Planned Changes: Newbie Game Deadlines

[Porochaz]

This has probably been posted already but just because we have 2 week deadlines really doesn't mean you have to use them. Deadlines should be there to avoid the game getting drawn out. Not as an arbitrary limit. Making it a week doesn't give an accurate representation of the site. By changing the deadline criteria what you are doing is setting a different pace to the game and making it a slightly different game from the rest of the site. Deadlines become a mechanic rather than a tool, so from that perspective I would argue its probably not a good idea.

[Porochaz]

Ok so, to avoid being that person who complains for the sake of it but doesnt actually play anything (and now having read most of the thread) I stand by what I said. Im going to post my brain farts...

- Newbies should be an indication of the site, if you change that too much, you have lost the point of newbie games. Whilst mechanics are an important thing to learn, it's not the only purpose newbies serve.
- Deadlines are a problem for this site overall. Dynamic deadlines make more sense to me than fixed ones. Having this discussion means that people, particularly newbies in this instance are using all the time available to them rather than try and find a lynch before the time is up. That's a bigger problem, as that isn't playing the game effectively.
- Players and mods need more discussion in the background of newbie games. If a player isn't posting you need to PM them why. Mod interference in this regard I don't think is a problem. Rooting out the cause of a lack of posting or "I'll get back to this later" posting and then dealing with that effectively - whether that be leaving it or replacing etc. - is more useful than deadline changes. Remember you are trying to show newbies what the site is like, if a newbie is feeling overwhelmed or its taking too long, it's good to know that.
- I don't think long day phases are why we aren't getting more traffic to the site. I also don't think that's why we aren't retaining most of our site traffic.
- When people start to think about using different rules for IC's/SE's etc then it becomes too complex. The idea is to keep it simple (he says having suggested dynamic deadlines)

I'd be interested to see how many newbie games go to deadline, because if we have a significant proportion taking the full 7/10/14 days, then something has gone wrong with the teaching aspect and that needs to be addressed

before

you start thinking about deadline changes. Otherwise you are always going to have an issue.

EDIT: To explain dynamic deadlines, having an upper limit, like 14 days, and then having the mod be able to reduce that, if people start to wain, if prods start to increase, if it becomes obvious people are trying to extend the day etc.