Fuck off.

In the last year, roughly, I came up with a few ideas, from game features to making the community work better, be able to create more games, and so on.

Whenever I come up with something all I get back it wrong it not good, etc etc ...
I mean there are at least afew ones who oppose. There are a few who agree.

All in all the end result is always the same. NOTHING happens, no new features, no community improvment, and so on. It seems this is the perfect way to make this site die in a few years, and if you guys constantly kill innovators, ideas, and people who are trying to help, than all you achive is a slow motion death.

I really got tired to try to achive anything around here and I can hardly wait my last few games to finish. I don't get why is everyone so freakin' conservative around here, why are people afraid of game features and site features. It's like the current one was soo perfect, because some GOD told you it's the best how it is currently.

Changing is good, though many argue with that, it help you change with the world, with your environment, with challanges. But it seems, here noone is looking for that, and everyone wants to hybernate this site, for like forever. Good luck with that.

Roka - I thought we were having a good discussion about the pros and cons of the current GR and how to improve it. You and I can't change it as it is as unofficial as unofficial can get.

It's not just you. I tried to improve the efficiency of our advertising base of a number of essential parts of the game (such as bad players, love games, and most importantly of your girlfriend's Facebook page) and I got banned for it. That's a serious turnoff to the general public. All I wanted was to serve the community.

Although if you want to discuss solutions to CD players in live games, please, I will debate that for hours knowing that nothing will change.

Roka, I'm irregularly able to forum it up, so do you mind reminding me of some of your recent suggestions, and what the response was?

As to site changes, I assume there are practical difficulties in, say, the programming of it.

And your suggestion it will die in a few years is not upheld by evidence at all. This site continues to grow. Kestas' guidance has generally been exemplary. And this site has a sister site on VDip if you really want to develop new features and try them.out.

@Draug: actually I enjoy the debate, as I enjoyed it about the black listing last time. My problem is, the endresult is always the same. All ideas are killed. You and I and others put in some effort to figure out something, and the community kills it at the end.

I have no problem with arguing, I have problem without no results are achieved.

@both_sox - If you were banned, how are you here now? Or do you mean silenced?

They banned me for like 2 hours >_>

@ckroberts: it's not about MY ideas, they can be bad, I'm not saying they are good. But I'm on this site actively for more then a year, like daily, I've read many many ideas in the Forum, yet the site has improved nothing. That's my problem. All ideas are killed and people get demotivated to be part of the community and add their contribution to it, to improve.

I think the issue stems from a misunderstanding on your part. You keep referring to "them" as if there is some group of officials who strike down these ideas. That simply isn't the case. The mods and admins on this site have almost nothing to do with technical improvements to the site. That is handled almost exclusively by kestas, who doesn't really actively develop any more.

If you have an idea, you need to *implement it* in your own version of the open source code and show it working. That's really the only way something will get done.

@abge: I haven't mentioned mods with a single word. And I actually didn't meant mods with a single thought.

I've been conducting a brief poll of the general public and discovered that most people who have heard of Diplomacy think it's a damned awful game. I propose that in order to boost the site's popularity we phase out the diplomacy playing aspect entirely and replace it with pictures of cats doing something humans do, and add a link to Angry Birds.

It's just you.

good to know, I hope ohers will have better luck then.

On this free site staffed by volunteer moderators, I expect that from time to time there are notations made of good ideas that arise through forum. There may (or may not) even be a "to do" list of various features to incorporate if the developers ever have the time and inclination. In the meantime, I don't see any mods/devs quashing the discussion of ideas or improvements in Forum threads. I think it is unrealistic to expect that the site will implement new ideas simply because they are good ideas, even brilliant ones.

I also disagree that the site does not implement new ideas. I don't recall the exact timing, but say over the last year or two, we've seen the addition of +1s, mute thread and mute player, and donator icons.

""it's not about MY ideas, they can be bad, I'm not saying they are good. But I'm on this site actively for more then a year, like daily, I've read many many ideas in the Forum, yet the site has improved nothing. That's my problem. All ideas are killed and people get demotivated to be part of the community and add their contribution to it, to improve. """

Roka, ok, I think I understand where you are coming from. But can you give me an idea of the kind innovations you'd like to see? I know the recent discussion about changing the way ghostranking is calculated; what else?

I've seen good website change their layout, and the gains are not always good. Salon used to the best looking politics/opinion site that I regularly visited, and now it is ugly and often broken. Reason.com changed the way their comments are handled a few years ago, and it has hurt the quality of discussion (although that's among several other problems).

Maybe, to put it another way, is something broken that you want to fix?

Ideas:

blacklist, so people I blacklist can't join games I created.
-
auto-disband (if in retreat phase there's no ther choice but to disband all your unit which you can order, they get disbanded)
-
auto-disband when no SC is left, so you are defeated.
-
auto-retreat (optional switch) to retreat the unit when there's only 1 place to go to, and you know you don't want to disband. You could turn on the switch in the phase, so others don't wait for you.
-
automatic unpause after 10 times the phase length, so games don't stuck in, mods don't have to take care about that one
-
voting for number of phases when you pause, so unpause happens automatically
-
3-4 minutes live games to be able to be chosen, not just 5 mins.
-
half long build and retreats phase in live games, because those need far less time to think over
-
no-show option whether you've entered orders or not, so other, who are online at phase turn don't see you will NMR and they won't change orders last second, while other won't, because they are not online.
-
graphical representation of your orders, reducing number of misorders
-
waring if there's an inonsistency among orders (eg you support move a unit which is actually not moving), so misorder would be reduced
-
reparing the bug at grabbing the 18th SC in autumn, because no retreats happen after, so you win, even though a dislodged unit is able to retreat to one of your SCs, making you have a count of 17 only. But now, it's enough if you get it before retreats
-
having game master, who can pause/unpause a game, even though it's no-messaging.


shall I continue???

