Sick of the Same Old, Same Old Themes?

Discussion in 'Mafia' started by Fiery Espeon, Jan 26, 2014.

?

Do you agree with my idea.

  1. Yes!

    15.0%
  2. Hell No!

    85.0%
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  1. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    I have noticed that in an ordinary day in the Mafia Channel, the same 7-10 themes are played constantly. I don't really mind this but I think other good themes should be played during peak times. I know that's why /starttheme is there but, people tend to skip games for themes they're not common with. Also, many people end up sniping their favorite common themes and there are a very few, few people who start good and not that played approved themes. So, I propose that the top 12 themes most commonly played will be disabled for 1-2 days in order to play themes are good, but common played themes steal the spotlight.
    Here are some themes that should be disabled:
    1. Zelda
    2. Death Note
    3. Rotom
    4. Vanilla
    5. FE
    6. FF
    7. Body
    8. Kirby
    9. Default
    10. Trainers
    11. Myth
    12. FIM

    This will encourage themes that are not commonly played like:
    1. PokeSum
    2. SSBB
    3. Geass
    4. Animals
    5. Flock
    6. Weapons
    7. Dinos
    8. School
    9. LOTR
    There are lost more so give me your opinion about this.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2014
  2. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    Isn't this, like, the 416th time this is suggested?
    Also, disabling default? lolno.

    I will simply say what I always say when this is suggested: Disable the popular themes, and the channel will die for those 2 days. It's not worth the trouble.
     
  3. Joeypals!!

    Joeypals!! Don't you worry 'bout a thing~

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    The scary thing is that I was thinking about this the other day too, how some themes should be disabled in order to help out the lesser played themes. My idea was slightly different though and you can comment back how you want. Instead of the 1-2 day thing, make it the Top 7 themes for a month that are disabled for the next month, not counting non-peaks and Default. For example, let's look at /topthemes 20.

    (14:37:34) 1: DN. Played 331 times. Average Players: 10.88
    (14:37:34) 2: Rotom. Played 284 times. Average Players: 9.38
    (14:37:34) 3: Zelda. Played 271 times. Average Players: 10.64
    (14:37:34) 4: Kirby. Played 242 times. Average Players: 12.71
    (14:37:34) 5: Trainers. Played 234 times. Average Players: 12
    (14:37:34) 6: Oracle. Played 201 times. Average Players: 6.22
    (14:37:34) 7: FF. Played 194 times. Average Players: 11.86
    (14:37:34) 8: Dethy. Played 187 times. Average Players: 5.46
    (14:37:34) 9: Default. Played 177 times. Average Players: 9.84
    (14:37:34) 10: FE. Played 176 times. Average Players: 12.48
    (14:37:34) 11: Trust. Played 166 times. Average Players: 5.99
    (14:37:34) 12: FiM. Played 161 times. Average Players: 12.12
    (14:37:34) 13: Dinos. Played 151 times. Average Players: 10.89
    (14:37:34) 14: SI. Played 146 times. Average Players: 10.69
    (14:37:34) 15: Flock. Played 143 times. Average Players: 11.2
    (14:37:34) 16: Body. Played 139 times. Average Players: 12.45
    (14:37:34) 17: Vanilla. Played 129 times. Average Players: 10.47
    (14:37:34) 18: Myth. Played 126 times. Average Players: 11.04
    (14:37:34) 19: School. Played 125 times. Average Players: 10.5
    (14:37:34) 20: dog. Played 113 times. Average Players: 6.25

    Disregarding the nonpeaks in this list (dog, Trust, Dethy, and Oracle), the 7 themes that would be disabled right now would be DN, Rotom, Zelda, Kirby, Trainers, FF, and FE. As a result, the themes in this listing will get a boost (FiM, Dinos, SI, Flock, Body, Vanilla, Myth, and School) while possibly opening the door to lesser played themes that should get more spotlight (Ocean and KI for example).
     
  4. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    I don't think it should be a month and at maximum it should be a week, and why I did choose to disabled FIM, Myth, Body and Vanilla is that it' s basically the same thing as they only will get repeated. And some people if they are online, plays them every single time in 7-8 games so I think some themes like LOTR, SI and PokeScum should have a time to shine.
     
