Ah, and here's a link to the Classicist subforum on PlayDip if anyone is interested: http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=118

Hello and welcome to the site!

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're trying to accomplish. We have the Ghost Rating System, which is used to determine the skill of players on the site and we have a number of tournaments already.

Are you trying to just create a group of reliable players? Because that can be determined by simply looking at the number of resigned games in a player's profile.

Could you explain a little clearer how this group of players is different from others and why a distinction needs to be made?

Thanks for the welcome, and I will be glad to explain.

Essentially the Classicists create a standardized process for making high quality games (as in no NMRs/resigns, we don't deal with skill level). Its not as exclusive as an invitational and allows you to play against a fairly wide crop of players, yet you don't get anywhere near the level of drop-outs as in a regular game. Any Classicist can create a game, and only Classicists can join said games. Keeping a centralized list allows a member's credentials to be checked quickly and motivates prospective players to perform well in order to make the cut.

A few more distinctions... Firstly, action may be taken against Classicists who subsequently NMR or resign, and thus it provides motivation to keep up their standard of play. Second, we also emphasize respect and humility (outside of the game, in-game we are more lenient in terms of play styles) to try and promote a better community. As a side note, over at PlayDip we have a method of checking resigns (called surrenders over there) and NMRs as well, but there still has been a lot of interest in the group.

To be clear, this is not meant as an elitist group. The methods for joining would be fully public and un-biased and an entry level membership would require only a few completed games. Enough to show that you can play Diplomacy and can commit to lengthy online play, but not restrictively high.

And last but not least, establishing a Classicist branch on WebDip would allow for interaction between players from PlayDip and WebDip. It would be easy to connect the two by hosting Classicist games available to all Classicist member, regardless of site-affiliation.

If something is still not fully clear, I will gladly explain further.

We've had attempts to create selective groups of reliable players to get live and regular games going, but they tend to fall apart due to inactivity. Your group sounds like it's a lot more organized, however.

This sounds a bit like the club that Damien created, except his was for live games.

Btw thanks for sharing raphtown. I think the principles are admirable, plus some inter-site competition would neat.

what the fuck?
that Classicists coversation sounds a bit too gay for my taste.
I like playing against the greatest players on the site as much as against not that great players.
I just dont play noobs anymore and I can distinguish who is a noob and who isn't.
So I don't need to be part of any elitist group.

@President Eden Yeah, we've been here for a little bit, so I would say there are less chances of falling into inactivity. However, I really would need someone from WebDip to organize things on this end. I can start the ball rolling but if this grows into anything meaningful I doubt you would want 'some PlayDipper' telling you what to do.

@spyman Thanks, I will look into Damien's club. Can I have a link?

@hellalt We are all allowed our own opinions.

If we were to create something on this site, the most pressing issue would be to figure what criterias we would look at for admission. The only stat I see right now that could be used is resign rate (Ghost Rating is for skill, correct?), but I was wondering what exactly counts as a resign? If a player NMRs and is kicked out, does that count? What about a player who simply leaves a game?

Why doesn't everyone from playdip just come here =D

Because they paid money over there and would feel like idiots if they didn't stay.

I don't mean no disrespect, and I'm fairly new to this site and this game anyway, but Abge's remark about just checking the resign rate is so simple and so clear.

Why bother with such an elaborate scheme of organizing people, judging and rewarding them with titles and ranks, if you can simply check their history to see how reliable they are?

Thats what I was thinking about when I started exploring the PlayDip site. And really, just like Geofram remarked, they pay money for using any and all variants, for adjudication after everyone finalizes orders, for special forum parts and whatnot.

So, again no disrespect, raphtown, but on a site that already distinguishes between paying and non-paying members, you introduce a social mechanism that distinguishes between players in your book of cool people and players not in your book of cool people.

I'm sure glad, that I got to know the game of Diplomacy here and not anywhere else.

I don't think raphtown is dividing people into cool and not cool. I think he just trying to find like-minded players. Players who share the same understanding of what this game is about.
Personally I am bit over the whole webdip

(accidentally clicked send)... versus playdiplomacy thing. So what if they pay fees. It's a free world.

... almost free (I just realized the irony on my statement lol).

good grief I made a typo... the irony *of my statement

It just seems so unnecessary and yet so common to western culture to start forming clubs, associations, societies, unions, whathaveyou, just to sort people.