"Changing is good, though many argue with that, it help you change with the world, with your environment, with challanges..."

wtf....uhhh...Who says "changing is good"? No...GOOD change is good. Change for sake of change, or change because *in your opinion* the change is good is not necessarily good.

As for the site dying...Haaa ha ha ha! Yeah...all of us here that have no problem with functionality as is, who have been playing - some for years - woudl wholeheartedly disagree with your doom and gloom that the site is just about dead.

It's a FREE TO PLAY SITE. Instead of bitching, be thankful. Instead of complaining, develop some code...instead of demanding that others work on your behalf for freeeeeeeeee.... (Beating myself with a stick, actively focusing on not making political comments...must...must lea...must leave now....have strength....have strength!!)

All of you with brilliant ideas....please search the threads for the discussions that have *already* taken place regarding your *unoriginal* ideas.

Then feel free to develop code...for freeeeeeee

krellin: ideas are turned down way before they would get to implementation phase. It's not the matter of lack of developers, it's the matter of they are trashed by player A, or player B or player Z.

And I don't have problems with functionality either, I have problem with the lack of new functions.

About dying, I said it's the way to die, not actually dying. I'm curious where this site will be in 5 years, if no development happens and other site, like vdip continue developing constantly. I'm not speaking about present, I'm speaking about future, which I don't see if evertying is killed before it actually borned.

krellin: you don't get it still. I'm not saying these are new ideas (surely not all of it) I'm saying whenever I start a thread, some asshole shows up and starts trashing it, and all he achives I lost all my motivation because some jerk enjoys to trash any idea he reads.

why the holy fuck would I implement any of these, when everything I get in exchange is trashing?

roka -- if yo *discuss* ideas in these forumns, do you *seriuosly* expect the whole crowd to jump up and down and slap you on the back for your brilliance and get right to work on it? DEVELOP THE CODE...again, bottom line is you want someone ELSE to take their FREE time and implement YOUR ideas - correct? That, my friend, is bullshit and arrogant.

and you do realize that vdip is affiliated, right? i.e. functionality from there can migrate here, is my understanding. This site has been here a while, and I dont' think it will go away just because there are no new functions. Most of us bs in the forumns - enjoy the NEW mute function from the last year (WHAT? NEW???) we play games and have no problem with orders being executed properly....which is the PRIMARY function of the site. It works perfect. You want bells and whistles....WHY? Why do we need "new functions".

As an old school board-gamer, I think the site is pretty much perfect as is...because I'm used to static environments. I have no need for "new functions" and those that do go pay-to-play elsewhere...and they find boring communities, censored discussions, etc...

Here we have intellectual freedom and a game that functions perfectly.

No new functions needed.

Hurrah and All Power be to Kestas! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!!!

I once heard that Kestas slayed a thousand minions with a mighty breath....quite a site to behold....

Hurrah and All Power be to Kestas! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!!!

"No new functions needed." - that's exactly the attitude I'm talking about.

I don't understand why it would hurt you if there were a few new function, but clearly it would hurt. You say me to go and implement, but you also say you don't need it. That's what I'm talking about, why the fuck would I do it then?

I'm sure you've said the same sentence before mute feature, and now you say you enjoy it. It's ridiculos you enjoy what you actually don't need. Maybe you would think about you might be a benefitor of things you can't judge currently, how good they were for you.

Yeah, it's much more easier to say you don't need, because otherwise it might turn out you were wrong. Nah, that would hurt I'm sure. Maybe we just found where this conservativism comes from. Thanks for understanding what you guys are afraid from.

so, actually it seems it's not just me: threadID=927900

One thing that should be pointed out: My understanding is that vdip is considered a "testing site", whereas this site is supposed to be streamlined with features that work and have clear purpose. For example. I know kestas was very wary of putting the world game and ancient med game on the site at all, and has held off on putting the other variants on vdip on the site not because it would be hard code-wise, as it wouldn't, but because he doesn't want the site to get too fragmented and wants to make sure that all maps on the site have the distinctive feel of diplomacy where all powers are approximately equal in power and yet have different flavors.

I hope you didn't think I was being dismissive in the other thread. I simply was trying to communicate a point I had, and, once we realized that we disagreed on a core philosophical (not objectively right or wrong) level, I figured there wasn't much else to say.

@ rokakoma - three points:

1. This site has developed considerably in the three years since I joined. Changes I've witnessed include:

- The mute function
- The Ancient Med map
- The World map (although I don't particularly like it)
- Considerable improvements to the help section.
- Various improvements to the functionality of the forum.

2. Are you aware that there's a seperate developer forum, and have you raised your proposals on that forum? Because that's the place to talk about a lot of this stuff.

3. Have you actually approached Kestas about your ideas? He's the guy that would have to implement them, after all.