MafiEra Season 11 Review |OT| A long, long, long, long tunnel.

[Sawneeks]

With Season 11 having been our first full Season here on Era and the first Season with the new Team structure we want to cover a couple different things to get everyone's opinions on how we should move forward as a community. Before that I do want to say thank you to all the wonderful Gamerunners for handling their games and providing the playgrounds where we can lie, vote, and kill each other as well as those behind the scenes that helped out as well. Thank you. <3

We have some questions that the Teams wanted to ask but if you have another topic of concern you don't see here please feel free to add it! This is the time where we can discuss how we run things going forward.

1. How do you like the current Season length and structure? Do you prefer longer Seasons (this Season was 9 games total) or do you prefer shorter Seasons (Season 8 and 9 were roughly 5 games each)? Would you like more games to overlap or would you prefer one game at a time?
2. Related to the question above, if you do prefer longer seasons would you rather have "Review Threads" with more frequency, perhaps twice per season, or one after every game? Or would you keep it until the end?
3. How do you feel about allowing Gamerunners to pick the Day/Night Cycle of their game? Do you prefer this or would you rather we have a more 'structured' setting where games run during a certain part of the Season can only be at a X/Y Day/Night Cycle?
4. When considering signing up for a game is flavor important to you or would you play in any game? We ask because we are considering an 'adopt-a-game' structure where Players interested in running a game can run a pre-built game that may or may not have thematic flavor to it.
5. Have you ever wished to design and/or run a game in our community? If so, what stopped you from doing it? Would it have helped if you had someone's guidance through the process, or if you helped someone run their game first to learn the ropes?
6. What was your opinion of Sorian's "Mega-game," Marvel Heroes Mafia? Would you like to see more 40-50 player games in the future? Similarly, what did you think of Sawneek's and Melon's "Costume Game", Power Rangers Mafia? Would you like to see more of that style of game as well?
7. Overall, how do you feel about the leadership transition from Yn/Retro/Hecht/Grizzly to our current teams? Do you think there is something we can improve on or be more aware of? Is there anything we need to clarify or expand upon?

Also a huge, huge thanks again to Fireblend for putting together the Vote Tool as well as RetroMG and Pedro for assisting him! The Tool helped fix a lot of issues we were having early in this Season and it makes running a game much easier. Huge props to them and the Era Tech Team for implementing the Highlight Tag again.

Hope you all had a wonderful Season of mafia <3

Edit: Since this was a long Season the games we had were: Console Wars, Buffy, Buck Bumble, Sneakers, Heroes vs. Villains, Monopoly, Mini Mafia 3, Power Rangers, and Marvel.

 

[Android Sophia]

Power Rangers was amazing. Lets do more of that, please!

 

[Terraforce]

Heroes vs Villains Part 2 (technically Part 5) when???

 

[melonrabbit]

Nobody puts me in a tunnel.

(more useful content coming soon).

 

[Stuart444]

How do you feel about allowing Gamerunners to pick the Day/Night Cycle of their game? Do you prefer this or would you rather we have a more 'structured' setting where games run during a certain part of the Season can only be at a X/Y Day/Night Cycle?

Click to shrink...

Personally, I think letting the Gamerunner choose the cycle is good. Gives things more flexibility depending on the type of game and what type of pace they want to have.

• What was your opinion of Sorian's "Mega-game," Marvel Heroes Mafia? Would you like to see more 40-50 player games in the future? Similarly, what did you think of Sawneek's and Melon's "Costume Game", Power Rangers Mafia? Would you like to see more of that style of game as well?

Click to shrink...

The Marvel game was fun though maybe 50 players was a bit much considering how quiet the game got near the end though we had no real post mins so that probably had something to do with it but then again, 50 players x 10 posts per player, yeesh. That'd be a lot to read through every day.

Still the game fun very fun :D and I really enjoyed it.

Power Rangers was fun as well since it was rather anti-meta where we didn't know who was who. Also led to some interesting Gimmicks (Zack aka Brazil gets a special shout out just for how his gimmick haha <3).

Wouldn't mind seeing a costumed game like that run once a season at least.

 

[Verelios]

The flavor is the best part of playing for the win. I do want to make a game sometime, but I'm not fond of doing any of the more complex details, or micromanagement. So, like, if there was an AI buddy who could do everything on my template and churn out a complete game that would be great.

 

[Stuart444]

Also flavour related, shout out to Faddy for his Monopoly player death flavour with my favourite being this one:

Death Flavour from Monopoly

OFFICE MEMO...

...ONE OF OUR BEST LOVED AGENTS HAS SADLY PASSED AWAY. A VICTIM OF THE MOB. LET US NEVER FORGET DCPAT, HE WAS A VERY GOOD BOY.

REST IN PEACE DOGGO.

YOU WILL BE AVENGED. WE WILL DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER, GO ABOVE AND BEYOND, TO PUT DOWN THE PROLES.

