"People are stupid" sums it up.

I disagree that quitting an imperfect game is the "default" solution to the problem posed by an imperfect game.

What I mean to imply, is that there is no default solution. Several options avail themselves, some more attractive than others.

One rather splendid alternative is to make the best of things. From one point of view, aren't all games imperfect? Isn't an imperfect match more exciting than a perfectly balanced match, one destined to end in (seven-way) stalemate?

If you are indeed unhappy with a game that others refuse to draw, you do of course have the option to abandon the game. While you might claim that your sense of honor precludes this sort of behavior, I actually feel mere abandonment to be a far better alternative to whining about conditions, bullying people or (even worse) getting sanctimonious about the whole thing.

I apologize for the behavior of whatever lout has led you to make this posting, but really I feel that you have made your own bed, to borrow a metaphor.

Al -- That's fair. To me, at least, signing up for a game is a tacit agreement to play the game until it's finished. I don't sign up to play a Classic game with 5 other people and a vacant country; I sign up to play a full game. Thus, if people are missing, especially from the start, it's not the kind of game I signed up for, and so canceling is the only reasonable reaction.

In this particular case, though, it sounds like Italy was only "making the best of it" because he was in such an advantageous position, and that once he started to lose that position he immediately canceled.

I also take issue with your notion that a perfectly-balanced match is destined to end in a seven-way stalemate. To me, balance means that each country has an approximately-equal chance of winning, and that the determining factor for the end of the game is player skill. There is only one random element to the game (initial country assignment), and that element has only a very small impact on the end-game. A missing player throws that balance entirely out the window, and I feel ruins the game.

I think there are lot's of random elements to games on the web & it's no use waiting for a perfect operating environment before playing, I would cancel or draw in the situation you have described, but I also think one of the "skills" required for Web Diplomacy is the ability to find an advantage in dificult situations

M. Bostwick,

Oh no, I quite agree with you. But if you do really have those convictions, I might recommend forming private games, or perhaps screening more heavily. At the risk of sounding a bit trashy, I tend to rather enjoy what I'll call "street ball."

I am unable to enjoy basketball, for example, without a copious dose of dribbling between the legs, intimidation, "yo-mama" jokes and more than a bit of elbowing. But I live in the inner city. Hopefully this isn't making a bad impression.

I suppose that if you sign up for a public game, you're bound to be faced with your fair share of quitting, trolling, noobishness, experimental playing, CDs, NMR and profanity. If you disagree that "street ball" is appropriate in public games, isn't the best way to combat this, to set a good example?

Some things happen for trivial reasons, I wanted to click on Draw and unfortunately caught the Cancel button. I wouldn't cancel immediately the game to take the points of the players with CD.

I was Russia in that game. I was severely impacted because Turkey had no Austria to stop it, and I put in draw/cancels after the first NMR... I stuck it out expecting either to die or draw, but I stupidly left my cancel vote in, as did the others I guess.

It sucked.

Pity about the points and the time, it went very unhappy.