After disabling the ignore feature on this forum and reviewing some posts I've discovered that there are things I would also like to report. Are the council members listed in the OP up to date and correct?
Yes. Do note that if the things you wish to report fall under general site rules (e.g. flaming), it should be reported to the site moderators via the "report" button.
I don't want to rush this along and not give other users the opportunity to weigh in, but I also don't want to leave this in limbo. There doesn't appear to be any opinions in here that would require further discussion at this time, so I'm going to leave discussion on this open until 5pm EST on Friday, March 4. If extended discussion does occur prior to this, then I'm fine with that - I just don't want too much time to pass if no one is interested in debating this proposed change.
I'm happy for usage of the ignore list to be disallowed for players playing in games together. If a player dislikes another so much they put them on ignore, then they probably shouldn't be thinking about joining a game with them in the first place.
I have a complaint about Proph and D_V that I would like to bring before the council. Please advise the best way to go about that. Whether that be to present my information here or elsewhere. Thank you.
Would absolutely recommend sending PMs to council members, excluding those currently in the game if necessary. I'd only really recommend public discussion if a player's actions relate to wider discussion (e.g. around ethics or whatever).
Also, to encourage diversity, as well as to make up for the lack of setups floating about, I think we should remove hosting limitations. Everyone should be able to sign up to host 1 of everything at a time. I do agree that we should have a rotational PCQ thing, though - perhaps something to the effect of "if your setup has been selected in the past 6 PCQs, you can not submit another."?
Happy with this as long as we enforce the rule that games need some reviewing to get on the list, and generally discourage hosts actually running more than 1 game simultaneously.
Fine, I can accept that compromise so that we can move forward.
I still don't think that running constant PCQs is actually a good idea, but that should hopefully become apparent pretty quickly.
The Micro queue also needs more of an identity. Is it a Basic queue with smaller games and a bit more imagination, or is it smaller Minis? The former would be massively preferable for new players since the latter is basically redundant (you can run 9-man Minis in the Mini queue!)
I've been attempting to follow along, but got really lost as to what the new queue looks like. A lot of people had some input. Is Taredas' proposal the revised queue structure?
I'm entirely in favor of queue changes. I think as long as we're receptive to new comers and still actively acquiring those who have never played, we will be fine. Keep channels clear and organized, as stated.
That's kind of exactly what we're talking about: what should the queue structure look like. What would you like them to look like?
We're also not actively requiring new players, so any ideas you might have around that would be useful.
We would have the tiny, mini, and normal queues, none of which would be popularity based. "Never" being able to host a game is just slightly hyberbolic.
Hyperbole sure, but it basically rules out new or just unpopular hosts being able to run Specialty games. You just have to look at the FTQ history to know that some hosts have a huge advantage in popularity stakes. Not necessarily unjustified, but still not a level playing field.
As for the players currently on the specialty list, my latest info from KJ before he disappeared was that it was pulling teeth to get them to complete their setups, and a good number of the 2-3 players who were on the list at all are competing in the PCQ (Taredas' Mind Screw, for instance). Most of the PCQ setups are pulled from the Specialty queue, so there's quite a bit of overlap.
Given that most of the players on the list couldn't complete their setups in a timely fashion when asked, I don't see much reason to hold those slots. We've been bumping people off the queue or back further in the queues like crazy due to problems with that.
If that's true, then we have a very large structural problem, as that means the number of actually completed non-mini setups can be counted on one hand, what with the Normal hosting list being so small. Sure we've had problems with having to skip over hosts, but the lists were always large enough to absorb that. Do people really just not want to host games any more? Do we not have the reviewer support? Madness.
Why make the queues popularity based? So that we have players and hosts both excited about running games. I had my reservations about that concept when we first launched the PCQ, which was why the FTQ was preserved to work in tandem with it instead of being replaced outright, but time's shown the PCQ has been equally reliable at delivering quality choices, and has had a better reception from the playerbase.
The PCQ is great for one off games and for letting particularly good games jump the queue, and I'm fine with it replacing the FTQ, but if the PCQ is the only way to get highly complex games into circulation then you'll just see the same group of mods winning every time and people will give up entering (and what to do with games that never win? They can't be run in any other queue).
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Basically, if we're almost completely out of actual completed setups which we apparently are, this is a disaster. Running a PCQ to kick start some creative juices is a very good idea, but I don't think only running games by vote is a good idea. We should queue up the winners in order their final vote tally, and dump them all into the Speciality queue. For fairness, all active mods currently on the queue should be entered into the PCQ and/or given some bonus for time served, and inactive mods dropped from the queue.
Actually, why don't we do a similar thing with the Normal queue? If the consensus is to leave the queue mostly intact and discontinue the League, why don't we run a PCQ for Normals to try and drum up some actual games and repopulate the queue?
