I don't think that our long game deadlines are a problem, but if people see fit to run some shorter deadline games, there's certainly an untapped market there for the tapping.
While I have a few ideas on possible ways to accomplish that (and can ask for assistance with if needed), moving wholesale to another site could cut down on the new players we'd get if they have to register a new account on a separate site. Hell, I'd propose marketing our games on other Curse forums like MMO-Champion and selling them on being able to just hop right in and sign up for a game; we'd lose that potential with a new site.
I'd say that moving to a new site should be considered only as an absolute last resort due to the community fracturing effect it'd be extremely likely to have.
Indeed.
Marketing us on the other Curse sites is definitely an interesting thought. When we get ready to roll out the new game lineup, we should likely cast our nets as wide as possible.
I wonder whether we'd be wiser to run those games on the MU website, or here. For people who are familiar with MU already, it's not so big of an ask to get them to hop over, and their interface is just fantastic, and would help with retention. And from there, you could get them to bleed over back to the home site.
Perhaps we run some of the games on MU, for the people who wouldn't otherwise come, and the rest here?
When you say "once the PCQs have run", which games are you talking about? Mind Screw obviously, but are you expecting more PCQ games to fire after that?
Happy to see the PCL start up again, we need some Basic hosts if anyone has a game lying around and/or we can use Off the Grid's grid for 9 players. Also happy to leave Normals as-is right now, and we can think about larger Basics if and when we see the demand for them.
I like the idea of an FTQ-like process to make a game for MU, although we probably don't want to aim at the highest levels of mindbending that the FTQ sometimes experiences in terms of mechanics. Az, do you want to be in charge of liaising with the MU staff to make sure everything is all clear? We might need to join their hosting queue, and I don't know how long that might be.
Yeah, I was thinking that we wouldn't bump Iso or Xyre, since we'd already awarded those slots by contest, and I believe our intention was that we could run two PCQ slots at a time, and are authorized to run concurrently and conclude within three months, potentially.
1. So w/r/t to core/newb games and the new player contact list, we can move ahead as soon as we find someone/rope in secreatries to administer that program.
6. People seem like to the oversight of the FTQ, but want it to be more transparent. So, do we just switch from PCQs to holding the FTQ committee in a public thread instead of by email or google group? How about that?
#4 (Behavior) is basically just an awareness issue.
Things we still need to hammer out:
I think we need to be more systematic about #3, and encouraging a market for shorter deadline games. How do we accomplish pushing that goal? It definitely seems far more manageable in our smaller games, minis and micros. Would not be a good fit for large games or core games that are trying to welcome new players. So, do we just set a recommended deadline length for micros that's more in line with other sites' pace?
2, managing our complexity ratio, we seem to be splitting on. I would agree that an intermediary step between basics and specialties is helpful, but I'm not certain we need to codify that, or not. Convince me.
5. Mafia universe. Generally speaking, I'm seeing support among the playerbase, including Annorax, for making recruiting efforts there. But we need consensus from the council on exactly what that looks like, and who should oversee that program.
Alright, we're again stalling out here.
I'll move ahead with getting someone to handle the new PCL.
We'll move ahead with reinstituting the FTQ, once the PCQs have run.
If we can't reach a consensus on normals/basics, I'd suggest we leave normals as-is, and occasionally upgrade from small to large basics, if sufficient demand is demonstrated.
I need more people to chime in on MU recruiting efforts and authorizing the FTQ committee to begin preparations to solicit and consider either new or reworked game submissions for advertising and recruitment purposes. Only Eco has chimed in, and I'm not entirely certain where he stands on the issue since he mostly suggested it might be superfluous to simply playing over there.
1. Yes. I suspect the newly minted "hello new players" thread would serve, just like a similar one did for the previous PCL.
6. How about each PCQ entry has to be sponsored by someone on the FTQ committee? That way each game is certified up to standard, but the choice of what gets played is still up to the players?
3. Deadlines: I think it's just education and ensuring it becomes part of the reviewing process. Once shorter deadlines start being used and enforced, they'll become more commonplace without needing to be mandated.
