um....should we get one of those?
Sassenach wrote:OTTO was a disaster. After it was introduced the number of forum based games fell off a cliff and never recovered. We had a nice little niche here which the players enjoyed, but by trying to compete with the bigger automated sites we lost what made this place special in the first place.
JimHackerMP wrote:Hmmm...sounds like we need some sort of Redscape...revival?
JimHackerMP wrote:From your complaints about OTTO it sounds as if human GM-ing was our "trump card". Do you agree? If so I'd be happy to help out as a GM, as long as i don't have more than a couple of games going on at the same time and I can be instructed how to do the maps and stuff. I have three DIPLOMACY sets so I can set em out on the dining room table and work the moves out. But I don't know 100% of the rules because I've already relied on the GM to work out the moves and so forth in any game I've been in. That is essentially how I have learned.
At one point it actually said "Deluxe Diplomacy Online". Perhaps we should go back to that?
I don't want this site to die. I've spent far too much time on debating people in the political forums and not enough time playing DIPLOMACY!!!!
SLOTerp wrote:Last time I started a standard game, it took four months to fill. Not again.
Hiring someone to do anything to this site costs money. Revenue is scarce. The optimal solution is to find someone who can program on Php, has an interest in our site, and will do it for free.
Chad was such a programmer but, alas, Chad is gone.
The problem with running games is not finding GM's. It's getting players to come here and play.
JimHackerMP wrote:But you make it sound so easy. Should we pass around the virtual offering plate (whatever it's called in Church; forgive me for mixing computers, money and religion) and see how much we can scrape up among us for an interested programmer?
If I can get back to college in the future [knocking on wood] and get certification in some sort of computer programming field, then I'd be happy to volunteer as such. But that's going to be a year or two down the road, possibly greater.
...it sounds to me as if our adjudication by human GMs was/is our "trump card". Something special about playing Diplomacy with an 8th human being instead of 7 humans and a computer.
Things like this seem to work via the network effect. Get a few people you know who get a few people they know to sign up, but we'll have to have some games already in the bull pen waiting to be filled up, perhaps a bunch of Standard games and a few Variants to add some spice. But if we don't have the games waiting to fill up those people will quickly lose interest waiting for the darn games to start and then look elsewhere.