I suppose F2Fers are more used to NMR's since in F2F games there are often orders written incorrectly or sometimes people lose track of time and don't get orders in... So, if everyone wants to keep going in spite of the NMR, that's fine, or we could all vote cancel and restart, I'm open to what others want to do. Feel free to post your opinion here, if you are in the game, or just vote to cancel (or not), that would work too.

PS - I think I found Italy. One person thought an email would be sent to notify once orders were adjudicated, so that's been cleared up, phases run every 24 hours unless everyone finalizes early, then phases go quicker.

one suggestion I have for folks playing webdip is to set your webdip home page to open every time you open your favorite browser. (opening multiple tabs on initial start-up is under your 'options' button on most browsers). This lets you open up to your home page everytime you want to go online so you get a sense of where your games are in terms of deadlines etc.

For most of us who play 4+ games at a time, the webdip page is always open to check in on messages and to respond etc.

Thanks for the input, Babak, your opinions are especially useful since you've played extensively both online and F2F, so keep the comments coming!

@ckroberts - I'm not sure if I understand your question. Do you mean like how is the strategy different in FTF than in online play?

The biggest difference (obviously) is the time pressure. In FTF it's very much the case that a good plan now is better than a great plan later. My experience is that online is a more tactical game, because players have the time to see through the bullshit you're trying to sell them, and figure out whether a plan is really good or not. Also in FTF (I think) emotions probably play a larger role. If someone gets ticked off with you, you're going to have to deal with them writing orders while they are still annoyed, whereas with an online game you might have had time to talk them down.

It's the same game of course - I just think you have to shift your focus a bit. In FTF if you're a good enough snake oil salesman you can still do well even if you're a tactically poor player. I suspect that is less true online.

Dys, I was responding to comments like MadMarx's "online versus F2F are two entirely different animals, extremely different" and the idea that a person should play online differently from in-person. That's fascinating and I'd like to know more.

Here's a link to something Edi Birsan whipped out, largely on the topic:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=059502679dd931fb&Bsrc=SkyMail&Bpub=SDX.SkyDrive&id=59502679DD931FB%21512#!/view.aspx?cid=059502679DD931FB&resid=59502679DD931FB%21512

I personally like anonymous online games, in an attempt to play a game in a vacuum, having the game be as much about the moves and press in just that game as possible, which is an impossible concept in the F2F world:

http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F2002R/Barnes/deMetaGaming.html

Burkas, sunglasses, and voice modulators for the anonymous F2F win!

So do we actually want to play this game out? I don't mind playing it out, but if it's just a practice game anyway, it seems a little pointless if we've got an NMR player.

Of course I'm assuming by the question that you invited all 7 players for this purpose. If some of the players are just random people who joined on here, then I suppose we should play it out for them.

I think I've figured out how this works! So I don't care about playing it out.

So is there any way to know when I need to go look at the website ? Can I sign up for email notifications that an adjudication has happened ? Or is there an RSS feed for the game ? Something like that ?

I don't think there is. I think it was discussed at one point, and I think many of us would receive way too many notifications that it would more detrimental rather than anything else.
Honestly, most of us check the site multiple times a day that it wouldn't be necessary, but I understand why you would want that. I did too in the beginning.

The game turns are at 24 hours right now anyway, Chris. I am just checking it once or twice a day to make sure I don't miss anything. If you go more than 24 hours before checking it, you can assume an NMR.

I would hope that any such notifications would be opt-in :-)
Honestly, I'd think that an RSS feed would be pretty obvious - I don't poll most of the blogs I read, I have software to tell me when I need to look at it.

Well, I suppose after learning the interface, the next thing you need to understand about online diplomacy is that there is a pretty significant time investment required. A 24 hour phase press game can last a month easily, and you need to check in at least once every 24 hours for gunboat and if it's a press game, you'd be smart to check in multiple times per 24 hours to communicate with others. The time committment is honestly a major consideration for online play, as Babak also pointed out (see above a few posts).

Once you commit to check in regularly on one game, most of us play multiple games, the most I had going at once was 13, but that was crazy, I don't recommend that!

So, as far as this game goes, there are five people from WACcon, not including me, and then I pulled in one webDip regular. This game was clearly advertised as a practice game, so I don't see any problem with canceling it. The question I'd like the five WACcon F2Fers to answer is: Do you think you'll be up for trying a press game? Also, even more importantly, when joining a game on webDip you are making a bit of a "honor system" committment to play the game until the end, which again, is a major committment!! If you bail out a few years into a game, especially if you do that repeatedly for no good reason, you will likely quickly get blacklisted by many on this site...

