The choice of what is played is always up to the players. You sign up for the game, or you don't. I don't see why we need to have a popularity contest every time we want to run an exciting, special, blockbuster game. Taredas won the previous PCQ (see here) due to his ability to sell his game very well - too bad the game had not actually gone through the review process and was an unplayable, swingy disaster. Not what you're looking for from a game you're trying to have headline your entire community. Let's ditch the populism and go back to the old system, with additional oversight included. Here's what I envision:
- Mafia Secretary posts an announcement stating a deadline for FTQ submissions.
- Hosts send in their reviewed setups. At least one reviewer for each FTQ submission must be a member of the qualified reviewer group. The names of the qualified reviewer group (FTQ committee, whatever you want to call it) are always available in the setup thread as public knowledge.
- The Mafia Secretary announces the list of submissions, names redacted, to the qualified reviewer group.
- The qualified reviewer who reviewed the setup makes his or her recommendation to the group.
- Group discusses and votes on which setup should run.
- Mafia Secretary gives the go-ahead to post signups and also makes an announcement that describes the voting process, explaining why the reviewers selected the setup they did.
- Repeat this process a few weeks before the FTQ game ends.
EDIT: I'd also like to volunteer to host a basic when/if that queue returns.
- What Eco posted. Restructuring the whole forum and community does nothing if we don't have any players.
- Some less permissive time limits on days. I think a month is acceptable for D1 of a large game (let's call that more than 18 players) but fewer players should necessitate a shorter deadline.
- The return of the basic queue.
- More recruiting - we can have Mafia banners or other sigs to encourage people to check out Mafia as we post on other parts of the site, write an article for the main page, etc.
- Reviving the FTQ as Annorax discusses.
What I don't agree with:
- Running MTGS games offsite. Nope. Not at any point. We may as well shut up shop if that's the plan. Especially the idea of running our best, FTQ-worthy games on other sites.
Here are my suggestions:
- We all make more of an effort to focus on recruiting on-site and off-site.
- Revive the Basic queue, and here's my spin on it: create Mini Basics (12 players) and Large Basics (18 players.) This way, new players can get experience with the mechanics of mafia in a small, basic setting before progressing to the dynamics of a larger game when they're ready. For many newer players in the past, they played basics for a while, cut their teeth, and then jumped into a Specialty as their first large game, which promptly saw them flounder out of their depth and get D1 mislynched. With a Large Basic, they can do the 18-player thing without ending up victim of a super-experienced, critical playerbase and/or confusing or unique game mechanics. Plus, the Large Basic can replace the Normal Queue for people who like a less complex game with more people.
- Now that we have small and large basics for newer players or people who prefer less complexity, let's revive the Specialty queue as it was before (signup and wait your turn based), but roll the present Mini queue into it. It will no longer be a size-based queue, but a complexity-based one.
- Revive the FTQ, go back to the old system where qualified reviewers voted on FTQ submissions anonymously, and discontinue the PCQ.
Personally, if anyone cares, I gave up playing here because of RL constraints, but also because of a trend in the playerbase that I did not care for: away from a serious atmosphere of analysis to one of spammy joke posts and other reddit and 4chan style "internet banter." The place has become much more cliquish since I started here lo so many years ago and that's a big turn-off. I can't be the only one feeling this way - granted, the forum software is pretty terrible too, but we could've made that work if the games and (maybe, more importantly) the people playing them had been more enjoyable.
EDIT: I've beaten this point to death before, but I think the establishment of the mafia league is the root of this subforum's malaise. Cutting actual games and running league games that were usually substandard and included an arbitrary point system was the first step towards sucking the fun out of mafia on this site.
