The feature especially makes it more attractive to take over other player's positions, as the nation to be taken over didn't miss a phase, meaning there is no strategic disadvantage, except that you gotta restart diplomatic ties (which may be good as well at times).

Frankly, if we're going to go down the path of making our site a clone of Playdip it would be a damned site easier to just join Playdip. I find the idea of paid for additional content ghastly.

vdiplomacy was the 61st result for diplomacy online.

which is no measurement for good content

@CommanderByron: paying for specific things sounds like a horrible idea to me. Not only that I don't really like the concept in general, but I also think that it would put off even more users...

Dear webDiplomacy Players,

Since the site has been judged to be too large for one developer, a full support team has been hired to look after and update webDiplomacy.net.

To help pay for this service, we will require funding from the members of this website. However, since these contributions will be significant in the upkeep of the site, the Moderators and Zultar have agreed that a reward that is a little more than just a donator icon is appropriate.

A_Tin_Can spent a lot of time last night integrating a new feature which will allow users who donate a certain amount of money to the site to gain additional bonuses, in-game and out of game. For each dollar you donate, you will gain one webDip Donator Point, which can be spent on bonuses by clicking on the 'Bonuses' tab in the help menu, which you can access by clicking on the 'Help' button at the top-right of your screen. The bonuses are as follows:

In-Game Bonuses:

Bonus: Extra Unit
Cost: 30 webDiplomacy Donator Points (1 use), 100 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows an extra unit to be placed in a game on any open non-SC province. This unit requires no SCs to upkeep but in all other respects is the same as a normal unit.


Bonus: Destroy Unit
Cost: 30 WDPs (1 use), 100 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to destroy one enemy unit in a game.


Bonus: Claim SC
Cost: 50 WDPs (1 use), 200 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to claim any one unoccupied SC in a game. This SC cannot be taken by enemy units.


Bonus: Claim HSC
Cost: 60 WDPs (1 use), 220 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Same as 'Claim SC', but you can build on the SC you claim.


Bonus: View Moves
Cost: 60 WDPs (1 use), 220 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to view the moves entered of one of your opponents.

Bonus: View Chat
Cost: 80 WDPs (1 use), 300 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to view all messages sent by one of your opponents.

Bonus: View All Moves
Cost: 90 WDPs (1 use), 350 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to view the moves entered by all of your opponents.

Bonus: View all Chat
Cost: 120 WDPs (1 use), 500 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to view all messages sent by all of your opponents.

Bonus: Force CD
Cost: 140 WDPs (1 use), 620 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Forces a country of your choice into Civil Disorder. The original player's RR is not effected, but they cannot return to the game.

Bonus: Force Draw
Cost: 150 WDPs (1 use), 650 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to force a draw in one game. Cannot be used if your country is already defeated.

Bonus: Force Solo
Cost: 200 WDPs (1 use), 900 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Gives you an instant solo in one game. Cannot be used if your country is already defeated.

Out of Game Bonuses:

Bonus: Minor Increase RR
Cost: 20 WDPs (1 use)
Effect: Increases your RR by 10%.

Bonus: Average Increase RR
Cost: 30 WDPs (1 use)
Effect: Increases your RR by 20%.

Bonus: Major Increase RR
Cost: 50 WDPs (1 use)
Effect: Increases your RR by 50%.

Bonus: Decrease RR
Cost: 50 WDPs (1 use), 200 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Decreases the RR of a user of your choice by 10%.

Bonus: Silence User
Cost: 100 WDPs (1 use), 400 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: allows you to silence a user you find annoying for 48 hours. This only applies to Forum posts - they are still able to communicate in-game.

Bonus: Infinite RR
Cost: 200 WDPs (1 use)
Effect: Increases your RR to infinity, so you can never lose RR by CDing or missing phases. Missed phases and unbalanced CDs also stop appearing on your userpage.

Bonus: Ban User
Cost: 250 WDPs (1 use), 1100 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to ban a user your find annoying. This does not perma-ban them; they can create a new account.

Bonus: Perma-Ban User
Cost: 400 WDPs (1 use), 1800 WDPs (5 uses)
Effect: Allows you to permanently ban a user you find annoying. They will not be able to create a new account.

Bonus: Protect from Bonuses
Cost: 500 WDPs (1 use)
Effect: Renders your account permanently immune to out-of-game bonus effects by other players.

Bonus: Cheater's Haven
Cost: 1000 WDPs (1 use)
Effect: Renders your account permanently immune to Moderator Actions, such as bans and silences.


You are also able to buy Ghost Rating and webDiplomacy Points at the following rates:

10 webDiplomacy Points cost 1 WDP.
5 Ghost Rating costs 1 WDP.

