Why not organize a tournament to eliminate once a month?

All players may enter. Access to the table is random.
Skip the turn only winner at the table and qualification for the next round table (if necessary recovered are the best second). This discourages pga because only the winner qualifies next turn.

The first 3 classified the final table win a trophy (for example, a cup).

To make it more difficult alliances should not see other players with which you are playing.

I believe that in this way were rewarded skills and luck of the players.

Sorry for my bad English

Fede

How about a Scrabulous version of kdice? Although I have not played Scrabulous, I know its membership is HUGE, with millions of players. Why?

1) Simple interface. If people wanted high-definition graphics, they would get a Playstation 3 or X-Box 360. The popularity of k-dice is its simple graphic interface, which allows gameplay to be smooth.

2) Flexibility. Maybe players do know want to start off with all their pieces random. I suggest that a majority of their pieces are together, but maybe at the center of the map, the pieces are random (think Hungry Hungry Hippos. BTW, if you want to win at Hungry Hungry Hippos, leave your hippo's mouth open, while all the other players are attacking, so that all the marbles come into your mouth!) That was a fun game. Sigh.

How about a gpokr-kdice hybrid game? For example, if you have two-pair, you can attack twice from the same land, if you lose.

I mean... you have the code for both games, and you have people who play just kdice, and people who play just gpokr, but if you can bridge those players together by creating a hybrid game, it may just work.

i think im a point whore due to my competitive nature.

perhaps if there was no monthly* competition, things might get a bit better. the presence of the monthly competition leads to bitter cheating for gold pngs (perhaps).

so instead... hmmm... maybe go back to something similar to premarch, where you maintain your score (something like elo). or change the high tables from zero-sum to negative-sum (in effect mirroring elo's ability to stop runaway cheating). negative-sum would be very interesting. also include some system of automatically deducting points for not playing (-x after a week of inactivity, -2x after a 2 weeks, etc...).

sorry, i guess these ideas arent so much for the new players to have more fun so much as to limit the point whores from having so many points.

btw, i love the idea of a competition to design the frontpage/background/whatever. this site does seem a bit... sophomoric? is that the word?

Hi there,

I took an extended break and came back towards the end of June. Perhaps hindsight is rose-colored, but the culture is a lot less pleasant. Lots of angry, bitter, nasty people playing the game these days.

The current point system, in particular dominance and the flagging system, seem to encourage particular types of nastiness. But then, my gripes about dominance are ancient so I won't beat on that drum any longer.

The core game is great: simple, easily understood, subtle in the deeper strategy, quick enough for a short game, scored long-term for a longer term goal. It's lag-tolerant and polished. The social dynamic works well because 6 out of 7 people have nothing to do at any given moment.

Having different features for different tables might make things more interesting and solve some of the issues with the current approach. Some suggestions:

- Winner takes all. Flagging for 2nd? I think not.
- No dominance; finish position only.
- All dominance: flash and burn!
- Symmetric table where everyone starts with the same position. Luck will still affect the game quickly, but at least it won't be round 1. :)
- Table starts entirely with 8 stacks.
- Table starts entirely with 2 stacks.
- Players are anonymous with no chatting until round 5. That'll slow down some of the PGA's.
- Players pick a point level and are assigned to a table randomly. Also good at disrupting PGAs.
- No rolling: x dice vs y dice always wins when x > y.

No one of these is something I'd want to see implemented everywhere, but having the choice among them would be pretty cool. Many of these would be easy to implement and make for an interesting game without dramatically altering the base kdice idea.

As far as point whoring goes, dude, you're taking money for points. ;) I fully respect encourage you to make a buck, but be careful using the term whore when you're wearing a big floppy purple hat. :)

[[ Cyber ]]

Ryan, I'm sorry if my previous post as Variant was somewhat offending to you. I only posted on the account because I was at work and I don't have this account password memorized anymore. So if I have lost "credibility" for posting on an alt, my mistake. I've tried to be constructive with you in the past, so go ahead and ignore me now. As you know, I have sent you emails, which you have chosen to ignore. I didn't mean to criticize the leadership of your game, in fact, it was meant to be praise of how you have handled things in the past.

I thought I knew what I was talking about, but I guess not. I was trying to do something that might benefit someone else for a change instead of the "cabal", but clearly you still associate me with that. Sure I cheated, maybe one of the most, but in the few games I play these days, I am in staunch opposition of PGA. Not that you give a shit.

Your structure is good. No need to change it. Just fix the bugs that haven't gotten fixed yet.

Some of the suggestions are about adding variance. While I think this can be fun I don't think it's completely necessary. I like to think of the game like chess and the fact this game can be hugely popular with a single way to play. There are some alternative versions of chess but a second form of chess isn't really going to make it mainstream. Same with poker, although there are lots of ways to play it is holdem that is the mainstream game.