Click to shrink...

 

[Stuart444]

The flavor is the best part of playing for the win. I do want to make a game sometime, but I'm not fond of doing any of the more complex details, or micromanagement. So, like, if there was an AI buddy who could do everything on my template and churn out a complete game that would be great.

Click to shrink...

Gotta admit, that's one thing that makes me second guess trying. Besides my health being... eh. having to do all the smaller details is a lot of work and I'm pretty OCD about some stuff haha.

(though the idea of doing a Digimon Adventure Mafia (or maybe just a general Digimon so I could use characters from Savers and Adventure haha) like I mentioned in Marvel spec chat is tempting haha)

 

[Verelios]

Costume games do interest me because I feel they tone down on a lot of the meta judgements that influence the community. PRs was great in that instance when you never really knew who anyone was.

As for big games, I like them but the roster size limiting post minimums make them easy to revolve around a couple people.

 

[Verelios]

Gotta admit, that's one thing that makes me second guess trying. Besides my health being... eh. having to do all the smaller details is a lot of work and I'm pretty OCD about some stuff haha.

(though the idea of doing a Digimon Adventure Mafia (or maybe just a general Digimon so I could use characters from Savers and Adventure haha) like I mentioned in Marvel spec chat is tempting haha)

Click to shrink...

I would definitely be interested in that, haha. Especially if there were different mechanics based on seasons like group affiliations/items.

 

[empressdonna]

- Gamerunners choosing day/night cycles -

I feel it works out with letting game runners decide this, especially to try to balance with their real life. Not saying having a test run of having some games only run one type of cycle would be bad but it might put some people off? I'm not sure, I guess it would depend.

- Importance of Flavor -

Flavor is important but since I joined sneakers and had not much knowledge about sneakers, I think I'm okay with joining most games though certainly games with flavor that I know of will probably come first.

- Designing a Game -

I spoke about this in the discord, but I have a couple of ideas for games but the things putting me off right now are:

1) Right now, my ideas are based on things I know/enjoy and thus may be on the niche side and for those that want to join games based on flavor, they might be put off since they won't know the series/game etc I want to base them off on

2) I don't know if I'm confident enough to run my own game yet and i don't know if I have the time to. That's why they are ideas for now.

- Feelings on Marvel and Power Rangers -

I enjoyed both games very much so despite dying so soon. Being able to change things up in my playstyle and making people think I was another player completely was really amusing to me in Power Rangers and the excitement from watching Marvel after my death in the spec chat was really something.

I'd like to see more of these games run but maybe only one of these types a season since I think more than that might be too much.

 

[The Bear]

1. The season was too long (Over half a year!), it makes trying to review the earliest games of the season more difficult. Games can overlap, but not all the time. I think the current structure where we have overlapping games at the start of the season, but not elsewhere is fine. There were simply too many games this season, so things got slow.

2. Not sure on this one. I think two review threads was very necessary last season, it might be a good concept to continue using if season lengths keep being extended.

3. Game Runners should be allowed to pick their phase lengths. Some games need longer phases than others. The lengths should (and are) be cut to shorter time when game progresses.

4. In general, I think it's pretty clear that people want to play games with flavor/theming they are interested in. Niche themes don't tend to attain as much interest as popular themes. I think adopt-a-game can be a good idea, but I'm not 100% convinced people go to those games.

5. -

6. I'm not personally too interested in games with lots of RNG built on them (the whole ITA system is basically an RNG roulette machine), and the 50 player count made the game rough to play and spectate during first days. But I do think it was an experiment worth trying, and if there is enough interested for megagames in the future, more power to those people. I just might skip those.

7. I don't think I'm in a position where I should answer to this.

 

[EzekelRAGE]

My feedback will be very limited, since I only played the last game.


3 indifferent

4 flavor is a priority for me, spices up the game a bit.

6 was fun. I was able to work my schedule to where I would be off for like a week so I could really focus on the game (tunneling).

 

[Geno]

Heroes vs Villains Part 2 (technically Part 5) when???

Click to shrink...

I will probably wait on it a bit before running it. Want to get other people get their turn first.

 

[Apollo]

1. No preference.
2. I think it makes more sense at the end of each season.
3. Gamerunner's choice, with the stipulation that anybody signing up knows what the starting schedule is and what it may be changed to.
4. I take into account both the flavor and how it's being pitched (crazy, not crazy, etc).
5. Yes, and I'm sure that any practice or help with the process from experienced runners would help.
6. Both were really great ideas, and I think they worked super well in practice.
7. I haven't stayed super up to date with leadership so this isn't worth much, but things seem cool?

 

[Brazil]

I've enjoyed all of the 7 games I've played this season (Jesus Christ) for different reasons.