Don't misunderstand me, I am all for reliable, respectful players, games without NMRs and so on. Just, why form an elite circle to promote it? Shouldn't it be pervasive to the entire community? Shouldn't those values be passed on to all players through actually living them?

I believe that if you really want to get the most out of your Diplomacy experience in regards of reliability, respect and fun, you're bound to interact with the community as a whole in the form of the forum. And in doing that, you get into contact with other players personally, slowly building a network of players you know you can trust. You simply find out which players are around the most, which ones make quality gameplay. In my opinion thats just a more organic way for a community to build a base. As opposed to closed circles of stat-based merit.

I must admit if I want a good game I make a password protect game and recruit from the forum - for the most part this works really well.

If I want a pretty reliable game, I do the same thing or make the pot slightly higher. What you'll typically find is that people who are new to the game tend to play other newbies while the pros tend to play the pros. The only time I play in a noob game is if I am introducing a friend to the game for the first time.

Additionally, the League games and various tournaments tend to fend off CD's and NMR's pretty reliably as do playing with others you have played with in the past.

Lastly, this site keeps track of things like CD percentage but also number of games completed. It's rare that you find someone who's played 30 to 40 games to suddenly go into CD or NMR for that matter.

Here at this site, there tends to be an "unofficial" club of sorts among those that recognize each other. I recognize and have played with many people that have over 100 and many others can recognize these familiar faces from the forum itself. People that are on the site pretty regularly show up in a ton of threads and this is a very active forum.

FYI, listening to hellalt is sort of like sleeping on a pile of hammers.

Well, it seems you guys are doing fine without a group such as the Classicists. I may consider setting up some sort of inter-site game, but I don't think it would be worth it to establish a full branch at this time.

It wouldn't be productive to dive into a WebDip vs. PlayDip argument at this point, or to argue if the Classicists are elitist or not, but I will try and respond to the last couple questions/statements posted here.

@mr_brown We don't distinguish between paying and non-paying member, and I believe finalizing is now available to all players. The point of the group is that non-members want to try and make the cut as well, so it does influence the entire community.

@Tru Ninja The higher pot value does seem like a good built-in way to increase the quality of play. The trouble over at PlayDip is that we don't have a consistent way of weeding out unreliable players from games. Perhaps unofficial clubs are more suitable to WebDip.

If there was a game creation option to 'not allow any players to join that have a resign' would we accomplish most of the point without the need to create (and, thus maintain) a group by hand?

raphtown - welcome to our community I hope you have had an enjoyable stay and decide to stick around.

I'm not going to opine on the idea of doing a separate group etc, I'd only say we have a wide diversity of opinion on everything on this site, including the color of the sky - so don't be discouraged by any immediate reactions, you may find more support than you think.

That said, I do think each community builds its own standards to seek out those 'better games' as you say. if this idea works at playdip, it might also work here to produce 'better' games.

what I did want to add though was this - that you seem to have played a few games on this site and I would love to hear your honest impressions and any comparisons you'd be willing to make - not just in game-play since that is dependent on who you get in a game, and your first 5-10 games tend to always have a higher quantity of CDers and NMRers... but if you've followed other games or the threads, if you have any particular thoughts.

also - do you guys have a Ghost Rating equivalent? how does it work do you know?

I would be open to playing a top-players challenge game with some of the top players from playdip if they are inclined.

Again thanks for sharing this idea, and for wanting to improve the game - contributions like this is how our communities can always attempt to improve.

ps. also check out our SoW series - might be worth implementing there as well, its a pretty neat concept.

I think that idea of classicist if great one, and idea to organize the classicist on more than one diplomacy site is even greater idea. We all love this game, players here and on Playdip (and other diplomacy sites) and inter site games would be good for the players and the game itself.

I come from region were diplomacy is game that very few people even know about so only way to enjoy it is over web. Maybe because of that I dont have any competitive feelings between the sites, and all I want to is to play this great game with people who are committed and love the game just like I love it. I played on play dip occasionally (and on vdiplomacy) and I joined the classicist there. What is great about this idea is that classicist game are games with almost no NMR. You dont have to play classicist games all the times if you do not want it, but it sure is good felling to play the game without any NMR (its much harder to play if all 7 wolves fight to the end:)

I'm totally willing to play against PlayDip people and I never resign.

However if you have to pay to go on PlayDip perhaps you guys could come here for the games? Lol.