Headhunting rule poll

[Saladin]

Hi guys,

Seeing that in the last couple of games that have been opened the headhunting rule has been changed to two turns. So i think it would be wise to get the opinion of as many players as possible on this so we can agree on a consensus and stick to that (with the exception of X-games of course).

So let your vote be counted!

[trewqh]

Not trying to sabotage voting on that matter, but I think the vote should be rather on what should we make the default, as it will always be the GM's decision how many turns of home province safety to set.

GM can also ask on the boards what kind of rule settings, map, etc. players willing to join a game would like to see most, but since Standard WoK is a 10 player game then most likely eventually the GM will have to make some decisions himself anyhow.

[korexus]

Also, GMs will tend to leave this as the default unless they have a reason to change it anyway. This is the one (possibly) big down side with the engine being so customisable. A GM simply can't make a decision on every single variable, so most of them stay at the default value.


Chris.

[Saladin]

Threwqh,

I think it would be wise to ask players on the forum if they want the next game to have 1 or 2 turns of no headhunting.

I mean of course a GM can always do as he pleases. But to be honest in the current situation where there are only 2-3 people GM-ing the players are happy with any game that gets opened even if it uses the 2 turn no headhunting rule, even if they would much rather prefer to not have it. It's the same for me...i'm happy that i can play in the Austria game though i think the 2 turn NH rule is a negative and unnecessary rule.

Basically what i comes down to is that if you (Threwqh) GM the next 2-3 wok games and a player doesn't want to play because of your changed NH rule than he's pretty much screwed as it then will be a very long time before he can join a game again.

Above all i think that the important thing is that the games get played the way that the (majority of) players find the best way to play, because after all when it's just a basic wok game the gm is just the person who presses the start button.

X-games are of course a completely different cup of tea as there it is important that the GM can set all the settings to fit the 'background story' of the X-game.

[Hannibal]

Hmm. This, the following, is unlikely to persuade any who always choose to disagree with me, but I'll have a go anyway (I'm gonna regret this ... !)

As a former professional poll-designer (market research in advertising early on), I can spot "leading" questions; heck, I used to devise, approve or reject leading poll questions where huge $ hung on the result sometimes ... including UK political electioneering (for Thatcher).

Consciously or unconsciously (I'll pay you the compliment of it being conscious ...), you have crooked the poll by the phrasing of the question ... an old trick.

Do you think that two or more turns of no headhunting is better than the regular one turn?

Slipping in "regular" (or normal or usual) is a well-known trick in my old profession. It appeals to the majority conservatism, and tends, %-wise, to lead anyone who enjoyed the status quo to be sucked into supporting the one you label as "current normal/regular" and reject the upstart new.

"...two or more turns..." Another trick I used to be tempted to use! A very clever one. It bills the "new" idea as a slippery slope towards who-knows-where, "..two or more ...", versus the current as the known quantity. Er, who ever said two OR MORE ?

And the third trick is to ask whether the new is better than the old. We used to use that a lot! Mostly as a balance for the cheaper option of staying as-is. It means you capture the abstainers/ don't knows on YOUR side, because they are not prepared to say the new way is "better"; if they think it's about even, or don't know, they tend to default into "no, not BETTER". You grab the middle, and the Undecided who nevertheless want to cast a vote. Good tactic. Neutral = not better = a "no" vote. Classic, and well-known in my old profession.

And the fourth is phrasing to appeal to your poll-sample. Your sample is current players. Vets. It's a pity there is no logical way to poll a universe (as we call it) of vets AND likely newbies. I suspect the future newbies would be voting for 2 turns, in droves. And our objective is ...??

Fifth: you settled for people knowing enough to cast their vote without hearing the arguments for and against. Clever. A more democratic and fair system usuallly involves somebody stating the argument FOR, and somebody stating the argument AGAINST, BEFORE people vote??
I'd have said: Two reasons:
1) To keep more newbies and grow the site. Instead of sometimes wiping them at the start of Turn 2, (they tend, understandably, to write Kaomaris off as a short, bad, experience, and desert us), they at least get 2 turns ....

2) Even to the vets, there is a plus. If you favour skill. You can't do 5 spyings on somebody's start-prov (skill??), you'd have to use some skill and nous to spy where you THINK they'll be, a matter of skill, right?

But it's too late now. I also know that people resist changing their vote after a rephrasing or a "repeat" of the question in another way. So, psychologically, most would confirm their vote. Damage already done.

(BTW, the "professional and fair" poll-question would have been: "Having listened to the arguments, do you think that 'no headhunting', ie no attacking or spying on start-provs, should apply only for Turn 1, or for Turns 1 and 2?" Not " two or MORE turns of no headhunting ...." What a cheat!

