Apparently, there's an unspoken rule that they are no longer around, due to the old section for forum games taking up bandwith or something. Is anyone else for changing this? I mean, I'm fine with disallowing spammy games like "Count to a million!" or "Ban the user above you!", that generate a huge amount of posts daily and endlessly. But I think non-spammy games like Mafia should be allowed, with staff approval needed before they can be posted. This way, staff can stop spammy games from being posted or too many games from being hosted at once. I mean, it's been a long time, and let's face it, this forum is a lot less active now, especially after the downtime. I don't think a trial run of this would be bad. As it is, we can't even play my Ghost Trick Mafia, and people were really getting excited. This is really the only active forum with a big Ghost Trick fanbase.

So, what does everyone else think?

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I, personally, don't mind the idea of Forum games if they were in a certain place and limited.

However, this sort of thing would need to be discussed by the entire staff team; it wouldn't be based on popularity but on what we believe would be right for the forum. (Plus, the admins have veto power). I'm not saying it won't happen, but trying to raise support through a topic like this won't really affect the decision. It's up to us in the end.

I hope that's a fair response.

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Well, enough support shows that other people like it. And I feel like I've brought up a lot of good points and come up with a lot of good ideas. I certainly hope the staff will discuss it.

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I don't imagine it would be too much harm provided we keep a tight reign on what games are allowed. Though personally I'd just be happy if this one mafia game was approved as an exception to the soon-to-be-written rule that way the other silly games could be kept away and there wouldn't be any major changes necessary.

However it does come down to the staff's final decision and I'll respect that they know better than me how it would affect the site.

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I hope they'll decide in our favor! This is really the only place to play my game. And overall, finding good places to play and host Mafia games is really hard.

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Why don't you all just go to the old forum? It still running.

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Not sure what you are talking about.O_o Anyway, we're trying to get support.

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Can you really control forum games once they start though? They seem to get out of control really fast. Like, 20 pages in a day or something.

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I think you can, depending on the nature of the game. And the rules for said game. But really, I think the best way to see for certain is a test. If I could at least run my Ghost Trick Mafia, then we could see how things go.

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I'm not totally in favor of reviving forum games... When they get spammy they start bogging the forums down. Granted, that was before we got our new host, but I'd rather avoid a potential situation where we have to upgrade again, because some people had to rapidly refresh a page to find out if anyone replied. It effectively ruins it for everyone else.

And, even, hypothetically, if you promised not to have spammy games... how would that be enforced? It'd need moderation. Then having someone decide which is spammy and which isn't would create some sort of toleration regime in the opinions of those who enjoyed the game that got locked.

It's not worth the trouble it would cause.

Someone did suggest having the games on the old/backup forums. I'm not inherently opposed to it. Though, I'm unsure the AAI2 team would necessarily enjoy having their HQ be shared with such spam. Particularly since I recall reports about the backup forms lagging because of some of the games. I mean... gosh you guys can be insane.

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I did actually address your concerns in my initial post. If a person wants to create a game thread, they have to run the game by a staffer first. If the staffer approves it, the thread can be created. If neccessary, isn't it also possible to have a section where topics can't freely be created, if some people don't follow this rule? Since you can put summaries for each topic, you could have a message telling people they have to run games by staff before posting them. I just think it's worth trying out. I'd really like to run Ghost Trick Mafia as a test, and I know people were eager to play it. But the sign-up thread over in the Ghost Trick section got locked.

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We had this debate three years ago as you may well remember, and whilst I believe CR could currently handle it, the fact is this is not 2008 anymore, and the vast section of the userbase that used the Big Berry Circus have either moved on or taken their business elsewhere.

Since this whole mess, we went to the trouble of creating a dedicated official affiliate of CR for Mafia games in particular. I say "we" despite personally being retired staff for that site, which has in fact since merged with two of its own sister affiliates to become a totally independent beast. (PS I've poked you to update the affiliate links several times, Woo, because crmafia.net is long dead. :P I think Rov has the new banner image.) It's as active as you want it to be. It's advertised in Press Conference and open for everybody, the more the merrier. The fact is though, the relatively quiet activity over there suggests one of two situations:

1) The activity only exists if it's hosted on CR, which means people only have a passing interest in the content.
2) The demand is nowhere near as high as you think it is in the first place, and it's only a very small subset of people using a very large amount of bandwidth. And bandwidth costs cash.

I don't believe, as CR currently stands now, that forum games are appropriate on the site. Croik in particular was quite adamant on creating a forum environment that didn't need them at all, and I feel she has achieved her goal regardless of how I feel or felt about it before.

There is also the fact that if CR became open to Mafia hosting even after all this time, the current VS crew would absolutely dominate it, because this is our speciality - and it may well become something you would have no interest in - we're talking about guys who have developed full-blown Mafia game theory here. Even if I myself haven't played or designed in a long time, I've made many a round design that has inspired and/or terrified many others into making their own, and our very own Gerkuman can confirm this, as he happened to be a regular player for some time on one of CRM's sister sites. Gerky likes the simple stuff. ;)

I guarantee that were it to happen, I would have first dibs on an official CRM round again come hell or high water - and hopefully no-one at this stage would have it any other way. Except Gerkuman.

Because he's simple like that. :3

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But that's the whole point-this was last debated three years ago. Most of the people who frequented the forum games section are no longer here. The forum is not as active and now has a new host. All the more reason to reopen the discussion.

I think Mafia games are fine, and Ghost Trick Mafia is actually on-topic, due to the Ghost Trick/Ace Attorney connection. And I don't really see a problem with you or your friends also playing. But I do think someone would need to be in charge of any such section, since it would need moderation. I totally volunteer, because I have a lot of free time.

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I think Velotix hit the nail on the head with the two situations. Forum games are nice, but they tend to attract a fairly small part of the userbase that winds up using a very large amount of resources. And while some games/RPs are really obvious cases of this (such as the Anything Agency vs. Lawbreakers from the backup forum) and pretty much everyone can agree they'd take up too many resources, it's rarely that clear-cut. Adding a mod to the section wouldn't help that much - that mod would have to decide when something "crosses the line" with regards to being too resource-heavy with too little actual content, which is by no means a simple task. Even assuming everyone would be fine with the mod's decisions, there's still good odds that about the same group of people would start up something similar not long after.

I have no objections to forum games, really I don't, but C-R has a history where they've gotten out-of-hand, and given the past year or so I don't think anyone wants to risk server issues again.

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I appreciate that there are people who really enjoy forum games, but this forum is not the place for them. That's not going to change now or anytime soon.

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