The "online" symbol is hidden in anonymous games, isn't it?

That's correct.

For slow games with turn time greater than two days the most frustrating is waiting for a dieing most likely abandoned nation to do a forced retreat or disband (ie no choice). Could the rule be modified to

If units plus supply centres is less than or equal to four and no moves were received in a diplomatic phase then nation is concidered in civil disorder. This only applies for games with 3 day moves or longer.

The online status symbol helps our site better mirror the real game. In face to face you can see the person you are talking too, and know if they are paying attention. You know if they ask you a question whether you are going to get a quick reply or if they went on to talk to others. You can see if they are hovering by the orders box frantically thinking before the turn end, or if they aren't paying attention to the ending time. This can impact your FTF decisions, and is why I don't see any issue with the simulated representation of this causing the same effect.

^^^ I fully agree with everything jmo said. Which is why I only play anon games.

why cant we see, the online icon in anon games?

Which is why that option is there :).

The other useful benefit for last logged in time is that it helps players figure out who is around the site to set up high quality games. Many of our members come and go for months at a time, and this allows people interested in playing them to know when they are around and might be interested in playing.

because then semi-anon wouldn't be anon anymore.

that was @ssorenn.

i think that would be good for people to know others are around and start conversation

in semi anon, you already know who is in the game, i like to talk and when you know someone might be online that allows for communication

if youre that person that has to go out of your way to figure out who the other player is so be it.....

If a user has looked at our site code they can figure out a way to see all online users. You can also see the number of online users at the bottom of the page if I recall correctly. Using that it isn't terribly difficult to check profiles and see how many people have the pot bet as a difference between total points and available points. I've done it before without mod tools to estimate how easily it can be done. The answer is too easily for us to allow you to see who's online in an anon game.

i guess this comes down to a perspective from different age groups and what one is really trying to accomplish

ssorenn, even in anon games, almost realtime conversations happen often. If a message arrives when someone is online, they will usually reply immediately. I find it strange that you'd only send a message if you knew someone would see it immediately.

On the other hand, I like being able to check with another player before replying, or say that I didn't see the message before the phase end. In rare cases when I am playing non-anon, I often look at the board from an incognito window, so it wouldn't log my last visited time.

we all know theres a lag in the online button anyway, and a lot of people just leave their browser open anyway while gone, so it looks like theyre online....just my opinion but i would like it

In FTF you cant hide, and if youre trying to be deceitful about seeing press, just look your opponent in the eye(so to speak) and whatever

but ssorenn, this isn't ftf. you also can't send press to multiple people, and you can talk during the retreat phases, so online play differs greatly from ftf. that's just the way it is.

Exactly, kasimax. I guess it depends on what you are looking for in webdip. I don't want a FTF replacement. Perhaps you can try playing over google hangouts or something, for best FTF-like experience :)

The issue is if I look at a message from my mobile with the intent of replying to it later, the person could think I viewed the message and am ignoring them.

FTF games aren't over multi-day phases and people are at the games for the sole purpose of playing Diplomacy, so there's no interference from real life events. For most people here, Diplomacy is not their primary daily activity, so it is not a smart move to jump to conclusions based on their online status icon or last visited timestamp.

it doesnt have to be that way, i'm just expressing that i would like it---FTF is too long and tiring. Its only good for every so often (for me)

" For most people here, Diplomacy is not their primary daily activity"

No ones implying that it is, maybe its yours Mapu

Soreass, I wasn't even talking to you. It was more to jmo's. Quit harassing me.

come on dude, whos harassing you

your the one with the expletives

My Monday 5 Jan posts makes several suggestions. #5 suggests that units with no retreat space should be automatically disbanded. Either, in one of my current matches, the player disbanded his unit within 30 seconds or this has already been implemented. If it's the latter, my thanks for listening and my congrats to the tecchies.

I think an "export to .jDip" button would be tremendously useful. While possible manually (like almost all site-feature-requests), because the little map doesn't show every little thing such as failed supports (which is totes understandable, not asking for it to be otherwise) it's non-trivial to totally recreate games simply.

While phases can be entered into Jdip as plaintxt, the current order text output for webdip is not compliant Jdip syntax, and it doesn't have retreats/builds as separate phases either.

I still think the price of takeovers needs to drop even more (great start with the half price update!), until all CD's are quickly being taken over (simple supply and demand).

I would say 1/3 the full price, and any takeover with 3 or fewer units is free (no one usually wants to take over games with 3 or fewer units, but for free, people would have chance to boost their points with no risk and might grab them).

Another super cool improvement on takeovers could be this:

After first NMR, the country goes into "Pending Takeover", where a substitute can agree to take over the country "if" the current player fails to enter and save orders before the expiration of the next phase (which would be the second NMR in a row, and typically cause the CD).

Then, if the first player NMR's the second time, the new substitute player is put into the country,

AND, BEFORE the phase updates, the game clock is automatically EXTENDED for the current phase that would have otherwise just "ended" for an extra time cycle, to give the new player time to conduct diplomacy as a replacement player and enter and save orders, to complete orders for what would have otherwise been a second NMR in a row.

With lower priced takeovers and a "pending takeover" feature, most games would be picked up with only one NMR, instead of two in a row, making the disruption to the game far more insignificant and better protecting the integrity of the game.