What I wouldn't mind is having ppsc with SWS drawing and DDS

I cannot see why the question of PPSC scoring as a game option should not be put to the vote. The imposition of the views of an unspecified number of people on the entire users of the site is rather smelly.

Everyone on this site is stupider due to this thread. Its mere existence removes an element of intelligence among us.

There should be a scoring system called brainbombing where you get points for spamming any form of press with inane babble.

No but on a serious note has anyone ever considered making Mafia worth points and having webdip buy in for it? Maybe that would sort out the scoring system debate and open this site up to 2 games worth points concurrently. Surely webdip mafia is well adjudicated with so many mods playing.

Let me say again that the removal of PPSC/SWS isn't necessarily permanent. Also, it's still available over on vDip (where we encourage anyone interested in non-standard play to also hold an account), and we believe that SoS and Unranked games will cover the needs that PPSC/SWS filled.

We didn't make the change on a whim- I've asked about whether it would be well received in several threads where scoring systems were discussed over the past year - and there was MUCH discussion within the team before doing it.

Also, we're not going to do anything that we don't think the majority of users would support (and we made this change believing that it would be generally well received). I'm not keen to start holding votes on every feature -among other reasons, I don't want feature development discussions to devolve into political campaigns - nor do I want people to vote on what volunteers do with their time.

However, from the feedback we've had in the forum so far, the response has been generally positive, which is good.

I think saying that we're "imposing a view" is a bit strong. We've temporarily disabled a scoring system and provided two good on-site alternatives. PPSC is a variant, and it will still be available at vDiplomacy. This is about how the games are scored for the purpose of competitive ranking - no player is being told how to view or play the game, just how games will be scored for the purpose of competition. All site-wide tournaments in the last two years have been WTA (now called DSS). PPSC hasn't factored in to the competitive scene, so I think it's reasonable to stop treating it as a competitive scoring system.

WebDiplomacy is a living codebase, which means feature changes can be rolled back if they turn out to be a bad idea, and also that old modes might be removed as the community focus changes.

We're intending to make the best Diplomacy site for classic diplomacy - this means that we'll intentionally have only a few more game modes (with vDiplomacy focussing on the wider variety of variants and modes), and we'll be taking the lead from other Diplomacy communities on what it means to be "the best for classic Diplomacy".

On that, the competitive FTF tournament scene has put a lot of time and effort into figuring out how games should be scored. There's no one good answer - but I can say that there's no system used anywhere else (that I'm aware of) that rewarded second places when someone solos.

We're listening. When we see forum discussion like this, we're gauging the reaction, and comparing it to the reaction of users who are pleased with the change. I'm pleased that this thread has gone so far (mostly) without mud-slinging.

Please, give these alternative systems a go, and see how you feel about it in 6 months.

Thanks ATC
I'm sure I'll still enjoy using the site & playing.
I'll give the new sum of squares system a go, happily
I do realise a lot of work has gone into these changes

@ brainbombe I started a separate thread for this discussion after making a few posts on the "official news of these changes" thread, so that I stopped cluttering up that thread. Thanks for your opinion that this is spam, you get a choice, non spam & that's over there, if you join in here, you get what's here.
You can thank me for moving my *spam*?? here later

PPSC was a blight on a great game and I'm glad it's gone. The point of this game is to achieve a solo victory. Barring that, a stalemate to stop a solo. Anything past that is less than great. PPSC encourages stupid things like having a person who would help you solo just so they could get a big cut of points for being the 2nd fiddle. It encouraged throwing games away while you were at 7 SCs so that the solo wouldn't happen when you were at 3 SCs.

Let it stay dead.

+1 Chaqa. Good riddance to bad Diplomacy.

if the goal of diplomacy is to get as many points as possible, ppsc is probably a viable option, but i was under the impression that the goal is to win.

one of the reasons PPSC was inferior is it encouraged grumpy, anger riddled players to just suicide after another player that they disliked, rather than join forces to prevent a solo. This happened to me several times (perhaps i am a bit of an in-game dick and slightly deserved it) but the new scoring systems are a welcome change for me.

