Clans/Cities/Towns/Clubs or what? WE NEED YOUR FEEDBACK

I shall tackle these on at a time.

1. unlimited - at clan leaders discretion
2. yes - they have earnt the right!
3. up to them (as long as im with them )
4. yes - i feel this is very important, as us mods can brutally murder other peoples posts we do not like *evil laugh* (joke ), but i do still think we should have a mod in each group/clan
5. not particully fused on this - but i would say by invitation - names aren't really aren't that important
6.see thudding drum for my opinions

just my opinions, hope thou agree

P

One reply (from an existing Moderator) isn't going to cut it people.

It is a truism in life "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" If you don't tell us what you want out of the site, then Ponder's comments (and maybe Peanut's from the previous thread) will be used in isolation. And of course my comments as well. Bwahahahahar Feel the POWER!!!!!

Do you really want Ponder to feel in control? That sounds dangerous to me. He did try and blow up Discworld after all - Not on purpose - he was just trying to split the Thaum...see Science of the Discworld I for more info.

So come on don't be shy, tell us what you think, what you want, or Lee and Dewi will make it up as they go along. (Heavily influenced by the few comments so far).

Windle

not just feel my good man! I am in control!

and everyone must read all the Science of Discworlds! they are most good

Hi Windle Poons,

You asked for opinions. I can give you mine, but I'm not sure you're going to like it. I don't think I like this whole idea of clans.
If there's one thing Thud! the Book tells us, it's that factions, clubs, clans, are not the way to go about things. The same with Thud! the Game -- both players must play each other's side (dwarfs and Trolls respectively) before we know who's the winner. Wars, they tell us, do not have winners, there's losses on either side.
Introducing clans, clubs, factions, usergroups, or whatever else you would like to call them, is in my humble opinion a direct opposite to the philosophy of what both the Book and the Game are trying to get through to us. Why not call in the Grags while we're at it?
So I'm opposed. I'd rather continue in the way we are doing now. One big group of Thud afficionado's, with the occasional Tournament thrown in.
It took me a while to get these thoughts together, in the privacy of a text editor. Sometimes I do feel the limitations of english not being my first or second language, and with philosophy thrown in this is one of those moments. It's the best I can do, but I hope you understand what I mean.

Happy Thudding!

That was *sobs* beautiful...

wa?!?! english is my first language and you are better than me! eek!

You should see what's in my head then .
Seriously, it doesn't cover half of what I'm trying to say, and it could do with a little more delicacy...
But there you go, you can't have it all, right?

OB two words... Well Said *Claps*

Of course I am not offended/shocked/upset by your comments. Lee and Dewi want to know what everyone thinks, and your view is perfectly valid. Silly me for not including an option along the lines of

Should everything stay the same? Should we continue on doing what we are doing with no changes?

Respectfully though I have to have a slight disagreement with your view. I understand that you feel that division is not in the spirit of the game or the book and I respect that immensely. As a naturally competitive personality it never even occurred to me that perhaps some people would not want to encourage a more competitive enviroment for playing Thud.

I have a question for you though since you have obviously put some thought into this. Part of the reason for the creation of clan/clubs/usergroups whatever was the ability to nuture new players and instil a love of the game and sense of community (albeit within the wider Thud community). If we just keep doing what we are doing, and we get ten times the number of members (circa 4000 members) once the paperback comes out, what process or plan would you have us put in place to ensure we retain as many of these players as possible?

The advantage of Clans/clubs/groupings is an easily identifiable pathway to encourage new players to get involved, and get help from more experienced players. *I want to be in OB's clan - he's got lot's of experience and can help me* is great, and knowing you are such a friendly and helpful guy with a great love of the game, I know that you would try to help as many of the new players as possible. I just don't see how you would be able to help upwards of 200 new players who would want to play against someone of your calibre to learn. This is the advantage of division for Slowfire games. You'll note that I said ~slowfire~ games. Looking into my crystal ball I imagine that anyone within the online environment will play whoever is available regardless of clan/city/grouping or whatever, and this should instil in them a sense of the wider community?

Disagreements, comments or flames on this view will be happily accepted. I also think we have our first poll.

Should we change things to divisions to cope with the expected influx of new members or try to keep a wider community feel?

I'll set this up later. At work at present - must get back to it.

Windle

So glad that OB spoke up. I was not speaking, not wanting to be a wet blanket, but I was mainly feeling the same way.

How about a system of mentoring? Newbies can sign up to be mentored through their first game(s) and people with experience will be on the Mentor list. To get on the Mentor list, you must be sponsored by someone on the Mentor list, maybe. Mr Shine say we must get beyond this clan stuff.

If there is a sudden influx of folks, we will have the same shortage of experienced people regardless of what structure we put in place. So how about a mentoring model instead of competition? Then there would be only two types of folks - those helping, and those being helped. The latter can become the former pretty fast, as we all know.

Personally, I don't fancy being in any clan that you are not all in!

Thanks Magrat, I knew you'd feel the same. Your posts in The Drum helped me in composing the above one.
And then there's that, yes (see Magrat's quote). I do not fancy being in a clan with Ponder, Windle Poons and Magrat and NOT being in a clan with Palm and SANEAlex because of that choice. Just a couple of random names that came to mind, there's so many more I'd like to be with.
But it's the philosophy thing that's still bothering me most.

With my mere two and a half years at Thud! I'm considered an elder in here . I've seen legions of players come and go. Some stick, like Palm and Aine, and let's not forget Mc

. Some don't. Some come back after a while, just to abandon games again.
There's no two ways about it: you either like the game so much that you stick around for over two years, or you don't. I don't see what clans can help in getting people to stay.
Magrat's idea of Mentors is a good one, I'll second that. It's what we did all along, without the name attached to it. Help people get a grasp of the game, provide them with a link (ahum) to study games, and watch them get better at it.

Some people might say, ah well, but it's you that introduced the scorecard, wasn't it? Isn't that competition? LOL, I am. But I have to say it started out as a page filler (just a leather board skin looked too lonely), and then it grew out to be vastly more important. But I still feel that this is only to find the more interesting games/players, and see how they play to learn from it. The competition (to me) is far less important.

However, I do see that Lee and Dewi need to have some sort of living too. But maybe (no offense mates, you're terrific geezers, you really are!) they went about it the wrong way. They picked out the game idiots like me, and him, and him, and made them druids, or even provided some of them with a site , and hoped to get money from the rest of the players. I was amazed, to say the least. I, and I guess a couple more idiots like me, would have been more than happy to sent them lots (OK, rather many ) of money to keep them at it. Still am.
Maybe we should pick out the idiots in the 4000-odd players to be expected after the paperback, and get them to sent a couple of bucks?
And put the rest in a clan .

