Obviously I'm all for No.1
Or at least complete the variant support (changing the last non_class pages to class based for exampe in boards/info, or we have some variants with new units). Or redo the Javascript order generation.

Deposits +1. Make the deposit a proportion of the game fee.
Non-anon/anon hybrid +1.
No-NMR as an option (if a user NMRs, give an extra phaselength and after that, pause putting them into CD) +1.

I would also change the status of a 'survived' in a WTA game to 'defeated' so that players have more of an appreciation for WTA status.

What is WTA/PPSC hybrid? I am not familiar.

i really like the private message alert suggestion

@oliver - WTA/PPSC hybrid is more tournament like in the points distribution. If you think Poker (don't know if you play or not), each position gets a percentageof the total pot back so that it is irrelavent of how many SCs you own, it's your position at the end game that determines how much you make. I don't have the list handy, but it was fixed percentages based on the position, and the winner got significantly more than second place such that most draws pay out better to everyone except the potential winner, and eliminated players could still get points back, allowing a player eliminated in 4th place to actually get something. In the case of a tie or a draw, the division would be the sum of the positions tied or drawn divided by the number of players involved. A three way draw would take the top three payouts and divide by three so that four through seven would still get their normal payouts.

PPSC / WTA hybrid: Half the pot split in accordance to WTA, half proportional to SCs

Auto-disbands: it' a minor time saver, if it's hard work then put your effort where there is a bigger reward.

Multi-spotting: I understand that judgement of mods is is tough to turn into code. However, I think that anything you can do to help them weed out cheats (and you need to ask them what that might be) is the most valuable thing. The feeling that you might be playing against a multi is extremely dispiriting.

- auto disbands (!!!) and auto retreats (when only one option exists)

- possibility to choose "non playing days" (weekend for instance) Very good idea. For those that can post regularly except for 1 or maybe 2 days.

- private lists of "friends" and "foes" (If this means a way to block certain players from entering you games then I agree with this.)

- permanent "live game" window. Much easier this way I think.

Point & Click: if you do go for this I recommend a look at how jDip works.

"Deposits +1. Make the deposit a proportion of the game fee.
Non-anon/anon hybrid +1.
No-NMR as an option (if a user NMRs, give an extra phaselength and after that, pause putting them into CD) +1."

This +1.

8) Reputation system: mark down players who abandon games, give credit to those who take on mercy positions (like the old DipKnights league), allow game creators to set a minimum hurdle. I realise that people with low reps could join again under a new name but this would "lose" their history and serve as a reminder to them that such behaviour is frowned upon.

8) TGM beat me to it, so I'l second/third/fourth Official Sitting support.

This could include permanently handing off a game which takes care of those situations where someone can't play anymore and finds someone else to permanently take over for them including reaping the rewards. So no need for a resign button.

8) Tracking of Civil Disorder takeovers and separating them from your normal stats.

8) Global read only chatbox for nopress games so admin messages can be seen.

8) Global chatbox read only flag removed when nopress game ends.

Yep, everything Ald just said.

for live chatbox, are GChat controls possible? That is, Enter posts the message and Shift-Enter inserts a carriage return. That'd really help live games. Definitely the non-refresh would be a huge plus for me in this area too.

"permanent "live game" window. Much easier this way I think. "
Not really sure what this means

I think from the looks of things there are some promised mod tool updates that I've been meaning to do for a long time, but the main thing that many are for but which would be a win-win and no-one would really lose out on does seem to be live chat

"Point & Click: if you do go for this I recommend a look at how jDip works. "
Yup, in fact there has even been an ongoing idea about using a jDip interface for the dynamic map, but the jDip guys have dismissed it and don't seem to like the idea for some reason :-(
But yup if we do it it'll be done well

". However, I think that anything you can do to help them weed out cheats (and you need to ask them what that might be) is the most valuable thing. The feeling that you might be playing against a multi is extremely dispiriting. "
Yup there is an ongoing dialog between the mods and myself, though I haven't been able to keep up with all the stuff that they need hopefully I'll make some headway there.

The main things here are a better reporting system, some stuff which is on the dev forum which I can't remember, but I also want to add in hourly/daily & weekly activity stats to make it easier to recognize patterns in logon times, since this would not only help multi detection but also help people find other players who will be most suitable to join in live games. Rather than attempt to replace what mods do it'd hopefully be just another valuable tool in the toolkit, making decisions faster and easier

The big problem here though, and still unresolved, is that of letting friends play with other friends in a controlled, transparent way; lots of the multi accusations end up being friends who were biased, and there's no real way to accommodate that. I think step 1 towards solving that issue is coming up with some policies for allowing friends to play with friends in a way that they don't have an unfair advantage, but it is a tricky issue

There are also some old requests that need doing like private message notifications, that'll come with further JavaScript improvements, but I can't spend a whole dev cycle on the small things unfortunately or things lose momentum, so hopefully I'll get a mix of some of the old things and some fresh new features also

I'll point this out again, but there is no such thing as an auto-retreat. The player always has the option to disband rather than retreat. The only time auto-retreat applies is for CD nations in variant's where the variant's rules allow for it.

Friends: could we ask/require to people to declare any relationships before play starts. Not doing so, and then being revealed, would be a black mark.

Cheats: do you maintain a register of "accused"? If not, this might help mods spot suspicious activity.

