Worldwide decline in Diplomacy game

[VillageIdiot]

C'mon this post is click-bait, right?

Yeah the reality is quite the opposite of the opening premise, this past year and a half has been an absolute renaissance of the Diplomacy hobby as a whole. Online play has substantially increased due to the pandemic, cross pollination across online diplomacy communities has really hit it's stride, FTF and online communities have really started to crossover, and the growth of vFTF has online helped. On top of all that we've seen a surge in social media outlets helping to complement the hobby with numerous podcasts, youtube channels, blogs, and eNewsletters. I've never seen the hobby more buzzing then it is right now. Its possible individual sites may encounter some slight seasonal dips as the energy gets spread around to different events on different platforms but there's definitely no shortage of exciting online Diplomacy these days if you seek it out.

[Flame]

I suppose you'll get much more of it if you or JMO or Kestas instal Vdip and Ru-server variants. Also we need posibility to select the language of interface and language-rooms, where you can create games between the chineese-speaking or russian-speaking players, etc.

I really think it's a bad thing we are to make mirrows instead of making .Net-server more prosperious.

Is there any progress with this task

[jmo1121109]

I suppose you'll get much more of it if you or JMO or Kestas instal Vdip and Ru-server variants. Also we need posibility to select the language of interface and language-rooms, where you can create games between the chineese-speaking or russian-speaking players, etc.

I really think it's a bad thing we are to make mirrows instead of making .Net-server more prosperious.

Is there any progress with this task

On various occasions we entered conversations with Oli over on vDip about shared hosting or any type of bigger collaboration effort, he was never interested. He's basically missing in action and hasn't checked vDip in over a year. We're not interested in stealing his members, so without him being interested it's not something we're likely to engage in.

[Flame]

I suppose you'll get much more of it if you or JMO or Kestas instal Vdip and Ru-server variants. Also we need posibility to select the language of interface and language-rooms, where you can create games between the chineese-speaking or russian-speaking players, etc.

I really think it's a bad thing we are to make mirrows instead of making .Net-server more prosperious.

Is there any progress with this task

On various occasions we entered conversations with Oli over on vDip about shared hosting or any type of bigger collaboration effort, he was never interested. He's basically missing in action and hasn't checked vDip in over a year. We're not interested in stealing his members, so without him being interested it's not something we're likely to engage in.

ok! Please read the following:

1) In the mobile game Conspiracy every game has a special mark Flag of the Language which is used in this game by the players. Also this flag-option is present in new game search filter. It's very easy to implement.

2) Module WHO IS SPECTATING the game also easy to be done.

3) After-game graph with amount of centers occupied by the powers.

4) To be honest webdiplomacy.RU is overcoming the hardest its times. So we are about to stop hosting the site. But so much has been done and we want these data to be transfered somewhere. You are right that Oli is not online for months - so in this case he can not be very reliable (sorry Oli). That's why our community is so willing you to implement smth in interface to make russian-speaking players gameprocess more friendly here,

I understand that you are not willing to do any harm to Oli's site audience. But RU-site has its own variants to offer Webdiplomacy.Net:

Classic - 1898 7 pls.
Classic - 1898 Fog of War 7 pls.
Classic - Antanta vs Triple Alliance 2 pls.
Classic - Cataclysm 7 pls.
Classic - One On One 2 pls.
Punic Wars 4 pls.
Western World 901 9 pls.

Can these be installed on WebDiplomacy.Net?
Also 1 russian-forum-thread on the forum is welcomed.
If you are interesed in some other scripts or data - it can be also moved to webDip.Net.

[Deeply_Dippy]

For what it's worth, I agree.

The hobby is not in decline. The pandemic and associated lockdowns have creataed a space for more people to play and to create.

What is beyond doubt, though, is that the game is changing as a result. Most notably, vF2F has gone from niche to mainstream while "traditional" F2F has understandably declined.

To my mind, the key questions are:

a) Is that change permanent?
b) Will F2F bounce back or will all tournaments/clubs be virtual or hybrid?
c) Will the new players that have joined and contributed to the hobby over the last 18 months stay with us?

What do other folks think?

[gimix]

1) In the mobile game Conspiracy every game has a special mark Flag of the Language which is used in this game by the players. Also this flag-option is present in new game search filter. It's very easy to implement.

I'm not a webDip contributor but I have quite some experience in i18n / l10n projects. I think we have three very different aspects to localizing webDip:

• chat in your language: you can already do that, both the forum and the in-game chat support Unicode so technically Пожалуйста, you can just use it (unless the admins disagree?). I've already seen both private games and forum posts in at least French, Italian, and Dutch on this site

• have the commands/orders in your language, and dates etc formatted according to your local conventions: this should not be so hard to do if 1) someone is willing to make everything gettext-ready and insert the calls to the l10n library of choice; and 2) someone is available to create the catalogs for each language: it is just a lot of work, but not so difficult

• have the names/abbreviations of countries and provinces in your language: if you want to keep a common repository of all the games played, regardless of the language, this may be anywhere from a bit trickier to very complicated, depending on how the code is written; but perhaps it is not really needed after all, not even for languages with a non-Latin script (and btw, apart from the Classic map there are no "official" translations of the names)

I believe all non-native speakers of English would be happy about this project, and we could attract people who is now kept away by the language issue

[gimix]

Ooops, I had a look at the code, and a lot of localization tools are already there! If I understand correctly, though, all is built on the assumption of one language for each server, so that would be the big issue to deal with for a multi-locale install