Just to be absolutely clear: no offense to anyone, especially to Lee and Dewi! Just my thoughts, mind you.

-------------
[*] the "dinosaurs", like me. The only people I know of that used to be on the first forum. Only a couple of people from second forum joined third one, and they post very irregularly.

Happy Thudding!

Now this is what I'm looking for. (and I'm sure Lee and Dewi would agree) Good honest discussion about the issues from people who care.

This raises the importance of the need for a poll to determine if we want to have divisions into clans/groups/cities, or keep it one big happy family and have designated "mentors" instead.

The issue that I can see is one of retaining new people.

As you've said OB, you've seen 'em come and go during your time here. Those that are enthusiastic about it will stay. Those that aren't, won't. I'd like to think we can make as many as possible enthusiastic about the game and retain people, and I'm happy to use whatever method works to achieve this. I don't know about all of you, but I'd be sad if this wasn't a going concern for Lee and Dewi and they had to shut it down.

The important thing I think is that a decision needs to be made reasonably quickly. Lee and Dewi have computer stuff to do if we are going to set up either option.

Poll on the way but please keep the comments coming - Don't be a "wet blanket" - whatever that is : keep it coming.

Windle

now thats a sterling idea. i like this idea very much. That way people will always remember you as the person that taught them "the way" and will come back to try and beat you as they gain more skills and confidence.

Jolly good show

aawwww! see! the sense of community is already there

Ok not at work any longer so I've had time to put some concentration to the issues at hand. I'm holding off the poll until we've had a few more responses.

OB, Magrat, Ponder (and anyone else too shy or not quick enough to agree with them), I respect your views about not dividing the community and creating factions, truly I do. It's very philosophical and has deep meaning in connection with the book. But I think you underestimate the community. Seriously would anyone here turn into a faction facist : What would happen to them if they did : I imagine that Lee and Dewi and the moderators would fall on them like a ton of rectangular building things

I wonder if it is possible to have our cake and eat it too? I had envisaged that those people in charge of a grouping would maintain some level of mentoring anyway...so lets just make it official that part of their responsibility is to help the newbies to engage them into playing this great game.

Do we really think that the creation of groups would STOP anyone from playing anyone? Am I suddenly going to be thinking "That OB, Magrat, Ponder s/he's the ruler of another group, I must hate and destroy him and turn all my team players against him/her?" Never going to happen. And I'm sure that Lee and Dewi would ensure it didn't.

A disadvantage that I see from "Mentoring" rather than "Grouping" is the number of tournaments that could occur. If we go with Mentoring are we restricting ourselves to one tournament a year? One ultimate champion per year with no chance for new players to have small successes? For those that have improved to show their skill?

In the case of grouping as Peanut stated in his post, we can have intra-group competitions and have "champions", we can have one group challenge another group etc etc and give the new guys and gals the opportunity to have some smaller successes rather than just TT06 champion. Do we have to wait an entire year for another competition?

OK rant over. Please Flame me if you disagree or alternatively agree if you agree.

Windle

OK, I promised WP we would hang back and let people discuss without us micromanaging the thing but that we would jump in when necessary to clarify (or to say hurry up coz we gotta get on with things ). I think a clarification point is in order as it seems to me that we're getting lost in a semantic cul de sac over things that appear worse than they are.

Clans. Clans are what many gaming sites on the web use as the word has that primeval us against-it-all (dinosaurs, cavemen, volcanos, barbarians, whatever) cachet that gets the ole adrenaline and testosterone pumping. However, it also engenders thoughts of "us and ours" against "them and theirs" with the "them and theirs" being evil and subject to demonization. I think (wihtout having consulted him first ) that this is what OB is on about-- the us and them confrontational and warmongering kind of social divisions that we have all seen enough of. I, personally, am from Tennessee and the word has been abused by the ancestors of many Southerners in similar, pernicious ways. For these and other reasons we don't believe "Clans" is the best word to use for what thudgame is about, what PTerry was on about in the book and what we want thudgame.com to be. Let's lose "Clans" now, for good.

There is another concept, however, that is much more amenable to how human beings are socially, without the negative connotations above. Since time immemorial the vast and overwhelming majority of human beings have always been gregarious and have tended to gather together in places wher they can experience and enjoy the benefits (and efficiencies!) of their diversity in close proximity to one another. I'm thinking of cities. Indeed, much of the Discworld involves a certain very large city where, although there are problems and social incidents, the vast majority of people, who come from a huge diversity of backgrounds, and even species, races and vital existence, manage to rub along and benefit from this diversity. Indeed, Thud! the book is all about protecting this against a self-selected few who want to a) declare themselves guardians of the one and only truth, and [more importantly there, as well as for us in the Roundworld!!], b) they are ready and, indeed, enthusiastic about encouraging their followers to impose this one "truth" by violent means on any who choose [important word there!] to not accept it and choose[!] to go another way. In Ankh-Morpork Sam Vimes had to work within the law to oppose this and stop the violence. Thankfully, Dewi and I aren't constrained by that sort of thing; when the necessity arises we can don the cloak of deity (like any halfway decent Sysadmin! ) and whack any nascent thudgame.com Taliban very quickly. Believe me, we want a happy, involved and thriving community and not one dominated by one, or a few, apocalytpic individuals.

A note about the community: WP is right about numbers. given uniformity (and no paperback) we would have surpassed the Stamps forum (and former Thud forum) in numbers sometime early next Spring (after 1-1/2 yrs, which with virtually no marketing is a pleasing result), even after subtracting comment spammers and pagerank pirates. With the paperback i can see the forum with 4000 or so members by next summer; more if we do things well. It's been a close-knit and friendly forum and it's a cosy place to be but it would be wrong to try and maintain that at the cost of exclusivity. Part of the concept of cities is many forums (fora?) within the thudgame community within each of which there are clear cultures and community. This will happen on its own if we don't interfere with it; we don't have to impose it [indeed, this forum has developed its own culture quite without our imposition]. We envision lots of Thud-playing [as there will be incentives to do so], mentoring by members who have been there longer and competition both within, and between, cities but ultimately the competition all leading up to a yearly (or more often if we get a bit of help! ) tournament to crown a new Thudmeister.

Another aspect of this is inclusivity of many different types of thudgame fans who may, or may not want to play competitively but want to be associated with the site about the book and want to contribute but, like me, are crap at gameplay (or are too busy to really get good at it ). We were thinking of the cities along the lines of how the game Civilization works-- start as a village and build up to a town then to a city, etc. Cities need lots of things--markets, stadiums, arcadiums (whoops, RHCP nod there! ), parks, decoration, and these will have to be paid for by points won by playing Thud (and, as WP pointed out, some by cash as this ain't a charity). The more Thud played, the more points won. But in this way, everything is on a friendly basis, not squabbling factions. With any big (or, at times, small) group of human beings you'll have people who disagree, some shout, some flounce off, some are diplomatic and find reconciliation but this is what humans are like. We aren't proposing to build heaven; rather a nice corner of the Disc on the Roundworld. We hope that's OK with you all.