Food for thought. I'm going to start up my Invitational the week of February 20th and my hope is to get 2-3 F2Fers in each game, but I will need a firm committment that F2Fers will see the game through to the end.

Any other thoughts, anyone?!

For now, I want to thank the WACcon F2Fers for at least trying this out and getting a sense of what webDip is about, whether you like it or not, but my hope is that you all love it and become addicted quickly! :-)

The game turns are at 24 hours right now anyway, Chris. I am just checking it once or twice a day to make sure I don't miss anything. If you go more than 24 hours before checking it, you can assume an NMR.

Hey Mark,
I would be open to playing in your invitational. Let me know when it happens.
I am interested in seeing how the message interface works on this site.

Yes, I think that an email notification would be a good touch. I know they do that at playdiplomacy and some other web dip site I tried.

What's your experience with live games on this site? It looks like they come up pretty regularly in this forum.

Chuck

Perhaps 36 hour or 48 hour phases would be better for people not used to checking in regularly, but again, hindsight is 20/20. With the longer phase games, especially in gunboat, people can finalize early during the week, but then not be pressured as much to worry about the internet over the weekend.

Chuck, I'll be in touch regarding the invitational. I don't play live games, but lots of people really enjoy them, feel free to try one out!

The message interface is great, you get little envelopes indicating mail that you can see immediately when logging into the site, and in a game, you have an envelope next to each great power in a game, and there's nothing like seeing a little envelope next to all six opponents in a single game, that's how you know you're in a good one!

First off, there is not current email or RSS support. However, there is someone working on RSS support. I'm not sure when it will be implemented or even entirely sure if it will.

Second, as MM said, you need to make sure your have the time to commit to the games. What you should do is decide how often you can and are willing to log on and then play games whose phase times allow the proper amount of communication.

For example, if you can log on only once per day, then a 24 hour phase gunboat game is fine as you don't have to communicate beyond the meaning of your orders. But for a press game, you probably want to be able to send and receive messages two or three times per phase at least so a 3 day per phase game might be better.

I used to get on before work, at lunch time, after work, and before bed and could play 24 hour games fine. Now I'm down to before work and before bed so prefer 2 or 3 day per phase games.

And of course the other option is live games, usually 5 or 10 minutes I think. If you've got three or four hours of uninterrupted time you can probably get a live game in. Personally I don't have such time because of wife and kids so someone else might be able to better inform you of the time commitment.

Personally, I'm up for playing a full game, but not with 24 hour deadlines 7 days a week. 24 hour deadlines are fine for me during the week, but I don't tend to get online much over the weekends. I don't know whether games can be set up to treat weekends differently, though.
Are most games here 24 hour deadlines, out of interest ?

Games can be 5 minute phases up to 10 day phases. The most common non-live game phases are probably 24 to 48 hour phases, but 3 day phases work for some people as well. My favorite for press games is 36 hour phases, 24 gets pretty fast and 48 can drag a bit at times.

One thing to keep in mind, is that if you enter orders at the very start of a phase, and you do not finalize, you can be away from the game for nearly twice as long as the phase length and not NMR, though I wouldn't recommend this strategy in press games.

So, I'm thinking that we should cancel this game, since we've had so many NMRs, and since it was mainly to give F2Fers/non-webDippers a chance to learn the interface, so the game has accomplished its purpose.

We could restart a new gunboat and give it 48 hour phases or ever 72 hour phases, and then play under an honor system of people trying to finalize orders within 24 hours (or less, ideally) during the week but we all plan to take weekends off, what do people think?

Like I said, I'm good either way as far as this game goes.

Those sounds like good guidelines for a new game.

I could certainly play with 72 hour deadlines but always get my orders in in less than 24 during the week.
As for this game, I don't mind either way - we can play it out or kill it.

Actually, I'd prefer to kill it, especially since I gained a bit of an advantage with the NMRs! ;-)

Once this one is canceled, I'll create a new gunboat game with 72 hour phases, but I don't even know who all is in this game, so please post here if you are in the game, thanks.

what's the point with 72-hour gunboat? Blech. I say just go to the full-press

The point is to take weekends off, from Friday night until Monday morning.

If we were playing gunboat just to learn the interface, and we're all happy with the interface, then presumably there isn't any point to playing any more gunboat.
On the other hand, if people feel that they need to play more to get comfortable, we should continue a gunboat game (this one or a new one) until they're happy.
Personally, I'm ready to play "for real".

Welcome to real diplomacy then, cbrand. Some say pictures speak a thousand words, others will tell you unit placements speak 10 thousand.