In order to garner interest...

[Outlaw]

I still have my old anime viva game barebones if anyone wants it.

 

[Yeti]

I think the distaste for NOC is interesting considering UncleSam made the point about how far our game is from irl mafia at parties. Which is a NOC game with virtually no power roles, no real lynch discussion and the mafia can't even talk to each other. This style is boring online thus we add OC, power roles, or in NOCs the lynch debate that goes on for days in order to get good reads. Unfortunately this length of time loses peoples' interest and leads to the game going way too long. People also have made NOC games that are simply too freakin' big for the current playerbase they could pull from. I think even standards can be made too big for when the random villagers idle.

Part of the problem we've had getting new blood into CM is the old players didn't want to play with newfags who had no clue what they were doing, needed to have their hands held, and have everything they say scripted so they don't blab to a clever experienced player. This isn't everyone but let's be real, Beginners and Experts were made so the old crowd could avoid interacting with the numbnut newbies which left the newbies as inexperienced and gullible for a lot longer than they should've been had they been thrust into normal games. At this point in time however we have lost so many of the OLD playerbase they may as well be extinct, and the old playerbase has moved on to new interests as their primary waste of time.

I will begin the sign-up thread for my game today. I also need to set up the forum jumpluff pls assisterino. It can be played in multiples of a # so depending on how many people participate I will adjust it accordingly. It will be fun tho and not-bad and no roles need RNG so join.

 

[Gmax]

That is absolutely not the reason that Beginner games were made. Beginner games were made so that newer players could play with less interference from people who are used to the way mafia is played, and already adhere to the set patterns. It gives them a chance to think for themselves, to actually play out the game instead of sitting and taking orders. You put new people into a game where they're villagers, and they go up against people like LN or Fishin (or myself for that matter), then they'll be taken advantage of. That doesn't affect just them, it also affects their whole team, and the game at large. It gives them a chance to familiarise themselves with our kind of play, to understand why someone might be manipulating them, to understand HOW that might be happening, to tell the real claims from the false ones, and so on and so forth.

Expert games were made so that we could try out more complicated and interesting concepts on a small scale without requiring the number of players needed for a big game. The Expert system was made to bypass the priority system, which might have prevented the best players from playing these games, which would make the game far less competitive, and not give us a chance to test out fancy stuff properly. I mean, there isn't a point to letting someone who isn't really familiar with basic 2v1 into something like Metroid Prime 2. The general complexity of these games, and the interdependence between the roles requires a certain level of competence among all present. If you let someone absolutely random who might have no interest in the game into a game like Pokemon TCG Mafia, then you screw over the people who have to trade with him or her, and give an unfair benefit to others in his or her group, as well as his or her enemies. Randomising the playerlist in such a game will most likely result in the game not achieving its full potential. A game that's well played can also be fun to spectate, and it drives interest.

I don't think anyone who's experienced has ever been against helping out new players. It's always been in our interest to expand the playerbase, and increase interest in mafia in general. After a point though, they have to take an interest themselves lol.

I stand by everything I said below in this thread last year.

I don't know how to put this really, but I'd say one of the major problems is that there isn't a really mafia community that's there at the moment. When Smogon mafia started out, there was like this core bunch of people who'd always play every game, but it wasn't just that, they'd also hang outside of mafia. They were friends outside of mafia etc as well, which is what made it more fun for them to play the game. This is before we had CM, so it was mostly the Firebot crowd, which was basically #smogon folks. It was like there was always a bunch of ~20 people who knew each other pretty well who were signing up for every game, hosting new ones, and coming up with new ideas. Eventually some of those people stopped playing, but new guys kept becoming part of the core community that was responsible for actively playing and making games with new concepts and moving mafia forward. Now the trouble is that there's been a mass exodus of sorts because of life etc. There isn't really much of a core community anymore. Sure there are people who've played some mafia and know each other, but it's more fragmented now than it used to be, and the numbers are fewer as well.

