In FtF, you know if a guy is there to put orders in or not, so I don't see this feature as a fundamental change from the original game.

Benefits to the grey mark:
- Say I'm allied to Turkey, and I ask him, during the retreat phase to input some moves that I need, without wich I would radically change my strategy. He says yes. I input my moves, expecting his support. He NMRs, and I suck a big one.

The question to be asked, given that the situation where this matters is that of an NMR, is the next:

What hurts the game more, knowing there's going to be an NMR, or having an NMR without knowing it?

If you know it, you can take advantage of it.
If you don't know it, you can be royally screwed by it.

I think knowing hurts the balance less.

@xapi - it depends on whose perspective you look at it from. if i NMR by accident (known to happen) and you can expect it, then you can take advantage and i get screwed for a simple mistake like real-life taking over for a minute. if you don't know, then it sucks, but at least i don't pay as big a price.

I can see how it would make a difference to some, but I've always assumed that if someone has logged on this season, they'll be making some moves, even if they haven't been speaking. Plus, I always always try and put provisional moves in when I log on for the first time in a turn, just in case. Therefore, this isn't going to change my gameplay.

Well, I understand that, but I tend to prefer favouring the guy who was there to input his moves over the one who didn't.

Sure, things can happen that stop you from getting in time, but that's your responsibility.

@Ms. Bent - But your allies may pay big time for an unexpected NMR that, had they known, they could have adjusted accordingly and possibly reduced the damage caused by the NMR to themsleves AND to you.

@xapi - fair enough. i guess my issue is less about NMR and more about how it affects game-play in other ways.

What do you mean by that?

I don't see any other game-changing thing about this feature except the ability to predict NMRs.

Is there one?

@xapi - reread geofram's argument at the start of the thread.

I think this:

"The simple knowledge that one or more of your opponents has a tentative plan in place, whether it be by themselves or with others, combined with the ability to see which players were online and when means too much transparency in the game. "

Makes no sense.

Everyone has a plan. When a phase starts, I always enter a set of moves, in case everything remains the way it was. Now, I know not everybody actually inputs those orders, but I'm inclined to think that we all have them. The question "if I get no press at all, what would I do?" or even, "if my ally agrees with me, what orders would I input?" always has an answer, wheather you decide to update your orders with that answer or not.

OTOH, deciding your orders when another player is online is indication of nothing. Most negotiations happen between offline times (IE, I log, send message, you log later, answer).

Also, he says "Now we have no choice."

WRONG.

As soon as you enter a phase, hit update with your lovely set of all hold orders. There, you have a grey check mark from the start, that wont change at all until you decide (if you decide) to finalize. All this tells people is how long it took you to log in since the phase started, not a huge bunch of info IMHO.

Knowing hurts the balance less? Thats just stupid. If you maintain the status quo because you think someone is going to move, or because you know you take risks that you would never take otherwise and take full advantage, maybe causing a swing of several centres? What really hurts the balance less? The fact that anyone can even say that boggles my mind.

Why should I have to do that Xapi? Why are you causing me extra work for no reason? There is no justification for it!

Oh, noes, you have to push a button!

Curse me and the burden I have placed upon you!

Geofram complained about the lack of choice, and I gave him the choice.

If he doesn't want to push the update button to erase his problem, he can go complain somewhere else.

The button may not be a huge deal, but why even place a small useless burden? With the shitty wireless I pick up at work it can be a serious burden. Plus, no one thinks they are going to nmr.

Has anyone justified it yet?

It doesn't punish anyone except if you miss a turn completely - in which case, you kinda deserve it! I don't think it changes negotiations for me at all, either, because I always have a ton of different moves in consideration that change according to how negotiations go.

Actually nmrs punish everyone for lowering the quality of games. If a country nmrs under this system everyone is going to pile up on them instantly and the whole game dynamic will change. People will win games at the lower levels just because they log on in time to see who isn't submitting moves. That doesn't sound like diplomacy to me.

So... wait a second, what's the difference between seeing NMRs the turn they happen, or the turn after? Either way, you can move into position to destroy whoever it is. Often I don't see that it's going to make a difference.

I'm going to go with "wait and see." I'm going to agree that a tentative plan does not mean a finalized plan. If you go away for only one phase, that is your fault, you receive your punishment, but if you go CD altogether, you're still going to get captured, and so it's not going to affect the game.

I can see what you guys mean, and I can see that it COULD be a problem, but I think if we use it right, it should remain a new feature rather than an irritation.

A country that nmrs should be eliminated. I've had tons of allies that didn't submit orders and caused me to lose a game because they had enemy countries trample over and gobble them up. That wasn't diplomacy either, if I had known one of my allies was never going to log in again I would have attacked him myself.

Also, Geofram won that game with Austria against me (England) by running over someone (Germany) who disappeared mid game and it allowed him to come back from a loss!

The "strategic" part of the complain I believe I have answered clearly, you can agree to disagree. It doesn't add that much info, and you have a clear, safe and easy way to prevent any info being added.

NMRs always affect gameplay, we all know that.

The question is weather it affects more when you know than when you don't.