Not much that I wrote there has changed. Obviously I have a child now and so that's cut down my participation in all non-essential activities, but quite apart from that, I've been disengaged from playing mafia for a while because of the attitude I describe in the quote. As far as hosting goes (which if you know me, you know that hosting is the real fun for me), the bizarre new approach to queues has killed any interest I had in continuing to participate. The replacement of the FTQ AND the specialty queue in favor of the PCQ, which I have argued against since its inception despite winning PCQ #2, was the last straw for me. I have absolutely no desire to submit for the PCQ. I do not want my setup to be voted on. I do not think that system produces good setups (and I think the evidence of the last two PCQs clearly bears out that opinion.) Let the playerbase have their say by signing up - or not - for what I present them. I much prefer a queue where anyone can have a go, if they wait long enough and their turn comes up - in other words, the successful system we had for years. That's where I'm at. I can't see myself continuing to participate if things continue as they are now, and that saddens me, having been a part of the community here since 2008.
Does anyone else think Sivagat does not sound Egyptian like? Theros sounded like a Greek inspired plane. Fiora sounds French, which the look of the plane resonates with. Innisrtad sounded like a plane with the western European flavoring which the set had. Shouldn't the name ring a bit more instantly like Al'Tahid or some such. I see Sivagat and for the life of me I couldn't figure what culture it would be for unless told.
The difference is between modern Egypt, which is an Arab culture, and ancient Egypt, which predates Arabic by centuries if not millennia. "Al-Tahid" sounds like an Arabic word (though it is not), while it is utterly unlike Kemetic, which is what we call "Ancient Egyptian." An Egyptian themed plane is overwhelmingly more likely to have an ancient Egyptian vibe rather than a modern Egyptian vibe, unless WotC's market research suggests the players are interested in cards that depict corruption, gender inequality, and waiting 15 minutes to cross the street.
Stirring Wildwood definitely gets there, you can get it with Ancient Stirrings too. I'd cut the Ascensions and the Keys for something else, maybe more removal. Another elixir too which you can search up off Stirrings.
Reads like one of the abominable "guest-designed" cards from M15 where people who don't really know MTG just slapped a bunch of garbage on a card, ex. Avarice Amulet. Useless crap. Not worth a spot in the 99 in EDH, useless everywhere else.
Good game. I enjoyed it. Something I really didn't enjoy was how terrible AE was. You guys complained nonstop in spec about how I was willing to believe the town's docs were scum, blah blah blah, but you didn't have to put up with his crap this game. He was begging to be killed and if the game had gone on another day I would've obliged him gladly. We were effectively a man down the entire game - 2 if you count non-contributor hawk, who to his credit did finally activate his brain on the last day, and 2.5 if you count barnzilla - oh, sorry, huntzilla. He was the opposite of Hawk. Fine at the start, useless by the end.
Now that I've blasted my teammates, let's look at the scum - ZDS was OK but was definitely making it obvious by the end of D1, Taredas was abominable, killjoy not too much better, and scarbo was good but had no options left by the end.
The setup was fine if a little low-powered and minimalistic for my taste. It ended up being a durdle-fest between two poor teams, settled by some mechanical strokes of luck along the way - KK copping ZDS, me killing killjoy.
You probably read this post and were like "why'd he say he enjoyed the game?" but I really did. Maybe it was just because it had been so long since I last played, and because I traditionally do badly in endgame situations, but it was a nice mix of characters and not too much flavor or setup gaming. And I got to kill Seppel. So there's that.
I would just like to add that if he is town (a scenario I am forced to admit is likely), AE's behavior this game has been utterly unacceptable from a townie at any level, and especially from a vastly experienced player playing in a FTQ game. He should be lynched on general principle.
Hunt: hansanator's behavior was dubious at best. His three votes were for Obzedat, Sepiriel, and AI, none of which inspire confidence, though the two players were prominent wagons at the time. ZDS also answered questions from AI for him and defended him against me.
