I started this thread more to discuss the new players that have arrived at the top, those with a different understanding of the game. their approach to trucing, flagging and end-game handling has not existed before, at least in this extent.

And Ryan, give us some hard numbers. I'm thinking about 5000 uniques/day? Do you have stats on the most frequenting countries?

@Ryan

You know the traffic so I won't argue that, but from a subjective obversvational view I would say traffic appears more transient with less people staying around for long periods. People honestly just don't seem to care about the site as much as the used too.

Ideas:

1. Flag and surrender and return dom to what is was around October-December 2007.

1a. The having to wait to flag I think has done more harm then good, and I think this is a great reason to end the travesty that is flagging for position.

2. Elo-Style flagging. I really think this could make for a more interesting game. Sure we will always have the endless debate about what a flag means, but that is fun.

I really think the flagging for position has changed the psychology on the tables, for the worse. People see the flag as a crutch they can rely on instead of fighting for the position. This is why I think the elo flags would be awesome nowadays you would only get the position you were in when the game ended. It makes being in first important.

3. Some form of permanant score, like ELO. There should be a way to recognize people for maintaining success and encourage them to maintain that long term success.

I think the Monthly resets have hurt peoples willingness to stick around, because it really is a grind. I mean for less skilled players to work to get that 5-10k and maybe a top 100 only to just miss and then have to start all over again.

I think ELO had its fair share of problems, but I think you would have a more active community if people knew they could win a month without having to play ~400 games a month. I know you tend to think that "point whores" are badm but there is a leaderboard for a reason, people like to be ranked. It gives a sense of accomplishment in the game.

Any thoughts you have Ryan are always appreciated, and while I have disagreed with how you administer at times I have never doubted that you care about the game.

Double FTW

I think a main page would be nice, the old aplayr was cool. It was fun to stop by and see the news see who won what where.

Triple for the OP

I am here because I enjoy the game. I honestly do. I miss many of the people that have left and do think it is harder to have a nice fun game, but I still enjoy the game itself.

getting back to Lagers original statement. What does it matter if "culture-less noobs" are playing at the higher tables. First that should mean easy points for you right?. Second part of the fun of the game is its unpredictability. you should be able to adjust your play to allow for the "mistakes" of these noobs. Further more vflagging is around because of you older players. the only reason your upset is because it has become mainstream now instead of only being done by a select group of players. get over it adapt to the game as it changes.

that being said i do think that vflagging in general is stupid. However there are times when one simply has two choices Vflag or die. i think that pretty much any player would take the not dieing option.

I like MadHat_Sam idea on flagging.

Questions:
- What is the point of having so many table levels? (0-100-500-2000-5000) Wouldn't two levels be enough?

Table levels promote all this crap about low/high table players. There are different types of players. Get over it! If you are so good, then it should not be a problem to kill them.

If we did not have levels, the stats could be used to directly decide who's best. No need for points and people willing to do all kinds of things to get position.

Even with two levels. Level-zero could be used for the new/bad ones, but your stats would count towards monthly position based only on level-one tables.
You would need certain level of historic stats to be in level-1.

"I am here because I enjoy the game."

And that's the bottom line. This is a good game that is run poorly. Compare it to www.conquerclub.com which is superior to this site in every way EXCEPT that (in my opinion) the actual game itself is better here. (in that it is faster and more social here, although the speed games there alleviate most of that.)

They have:
- far less cheating and bickering
- an active, real, forum (even Ryan mocked his own forum in his post)
- a standard ELO scoring system
- a real user rating/feedback system that is actually effective
- awards, badges, recognition
- ability for users to design and submit their own maps via xml
- team play option
- fog of war option
- lots of other game options
- clearly defined rules and guidelines
- way more people/traffic
- easy public/private tournament configuration
- a thriving user community who is actually allowed to participate in the future of the site. Just check out their forum. It dwarfs this one.

Yet...the game itself here is better, so I play at both sites. Imagine if this site were actually run like that one. Ryan would rake in the dough!

And now that I've typed all this, I've realized I have no idea why. We can't even get the line of code that does previous/next copied so that they're at the bottom of the forum pages.

Yet, I don't want to delete all this either. So, take my ramble for what it's worth, which is open to debate.

"If we did not have levels, the stats could be used to directly decide who's best."

We need table levels because of the lack of ELO system, which most other sites with similar competitive games use. Otherwise, people can just cherry-pick their game and rack up the points.

I don't consider myself as an old schooler, since I haven't been around as long as people like sam, lager or verm. Nor am I one of yellowfin's so called "new schooler", because to be honest: I don't think that there is something like a new schooler or a new schooler style. It has been the game that changed and it changed a lot.

Somebody (I think it was monte) used to say: Don't hate the game, hate the player. And I still think that this is very true.

I think it is more than ignorant from some "old schoolers" to claim that all those new people in the top 100 are horrible players
and that they are responsible for the horrible vflags in round 2, WHEN it is the game (the scoring system, the flagging system, the maps (especially the small tournament maps with some strange layouts)) that have changed.
The kdice history is just like evolution and players adapt to it...

I must admit that Sam pointed out some interesting ideas which might be in fact very helpful to the site.


However, the real problem is:

Ryan:
"Kdice is too big for me to handle everything now, but it doesn't make enough money for me to hire more people. I like that the site is mostly free and wouldn't want to change that so instead of finding more ways to make money and then hire people I created advisors. I want to open things up more so that the community can take control. I'm not sure how, but if people have suggestions I will always read them. I favor something structured rather than totally open."


I understand that Ryan can't invest the time kdice needs, in order to be run perfectly with the result of kdice.com having become a lame duck.
It has been discussed earlier if kdice probably needs more modding with everyone agreeing and disagreeing at the same time, because they feared that there would be new mods which get out of control.

Let's say: Kdice need MORE ADVISORS who are actually able to implement stuff.

So let's give it a try. Let some of those old schoolers have the advisor status.
Vermont would be probably most suitable for that. And like it or not: I think that monte would be suitable, too, because he knows the game like no one else.

Also: what about the idea that those advisors are not allowed to sit at the high tables anymore (in order to prevent abuse)?

yeah capitalism is great, as long u are the only player in town, and all the others share their money with u...

There are always new Players comin, while most of them leave before they become any good, there are still enough left that begin to compete with the "old" guys.

What were u thinking? Rome will last forever?

Thats evolution buddy