Thanks for your support, and we hope you enjoy this new feature!

vdip's interactive map would also be cool, putting in orders through the drop-down menu is so annoying when you have more than five units :P

You didnt lose me yet. ;)

Ah finally the mod team takes action! And so swift!! I better get myself a Paypal account quick...some monies should be enough to kick Splitdiplomat off the first place in the ranking 3:)

@ghug: I'm sure I could be of use, but I don't have any interest in contributing when the ideas I think are important have been consistently shrugged off / ignored / ridiculed for the last... 5 years or so?

There's been a LOT of people asking for things like more variants forever and it's always the same old rhetoric about "being the absolute best for CLASSIC (scoff at variants) Diplomacy".

Classic Diplomacy gets boring, and isn't even that balanced. Variants might not be super balanced or always easy to get a game going, but they're more FUN and have more options.

It's fucing ridiculous that since I started playing (in 2011), we have added less than five new variants. The ones we do have are abysmal. World Dip? Pfft.

More rant:

Guess what? Just because some dead guy designed the game map a certain way fifty years ago doesn't mean it's the only or even best way to play the game.

woooooow....heresy!!!!!!
CRUCIFY HIM

I think everyone is taking this in game purchase thing to an extreme for arguments sake. No one suggested nor should they that we allow purchases to affect the play of diplomacy. Simply put the purchase should be for points, just diplomacy points and maybe some frills like being able to change the color of your name on the forum. Or other trivial bullshit that people are willing to shell out cash for. But never should it be used to change the way the game is played. Seriously guys let's consider that we all want some updates to something and unfortunately it's inhuman for ATC to handle it all alone. So we need a way to pay for the help the site needs. How many of you play apps on your phone that are "free" but allow in-app purchases. How many candy crushers are on here who never spend a dome on candy crush even though they could? I'm curious how many actual donations this site produces; if it actually is enough to matter. And then I want the admins to consider how my proposal would make it matter and how much the site could get done with the funds.

Don't worry guys, I'll be on this site 20 years from now. Or however long it takes to finish the Pacifist game. But I might drop off the GR list soon...

People are scared of change because change signifies uncertainty. Oh well. Sometimes you need change. The site isn't reaching new users or keeping them. How do you fix that? Pander. Look you can buy little icons to be next to your name! It's a sword icon for 2$ or you can get a tank for 4$! Wow! Shiny!

My good taste has to object: flashy icons and nicknames in all sorts of wild colours wouldn't match to the site's simple (classy) style. It would look awful. To incorporate such things one would have to overhaul the graphics of the whole site, which is neither necessary nor possible.

Roadmap to Success (longterm goals of course):
1. Redesign the front-end (it's pretty dated... really dated...)
2. Mobile support
3. More options
4. More variants
5. More mafia (really the #1 priority)

100 diplomacy points - 10$ USD (make it kinda expensive so people only use on desperation)

Special name color - 2$ USD

Special user icon- 2-5$ USD

GOD they can be little icons like the donor icons we have now. And changing the color of text has nothing to do with graphics. I can change the color on my screen using the command prompts.

@Chaqa ,I'm with you that the current variants suck, and I'm with you that at least theoretically there are better ones, though of the ones I've tried, I haven't found any. My point is merely that instead of looking for "more" variants, we should be looking for "better" variants. Having too many makes it hard to get any specific one started unless the user base is a lot bigger than it is now.

I didn't say it's hard, just that I wouldn't like the look of it ;)

On the subject of variants...

I think adding just one (balanced) 1v1 variant would increase the appeal of the site dramatically. 1v1 games make up about 8,000 of the 15,000 games played on vDip, and that's for good reason - they're a great way to practice your skill at good unit movement, positioning, and recognising stalemate lines and important provinces. They're also just as fun (and challenging) played against experts too, so are great for tournaments. Plus - they are really easy to get started!

I'm not talking about the 1v1 recommended by the manual - the best 1v1s are the ones between two powers that start small and have to make calculations about the prospects of picking up open supply centers versus rushing to secure stalemate line provinces versus rushing to your opponent's centers to tie them down. The one I'd recommend is Duo (http://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=22), perfectly symmetrical yet has an incredible amount of strategy involved.

Yall need to add voice chat dip games. I wanna hear mother fuckers lie to me

video calls to see their lying faces too?

Id just get naked.

I don't think importing variants would necessarily be better - save maybe a few 1v1 variants like AvF.

The most pressing issue is mobile development. We need an app. How many new players do you think we'd get I'd we were listed in the app store? (Right next to 'Risk' hopefully)

As for comments on the forum - yes it has changed. Yes dialogue is more civil, but more constrained. But the forum has felt "dead" for years, to me. There are just to few frequent contributors.

As for tournaments, I'll be bringing back one of the staples soon. Just gotta put in the (stupid) application to the mods. Was waiting until after vacation, new job and move to start it up

I've soured on tournaments ever since the Gunboat one excluded a handful of top-100 GR people just because of CDs and NMRs from years ago.

Fuck MinisterOfWar for that.

(If you guys really, really want it. I can bring back the Leagues)

Chaqa, I think I run a decent tourney