There are lots of intereactions and detail to be fleshed out here which is why we would REALLY like you all to discuss it all but I would like to move away from the unnecessarily negative semantics of clans and factions.

A couple of important notes: Having flipped the thudgame.com website, people have started to join it (don't; we will be shortly unifying passwords and memberships between the forum and the website so there's no point and people's registration who do will be moved here then overwritten). the salient point is that for those who want the forum to remain a quiet, cosy little bit of the Shire, the onslaught (perhaps an unfortunate term, but...) is coming: the website, purely on google referrals, is growing 9 times as fast as the forum. If we left it like it is, the website would catch and surpass the forum (sans paperback) around Christmas. So there are people out there who want to be involved in Thud, Thudgame, the Discworld, etc but, for whatever reason haven't chosen to come to the forum. We would like to make everyone feel the community is a place where all can feel welcome, and just as importantly, a place they belong and can contribute to, even if, like me, they're not particularly good at playing Thud but enjoy it. If there's a community vibe where all can feel they can contribute, we shouldn't have a problem with factionalism and even if we do the only problems will be for Dewi and myself, not for for you all.

One final note (promise! ): WP is right about something else as well. Thudgame.com in all its iterations has cost Dewi and myself quite a bit in time and opportunity cost as well as cash but we undertook this, not as a hobby, but as a venture. As such, our free year to develop things has expired and come the paperback we will be required to pay a license fee to the principals involved thus, yes, not only our time but the site will have to be monetised in ways that are as painless for the community as possible but as profitably for us as possible. With that in mind, we're certain you'll be understanding that it can't remain a labour of love as it is now. Circumstances and our bank managers won't allow that. We do, however, very much believe in giving fun and value for money as well a the fact that we don't have all the answers thus we greatly wish for input from you, the community. Please discuss!

Sorry for the epic. i wanted to clarify some things and provide a bit of background with it. please do reply and discuss

With kindest regards to all,
Lee Alley

ah.

i think "societies" (spelt correct for the actual thing hopefully* ) is a much better word than clans as Lee said.

If it would also be possible to integrate these societies into the thudgame website as well that would mean they would reach an larger audience.

Also having soc- them things- means there is lots of scope for tournaments - there could be an inter soc challenge/tournament/knees up - and the winner/runner up/third could progress straight through to TT0X and all the rest would have to qualify in a grueling and painful ordeal with many pointy weapons.

A bit like snooker really. only with less balls. and sticks. only admins are alowed sticks.

Just the mumblings of a fool

----
*i learnt good england when i was a children

I wanted to chime in with a bit of a thought about the factionalism inherent in the Usergroups that many have feared. I agree with OB's concerns (and with anyone else) who pointed out that this kind of division goes against the message that the book puts forth.

On the other hand, one of my favourite scenes in the book is in the basement of Pointer & Pickles, where at one point, Mr. Shine points out:

*That's* what I would envision the smaller communities doing: moving beyond fear and distrust and enjoying the game, and learning from each other.

Imagine if, when the Poons Offensive first came to light and was thought to be invincible, if a community of dwarfish players were the first to come up with a defense. Now, imagine if they had kept it for themselves, rather than blat it from the rooftops in the Strategy forum. Sooner or later, everyone else would figure out what they were up to, from watching games play out in the forum, and other communities would come up with cracks for cracks, etc. But for a season, all eyes on the Disc would be watching the dwarfs from Copperhead, say. It would raise the prestige of that community (for a time) and people would want to play them, if only to figure out what they were doing that was so clever!

Doesn't that sound like a nice idea?

Dearmer,

To me it does but as stated before I have a naturally competitive personality. I imagine this sort of thing will filter out pretty quickly anyway. Games will be available for us to view through the new features that Lee and Dewi put in. The strategy forum is going to stay as well and I'm happy to shout from the rooftops any sneaky tactics that I come up with in the future. (maybe I can get a Poon's Offensive I,II,III named after me as well )

Does this mean we can look forward to a

Dearmer Whirling Dervish Move?

Anyway back on topic Thudders - we still need opinions please

Windle

As I accidentally posted to another topic: does everyone agree that providing sub-communities, with the existing features and forums largely unchanged as a "communal area", and some optional features of the communities available for pay, is required to scale and grow the community past the 1000 mark?

If not, then I'll weigh in with some arguments on the "pro-sub-communities" side, but there's not a lot of point if I'm just preaching to the choir

[The arguments are already written as design notes anyway, but I don't want to bore you all if there's no point :P]

I do.
Some things have been brought to my attention that made me change my mind. Although the philosophical matter still stands, it remains that: philosophical. Let's get over to The Drum, grab a good Belgian beer and a nice cigar, and talk about it a little more.
But the real world is closing in on us, and from what I heard, very fast. So while we are in The Drum, let Dewi and Lee do their business. They're far better at it, and experienced in it, than I am.

So here's the deal: there's still only one truth, and that's mine. The Book as well as The Game forbid us to divide, clan, group. Anyone who agrees is welcome to leave here and join me at my site. I will set up a new forum there.

That was a wink! And let me add
!!!!!
to be entirely clear.

Happy Thudding!

OB read my article, and I was rather hoping for a good argument to come out of it. The occasional club in the henhouse is a good thing, if it keeps the chickens better prepared for when the fox comes!

But the post above worries me I feel uncomfortable that you accepted the ideas in there without any debate, and I'm worried that you're only agreeing because it'd be too much work to argue with so many words.

Complacency is worrying: I can never make everyone happy all the time, so I like to know what is making them unhappy, so I can at least try to make it better.

We wouldn't ask for people's opinions if we'd made our minds up. We might have missed something wonderful! So we have the suggestions forum. We're not perfect, we'll never get it right all the time, so we rather like people to warn us before we cock things up too badly.

So, I'll post the article here, but PLEASE: read it critically, discuss the ideas in it, point out weaknesses in the plan, suggest alternatives, and laugh at us for our hubris in thinking we had it all planned out so nicely. Knowing what annoys people now, before I do all the programming, will save me lots of wasted work.

We've actually put a fair bit more thought into this than we've let on About five or six years' worth, in fact. Allow me to explain...

Since '92, I've been involved, as a player/member, a helper, or a manager, with a fair number of communities: mu(d|she|ck)s, various IRC networks, a few charities like CyberAngels and its split-off, safetyEd, and most recently, Furcadia, for which I am a paid administrator (paid in dollars, sadly, which are becoming worthless). I've seen communities grow from nothing, become huge and popular, succeed dramatically... and I've seen them split, wither, and die despite the best efforts of the administration.

