Lack of "diplomacy"

[SaintSimmer]

Good afternoon. I'm new to the site (though not to Dip), and playing my first game.

Getting people to reply to messages is like pulling teeth, and people seem to have great enmity towards me for no discernable reason. When they do reply, they are very terse and don't discuss details. The game even includes some of the hottest players on the site.

Am I just unlucky, or is this the norm on webDiplomacy? If I wanted to play Gunboat, that's what I would have signed up for.

Or maybe this is all a super-secret hazing protocol for new members?

[StraightFlush]

Welcome to random online games. Every site has people who will play with the lowest amount of diplomatic effort possible, to the point of making you wonder why they don't just play gunboat. Getting fun games is a bit of a lottery, but as someone who plays on all 4 of the "main" sites it's not really any worse here than it is anywhere else.

[DarthPorg36]

Yeah you sorta just have to get lucky. I've had games with no press at all, and games where there's about 50 messages per turn. Playing games set up through the forum helps, or games against higher-level players. Or just play gunboat, because then no one can talk anyway.

[kestasjk]

It's always an issue for new players that the games you first join are pretty low quality. There are be games you can only join with more points once you've won a game or two which have other players that have gained points, and the game quality would be better.

It's like with the free online poker sites I used to play on as a kid; the low-pot games would always have garbage play with players that didn't care, but although frustrating once you won games against those players and got into higher-stakes games the gameplay got much better.

Hopefully that's still the case here.. Might be worth looking at the stats a bit

[Tibarius]

Welcome to the site. I like the user interface, and the map is pretty easy to recognize. My experience: the player base of dedicated players is extrem small here. Many people obviously try it out, don't like it and quit. People dropping out in bad positions is regular for my last few games. People willing to draw with more than 3 players left is regular too *sigh*. Nevertheless i like the game and it still can be fun if you find active allies.