I agree fully, Mapu. I'm in favor of prioritizing proven reliability. I would also be in favor of penalizing NMRs and CDs by reducing scores by points or percentage. Not sure exactly what that would look like, but I'd favor increasing the penalty for each subsequent occurrence.

Totally agree. I think we go by first come, first served. But if someone is newer and unreliable, next man up is in. I'm fine with keeping this rather subjective for whomever wants to decide the final roster. We should also try to line up a few alternates for potential abandoners.

After looking through profiles and taking into account records of NMRs and CDs, as well as seniority, here is what I propose as a final list to begin the tournament with. Apologies to Ashaka and DogsRule – you are both encouraged to continue playing here while improving your NMR/CD records, and you will be considered for replacement spots as they come up. Also, I say this knowing it is my opinion and there’s only so much “authority” that goes with it. I still prefer some level of consensus and input from the overall group.

1) Dr. Rec
2) Argentinian
3) kaner
4) Leif
5) bozo
6) Amby
7) RUFF
8) Mapu
9) Eki83
10) Hirnsaege
11) CoXBoT
12) Utom
13) mouse
14) mapleleaf
15) eliwhitney

Reserves:

1) Ashaka
2) DogsRule
3)
4)
...

If we wait for more than a couple people to voice agreement, we'll be waiting forever. Rather, I'll say that if you've got objections to the roster then voice them very soon. If you're not on the roster but would like to join, speak up soon. I'd like to get this rolling.

Trying to wrap my head around WTA/unrated preferences and the tournament scoring system. I think I'd lean towards making the games WTA with a 5p buy-in, which is hopefully a fair enough compromise and won't be a deal breaker for anyone. Do we have consensus on using SoS scoring, based on 150 pints per game? Will that reward solos strongly enough? I'd also like to hear some opinions about how to penalize NMRs and CDs.

^ lol @ "150 pints" -- given how long a game lasts, that just might be accurate!

Hi Doc and all - as mentioned a number of times now I would like to play this tourney but am only interested if there are some points at stake in each game, even if its minimal like we put in just 20 or something. If you want to keep it unrated that's totally cool, but I'm out.

That's one of the main reasons I'm saying WTA 5p.

The SoS 150p/game would be additional tournament-specific scoring on top of the WTA 5p/game.

10 pints (or points if we must) per game WTA and i'm in.

10 pints per game works for me

10 works for me. I'll go as high as people want.

5 or 10 buy-in per game and the stated seed order seem reasonable enough.

150-tourney-specific also looks good, providing SoS is still used to distribute those points in games that have a winner.

The number of points invested is pretty much irrelevant. The points do not affect the ratings. You could make it 100 per game if you wanted to. The reason for suggested it be unrated was because we're going to play 15 gunboat games in a sprint, and the ratings system in place dings you extremely hard for a loss. Given that there's going to be 15 games many of us are going to see 5+ eliminations. That's a lot of ratings slippage to account for in games with no ability to communicate. Call me a rating's whore if you want, but at a penalty of 100+ ratings per loss, I'm not interested. I'm stepping out because Ambassador will not budge, and he was in before me.

RUFF, you've got every right to be selective, as does Amby. I understand it. That being said, I believe that rankings (and the way they effect game selection and play) are contributing to the slow death of the site.

Ratings and how they work has always flummoxed me. If someone can explain in relatively speaking plain English (no mathematical detail as it just makes my eyes glaze over) how it works it would make my day. Seriously. Then I can make a more informed call and maybe we can get to a lovely nirvana where RUFF and I can play together ;-)

On the other point raised by Doc re: the site dying, I've had many words to say on this in the past. For brevity's sake here's the summary:

- while it "appears" the site is slowly dying, the number of active players in games is actually going up. I got really worried about 9 months back when active players was around 200-250. We're now consistently above 350 (currently 370 active players at this moment).

HOWEVER

- I am concerned that variant development - which is the raison d'etre of vDip - has tanked. Sadly it is not short of people wanting to develop and get new maps up. I want to say upfront I am incredibly supportive of Oli and him creating this site, but as a single point of failure (particularly administering the Lab) when he has many more important real life priorities is a great concern. I would love to see him devolve responsibility to trusted people who can do this for him. Then we can get vDip cranking again!
- our "marketing" if I can use that word is poor. I have raised a number of ideas with long term players here on how to improve awareness of vDip to get more and better players here. Kaner and I have little project going on this at the moment and are about to launch it.

Will it solve all our problems? No. But it should kick the ball off. Once that's live and humming I'd be happy to return to the other thoughts on raising the number and quality of players here.