Growth can kill if it isn't anticipated and managed.

To prevent this, we need to anticipate the growth, plan for it, and manage it. There are many reasons for growth-death. The first is a geeky technical one.

1. Failure to scale.

   The internet is unlike any other economy on the planet (though there are admittedly significant similarities with prostitution). If you're popular, it can kill you. If you've a website with something interesting on it, and you get a mention in an article somewhere popular like slashdot, then your server will get hugely hammered. This won't earn you any money, but it may drive your usage quota over the limit, or swamp your connection. This will either lumber you with massive bills, or take the server offline for the rest of the month: both great ways to kill a community.

   We have built to scale here: we've a 10M connection and a 1.5TB monthly limit for our server. We've only recently passed 1.5GB/month. But a thousandfold increase in a month is easily possible with "flashcrowds" and "slashdotting", so we monitor this carefully.

   What happens when there are 4,000 people online at once, all playing live Thud? These are the kind of numbers that online games need to deal with regularly (Furcadia has about this level at peak times: other MMOGS have many times this). Will the Thud codebase cope? I hope so. I designed for scalability from the get-go: it's a big reason that we're using cut-down IRC protocols for the back-end.

   However, the current client will not cope with 4,000 users in the userlist (well, it will, but the screen would scroll too fast from the people speaking to be readable). But that's already sorted and planned for: we'll split people up into multiple rooms ("channels" in IRC-speak).

   So for purely technical reasons, we MUST split the community. It is not humanly possible to communicate in a reasonable fashion with 4,000 people at once.

   We could split the first N people to room 1, the next N to room 2, and so on. But that makes it hard to find your friends. We could split by RW geography, but not only is that totally un-Thud, there'd also be just one huge "UK" channel and lots of almost-empty other-country channels, with poor lost souls in them.

   In my experience, imposed segregation simply does not work. The answer seems to let people self-segregate, instead. Let them make their cities, give each city a channel, and let anyone visit any city, and if they decide they like it, let them buy a place there and set down their roots.

2. never switch to pay-to-play.

   The second thing that kills online communities is suddenly switching to pay-to-play.

   So, how can I say "buy"? Well, we could rant about the years poured into this project, wave the terrifying letters from our banks, credit cards, etc... We could show you the probably-less-than-a-dollar we've got for the advertising on the site and now we have to pay license fees so we have to make money from this or playing Thud on the Internet, as it currently exists, will come to an end. Now, though that's a huge motivation, it's not even close to being the most important one for making joining a community a "pay" option.

   The plan is everyone to begin with will be a "barbarian" (to use the Civilization(tm) term: homeless, unaffiliated). They can play the game as one does now--for free, they can contribute to public areas of the community as one does now. So nobody who doesn't pay loses anything they have already. Playing Thud will always be free and we have no plans, or intention, to change this at any time.

   This is VITAL: not just because it's in the terms-and-conditions of our license, but for community growth. If we go pay-to-play, the community will be cut off from its roots, and will wither and die. So everything that's charged for should be unnecessary to play the game itself. Charged-for stuff will be added value stuff.

3. The attention dilemma.

   We touched on this in the first point. The flip side of it though is that it affects players too. If someone is hugely popular (if Trevor came on, or pTerry) then they become swamped. They can't just hang out and chat anymore, they get bombarded with requests and eventually driven away. I've been driven away from some programming communities for example, because I was just spending more time helping newbies than I was spending using the language. I can no longer actually play Furcadia, for example.

   This is awful. The very best elements of the game get driven away.

   One way to prevent this is give good and powerful "ignore" tools: let people manage a blocklist, and let it apply to groups instead of just to individuals. "Block game requests from all barbarians", "block game requests from all users with more/fewer than N games played", "Block ALL game requests and private messages" and so on.

   But another way is to compensate people for their time - once we've given them the option NOT to contribute, we should encourage them to contribute anyway. "Attention points", rewards for playing, are one way to do this, which can be used intead of money to buy ingame fripperies. Or given as gifts to friends. Or even wagered on a game, to make the game more interesting... leading to two more block types: "block all gamblers" and "block all people not willing to gamble".

   So people who played a lot wouldn't need money even for the optional stuff: they could use their attention points instead.

4. Wealth hoarding

   One of the problems with attention economies is that people hoard the wealth. This makes for huge and unfair imbalances with new players, and also means that the points never get spent, which is bad for the economy. Hoarding can actually kill a community, since new players quickly realise they will never reach the same status as the longtime players in any reasonable amount of time.

   The solution here is to introduce some form of "tax" on attention points gained through gambling, gifts, and games (but probably not those points bought with hard cash).

5. Running out of funding.

   This is part of the first one really: failure to scale. To begin with, a community can be run over a DSL line, from a server in your back room. But once it grows, you need serious servers, serious pipes. We're lucky, we already have a server in a datacentre: we're using our morganalley.com webserver. But the other part of scaling is that you need to put more admin time into the project, and ultimately even hire employees.

   The need for employees can be delayed by using willing volunteers as moderators and community managers (that is, get the community to manage itself to an extent), but the time will come where two people just won't be enough. The volunteers themselves will need management. The number of bug reports will outstrip the abilities of one programmer to keep up (well, OK, that's already happened a long time ago). And we won't have time for our day jobs.

   In fact, we don't have day jobs now. I began this venture funded by my redundancy payment. That ran out after a year, and since then I've been racking up sizeable debts (currently 7,000, about $US13,000, and rising fast). There is no immediate hope of paying that off from Thud, even if we went completely for-pay, so I need a day job.

   See the conflict?

6. Clumping.

   If there's the option to join a city, there'll be popular and unpopular ones. Everyone will want to live in Ankh Morpork. This is a problem. If we let it go unchecked, we return to the problem of everyone being in one big clump, unsegregated. The scalability problem hits us in the ass again.

   So, property rental for popular cities (Ankh) will cost more than for unpopular ones (Sto Lat), balanced as a factor of the size of the community. This encourages people to spread out more evenly.

   "But I don't have any money!" That's OK! People should be able to buy stuff without money, instead they should be able to buy stuff with "attention points".

7. Segregation entrenchment.

   Now, the problem with self-imposed segregation is that it becomes entrenched. People get into their communities and they stop talking to other communities. What to do? This is a THUD community: we want and need to encourage cross-group communication, otherwise it's just not in the spirit of Thud.

   Admittedly, not doing so will not kill the community. But still - we want to encourage (but not force) inter-group communication.

   So, if you play someone from another group, you earn points for your city: "city points". As with attention points, you can also buy these with real-world money, but not trade them for money. You could also convert attention points into city points by donating them to the city.