Are you genuinely suggesting we drop the Speciality queue for a PCQ queue?
Yes, absolutely.
To be honest, I think that's a terrible idea. What about the people currently on the Speciality hosting list? Why would we move backwards to allow unfinished/unreviewed setups back on the list? Why would we make the hosting queue popularity based? Is it fair to punish newer hosts and never guarantee them the opportunity to host a game?
Are you genuinely suggesting we drop the Speciality queue for a PCQ queue?
A 9-man game might be a small addition, but it's still another game, especially since we don't even know if we have the spare capacity for an additional game (i.e. PCQ #1).
The PCQ forcing hosts to finish is not a disadvantage, it's just disingenuous to count it as a roaring success when it has primarily brought out a bunch of half-baked and uncompleted ideas, compared to the existing hosting list where the games are (should be) completed, reviewed, and polished.
I don't like the idea of essentially adding three new games to the number currently running, two of which are PCQ (i.e. complex). Tiny games seem like a nice idea, but we need to work out what the point of them is: are they essentially Basic games? (In which case why not being Basics back at a 9-12 size?) Or are they smaller Minis? (in which case that's basically just running an extra Mini game). They don't seem to have a good niche apart from the fact they are a game-day shorter than Minis.
Also your point #3 doesn't really work if we don't merge the Normal and Specialty queues.
Basically, the issue with Normals is, I think, very separate to the issue of the playerbase size. I had a quick chat with the site admins, and they think user numbers have about recovered to pre-Curse move, so the question is why haven't ours. I would love to have some data on our user numbers, but it doesn't really exist. Regardless, I think what we need to do is bring in new players, and try and bring back players that left because of Curse. The former needs advertisement and publicity, as well as games which are obviously intended for new players (i.e. Basics or Normals). The latter needs probably a mass PM, preferably in conjunction with a cool new exiting game (like a PCQ or invitational). Or even some sort of anniversary game (how long has Mafia been on MTGS?) Or games that group people into join year and pit them against each other or something.
It's kind of disingenuous to say this PCQ has ignited a fire of passion not seen lately because it's just a list of cool (And unfinished) ideas, posted by well respected hosts. You'd see a similar reaction if the current Specalty hosting list posted about their games. Frankly, by myself I could make a thread containing my unfinished or abandoned game ideas and hype them up. Basically, the hype exists because lots of cool ideas were posted at once. That these games are mostly not on the hosting lists is really silly: the only reason to keep it secret and wait for a PCQ is because it's not finished and the PCQ forces you to finish it, which is bad. More importantly, more PCQs are not going to pull in new players, and although they might bring back old players, I don't think this means we want to go all in and smash them all out as fast as possible.
EDIT: To put it another way, if what we actually want to talk about is how to rebuild the player base, let's lay out a proper plan of action including target demographics, and how much we care about stuff like getting new players vs player retention or whatever. Just jamming more games isn't going to cut it.
The main difference for Gotham Underground is that it was a 24-player game, which is significantly larger than the recommended size, and would certainly have heavily contributed to both time taken to fill the game as well as replacements. King of the Hill was similarly a 23 player game.
At a glance, GU looks fine in terms of complexity (but I can't speak to the balance). Conceptually, it's not really different to the "new" Normals. The difference is more of expectations: under new Normal guidelines you can be sure of roughly what the game will look like when you join, without the very real possibility of getting essentially a watered down Specialty with additional mechanics.
Because we've never had new Normals that were not also League games. New Normals were/are intended to be less complex than the Specality-light games they had become, but more complex than the large Basic games the League pushed them towards.
An example of one game that went badly is not a strong counter argument. Game fill time is mostly affected by the mod, not the game itself anyway.
As Iso points out, Az's suggestions are not that different to his, so I have the same reservations and I am still genuinely worried about a "Large game" queue. They will experience complexity creep (as happened to old Normals and was the catalyst for change), but as the queue will have no restrictions, it will essentially just be a Specialty queue, especially since merging the current hosting lists would be like 80% Specialties. It straight up removes Normals/not insane games from circulation.
I'm not sure about the Micro/Tiny queue either. Either the size restricts the games to very low complexity (making it look like the recently discontinued Basic queue), or the size doesn't prove a problem and Tiny games end up looking a lot like Minis and just split players between the two queues. If people actually want to run games smaller than 12 players, just run them in the Mini queue (which I'm pretty sure has already happened a handful of times).
I can see the FTQ being dropped for the PCQ, as the latter has definitely been more effective at eliciting games. What I'm less convinced of is ramping it up and firing it more frequently: the reason FTQ/PCQ haven't been running recently is the shrinking of the playerbase. Suddenly adding essentially an extra queue of games might not be sustainable. In addition, I am almost certain that the reason most of the games submitted for the most recent PCQ are not on the Specialty hosting queue is that they are not finished and therefore not eligible for the queue. It makes me leery that we're voting on games that haven't been reviewed or finished, but really these PCQ games should be on the hosting list, and creating an actual queue out of the PCQ creates a perverse incentive for hosts to not bother with the hosting list and just try to get in the PCQ queue to get it run faster. This is not what we want.