Buffy for being straight-up old-school mafia and for how much love the gamerunners had for the theme and flavor.
HvV for Geno's insanity (I promise I'll present you the docs to HxH Mafia one of these days, Geno ._.). The hilarious amount of mechanics added a fun layer of complexity to the puzzle-solving.
Monopoly for the interesting and well-balanced map mechanic, which added to the game just the right amount as to not disturb the overall balance of how Mafia works.
Mini Mafia for its compact size, which felt like a great change of pace (although I fear that the simpler format caused at least some of the activity problems that the game had).
Power Rangers for really breaking up the meta (one role notwithstanding :P) and making interacting even with players I already knew very well a lot more interesting.
And Marvel for being basically the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate of MafiEra. It was a great experience all-around, and most seem to agree given how almost everyone was still active in the spec thread after dying.

So, yeah, I'd really like to see more costume games and huge games in the future, because they add variety to a season. Each of these games felt very different, and I think it'd be cool if we could strive to fit all or at least some of these archetypes into every future season.

I think smaller games (say, up to 20 players) could run concurrently so that we don't have a lot of people waiting on the sidelines for town to finally figure their shit out on D8. I think it's a bad thing if we as a community end up offering only, say, 19 player slots in any given month - someone who comes in to the main thread during that period and learns that they won't be able to play for a few weeks could get disheartened and not come back for a while. Mini setups could help us in those situations.

(1) Overall, though, I'm not particularly worried about season sizes or any of that. I guess it'd be cool if we could wrap up each season with an "event" game like Marvel - not necessarily of that size, but one that felt like a grand finale in some way.

(2) One review thread per season seems fine.

(3) I'm fine with letting each gamerunner decide which is the best D/N cycle for their game. I think it'd be nice if games that are scheduled to run at the same time had different D/N cycles so that players could pick their favorite format.

(4) I wouldn't be as interested in "pre-made" games that gamerunners could adopt as much as I would in games that people worked on because they were passionate about the mechanics or the flavor. Even if I don't even know the brand of the shoes I wear, something like Sneakers Mafia will always be more interesting to me than Mafia Game #10. I'm not against "generic" games if we need them to fill open spots in the schedule (like Mini setups), but I'd always prefer joining one that was tailor-made by the gamerunners.
Edit: Okay, I see Verelios' point about wanting to dive into the flavor as a gamerunner, but not into the balancing and stuff. If setting up games like that would allow more players to act as gamerunners, then I'm all for it.

(7) I have nothing to complain in terms of the leadership. Y'all are doing great <3

Edit: I'm gonna number these even if they're out of order. My bad :P
Edit 2: Done.

 

[Kalor]

1. I'm fine with the longer season. It didn't feel much longer than usual, although maybe that's because I wasn't in the main games. Usually the idea of starting a new season was to get new players in but it seemed like there was a good number of new players in the mid season.

2. Keeping the review threads to the end of the season seems fine. If anything comes up, that can always be discussed in the main thread or Discord if it's important.

3. The main season games should have longer phases, especially since those games can be an introduction for a lot of new players and are usually slightly more normal. In the mid season, it should be up to the game runners.

4. I usually don't care about flavor unless it's something that more directly appeals to me. Though the "pre built" game idea to wrap flavor around would be handy for people who want to run a game but perhaps don't know how to go about it.

6. I only joined in partway but I really liked the larger game. Although the ITAs and lack of any post requirements definitely helped keep up, even if catching up was a nightmare. It shouldn't be an every season thing but it's worth trying again. I really like the idea of playing in a 50 person vanilla game but I imagine a lot of people don't share that idea. Especially since it could be really long.

Power Rangers was a lot of fun and another costume game like that would be neat. Maybe I'd actually change my playstyle this time instead of going about business as usual.

7. The transition seems fine. I've got no complaints.

 

[Faddy]

Tough Questions.

1. I feel like the number of games was fine, scheduling could have been tighter. Particularly around HvV where the was a lot of dead time with players tied up. I think games should try to overlap more. I was surprised how long it took to run Mini Mafia while Monopoly was ongoing. That game should have been aiming to finish around the same as mine so we could go into PR then Marvel.

2. Review happens after every game in some respects anyway. People voice their opinions about the game. And we did have a mini review after Buffy but that was needed for reasons.

3. The current system of the game runner announcing the cycle before sign up is fine (and they should try to stick to it!)

4. I don't really care about flavour but am more likely to sign up for games with flavour I am familiar with. But then I knew nothing about Danganronpa when I signed up for that game, and I ended up going through the games afterward. I think flavour is still very important as it helps differentiate games and makes each game feel unique and memorable rather than blur into one another.

5. I made a game. Hope to have another one.

6. Sorian's game was amazing and a fantastic highlight for the community. I think the timing of playing during the summer is great for this kind of game and if it was an annual thing I think that could work. Power Rangers again was a fun concept and we should try to have costume games in the future probably with a similar size of player base ~20.

