So what do you guys think about the recent happenings of EM?
Many people in Comp Lobby think that (also people from the administration team) people from Training are not so invested in the politics and forum drama of EM.
I personally think that even though Training is not that vocal (excluding some players who are fairly active on the forums [although it's on the Comp forums]), this is a community and you have your own preferences, problems, wants&needs.
So what are your opinions about the recent flow of things?
Some fill in:
◘ Arcbell is dethroned
◘ thebrontosaurus & Nikki are admined
◘ abc gains moderator scripts and refunds a bunch of games with hidden links next to porn images
I like pie
21 signed
Any sort of pie, but don't be dirty minded.. That's disgusting..
Unranked is the very same as ranked you just don't get points.
deletedover 10 years
I think that we should get rid of happy hour and instead have two or three setups a week that will give people a point bonus to try and coerce newer players to try different setups.
Also as a side note 30 unranked games is far too many. I'd say 15 tops or you're just going to reduce the amount of new players who actually make it to ranked.
I agree with gist on a lot of things. Increaing the points is a great idea - people after 1500 points are still not ready to play a Competitive Gold Heart, and of course, they won't either, they are still so new to the game, they are fine with CM (Classic Mafia) and FP (Fancy Pants), also Reverse if it wouldn't be banned already.
We don't really need more lobbies imo though, cause the community already gets divided by lobbies, adding one more lobby would mean less games fill/they fill slower, and we definitely don't want that. Increasing the threshold from unranked to ranked would be good though (instead of 5/10, I don't remember which is it, make it 30-50). This way you make it harder for trolls to get their accounts up to ranked, and less games are ruined because of inexperienced players.
So something like this:
Player joins to EM:
1. Maybe a quick video tutorial (where can you find setups, multisetups, role icons, strategies etc - all the basic stuff, just an informative thing how to handle the site) 2. Player can now start playing 30 unranked games (since not everybdoy hosts unranked, it's useful to teach them how can they host their own games) 3. Player can now play Training Red Heart 4. Player reaches 1500, so they can play Training Gold Heart 5. Player reaches 3000, can now enter Comp Lobby and play Red Heart there 6. Player reaches 6000, can now play Comp Lobby Gold Heart
Numbers are subject to change, it's just a basic core - if there are small, achieveable goals set to players, they are also more prone to feel the need to improve.
No, it doesn't, really. This is the first lobby every user sees, which shouldn't be the case. A new user needs to learn how to play for the first time. This can be done with a tutorial against computers or by a placeholder lobby in which new accounts go through to get laundered elsewhere. I don't know, I just feel that because of its place in the lineup, anyone and everyone goes there to play games, which is not what everyone is looking for to improve on their competitive play, in my opinion, but that's just one of a mere mortal.
Placement, definitely. A new lobby needs to be put first, one that is purely meant to be the social one, one for pure fun, that , well, isn't Sandbox. Of course, if we're limited to working with what we have, Sandbox could be put first with stricter moderation, but who knows if this will actually happen? Sandbox is nice, but like Dez said, I guess it isn't the so-called "Casual" lobby people are looking for.
Well, given the fact that all new accounts are forced in there when they are not ready to train for a competitive scene would be my first guess. We really do need a buffer. Training is supposed to be mid-level stuff to prepare one for pro mafia, and right now, well, it isn't. Please give us some sort of buffer before Training and some if not all problems with trolling and such will disappear. 3000 points to get into Training and 6000 to get into Competitive. That's roughly 200 or so games if you win about half of them.
Of course, these are all just thoughts I have, none of them are meant to go anywhere big since that's what they are.
I want to achieve multiple things by trying to engage Training a bit more into the forums, but one of them is clearly to show the circlejerking is made into so much bigger deal than it really is. Bronto is far from circlejerking, and became admin. Circlejerking is just old users being friends with each other, and of course, everybody knows, it's hard to get into a chiseled group of friends, but it's not harder than IRL.
I am not such an old user myself (registered a bit over a year), and I had my share of getting n1'd in comp because they didn't want to kill their friends, or I got lynched cause they didn't have meta on me/got mislynched cause I was a hard read for them cause they haven't played with me before. Yes, it's a bit discouraging, I admit that, but it worth it.
I'm all in for self-governing Training Lobby, but for that, you need people vocal enough, who contribute enough, so you can be acknowledged and put into power as Bronto said. Now you are an island on the ocean of the site, Comp being the Main Land where the decisions are made and are forced upon you. Be part of the decision making process.