I say that if we all know, that levels the playing field. It sucks, of course, but if Turkey NMRs, then Austria and Russia will go for his SC's, and probably not kindly.

Geofram was Russia, his ally was Austria.. can't edit posts!

"That wasn't diplomacy either, if I had known one of my allies was never going to log in again I would have attacked him myself."

That's what I'm talking about.

Geofram, you yourself say that online diplomacy is a different game to Face to Face. It's a different game to PBEM and PBM too, and must be viewed differently to both of them. When deciding on a feature, no precedent is appropriate, because Internet diplomacy of this kind is in it's infancy. As far as I can tell, phpDiplomacy has been pretty close to the first large diplomacy website, if not the first. Let's not think of this in terms of emulating any other version of the game.

You talk about the effect the finalise feature has on the game, and yes it does have one. Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so, after all, internet diplomacy can be a bit lacking when you only have press to deal with- how can you tell the difference between well scripted lying and the truth on the internet. There are features of FtF that tell you more than what people say- their expression, who they speak two etc. This works in the other direction, but why in this direction is it necessarily negative? Players have to take care not to be obvious in speaking to the next ally before a stab. They need to take care not to be obvious in their finalising habits.

Now, you claim we have no choice- that is wrong, you can state at the start of the game "I am going to hit update on the first log-on after an adjudication to turn on the grey tick- it means nothing". You can work around it quite easily. You might be better off trying to use it to your advantage. You can even update "all hold" in this way and remove it.

How about the effect of being unable to enter orders? Well, if you can't log on, we would have known anyway, because we could see that you hadn't logged on. The problem is that you have to notice it just before finalising. What if you can log on, but don't enter orders? Well, again, you only have to hit update once, and you are done.

As for telling people that you have a tentative plan in place- surely everyone has a tentative plan in place all the time? Of course, you can, again, get round this as I described, should you so wish.

Finally, we have to know when people are on line to know whether they can have read and responded to our messages, there is no argument to be made there.

When Dunecat says, "One could argue that this is the most significant issue facing 0.9, so I'm glad it has its own thread." I wonder what his argument could possibly be, given how easily neutered this feature is, I find it remarkable that Centurian declare so unequivocally that "This is undeniably a HUGE change." I dare to deny: at best, it adds a little intrigue to the game, at worst, it is redundant for games unless they include bad players, because a good player would see its lack of value to you and neuter it. This hyperbole reminds me of the introduction of global chat. People thought that whenever you offered an alliance or gave information or anything else, the person you offered it to would say "Ok, if its true, say it in global". Diplomacy is not so delicately fine tuned as that- small changes like this generally have small effects. A feature that ultimately tells you "player x is about to NMR" if you log on before a phase or, "player x has just hit update" doesn't really have the potential to rock the boat.

I personally agree with Xapi, however, that what it does is to limit and focus as much of the damage as possible done by an NMR onto the culprit, unless people decide to "spoil" the feature, as it were. In lower level games, NMRs are generally soon to be CDs where a player hasn't logged on anyway, so you'd know. The effect is in a higher level game, where, as well as helping a player to avoid NMRing, it adds an extra incentive to do so.

So to conclude, I don't think it matters that much either way. I don't think its effect on the dynamic of the game will be large or unavoidable, but it helps players deal with games that have an NMR. My only reservation is this- it harms the chances of the deliberate NMR.

NMRs are a serious problem. So you agree with me. Wouldnt it be better that if someone misses on turn they aren't necessarily immediately gobbled up, thus changing the entire game dynamic?

In diplomacy, a seven player game, "limiting the problem to the culprit" is impossible. There are multifaceted cross board alliances going on. You want to limit the impact of nmrs are much as possible, so the game is left as pure as possible.

Thank you TGM for being elloquent enough to explain what I was trying to say much much better.

Ghost, you use the same old excuse, "its easy to work around."

Why should you have to work around it?

"Helping people avoid nmring" is great. I'm all for keeping the grey checkmarks for yourself, as a tool for yourself. But unless you are advocating for other players to message players to remind them to move, then thats not really at issue, is it?

I actually have yet to see the grey checkmark next to my name, and as such, I do not know exactly how it works. However, I believe I agree with Geofram if the checkmark lets other players know you have changed you orders from all hold but have not yet finalized the new version. It may inform other players of, at least, an indecisiveness in your character or it could alert some to the fact that you may have copied and pasted orders into the chat and then changed them later. . . I don't know.

Centurian, firstly, why not read the whole post and then make the whole response?

More importantly, when there is an NMR, there is damage done to the game. Yes, it affects the whole game, but here, it affects the culprit first, and then everyone else as a side effect. Normally, it affects the culprit and his ally first, and everyone else as a side effect. I personally prefer the former rather than the latter.

I miss turns too, but I wouldn't begrudge loosing because of them, ultimately, the fault has to lie with me.

Finally, with working around it, you should have to work around it because it can be a desirable feature. If you take the active choice to disable it, go ahead, it costs one click and one page load at most. I personally can see the benefit of it, disagree with the idea that it has a significant effect and so think that there is no reason to disable it, but the option is there if you want to.