7. I don't think there is any need to compare new and old leadership but the current group do a great job. The mix of games this season has been amazing although some people might complain we didn't have enough "traditional" games. But I think as a community we gravitate towards new and different things so maybe they are giving us what we want.

 

[Brazil]

Power Rangers was fun as well since it was rather anti-meta where we didn't know who was who. Also led to some interesting Gimmicks (Zack aka Brazil gets a special shout out just for how his gimmick haha <3).

Click to shrink...

Thanks :D

But yeah, I agree. I loved how some players switched things up for that game. I entered it with some negative preconceptions about the costumes format, but they're all gone now.

 

[Sorian]

Personally, I prefer shorter seasons. I feel like some topics here are from years ago. That said, if we do long seasons, I do think a mid season check in/review thread is probably warranted. I don't actually remember a ton from before HvV and I think there was definitely a feeling of season end after the initial set of games (I even feel like we did one review thread here already, did we?

As someone who has made a few games for the community now, I'd argue for less control over people's games over more, specifically here answering to the gamerunner choosing their own day/night cycle but also in general. For the specific question, the gamerunner is already setting a huge obligation for themselves in running a game. Let them dictate the cycles so that they know they can be available when they are needed. Going down the path of too much structure hurts that and also doesn't allow the gamerunner to adjust when the game dictates it. Marvel being the easy example, I started the game at a quick clip with 48/24 when a lot of our games start with something more in the 72 range. I would have never let that game run with a 72 hour day for obvious reasons and I don't feel a gamerunner should have to make that case for their own game.

In the more general terms of this idea, I saw something a couple times in this season that I really didn't like, it came up specifically during the sign-ups in my game and at least once in HvV and while I did address it in mod chat for my own game at least, I think it's important to bring up to the bigger community as well since a lot of leadership wasn't in mod chat for Marvel since a lot were playing in it. I don't like when the gamerunner (or someone acting on behalf of the gamerunner, Monkey in the case of my sign-ups) reports on a decision with the reasoning of it coming down from on high. I don't know how it went for Geno (the specific I remember from HvV was locking away an ability from the uberscum role because the ability was modkilled) but for me, a decision was made for my game without any input from me, so much to the point that I found out about it at the same time as everyone else when it was posted publicly to the sign up thread. That shouldn't be happening and it was addressed and corrected privately for me at least but I do think the grander topic here is about gamerunner involvement with big decisions on their own game. I'm of the opinion that the gamerunner has final say in most things with leadership being advisory and not the other way around unless the topic specifically has to do with behavior on a grander scope than that one game (like a player exhibiting bad behavior that has happened before in other games).

Oddly enough, as someone who analyzes balance and strategy so much when in a mafia game. I decide what game I want to play in almost totally on the basis of flavor unless someone is bringing something completely new to the table in terms of mechanics.

Yo, Sorian is a top notch dude and that mega game was awesome. You should all keep him on permanent contract.......Anyway, I liked the costume game. I subbed in late so I didn't get the full effect of having to parse a chaotic day 1 with no meta info but I did end up liking it more than I thought I would. Not necessarily my type of game because I couldn't keep people straight (probably because the last time I watched power rangers I was like 5 so the names meant nothing to me) but I would try it again especially with flavor I know and can actually connect with.

One last technical/admin thing I'll bring up that I totally forgot to follow up on with Gorlak . What exactly did you think you saw in terms of the likes counter in my game? So for anyone who didn't catch it, a few people's like counters shot through the roof during night 1 in my game and until I closed that function completely, the scum team was getting more and more like happy. I had to kind of shake Gorlak off the trail because he noticed it which prompted me to turn off the functionality but I guess my point of bringing this up is hey, don't let scum/lover/jail/whatever chats on outer mafia use the like button. As far as I could tell (and from asking Retro and Pedro and I think Coppa might have answered me too), there is no way to allow likes while still hiding that counter from increasing unlike hiding post counts from secret threads. So probably something worth mentioning in the future and maybe even RetroMG updating his "how to create a board" post which I think just leaves that option at the default.

I'll probably think of more stuff later.

 

[Natiko]

1. How do you like the current Season length and structure? Do you prefer longer Seasons (this Season was 9 games total) or do you prefer shorter Seasons (Season 8 and 9 were roughly 5 games each)? Would you like more games to overlap or would you prefer one game at a time?

I feel like this one went on far too long, but I guess it technically doesn't really matter to me. If I had to pick I would say shorter is better. I feel like we should overlap more games when it makes sense to. If there's enough demand was as well meet it.

2. Related to the question above, if you do prefer longer seasons would you rather have "Review Threads" with more frequency, perhaps twice per season, or one after every game? Or would you keep it until the end?

One after every game seems excessive when some of the topics could just be handled within the game thread itself at that point. If we stick to seasons that are long like 11 then I would say frequency of review threads should at least be increased to two per season.

