From what I've heard of FB Dip, there's a much lower standard of play over there. As little as points are worth here, they're worth even less over there. While it is possible for the mods to adjust your point total, I don't think the points should be cross-platform. Just play a few games and you'll get some points quickly enough.

I would vote no. The two sites are unrelated. Different management completely. It's only the same platform cause the patform is opensource and the FB implementers used Kestas' code.

But if it were to be implemented, I would say it would have to be at a "exchange rate" of say 5 FB points to 1 WebDip point.

Yes, there is indeed a low standard of play (though, from what I'm seeing in my games now here.... ;-) ). I wouldnt know about comparing the worth of points, but think it's plausible at least. Good idea for setting up an exchange rate - that makes sense to me. And who's Kestas?

It's really sad, the whole concept of FB dip made so much sense. Linking it to actual profiles of real life people (usually) should have limited the amount of CDs. Somehow the opposite seemed true. Maybe a bigger exposure among newbs does that in any event. And to top it all off, they don't seem to be developing further. The boards and the community are a barren wasteland. Part of why I already decided to stay here!

Must admit, it's kind of frustrating to not be able to play more games here. I realise the risk-reduction necessary, but I've been playing this game for years and years. Although I do admit it was foolish to invest 50 in a ten-day-per-phase game. Who thinks that long!?

Kestas is the original developer of the phpDip code and the site owner here. Facebook used his code.

If you are looking to get some extra games going, check out vdiplomacy.net (also .com) which also uses this same code, but has lots of variants. And by lots I mean LOTS.

MoW, welcome!
As Draug alluded to, points don't mean too much here. You can easily add some high quality games even with the 16 you haw left.

The best way to do that is to create a password protected game and then invite people to join on the forum. It might take a bit of vetting but you can get a great game that way.

There's also another ranked system (other than points) that works more similarly to chess's elo ranking than a betting system. It's called ghost rating but I don't have the link on my phone so either google it or wait for someone else to post the link here.

Good luck and enjoy.

Facebook dip is an independent installation of this site's code, which is open source.

It's completely independently managed, and there is little overlap in the two communities (from what I see).

From a technical perspective, "transferring points" is as easy as having a moderator of each site adjust the points on each profile accordingly.
However, from a community perspective, I don't think it's a good idea at any exchange rate.

Most serious players here don't take points that seriously as ranking system. The alternative system that Yonni is referring is called Ghost Ranking.

See more about it here:
http://tournaments.webdiplomacy.net/theghost-ratingslist

Hey all, thanks for the help - and for the warm welcome!

I hadnt realised that good games here already start at such low increments, I guess that is a big diff with FB dip. Over there, the serious players really toss around their points, largely to ensure that no spoilers enter a game (bear in mind, the forum there is buggy, so rallying there is no good). It took me a while to get enough points to make sure I was playing in grown-up games (usually bets of several hundreds), and I don't feel like going through puberty all over again.

But if I understand you right, it seems I don't have to. If I can get into a few nice games with only 5 , then that sounds great. I'm quite surprised though, are there no high-stakes games for the experts around? Seems strange as the point system itself incentivices that, wouldnt you agree?

And yeah, agreed that points make a bad ranking system. But I assume we have tourneys here? Who's the current WD champion? And when's the next one I can join? :-)

check out tournaments.webdiplomacy.net - many of the tournaments are now defunct but the ghostratings list is what people use to know who the best players are.

Champion? You mean the award given out to whomever has the most fun? I think it's in flux at the moment.

Gunboat (no press) games tend to have higher pots and you can find several 7000 games around. I'd offer to start a game with you now but, unfortunately, I've subjected myself to a massive series of games at the moment and can't take on any more.

However, once you're on the topic of asking old farts about things. I always wondered how vDip came along. Was there a conscious decision to create a site to keep variants out of WebDip or did Oli just create vDip on his own accord and things just sort of fell into place like that?

"Champion? You mean the award given out to whomever has the most fun? I think it's in flux at the moment."

Oh no, that's definitely me with my Around the World Map Gunboat Tournament. ;)

With your 16 , you can still play 3 more games in addition to whatever you're playing now. Is that not enough? Keep in mind, many very good players only play low-pot games, because they don't like players being influenced by points.

I would say this is unlikely to happen for 2 reasons:
1) As has been said, it is a completely different community; the points earned there are not equal to the ones earned here.
2) It could create substantial work for the mods, validating people's accounts and whatnot.

