I'm at a point where I'm rethinking quite a few things about the structure and future of the games. I want to get feedback about the future of this game from the people who love this game as much as I do.

First of all I'd like to let all the point whores know that since they don't respect the game, I don't respect their opinion for this question. Accumulating points is meant to be secondary with the fun of the game of primary importance - and the majority of everyone has it right.

So, let me know your thoughts and ideas. I'd like to hear big long term vision ideas and not features like mouse-over-display or game playback (although these are great featuers). If you were to forget everything about kdice except the in-game experience how would build big and great things around it?

Here is the final tally for the first-half-of-2008 TAPL competition. The TAPL is described in the post on my Wall.

Shown are player name, number of games, percentage profile, and TAPL. Because of a glitch in the percentage totals for February, the number of February games is reduced 15% to make them equally scaled to the number of games for the other months.

The TAPL has no official endorsement from Ryan.

Fiero600, having won this competition and the annual one last year, can continue to be called the best kdicer ever, at least as measured by the TAPL.


fiero600 1320 23% 23% 15% 12% 10% 7% 8% 6960

Vermont 1094 20% 21% 17% 14% 10% 8% 7% 4739

XxDiceyGirlxX 1081 22% 20% 16% 10% 10% 9% 10% 4024

jurgen 1173 20% 19% 17% 16% 10% 10% 8% 3188

RageUnleashed 384 22% 23% 16% 11% 11% 8% 9% 3184

skrumgaer 1708 12% 11% 16% 20% 18% 13% 9% 2820

montecarlo 1197 21% 17% 17% 12% 10% 10% 13% 2663

Mr_Kreuzfeld** 840 20% 20% 15% 12% 10% 10% 10% 2596

jpc4c 1112 20% 20% 16% 12% 10% 10% 11% 2546

nuflis 512 24% 16% 15% 15% 8% 9% 14% 2463

rrroll 989 21% 20% 13% 13% 11% 11% 12% 2355

MadHat_Sam 1172 19% 17% 13% 10% 9% 13% 19% 2322

captainLAGER 1476 20% 15% 12% 11% 13% 11% 16% 1813

dasfury* 1212 19% 16% 14% 11% 11% 11% 16% 1685

yellowfin 2160 19% 17% 14% 13% 11% 11% 13% 1646

wishbone 1052 19% 18% 14% 11% 11% 12% 14% 1485

OldElvis 480 16% 15% 16% 19% 15% 13% 7% 1430

Johnson213 2642 16% 16% 15% 14% 11% 11% 16% 1360

rosie 396 13% 21% 14% 15% 10% 11% 15% 1049

timmae1986 1097 15% 16% 16% 13% 13% 14% 18% 690

TiS 1016 17% 16% 14% 14% 14% 10% 13% 690

Shevar 1640 18% 14% 13% 14% 12% 13% 13% 684

olliejjc_16 1197 13% 16% 14% 14% 12% 12% 17% 506

FemmeFatale 1657 17% 14% 15% 15% 14% 13% 12% 499

garbagemafia 1473 16% 14% 14% 14% 12% 13% 12% 390

§ilverfox 1176 14% 12% 14% 13% 14% 14% 17% 381

moneymango 927 15% 16% 14% 14% 14% 12% 12% 247

*Shows a ranking for May but no games.

**Incomplete data for June because he could not be found with the Search.

There are a few small changes for July the most important of which is the much requested advisor log (not to be mistaken with the advisor blog!) The advisor log simply tracks advisor changes to account permissions. It requires advisors to give a brief explanation of the change. The change will be seen on the user's account in the reviews section. The list of all changes can be seen at /advisorLog.

Other changes include simplification of the HTML layout for the site. The goal is to look cleaner and focus more attention on the game than the site itself. You'll notice some links have been removed,which may be hard to adjust to, but the goal is to at least test out an technique for search engines.

There are some other minor fixes.

***This blog concerns Grunvagr's views on the moderating issues in kdice, and what the community can do to help improve things***


First off, I want players to know that we do listen to the community. That's the whole point of having advisors in the first place - having someone to represent you, moderate offensive behavior and upsetting avatars and try to keep this place clean, overall.

Second, there needs to be better definitions of what is to be accepted and what is to be considered unacceptable, both in terms of avatar use / things players can say to others, etc.

Now, the problem arises where people want minor concerns moderated (demanding mutings or bannings of other players for minor offenses).

I want to make sure of one thing. Kdice has always been a relaxed community atmosphere, where players can relax, enjoy the game, chill with friends, joke around and enjoy each other's company. It should remain that way.

Now, that said, there needs to be some sort order to things where players cannot blatantly offend, harrass others, etc. That's where advisors come in.
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Here's the situation, summarized:
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* Certain players in the community want more moderating (more players banned, more mutings, etc)

* Certain players want the opposite, where they feel too much is being moderated and they feel discouraged by advisors for being TOO strict and not letting them enjoy the game and goof around with buddies as they have for many months / years.

That is the fine line and there should be no way we can't appease both groups. The key is simple: define what is acceptable and what is not.


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What needs to be done:
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>>> The best way to quickly change things for the better is the IDEA FORUM <<<

What we need are more things in place that HELP advisors to handle your complaints, look into problems, and address them if they indeed should be handled (by muting / banning, stripping an avatar away, etc)

So the purpose of this blog is to ask the community to help us help you.

For example: If someone cusses you out at a table, right now chat logs are nothing but copied and pasted as proof - something that could be forged easily and thus anyone can blame anyone (so if I'm not at a table and dont see it, just understand that an accusation IS an accusation only, not proof).

What we could and should do as a community is look into ways where we can document infractions easily - that way they can be handled quickly.

So for instance, an idea I can think up of right now that makes sense would be a chatlog saver - an option to save a chatlog in a game and post it later for advisors to review (something that would be saved as a file and thus better than just copy / pasting bad text on the forums - which spam the forums and dont make things look good for the beautiful game in general). Forum posts should be upbeat, or discussing life or the game, not about people cussing / name calling, etc - when that is SUCH A SMALL PART of the community.
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Here's another idea that I formally proposed which already has gotten some support:
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http://kdice.com/ideas/ideas/44761619?


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What can you do?
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Ask not what kdice can do for you, ask what YOU can do for kdice ;)

Think up of good ideas to help moderate and suggest them. Also, compile a list of acceptable or unacceptable behavior or discuss that in a forum post.

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What's the point??
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The purpose of this blog is to acknowledge that advisors do listen to the community. But we want players to understand that we don't want to alienate half the community by moderating too severely, nor do we want to ignore people that are harrassed and demand help from us.

Let's discuss and take things from there. A list of acceptable and unacceptable behavior alone (you'd be surprised) is amazingly difficult to make. So lets work together to compile one.




***This is Grunvagr's views on the issue of moderating. If you agree or disagree, take it out on ME***

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Reply away

I would like some input on the effect that minimum limits on tables may have had on your percentage profiles (% of firsts, seconds, thirds, etc.) for June.

That is, if you have not changed your style of play in June compared to previous months, have you noticed any change in shape of your profile that might be attributable to the rule change?

Also indicate whether the effect was directly caused (because of which tables you sat at) or indirectly caused (because of who sat at your tables).