3. How do you feel about allowing Gamerunners to pick the Day/Night Cycle of their game? Do you prefer this or would you rather we have a more 'structured' setting where games run during a certain part of the Season can only be at a X/Y Day/Night Cycle?

I feel like it should be the decision of the game runners.

4. When considering signing up for a game is flavor important to you or would you play in any game? We ask because we are considering an 'adopt-a-game' structure where Players interested in running a game can run a pre-built game that may or may not have thematic flavor to it.

Is this referring to flavor just in day starts/ends? Or just a theme in general? I think flavor and themes are nice to have in general. They're not 100% critical but I'd rather there be short bits of flavor as opposed to nothing at all in most cases. It doesn't have to be elaborate.

5. Have you ever wished to design and/or run a game in our community? If so, what stopped you from doing it? Would it have helped if you had someone's guidance through the process, or if you helped someone run their game first to learn the ropes?

I do think it could be helpful to have some more stuff like this. I'll have a better answer to this after the kick off of the next season probably lol

6. What was your opinion of Sorian's "Mega-game," Marvel Heroes Mafia? Would you like to see more 40-50 player games in the future? Similarly, what did you think of Sawneek's and Melon's "Costume Game", Power Rangers Mafia? Would you like to see more of that style of game as well?

Very fun, I personally hope to see more mega games. I do think it might be wise to trend more in the 40-45 player range as we had a few players that didn't really ever get invested. Also might be good to look at sign up trends and how many people are actively looking to play when deciding when to roll one out. Marvel took a bit to hit 50 sign ups but at the same time we hadn't had a big recruiting push outside of hangouts in quiiiite awhile at that point.

I thought the costume game seemed really fun and the players enjoyed it. Would like to try it myself one day.

7. Overall, how do you feel about the leadership transition from Yn/Retro/Hecht/Grizzly to our current teams? Do you think there is something we can improve on or be more aware of? Is there anything we need to clarify or expand upon?

Y'all suck.


Jk I think everyone is doing a wonderful job and trying their best to meet the needs of the community. I've recently joined the OM mod team though so maybe I'm biased. I will say being on that side of things now I've grown to appreciate all that everyone does that much more seeing it first hand.

Previously I never really knew what went into it or how stringent/strict things were or weren't. Faddy can attest to that some as during Monopoly some discussions popped up and I honestly didn't really know what sort of mentality the 'higher ups' would have about it (it ended up being completely fine).

I guess the thing that was lost to me is while in an environment like this (review thread) when important topics come up as an outsider you usually see the more formal decision being communicated out. After being on the inside though you see it's just the same people you know and joke around with working together to figure out the best path forward and it's rarely an actual authoritative command coming down, despite how it can seem without context.

That may have been all over the place. If it doesn't make sense let's just all blame the hot sun frying my brain while on vacation.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

I will probably wait on it a bit before running it. Want to get other people get their turn first.

Click to shrink...

Let me clear something up. We have enough approved games to take us well into the next year and more in the pipeline that even if all of them don't get finished, we are set for at least eight months. So if you have an idea, don't sit on it. If you don't start for another several months, then go through review, you may be looking at 2020.

If the community continues to grow we may be able to start looking at concurrent games. Concern has always been filling them with people who will participate.

 

[Sorian]

I really like the idea of playing in a 50 person vanilla game but I imagine a lot of people don't share that idea. Especially since it could be really long.

Click to shrink...

 

[Dr. Monkey]

Next season, by the way, is slated to be 7.5 games: six games and a pair of small concept games run concurrently (no other details for now!). It should end in December if all goes as planned. But we wanted to ask about season length so we could plan for after, especially since we have so many games cooking!

 

[Brazil]

Next season, by the way, is slated to be 7.5 games: six games and a pair of small concept games run concurrently (no other details for now!). It should end in December if all goes as planned. But we wanted to ask about season length so we could plan for after, especially since we have so many games cooking!

Click to shrink...

Is my game in there, or would I know that already if that was the case? :P

 

[Sorian]

To be more specific on my season length answer since I was kind of vague.

I think four month seasons are optimal. The feels like enough breathing room and obviously doesn't need to be a hard limit if you planned for however many games and a bunch of them went too long or too short.

 

[The Bear]

One thing is for certain, that the difference between 'main season' and 'mid season' have becomed muddied and basically non-existent.

 

[Faddy]

Next season, by the way, is slated to be 7.5 games: six games and a pair of small concept games run concurrently (no other details for now!). It should end in December if all goes as planned. But we wanted to ask about season length so we could plan for after, especially since we have so many games cooking!

Click to shrink...

Are we kicking off next season with two ~20 persons games running at the same time? We were oversubscribed for Console Wars and Buffy that it required some late changes to Buffy.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

Is my game in there, or would I know that already if that was the case? :P

Click to shrink...

