Seems like a reasonable policy. No Trojan horse players.

If you needed consent of everyone, then players could hold the game hostage until they got a replacement they considered good/pilabile/bad/whatever. I think it would open another avenue of diplomatic tooling that wouldn't improve the site.

If the player is doing it just to annoy you, I agree it's a dick move. But I don't think requiring all players consent as a general rule is a good idea.

It sounds like a good special rule to add on some game, though. Like lusthog.

Or, you can sign onto a private game knowing full well you can't replace yourself with any shit player just because you're losing and don't want to hurt your gr.

I'm new but if its a private game I don't think you should be able to choose a replacement for yourself. Maybe an admin/mod that is unbiased?

Maybe in a non-anon game?

When I've already quit non private games so that I don't have to play with certain players it seems ridiculous that I might have to play with them anyway.

I say we kill him

Pretty completely agree with DO here. It's unfortunate that we have not taken vDips Blocked Users features. If someone is a terrible player/person there that I cannot stand I just click the smiley face on their profile and it turns to a frown. After that I can't join games they are in, and they can't join games I am in. Nice and simple solution to this type of problem.

I asked someone who is known to takeover games. There's no rule against it because, as Tim said, small powers would just hold games hostage by vetoing every potential replacement to try and force a draw - and thus any rule which allows people to do that is insane.

I like the sound of this "blocked users" feature & I bet there's a few players who'd just love to use that sort of feature on me... It's only a game, if I lose interest, although it's invariably because I've been lied to and backstabbed, then I just drop out...they're only games and points.. Hardly "mission critical" in my life.

Who is this Tim ? Is he the wizard chappy from "Life of Brian" ???

ATC's alter ego ???

Tim, Tin, One letter difference.

Blocked users would be a lovely feature, and as soon as someone volunteers to add it to the code, we'd be happy to approve it.

I think Tim is from the Holy Grail, no?

Actually we have had this biscussion before and there were concerns that some players wouldn't be allowed to play much. I thought that'd be great.

If we're so concerned about small powers vetoing, shouldn't we also be concerned about large but declining powers gaming their ghost ratings?

Some thoughts on this:

I don't think banning users from playing with you is a good thing in public games. We have it over at vDiplomacy, but that only works because the use of it is extremely conservative - it tends to be viewed as a last resort by the entire community. It's still definitely possible to abuse it.

I think that it might fit well with a redo of the way invitational games work, though. Make 'invitational' into its own category, and add in a way to invite specific players without using a password - that way the password can't be distributed by the other players and you can be 100% certain only the invited players are in the game, even if it's anonymous. Extra settings for these invitationals - setting certain phase or RR requirements, or banning specific players from being able to be subbed in - could be under the control of the player who set up the game when they set up the game.

I agree. We should kill him

Just don't make me fucking play with valis

If it's available on vdip to makes sense to have the block user feature on here.

No one would be forced to use it but it would be valuable for those that want to

Valis once hitchhiked 2700 miles to a diplomacy tournament in Iceland.

He walked the sea floor at times; eating an unspecified number of urchins, and friendly crustaceans along the way.

i will play with you DO. I like you despite the press, rumors and innuendo. heck i'm even in a game with ogion but i don't mind

Can we have a "block Valis" feature?

Oh yay, the other person I want to absolutely never play with..

C'mon Demon, 2WL isn't that bad once you get to know him.

"If" someone leaves a game to avoid losing points/rating ... wow, just wow -- pretty childish. Hope nobody would do that!

Thanks for sticking up for me meme!

HR is the worst. Please quit HR.