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The fundamental problem I have with these solutions is that they are complicated, require fundamental changes, and don't precisely and directly address the issue. I want to attempt a simple solution:
People say Normals are boring
Remove the force that suppress Normal innovation and induces them to be overly simple and act as large Basics (i.e. the League)
???
Profit: Normals have space to expand to fill the (massive) design space they occupy, while never going too far "out there" to be inaccessible to new players, as was always intended.
No new queues, no change in number of games run, no fundamental shifts in game structure. It might not work, and if it doesn't then (and only then) we should look at removing Normals altogether and having a no holds barred "Large queue" (I would say alongside the Basic queue returning so new players still have something they can play). Let's try a simple solution before we jump to these radical ones.
ZDS is my hero and is completely correct, although with one caveat: the League and Normals did originally exist separately, but there was not the demand to support both, since it involved running one more large game on top of all the others. That's partially why we made League games and Normals the same: we couldn't support both, so we fused them to avoid dropping either. I don't think that splitting the queues again and having a specialised League queue will succeed due to the size of the playerbase, as it didn't before when the playerbase was larger.
@Iso: I respect your point, but basically my position is that your solution is overly complex, and I fully believe that simply discontinuing the League and ensuring that reviewers and game designers are aware of what Normals can be will solve the problem. If that doesn't work, then we think about further steps like size-based queues, but that is a big step when a smaller one should suffice. You say things will not change, but new-brand Normals have never been run without also being League games. Let's give them a chance to flourish instead of dooming them alongside the League.
Also whether we increase the size of Minis or not, anyone who wants to run a 14-person Mini (or has a 12-man Mini they'd like to run sooner rather than later) should absolutely sign up to the Normal hosting list, which is currently pitifully short. The 14-18 recommended size isn't just there for show, and you'll get your game run incredibly fast.
Yes. Do note that if the things you wish to report fall under general site rules (e.g. flaming), it should be reported to the site moderators via the "report" button.
I'm happy for usage of the ignore list to be disallowed for players playing in games together. If a player dislikes another so much they put them on ignore, then they probably shouldn't be thinking about joining a game with them in the first place.
Would absolutely recommend sending PMs to council members, excluding those currently in the game if necessary. I'd only really recommend public discussion if a player's actions relate to wider discussion (e.g. around ethics or whatever).
Happy with this as long as we enforce the rule that games need some reviewing to get on the list, and generally discourage hosts actually running more than 1 game simultaneously.
I still don't think that running constant PCQs is actually a good idea, but that should hopefully become apparent pretty quickly.
The Micro queue also needs more of an identity. Is it a Basic queue with smaller games and a bit more imagination, or is it smaller Minis? The former would be massively preferable for new players since the latter is basically redundant (you can run 9-man Minis in the Mini queue!)
That's kind of exactly what we're talking about: what should the queue structure look like. What would you like them to look like?
We're also not actively requiring new players, so any ideas you might have around that would be useful.
Hyperbole sure, but it basically rules out new or just unpopular hosts being able to run Specialty games. You just have to look at the FTQ history to know that some hosts have a huge advantage in popularity stakes. Not necessarily unjustified, but still not a level playing field.
If that's true, then we have a very large structural problem, as that means the number of actually completed non-mini setups can be counted on one hand, what with the Normal hosting list being so small. Sure we've had problems with having to skip over hosts, but the lists were always large enough to absorb that. Do people really just not want to host games any more? Do we not have the reviewer support? Madness.
The PCQ is great for one off games and for letting particularly good games jump the queue, and I'm fine with it replacing the FTQ, but if the PCQ is the only way to get highly complex games into circulation then you'll just see the same group of mods winning every time and people will give up entering (and what to do with games that never win? They can't be run in any other queue).
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Basically, if we're almost completely out of actual completed setups which we apparently are, this is a disaster. Running a PCQ to kick start some creative juices is a very good idea, but I don't think only running games by vote is a good idea. We should queue up the winners in order their final vote tally, and dump them all into the Speciality queue. For fairness, all active mods currently on the queue should be entered into the PCQ and/or given some bonus for time served, and inactive mods dropped from the queue.
Actually, why don't we do a similar thing with the Normal queue? If the consensus is to leave the queue mostly intact and discontinue the League, why don't we run a PCQ for Normals to try and drum up some actual games and repopulate the queue?
To be honest, I think that's a terrible idea. What about the people currently on the Speciality hosting list? Why would we move backwards to allow unfinished/unreviewed setups back on the list? Why would we make the hosting queue popularity based? Is it fair to punish newer hosts and never guarantee them the opportunity to host a game?
