I will start by posting my general thoughts and then add to that a seperate posting which will have a list of some of my suggestions. If you think you have seen long postings before, welcome come to the longest (Though in 2 parts.)
I think I should get some type of medal for them...

1st off, congratulations to you and your wife with your baby. Think people kinda forgot to mention this while celebrating Ron's wits :).

I do love the game and that is why I keep coming back.
I don't understand however how gaining points is secondary to the fun of the game. Because it is obvious that for many it is 1 and the same thing. The problem isn't even about people wanting to gain points, it is the cost at which they will do so. This includes the literal buying of points.

This game as an idea, is great and always will be. What Taro Ito's game lacked was depth and strategy and by making it multi-player you added this. The problem is that at times the whole "human versus human" thing, is as frustrating as the predictable bots of the other game.

Face it, for every 2 tables there will be an idiot who mistakes his rolls for true power.
Since you don't get to take out the humans out of the game, why not the points? Because the points are partly why people come back. It has allowed for cliques to be formed around the score, like it or not.

Should there be rooms where points don't matter? Rooms where people of all "skill" level get to play eachother as equals regarding points?
Or should the scoring only count how many times you came 1st, 2nd and so forth.
On to my ideas and yes, this is a very long posting. But might as well post it all at the same time.

So here are my ideas, useful or not.

1. Personally I don't even think the look of the game itself should be changed much. Less is more. But on the other hand, the structure in which the game fits, looks too much like you ended up on a lost page online which has been jammed with ads. No issue with ads, seeing it is an easy way for you to get some income off of this site. But when your "company's" logo doesn't stand out enough, all you see is the advertising and that creates for a unprofessional look. The tabs as they are now, are what you would see in a free Forum.
They work, nothing wrong with them but to enhance a community feeling, you would have to create a more consistent and attractive look. Look at www.JayIsGames.com, he is a good example of how ads combine with an up-to-date and fun functional look. I think he actually writes out competitions to up-date the top banner every so often.

2. Choosing your OWN COLOR fits in with personalizing options but while this works in theory, in practice people might end up at a table where everyone's favourite color is red, then what?

3. How about a fixed amount of FREE tables, with only 3 or so different maps to choose from. If you rather not pay, so be it and you get to enjoy the game but not in all its nuances.
When you do pay you will get access to all the maps, make your own maps, private chats and so on.

4. Which brings us to the perks for those who DO PAY.
They would be given acces to all maps, quite the incentive if you ask me.
They would be able to create their own maps.
They could boot people off their table.
They might want to start a private room. (Those saying it makes PGA easier, partly true seeing those who want to PGA in private will and have been doing so for ages via other means. PLus private rooms would allow for less censored conversations.)
etc...

5. I also believe that seeing people do agree the social side is of such importance, it would help to make THE CHATROOM expandable. You would have an option to have it pop open next to the game, so at the full height of the game.
With Chat expanded, you could have different channels that will hold:
1. REQUESTS/CALL OUTS for players to join a game (so it will fill up faster),
2. GREYED players who are in there just to socialize,
3. and COLORED chat which would obviously be for those playing.
According to what you desire to see, you get to click the options on and off.

6. A main lobby of some sort fits in with the previous idea and would also take away the load that is put in some rooms by people gathering in 1 particular room to discuss latest wins and such.

7. Start an ONLINE STORE. There are enough choices out there that will require you to invest little or no money.
The idea would be to sell shirts/etc... instead of points. What this does is:
1. You create a free advertising campaign that reaches beyond the internet.
2. Imagine someone meeting a fellow dicer this way, would be great.
3. You could incorporate some sort of semi-annual competitions to create a new shirt-design. The prize being, a shirt (How original) and maybe a free membership.
All these things attract interest and offer involvement from the players and will make for an even more dynamic and versatile KDice community.

8. Consider creating games in which all skill-levels are able to play eachother, for points or without. If e.g. you look at www.CasualGames.com, you see that people who get to make or start up tables, have the choice to play for points or not at that table.

9. Up THE MODERATOR level. Even this enhances the quality of a community. Self-policing sounds nice but is utopic. But if and when moderators are installed, hand them a strict set of rules to go by so they form a coherent consistent front against any abuse. Seeing the game is open to all ages, it is partly your responsibility to ensure for an environment that as is as free from porn/racism as is possible. If you do count 1 idiot per 2 tables, 4 moderators will not cut it I am afraid as I am guessing these people have a life to lead besides telling adult to behave like adults.

10. Last but not least, get rid of the stalker-feature please. It should be against your policy as a webmaster to create features which actually facilitate behaviour such as stalking and harassing. Easy fix is to have it show where your friends are, and friends obviously would mean a person who you both added and got added by. No point in getting strangers hook their stalking hands onto another player if they aren't even mutually befriending eachother.

The point of most and with most of these ideas/possible changes is that you and many others want this game to be about more than points. So you have to underline and freshen up those features that allow the community to be build on. Chat isn't sufficient right now, look isn't welcoming enough and so forth.
Great game, a strong and fun community.
I would suggest you utilize the creativity and knowledge of the people who play here to enhance both the game-play as the community aspect.
Ha&ve fun :).

