@Steephie: "Basically, we hope that PPSCers try actual Diplomacy and enjoy it." You literally haven't a clue who you're talking to, do you? Not a clue.

@Chumbles: Why should that matter?

@Jeff The implication of steephie's comment is that those who like PPSC are somehow deficient or inexperienced - "try actual Diplomacy" - and that their opinion is a priori invalid because they don't play Diplomacy properly.

I read steephie's statement like this:

The incentives in a WTA game of Diplomacy vs a PPSC game of Diplomacy are so vastly different, they are like playing different games.

I fully agree with that statement.

@ Jeff: How do you read:

"Basically, we hope that PPSCers try actual Diplomacy and enjoy it."#

As being equivalent to:

"WTA and PPSC are different"

???

Less snark, same sentiment.

Let's not start dissing snark, now.

Let's keep this civil all round, please.

I can confirm I was basically snarkifying HR's comment.

I really don't care about the points system. I just think it's a fun practice to translate carefully worded sentences into blunt sentences while keeping the sentiment mostly intact.

Could be useful in some upcoming debates. Radicalising their viewpoint just a little with some nuisance and asking your opponent whether they think it's true, so your opponent is forced to support the wording he opposes to keep the sentiment or weakening his previous words by opposing a statement which boils down to the same thing.

I think you're better off not using dirty tricks to win arguments. And if your opponent has any experience, they'll just say "that's not what I said", or some other equally simple defence.

I once saw a QC dismiss a dirty trick in an argument with a raised eyebrow and the word "quite". Didn't even lose his stride.

Depends on the opponent and the situation. If you know your team loses unless they make a mistake, offering two wrong choices might make them stumble.

Quite.

Hoo boy changing anything relatedto the points system was bound to stir things up.. Always has.. ;) I like that you're having a crack at it ATC, and I'm sure you're watching the game stats closely and it'll turn out to be another good decision.


My 2c:
- There will always be disagreement with these sorts of changes, especially when out of the blue, and the loudest can make it seem worse than it is. But e.g. Facebook change hysteria doesn't mean all anti-change is just hysteria


- Before PPSC we had a WTA of sorts; the only metric was wins and losses, and people would enter lots of games hoping for a win, and get disenchanted that they had to win just to get into the higher level games. User levels plummeted, which is why we put PPSC in, and it was very successful at growing the user base (this is why, for better or worse, I was always reluctant to change it).

Admittedly this was WTA with only a win counter not points to bar entry to higher games, but I wouldn't be surprised if new users were put off by doing pretty well in a starting game and learning a lot, but doing just as well as someone who gambled it all early hoping for a lucky win.
I do think for new users something that rewards any sort of success rather that outright victory is encouraging, and it also discourages playing rapid-fire 100 point games causing inflation.

- The best scoring system in FTF (or chess) might not be the best scoring system on a newcomer friendly website.


That having been said I'm not so familiar with the challenges these days and as I said this is likely another good decision by ATC, but that's my historical POV.

I could've sworn there was another comment here? Did I hallucinate?

Nope I merged it instead of adding a correction ;) now there are two comments on that, oops

^ Kestas the all-powerful :)

i remember that back when fasces was banned, some mod revealed that deleting posts is dangerous and only done when it's really necessary - kestas just does it like it's nothing. all hail kestas!

The owner has spoken, and that's cool. It is interesting to hear the history of PPSC bringing in a larger user base of people new to Diplomacy. Again, it is probably important to acknowledge that the internet is not the same as F2F. Obviously, it is much easier to walk away. And it is easier to get give up on opaque, obtuse and exclusive systems made up of unwelcoming insider knowledge.

It would be sad and unfortunate to see webdip lose its ability to bring in new people in order for ATC to appease a few "professional" international players who don't and probably never will have respect for ATC or any internet based Diplomacy forum. I have to respectfully disagree that ATC is making a good decision. The passive-aggressive disrespect toward players is saddening.

"It would be sad and unfortunate to see webdip lose its ability to bring in new people..."