  5. Windblown

    Windblown sable knight

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    I would hate to be unable to play a certain theme for an entire month. Unfortunately the played statistics only reset every month so if you were to put a time for like 1 week of disabling DN, Zelda, et al, then when they were brought back the next week they would still take over the top spot. So yeah, I basically agree with Rice in that aspect. Disabling will only hurt the channel's activity.

    If you really want a theme to get attention you could get a group to try and start a certain theme. In fact, you could try to start a thread where you focus on a less-played theme and have people start it up in order for it to get more attention (although I think Fuzzy put a featured theme banner in mafia one time, didn't really help).
     
  6. Sky Sentinel

    Sky Sentinel You see?

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    It's not happening, and it never will. I can tell you that much.
     
  7. Joeypals!!

    Joeypals!! Don't you worry 'bout a thing~

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    You'd be correct, but the only thing I actually remember from this banner was FE and how it changed.

    Instead of being a Negative Nancy explain why you think it will never happen. Though it may hurt activity at first, I can see this eventually helping Mafia. It'll eventually keep the channel fresh and vibrant despite there being complaints at first of the theme not being able to be played because it's everyone's favorite. We have a total of 54 themes on the server right now. Taking out the 7 or so nonpeaks (thus leaving 47), only 6 or 7 get constant spotlight. There's something wrong with that.
     
  8. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    Instead of one week how about a day or two as i originally said. It won't hurt anybody or anything. Also, there are those certain people who always start the same themes by sniping. The new generation of Mafia Players don't recognize half the themes that are good but are not played.
     
  9. Joeypals!!

    Joeypals!! Don't you worry 'bout a thing~

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    I would go with a day or two, but a) That's too much work for the auth and b) 1-2 days is not enough to create impact.
     
  10. TheUnknownOne

    TheUnknownOne Member

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    Instead of disabling themes (boo), why not have the server randomly select a theme not in the top 10 (or 15) to play every 5 or so games? If you don't want to play, simply don't join.

    Disabling themes is just 100% negative, starting a theme with a low play count automatically is not.
     
  11. NotMafia

    NotMafia Miltank: Destroyer of Souls

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    How about some sort of theme of the day or theme of the week thing, They could be auto started every 10 games and the author could could write a short summary to help people get used to the theme.

    We shouldn't be thinking of ways to punish good themes that get played a lot, but encouraging underplayed/underrated themes

    Ninja'd by the above post
     
  12. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    ^This.
    Popular themes are popular for a reason. Disabling them for being popular is the same as punishing the players for wanting to have fun.

    The idea of auto-starting the featured theme is quite interesting, it would make the "Featured Theme" feature make actual sense (since that has only been used to alert about rules so far).
     
  13. Withoutatrace

    Withoutatrace im a filthy weeb

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    I would back this, if it would end the suggestion of disabling popular themes. That doesn't really encourage the basis of increasing the lower played themes, it decreases the want to play Mafia. Some people don't like the lower played themes, so they play the more played ones. So, you can see where I am going with that, so I'm not going to beat an already beaten horse.

    Tbh, if you wanted an idea without having to make the thread about this yet again, just ask an MA.
    The response you'll get is "Start the theme then.", which is really the ideal way. If you start the lesser played themes more, then a trend tends to be made.
    As I recollect as well, I haven't seen much effort on server to start them, outside of the people that start the theme because it's their favorite theme.
    That's just my observation, so..
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2014
  14. Cobalt

    Cobalt Embrace the Cold

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    The thing is the fact that, as rice said, these themes are played for a reason. Is disabling them the way to go about this? Is restricting the most loved themes the way to do this. I mean, yeah it could work, but for the better of what? Forcing people to play themes they don't /want/ to play? What I liked was that shoutout in the channel after every game. I forgot what is was called but it said something along the lines of: Try out ~theme~. I think it was called Featured Theme or something along those lines. The problem is, the mafia authority have to look out for the feelings for everyone, and not just yours. These themes are played because they're enjoyable, and just because you and maybe a small faction of the community think otherwise, doesn't mean we have to disrupt the happiness of the rest of the channel.
     
