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Reflections on a Recent Game...
On February 04 2015 03:14 Hapahauli wrote:
Is it just me, or does this seem like one of those 500 page games?
On February 04 2015 03:15 Damdred wrote:
no, just no
I’m writing this at the end of the Day 2 lynch deadline in Horn of Africa Mini Mafia. Two players are "100% convinced" that the other is mafia, and the town has decided to lynch between them. Both players combine for over 60+ pages of filter. Both are veterans who have single-handedly carried many towns to victory. Both are obviously town.
I resolve to go to the kitchen and grab myself a slice of Trader Joe’s Patisserie de Chocolate - a side-dish to the unfolding drama. I soon realize that a meager slice of cake wouldn't be enough to placate myself, so I opt for seconds.
With two gratuitous slices of cake sitting next to my computer, I watch my screen as Day 2 ends in this 200-page game. Holyflare is lynched. I type “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” onto my analysis google doc.
I finish my cake.
I am filled with remorse.
TL Mafia was a more peaceful place when I started playing three years ago. I averaged 8-10 pages of filter in my first few games, and there was enough room on the forum to accommodate my “spammy playstyle.” That playstyle had some clear benefits. A 10-page filter was a daunting level of activity for scum to maintain, and reaching that magical number was a great way to establish trust. Back then, the first coaching advice I gave to any new town player was that "activity was paramount." Even mindless activity was an easy way to establish your “towniness.”
Eventually, mafia began to learn and adjust. A 10-page filter was no longer a “free town pass.” So activity standards increased… and increased.
I remember the first time I approached the 20-page filter mark. I spent more time posting than reading and thinking about the game. It was the only time I've ever been mislynched as town. I had a 33-page filter in my next game - Witchcraft Mini Mafia. It left me so frustrated with the inaccuracy of my reads that I took a several month-long break from the game.
So when I see players with 30+ page filters screaming at each other in a mafia game, I can only think…
Is this helping your town play?
Is this helping the rest of the town?
Is this even fun?
What's next... 50-page filters?
Did I eat too much cake?
I am feeling awful.
I understand the temptation. We spend hours a day thinking about this game. We emotionally invest ourselves in the pursuit of a successful lynch. We try to succeed through force of will, and all our obsessive and idle thoughts are posted in a misguided effort to contribute. Post-game, we are left in the frustration and regret of 300-page sugar-coma.
This hateful feeling is soon forgotten as we pursue our addiction - that moment when our efforts and convictions produce a red nametag. Yet that moment grows further out of reach as we sacrifice the quality of our thoughts for the size of our filters.
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pretty much sums up why I don't play as much, the amount of posts has gotten to an absurd amount and 95% of the posts arent worth reading
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THANK YOU HAPA.
I was JUST about to post about filter-length. I had received complaints on the length of the game aside from complaints in observer QT.
I was going to discuss it in my post-game but I am so happy you made a second thread.
As a moderator I was told by others to only moderate spam and let town handle if activity is too high or too low.
Pre-game I had made it clear that I did not feel it necessary to impose a post-count restriction for a mini.
For a large normal I would take a 3-4 (60-80 post) page per day cycle (48h) and 20 posts per night cycle, I think this is what Palmar did for Carol, and after Imperial hitting 500 pages, I think a postcount restriction is in order. I feel there are some players that put in reasonable time to the game but cannot keep up the pace when they fall 50 pages behind.
But for a mini, I didn't understand. When I saw the complaints, I read my game very carefully and I honestly did not feel anyone was spamming or doing excessive trolling. Some people were breaking their posts into smaller one liners but some of them were a series of questions to different people.
So as moderators where do we draw the line if someone is going off the deep end?
EDIT: Should such play be moderated in any way - that is what I am trying to drive at.
I received a few opinions last night, but I would like to hear more from people so I can understand better where to go next game I run.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
clearly it's time for twitterverse 2.0
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Different playstyles call for different levels of activity. I will _NEVER_ get townread in a game with a post restriction
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On February 11 2015 11:02 IAmRobik wrote:
Different playstyles call for different levels of activity. I will _NEVER_ get townread in a game with a post restriction
Then you should get better at using your posts wisely.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
On February 11 2015 11:02 IAmRobik wrote:
Different playstyles call for different levels of activity. I will _NEVER_ get townread in a game with a post restriction
Yeah I think Hapa's not saying we need post restrictions, just that we need to stop pouring buckets of spam onto everything-- voluntarily. We uh, really don't need 50 pages of filter, which is 1,000 posts, EACH, to play games.
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On February 11 2015 11:02 Artanis[Xp] wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2015 11:02 IAmRobik wrote:
Different playstyles call for different levels of activity. I will _NEVER_ get townread in a game with a post restriction Then you should get better at using your posts wisely.
it's not about using posts wisely. it's about interacting with people on a real time basis. it is also something that I find essential for gathering reads. I am more comfortable reading someone i have a conversation with, rather than read someone who posts sparingly in big blocks of texts
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On February 11 2015 11:02 IAmRobik wrote:
Different playstyles call for different levels of activity. I will _NEVER_ get townread in a game with a post restriction
Honest question here - do you feel this should be different in a normal mini versus a large normal? What do you make of Imperial?
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Take Imperial. 500 pages, scum victory, literally everyone demoralized.
Hapa is right Robik is trolling rayn will probably come and troll too
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I for one have no idea who OP is talking about 
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
I think we can all agree that games nowadays are sometimes getting out of hand with their activity levels.
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The super ironic hilarious thing is that I made the same point after Imperial aka the game where marv won as scum with a 30pg filter. Then I totally forgot it when I played. Lol
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On February 11 2015 11:14 Blazinghand wrote:
I think we can all agree that games nowadays are sometimes getting out of hand with their activity levels.
100%. All I need is a bad (busy) day at work, and I'm behind 30+ pages.
I am just wondering how a town internally resolves activity that is too high. Lynch the highest activity player? I don't see that flying, people say that high activity players should not be disposed of. On the flip side you can argue that spam makes it clutter for town and harder to find things. But has anyone actually been scumread successfully for clutter (not so much arguments/inconsistencies in the clutter but the clutter ITSELF)?
To be fair I understand why someone would prefer one-liners in conversation. Since my game was used as an example, I did not warn the one-liner people if I could tell they were trying to be productive with it. But I knew enough people were unhappy with the filter lengths of people. I did a spot check and this is what I got:
Eden1892 - 46 pages
Marvellosity - 45 pages
JAT - 33 pages
Top three players in terms of filter length. Between them, there was one warning and it wasn't for spam.
I compared this game to other minis in the last 3 months, and none of them held a candle to filter length even normalising for number of days or the modkills in my game.
The scary part is that the two modkills were on 2 extremely active players so the total length of this game could have been even higher.
So I have to also look at myself - could I have done a better job of controlling this as a moderator since this game appears to be an outlier?
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Town keeps losing until it realizes it's talking too much. Then townies stop talking so much so they can lose less. It's a market, and people are realizing the price of posts is too high. Give it time and it will adjust
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I am definitely going to try and cut down on my posting.
And yeah, that game was pretty ridiculously long.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
On February 11 2015 11:19 Eden1892 wrote:
Town keeps losing until it realizes it's talking too much. Then townies stop talking so much so they can lose less. It's a market, and people are realizing the price of posts is too high. Give it time and it will adjust
I'm not even sure how to address this. That's not at all what will happen. Games will just be bad instead.
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EPT