Of course, comp players are most likely old users, who know much more about the site's history, the game itself, administration, but that doesn't mean your input isn't appreciated or valuable.
Sandbox isn't really casual because it's not mdoerated for game related violations (gamethrowers, game related suicides, trolling etc.), and mostly they are using moment-generated setups where you are not getting familiar with viable strategies and the importance of a counterclaim. Sandbox is extremely fun, I used to frequent it as a new user, it's also very great for learning game mehanics (orc, gs, jailer, nurse, etc.), so by all means, play Sandbox, but it's not the medium step the average user needs to transition from being a trainee player to become a competitive user.
Grizzly, thanks for the input, I really appreciate it!
I like that Dezeriae made this thread, it's important that Training Lobby is kept in the loop with what goes on in moderation. I am going to encourage mods to start hanging around training more and meet more people in the community there. I'm hoping down the line to try and get people into moderation who are Training regulars.
I've stepped down as head of mentoring for the time being, since I want to focus on moderation while I'm in the position to do so. I will still be working with the mentoring program and helping Giga (new head of mentoring) with some of our plans. Our goal is to make full strategy guides for all of the popular setups so that people can read in depth and get ideas for how to play every possible situation.
And yes, I originally stepped down as a mod to focus more on offline things, given the circumstances I felt that being co-admin would be manageable and want to try to help the site for a bit longer.
I'm always open to suggestions for Training Lobby, mentoring and moderation in general. It's important for your voice to be heard so please be sure to do so.
Unrelated side note JustAloneComplex suggested some where to change the name of training to casual. I would really support this and I think would better describe how the lobby is used. I feel I have enough games played to no longed be a trainee but don't really fit into the circle jerk of competitive.
Thanks by the way Dezeriae for actively trying to engage this half of the site.
I haven't been on the forums lately, so I missed Arcbell dethroning and Nikki and bront adminning (congrats to both!) but I did know of abc's hack (unfortunately, I got refunded games too). But usually, I'm quite active on the forums (and before abc resetted them, I was quite active also about the bugs, I hope he didn't move codes about achievs and the game too...that would be too much messing around!)
Brief opinions on the 3 points in the OP:
It was about time to dethrone Arcbell, too many bad changes as admin (I posted - or did I only read? - about them in Comp. forums)
The Co-adminning of Nikki and Bronto will give at the same time "fresh air" and experience to the Mod Team, so A GOOD CHOICE.
Hidden link means a link you don't see (it's in the p0rn image what your browser loads in, and "clicks" the link that way), and performs the action with the account, like you would have clicked a link.
Nikki is a he, and yes, bronto joined rather recently.
Lucid doesn't need to put the site on hold to code, if he does need a few hours before implementation, he'll do it.
Also, Arcbell is an excellent investigative moderator, he is also in that role right now.
Bronto did say he wanted to dedicate less time to EM due to IRL things, but since Nikki is a co-admin (he used to admin the site a few years ago), he can manage to be admin and Head of Mentoring.
deletedover 10 years
I just think the site should go on hiatus for a short time; people can mind like a weekend without EpicMafia, right? If it meant it would help fix the site and keep ABC at bay, I would be perfectly content with that. Although, I'm speaking for myself.
R.I.P Arcbell. He was kinda bad at modding; but it's sad to see him gone.
Didn't Bronto say he wanted to use the EpicMafia time he had to dedicate to the Mentor Lobby? I can remember someone telling me that.
Hey, yes, abc hidden linked Arcbell and some more of the mods who didn't get their warning in time. Hidden links occured by abc posting p0rn on the forums, which obviously needed to be gone, but when the moderator tried to delete the post/forum block the account/click the image, the hidden link activated and made the account perform actions like refunding games/forum blocking or banning people/banning people from lobbies etc.
Lucid (the site creator/head admin) is already on the issue, trying to create mod keys which can't be hidden linked. There is sadly no unrefund option yet either (Training and Comp competitions were also resetted because of the unfair refunds).
You mean that abc person is the reason why a perfectly acceptable game I played in got refunded?
"A recent game you were in, Game #3129224 has been refunded. You gained 1 golden heart. You lost 62 points."
Nobody reported it, an admin refunded it. This is unacceptable and inappropriate and I would like to see some action taking against this occuring again.
How many other people has this happened to?
deletedover 10 years
The reason why I don't get involved much is because in comp everyone seems to know and have an opinion on everyone else, and then because of that you get loads of E-drama all the time and it's too much work to try and figure out what actually happened so I just ignore it all and play some more fancy pants.