Under his own name, he began by reading at both ends, calling dkings a liar in a bout of weirdly twitchy behavior, voted Cythare, named {me, ZDS, AI, Cythare, and killjoy} as scum in a scumlist (Taredas was listed under "leaning town"), voted Kami/AI, voted Cythare to lynch, opened D2 by voting Taredas and barning dead Azrael, said he thought killjoy was town, needlessly hammered claimed scum ZDS, opened D3 by voting Taredas, warded off a second attack from scarbo (carried over from D2), voted killjoy after Seppel's daykill, voted Obzedat to get its hypothetical player to claim, voted Atog, returned to voting Taredas, voted Scarbo on DCIII's recommendation (first time all game he voted scarbo), votes Atog, states he does not believe Rhand is scum at all (consistent with earlier scumlist), votes Vish, votes Scarbo, votes killjoy immediately pre-daykill, begins to do a 180 on Rhand, saying things like "maybe he played us all" and "if there's scum in Simic it's Rhand", states Axelrod is likely to be town, votes Rhand post-daykill, votes Obzedat, goes back to voting Rhand, shows some emotion when scarbo votes him for suggesting attacking scarbo on Obzedat's say-so, insists the remaining scum is in Simic, votes Atog to lynch, leaves options wide open on D6 (scarbo, hawk, and AE all named as potential scum), barns me on AE, votes scarbo, back to AE.
There's a LOT of votes in there. One of the most vote-happy players I've ever seen. That said, opening both d2 and d3 with attacks on Taredas rang true to me (although he named him as leaning town not long before d2 began....) He has barned a lot of players as well, from Azrael to Axelrod and then to me. There's a weird relationship with scarbo...scarbo has been calling him scum for most of the game, and there's been some back-and-forth, but he never really took anything seriously until he finally got a bit mad at scarbo accusing him of following Obzedat. Possible scum link there? My overall assessment is twitchy town.
Scarbo: opens with voting me, pushes an early Atog lynch and votes him while also stating almost from the beginning of the game that he wants Obzedat lynched, votes Obzedat, backs AE's garbage attacks on me D1, votes me, blasts the AI wagon, states he only supports Atog/Hans/zindabad lynches, returns to Atog, attacks Atog and me with ludicrously poor cases, backs hawk and votes me again, back onto me and then Atog again, admitting he is bouncing between us, dodges the Cythare wagon in favor of the Atog one (at least he's consistent), begins d2 by voting Obzedat, votes Atog, votes killjoy for attacking him for wanting Obzedat dead (interesting contrast to killjoy's later obsession with Obzedat...), votes ZDS after he's caught (after almost never saying a word about him, except when he complained about ZDS dismissing his case on me), votes vish on D3, votes Hunt seemingly out of nowhere (during the name/guild claim), immediately switches to Seppel and states he is the Orzhov scum, not Taredas, uses WIFOM (he's not dumb enough to make that terrible claim) to defend Taredas, returns to voting Vish after Seppel's daykill, heads back to Atog, votes Obzedat again, continues to insist Simic should not die (self-serving townie who thinks his ability is worth keeping turned on), ends up back on Atog, votes Taredas as soon as Seppel turns up town, returns to Atog again over more Obzedat WTFery, insists Boros and yours truly are town, bizarrely chooses to watch me instead of KA or, indeed, track his main scum suspect all game (Atog), votes Atog yet again, claims he tried tracking Obzedat as D5 opens (NOT ATOG), but was roleblocked (not to mention that he complained on D2 that people should never claim being RB'ed and should instead wait for somebody to slip up...),
I guess that's just the nature of wifom. Enter Occam's razor. And no, I don't remember, but I remember thinking I was safe because Seppel flipped roleblocker, but apparently there's a scum one, too.
When did Seppel flip roleblocker? That literally never happened. Explain that, scarbo.