Live chat: why does need to be "in" Webdip? Open your normal IM client in another window. Keep the code clean and focus your efforts on something (e.g. anti-cheating measures) that is not possible with another tool.

Finding players based on time: you could put a box in the new game screen that allows the creator to specify expected hours of play, say "Americas evening", either as free text or perhaps by checkbox/drop-down.

Another suggestion:
8) variable time phases. In the original game the time for diplomacy is much longer than that allowed for retreats/builds, you could do the same here. Time differences would make "5 mins for retreats" unworkable (except in a live game) but for example 24hrs for diplomacy phases and 12hrs for retreats & builds, could shorten a game by up to 30% (84 hrs vs 120hrs for a year).

@Draugnar: you are 100% right but I don't think those calling for it are going to understand.

Given that it does keep being asked for - presumably in the interests of faster game play - could it be accommodated either by a) making it an option in the game creation screen or b) allowing players to specify conditional retreats, which I think used to be done in PBM days.

Option a) is slicker interface wise. Possible tweaks would be a2) allowing players individually to delegate retreats to the computer, a3) giving the computer priorities for retreating units (e.g. to an SC first, to home territory before an enemies, etc

You might do something similar with disband orders: choose for the computer to follow the same rules as with CDs. You might even be able to partially automate builds: armies only in landlocked SCs, fleets in coastal ones.

Personally, I would not choose any of these options but if others are foolish enough to do so them I am happy to take advantage of it.

Last suggestion, at least for now:

72) I spend far too long on Webdip mostly because I have it open in a tab to see when I get a message or one of my games progresses, etc. Then I find myself looking at the forum, replying to some inane point (you know who you are), and so on. But I digress (see what I mean) .... so let's try again:

72) email notiifcation of messages received or changes in game status would allow to me to enter WD only when I need to.

I'm not out of ideas or things to do guys, this thread is about seeing what should be prioritized from the current todo list. A whole bunch of wildly varying "8"s isn't very useful

Sorry to bring up so much, but the multi's one:
The ability to cancel a game after its finished would be a MASSIVE MASSIVE improvement, and save a LOT of time.
It would remove the game from the records, and refund every player their bet.
I know that some of them might have defaulted (and thus been refilled to 100) since the game, but if they've played through a cheated game to be honest I think that little bonus is fair enough

"Also, I forgot, but private message notification on the top bar would be excellent! "

yes, and it has been implemented elsewhere, oliver's site has this done if you can just port the code.

[/suggestionometer]

@fig I'll try and get that and the other big ones done along with other improvements to help against multis and improve things for mods.

Ive thought about it a bit and have got something interesting to work which would help against multis and help with live games and other things as well, which should align well with what people have been putting here, but we'll see how that goes once exams are over in a couple of weeks.

ta diplomat61, and the dev forum is always there to bounce ideas off the wall if you feel like it (just remember there's a huge list so even good ideas sink down)

@orthaic; it's not always that simple unfortunately, without having seen the code Id guess that sleepcap queries the PM list on each page request to see if there's anything unread. It's the obvious and neatest solution, but to do it here would add too much load on the server. To add it here it'll need to alter the in-memory session table to add some flags, and the flags need to be updated when PMs are sent/viewed, which takes some more effort
But yup that has been on the todo list for a while now, hopefully I'll get around to that

*interesting to work on

"Live chat: why does need to be "in" Webdip? Open your normal IM client in another window. Keep the code clean and focus your efforts on something (e.g. anti-cheating measures) that is not possible with another tool."

No. Live chat is a great idea. I've played 86 games on this site, and in not one of them has anyone ever even attempted to communicate with outside tools.

"Option a) is slicker interface wise. Possible tweaks would be a2) allowing players individually to delegate retreats to the computer, a3) giving the computer priorities for retreating units (e.g. to an SC first, to home territory before an enemies, etc"

No. No one in their right mind would use this.

The solution to the retreats problem is to make only retreat and build phases shorter.

"Sorry to bring up so much, but the multi's one:
The ability to cancel a game after its finished would be a MASSIVE MASSIVE improvement, and save a LOT of time.
It would remove the game from the records, and refund every player their bet.
I know that some of them might have defaulted (and thus been refilled to 100) since the game, but if they've played through a cheated game to be honest I think that little bonus is fair enough."

Fig + 20 million. I'm pretty sure I've been asking for this for like a year.

Since we all have the right to create games.I propose that each game creator act as a GM for the game.Instead of needing all 7 players to vote pause only he would have that power.Hard to implement in Anon/Non Chat .But if you create a game you most likely will play it and not go CD.And if a power goes CD early the game can be paused before the unbalancing takes effect and a replacement found.
I think this would work well in most cases as all players would too is request a pause for what ever amount of time and the game creator would have the final say on the matter and be able to restart it when the time alloted for the pause is over.Instead of all 7 players. You would then have games running more smoothly as players in bad postions could not hold up games forever.
I know some will abuse this power but if they do then take away the right to create games.Soon only the trusted will have the right to create games.

@rlumley: "No one in their right mind would use this." which is why I am happy if someone wants to use it.

I do not advocate this as worthy of development, my big vote is for anti-cheat tools, just making some suggestions as to how it could be done if this is what Kestas chooses to work on.

"I've played 86 games on this site, and in not one of them has anyone ever even attempted to communicate with outside tools." If no-one has tried this obvious alternative then there cannot be much of a problem with the current system.