So, I don't mind adding variance and things but I wonder if KDice has it's mainstream version set in stone yet.

Ok. So now I'll post three of my ideas which I think I've mentioned before. They're in order of most likely to be done first:

1) Random flash version. This version will be like dicewars, a flash app that can be hosted on any website. The difference from dicewars is that you'll play against other people. The difference from Kdice is that it doesn't keep profiles, names, or scores. So you just see colors like kdice. No table lists or levels, just a play button that puts you into the next table starting. I'm undecided if chat will be added. The strategy here is to make it easier to get started and have a wider distribution. Of course the flash app will mention kdice.com to offer these players a richer experience.

2) Multi-table tournaments. I'll do GPokr and Kdice at the same time. Once or twice a day at scheduled times. You sign up to play a tournament and get forwarded to your table when it starts. You start with X points and when you reach 0 points you're out - this could be either 1 game or many. Every 5 minutes the game level goes up (0 to 100 to 500 to 2500 to 10000) so if you only have 500 points and you're starting a 2500 table you better win. This technique shortens the tournament length. Winner of the tournament will have his score added to his month score. I think tournaments will add a nice break to grinding out points with lots of games. The winner of a tournament could gain 50,000 points (given 100 players and a buy in of 500 points each).

3) Teams. This isn't what you think. My original goal with these games was to have cross game teams and a central site that would rank the teams (like the olympics with countries and medals). Teams would have a team flag that would show up with them at the table. I would probably have limits for #of team players at a table. I believe identifying team players at the table makes it ok to have two or three at the same table.

I think that tournaments would be cool.

I love this game but I agree Ryan the current level of play and discourse among the players that play for points is rather disgusting. I think the main problem is that it is just too easy to gain points especially when you have people playing together with each other.

You always have some problems as long as the game remains social, but those can be diminished if it is harder to reward friends.

I don't know if there is a magic bullet, return to elo, more (-) sum games something should be done.

Ryan get a brain,
the point whores put points in your pocket, and are generally the most responsive. It's sad that you didn't see the need to be responsive concerning the future of the game until someone took advantage of the system. Maybe in the future, since you apparently have so many rules that are unknown to the community, you should lay them out. Seems like you are pretty creative, you always seem to have a new name to call someone, i.e. "point whores, etc." Why ask for suggestions?

The truth of the matter is that this whole game has become an experience more stressful than fun. This is not entirely the fault of the so called ?groups?that ?run? Kdice either. In fact they are only the result of the bigger picture. That being the fact that people when competition that solely relies on time spent, and the ?who you know? factor is the determiner of who wins. Now this is also normal for any strategy game that takes place within the bigger reality of the player verses player environment.

What happens is people learn to work together on multiple levels not to play with said ?allies?, but to benefit them in the long run. This then leads to PGA, friends helping friends, and to be blunt general dick sucking. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing considering this is in fact a ?war? game, but then there also little growth for the game when anyone that comes to the higher tables has to deal with the people that have situated up there. Otherwise these newer people have to deal with existing groups of ?friends?.

From there you have newer people never getting their chance to take a top position from an already higher ranked person, who has established allies. This then brings in the cockiness factor of the player who can easily win each month, which is proven by the fact that the top 100 and even more prevalent the top 25 never has a great change. From there you have people being given 1st ect which is simply pathetic.

Now as many people have said this before I will not bother to make a great deal of charisma go behind what needs to be done, but I will try to help guide this game to some kind of balance. The truth is this game needs something else, if not many more things for the players to keep their minds off of the points. Now I am not going to say that the point system should be removed, because that would crumble the games infrastructure. What needs to be done instead is as I have said before I balancer. Now this can be done in one of many ways, or it can be done in several at once. Truly though it is going to take a lot of work, and dedication on the behalf of anyone that truly cares about this game.

The first thing that would be a great help in balancing the ?point whoring? that people have become so accustom to is an idea that was brought up on the forum not to long ago. This idea truly is rather simple in fact, it being adding other kinds of awards for people to be able to earn, which I would like to call achievements. Basically how these would work would be once a player achieved a certain goal set before all the players they would receive a nice .PNG metal to go along with their name. Such as if a person finished with 100 PPG they would get the respective metal, and the same would go for something like racking up 50 wins, or even 100 friends. The possibilities for this system is for all intensive purposes endless, and will fit the playing style of everyone from the most hardcore player to even the player that only plays a few dozen games a month. This then allows even the people that don?t have the time to sink into game to accomplish something, but also by displaying these awards the players who verse can get a general idea on their play style, which may actually allow people to avoid the dreaded suicide bomber, or possibly even alert to the possible PGA.