Looks even longer now... Now people who read it all should get a reward too.
Also, private rooms would still be open to moderators... Anyway, now I am done :).
Have fun :).

The structure is good Ryan. The only problem is that you're not fixing the problems that are wrong with the site. I think that you almost tried to do too much too quickly. While the moderators was a good idea, you gave them too much power. It is clear that the community doesn't like Fiero as a moderator, however you have neither defended him publicly nor stripped him of his powers.

Last summer you took strides to clean up the site through cracking down on PGA. Implementing the membership was a good idea, however there should be no points incentive to become a member. This "loophole" that you have refused to fix makes you look petty and money-grubbing. It cannot be difficult to give 0 points for a new membership, and yet there hasn't been a change. Not doing something, which is clearly profiting your own personal wealth while destroying the game you created, is silly in my eyes. As a creator, you have an obligation to fix all of the bugs that come up in your game. If you want a somewhat active role in the community as the leader, you need to act like a leader, and this you haven't done.

Fix the current problems. Let the cheaters find a new loophole to exploit. Once they exploit it, fix that problem as well. Soon there won't be any more bugs to exploit.

I found screenshots that I had taken of kdice last summer. I liked the layout much better before. It seemed more user friendly.

But in summary Ryan, fix the current bugs and don't try to overhaul the whole game. You have a winning strategy. From a business perspective, stop letting the cheaters funnel money into your business. Nuflis, Diceygirl, and I'm sure others have proposed GOOD business strategies to you, and while I cannot pretend to know your thoughts on these matters, I would suggest that you look into them. The future of kdice lies in the opportunities that these players present. Start treating kdice like a real business. And I hope that you at least think about this post seriously.

Another good post, Sarah :) I want my badge or whatever!!!

I have to disagree with you Ryan about the accumulation of points. I feel it goes hand-in-hand with the fun of the game. While I personally would never employ a PGA or the buying of points to inflate my score, I do believe that the competition is one of the main reasons most of us play here. While I'm neither good enough, nor do I have the time to play enough in order to win a month, I do like the idea of making the top 100, or the top 25. It drives me to play more games and to strive for the best result possible within each game. Games ARE meant to be fun, but competition is also an inherent attribute of any good game.

The only immediate suggestions I can offer are as follows:
-Take away the ability to buy points after the first day of the month
-Keep PGAing to a minimum
-Utilize your moderators wisely
-And most importantly, communicate with the community AS OFTEN AND OPENLY AS POSSIBLE.

Nothing is worse than an absentee landlord, so maintaining the lines of communication is key to the continued success of KDice

I think you do a pretty good job with site maintenance and I love the game as much as anyone. A complete overhaul is not needed at all, but a small clean up of the bugs that remain is needed.

Keep up the good work and thanks for maintaining this wonderful site. I will continue to pay my fees to be a member here!

Nice post and great insight Sarah. I'm particularly interested int he welcoming look you're talking about. I'm not a graphic designer so I tend to go with a minimal look. I'm open to any ideas from graphic designers here. Maybe it makes sense to do a competition.

Variant: The problem with reaching out to the community is I have to know who to listen to and who to ignore. This post in particular I'll ignore. Posting criticisms of leadership when I'm asking for constructive things is a quick way to get ignored. Also posting on an account that hasn't played since September makes you look bad.

The catch 22 seems to be: as long as people can see who each other are, they will be able to game the system, BUT making the game completely anonymous would really take away from the experience.

Here's some original and not-so-original thoughts:

Have both blind tables(where you dont know who you are playing against) and non-blind tables (and competitions). Even further, you could also remove the chat box on some tables (either blind or non-blind). These variables would let the social players have their venue, and those purists who hate pga's a place to have a chance at winning without the possibility of being cheated.

You could keep the tables blind until the end of the match, then reveal identities.

Try out more experimental tables with extra features / abilities, such as:
-you could selectively suicide 1 territory a game
-you could bias where you get restacks
-you could quit 1 game a day (0 point loss for 7th place)
-you could vote out a particular player from a game
-you could build bridges or somehow get territories connected without killing the guys between (1 "radio" connect a game?)


These tables wouldn't really be for the main game/contest, but would be a fun diversion at times.

Take away numerical scores? You can still keep the scores on the servers, but only display "ranks" which are broader score ranges. This will help reduce the focus some players have on points, since they won't know how many they have or are winning in the game. Get rid of details and stats - the only people who care about them are "point whores".

I'll focus on some game-play enhancements that I'd be interested in rather then some community type changes.

I would love to have some creative twists on the normal every man for himself style of play(survival mode).

Some other game modes that would seem interesting to me.

1. Team Survival
2. Protect the Leader (one player is the team "leader" if that person loses all their territories, that collective team loses)
3. Some twist on Islands that was mentioned - eg. reinforcement bonuses similar to Risk if you capture an entire island

I'm sure people can come up with others...

Maybe a map building environment for user generated maps that can be suggested to the community and placed into some sort of sandbox/testing area and then promoted to the general area (to avoid allowing maps that make no sense into general game play)

Hope these are useful game play ideas Ryan, let me know if any of these make sense.

And hopefully I don't get labeled as a "point whore" despite often ending up with a decent number of points and a bunch of friends on the site.