Welcome to the site though, I hope you enjoy it and stick around.

Also, please note that this kind welcome is not indicative of the forum. Don't get fucking used to it.

me and draugnar never managed to gather points here no matter how much or well we play :P

The other problem with this is that moderators on other sites are not going to be thrilled to lose players and would really have no incentive to validate accounts even if we were willing to try and arrange it.

Does FBdip even have mods?

@Yonni, first there was the korean site that had a couple of variants. I believe they were the ones that first added variant support. They tolerated us but weren't too keen on what was really their private site being more public.

So then Gilgatex setup goondip with those maps and started adding more. Goondip was good, but Gilgatex started to not have time for it.

Then Kestas integrated the variant functionality into the main webdip code, but in a more flexible manner. Gilgatex retrofited that into the goondip variants. Kestas brought over a couple but wanted to keep it to just a couple. But then Gilgatex no longer had time to run goondip.

So then Oli/Sleepcap started vdip to keep the other variants going and to add more. He's added a ton of support structure to help others make variants too.

That's the variant history according to Alderian, but I could have some points wrong or at least not quite right.

I'm the champion, actually.

That's a joke, don't get too excited.

http://imgur.com/CyLDD

@Alderian, thanks. Interesting to see how the whole the developed... Add in FB, PlayDip and phpDiplomacy has a pretty interesting history.

Perhaps we look at a "bonus" if a link to an established site like FB is provided - say an edtra 100 to start to encourage players to.come.over here to the dark side. :-)

To me it's more valuable to have connections with players than to have many points. This isn't about "friendship", although that is valuable in its own right. Instead, what I mean is that knowing who is a quality player (intelligent, sportsmanlike, doesn't NMR, etc) and having them willing to play you is worth more than any amount of points.

So I offer two things to you. First, I'll vouch for all the players who posted above me. I believe I have played them all and have found them all to be quality players. Secondly, I'll offer to play a game with you at your preferences (although I can't vouch for my own quality other to say I won't NMR).

I'll join that game. jcb is a decent player too.

@Yonni Thanks for breaking my illusions of warm welcomes being common! I'll savor this welcome as mine and will laugh nefariously as other newbs get frosty welcomes. :-)

As long as I can still get into games, then I'll forget about the FB points. Have always thought they are indicative of persistence more than they are of skill.

But I'd like to get into some more serious games. The link to Tournaments seems to be down. How does that work here? Are there annual tournaments? I saw leagues being posted, how do they work? How much points to enter any of them?
(and related, perhaps this is a topic which would make a good addition to the FAQ?)

@ JCB, Draug: you're on! I'll post another topic opening a game as seems to be the MO here.

Alderian: That's a nice overview, though I can't check your facts on the details. Here are the URL's:
dip.xbsd.kr
goonDiplomacy (goondip.com)
OliDip (olidip.net)
vDiplomacy (vdiplomacy.com or vdiplomacy.net)

The webdip league usually runs twice a year. Each player plays 4 games with 2 weeks between game starts. Although it is hard to keep to that schedule. Each game has the minimum buy-in of 5 so you need 20 total in case you are still in game 1 when game 4 starts. The next one will probably be in the Spring assuming orathaic continues as Tournament Director or someone else steps up.

The Masters runs once a year and is 8 games with 49 players where everyone plays ever other player exactly once. Or something like that. I'm not sure if there is a current Tournament Director that will be starting that up next time or not.

Being a TD is a royal pain in the ass, IMHO, so who knows.

I don't know much about the other tournaments.

TheMinisterOfWar: It looks like I'm the URL guy here.
Here is the tournament website:
http://tournaments.webdiplomacy.net/

That should give you everything you need. I've only done the World Cup, and the next one shouldn't be starting for over a year, so I can't tell you how the tournaments work myself.

And points here are valued more than anything to avoid games with CD's. There are ways around that, of course, like promoting a private game on the forum or checking people's record before joining non-anonymous games.

http://imgur.com/GoXFa

Ha ha. What is that supposed to mean?

IMHO the D system is so arbitrary as to not be significant enough to bother with...

JECE, I created that meme back when redhouse threw his hissy-fit over PE posting links to screen caps of conversation in-game. He repeatedly called the posting of URLs to be metagaming, so, naturally, I made a URL for him. :)

Your comment, "It looks like I'm the URL guy here," reminded me that this ol' meme needed dusting off.