Player Slot and Game Census

[Magister Ludi]

Two week days for large themes is probably around the minimum for me unless it is specifically advertised to be shorter. And posting is getting way out of hand in some cases (I think matias red dead redemption mafia had 100 pages day one in 6 or 7 real life days) that is hard to follow. And with such high posting day one, come the next few days with lower posting it is easier for people to get 'bored' with the slowness.

Also, just to get a rough feel, who and how many people are there that want to run a Large THeme right now, but can't.

[Mr. Flay]

I've seen this repeatedly, and I have no idea what to do about it.

And with such high posting day one, come the next few days with lower posting it is easier for people to get 'bored' with the slowness.

It's making people not want to join games if they're not spammer-posters.

[callforjudgement]

The solution's for people who like low games to replace in halfway through when the people who like fast games have got bored and replaced out.

(Perhaps that's not the

actual

solution, but it's what happens in practice, and it's not such a bad thing.)

[Tierce]

I've seen this repeatedly, and I have no idea what to do about it.

And with such high posting day one, come the next few days with lower posting it is easier for people to get 'bored' with the slowness.

It's making people not want to join games if they're not spammer-posters.

RL-timed posting limits should work, in theory. Allow everyone no more than X posts per 24 hours.

[zoraster]

yeah, but a pain for all involved to keep track of. You could try a deadline based on number of posts in the game rather than real life days.

[Tierce]

Way too easy for scum to manipulate. And not that hard to keep track of, just use activity overview and a notepad file / spreadsheet. Either way, this is tangential at best re: this thread.

[zoraster]

I don't think it's that easy to manipulate if you take some sensible steps such as allow each player to post one last time when the post-count deadline hits. If someone obviously is trying to run posts up to the deadline, they should be lynched.

[Tierce]

It's an interesting mechanic, I'm not arguing that. (When are you running such a game? :p) It just doesn't seem to hit the root of the problem because spammers WILL take over the vast majority of the posts anyway.

[saulres]

EBWOP: Oh look I found a way to add posts while making it look unintentional.

Phone double-posting also poses an issue.

Simple Potential Solution: Make all consecutive posts by the same person count as one.

[diginova]

Disregard.

[zoraster]

I've been toying with Amnesia mafia for a while. In the past I've been worried that it'd annoy the listmod too much though, so I had put it on the backburner.

[Quilford]

yeah, but a pain for all involved to keep track of. You could try a deadline based on number of posts in the game rather than real life days.

¿por qué no los dos?

[Faraday]

so green!otter should we expect any revolutionary changes in large theme stuff soon?

[zoraster]

I don't think there will be revolutionary changes, but I have started discussing changing the experience requirements some. I'm also tossing around two different sets of sign up deadlines/requirements -- one for low supply times like right now (where there is no queue) and another for high supply times. But that's yet to really be fleshed out.

[zoraster]

3/12/13

Newbie Games:

124 slots out of 16 games (7.75 p/g) 19.56%

Open Games:

90 slots out of 9 games (10 p/g) 14.20%

Mini-Normal Games:

53 slots out of 6 games (8.8 p/g) 8.36%

Mini-Theme Games:

79 slots out of 13 games (6.1 p/g) 12.46%

Large Normal Games:

27 slots out of 2 games (13.5 p/g) 4.26%

Large Theme Games:

140 slots out of 9 games (15.6 p/g) 22.08%

Micros:

121 slots out of 17 games (7.1 p/g) 19.09%

Overall:

634 slots out of 72 games (8.81 p/g)

Comparison to the previous:
Game Type, December 8th, 2012 total

Slot adjustment

|

Percent of total slots adjustment

Newbie Games:

124

+33

|

+2.7%[/b]

Open Games:

90

+8

|

-1.0%

Mini-Normal Games:

53

-11

|

-3.5%

Mini-Theme Games:

79

-8

|

-3.6%

Large Normal Games:

27

+17

|

+2.4%

Large Theme Games:

140

+23

|

+0.5%

Micro Games:

121

+31

|

+2.5%

[zoraster]

So it looks like a bit of a bounce back here, although we should be somewhat cautious due to the /in-vitational being counted in the relevant categories. Still, what really heartens me is the increase, both in absolute terms and in percent of total players, signed up in newbie games. The more we put in, the better able we are to continue to grow at a steady rate, hopefully above the attrition rate.

