"Anyone that can play at even an intermediate level can hold ridiculous high averages on the 0 & 100 tables."

so true

smitri and david, I agree 100%

but in my proposal to ryan there basically should only be 2 types of tables

"learning tables" and "let's call it 500 tables" so no more elite tables at 2500/10k where always the same 50 players play. These advanced player tables will still exist (so top players can still play together for fun)but can't influence the rankings (monte would call this no more scheming).

In the first stages of the competion, you will be randomly assigned to your 500 tables so you can't sit with your friends for the competition.

This way, politics and pga is almost 100% neutered and every player has a fair shot to get a good ranking.

This is getting too much off topic so maybe I will post my mail to Ryan in a seperate thread.

Montecarlo, I forgot to thank you for launching your campaign against scheming.

hmmm...well its all well and good saying no scheming, HOWEVER, if leekstep happened to be #1 in the last week, im sure monte would decide that maybe its time to scheme again ;) hehe

Schemming is dumb yes, although I do not know hopw much it affect traffic I think in the long term it could affect memberships.

Ryan, I know the "elite" OR the ~50 or so people you think care more about the points and play for the ego-boost is just exist. Yes some people care too much about being accepted by an online community. Your point about that is valid. Also yes on the majority there are plenty of players that don't read the forums or care about the monthly competition at all. Some of this is because they simply are not good at the game, others just don't play that much.

With that said, most of these players I am going to guess are not or will never be members as they only have a casual interest in the game.

Members deserve no more special treatment, I mean the 2500 points a month is more then enough. At the same time I think it is folly to treat this group with disdain. I think you have decided to lump a large group of players together that have very different motives for their criticisms. Some yes, just want to call you names or make your life a little less fun. These people suck.

But there are people that you for some reason seem to express some dislike for that really want kdice to be great, and are happy to support the site because they love the game. Ryan please don't discount the opinions of players just because of who they joke around in the chat box with or who you think they may be trying to support. Some of us care about the points some, but mostly care for good games.

In closing, people that scheme are pretty sad and pathetic. If someone of you tards can't make the distinction between a friend and actively PGA'ing then well you really need to get over yourself and just play the damn game. Sure it is social and you have people you can trust to play a certain way, but remember it is pretty fun to cut your friend when they least expect it.

Sam, why do you think I lump people together as cheaters? Last month it was fiero that made arbitrary bannings. I reset points and kept the bannings to freeze the end results for the month because people couldn't play normally. I did not mean to classify everyone as cheaters but just stop any possible last day scheming.

I think monte is on the right track here. He's refusing to be distracted by the dudes craving attention. If thousands can play the game for it's own sake then why can't he.

If the dudes who want attention think they drive traffic to the site then I encourage them to try an experiment - leave the site and watch it die. (or watch the top players be relieved and the thousands of others not give a damn)

Sure Sam, great post. Just dont forget to look at your own garden ;)

Ryan, I think you did the best with what was a terrible situation at the end of the month. I really do mean that, I just hope everyone is able to learn something from that and no one trys to repeat that. I think I failed to articulate what I wanted to say, so I will just let that go. *hint* possible edit function, I don't know.

@Rage
The game you were referring to was out of my hands how that went down. I went for the connect and failed then graciously accepted the kindness of my neighbor. They didn't wreck me I responded in kind, what else could be expected in that situation. Sure it isn't then best game, but it was the option that lead to the optimal outcome. Join or be crushed by the yellow/puple alliance.

soooooo...in reference to the original question...With all these responses, I wonder, if scheming would be good for kdice, if it was overall more effective.

Sam:

"Ryan, I think you did the best with what was a terrible situation at the end of the month."

Yeah, banning all the top 10 except for 3 players was cool, dropping me 33k points and Voh 24k was incredibly fair.

"I just hope everyone is able to learn something from that and no one trys to repeat that"

Absolutely. I'll never try to win a month again.

About "scheming" (I don't know the exact meaning of that word, but I can figure it out) that's simply stupid and, of course, has nothing to do with the traffic of the site.

There's clearly a fuzzy boundary between being friendly and PGA, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that being friendly in a game occasionally is awful. In-game alliances are clearly in bounds, after all.

But this is unquestionably different from huge streaks of rigged games, breaking into accounts, farms of alts, sharing accounts, using out-of-game IM to coordinate your alliance. That stuff is all just annoying, not friendly.