   City points would be spent (either by the community manager, or by vote) on buying items and customisations for the city.

   This also gives the hook for getting people to join communities. If you join a city, your games will contribute points to that city. If you remain a barbarian, they don't. If you were a city member, your attention-point taxes would automatically be converted to city points: for barbarians, the taxes would be lost.

8. Chargebacks.

   This is a word no online community manager wants to hear. As you have more things to buy online, creditcard fraud becomes a bigger and bigger issue. The US has an unpleasant sytem where, if a child uses their parent's card without permission, and the parent finds out, the parent can ask for a chargeback. The creditcard company takes the money back from the retailer, plus a chargeback fee, and gives it to the parent.

   Also, if the percentage of unauthorised chargebacks is greater than an agreed level, then the transaction companies (paypal and such) will freeze your account until you have a six months "buffer" of payments to cover it.

   In child-friendly games, this is a particularly large problem. I have seen cases where, over the space of a year, a child orders thousands of pounds worth of online subscriptions and stuff, gives them to their friends, more and more as they become addicted to the popularity this brings... and then the parent finds out.

   Ten thousand pounds removed at the wrong time, followed by a guaranteed six months with no income, can bankrupt a company so easily it's scary.

   There are things that we can do to minimise this risk: for example, preventing people from buying more than a certain amount of stuff from us per year without proof of identity. But it's still a significant risk.

9. Death by Politics

   This is the big killer. It's not usually caused by those out to hurt the community: far from it, those involved are usually amongst its greatest supporters! It starts with differences of opinion between two entirely reasonable parties, but the opinions held are strong enough that they cannot coexist.

   This generally involves the perceived direction of the community growth: one group wants to be recompensed for its work, the other group wants the world to remain free for everyone; one group thinks one person would make a good admin, the other prefers another candidate; one group just gets tired with the administration's slowness at implementing change.

   Usually, this will result in a community split, and the two groups go on their happy ways (such as with http://bash.org and the offshoot http://qdb.us, many open source projects, and many IRC networks).

   We don't have this option. We have to remain one community, because that's all the license covers. So any differences need to be addressed quickly and managed, before they kill us. With 4,000 users disagreeing a percentage of the time, that's a lot of management time just in resolving and managing conflicts.

There is more, much more, along these lines, particularly with regards to griefers, harrassers, alt-thieves and traders (about which I've also written, and shall post some other time), but the above are the urgent issues facing us now.

Bottom line is: there are about 400 members and maybe 40-50 of those are regular posters here. We can't remain a cozy little forum, detached from the huge Thud community about to show up. We can't work with two communities; there is only one Thud community. We can't go bankrupt giving all our time to a labour of love. We must let the community grow in a way that is best for all. For all these reasons, we must decentralise: inertia is not an option.

[Remember: the above is opinion. Not statements of cold fact. Disagreement and discussion is encouraged.]

Dewi,

At work so can't take long - money to be made and all that.

Big thanks for the detailed plan. No doubt you have lots more design notes up your sleeve. The above sounds good, better than good in fact, but I have some questions.

1) As part of the division, the current "50 or so" are obviously your core members - How many "cities" were you wanting to have? How many of the "50" did you want in each city to "prime the pump" as it were?

2) Are all cities going in place from day one of the upgrade or will you have the ability to add more as member numbers improve? And does this mean a change of address for founders to provide support?

Sorry too bust to put more thoughts to screen. Will come back after work and think some more.

Windle

Hrm. Thought-inspiring questions, Mr Poons! To be honest, we haven't made a firm decision on any of them.

I did write a reply to them, too, but then lopped it out before hitting "WIN MORE" - I'll post it when others have had a chance to give their opinions

Well, jeez, Dewi, you know a hell of a lot more about this than I do. This is the first web community that has owned something attractive enough to get me to hang out in it. I think I am just a resolutely twentieth-century person, which explains why I would go online to play a board game.****

So I defer to your superior experience, and also to your superior superiorness in general (still hoping to get one of those "Crush Opponent" buttons....)

I do hope all unfolds as you expect in the near future, and that you have these kinds of problems which people hope to have if they are wanting to make a living from a web community. Lead on.

***edit: by which I mean, that's why it's the _only_thing that interests me particularly out there. Other people play all those shiny things with 3d monsters killing each other...

i see this is alot more complex and efforty than first suspected.

I can see both points of the argument, and now, i am slightly ebbing to having no sort of community types.

i don't really have much to say on the matter as i am a little confused now

Damn you and you rediculously long posts! they melt my mind!

I'm a little confused by this chunk - do you see the two elements (ignore tools and attention points) working together, rather than as two seperate options, one of which we might decide was preferable?
If not, I'm not certain I understand how the second idea would really prevent popular people from being mobbed.

MS

Yes, complementary, rather than alternatives.

(short enough? )

OK Thudders,

It looks like Dewi and Lee do have an excellent plan going forward and I hope you would all agree. Cities does seem to be the way to enable us to scale the community properly - unless someone wants to come up with a flash of brilliance within the next couple of days??

Here is a list of all the city names I could think of - I know I am missing Lots please add.

Anhk Morpork - Of course
Cori Celesti - For Dewi and Lee to hang out in?
Sto Lat
Quirm
Lancre
Genua
Bonk
Klatch
Tsort
Djelibeybi
Ephebe
Nothingford
Bugarup
Omnia

Brain...squeezed...can't...think...of...any...more
Windle

Can I just caution that we have ideas but we don't want to set these in stone until we've thoroughly consulted with the community first. This isn't the end of it, it's the conversation. As Dewi said, "We wouldn't ask for people's opinions if we'd made our minds up. We might have missed something wonderful!" Some, like Dewi and Peanut, have a lot of experience with online communities, some of us are more attuned to real world economies but all have something to contribute if they will.

The thing is, it's like democracy: everyone votes--either actively or passively. By that I mean, those who don't bother to vote, out of laziness, apathy, no sense of belonging or whatever automatically vote passively for whoever won. They say, "I'm happy with whatever outcome." We want to inject a bit of democratic urgency into the discussion so everyone can contribute and feel their contribution is valued.

The facts are these: 1) the community is almost certainly going to grow thus must be managed such that it can scale, 2) the site has got to be monetised whilst playing Thud remains free, 3) many are uneasy with simple, confrontational community models such as "clans", and 4) the community must be able to be managed by two people with a group of volunteers. Given this and what's been posted to date, what are some ideas for unifying the above facts?

