Hello rick. Are you knew?

Do you play online on another site? I presume so as you have no games here, but you seem to be knowledgeable about onLine diPlomacy in general?

You don't remember little Ricky Leeds from the neighborhood?

from his site: "I play my Dip on one such site, playdiplomacy.com. I'm an administrator there."

Oooohhh sheeeeeeeeeet

@rick

Integrating web and F2F play is something of interest to me, so I'm intrigued by your idea. I have some questions though:

Do you think the differences between F2F and online play are great enough that they warrant separate periodicals?

In what ways are the current periodicals failing online diplomacy?

I dont see anything web-specific about your site; how will it differentiate itself?

Is "playdiplomacy.com" the site that stole Kestas's code?

Did Jamie ask a rhetorical question just to start a flame war?

Is this rhetorical question game a knew thing around here?

Do you actually think you know shit about the Congo?

Rick is one of the admins on PlayDiplomacy who Jmo and I spoke to when we contacted them about giving credit to Kestas for the code. He and another admin were very agreeable and were instrumental in getting their site owner to put a mention of phpDip on the about page.

I know everyone here is extremely prejudiced against PlayDip, but please don't ignore or discount this webzine because it's run by someone from there.

I like(d) PlayDip; when I started I played both sites equally. However I didn't like the graphical interface for orders rather than the dropdowns here and I found it harder to get a game going.

But the mutli-country messaging system is very nice!

PlayDip isn't actually a bad place, they just like to skirt around copyright law in order to turn "donations" into profit. Whatever, right?

@Jamiet99uk and bo_sox48

Please refrain from trying to start another flame war. As captainmeme mentioned Rick and Dipsy were quite helpful in working out an arrangement to credit Kestas for the original code. Whatever the previous issues with that site were, I am confident that our working relationship with them now is a positive one.

We're also considering a type of a cross site mod program with them, as we have with vDip.

-WebDip Admin

Perhap the first article should discuss an experts opinion on the proper distance between the ready buttons.
It could be followed up by an article about "what is the diffrence between a real threat of bodily harm and someone just being a dick"

Other article suggestions (feel free to add more):
"Nigee: troll, douche, or a little of both? An exclusive interview"
"Cleaning House -- The inside story of what really happened when Zultar took over"
"Curious forum N00b or Multi? How to spot the differences"
"Does Kestas Exist? Shocking new proof will blow your mind"
"Should Italy attack Austria? How long should you wait before rehashing a forum topic"

@rick - how about some diplomacy fiction such as

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?viewthread=1206845#1206845

The bit about stolen code was written before you showed up

And the back pages:
"174 mph sneeze blows Ready button down prematurely. Accidental stab ensued."
"France/German stalemate for 15 years. Wife: He's no longer the man I married!"
"Kestas is a robot. When he goes MIA, he is getting new mp3's installed."
"Cannibal player violates self-imposed DMZ with himself. Chews off hand to prevent future stabbing."

"Hey Russian Gunboat players: Control your opponents with... VOODOO!"

@ jmo: I was not trying to start a flame war. I just asked a question. I couldn't remember the name of the site in question.

Hmm... I seem to be being accused of trolling again. Yet I didn't mention any other site other than the site I am going to use to publish TVG. And, with so many people mentioning other sites looks like you may be trolling yourself :)

OK, seriously, all I'm interested in anyone who wants to write something about Dip - whether online or not, play or not - as I said in my post. If you're interested. then the way to contact me for that is mentioned there.

abgemacht, I'm not suggesting The Diplomatic Pouch or Diplomacy World 'fail' the online hobby; I'm actually the new Online Resources editor for the Pouch. What I can say is that the two flagship zines don't really mention online play very much ... and when they do it's usually about how hard it is to get a good online game with NMRs, surrenders and players/site members more interested in insulting people than playing 'properly'.

What I wanted, though, was to give online players - especially those who wouldn't normally think about zines - a zine which is aimed mainly at them. It won't be completely about online play and I have enough contacts in the wider hobby to ensure that.

As for how far ftf and online are separated, I'm not sure they're very far apart as far as strategy & tactics go. Styles of play, ways to play, etc are different, though. And if I can get input from the wider hobby on things like conventions, ftf tournaments, etc it may get some people interested in that.

Still, we'll see how it goes.

OK, I was mostly curious about your motivation. I will say that I would be excited to read something about Diplomacy online without feeling I've time travelled back to 1995.

I'll think if there's something I want to talk about and let you know.

I agree with abge re: the 1995 comment, but I think the only thing that would really interest me would be to get an insight to the other sites, and the top talent on those site.

I think a periodic update of key events (players, standing, key games/tourney's, interesting forum posts) at the different sites would be the only interest for me personally.

And if the next step was to add some site vs site (aka Olympic-like) functionality, that would increase my interest.

I'd be glad to contribute.

Also, be sure to reach out to DipRepublic; the premiere online Diplomacy resource.

ag7432,
I'm not likely to do something like that with TVG but I would be interested in an article about webDip as a site. I will be trying to get something from the different Dip sites about each site.

