I skim read your whole thing jurgen :D Mine was worse :D

From what I'm reading, the long-term direction you want to nudge the game towards is "beauty of play" rather than getting points.

I like the achievements idea highlighting other aspects of play. What about the ability to vote for your favorite player in each game you play? I don't mean who you like the most, but who exhibits the most beautiful gameplay? As you exit the game, you get to cast your vote for one player.

This would be like a "warrior spirit" award.

Another variant would be the ability to give players "rep", or rate them in a certain way. It could show up as a % rating, or... this could be more fun... you start assigning "tags" next to a person's name based on how their rep voting has been... and frame ALL of these as potentially positive (or at least, fun) tags.

Let's say a game ends and I can tag a player with three descriptive tags as their rep... and as a crowd we think this player honors truces, goes for even dice rolls (or worse), but plays a little slowly. Then next to their profile they might have

PlayerPete1092
3,440 points
Trustworthy | Thoughtful | Risktaker

Even things like breaking truces could be "Devious" -- in other words, treat it all like D&D, where some people are just Chaotic Evil, but you know it up front while you're playing them.

Other tags: Cutter, Middlelover, Ninja, Turtle, Ninja Turtle, Berserker, Out With a Bang, Diplomat, Funny, Flirty, Lover of Women, Lover of Men, Inscrutable, Silent But Deadly, Chatty.

From what I'm reading, the long-term direction you want to nudge the game towards is "beauty of play" rather than getting points.

I like the achievements idea highlighting other aspects of play. What about the ability to vote for your favorite player in each game you play? I don't mean who you like the most, but who exhibits the most beautiful gameplay? As you exit the game, you get to cast your vote for one player.

This would be like a "warrior spirit" award.

Another variant would be the ability to give players "rep", or rate them in a certain way. It could show up as a % rating, or... this could be more fun... you start assigning "tags" next to a person's name based on how their rep voting has been... and frame ALL of these as potentially positive (or at least, fun) tags.

Let's say a game ends and I can tag a player with three descriptive tags as their rep... and as a crowd we think this player honors truces, goes for even dice rolls (or worse), but plays a little slowly. Then next to their profile they might have

PlayerPete1092
3,440 points
Trustworthy | Thoughtful | Risktaker

Even things like breaking truces could be "Devious" -- in other words, treat it all like D&D, where some people are just Chaotic Evil, but you know it up front while you're playing them.

Other tags: Cutter, Middlelover, Ninja, Turtle, Ninja Turtle, Berserker, Out With a Bang, Diplomat, Funny, Flirty, Lover of Women, Lover of Men, Inscrutable, Silent But Deadly, Chatty.

Ryan,

A bit off your target, but since the logo issue has come up, I think you should make available some of the graphical elements of the playing board/site for some of the designers here to play around with and maybe submit some logos to you, or maybe t-shirt/coffee mug/cloth diaper/etc. designs.

I'd volunteer more wholeheartedly, but I will be running around like a prison bitch the next few months. But it would be fun to play with in my spare time and see if anything magical happens. I am web stoopid, I work mostly in print, so I don't know how to rip these things from flash files.

If you want to talk details, you can e-mail me @ the address associated w/ my account...

@ Tournaments - great idea. I totally approve with this, but i have 1 addition. I think it would be better if the winner of tournament winnings wouldnt go to the current monthly scoring but rather either too a special tournament scoring or no scoring at all (And have tournament history at some so people could see the winners and etc). Or just go with Fede's version of tournament but you should see who you are playing and chat should also be available.

@ Sarah & Wicked! - both great posts. More plx

@ Sarah's alts idea - damnit, i've inspired you, didnt i? Nooo, what would i do without my 20k alts /cries

@ kwiz - the best & simplest idea that never was implented (about "next" button at the bottom)

@ les - I like the idea about smaller maps at high tables. Small tables=better

Ok, time for my 2 cents. There were a lot of great idea that should be implentend at some time, but i think the primary aim for right now would be to fix all the loopholes (bugs), try to make the environment more competetive (maybe by making tournaments, team games or just some minigames) and reduce cheating. All that would be great. Also forum changes (addint he bottom "next", addint a "report" option, so the forum wouldnt be filled with pga reports and etc) should be done.

And the last thought : What about you would revive the sandbox and test different types of kdice (like unlimited stacking, tournaments, islanding, etc..) and if player will like them, just make something like a "kdice mod".

Thanks for listening.

Ok, score one for for cleaning up bugs. The stars loophole is filled. It's replaced with a once per month 2500 bonus for $5 - only if you're under 5000.

Benn - Nice ideas with the tags. Kind of a soft version of achievements. I think it could work in parallel.

Lucky - I'd bring back the sandbox but it takes a bit of server bandwidth since it has to be run as a seperate process. My goal is to provide sandbox like options for custom games (and I'd probably make this a member feature to customize a table for anyone to play - but maybe only while the member is online).

Ryan, this is an great game. I do think PGAs are hurting the players who just want to have fun, but i do not know how to fix that. If there is a way to fix that, I think this game will be in pretty good shape for years to come.

Oh and stop the points buying loop, that is just crap. 2500 at the beginning of the month and other donations appericated is how i think that should be, but I do know that you deserve the money too.

Start the game with a few grays

Another idea: situational tables. This would produce the equivalent of co-op play... in other words, PGAs by necessity.

So one table would be a planned 4v1... where one player would automatically get a lot more dice, or perhaps get preferential geography on a particular map. Then it's up to the little guys to cooperate and take down Goliath.

Goliath could be a player, or a bot. But it'd be fun to be the player... this is like a NPC in something like Warcraft... so one player could be the "Dragon" everyone else is trying to slay.

I think an overall slant to the way I'm thinking is: Take the negative things and make them positive. Take the PGAs and give them a context where they make sense. A person going into a game of Goliath would know everyone was against them, but they'd have extra resources. Their sense of fairness wouldn't be damaged.

Ok, thanks for the reply Ryan. I appreciate that you final stopped ignoring me last month lol. And finally thnx, the point buying spree is over. Poor wishbone ;( *sniff*

@ Benn - awesome idea, but it would be pretty hard to implent it. But yeah , "scenarios" idea sounds great.

*Hopes that Ryan will continue to fix bugs