2. As the person pushing for change, I feel like you ought to be bearing the burden of convincing, but since you've asked: I believe that if it's not codified complexity will only creep upwards, over time making the games less and less useful as a stepping stone, while also alienating players who do not enjoy Specialty level games (but want some more variety than what Basics can provide). It's not like the limits are particularly strict; are there any you disagree with the existence of?
5. While a properly planned program would be nice, I think exposure is the most important thing. Anyone curious should just go play on MU, make sure your origin is listed as MTGS, and make sure you represent the site well by being a decent human being.
6. I think it's fairly easy bar for a setup to pass to be considered for the FTQ - the harder burden is to persuade the committee that you have the best possible setup, based on how well it's been designed, its complexity, and elegance.
2. Do you think that complexity creep was more of a problem earlier in our site's history than it would be now? I'm unsure about that.
5. I think that might do well at representing our individual players, but what we really want to sell is the complete package: a great playerbase, creative designs, a more relaxed pace, and terrific flavor.
1. So w/r/t to core/newb games and the new player contact list, we can move ahead as soon as we find someone/rope in secreatries to administer that program.
6. People seem like to the oversight of the FTQ, but want it to be more transparent. So, do we just switch from PCQs to holding the FTQ committee in a public thread instead of by email or google group? How about that?
#4 (Behavior) is basically just an awareness issue.
Things we still need to hammer out:
I think we need to be more systematic about #3, and encouraging a market for shorter deadline games. How do we accomplish pushing that goal? It definitely seems far more manageable in our smaller games, minis and micros. Would not be a good fit for large games or core games that are trying to welcome new players. So, do we just set a recommended deadline length for micros that's more in line with other sites' pace?
2, managing our complexity ratio, we seem to be splitting on. I would agree that an intermediary step between basics and specialties is helpful, but I'm not certain we need to codify that, or not. Convince me.
5. Mafia universe. Generally speaking, I'm seeing support among the playerbase, including Annorax, for making recruiting efforts there. But we need consensus from the council on exactly what that looks like, and who should oversee that program.
One advantage of the FTQ that I do miss, is that the reviewers could give you an unbiased opinion on how well designed and balanced the game was, and I think the committee did a pretty good job vetting setups as a group. With PCQs, you might not have as good of an idea what you're getting into. I think initial versions of the PCQ required reviewers to give their opinions, which didn't happen this go around.
If we move towards using the FTQ to market games more systematically, then the committee could also step in to guide that process.
EDIT: I think there's barely support for large games, and a modest level of support for basic games, so combining the two seems unlikely to be well-received. Mostly because of size. Mini queue, as is, is extremely popular for precisely the same reason: size. If we're eliminating complexity restrictions on normals and most other game types, we should be able to see plenty of hosts who decide to run their specialty level games in those queues, and/or submit them to the FTQ or PCQ, whichever survives.
And when it comes to specialty games, running 2x (or 3x?) the number of FTQ queue slots compared to what we used to do, rather than going with the standard specialty slot, is probably the safest way to assure a good supply of high-quality, vetted specialty games. Specialty queue sans committee vetting could always be a little bit dangerous, and if we have the both a supply of "themed" games going forward, as well as one-offs, plus the 2 1/2 years of setups from the latest PCQ just hanging around in the wings waiting for their shot, then we should definitely have adequate supply to sustain it.
Ok. So we need to hammer out solutions to these issues:
1. Newb games/recruitment/player contact list
2. Appropriate mix of complex vs. core games
3. Appropriate mix of short and long deadlines
4. Encourage moderators, hosts, and the community to utilize report post features and to police overly negative play.
5. Stance Towards MU
Proposals:
1. The original incarnation of the player contact list was a terrific tool, but it took a lot of time to update.
What we might consider putting in its place is a player contact list that we just discard and refresh every three to four months. Or just use a single thread and let it get massive - whatever works.
Within it, players can sign up for basic or "core" games, which will fire upon the demand threshold being met. Players can also state if there is a particular game type they're looking for, and when signups go up, the host can contact those players, if he or she sees fit. That will also help our hosts and the council gauge what types of games the playerbase is looking to play in, in close to real time, gauge how much latent demand is out there, and provide a good spot for new players to sign up for games. We can also use it to fire games of any queue type without waiting for the previous game to end, if there is demand to support it.