A 9-man game might be a small addition, but it's still another game, especially since we don't even know if we have the spare capacity for an additional game (i.e. PCQ #1).
The PCQ forcing hosts to finish is not a disadvantage, it's just disingenuous to count it as a roaring success when it has primarily brought out a bunch of half-baked and uncompleted ideas, compared to the existing hosting list where the games are (should be) completed, reviewed, and polished.
Also your point #3 doesn't really work if we don't merge the Normal and Specialty queues.
Basically, the issue with Normals is, I think, very separate to the issue of the playerbase size. I had a quick chat with the site admins, and they think user numbers have about recovered to pre-Curse move, so the question is why haven't ours. I would love to have some data on our user numbers, but it doesn't really exist. Regardless, I think what we need to do is bring in new players, and try and bring back players that left because of Curse. The former needs advertisement and publicity, as well as games which are obviously intended for new players (i.e. Basics or Normals). The latter needs probably a mass PM, preferably in conjunction with a cool new exiting game (like a PCQ or invitational). Or even some sort of anniversary game (how long has Mafia been on MTGS?) Or games that group people into join year and pit them against each other or something.
It's kind of disingenuous to say this PCQ has ignited a fire of passion not seen lately because it's just a list of cool (And unfinished) ideas, posted by well respected hosts. You'd see a similar reaction if the current Specalty hosting list posted about their games. Frankly, by myself I could make a thread containing my unfinished or abandoned game ideas and hype them up. Basically, the hype exists because lots of cool ideas were posted at once. That these games are mostly not on the hosting lists is really silly: the only reason to keep it secret and wait for a PCQ is because it's not finished and the PCQ forces you to finish it, which is bad. More importantly, more PCQs are not going to pull in new players, and although they might bring back old players, I don't think this means we want to go all in and smash them all out as fast as possible.
EDIT: To put it another way, if what we actually want to talk about is how to rebuild the player base, let's lay out a proper plan of action including target demographics, and how much we care about stuff like getting new players vs player retention or whatever. Just jamming more games isn't going to cut it.
At a glance, GU looks fine in terms of complexity (but I can't speak to the balance). Conceptually, it's not really different to the "new" Normals. The difference is more of expectations: under new Normal guidelines you can be sure of roughly what the game will look like when you join, without the very real possibility of getting essentially a watered down Specialty with additional mechanics.
An example of one game that went badly is not a strong counter argument. Game fill time is mostly affected by the mod, not the game itself anyway.
I'm not sure about the Micro/Tiny queue either. Either the size restricts the games to very low complexity (making it look like the recently discontinued Basic queue), or the size doesn't prove a problem and Tiny games end up looking a lot like Minis and just split players between the two queues. If people actually want to run games smaller than 12 players, just run them in the Mini queue (which I'm pretty sure has already happened a handful of times).
I can see the FTQ being dropped for the PCQ, as the latter has definitely been more effective at eliciting games. What I'm less convinced of is ramping it up and firing it more frequently: the reason FTQ/PCQ haven't been running recently is the shrinking of the playerbase. Suddenly adding essentially an extra queue of games might not be sustainable. In addition, I am almost certain that the reason most of the games submitted for the most recent PCQ are not on the Specialty hosting queue is that they are not finished and therefore not eligible for the queue. It makes me leery that we're voting on games that haven't been reviewed or finished, but really these PCQ games should be on the hosting list, and creating an actual queue out of the PCQ creates a perverse incentive for hosts to not bother with the hosting list and just try to get in the PCQ queue to get it run faster. This is not what we want.
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The fundamental problem I have with these solutions is that they are complicated, require fundamental changes, and don't precisely and directly address the issue. I want to attempt a simple solution:
No new queues, no change in number of games run, no fundamental shifts in game structure. It might not work, and if it doesn't then (and only then) we should look at removing Normals altogether and having a no holds barred "Large queue" (I would say alongside the Basic queue returning so new players still have something they can play). Let's try a simple solution before we jump to these radical ones.
@Iso: I respect your point, but basically my position is that your solution is overly complex, and I fully believe that simply discontinuing the League and ensuring that reviewers and game designers are aware of what Normals can be will solve the problem. If that doesn't work, then we think about further steps like size-based queues, but that is a big step when a smaller one should suffice. You say things will not change, but new-brand Normals have never been run without also being League games. Let's give them a chance to flourish instead of dooming them alongside the League.
Also whether we increase the size of Minis or not, anyone who wants to run a 14-person Mini (or has a 12-man Mini they'd like to run sooner rather than later) should absolutely sign up to the Normal hosting list, which is currently pitifully short. The 14-18 recommended size isn't just there for show, and you'll get your game run incredibly fast.