I know this is off topic to this forum thread, and have created a new posting on this to make it easier to comment: http://www.vdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=65666#65666

I think that the Elo ratings were fun at first, and they created competition between players that didn't necessarily get a chance to play against each other. My objection to playing 15 rated games now in the manner we have been discussing is that I'm humbly forecasting that I'm going to lose/be eliminated in at least 5 of them. A loss when you are ranked in the top 5 costs can cost you as many as 70-100 ratings points where a win or even a 3 player draw might net you 15 ratings points. I will admit that I've fallen victim to paying attention to this silly ratings system because of a lot of trash talking between players. I lost my number one perch to a guy who now refuses to play as he is likewise affected by this phenomenon. It's damn silly, and I'm a little embarrassed about it, but I liked the fact that Retillion will never pass me if I just camped on this. So I thought I'd play again and have fun, but 15 games is likely to cost me 250 rating points lost to a likely 100 gained for a net -350 ratings points. I'm all for fun, but I'm not interested in in putting that much isk on the line for a tournament where I'm playing 3-5 games at a time and cannot negotiate with players. I love the 901 map, and the idea of the tournament. I don;t care a hoot about risking VDip points. I'll wager 100 per game if we have to. I don;t want my Elo rating affected because I choose to play in competitions that my rivals (apologies to Mapu) will not. I preferred that this tournament excluded from the Elo ratings. That doesn't meant that I'll never play regular games again, but in a scenario where I"m playing so many at once, on short deadlines, with no diplomacy I'm starring down a voluntary 250 point Elo ratings loss.

I'll take this to the new thread, but it's just not appealing to me at that cost.

Dumb question RUFF, but what is meant be Elo ratings? We really need a better way of explaining to players the way ratings work around here.

That said I'm playing my first game in ages back on webDip and their rating and scoring systems are even more confusing and with no real explanation on how they work either!

I'll hit the other thread with ranking discussion. As for the would-be Known World Tournament, is there a suitable compromise to be found? Alternate unranked games with WTA 10p games? While I am encouraged to hear Amby's report of increasing numbers, the very fact that it's so difficult to get this tournament going speaks to a change from years past. Granted, I've only been around here for 4 years drinking your beer and stealing your women, but for most of that time a tournament like this would draw enough interest to make a decent second field of 15.

We have a decent field of 15, unfortunately the rating system has those of us on the fringe wanting to take RUFF (and others) down a notch or two, while they don't want to risk their ranking.

I think we put it to a vote and then (unfortunately) play without one of RUFF or Amby. I don't think that flipping between rated/unrated is going to do anything more than frustrate everyone.

That's my 2 cents.

Leif - I'd rather let RUFF's position stand if we get to that point. I have a lot on at the moment and put my hand up haphazardly. Better to have someone committed such as RUFF and sub in a reserve rather than do a vote.

I just want to play for fun. For a while I did not really mind putting my Elo rating at risk one or two games at a time when I can devote proper time to it. That allows me to overcome the targeting that goes on. Over time though it's become evident that the ratings system encourages players to pigpile high ranked players because they score more points that way. I don't suggest that this was intentional by design, just an unintended consequence of the efforts to value the strength of the opposition in the ratings. As a suggestion I would offer that a multiplier for strength of opposition be calculated based upon the average rating of all players in the game rather than big red ribbons for taking out certain players. If we're to have a ratings system, it should be one that focuses on your individual performance, not upon whom you kill.

Tobi has suggested that there is no one present capable of making such revisions to the Elo rating, which is why I proposing unrated games. Unrated games allow the flexibility to experiment with new ideas and hair brained strategies. They allow you to have FUN in a game that's gone completely downhill, and the more fun which the players are having results in a better quality game.

Let's set up these games! make them unrated - we only loose one player and we have replacements.

Count me out.

bumpsies...

Seems like we're taking as many steps back as forward. We're short on known-quantity reliable players that will all agree to certain parameters. If a couple more players come forward, we can proceed. Otherwise we may have to wait a bit.

Tell you what, I'd be in again - and would be happy for it to be unrated - if we only played two simultaneous games. That should help with the player numbers.

I would be interested in playing if you need more bodies. Now that the summer is ending I should have more time to play

Is this going to happen?

ScubaSteve you interested? Didn't see your name on the last list of 15?

Desert Fox, your experience I think would also be valued by the group.

If you're both interested were you good with the (a) original conditions of 3 simultaneous unrated gunboat games? Or were you interested in (b) 2 simultaneous unrated like me? Or a little something else?