As for site-to-site stuff, I have recently created a forum for that. I'm not saying any more than that about it as that WOULD be trolling ;) I did contact the Mods here about it, though, a while back and, if I'm given permission, I'll post details. It's part of the same project as TVG, aimed at making lasting links between online and the wider Dip hobby. It could be a good vehicle for the stuff you mentioned.

@ abgemacht, thanks. Look forward to it.

Will you publish a print version, rick?

I'd love to have a paper hardcopy of a journal that was exclusively about people playing an online version of a board game.

It would amuse me.

Aren't you the Fleet in Paris guy? I thought A Fleet in Paris was supposed to be primarily for online play- is this a rebranding, or something else?

I think the best way to get started probably would be to leverage past posts about strategy on the site. There are obviously a bunch, but I for example know PE had a really good post about Italy strategy. It seems possible that that getting people to update/ edit past posts could be a good way to get a critical mass of articles going.

And thanks, DeathLlama9.

@ abgemacht: I have a DipRepublic account. I joined when Synapse wanted to advertise that forum on the Unmentionable site. I'll post there, but I kinda got the feeling from Synapse's responses on VDip that he wasn't expecting much from the zine...

I give you permission to post the link to the other forum.

I'm intending to publish a pdf version of TVG, yeh, as well as maintaining an article bank.

Yep, I was the A Fleet In Paris guy ;) That one sank. I got ill - cancer - and took a break from Dip. This is a rebranding, if you like. The problem with AFIP was that I wasn't getting enough material and was having to do too much myself. So, this time, I'm casting the net wider, trying to get more material and so not doing as much myself. That's also the reason I'm looking for editors - so they can do some donkey work :)

I will be using archived articles. In fact, I may even run an article from online site archives each issue. It's easy enough for me but I'd certainly appreciate people doing what you suggest, uclabb.

@jamiet

Give me your mailing address and Chase routing # and I'll send you a hard copy.

For whatever my endorsement is worth, i can vouch from my time over at PlayDip that Rick Leeds is totally a solid guy and certainly not the trolling type. He just likes the gaming philosophy of it all and likes to cast a wide net when gathering input. I know i've seen some of the guys here like TruNinja wander over to the PlayDip forum looking for similar player input for study's and such. It's all in good taste.

Rick,I'd be happy to contribute once i get a bit more spare time on my hands.

Villageidiot, thanks :)

No prob, best of luck with the new Dip Zine!

Sent you and email, rick.

Uclabb's comment about past forum posts is solid. Another thing we could leverage is the SoW posts- maybe particularly interesting phases with their commentary would make good articles.

SOW would be great to work in. It's one of the best features of the site.

Ghost wrote a great article on GR for the Pouch way back when. Maybe he'd be willing to update it for TVG when GR2.0 comes out.

I've been thinking about pulling out the SoW posts into a stand alone page for past games, presenting the commentary next to the map each phase. That's not really related to Rick's idea, but something that I think would be good regardless.

Another thing that an online zine could discuss is how site feature affect the meta. For example, on webdip we see who has readied and saved, but I think playdip hides that information. Similarly, we have public draw votes- which I think not every site has.

It's really a shame this forum isn't all that searchable, i'm sure there's an absolute goldmine of information in here.

Hey Rick, you're welcome to post a link to the forum you mentioned.

-WebDip Admin

Hey Rick, I'm finishing up this semester on Wednesday and I'm planning on taking at least next semester off to work. I anticipate having time to write some Diplomacy articles if you're interested. I think this is a wonderful idea and would be happy to contribute.

Unsure what you're looking for in the way of credentials, but I'm ranked #7 all-time on webDip with our semi-official, Elo-based ranking system (called Ghost Rating) and am in the top 50 in all GR subcategories. Additionally, as uclabb has already noted, I've written posts on here that would be a representative sample of the kind of work I can do, and if you'd like to see any of them I'll find them and post them.

Save some mafia time tho PE

Thanks to you all for the great ideas. I'll be happy to take them up when I can. Getting kinda late here so I'll sign-off for now.

I ought to say first that credentials don't really matter :) I plan on running articles from 'New Talent', people who haven't written articles before and may be new players too! They may be good for discussions.

jmo, thanks for the permission.

I'll give a little background. I started the World Diplomacy Forum a couple of weeks ago now... possibly a little longer (I've a number of projects going right now). Basically, it is aimed at drawing together ideas about the Dip hobby from as wide a spectrum as possible.

We've already got some members from other Dip sites as well as members from the non-online Hobby. It's a small forum - and will get smaller when I get around to deleting the flurry of spam posters from the membership!

As I say, I contacted the Mods here (and on other sites) about becoming involved with coordinating cross-site activities. Not getting very far with that yet but that's a small part of what I had in mind.

World Diplomacy Forum isn't meant to be a challenge to any site or any forum. The game site forums are products of those sites, with communities all their own. They can't be transplanted to something like WDF, which has a wider target audience anyway.

The link is: http://wdf.asciiking.com/index.php (If you're wondering, the 'asciiking' part is the host; it's hosted by Chris Babcock, who is responsible for hosting The Diplomatic Pouch and other DP sites.)

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