when I came back I was psyched to see that convoys actually worked and there were live games,

WE HAVE PHILOSOPHY WEEKLY ALMOST WEEKLY!!!

Well there was no game variants and the forum was less streamlined. Every order involved a refresh of the page. It would take me 20 minutes to put in orders sometimes. It seems much smoother. I really want to get into some large point games.

Ah, well, then it has been awhile.

Pagination was added to the forums so you can go back further than the front page of posts.

Orders are done using some javascript which makes it a lot simpler, and took a lot of load off the server I believe. There is an issue with the World map having too many convoy routes for the javascript to handle quickly.

Support for live games, as low as 5 minutes.

On the game page, the time until phase changes counts down.

I'm sure lots more. Best to just dive in and see what's there. Check out the game creation page to see what options might be there that are new to you.

LOL baumhauer...

(Though it hasn't been very "weekly" the last couple of weeks has it? Well, I can get back to doing that now that this whole trouble with the college has been sorted out...any favorite philosophy topics you'd like to discuss for a coming home party, Zxylon?) :)

Well my classic favorite is the existence of God :). I recently saw Richard Dawkins talk and I am somewhat of a strong atheist. As far as the game is concerned, I cant seem to find higher chip games. Every one seems to be 10 chips. I want to enter into some 100+ point games per person. Maybe they should create a separate game advertisement forum for more expensive games.

well nowadays we call it WEBdiplomacy. lol.

Kestas also added anonymous games, two board variants (Ancient Med and World), phases from 5 minutes to *10 days* (yes a week and a half per phase), and a cancel feature (in case a game gets radically broken by CDs, the remaining players can just cancel and the game never happened on the records).

The best way to get into a high pot game is to look outside of the live games thread and look for a thread advertising high pot or some such. You could also post a thread saying "looking for a high pot game, anyone interested?" and I'm sure you'll get some responses.

Yeh, you've been gone for well over a year then! Out of interest, what was going on on the forums back then.

Pausing/drawing/cancelling - I think those would have been around before you departed?
I think most stuff has been covered though, other than to say have a quick read through http://webdiplomacy.net/rules.php - its the site rules, not how to play diplomacy which I know you know!

Oh, and public press only and gunboat (no-press) options were added.

There aren't that many high pot games just sitting around, because most of them are created intentionally. By that I mean most of them are formed when someone [ie you] creates a forum thread to find opponents.
One thing quite a lot of people like are semi-anon games, where you agree which 7 people will be in the game, and send out a password for it, then play the game itself anon. This allows you to play with the same bunch again and again without unintentionally being influenced by past actions. Whether this makes the game better or worse is a matter of debate.

I keep searching to see if any high stakes games are created and there are very few. I have little interest in short games in which there is no diplomacy. It undermines the whole fun of the game. I was a member before there were even points and when they were assigned I was given a bunch to start with (like 600). I remember there was some homeless guy on the forum who was defending hi life style which was pretty funny. Besides that, I figure Ill just create high stakes games, make the pre-game like 3 days, and wait. I dont know about you guys but I prefer standard rules on the standard map.

btw how does kestas afford to run this site? It is so impressive and there are no ads or fees. Its such a great service.

HE used to get a little from Plura processing in the background, but he recently stopped the Plura service and now runs on donations. There is a link, IIRC, in the rules or FAQ for sending him money via PayPal.