Continuing with scarbo's posts, he then votes Hawk, inaccurately claims he was just hammered by hunt, inexplicably votes me (that's two people he had previously called stonewall town that he has abruptly reversed position on), more talk about Obzedat despite claiming he hasn't been interested in him since D2, votes Atog, votes Obzedat again, continues to back keeping Rhand alive, votes huntzilla, votes Atog again (please note that my daykill on killjoy has happened by this point and he has said LITERALLY nothing about it), announces he's going to track Rhand, claims he did so and Rhand didn't target anyone, votes Hawk, states Axelrod isn't obviously town to him, votes Axelrod, votes AE.
I'm pretty much convinced now. Here's some of scarbo's questionable behavior:
- Was on Atogaholic literally the entire game but failed to track him on two separate occasions.
- Has been talking about Obzedat nonstop.
- Defended scum Taredas using WIFOM.
- Said barely a word about scum ZDS or scum killjoy, including not even commenting on the latter's death by daykill.
- Claimed that he was roleblocked on D5 despite earlier (D2) complaining when KA announced he was roleblocked.
- Inexplicably stated Seppel was a roleblocker.
- Performed a classic scum 180 on days 5 and 6 vis-a-vis me, Hawk, and AE. After previously stating we were ironclad town, he was forced to reverse that position in order to keep himself from being PoE'd out as the game wore on and he lost killjoy.
- Overall terrible use of his claimed ability
unvote; vote Scarbo
I guess we'll get to the rest if the game goes on to another day.
I'd like to request our 48 hour deadline extension.
I want to do a behavioral review and I will have time to do it over the weekend, just not right this moment. A little more time will help steer this day from ending in a dismal default lynch which is where it seems to be heading atm.
- Mafia Secretary posts an announcement stating a deadline for FTQ submissions.
- Hosts send in their reviewed setups. At least one reviewer for each FTQ submission must be a member of the qualified reviewer group. The names of the qualified reviewer group (FTQ committee, whatever you want to call it) are always available in the setup thread as public knowledge.
- The Mafia Secretary announces the list of submissions, names redacted, to the qualified reviewer group.
- The qualified reviewer who reviewed the setup makes his or her recommendation to the group.
- Group discusses and votes on which setup should run.
- Mafia Secretary gives the go-ahead to post signups and also makes an announcement that describes the voting process, explaining why the reviewers selected the setup they did.
- Repeat this process a few weeks before the FTQ game ends.
EDIT: I'd also like to volunteer to host a basic when/if that queue returns.
- What Eco posted. Restructuring the whole forum and community does nothing if we don't have any players.
- Some less permissive time limits on days. I think a month is acceptable for D1 of a large game (let's call that more than 18 players) but fewer players should necessitate a shorter deadline.
- The return of the basic queue.
- More recruiting - we can have Mafia banners or other sigs to encourage people to check out Mafia as we post on other parts of the site, write an article for the main page, etc.
- Reviving the FTQ as Annorax discusses.
What I don't agree with:
- Running MTGS games offsite. Nope. Not at any point. We may as well shut up shop if that's the plan. Especially the idea of running our best, FTQ-worthy games on other sites.
Here are my suggestions:
- We all make more of an effort to focus on recruiting on-site and off-site.
- Revive the Basic queue, and here's my spin on it: create Mini Basics (12 players) and Large Basics (18 players.) This way, new players can get experience with the mechanics of mafia in a small, basic setting before progressing to the dynamics of a larger game when they're ready. For many newer players in the past, they played basics for a while, cut their teeth, and then jumped into a Specialty as their first large game, which promptly saw them flounder out of their depth and get D1 mislynched. With a Large Basic, they can do the 18-player thing without ending up victim of a super-experienced, critical playerbase and/or confusing or unique game mechanics. Plus, the Large Basic can replace the Normal Queue for people who like a less complex game with more people.
- Now that we have small and large basics for newer players or people who prefer less complexity, let's revive the Specialty queue as it was before (signup and wait your turn based), but roll the present Mini queue into it. It will no longer be a size-based queue, but a complexity-based one.
- Revive the FTQ, go back to the old system where qualified reviewers voted on FTQ submissions anonymously, and discontinue the PCQ.