You'd know. We go by date submitted/finished, type, and size (in that order, basically) when choosing. Also slotting certain games in for season opener/ender.

 

[Brazil]

You'd know. We go by date submitted/finished, type, and size (in that order, basically) when choosing. Also slitting certain games in for season opener/ender.

Click to shrink...

That makes sense.


:(

Looking forward to a particular game I know is in there, though :P

 

[Dr. Monkey]

One thing is for certain, that the difference between 'main season' and 'mid season' have becomed muddied and basically non-existent.

Click to shrink...

I don't know that I agree but that may be because it's not been a huge division since I've been here. Maybe it used to be bigger.

Are we kicking off next season with two ~20 persons games running at the same time? We were oversubscribed for Console Wars and Buffy that it required some late changes to Buffy.

Click to shrink...

Yep.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

I have loads to add myself later but for now I'm gonna nap.

 

[Sorian]

I don't know that I agree but that may be because it's not been a huge division since I've been here. Maybe it used to be bigger.


Yep.

Click to shrink...

The idea used to be that the 2-3 games that opened the season were the "main" games with everything else being "mid" season games. Then that evolved to there also being a season closer as well when we started doing the Gafia themed games. I do agree that it muddied the waters a bit with the elongated length. Without that list in the OP, I'd honestly have been unable to tell you what had even kicked off the games on this site.

 

[Natiko]

I do think it should really be evaluated if the community could support a quicker clip of games. I think we have a tendency to undersell the potential for filling games up and we feel the need to create this forced 'breathing room' between them on top of that. I don't have the actual data, but I feel like there were definitely some gaps between games running that were unnecessary and that some of them could have been done concurrently. Maybe that's just the impression I have though. I spent a lot of this season on replacement lists (purposefully) and feel like there were times I was like the twelfth slotted replacement. At that point you probably could just kick another game off midway through the active one.

 

[Faddy]

The idea used to be that the 2-3 games that opened the season were the "main" games with everything else being "mid" season games. Then that evolved to there also being a season closer as well when we started doing the Gafia themed games. I do agree that it muddied the waters a bit with the elongated length. Without that list in the OP, I'd honestly have been unable to tell you what had even kicked off the games on this site.

Click to shrink...

Season 10 was on here as well! Cluedo, Bill and Ted, Beserk.

 

[Geno]

don't know how it went for Geno

Click to shrink...

If it was up to me I would've kept it in for scum. I felt like Scum shouldn't get punished for a modkill of a townie.

 

[Sorian]

If it was up to me I would've kept it in for scum. I felt like Scum shouldn't get punished for a modkill of a townie.

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I figured as much based on your tone when you brought it up but didn't want to assume. I think that's an important point to hash out then.

 

[Faddy]

I do think it should really be evaluated if the community could support a quicker clip of games. I think we have a tendency to undersell the potential for filling games up and we feel the need to create this forced 'breathing room' between them on top of that. I don't have the actual data, but I feel like there were definitely some gaps between games running that were unnecessary and that some of them could have been done concurrently. Maybe that's just the impression I have though. I spent a lot of this season on replacement lists (purposefully) and feel like there were times I was like the twelfth slotted replacement. At that point you probably could just kick another game off midway through the active one.

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I think HvV caused a problem for that. With the revive/absorb mechanic no one could play in another game even though they were dead and out of the game. Monopoly could probably have been filled despite that but I think we should discourage what happened with HvV or if that mechanic is used again it should be a season ender.

 

[Verelios]

Let me clear something up. We have enough approved games to take us well into the next year and more in the pipeline that even if all of them don't get finished, we are set for at least eight months. So if you have an idea, don't sit on it. If you don't start for another several months, then go through review, you may be looking at 2020.

If the community continues to grow we may be able to start looking at concurrent games. Concern has always been filling them with people who will participate.

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Jesus, that's surprising.

 

[Geno]

I think HvV caused a problem for that. With the revive/absorb mechanic no one could play in another game even though they were dead and out of the game. Monopoly could probably have been filled despite that but I think we should discourage what happened with HvV or if that mechanic is used again it should be a season ender.

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Yeah the revival mechanic was a mistake and so was the day skip role, since it messed with Hecht Rythm.

 

[Sorian]

I think HvV caused a problem for that. With the revive/absorb mechanic no one could play in another game even though they were dead and out of the game. Monopoly could probably have been filled despite that but I think we should discourage what happened with HvV or if that mechanic is used again it should be a season ender.

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I definitely wouldn't discourage those type of mechanics (though I did forget about all that, see paragraph under this one about how spec was handled) but yeah, I could see how it would be important to keep those near the end of the season.