I am constantly amazed that vets (other than trewqh, who only disagrees with me 50% of the time), go on emotional or political response rather than the argument. They decide in the first line whether they intend to agree or not, IMHO, without considering the argument.

Hey. I'm a vet. If I only cared for VP's, I could slay an unwary newbie as easily as you could. Turn 2, no problem. The difference is that I'm TRYING to make the site attract and keep newbies more than it fails to do at the moment. I'm arguing for the newbies, for the good of the site and future of our game, which riles some of you conservative vets. But might keep more newbies, for the site/game to survive.

Clincher:
Sal argues that the current system has worked just fine so far, so no need to change. Hmm. We are down to about 8 players, hard to start a Standard WoK, and most newbies deserting us as soon as they can. Pls define "just fine", Sal??

The site nearly died; really. None of us would ever have played it again, it would be dead, gone; think about it; I bet several of you were surprised that it was still alive, thanks to Kor, me, trewqh and Hryll, 2 or 3 of us returning after a long lay-off from it. So "just fine" is 100% wrong; we need to change; or die, as we looked like doing.

It is by luck that the site and game remains alive. Anyone who uses the argument of "worked fine so far" is ignoring the facts and burying their head in the sand. Maybe they don't care. They should be open to change, and never use the laughable "OK so far", since it wasn't; we were dying, never to be played again. Change is needed. It's just hard to GET change against you nay-sayers ....

Don't worry: another 99% negative response will make ME give up as well, and then you can look forward to vet-power and the site ending up dead ... you conservatives, you!

I'm gonna regret posting .... I should've bit my tongue, given up, and just gone.

Han

[Saladin]

Hi Hannibal,

You're absolutely right that the poll is completely biased and yes it was meant that way. Such a poll of course has little or no value. The whole idea of this thread was to spark some discussion on the subject and i do hope more people will join in and share their opinion.

[Hannibal]

So far so fair. But that's an old rhetorical trick. You say "you're absolutely right" (sounds all-embracing), then pick on ONE point (bias) that you choose to make ithe "absolutely right" apply to. Then you follow it with a "but" or "whole idea was", as if implying that that one criticism, which you graciously accepted, was off the mark, too harsh, your heart was in the right place, and surely it can help spark debate ....!!

You are just as slippery as you were in the poll-question! And I made a fortune out of being slippier than that in business, so I can spot it.

Forget the "gracious" "you are absolutely right" tricks; answer the questions. First:

Clincher:
Sal argues that the current system has worked just fine so far, so no need to change. Hmm. We are down to about 8 players, hard to start a Standard WoK, and most newbies deserting us as soon as they can. Pls define "just fine", Sal??

The site nearly died; really. None of us would ever have played it again, it would be dead, gone; think about it; I bet several of you were surprised that it was still alive, thanks to Kor, me, trewqh and Hryll, 2 or 3 of us returning after a long lay-off from it. So "just fine" is 100% wrong; we need to change; or die, as we looked like doing.

Sal, define what you mean by things seeming to be just fine as they are, seems to have worked. With special reference to recruitment and retention of newbies and the site surviving and filling games?

Han

[Hannibal]

You're absolutely right that the poll is completely biased and yes it was meant that way. Such a poll of course has little or no value. The whole idea of this thread was to spark some discussion on the subject and i do hope more people will join in and share their opinion.

If the whole idea was to "spark some discussion on the subject", then how did a "deliberately" BIASED poll-question help to do that? Why not just set out the debate for discussion? Or state the opposing arguments? Or a fairly-worded poll? That's no excuse at all!

How does that possibly serve as a defence for a biased poll-question without giving the arguments for and against?! Very poor logic.

[Saladin]

Hannibal, please could you point out where in this thread i said: "things seeming to be just fine as they are, seems to have worked". As i never said that here.

[Brykovian]

I'd like to answer the primary question that Han has put forward from my own experience ...

I think that gaining & retaining players has very little to do with a subtle tweak (No HH for 1 vs. 2 turns, etc.) to the game rules. Instead, due to the way the game/community itself is structured, I see the following: (1) Type of Player, (2) Speed of Play, (3) In-Game Interaction, and (4) Out-of-Game Interaction.

(1) & (2) Only a certain type of player will "get it" (and like it) after seeing how things operate for a turn or two. Things move *very* slowly in this game, as opposed to most web-based (or even board game based) gaming opportunities. Certain people will love this aspect -- but I think it's a tiny minority ... similar to looking for people who really enjoy Chess Variants -- they're out there, but most people either want to play the great original, or something very "un-chess". I think a lot of new players -- even those who love epic strategy/war games -- may simply get bored or not see the value when they have more exciting alternatives available.