A few ideas* to chew on: villages grow into towns which grow into cities. How do they grow? How is rent charged or can people also pay for their own freehold plot? How is one allowed to join a town? Auction? Variable pricing based on population? Towns need facilities: shops, entertainment, an arena to play Thud in....how are these provisioned? How is stuff paid for? Real world cash or Thud points? How are Thud points won? Some for playing and more for winning? Are volunteers paid a salary of Thud points every week/month? Dewi's coded a wagering system into the online game-- is this genius? A tool of the devil? Something that will certainly land us in prison (in the Land of the free and home of the brave at least)? What else could you spend thud points on?**

This is your chance to win your lilac-- talk about it and give us your ideas and stamp your presence on thudgame as having been there when the decisions were made. You have a few days yet and that's all. You don't have to be an online gaming guru. I'm not. You don't have to be a techie. You don't have to be good at Thud. So talk to us, what are some good ideas??? What are some crap ideas (one person's crap is another person's world changing genius innovation-- we want to hear them all!!). Come on, please, talk to us

-Lee

*These are ideas. Some may find them fascinating some may think they're utter bollox-- let us know what you think. Nothing's set in stone. Yet.

**Possibly, in the long run at least, the most important question to be answered.

This is an interesting discussion. Like Magrat this is the first community thingy that I've really made any effort to engage with, being the only community that's been based around something I found interesting.

Actually, now I think about it - it isn't my only interest (then I would be sad in the English way!), but the attraction of the site for me is in the feel of the community. Friendly people, low use of jargon, real words in real language (n e 1 ls h8 dis?). The prospect of large scale growth, I believe, will erode these quality elements - or at least dilute them. I suspect that these elements are beyond the control of any management system beyond 'good practice guidelines'.

I opted to pay money to play in the tourney. Why? I didn't honestly think I would win, though the Thudmeister accolade would have been nice - but I did want to play good players to see how I did. Not too well as it so happens, but learning is my motivator. In short I paid for an excellent practical lesson or 3 in how skillful players play. This may have happened in free and open forum (there are seldom players on the client when I log on), but it may not have done, or not as quickly. My game improved quickly - to the extent that my friends, and folks in my local tavern, more often decline to play me now (I won too much beer) - and compared to players on the site I'm not even 'average'! Which fetches me to Thudpoints. If this is the site currency of the future, I would prefer to use them for an educative session - perhaps a mentored game, or lessons, from a top player.

The option to gamble points would be nice also, as experience tells me that beer doesn't interface with a computer very well.

I appreciate the necessity to sub-divide, and applaude the developers foresight and planning in the background whirlings of the site, thankful that names like Morgan and Alley are used instead of BS and Johnson, differently skilled as he was. Some of the visions detailed in this thread enthuse me, others give me the sort of feeling that the wizards must have felt when faced with 111b. Just what was going on?

Guilds and Towns - Barbarians I can cope with, settling in towns that grow (allowing diversity of sub groups eg. guilds within the town) I can see as appetising. There could be inter-town games earning town points and play others within the same guild in other towns for other reward, perhaps personal or guild thudpoints. Games within the town could give another reward, maybe status. I guess the point here is about breadth of rewards and flexibilty in cross comunity play, these privilages may come at a monetary price. Barbarians, for free, would have limited access I guess to Town Thud Taverns only - better beef up those Bouncers!

I still struggle with how to entice Barbarians to part with their gold, given that most choose barbarianism because of it's freedom. I think, whilst the towns are developing, I may rent a room for a while. If I don't settle with the new lifestyle - well, there's always looting and pillaging temples!

I like the idea of thudpoints, where by as you learn new things you get rewarded with a metaphorical pat on the head, this leads back to my idea of having a "thud academy" where top players (or average players even) sign up to be mentors or teachers or whatever you would want to call them. Then newbies could sign up to a mentor and learn the way of the warrior...i mean thudmeister.

obviously i would be archchancelor!!!

*pokes admins for attention*

I agree with ponder it would be cool if newbies could have a mentor but how long would they have a mentor :

Ponder as archchancelor

Let me start by saying I'm one of those who shows up on occassion. I'd LIKE to be here more often, but I have a couple of issues... primarily tied to my Mac usage. The game itself has issues--I have to open Opera just to play it (won't play on Firefox or Camino, as I noted in a tech support thread), and the downloadable game needs some install work for Mac, before it can become useful. Thus, playing Thud is hard for me, until I can order an actual physical game (and shipping to the states isn't cheap...).

Now, that said as for reasons why I'm a slow player: I wanted to address this post. I too run a community, namely a Harry Potter fandom community. From the chaos that has reigned there, and fandom politics, etc it has become clear that divisions are the most worrisome thing to a community.

These divisions arose for several reasons, but I lost lots of my staff via a big one. They ran off and set up their own community, and we still have issues back and forth to this day. The key, I think, is simple. A system to successfully resolve disputes. Also, we became identified and labeled. No longer were we just in our fandom, we were splinters within the fandom. And we were unable to resolve it.

The splinters were inevitable. Just as they are here--subgroups will arise with growth. What we didn't do was realize that, and so we failed to plan for it, with the consequence lots of the old time posters are just gone.

The cities and villages idea seem great to me, if they also foster a spirit of cooperation between them. I would be proud of being a Borogravian, say... but I would hope to be able to talk to my good buddy in Sto Lat. I don't want every game I play against him to "count" against my city, for instance. If I were to play against Magrat or someone else who's good, I would lose, and lose badly--thus, counting for city honor is not something I would want in that scenario either. Now, if there was some reward for playing and beating the impossible opponent...

As far as thudpoints. I would suggest that we not mark who bought theirs versus who "earned" theirs.... last thing I want is to have some person dropping cash to reach the top. That's almost Lietenant Rust like.

I would suggest that each new player be given an inital allowance of Thudpoints. They are given a limited range of things to purchase as Barbarians, I guess, and a much higher range as a member of a city. They could, perhaps, pay the ThudMeisters for lessons, at prices to be set by their city. I would suggest that everyone who tutors have two prices... one for city members, and one for visitors. Each city can purchase stuff from the Gods, or the admins.... thus removing lots of the surplus money generated by each of the new players. The tax idea sounds good as well.

There are several ways to go on cities: guilds, perhaps, within a city, or some cities focus on certain things, and people move from city to city. As a newbie, I'm not going to be able to afford Ankh Morpork. What if I instead could afford to join Sto Lat? Or Klatch? Most likely, Klatch would be full of people who are new. The basics of the game would be focused on there, and maybe Klatch can be the newbie zone. The city taxes would go towards hiring the tutor types. if people want to work on their Dwarf game, they could go to Copperhead, where I suspect the Dwarven geniuses would hang out. Ditto for a Troll place. If each city had an annual or monthly membership fee... then people could belong to as many as they could afford.

This would turn the cities into something more like specialization area. The intracity ladders would mean something--to be on top of the ladder in Coppermine, say, means you are really good at dwarves. They could maybe focus more on the dwarf score.

