this and take out the player ID's and avatars so you don't know who you're playing against. Harder to make explicit alliances and adds more strategy to the game.
but don't make it mandatory! have an optional table for that style of play for who wants. I'd play on both...

i agree completely

Well, either way... I if someone is going to make an alliance these Ideas would make it harder, but you and your buddy could still jump on AIM thus defeating the purpose.

This is an awesome idea. Alliances get annoying after awhile. An alternate venue where the chance of explicit alliances is reduced would rock.

play dice wars...

yeah because it's not like the cheaters use msn or skype now is it...doh..

Is this to get rid of alliances of PGAs?

Also, silent alliances, or mutually understood neutralities, are very common in kdice, and a table without a chat window will not change that.

Either way, Alliances are part of the game, as well as the social aspects, and you may as well get used to that; they're not going away.

Great idea. It won't be as fun without the chat but I would love to play a game with no alliances every so often

Having an idea like this tried out would srt out the wolves from the sheep. It would be good to sort out the players from the politicians.

How about no chat and no i.d./avs for the first few rounds!!!

I can see this working. Alliances would be made and broken with in-game actions. To prevent artificial alliances (via msn etc) there would be a number of extra features:

Select ?Play Blind Table? from the table list.

You are added to the ?Blind Table?.

There would actually be a few ?Blind Tables? (3-8). This is to make sure people can?t arrange to end up on the same table by entering the list at the same time.

You don?t see the map till the game begins, so players cant tell if they will be in the same game till the game is already started.

When you enter the table you are automatically seated, there is no map, no other players in seats, only a message saying waiting for more players.

Suddenly the game starts, you are allocated a colour, then the map appears. In place of the players avatars are question marks with no names, points or ranks. There is also no chat panel, and no way to flag.

Nothing but raw human aggression and strategy.

Closed active blind tables would be viewable like a normal table.