Also, perhaps during the year I was away there was a lot of newby-killing going on, but I don't remember much of that before. I didn't see early rookie exits due to VP-hungry vets as something that actually happened all that often. For someone to embrace this sort of game, they need to have some bounce-back to their personality ... an interest to give the game a fair shake to see if it gets better after the first try. The game does move slowly, but a lot happens in a turn. So, it can go like: put in my orders ... waiting ... waiting ... boom! dead! I'm suggesting that the type of player that will draw value from this game (and *add* value to the community) will be the type of player that will be able to shake that outcome off and look for the next waitlist to join.

(3) & (4) There is a steep ramp to the communications that surround the game. Trading e-mails as the main method of diplomacy & negotiation isn't the most intuitive process. Not quite understanding the assumptions, traditions, and norms can be a trick. This is why the clan system worked well in the past. The other piece is the on-forum banter and getting to know the personalities around the community. This can be a trick for players who would rather just quietly take part in the games ... or might not even care that there are forums. A lot of trust (and like/dislike) is formed through out-of-game interactions. It adds a deeper, richer experience, imo ... but it's not for everyone.

To sum up ... WOK has been around a while. The number of other available online strategy gaming options has increased quite a bit during that time. Brand new players will be lost or gained because of the pace and scope of the game, and their ability to connect within the community. Vets already like the game itself ... they will be lost if something else occupies their time with a greater perceived value, or if they lose value in the community interaction.

In my opinion ... 1 or 2 turns of no head hunting ... or missile success percentage ... or how many POP can be stolen by a spying command ... or how many TEC can be made in a turn ... none of these will have any real impact on new player retention. Making a lot of tweaks, however, will likely impact vet retention (it's why I lost all interest in WOK5, btw ... couldn't keep track of how the tribes were changing from game to game).

-Bryk

[korexus]

*Sigh* Let me just wade through the pools of blood and mutliated bodies...

Korexus's high and mighty opinion.

The site almost died for a number of reasons.

The first was the fact that one of the adverts in the banner cycle broke the site. Every time people tried to view the forums, the site froze after a couple of clicks. It took me almost 3 months to find and fix that one, during which time a lot of players drifted away.

The second is that a lot of VETs got dissilusioned with WoK V. The engine was broken after Al's most recent update, the focus group wasn't managing to get any changes coded and then Al lost the code. Result: The more popular game was no longer available in a balanced form, so people drifted away.

Imbalances in standard WoK are much less of a factor here. Really. Remember that all Vets were beginners once, there are 95 people in kaohalla who must have won at least one game to get there. There are 300 registered users to the site. Obviously we want to keep as many as possible, but 100 people who we know WoK appeals to is preferable to 200 who may just not like the game format.

I didn't make that clear, I know. It's been a long day. Sal is not trying to wind you up, Han. He's actually been one of the most vocal supporters of WoK Duel, so he doesn't always disagree with you. Also he's not a native English speaker, so he probably just phrased the poll the way he thought it. (The tricky ways of wording things you mentioned are after all designed to appeal to the conservative mindset into which Sal as a true Scholar probably fits. )

Play nice or I'll have to do some horrible forum patch so you can't see each others' posts.


Chris.

[Hannibal]

Sal, I can't help but luvya! You are such a slippery customer!

This is another classic rhetorical trick : ignore all the issues and questions, pick a side-issue or reference the other guy made, question it, and you side-track the debate into him answering on THAT rather than you answering on the main things at issue ... and if you're lucky the whole debate gets side-tracked down that irrelevant path! With a fair wind, you can totally dodge the main question.

OK, I'll fall for it.

And your request was very carefully phrased ...hehe ...disingenuous or what? Probably what.

Hannibal, please could you point out where in this thread i said: "things seeming to be just fine as they are, seems to have worked". As i never said that here.

My italics. Your slipperiness. It was on another thread ,as you well knew, just before you started this one. Let's see if I can import it here:

...but i strongly dislike the idea of setting this to 2 turns as a standard option. Just leave it at 1 as it's been for all these years and has worked well for all these years. I have still not heard a single decent reason to change this.

Your definition of "has worked well for all these years"? Gotcha? Answer the darn question!

And it was odd that, in that quote, you were somehow saying that you had "still not heard a single decent reason to change this". Hmm. I gave two, when I started the thread. You chose to ignore them rather than comment on them or argue against them, and then pretended you hadn't seen any ("decent") arguments. Classic,

OK
1) Was that a fair quote of you?