In essence, my idea would reduce the "clan" feeling, I hope. Yet still allow for the necessary subgrouping.

Vanceone,
Many thanks for the post and the ideas. I won't comment on specifics at this time as we still want others to post their thoughts un-coloured by our nudges, but good stuff anyway. Sorry to hear about the probs on the HP community. I would be curious to know if there were there demographics that contributed to the issues (i.e. lots of young people? Lots of pushy professionals? A significant group of some sort with its own contributory baggage?)? Might help us here....

Again, cheers for the contribution! Anyone else?

Thanks for the replies. This forum is substantially different than the HP fandom, thank goodness. HP is huge... as in, massive. My forum has well over a thousand members, and plenty of them post. Since HP is huge, the divisions are large as well. My website is focused around one set of theories for how the books will end up, and our natural "enemies" as it were, have another. J.K. Rowling herself called the wide fandom clash cyber gang warfare. Indeed, I guess we would be the equivalent of dwarves versus trolls, now that I think about it.

Our forum problem arose from a clash on how to deal with "the enemy." Some wanted to be respectful, some wanted to be full of digs, etc--not being respectful. It's kind of eerily similar to the battle between the grags and others within the dwarven community.

We don't have that here, thankfully. To answer Lee's question--the conflict was lead, in part, by some of the old-timers. Mostly professional types, really. The children bring lots of their own issues, but in the big blow up (which, thankfully, was primarily internal) it was led by several college grads clashing with college grads.

The young people, for the most part, are pretty calm. Indeed, most people are. We have issues with the grag-style mentality with many people, but that's not a surprise. We have been blessed with lots of young people who are very mature. But when they blow up, it's spectacular. Of course, we have the regular forum trolls, but those are easily dealt with.

It helps to have specific rules, and to enforce said rules. There's other HP sites without those rules, and it shows. People want nothing more than that their ideas are being heard... and I think the admins here are doing a wonderful job.

As a minor note, we have had some hacking attempts, given we are somewhat prominent. I'll make no apologies for actually being a decent forum and site admin on the tech side, so we weren't hacked despite attempts, but several of our competing sites were--they were targeted just due to their size. And it succeeded.... I suspect that this forum will be targeted too at some point. PM me for more info on that, if you want (though I kinda doubt you need it--you guys seem to be well in control. )

Conflict resolution. Our problems stemmed from the fact we were perceived as being unfair--solicitious to one side and harsh on the other. And, actually, we were. It was an attempt to change our reputation, which failed. From this, I've learned that we have to have evenhandedness. It also really, really helps to have cooling off periods, and to freeze and lock threads for a while to calm down. The best thing is to do some compromises, of course. For forum battles that start getting ugly, many times it's best to just stop it and tell them to take it to PM. We don't need personal angst leaking all over the place. Personal remarks should not be tolerated--attack the idea, not the poster. Even in our debate forum on my site, where conflict with the "other side" is encouraged, personal remarks are not tolerated. Civility is crucial here, and if you want to keep a rep as a warm, welcoming place it has to be maintained all the time. Lurkers tend to read a fair bit before deciding to join.

With that said, elitism is a subtle threat. Tis easy for people who've been around the block all the time to just sort of assume about new people, or their state of knowledge, etc. We all know what assuming makes of us. It's easy to get exasperated when some new type who has one post comes in and is rather loud and arrogant--and this is the 5th time this week. And so the forum big names, the people who create the culture of the place, tend to ignore all new people without even realizing it. We have that problem (heck, I do it myself). With thudpoints, or other incentives to actually pay attention to the newbies, then their transition can be eased, so they too can become "oldbies."

This forum is anticipating some major changes and shocks as the paperback is released. We too anticipated shocks when Book 6 of Harry Potter was released, and we were right. It changed things--for the better, in some ways, and for the worse, in some ways. I don't think we were aware of that shock, and that it WOULD change us. I know better now. That's the thing this forum needs to absorb, I think--change will come. If everyone knows it's coming, and can be prepared.... the storm is easier to ride out. And I think you've made an excellent start! Much better than my site did, for sure!

I think Vanceone should have been the one to ask the community about the issues. He obviously has a much better handle on the ideas behind it than me

I'm not sure of timing, but for all you lurkers out there if you have something you're busting to say but can't work up the courage, know that we won't belittle you or point and say Nyah Nyah Nyah if you speak up. I'd do it soon though.

Windle

wow,i never thought i could read so much of those indepth thought patterns thingies.i have managed to make a list of things on a piece of paper of the things i would like to discuss,ranging from the earliest thoughts to the more indepth ideas of the latter comments.unfortunately this page looks like a mindmap of doom,so give me a sec to organise my thoughts...

ok,to begin i believe that weeding out the people who truly don't contribute to this site is a good idea,this is because they either don't care,or don't have time(which would be a pity)

i,like WP,am a competitive person,and therefore think the idea of cities and groups and guilds and societies is a good one,but i also see the logic in keeping the site open and clear of this competitive business.

one idea i have to solve this problem is to create these cities/etc and let the people who want to join go ahead and join,leaving the rest to be in the primrodial soup that is the culture of the discworld.ok,now that we're into the idea of cities and such,i'd like to approach the idea of mentorship.

i think it's a good idea to have some sort of mentorship,but i also think that for it to work there needs to be some sort of delegation when it comes to time management and responsibility.lee,dewi and the druids are obviously at the top of the game (damn you!!!)and are therefore most equipped to deal with newcomers in terms of showing them the ropes.unfortunately it is also obvious that they won't have time to deal with all the newcomers (i seem to fall into that category,but i don't feel like a newbie) and therefore need to delegate that responsibility to others of a lesser rank.thus the idea of status within cities/guilds/what-have-you is a clever one,as it deals with the problem.after the druids comes another level,and once the users in that level feel as if they're being swamped by newcomers or whatever they can push the responsibility down to the next rung(spelling?wrung?) on the ladder and so on and so forth.thus this effectively causes everyone to up their game,as the constant learning of skills gets passed on until the level of the society increases as a whole and therefore will increase the level of this site as a whole.

status-this,as one of you pointed out(can't remember who,words are a blur to me now)the use of thudpoints(which seems to be in effect already) can be used to define status within a grouping.when a society member reaches a certain amount of points,or a certain amount of games or victories etc,then s/he will advance to the next level within that grouping.

with regards to the idea of people not being in the groups they want then they can personally swap with other members of other groups or can use their points to change groups,thus providing a good use for having points in the first place.i've noticed that everyone tries to improve their life,it is man's basic instinct to be the 'alpha male' and to be in control,just look at what just the thought of power did to ponder earlier in this forum.(and one day,all shall be mine...)

comps-this is where things could get hectic when it comes to groups.i think it was magrat(correct me if i'm wrong) who said that within cities you could have guilds and these guilds could battle other guilds for guild points,and cities battle cities for city points,and the guilds could face the same guilds from different cities in a guild-city league of sorts and it gets more confusing by the second.i think that competitions are good for the mind,they keep you on your feet and you learn new things all the time.but too many comps can be overwhelming,on the other hand too few comps can be dull and boring.therefore i think it would be a good idea to have cities face each other in a sort of league throughout the year,maybe a different opponent every month or so,then the TT can be held for individuals who can become thudmeister.

wow,i wrote a lot.please tell me if this is in any way a good or bad idea,as i would eagerly like to argue on any point you deem argueably argueable.

how does he move his upper lip so fast?try it,i can't keep up with him...

