scale improvements.
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Post Post #517 (isolation #36) » Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:11 pm

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If your objection is as a moderator, it is baseless. For a player, at least you are talking about your long-ingrained habits. As a moderator, you are objecting to a white background because to the moderator that is the sole difference.

Please don't go after our hard working coder with your knee-jerk reaction until there's something to actual knee-jerk about. This isn't an academic issue: it makes it significantly less rewarding for those coders when they have people second guessing and whining about changes before they have even reached the point where they are revealing something. And in turn that makes it less likely that they'll help us in the future.

Thanks.
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Post Post #601 (isolation #37) » Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:33 am

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NS brought that up a few days ago. It's pretty likely that things are going to change somewhat drastically and make any change in that graphic now out of date soon.
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Post Post #841 (isolation #38) » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:47 am

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I think EM can use a competitive queue in a way that would be difficult for us to replicate simply because we don't play as many games as you can on EM, etc. because our games last many, many times longer.

That said, I think RECORD KEEPING would be positive. Wins, losses, perhaps broken down in scum and town, etc. It doesn't have to be something where we publicize the "best" player on the site from it, but having some way to really look back at your games and make some comparisons would be neat.
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Post Post #903 (isolation #39) » Sun Jun 24, 2018 3:45 pm

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In post 900, chamber wrote:I think a blitz queue probably resolves this issue, but I know it didn't go forward because there were issues. Perhaps enumerating those issues and looking for solutions should be on the table.
Sure. I think there are issues from both the mod and player side. I think if we can reduce the effort to to mod these games, that's half the equation. Automatic sign ups would help some in terms of getting people from signing up to playing faster. Easier and better automatic modding (which it does seem like there have been some gains in) will help too, particularly in a post-heavy environment.

That still leaves the fact that it tends to lead players to be in fewer games at any given moment, which is a big problem, but at least that's only one thing to worry about and address.
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Post Post #955 (isolation #40) » Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:25 am

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Unless we're talking about open games, the games in blitzes still need to be designed. Although I suppose for something short like that you could come up with some sort of formula to randomize the game and because it doesn't last as long if a few games are unbalanced or broken it's not as large a deal.

But I absolutely think that automating large portions of the moderation process, those that people typically don't really enjoy (vote counts, prods), is good.

The biggest issue I see about automation is that it's probably harder to automate replacements, particularly before we have automatic sign ups.
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Post Post #1027 (isolation #41) » Sun Jul 01, 2018 9:02 am

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top down player-focus is a good idea IF that doesn't decrease the number of moderators we have. With new, user-friendly tools, I think that's a place we can get to. But as it stands, the more restrictions we put on what mods can do, the fewer people are likely to mod. It's also worth pointing out that at least for returning players, mod excitement does play a role in player engagement.
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Post Post #1032 (isolation #42) » Sun Jul 01, 2018 9:08 am

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Agreed on both points. I'm more optimistic now than I have been in a while though thanks to the work of others.
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