To implement, we would need either one of the current or a new mafia secretary to monitor the thread and identify when sufficient support for a game type to fire may exist, and get a mod to sticky/unsticky as needed.
(How's that, Eco?)
2. Per the above, I think that method would result in a good mix of both complex games and core games. As part of the bargain, once we bring back basics, I don't think there's any reason to put complexity restrictions on normals, and those can go back to being purely size-based. (Sound good Iso?)
3. Could we institute a rule in which the playerbase in each game gets to vote on what kind of deadline they want, ranging from three days, to two weeks, to unlimited, or a sliding scale that provides additional time during the early phases of the game? Or would we rather break that down by game type, so that core games get variable deadlines and the rest stay as is?
4. If you see it, say something. Most of the active players in the forum have been following this conversation. View it as a recruiting issue.
5. I think we need to have some kind of presence or relationship with MU, because it doesn't have to be a one-way street where only one site or the other benefits. A lot of the newer players who have been making things interesting around here, are players from other sites who stumbled onto us one way or another, liked our playerbase compared to the others that are out there, and wanted to stick around. Even in our relatively pared down state, we have an awesome group of players here, which playing in the MU invitational only underscored for me. The more we mingle with other sites, the greater chance we have of drawing in those guys to play not only on their home sites, but here as well. We have a critical mass of talent here, and talent draws talent.
For that reason, I think regularly scheduled cross-town games, as Askthepizzaguy suggested, are an obvious choice to help market ourselves. Do we have any volunteers who would like to coordinate with him on organizing that?
I also think that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to run a limited amount of other games on mafia universe on a periodic basis - games that we bill as "long deadline" games, perhaps, that we open up to other MU players to try out. Again, the objective being to both expand our own playerbase, but also to help build up MU by offering a quality of game design, and a unique play experience, that few other sites can match. Perhaps we run the PCQ games over there, since those will tend to be the most distinctive and draw in more of our experienced players, and we can tailor the PCQ games in response to feedback more readily than we can tune our other queues.
EDIT: Cross-referencing my comments on Annorax's proposal in the council thread:
Quote from annorax »
Kind of, but more focused on ongoing narrative. We have proven serialized games and serialized stories. We have one-off games that could be developed into serialized stories. I'm thinking of a queue that focuses on that, running alongside the FTQ. I'm thinking of a queue we can really sell to players to get them talking on other sites & bringing players in. I'm thinking of a queue that banks on what we're really good at & focuses it on growing our community.
FTQ gets the new, great ideas. This queue would build on the ones that have the popularity and design space to be built into more than one game. It'd be a queue for sequels and reboots so that they're running as often as possible and bringing players in from outside to experience what we've all experienced makes MTGS mafia unique.
I think it's an essential part of building an experience; after all, have you really experienced our flavor of Mafia if you haven't played a Star Trek: Myriad Universes game (hate tooting my own horn, but if people are still signing up for the series four games in, I have to be doing something right), Cyan's Impossible Mafia, any of Seppel's games, or any of the dozens of other games we've had that ooze innovation and creativity? Creative setups are something we're really, really good at, and that's something that I think needs to be more accessible to new players, especially experienced ones coming from other sites.
We've got a lot of creativity, we're not doing much to get the word out about it & bring players in, and I think this queue can do exactly that.
Hmm. Hold up a moment guys, I think Annorax is really onto something here.
It's not just that we're trying to start another FTQ or PCQ. He's talking about the way we market ourselves, and emphasizing our strongest designs and story-telling elements in an intentional manner. Not just for our own consumption, but for recruitment.
For instance, what if we ran a trilogy of games based on xyre's designwork? They could feature similar flavor and design, and I could imagine word-of-mouth and excitement building as the trilogy progresses. Not enough spots to sign up? Well, we've got all these other fine games available back on the mothership...
Now, let's say we got intentional about the way we offered those games, and did it on MU. Maybe in one of the cross-town games Askthepizzaguy proposed, for maximum impact Hell, I'd guess that even just as a spectator event you might have a few dozen people just observing. Think about the potential for recruiting.
Same, except, as bad as Curse is, I don't think it's a good idea to run our game elsewhere. This forum will die if all it becomes is a front for another site, either because people will go to the other site directly or because the MTGS admins will terminate us (for advertising / pulling traffic away).