As far as spec thread and revive mechanics. I think we kind of talked about this before? But I'm still of the opinion that spec chat should ALL be handled privately. Players shouldn't be told ahead of time there will no spec access since the ruins mechanics of the game and, on the flip side, player's who can't be revived shouldn't be barred from going to spec just because someone else in the game can't. Spec chat shouldn't be brought up outside of spec chat especially from a player who played in the game for those reasons as well. This might not all mesh well with concurrent staggered games and people who are dead dead signing up and being allowed into another game that's starting but that's going to end up being a much rarer case due to priorities and general timing anyway so I wouldn't really fret on that outlier right now.

 

[Sorian]

Yeah the revival mechanic was a mistake and so was the day skip role, since it messed with Hecht Rythm.

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Nah, ther was only on mistak in that gam.

 

[Geno]

Nah, ther was only on mistak in that gam.

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Goddamn it lol. Curse that copy paste on my phone.

 

[Natiko]

I think HvV caused a problem for that. With the revive/absorb mechanic no one could play in another game even though they were dead and out of the game. Monopoly could probably have been filled despite that but I think we should discourage what happened with HvV or if that mechanic is used again it should be a season ender.

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Yeah, I agree there will be exceptions and unique circumstances from time to time. I feel like there were other times not around HVV this season where a game could have kicked off closer to one that was currently running though. I feel like we used to be a lot better about opening up sign ups for a game while others were running if we could support enough players to fill it. Barring a mechanical reason like in HVV or Volcano Island or something I just think we could tighten things up. Could help churn through that backlog of designed games a bit faster too.

 

[Natiko]

Nah, ther was only on mistak in that gam.

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Brutal lol

 

[Pedro]

For the people saying they would love to run a game but would like someone's help through designing and hosting it, I would be glad to help you all! Like monkey said above it might take a long while until you can see a game made by you being run, so please don't be shy and PM me if you have something in mind already.

To what Sorian said about the like counter, OM could maybe not show every person's like counter just like how it is here, but still allow individiual posts to be liked? But that would require a layout change and I have no idea how hard it is to do such a thing.

I do think the grander topic here is about gamerunner involvement with big decisions on their own game. I'm of the opinion that the gamerunner has final say in most things with leadership being advisory and not the other way around unless the topic specifically has to do with behavior on a grander scope than that one game (like a player exhibiting bad behavior that has happened before in other games).

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I think gamerunners should sometimes be overruled, when others in the moderator chat can pinpoint a future problem, or something that wasn't in the approved design, but wrt Marvel Heroes (for everyone else, since Sorian already knows) it was a game that could have from ~40 players to ~55, ~60. The overseers chose to lock it at 50 to have some players as replacements since we knew from looking at past games that some players would ask to sub out but Sorian wasn't included in that discussion and that, on my part at least, I admit was a mistake. It definitely wasn't on purpose, but that doesn't excuse it. Sorry, Sorian :/

The thing with spec chat in HvV was problematic because a player in it ended up spoiling things for a few other players that could go back to the game. That was the first time, I think, we had mechanics that could bring a dead player back to life, and we had an internal discussion right after the game was over on how to execute it if it ever came back and it would be just like you said: completely hide from the players that there's something else going on, handle spec access privately, and send people in when there's no chance of them going back to the game.

 

[Funky Dude Sparks]

The only complaint was the marvel heroes thing was too huge and too obtuse to follow

 

[Sawneeks]

The flavor is the best part of playing for the win. I do want to make a game sometime, but I'm not fond of doing any of the more complex details, or micromanagement. So, like, if there was an AI buddy who could do everything on my template and churn out a complete game that would be great.

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Hmm. This wasn't the original idea of the adopting a game but we could change it into something like:

- Create pre-deisgned games like Mini Mafia but allow people to slap any flavor on it they want
and/or
- Someone can fully design a game on their own but someone else can run it for them (if they would like)

something like that?

Gotta admit, that's one thing that makes me second guess trying. Besides my health being... eh. having to do all the smaller details is a lot of work and I'm pretty OCD about some stuff haha.

(though the idea of doing a Digimon Adventure Mafia (or maybe just a general Digimon so I could use characters from Savers and Adventure haha) like I mentioned in Marvel spec chat is tempting haha)

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I will say we don't just kinda throw you in the deep end and tell you good luck when it comes to running a game. Usually we'll have a few Mods/Overseers in the Mod Chat to help out if anything arises or you won't be available to for Day Start/End.

I know some people also go for co-mods for their games who help them run it and figure out the details. If you know somebody you can ask them or post in the OT if anyone is interested. :>

1) Right now, my ideas are based on things I know/enjoy and thus may be on the niche side and for those that want to join games based on flavor, they might be put off since they won't know the series/game etc I want to base them off on

2) I don't know if I'm confident enough to run my own game yet and i don't know if I have the time to. That's why they are ideas for now.