My (admittedly limited and long-ago) dalliances with the World Map suggest that PPSC makes that game much fairer. This could easily be written off as a problem with that variant, and I suspect most of the people against PPSC also would argue against that map.

I agree we should have a vote. I personally prefer the new system.

@Zybodia How is WTA unfair on world map?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHjHXpFiegA

Well if you look about you might see I'm going to try the new SoS scoring system with possibly about 8% of my modest points tally across 4 games as a starter attempt

If you want to reward a loyal ally, let them share in a Draw with you. Totally legitimate strategy.

If you are a Great Power with one remaining SC and you are integral to a Draw, you deserve full credit for making it that far. If the other Great Powers don't find your contribution worthwhile, they should eliminate you first, then draw.

Play to win.

I just find that with a standard map, every nation has opportunity and reason to interact by endgame. With a world map, a player can solo without my even sharing a border with any nation that shares a border with them. (Of course the counterpoint is that in PPSC, I'm probably just eliminated before the end of the game.)

"Also, it's still available over on vDip (where we encourage anyone interested in non-standard play to also hold an account), and we believe that SoS and Unranked games will cover the needs that PPSC/SWS filled."

This is going to depend on how the coding was done. If keeping PPSC requires any additional work on vDip when pulling other code base changes then it may not be available.

Just having the option of playing PPSC will encourage players (especially new players who don't know that much about scoring systems) to play it - if only to explore and see if they like it. And it might teach new players a style that the rest of the community isn't comfortable with: playing for second place.

I don't think the "if you want to play PPSC, go to vDip because it's a variant" argument necessarily holds. We have lots of variants on Webdip: Full press/Gunboat/Public press, Classic/Ancient Med/World, live/24h/48h. All of those require different styles of play and might be excluded based on the same reasoning as above.

However, those variants are popular within the community, and many players simultaneously play live/gunboat/world games/etc.

I think we should have a vote. "How likely are you to play a PPSC game on Webdip within the next 6 months if you had the opportunity?" If a significant percentage (let's say more than 15-20%) of responders say "somewhat likely" or "very likely", I would recommend keeping it (even though abge will be upset). Otherwise, I'd move it over to vDip.

Ill contact Gallup research polling about getting data on this right away. We need to find out how many noobs wanna play PPSC immediately before the site shuts down due to low membership.

http://tinyurl.com/webdiplomacyppscform

We could have this displayed for a few days as a sticky on the forum, or on the banner. Given that it takes only 3 button clicks, I'm pretty sure a decent percentage of the active users on the site will submit a response. At least those who care about PPSC.

http://i61.tinypic.com/2vknczk.jpg

Jmo, PPSC still exists in the system; its use has just been disabled in game creation. It's quite simple for vDip to turn it back on, and they do that with lots of more complicated changes anyway.

@ghug, I was speaking as a vdip admin who knows that there is no coding capacity right now. If it's as simple as un-hiding the option then that's something that can probably be done, but anything more complicated, then it probably wouldn't happen.

I like the survey Idea. Also people having to go to vdip is pointless because it means you've got to go to 2 sites and people will forget also no-one knows about it unless reading this thread and so games will take forever to fill

Well Peregrine Falcon has good sight
I started 4 games with SoS scoring and joined another
Two of mine and the one I joined folded, no other players joined
Of the two left, no other players have joined apart from Peregrine Falcon.
It must be me, not SoS scoring that's keeping players away
I'm willing to give SoS scoring a try

I'd still like the option of a scoring system that isn't a form of wta

I've often wondered if the scoring system could be something decided by the players in-game. For example the two players agree to attack Italy. One takes 2 SCs and the other just one but the player who takes just one SC gains a bigger share of the points increase. All negotiation about points are binding. Could this work? And would it add an interesting dimension to the game?

@maniac, what like turning points into an in-game currency?

Would you be able to steal it by taking centers from people, and pay fro mercanaries??