Ooooh, strike down by the man himself.
WTA all the way.

OMG KESTAS!! HE SPOKE!

kestas, the issue is that PPSC is still the 'default' choice while WTA is under the 'advanced' features section of the new game creation page.

I know we disagree on this, but I continue to think WTA should be your default mode or at least put on even footing with PPSC rather than being relegated to a lower position within the 'create' game page.

Why is that an issue babak? :o

Because less experienced people are going to play it and get used to it. It encourages an alternate mentality to what some (myself included) consider true to the game. Often, this can lead to people joining WTA games and playing them as if they are PPSC, which can have very disastrous results for the other players in the game Then you get live games, like the example here, in which not many people are around to play, and thus you can't afford to pick and choose your games, and you end up playing in a game somebody created without changing settings, which makes the game less enjoyable.

There's my two cents, it's your site and thus entirely up to you how to run it; we all appreciate your work.

@ghug - coul you explain to me why WTA is the truer version? Until points were intruduced each game was played so that you would acheive the best result you could within the game. Now some players might have then been content to not get eliminated whilst another player soloed rather than risk being eliminated whilst helping someone catch up and maybe draw with the leader. Therefore playing to survive is also within the original spirit of the game.

Honestly, I just think the two ways are better suited to different playing levels. Having the PPSC on the opening game page allows new users to get used to a game matched to their abilities. Making WTA the default would cause new game makers to have difficulty in their early WebDiplomacy career. This in turn would cause them not to have a very strong desire to play much longer.

Simply put, if you provide PPSC to new users, you encourage these new users to remain on this site. Because it's an easier way of playing, and it seems more fair to those who don't know any better, it makes things site seem much more appealing.

I don't know if it was the mods' intentions to keep PPSC for this reason, but more likely for the reason that PPSC seems like the fairer gaming option for those who are not here merely for the points.

Anyways...personally, I think WTA is a "truer version," simply because the game was meant to be played as a board game. And in board games, you don't have prizes for second place, you just have one winner. Regardless...you may prefer either one, I think the goal is to play your best no matter what the situation is.

I agree with King Atom; PPSC is good for beginners. I've only been playing a few months, and I know if I was getting 0 after about 3 games or so in a row (which you would expect, being new to the game) I'm not sure I'd have kept it up.

As it was, I enjoyed the intro, now I'm ready to move on to some WTA games, because now that I've played longer I recognize the limitations of the PPSC that I didn't when I started.

The first time I encountered a player who had agreed to let someone else win so he could get "a strong second," I went "Huh? Something is wrong with that." I think in the future I'll only be playing WTA.

Babak, if someone can't take the effort to click a radio button, they're unlikely to succeed at a WTA game anyway ;)

@Kestas: WTA & Anonymous & PUBLIC Msg.- from now on,
if I can, Live games, well, ;-)
Anonymous just eleminates the easy way of meta / multi,
& the trick of sending keywords for player identification; (Ex: doodo u wann be allyes? - then one of the 6 msg. receiver -looks bland, says, oh MY (SECRET) ALLY :!!)
Oh, sorry, last year I deleted tons in my FB, you are welcome back, but forgot family name ;)

Most have not even opened game to see how bad it sucked, anyways :)

@King Atom - do you think that in the olden days when diplomacy was just a board game that people played until there was a winner? Players used to do things like let someone else win in order to survive then as well.

Everytime I hear people complain about PPSC or WTA I'm reminded about a comment one of my friends made at high school when I beat him at chess..."I would have won if Queens weren't allowed to move diagonally"

You know the rules before you enter a game. Either don't play, or play and stop complaing.

when i played the board many times we were drawing or decided first and second place because it was to long
there is no real true game

@Maniac: I'm not complaining about the rules or either form of gameplay...

I do think that people play board games to win...

What else would one do with them?

In the face-to-face world, every tournament tends to have a different scoring system (C-diplo, sum of squares, whipping, etc.). Learning to adapt one's play to maximize one's points in each system is part of the challenge, and part of the fun.