The next thing that could be done to allow a more balanced and enjoyable playing experience is another idea that many have thought of before. Some people would rather goof around than actually try, and since the whole concept of a game is to have fun they should be allowed to do so. But this really can not be accomplished on a table where they are going to anger someone else if they do what others would see as a moronic move. Now the person who does this really means no harm, but does want to just screw around. The fix to this, and one that would also help the newer players be able to learn so that they could keep up with the older players is adding an option to play on a risk free table. Now that brings up what exactly is a risk free table, and the answer is again rather simple. A risk free table would be one where people do not play for points, but also could not earn achievements on these tables. Like I said this would allow people to learn, and have a place to screw around, but there is another bonus to this addition feature. Some people like to play with friends, which due to it being debatably PGA it is really not allowed. But on the free tables this would be fine since there is no competing for points. Now this more than likely will not help the PGA issue much at all, but it still couldn?t hurt.

The third feature that could help the newer people be able to join the ranks of the veterans of kdice would be a global chat box on top of the existing game chat box. This would allow the newer people to actually be able to ask questions, and have a much greater chance of them being answered. This being my thought process due to a few major key reasons with the first being, people playing against someone are less likely to help them win. The second being the forums are not checked as often as they would need to be to be reliable to help a new person, and the new person probably is not checking them anyways. Thus the global chat box would more than likely help some of these new people. Also it can be used for many other purposes, such as PGA reporting. Now it would need moderation or else it would become a spam festival. Thus we can have the ?advisors? that we have now, and maybe more moderate them.

The fourth idea deals with actual punishment, and recording the punishment of a player who has conducted an offence. Although people can be banned, and RC?ed it simply is not enough to even partially stop the cheating. What needs to be added to this system to really make it work is a two part system. The first part is banning people who have been RC?ed with either a number of people (eg. 10) or being RC?ed with the same person a certain number of times (eg. 3) in a month. Although the this would be putting the trust of the players within a system that by design can not realistically be accurate every time, but by setting the numbers high enough it should take this small inaccuracy into check. The second part of the system is the all mighty profile ?stain?. What would happen is that once a person is RC?ed with another person this RC would be added to a list on that person?s profile where anyone can view it. This allows people to get a better judgment of their opponents, and hopefully escape PGA?s, and other acts of point whoring.

The firth idea deals with the worst kind of point whoring, this unspeakable act being that of buying points. This simply makes the point system pointless, and voids any reason to actually bother trying to win a month regardless of any balancer added to the game. For the simple fact that there is no reason to play a game that you can pay to win. Although the membership is completely fine since this is a one time jump, and truly is not that great of an amount of points. If people wish to donate they should do it for the fact that they enjoy this game, and want to see it last.
Overall this game should always be a competition, but still be one that everyone can compete in. Maybe there should be even greater change than what I have mentioned, but taking the point system out or anything of the sort should never be an option. This game still has some heart to it, but if something is not done it will die, and to be honest it is no one else?s fault but the people who cheat. Some people may use the excuse that they have to PGA to counter the PGA?s that already live on the higher tables, but all that is doing is adding to the flame. A few people can be banned, but once everyone starts to PGA banning is pointless. This goes the same for any kind of cheating, and yes not everyone cheats. So Kdice lets all work together and make this a real competition to play again.

-SprintT

i have been here since kdice was featured on jayisgames and i have seen the game evolve, both in good and bad directions. i am glad ryan is taking a proactive approach to further improve the game. below are my two cents:

1) member privilages
-i think members who pay to support this site should get some 'bonuses'
-it does not have to be points. in fact, i dont think people who honestly want to give $$$ to help this site care about that 2500 pts
-some of the possible privilages could be 1) private tables 2) ability to choose your own colour 3) ability to create maps 4) name tables after them

2) Dice colours
-what about you have like 20 set colours and the 7 players in a table can choose their own colour in every game?

3) Forum
-add ability to search topics by topic starter, by time posted, by most response, etc?

4) Player profile
-show all the forum posts from that paricular player

5) Number of players at each table
-we should have tables range from 4 to 8 players for each table level
-this could solve the problem that people have to wait too long for a, say, 2500 table

6) Have team tables
-for example, one table with 8 players and 2 in each team. the 2 team players play/work together to get rid of other teams, and one the team wins, the game is over and both team members get the same points

7) Love the tournament idea but please consider we have people from all over the world and you should have tournments for different time zones, like 10 a.m. EST for the folks in Australia/Asia, etc.

8) Have official rules
-some question the judgement by the mods. complaints will be reduced if we have some fix rules

9) post the players banned by the RC so that we know who are PGAing

10) a leaderboard system which counts the combined scores from kdice, gpokr, and xsketch. it could be something like if you are 100th in kdice, 2nd in gpokr, and 200th in xsketch, you score is 302 and the player with the lowest score is the winner of the grand champion

keep up the good work, ryan.