Do you feel that my size-based queue suggestion implements a fix to this concern?
Kind of?
The problem will come in if the size-based queues start skewing too heavily one direction or the other on complexity. It might be the best we can do, but I'm wondering if some sort of controls can be put in place to tweak things, as necessary, so it's not a completely hands-off system.
Indeed.
Marketing us on the other Curse sites is definitely an interesting thought. When we get ready to roll out the new game lineup, we should likely cast our nets as wide as possible.
I wonder whether we'd be wiser to run those games on the MU website, or here. For people who are familiar with MU already, it's not so big of an ask to get them to hop over, and their interface is just fantastic, and would help with retention. And from there, you could get them to bleed over back to the home site.
Perhaps we run some of the games on MU, for the people who wouldn't otherwise come, and the rest here?
*nods* I can be the liaison.
Yeah, I was thinking that we wouldn't bump Iso or Xyre, since we'd already awarded those slots by contest, and I believe our intention was that we could run two PCQ slots at a time, and are authorized to run concurrently and conclude within three months, potentially.
Alright, we're again stalling out here.
I'll move ahead with getting someone to handle the new PCL.
We'll move ahead with reinstituting the FTQ, once the PCQs have run.
If we can't reach a consensus on normals/basics, I'd suggest we leave normals as-is, and occasionally upgrade from small to large basics, if sufficient demand is demonstrated.
I need more people to chime in on MU recruiting efforts and authorizing the FTQ committee to begin preparations to solicit and consider either new or reworked game submissions for advertising and recruitment purposes. Only Eco has chimed in, and I'm not entirely certain where he stands on the issue since he mostly suggested it might be superfluous to simply playing over there.
6. I think it's fairly easy bar for a setup to pass to be considered for the FTQ - the harder burden is to persuade the committee that you have the best possible setup, based on how well it's been designed, its complexity, and elegance.
2. Do you think that complexity creep was more of a problem earlier in our site's history than it would be now? I'm unsure about that.
5. I think that might do well at representing our individual players, but what we really want to sell is the complete package: a great playerbase, creative designs, a more relaxed pace, and terrific flavor.
1. So w/r/t to core/newb games and the new player contact list, we can move ahead as soon as we find someone/rope in secreatries to administer that program.
6. People seem like to the oversight of the FTQ, but want it to be more transparent. So, do we just switch from PCQs to holding the FTQ committee in a public thread instead of by email or google group? How about that?
#4 (Behavior) is basically just an awareness issue.
Things we still need to hammer out:
I think we need to be more systematic about #3, and encouraging a market for shorter deadline games. How do we accomplish pushing that goal? It definitely seems far more manageable in our smaller games, minis and micros. Would not be a good fit for large games or core games that are trying to welcome new players. So, do we just set a recommended deadline length for micros that's more in line with other sites' pace?
2, managing our complexity ratio, we seem to be splitting on. I would agree that an intermediary step between basics and specialties is helpful, but I'm not certain we need to codify that, or not. Convince me.
5. Mafia universe. Generally speaking, I'm seeing support among the playerbase, including Annorax, for making recruiting efforts there. But we need consensus from the council on exactly what that looks like, and who should oversee that program.
If we move towards using the FTQ to market games more systematically, then the committee could also step in to guide that process.
EDIT: I think there's barely support for large games, and a modest level of support for basic games, so combining the two seems unlikely to be well-received. Mostly because of size. Mini queue, as is, is extremely popular for precisely the same reason: size. If we're eliminating complexity restrictions on normals and most other game types, we should be able to see plenty of hosts who decide to run their specialty level games in those queues, and/or submit them to the FTQ or PCQ, whichever survives.
And when it comes to specialty games, running 2x (or 3x?) the number of FTQ queue slots compared to what we used to do, rather than going with the standard specialty slot, is probably the safest way to assure a good supply of high-quality, vetted specialty games. Specialty queue sans committee vetting could always be a little bit dangerous, and if we have the both a supply of "themed" games going forward, as well as one-offs, plus the 2 1/2 years of setups from the latest PCQ just hanging around in the wings waiting for their shot, then we should definitely have adequate supply to sustain it.