Absolutely. Keeping the site new-player friendly is a big goal for the team. It's why we looked in to forum reform (including a new forum with subcategories), are creating a new player landing page with information useful to first timers, improving the way the site looks and feels to keep up with the times, adding unranked games, and considering ways to create a rolling "newbie game" series that doesn't require too much work (or require the new players to read the forums), and many many other improvements. We would 100% revert this change if we experience a drop in new players. I don't think we will.

Take it easy dirge.. Just giving my POV as someone who was around before points. (and I'm part, and mostly retired, owner)

As ATC said from the start they'll keep an eye on it and tweak as needed, no need to get so hostile. I've had just as angry arguments thrown at me the other way against PPSC, it's a debate with no winner

My apologies.

Would love a more sophisticated and categorized forum, it was one of the first things i stuck my nose up at when i'd originally joined the site. I'd found it highly annoying that there's was no categorization and no search functionality making the archives practically useless and the same topics a complete revolving door.

I would like to add a caveat to that however that over time i've really come to appreciate the constant flow of this forum and how it seems to encourage the community aspect here. It's almost like a slow moving chatbox that helps draw people in and feel the involvement and help get to know all the sites 'characters' more. While i'd love the ability to seek out subcategories i'm interested in or more posts from a particular player, i'd be disappointed to see the homepage forum updates go away. Perhaps maybe an ability to silent certain categories i'm less interested in though.

Was about to make a commend on the problems with the player/games search functionality as a vote for new enhancements but saw they were already on the to-do list so just going to wave my hand as somebody else who considers this a pain point.

ATC, have you ever thought of asking users what they would like?
"creating a new player landing page with information useful to first timers"? Why not just update the existing FAQs?
"improving the way the site looks and feels to keep up with the times"? Why? The site is perfectly functional on any browser I've tried, including my (old) phone. Changing site look and feel is extremely time-intensive and highly likely to break some browser and hence mean that some users can no longer play and ruin their existing games.
Meanwhile, simple changes that would make games move along more enjoyably, such as not making players enter orders when they don't have any options other than "disband", are ignored.

Kremmen, we ask all the time. And we get feature requests all the time.

That disband change has been accepted, and is on the todo list. Unfortunately, it is not a simple change, due to the way the adjudicator works.

I think saying we're ignoring requests is unfair. I estimate that there is enough work on the todo list (and wishlist) to employ three full time developers. Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury. We have to rely on the spare time of volunteers, which is provided for free.

I recall that previous donations cover server hosting costs for years to come. If this is still the case, perhaps it's an idea to allow new donations to go toward development if the donator wants?
I wouldn't use money from donators who thought they were donating for hosting, but it might be a better use for new donations at this point.

A lot of options in the execution there, just wondering what you'd think about that.

no steephie, you will not be paid to code for the site.

ATC, I'm not saying that you're ignoring requests, just that you seem to have priorities that include things that are nothing to do with the game. To me, the point of the site is to play a game. I don't care about the awful forum format, because I never use it. (Neither do most players I come across.) I don't care if the site isn't "pretty", because the point is to load fast and work reliably on all devices. I care only about whether it is a good platform to play a game on, which it is.

To return to the issue, the thing I don't understand is this: Given that points are artificial anyhow, what the site does with them is provide a ranking system. All ranking systems have drawbacks. The WTA variants tell players "If you don't win, it doesn't matter that you survived to the end. Your result is identical to being eliminated in the third year". I can't imagine any human in any board game actually believing that.

I'm not a big Diplomacy player. I've not played a FTF game in decades. (I have played around 700 other board games.) Those gaming friends who religiously log games that they play always record everyone's position, not just first. Disabling the scoring system that is, I would suggest, closest to how most gamers actually view game results is, at the very least, likely to discourage new users who aren't used to the WTA paradigm. Plus, it the way it was done really says that you only want pro players in the elite class here and casual players aren't wanted.

Sum of squares achieves that goal and still provides a strong incentive to stop someone from getting 18 supply centres.
The downside is that it is rather complicated to calculate, say, how much you would gain by killing a weak player and getting your score from 11 to 13 centres. And no, it isn't just 169/111, the denominator changes every year.

So not only were members not consulted, but kestas wasn't even consulted either.

Ok.