Not much that I wrote there has changed. Obviously I have a child now and so that's cut down my participation in all non-essential activities, but quite apart from that, I've been disengaged from playing mafia for a while because of the attitude I describe in the quote. As far as hosting goes (which if you know me, you know that hosting is the real fun for me), the bizarre new approach to queues has killed any interest I had in continuing to participate. The replacement of the FTQ AND the specialty queue in favor of the PCQ, which I have argued against since its inception despite winning PCQ #2, was the last straw for me. I have absolutely no desire to submit for the PCQ. I do not want my setup to be voted on. I do not think that system produces good setups (and I think the evidence of the last two PCQs clearly bears out that opinion.) Let the playerbase have their say by signing up - or not - for what I present them. I much prefer a queue where anyone can have a go, if they wait long enough and their turn comes up - in other words, the successful system we had for years. That's where I'm at. I can't see myself continuing to participate if things continue as they are now, and that saddens me, having been a part of the community here since 2008.
The difference is between modern Egypt, which is an Arab culture, and ancient Egypt, which predates Arabic by centuries if not millennia. "Al-Tahid" sounds like an Arabic word (though it is not), while it is utterly unlike Kemetic, which is what we call "Ancient Egyptian." An Egyptian themed plane is overwhelmingly more likely to have an ancient Egyptian vibe rather than a modern Egyptian vibe, unless WotC's market research suggests the players are interested in cards that depict corruption, gender inequality, and waiting 15 minutes to cross the street.
Source: I'm Egyptian.
Stirring Wildwood definitely gets there, you can get it with Ancient Stirrings too. I'd cut the Ascensions and the Keys for something else, maybe more removal. Another elixir too which you can search up off Stirrings.
Now that I've blasted my teammates, let's look at the scum - ZDS was OK but was definitely making it obvious by the end of D1, Taredas was abominable, killjoy not too much better, and scarbo was good but had no options left by the end.
The setup was fine if a little low-powered and minimalistic for my taste. It ended up being a durdle-fest between two poor teams, settled by some mechanical strokes of luck along the way - KK copping ZDS, me killing killjoy.
You probably read this post and were like "why'd he say he enjoyed the game?" but I really did. Maybe it was just because it had been so long since I last played, and because I traditionally do badly in endgame situations, but it was a nice mix of characters and not too much flavor or setup gaming. And I got to kill Seppel. So there's that.
Under his own name, he began by reading at both ends, calling dkings a liar in a bout of weirdly twitchy behavior, voted Cythare, named {me, ZDS, AI, Cythare, and killjoy} as scum in a scumlist (Taredas was listed under "leaning town"), voted Kami/AI, voted Cythare to lynch, opened D2 by voting Taredas and barning dead Azrael, said he thought killjoy was town, needlessly hammered claimed scum ZDS, opened D3 by voting Taredas, warded off a second attack from scarbo (carried over from D2), voted killjoy after Seppel's daykill, voted Obzedat to get its hypothetical player to claim, voted Atog, returned to voting Taredas, voted Scarbo on DCIII's recommendation (first time all game he voted scarbo), votes Atog, states he does not believe Rhand is scum at all (consistent with earlier scumlist), votes Vish, votes Scarbo, votes killjoy immediately pre-daykill, begins to do a 180 on Rhand, saying things like "maybe he played us all" and "if there's scum in Simic it's Rhand", states Axelrod is likely to be town, votes Rhand post-daykill, votes Obzedat, goes back to voting Rhand, shows some emotion when scarbo votes him for suggesting attacking scarbo on Obzedat's say-so, insists the remaining scum is in Simic, votes Atog to lynch, leaves options wide open on D6 (scarbo, hawk, and AE all named as potential scum), barns me on AE, votes scarbo, back to AE.