1. Newb games/recruitment/player contact list
2. Appropriate mix of complex vs. core games
3. Appropriate mix of short and long deadlines
4. Encourage moderators, hosts, and the community to utilize report post features and to police overly negative play.
5. Stance Towards MU
Proposals:
1. The original incarnation of the player contact list was a terrific tool, but it took a lot of time to update.
What we might consider putting in its place is a player contact list that we just discard and refresh every three to four months. Or just use a single thread and let it get massive - whatever works.
Within it, players can sign up for basic or "core" games, which will fire upon the demand threshold being met. Players can also state if there is a particular game type they're looking for, and when signups go up, the host can contact those players, if he or she sees fit. That will also help our hosts and the council gauge what types of games the playerbase is looking to play in, in close to real time, gauge how much latent demand is out there, and provide a good spot for new players to sign up for games. We can also use it to fire games of any queue type without waiting for the previous game to end, if there is demand to support it.
To implement, we would need either one of the current or a new mafia secretary to monitor the thread and identify when sufficient support for a game type to fire may exist, and get a mod to sticky/unsticky as needed.
(How's that, Eco?)
2. Per the above, I think that method would result in a good mix of both complex games and core games. As part of the bargain, once we bring back basics, I don't think there's any reason to put complexity restrictions on normals, and those can go back to being purely size-based. (Sound good Iso?)
3. Could we institute a rule in which the playerbase in each game gets to vote on what kind of deadline they want, ranging from three days, to two weeks, to unlimited, or a sliding scale that provides additional time during the early phases of the game? Or would we rather break that down by game type, so that core games get variable deadlines and the rest stay as is?
4. If you see it, say something. Most of the active players in the forum have been following this conversation. View it as a recruiting issue.
5. I think we need to have some kind of presence or relationship with MU, because it doesn't have to be a one-way street where only one site or the other benefits. A lot of the newer players who have been making things interesting around here, are players from other sites who stumbled onto us one way or another, liked our playerbase compared to the others that are out there, and wanted to stick around. Even in our relatively pared down state, we have an awesome group of players here, which playing in the MU invitational only underscored for me. The more we mingle with other sites, the greater chance we have of drawing in those guys to play not only on their home sites, but here as well. We have a critical mass of talent here, and talent draws talent.
For that reason, I think regularly scheduled cross-town games, as Askthepizzaguy suggested, are an obvious choice to help market ourselves. Do we have any volunteers who would like to coordinate with him on organizing that?
I also think that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to run a limited amount of other games on mafia universe on a periodic basis - games that we bill as "long deadline" games, perhaps, that we open up to other MU players to try out. Again, the objective being to both expand our own playerbase, but also to help build up MU by offering a quality of game design, and a unique play experience, that few other sites can match. Perhaps we run the PCQ games over there, since those will tend to be the most distinctive and draw in more of our experienced players, and we can tailor the PCQ games in response to feedback more readily than we can tune our other queues.
EDIT: Cross-referencing my comments on Annorax's proposal in the council thread:
Hmm. Hold up a moment guys, I think Annorax is really onto something here.
It's not just that we're trying to start another FTQ or PCQ. He's talking about the way we market ourselves, and emphasizing our strongest designs and story-telling elements in an intentional manner. Not just for our own consumption, but for recruitment.
For instance, what if we ran a trilogy of games based on xyre's designwork? They could feature similar flavor and design, and I could imagine word-of-mouth and excitement building as the trilogy progresses. Not enough spots to sign up? Well, we've got all these other fine games available back on the mothership...
Now, let's say we got intentional about the way we offered those games, and did it on MU. Maybe in one of the cross-town games Askthepizzaguy proposed, for maximum impact Hell, I'd guess that even just as a spectator event you might have a few dozen people just observing. Think about the potential for recruiting.
But...it's so shiny.
Maybe just a few?
Kind of?
The problem will come in if the size-based queues start skewing too heavily one direction or the other on complexity. It might be the best we can do, but I'm wondering if some sort of controls can be put in place to tweak things, as necessary, so it's not a completely hands-off system.
People want to have some amount of high-complexity normals, and they also want some games where they just get to play basic mafia.
We're going to need to implement a system that provides for both, not just a single variety all the time.