Then newbies get used to such bad play & "forget" they are in a WTA !!!

"You know the rules before you enter a game. Either don't play, or play and stop complaing."

Maniac +1 for common sense

+1 spyman and maniac

I have never understood the PPSC bashing, really, and I am a 30 year player of the original board game. WTA is a little better of a variant probably, but they are both just variants, nothing more. The real board game is neither. Just make sure you know the rules of the particular game you join, and then play by those rules ...

what do you mean by the real board game is not wta?
you got 18 sc's you win
isnt that wta?

The thing is that the board game version doesn't assign Ds to anybody, so if someone wants to say "hey I won and everybody else lost" it's just as valid a comment as someone saying "well I was close, but didn't quite win." For each player even within the same game, some can play with a WTA mentality while others play with a PPSC mentality.

yeah sure
mentally i had sex with cameron diaz many times
not wining=lost
simple

as if playing toying for long years after the game could have been swept away by one player & just to seek some sort of "revenge" is good plying...

What isn't valid about someone thinking "well I was close, but didn't quite win."? If that's the way someone sees it, then they may as well have finished with a strong second since they'd interpret their performance as better than someone who barely survived.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer WTA and it's associated playstyle, but it's not the only way to see the game.

i can accept if you say there are many ways to play the game but "see" you and i see the same board and if someone got 18 sc's and you are second so you lost
its still wta unless you (the 7 players)before the game that a draw is posible
saying yourself "didnt quite win"sounds to me like alucinations.
"my wife is almost preety""my car is not quite a ferrary"

I would say well over half, probably more, of the hundreds of games I have played in person on the board did not lead to a winner, they were drawn for a large variety of reasons after a large and various number of strategies employed.... and with no points at issue, there was not an "all" to take .... and with no "points" involved there were no points to award for the number of centers held either

... nor did anyone keep track or did anyone ever once consider whether or not we were playing WTA, we were just playing the game

I'm positive that WTA is closer to what the game aught to looklike than the possible makeshift PPSC favouritism that can be brewed within it.

@Toas - The 'Take All' in 'Winner Takes All' refer to taking all the points, as there were no points in the original game there were only winners, survivors, losers and those sharing in a draw. All of those still exist in both 'variants' PPSC and WTA - assigning a way of quantifying how winning, drawing, surviving and awarding points make both variants a little different from the original game.

@Dharmaton - I have played in board games where people have displayed all the characteristics of a PPSC game - some players will ignore a nation who is likely to solo just so they can gain one more SC from someone who stabbed them earlier - the introduction of PPSC didn't create the 'makeshift favourisms' you speak of in the same way that people used to gang up on the leader before the WTA scoring system was introduced. I disagree that WTA is closer to the original game, but lets assume it is, the logic of your 'original is better' arguement is that we do away with all points - if that is what you think how would you organise the site so that there are no points? As I understand it points were introduced to prevent people joining hundreds of games and to give players an idea of how good other players were so players of similar abilities could play together.

its a question of view
the game is called "diplomacy" and if someone wins its only because he is a better diplomat(in each game),if you are "second" it means your the winer's political pupet or his greatest enemy.
eatherway you lost ,in a game called strategy or tactic you can be the second

@taos, you're absolutely right in that it's a question of view, but there are some people who view the game in terms of first, second, and third place. We admit that fact simply by having this conversation. Just because you don't see it that way doesn't mean your perspective is imposed on those people.

@Maniac, guess you've a good point...
then let's just have either system PPSC .. or better WTA !? :)

@Dharmaton - I dohave a good point thank-you, but you sem to have missed it altogether :) My point is neither PPSC or WTA are the original game the scoring systems bring added nuances but opting to do away with 1 'variant' is a bit like saying lets do away with world map, meditarrian variant, gunboat variant etc. Each has there place - play the ones you enjoy and leave others to play the ones they enjoy. When I have time I will post an example of a WTA game that has the same characteristics you seem to complain of.

yeah yeah - i know ... oh well *shrugs* ;)