There's a LOT of votes in there. One of the most vote-happy players I've ever seen. That said, opening both d2 and d3 with attacks on Taredas rang true to me (although he named him as leaning town not long before d2 began....) He has barned a lot of players as well, from Azrael to Axelrod and then to me. There's a weird relationship with scarbo...scarbo has been calling him scum for most of the game, and there's been some back-and-forth, but he never really took anything seriously until he finally got a bit mad at scarbo accusing him of following Obzedat. Possible scum link there? My overall assessment is twitchy town.
Scarbo: opens with voting me, pushes an early Atog lynch and votes him while also stating almost from the beginning of the game that he wants Obzedat lynched, votes Obzedat, backs AE's garbage attacks on me D1, votes me, blasts the AI wagon, states he only supports Atog/Hans/zindabad lynches, returns to Atog, attacks Atog and me with ludicrously poor cases, backs hawk and votes me again, back onto me and then Atog again, admitting he is bouncing between us, dodges the Cythare wagon in favor of the Atog one (at least he's consistent), begins d2 by voting Obzedat, votes Atog, votes killjoy for attacking him for wanting Obzedat dead (interesting contrast to killjoy's later obsession with Obzedat...), votes ZDS after he's caught (after almost never saying a word about him, except when he complained about ZDS dismissing his case on me), votes vish on D3, votes Hunt seemingly out of nowhere (during the name/guild claim), immediately switches to Seppel and states he is the Orzhov scum, not Taredas, uses WIFOM (he's not dumb enough to make that terrible claim) to defend Taredas, returns to voting Vish after Seppel's daykill, heads back to Atog, votes Obzedat again, continues to insist Simic should not die (self-serving townie who thinks his ability is worth keeping turned on), ends up back on Atog, votes Taredas as soon as Seppel turns up town, returns to Atog again over more Obzedat WTFery, insists Boros and yours truly are town, bizarrely chooses to watch me instead of KA or, indeed, track his main scum suspect all game (Atog), votes Atog yet again, claims he tried tracking Obzedat as D5 opens (NOT ATOG), but was roleblocked (not to mention that he complained on D2 that people should never claim being RB'ed and should instead wait for somebody to slip up...),
Wait a second. Check this post:
When did Seppel flip roleblocker? That literally never happened. Explain that, scarbo.
Continuing with scarbo's posts, he then votes Hawk, inaccurately claims he was just hammered by hunt, inexplicably votes me (that's two people he had previously called stonewall town that he has abruptly reversed position on), more talk about Obzedat despite claiming he hasn't been interested in him since D2, votes Atog, votes Obzedat again, continues to back keeping Rhand alive, votes huntzilla, votes Atog again (please note that my daykill on killjoy has happened by this point and he has said LITERALLY nothing about it), announces he's going to track Rhand, claims he did so and Rhand didn't target anyone, votes Hawk, states Axelrod isn't obviously town to him, votes Axelrod, votes AE.
I'm pretty much convinced now. Here's some of scarbo's questionable behavior:
- Was on Atogaholic literally the entire game but failed to track him on two separate occasions.
- Has been talking about Obzedat nonstop.
- Defended scum Taredas using WIFOM.
- Said barely a word about scum ZDS or scum killjoy, including not even commenting on the latter's death by daykill.
- Claimed that he was roleblocked on D5 despite earlier (D2) complaining when KA announced he was roleblocked.
- Inexplicably stated Seppel was a roleblocker.
- Performed a classic scum 180 on days 5 and 6 vis-a-vis me, Hawk, and AE. After previously stating we were ironclad town, he was forced to reverse that position in order to keep himself from being PoE'd out as the game wore on and he lost killjoy.
- Overall terrible use of his claimed ability
unvote; vote Scarbo
I guess we'll get to the rest if the game goes on to another day.
I want to do a behavioral review and I will have time to do it over the weekend, just not right this moment. A little more time will help steer this day from ending in a dismal default lynch which is where it seems to be heading atm.