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For flavor I'd honestly ask in Discord or the OT if anybody would be interest in the theme. Originally I didn't think people would be up for a Power Rangers game until Melon brought it up in the OT one time. You never know!

Unfortunately time is a big commitment to these. Being here for every Day Start/End and being ready for turbos, vote counts, or in thread commands (if you have any) leaves you having to be available at any time. Like I told Stu though that's why we have multiple people in a Mod Chat watching games so it's always covered.

In the more general terms of this idea, I saw something a couple times in this season that I really didn't like, it came up specifically during the sign-ups in my game and at least once in HvV and while I did address it in mod chat for my own game at least, I think it's important to bring up to the bigger community as well since a lot of leadership wasn't in mod chat for Marvel since a lot were playing in it. I don't like when the gamerunner (or someone acting on behalf of the gamerunner, Monkey in the case of my sign-ups) reports on a decision with the reasoning of it coming down from on high. I don't know how it went for Geno (the specific I remember from HvV was locking away an ability from the uberscum role because the ability was modkilled) but for me, a decision was made for my game without any input from me, so much to the point that I found out about it at the same time as everyone else when it was posted publicly to the sign up thread. That shouldn't be happening and it was addressed and corrected privately for me at least but I do think the grander topic here is about gamerunner involvement with big decisions on their own game. I'm of the opinion that the gamerunner has final say in most things with leadership being advisory and not the other way around unless the topic specifically has to do with behavior on a grander scope than that one game (like a player exhibiting bad behavior that has happened before in other games).

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Pedro already answered this but I'll chime in and say that decisions and the like for games should be a collaborative effort and not just made without Gamerunner approval. I wasn't in the Chats for Marvel or HvV when these happened but the goal would be to talk it out and not just make an overriding decision.

Kinda agree with Pedro though that some things may need to be overridden but not without talking about it first and coming to a mutual decision.

4. When considering signing up for a game is flavor important to you or would you play in any game? We ask because we are considering an 'adopt-a-game' structure where Players interested in running a game can run a pre-built game that may or may not have thematic flavor to it.

Is this referring to flavor just in day starts/ends? Or just a theme in general? I think flavor and themes are nice to have in general. They're not 100% critical but I'd rather there be short bits of flavor as opposed to nothing at all in most cases. It doesn't have to be elaborate.

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Probably should have clarified. It's for the overall theme of a game. For example, Mini Mafia 3 didn't have a specific flavor but games like Monopoly, Marvel, and Power Rangers did.

Jk I think everyone is doing a wonderful job and trying their best to meet the needs of the community. I've recently joined the OM mod team though so maybe I'm biased. I will say being on that side of things now I've grown to appreciate all that everyone does that much more seeing it first hand.

Previously I never really knew what went into it or how stringent/strict things were or weren't. Faddy can attest to that some as during Monopoly some discussions popped up and I honestly didn't really know what sort of mentality the 'higher ups' would have about it (it ended up being completely fine).

I guess the thing that was lost to me is while in an environment like this (review thread) when important topics come up as an outsider you usually see the more formal decision being communicated out. After being on the inside though you see it's just the same people you know and joke around with working together to figure out the best path forward and it's rarely an actual authoritative command coming down, despite how it can seem without context.

That may have been all over the place. If it doesn't make sense let's just all blame the hot sun frying my brain while on vacation.

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so shit post more???

this i can do

Let me clear something up. We have enough approved games to take us well into the next year and more in the pipeline that even if all of them don't get finished, we are set for at least eight months. So if you have an idea, don't sit on it. If you don't start for another several months, then go through review, you may be looking at 2020.

If the community continues to grow we may be able to start looking at concurrent games. Concern has always been filling them with people who will participate.

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Next season, by the way, is slated to be 7.5 games: six games and a pair of small concept games run concurrently (no other details for now!). It should end in December if all goes as planned. But we wanted to ask about season length so we could plan for after, especially since we have so many games cooking!

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Was going to bring it up in Scheduling but I'll bring it up here instead:

Do we want to cut that into two Seasons? 4 - 5 games in one and the rest in another group? The current consensus seems to be shorter Seasons and I'd want to follow through on that instead of having another massive one, we'd probably be able to fit in more games too.

 

[Sorian]

We've already had at least one case of one person designing a game and another one running it. It went well and for someone looking to get some practice in on the runnin side of things before committing to their own design, I think it would work well.

I'm also all for cutting that in half.

 

[Verelios]

Hmm. This wasn't the original idea of the adopting a game but we could change it into something like:

- Create pre-deisgned games like Mini Mafia but allow people to slap any flavor on it they want
and/or
- Someone can fully design a game on their own but someone else can run it for them (if they would like)

something like that?

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Yeah, pretty much. I think my earlier explanation was too vague. My thoughts were that I'd love to theorycraft but wouldn't enjoy doing any of the balance/cost effect work that realizes the game. So in a way it's like splitting the work between idea and reality.