  15. Fuzzysqurl

    Fuzzysqurl baa baa mareep I do what I want Server Owner Developer I do what I want Server Owner Developer

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    Maybe you guys should stop starting the same theme. This isn't a problem with the way Mafia is run, this is a problem with how users always tend to start their favorite theme at any point possible. I know some of you in this thread are guilty of it.
     
  16. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    Yes, that is a very big problem we sometimes have. Some people constantly start Vanilla/DN and /vote it and to Peer Pressure and popular demand, that theme usually gets started.
    Or we can do what Tournaments did. Just have MAs/Server choose themes or fill up the queue. Players can request themes to MAs who will then put in queue and sever will automatically start.
    Queue:
    1. DN~Set by Solace~
    2. Rotom~Set by PokeWorldXY~
    3. FF~Set By Server~


    (21:02) Zony11: hi. Can you put Rotom in queue?
    (21:02) Selena Gomez: Sure.
    Murkrow: Selena Gomez put Rotom in the queue!

    You get the idea but it kinda sucks and it probably wont be in Mafia any time soon.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2014
  17. Fuzzysqurl

    Fuzzysqurl baa baa mareep I do what I want Server Owner Developer I do what I want Server Owner Developer

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    **Ever

    Queue is terrible for a Mafia Set up. Only works in Tournaments because preparation time and such.

    Also, I find it funny how you filled your fake queue with popular themes, thus defeating your argument before it even got started,
     
  18. Solace

    Solace Member

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    I don't start my own themes though!
    Well, I started DN once yesterday but that's the only time I have in quite a while and I had a good reason for it.
     
  19. Joeypals!!

    Joeypals!! Don't you worry 'bout a thing~

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    After thinking about this some more, both sides are kind of right. People need to learn to stop spamming themes while there might need to be some level of control if people can't figure that out. The featured theme idea's in place and from what I've seen, it's made an impact. I say let that ride out and if there's still a DN game or something similar every 5-7 games, then go ahead and place controls.
     
  20. Withoutatrace

    Withoutatrace im a filthy weeb

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    The control is YOU, and every other Mafia player. At this point, it shouldn't be my job, nor really any other MAs, to have to control the themes that get started. Yes, we are Mafia Players as well, and we contribute to the themes played in a very minimal amount compared to the entirety of the Mafia Community as a whole. The only reason I bring up MAs is because we'd be the ones that would be seen to uphold the controls if they would ever be put into play, which I doubt they will.
    I mean honestly, we all are in charge of what themes get played. If the Community as a whole wants to have DN be the theme of the month, so be it. All in all, controls shouldn't be in place since we already have the ability to control what themes get played.

    Just as theme authors do with new themes, start them. That's the way they'll get noticed.
     
  21. Joeypals!!

    Joeypals!! Don't you worry 'bout a thing~

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    And as right as you are, there needs to be some check and balance. Because of the themes on the top, some of lower themes are unable to gain traction because of everything on top. Sure it's in our control, but when you have one person trying to get lesser-played themes started as opposed to 7 or 8 going for the same cookie-cutter themes over and over, what do you think is going to happen? The one person's results are going to get drowned out as the same shit happens month after month.
     
  22. Shazan

    Shazan Obey to Kyubey

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    I understand your points guys when you says that often are played the same themes, making mafia gameplay static and not giving to the less played themes much chances.
    I see even cases where people has never seen old themes because they aren't played much, making me laugh when they says something like "I've never seen Chinchous, is a new theme?"
    Both the Pro topthemes and Pro Variety have some points, let's make a brainstorming to order the ideas and tell me if i forget something.
    PRO TOPTHEMES:
    1) If topthemes are on top it's because people like them.
    2) Damaging the topthemes can provoke a loss from mafia channel because the more conservative players prefer to play the same themes instead to learn new roles and because they prefer to play themes that they know to be good instead then themes which they don't know nothing.
    3) It's easier to know a limited number of gameplay, after all there are already more then 50 themes on server.
    4) There are so much themes on server, that is nearly impossible to play them all.