AND STILL:
2) So what's your answer on :
Sal, define what you mean by things seeming to be just fine as they are, seems to have worked. With special reference to recruitment and retention of newbies and the site surviving and filling games?

[Hannibal]

*Sigh* Let me just wade through the pools of blood and mutliated bodies...

Also he's not a native English speaker, so he probably just phrased the poll the way he thought it. (The tricky ways of wording things you mentioned are after all designed to appeal to the conservative mindset into which Sal as a true Scholar probably fits. )

Play nice or I'll have to do some horrible forum patch so you can't see each others' posts.


Chris.

Sal's English is impressively near-perfect, and his disputational tricks are text-book, and he said himself that his poll-phrasing was deliberate ...

But, Chris, don't over-worry. Neither of us is name-calling. We might even be both "enjoying" the exchange. I mailed Sal before this; we've agreed, I think, to debate but not to get nasty.

Right, Sal?

[Hannibal]

Bryk, your whole post is pretty convincing, especially this bit:

Also, perhaps during the year I was away there was a lot of newby-killing going on, but I don't remember much of that before. I didn't see early rookie exits due to VP-hungry vets as something that actually happened all that often. For someone to embrace this sort of game, they need to have some bounce-back to their personality ... an interest to give the game a fair shake to see if it gets better after the first try. The game does move slowly, but a lot happens in a turn. So, it can go like: put in my orders ... waiting ... waiting ... boom! dead! I'm suggesting that the type of player that will draw value from this game (and *add* value to the community) will be the type of player that will be able to shake that outcome off and look for the next waitlist to join.

-Bryk

You've convinced me: 2 turns of no headhunting would make virtually no difference to recruitment and retention, and might only annoy the current players. So I hereby drop it.

Han

[Hannibal]

Oh, and Sal's poll DID serve to show me that current players would prefer it not to change ... when I'd wrongly assumed it was an obvious "yes", the way that the first no-headhunting rule (on Turn1) was an obvious "yes".

Sal was right, me wrong.

[trewqh]

I still think it's going to be interesting to see how this works in my Austrian Apocalypse game. As an experiment.

[korexus]

Thankyou Han.

I think this can still be a valuable addition to the engine - it will certainly change players' strategies, so I am going to leave it in as a GM option. As with all of these options, if a GM has a reason to change it (background story, beginner game, trying to make players fight a particular way or experimenting to improve the engine) something like this being variable can only make the game richer.

That being said, most options will always be left at the default, so I will set Standard games to have a default of 1 for turns of safety. (2 for Duels??)


Chris.

[korexus]

Well, the poll on the front page bears out this result. More people want 1 turn of safety than any other amount, with the second option being no head hunting rule at all! The status quo has it. You're all either conservative or bloodthirsty (or both!) and that means less work for me, so I'm happy!

Now please vote in the new poll.


Chris.

[GoatHerder]

Hey, I thought the idea of 2 turn protection of the home province was a good idea.

Why the hell would someone want to be so aggressive to wipe out an opponent on the second turn after the start? Is it that they are aiming at a newbie who mightn't know how to protect themselves, or perhaps targeting someone who doesn't understand the concepts of the game and may not use their Move orders properly. How often have we seen someone take out another player on the 2nd turn? (maybe 2-3 would gang up and take out another player, but seldom on-on-one).

I agree with Han's comments about push-polling----people can be swayed by emotions or careful wording rather than actually thinking about the repercussions of what they're voting for. It happen in politics all the time (Grrrr! we just got a gaol in the neighborhood, voted for by a 300,000 people just over the state border and we didn't get a say in it at all). Anyway, I understand why Sal started a poll---people love a poll and will take more notice of one that than just a regular comment or question on the forum, and I beleive he has the interests of the game at heart even though I disagree with him on that point (in other words, the commentary was getting a bit personal for a whole, and that wasn't necessary).

back to the topic---I think the 2-turn protection period is a good idea (at least every now and then). It gives some leeway to the new starters
and those who don't like the out-of-game interaction process we are forced to endure.

GH

[Lardmaster]

As its up to the GM I don't really see the issue. On teh game screen you clearly (not hidden away in the house rules) put that the game will be x turns before bad things happens and then see who joins. My guess is that as athere aren't that many players or games it won't make any difference. people will play whatever. Or not as the case may be!!!

And by the way what happened to good old flamers where people could argue for weeks and still not fall out or threaten to leave? (Even that great one where Al actually told Dameon he wanted him to leave repeatedly and he still hung around!!!)