Oh, I see you've already have. Please hold on.

You can do that on vdiplomacy.net. It's the same thing as webdiplomacy, but upgrades & way more variants. Honestly, I don't know why more people don't switch to vdiplomacy.

lol Why are you here then?

I started out here, there's more people on this server so there are more games, more forum craziness, etc. I love it here too, it's just that vdip has its advantages once (if) you get bored of playing classic after classic after classic. I noticed you're a mod, sorry if my comment offended you. Thanks for all you do.

I'm not offended at all. vDip does great work. My point was that you clearly have reasons for staying, so it's not unreasonable to think others do as well.

Well I mean, people can have two accounts. One for craziness on vdip, one for tradition.

Indeed. And many people here do. For this particular instance, though, it's easy enough to have a mod swap the countries, especially since they've already started.

It's a little off topic, but I believe assigning countries randomly is actually part of the original rules - so it makes sense for the choose your own country "variant" to primarily be on vdip.

True, but it's a nice feature to have, especially for tournaments.

Don't worry elevator, abge isn't a real mod ;)

dontuse: "Well I mean, people can have two accounts."
abge: "Indeed. And many people here do."

Wait a minute....

One on WebDip, one on vDip.
Not 2 here :p

"dontuse: "Well I mean, people can have two accounts."
abge: "Indeed. And many people here do."

Wait a minute...."

ROFL

Lol, oops. I should've clarified.

Agreed, I'm glad the feature exists. It's been great for the SoW.

There has been a suggestion to allow a single person be the game-master for each game (optional game-master) they would not need to be playing in the game (but they could easily be) and would have to set up the game in the first place (perhaps with a points investment) this would help tournament directors and various other people (like your group of friends) but it would need to be explicit that this person has the power to pause/cancel/draw, swap countries etc. And you are joining the game trusting that person to be reasonable (and no abuse the power) - with no plans for complaining to the mods, because this person is your mod for ths game, their vote matters.

I of course have not written any code to facilitate this, so i can't really complain that it hasn't happened...

I thought this was already implemented?

partly... i think mods have to assign the games-masters.

That seems like a decent way to do it, I think. How else would someone know if they're joining a game where one player has special powers?

abgemacht, considering everyone's agreed to a pause AND to swap countries at this point, could you just make me the gamemaster? It makes your life easier at least. If you don't want to do that for fairness reasons, though, I understand.

No because the GM has many more powers than swapping countries. If you're in a rush, you can see if another mod is around. Otherwise, I should be able to help you when I'm at lunch.

hawkeye, I'll take care of the swap shortly.

Alright, that's fine. Thanks again.

2WL, the whole problem is that we don't have the countries to swap yet. We'll have them in a little under an hour most likely, and we're not in a rush, so we should be fine with abge. I'll e-mail the mod e-mail when we have the countries ready.

OK. I have the mod email open all day at work, so I'm around every day basically for the next nine hours, so I'll see it when it comes in.

Here's the placement we'd like:
France, Poland, Egypt, Italy, Ukraine
Dubs Step, hawkeye, HumanWithAnEmailAdress, coeliot, empulsion
vs.
England, Spain, Turkey, Russia, Germany
grking, Brewmachine, Sultan Jones, JoebaltBlue, SUperazn3

You're all set. Took me a few minutes to figure out how to differentiate the England and Egypt variables, since they both start with "E". Let me know if I messed up anywhere.

WTF -- take this BS to the mod email or PM.

Everything's going to be OK, Mapu.

Thanks for finishing this up, 2nd.

Thanks for silencing Mapu for me. That guy gets on my nerves.

@'That seems like a decent way to do it, I think. '

Ok, well i could have a rant about defaults - ppsc vs wta, but the default option is no GM (i hate calling it that because gamemaster.php is not what i'm talking about...) anyway, there would be nothing wrong with creating a webdip community where the default was to have a GM and everyone always knew that (infact i have been active on diplomacy websites where it was the case... ah the past...)

Changing from the current webdip norm would be odd, but i think a simple popup when joining a new game, notifying the player would suffice.

Second it could be restricted to passworded games (i don't know what the ratio of password'd to open games is...) and then you assume that the person who supplied the password told you they were running the game in the first place (a slightly different social contract implied in that case)

Now apart from saving mods time, and giving TDs an easier time, i think it would be a healthy community building exercise - there is far too much bitter mods vs community stuff, and re-balancing the power dynamic - so players take responcibility for the games the join and the games they run - might help.

Assuming it is a time saving device...

@ora

You have some good points and I'm not against giving users more power to control their games. If we could find a good way of making it clear what having a GM meant then it could work fine.

Which is to say, it would have to be implemented in a way which doesn't end up making more work for the mods.

You could make it one of the game options, if you were able to do that. Allow a "gamemaster" to be on or off. Not sure if that's what you were talking about in the first place. Only being on locked games is also a good idea.
Also, yes, it's not the countries I originally intended that coeliot posted, but it'll suffice.

we're not derailing this thread, right?

'this game is being run by [insert_gm_name] please consult him @[insert_gm_email] if there are any issues in this game'

Also: in the game creation options (and i assume most people look at these at least once, but i may be wrong) you could have a detailed description of the powers and responsibilities. and/or separately in the game rules.... but i think it is more down to community norms rather and not being a dick than mod-enforced rules.

@ora

My concern is this:

What happens when nonvetted GMs start abusing their power? Do mods have to fix it? Do we leave it and settle for ruined games? These are things we need to decide. What happens s when a GM doesn't do what he says? People can't just leave like they would IRL because it will impact their record.

No, there is no vetting process, players stop playing with abusive GMs they complain on the forum that so-and-so wouldn't cancel after a CD. The mods do nothing, it's not their jobs, the power is in the hands of the players.

So in the first place you don't join a game unless you trust the GM (or you only join non-GM'd games) the only circumstance where i can imagine a mod should intervene would be a large tournament where many players got screwed over and collectively complained (maybe all the games were paused)

Most GMs will be trustworthy, but you're right, so you don't want customers whinging and at that point telling them it was their choice/mistake rarely helps much. Having a loss on your profile isn't that big a deal (compared to a resign) and doesn't take much energy... I'm not sure though, you CAN complain about bad GMs but you might need to allow commenters to rate their GM so that reputation sticks just as much as a resign on the profile.

That's why it makes so much more sense to only have it in locked games. It means you can do it with people you know/have played with/are trustworthy.

I agree, though, that mods should not have to intervene for a bad GM - it's the players' choice to accept the game, and though it's unfair if they do get a bad GM, the player are the ones who have to accept the consequences.