This is all new to me, as someone with no experience in this area. What I'm wondering is if Vanceone has any notions about that tricky problem of dispute resolution. It sounds like the system we have now (Lee and Dewi throw the dice from Cori Celeste, and that's how it is), which is highly acceptable to all, is not going to serve us well if the population rises. You would think it should, for gods' sake, since the site belongs to them, but if Vanceone's staff wandered off, I suppose anything can happen.

Perhaps there could be a way for people to have multiple loyalties. They could belong to the Thieves' Guild, which is discwide, but live in a certain city. There could be tournaments discwide within guilds, and between guilds within cities. And discwide tournaments between guilds. And discwide tournaments between cities. And a discwide individual championship - everyone starts on an even footing. Many ways for people to win a tournament!

I don't know if that would help the conflict bit, though. But each guild and city could have small gods who decide conflicts, with appeal to Cori Celeste. Are there other ways to do it? Voting seems right out - very undisclike, and a major distraction. And the site does belong to Lee and Dewi, after all.

Having been browsing this site for only ten minutes (and not having read all of the thousands of words of discussion in this thread), I can't really add much. What I want to know, however, is, if a system of clans or whatever was implemented, would they play text-based games on the forums (this is called Slowfire thud?), or play through the Java applet (for which I think I saw a link somewhere...)?

EDIT: The site just told me I earnt a Thudpoint - does that mean the discussion above has already led to a decision of some sort, and a points system has been implemented? Or are Thudpoints something more traditional and different to the points systems discussed with reference to the enlargement of the community?

The games are a primary way to earn points which will allow one to purchase items or do certain things within the "City", as it were. The interaction within the "City" will be something similar but rather more involved than just Thudplay.

As well, as things are now, Thudpoints can be earned by any means of Thudplay on this site.

Thudpoints have already been implemented so that folk can amass them to use within the Cities as soon as that aspect of the site is launched. Points are awarded on a varying basis: creating a forum topic gets you 2 points whilst commenting gets you only 1. Playing a game on the upcoming game client can win you up to 30 or 40 points if you win (I'll have to review our decision as I can't remember off hand... ) and posting a Thud webcomic can earn you even more. Basically contributing content or gameplay earns you points and these will be spendable in the City.

Announcement: We have a tentative launch and go-live date for the Cities: it will be on, or before, October the first this year which will be the second anniversary of online Thud

Im sorry for sounding ignorant but can somebody tell me whats goin on,

i have read as much as i could of the above posts without my eyes shrivelling up falling back into my nostrils because there has been a lot of discussion.

there is so much text that i have only been able to read snippets of it and so dont have an understanding of the current situation

im sure there are others who are daunted by the sheer mass of words, as they too havent been following this thread from the beginning and have likley just discovered it as i have when it has built up so much its a bit too much too read all in one go.

could comebody who has been with this foum from near the beginning post a summary of this so we could understand plz

Upcoming? Does that mean that the Java Applet that loaded when I clicked a link somewhere on the site (I forget where) is in beta stages, or is that something else entirely? How does it tie in with the downloadable ThudBoard program that I've seen mentioned? And on a different note, how is this site related to Oograh Boike's Unofficial Thud Page?

I probably should have created a new topic for those three questions, but I'm hoping that they can be answered in a single post and hence not overly clutter this thread.

The game client is working fine and dandy, but our site gods are forever making it better and on the dates lee is chatting about an entirely new client will be put up inplace of the current one. the new client will be all shiny like with nice features dont ask me what they are coz they are top secret (ie i dont know)

Thudboard.

This is the small program that MC Programming Monkey has created and developed. it is basically a program that you can play thud offline on. also you use it the forum matches copying between the board and this forum.

OBUTP

This is a very special site that Druid OB has created where you can find old save games, download different skins for thudboard and much more. check it out!

ok i think thats it for now...keep the questions coming!

Would it be an idea to organise a 24/7 pressence of a mod/regular/thudder on the site? Or cover as much of the day as possible? I noticed this weekend there are a lot of people passing by on a regular day. Wouldn't it be a great if there was allways someone to learn them something about the Thudgame or site in general?

I think there are a lot of potential players passing by but are disencouraged by the abscence of players. For example, a Czech guy passed by and asked me to explain the rules because he didn't understood the english language to well.

At the moment its impossible to cover every minute of the day, i realise that, but its worth considering isn't it?

A callander where every body can fill in the hours where he (or she) is planning to play thud anyway would be a great start. It should give us at least some insight in the average coverage of the week.

Any comments? /suggestions?

Rolf

hmmm,the only problem with that is that then the mods would have to run their lives by a timetable,and lots of the time no-one is on the online section,that could be very boring for the mods,and might actually hinder their progression when it comes to them improving this site (which i am MOST greatful for) and thus leaving the site to slowly fall behind competitors' sites (even though you guys have done an amazing job already).

anyway,just throwing in my fiddy cent

With Mods/regular/thudder i mean anyone who understands the game good enough to teach someone else. This doesn't necissarily have to be a mod, ofcourse.

I fully agree. That would be terrible.
Thats why i would like to propose some kind of thread (perhaps it is possible with normal forum means[?])
Where you can type the time you play thud anyway.

This is idea comes from the assumption the site wants as much members as possible... Otherwise you filterout les motivated people, which also can be good thing. Someone else mentioned this before if i remmeber correctly.

Rolf

SANEAlex(yet another alex in this place),or was it OB.i forget,anyway,one of the mods organised a thread where you could create your own personal info board where you showed what times you were available and what sort of gmes you were interested in.must find it somewhere...

The Games Requests area is the one you are thinking of i think you can put availability for Forum and online games in your own thread.

http://www.thudgame.com/forum/28

thanks SANE,that's the one i was talking 'bout

so whats wit the cities? have we veto-d (vetimus I guess) it yet? or has someoen come up with more reasos for it or is it on the back burner?

cities are an amazing concept,i like the idea and am personally in favour of it.reason being that i enjoy some sort of rivalry [have i said this before?] but also that being in these groups isn't gonna stop us from being friends/friendly with each other