The onus is on today's CM guys to keep mafia alive. If you guys are so interested in playing mafia, then DO something about it. Make games. Garner interest. Also, PLAY. Something I've observed is that as mafia has developed, it's become a lot more organised and restricted in some ways. Village leaders bark out orders, villagers take them, and shut up. In the mafia groups as well, everything is controlled by 2-3 people who do everything, and the rest of the people just sit around sending in PMs. Play the goddamned game, take interest in it, talk to the team leaders or whatever. Don't just sit there. It's like everyone's content with being a pawn, and no one wants to have a say in what's done. No one's going to let you have any level of control until you show that you deserve it. At least try to participate in team discussions, stay updated and give suggestions. There's also an issue with people who lead teams who promote this kind of stuff. Really, if you keep people involved, they WILL get bett0er (unless it's like RODAN or someone) and that benefits the mafia community as a whole. You've got to trust your team.

Another issue is the lack of big games from the newer folks. Seriously, aside from Yeti (whose game was not exactly very well done, but her hand was forced in many ways I guess lol) I don't think anyone who started playing after 2008 or 9 has attempted to make a big game. Big games are on an entirely different level from small games. Once your team gets going, and you have a group of individuals to talk to, they're a ton of fun. If you've played a few big games, you'll understand. However, creating, balancing and hosting a big game is more challenging than making a small game. I guess that intimidates people somewhat. I'm not sure if the current CM crowd is even sufficient to sustain a big game. But big games were really the heart and soul of Smogon mafia, the form that shaped them, and the form that's been most important throughout. You guys really ought to try and host some at some point.

The main problem I guess is that there aren't as many people interested in mafia as there used to be. Otherwise more people would be taking some initiative when it comes to making games and playing them. It's unfortunate for the Circus that today's existing communities aren't interested in mafia, unlike the communities of a few years ago, when mafia was developing/at its peak. Playing mafia with your buddies is a ton more fun, just like most other games, and if you have a set of buddies big enough to sustain games by themselves, that's a pretty huge bonus. That's how it used to be. That's not how it is any longer. Ah well...

I'm done ranting, sorry if I came off as condescending or elitist at any point, I didn't mean to! I also apologise for pointing out a lot of problems without offering any real solutions. Good luck!

Big games are crashing and burning today because of a lack of interest from the people who are content with playing pawns. They've just gone a step further and started subbing out. That needs to change. It'll only change if they're involved more. I saw the state of the mafia factions in zorbees' game lol... That was terrible. It was like if billy vanished, his faction couldn't get orders in. Why is that? Is it just that new people in today's mafia community are completely uninterested? How can we change that?

 

[zorbees]

I think you can see a big difference in the community from the past to now by comparing chaos mafia vs chaotic mafia. The reason I made chaotic, besides the fact that I thought it was a fun concept, was because I thought it would lead to more individual thinking. I figured if nobody knows if they can trust the leader, they would try to gather info themselves, or at least not claim to anyone and see what happens. Instead, a bunch of people claimed to Crux, then later, everyone claimed to Agape. I think a lot of this came from the playerlist though, as there were a lot of newer players who I don't think understood what they were up against. Still, almost everyone was willing to follow a leader, pretty blindly.

I still do want to try my old spies concept, but I'm becoming less confident that it will have the desired effects.

 

[Marquis]

Personally, I'd be willing to play in some sort of beginner game- I've been watching the forum for a good number of months now, and resigned myself to signing up for a Standard when it didn't look like any more Beginner games would show up (and then replacing out as mafia because I had no idea what was going on, when people even had time to talk [yes, I was on IRC for a while too], and basically just a bit disgruntled by how powerless and out of the loop I felt).

In regards to people not liking NOC, why so? If it's partially the lack of power roles, I'm fairly sure it's possible to make a game with all power roles and still have it be NOC, even with shorter deadlines (yes I'm a fan of NOC, no I'm not a fan of "Days" that take weeks).

For example, I was in this game here, which might be hard for some people to keep up with, but imo was one of the funnest games I've ever played: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32268

 

[Blue_Tornado]

If anything, it should be obvious that not everyone here hates NOC.

As for power levels, yes, NOC games with a bunch of power roles do exist. They're just a lot of talk about role interactions and weeding out fake claims instead of behavioral analysis after, like, D3.

I'm sure plenty of people could whip up a normal beginners game of any type of game if there are enough beginners interested.