In my own queue (Large Themes) I think we're still missing more mods than we are missing players, but compared to a couple of months ago, this demand has been met far better. Quadz I think should be especially commended for getting more mods into his queue as I think the change there is less about the player demand and more about mods.

Mini games in general are continuing on a slow downward slope despite the overall increase in player numbers. Where at their peak Mini Normals and Mini Themes made up 1 in 3 player slots, now it's about 1 in 5. Open games have held steady.

[Zachrulez]

Mini Normals and Mini Themes are probably getting bit into directly by the Micro Queue.

[zoraster]

I agree with that. Initially I think micros "stole" more evenly across the board as people and mods put more time into micros as it was somewhat novel. But now I think it's almost all directed at minis, perhaps also opens to an extent.

This is just something to keep in the back of our minds because

I do not at all advocate changing anything right now

, but if it continues on this way, we might need to think about whether 11-13 player games are simply an awkward number in between micros and larges. I don't know what if anything we'd do about it, but especially in the case of theme games, it's something to consider.

[Zachrulez]

Do you update these regularly Zoraster?

If we wanted to do something about the mini decline we could change the limits to a wider range like 10-15p. I think the micro queue is going to keep them from ever getting back to 1 in 3 though.

[zoraster]

You can see all my updates. So no one could call it regular. More of a sampling.

Again, I'm not in favor of changing the minis right now. I just wanted to put it out there. Regardless, I think Normals should be touched only very carefully if at all. Micros may be "stealing" people from mini-normals, but the vast majority offer very little that truly replaces Normals.

I don't think we're going back to 1 in 3. Almost all the queues are down percentage wise from before simply because 19% is taken out for micros. I don't have any particular love of minis over other types of games (indeed, I think Minis have consistently been the hardest for me to make a great game out of as a moderator). It's just that I look at things and think "if this trend were to continue, is there some better way of doing things?" And I don't have an immediate answer to that.

[quadz08]

I also think that it's pretty clear that Large Normals are a Very Small Thing now, and I question the need for separate Large queues, looking at this data. I don't know how different the LT and LN listmod jobs are, so it's possible we need separate jobs just because of the separate responsibilities, but I definitely think this ought to be discussed.

[Faraday]

You just want less green names so you're more special. Don't lie.

[zoraster]

I think they're kept separate because of (a) history and (b) trying to keep a bright line between normals and themes. I think one listmod could easily do the job of both -- Lord knows the day-to-day operation of my queue isn't onerous, though I try very hard to continually think about how to make the experience better for players. But I'm not sure what gains we'd get from combining the two.

I think Normals are somewhat different from other categories. Their purpose even in small numbers is a net good for the site because it provides the "base game" for people to continue to play. It may never be the most popular version of the game, but it's always there. I don't have a problem with that.

[Zachrulez]

I also think that it's pretty clear that Large Normals are a Very Small Thing now, and I question the need for separate Large queues, looking at this data. I don't know how different the LT and LN listmod jobs are, so it's possible we need separate jobs just because of the separate responsibilities, but I definitely think this ought to be discussed.

You say this like it's a new thing. I don't think Large Normals have ever taken up a considerable portion of the site, even as far back as to how long I've been around.

Heck, if you eliminate mini normals as a requirement for first time mods, (Which is something that has been getting done in the open queues instead.) even that probably starts declining to the degree of large normals.

[zoraster]

Well, when i first did this there were 5 large normals with 68 slots.

One thing that's decreased large normals is an understanding by more mods that year long games aren't fun.