    PRO VARIETY:
    1) Because the same themes are played, some other good themes like COSA and OCEAN are not known by much people, even if they are fun to play.
    2) Damaging the less-played themes can provoke a loss to mafia Channel too. Because Players that loves to play always somthing new instead to play the same 12 themes in the end will be bored and stop playing mafia after that they have enough of those twelve themes.
    3) All the topthemes are fun, but no offense: some of them are played even because are easy to play, requires less mind work, there is a lesser responsability sense when they have to vote someone or because there is no real villager roles. Don't take it bad, but i think that some themes like Rotom, Trust and Trainers are played so much even because they have at least one of this motive on them, giving less space for themes that require more gray matter power then power roles ability. ( I don't mean that those themes don't require gray matter, what i mean is that those themes provoke abuse of night abilities making some players more lazy and less concentrate on teamwork and less thinking on who to vote.).

    Maybe a solution could be to make it so that whenever a theme is on the top 10 played themes, it will have a cooldown of 10 games to wait instead of the normal 5. This way we can have more theme variety ongoing and the less-played themes will have some extra chances to be played. But even on this case it could create some malcontent even if minor, instead to have the top Ten themes disabled.

    Personally the problem soultion should come more from players then from the game itself. So i have a propose for Fiery Espeon and any other interested mafia player, why don't create som sort of Pro Variety Alliance and a forum thread where each week each one of us will give a vote for one theme that is not played very much, and the top 5 themes that are voted that week we that accept to be part of this alliance will try to start them during the week?
     
  23. Joeypals!!

    Joeypals!! Don't you worry 'bout a thing~

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    Damn I wish thought of that! It's a perfect middle ground, instilling variety while people can still play the themes they love oh so much. People might get a little mad but at the same time, I can't imagine that too many people enjoy playing those same themes day in and day out. Oh, and the alliance thing? Count me in.
     
  24. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    Any kind of restriction to a theme for being popular is a bad idea. Like it was said before, encourage underplayed themes is better than restricting popular themes, simply because it would be better for players playing more themes they like instead of forcing them to play a theme they don't really care about.

    You can't simply hope your theme will become popular without any effort. Look at all those themes in the top 10: All of them had lots of effort put into making them AND adjusting them. Sure, lots of not-so-popular themes also had that effort put into them, but those that occasionally raise to the top 10 are not there simply because they got a lucky draw and people suddenly began to love them. There was lot of work put into them to make them a theme that deserves that spot, which is why is completely unreasonable to restrict them in any way just for being there.

    If you want an example, I may remind some of you how Kirby (originally named Dream Land because someone else had taken that name before me) was a theme started twice per day when in its first 2~3 months (and most of the time it was started by me). And look at where the theme is now. It didn't get there by luck or by restricting more popular themes, so there's no reason why other themes shouldn't be able to get there too. And IMO, those times were harder to introduce new themes, since there was no Mafia QC (players would often see a new theme and expect it to bork), there was over 120 themes, Default was enforced to be played every 2~3 games (so less themed-games available) and there was a holy circle of SSBB>FF>Zelda>Myth>Elements that was hard to break through (those themes were started even more often than the current Top 6 themes).

    Lastly, remember that the top themes change with time. There was a time SSBB was the most popular theme of all, then it got surpassed by FF and Myth, and now Zelda is above them all. Elements and Fruits were also constantly making into top 10, but sometimes they simply drop the rankings like currently is.
     
  25. Solace

    Solace Member

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    Allow me to throw a suggestion out there that involves nothing more than theme authors putting in a little effort to advertise their own stuff.

    There is this wonderful channel called #Mafia Social that used to actually be used and I wish it still was. Social is the perfect place for you to go, talk to Mafia players, tell them about your theme, ask what can improved, and generally get people excited about playing your theme. This usually leads to a. you getting info on why the theme isn't played/what you can do to make it more popular or b. people starting the theme more frequently because you've exposed them to it which leads to it being exposed to the greater audience of the channel as a whole.

    When I'm working on a new theme or updating one of the current ones, I frequently go to Social with it. The people who stay in Social (despite it being dead 80% of the time and me spamming my AR bots in an attempt to generate activity another 5% of the time) are people who truly care about Mafia and interacting with other players and they can get your theme started if you make them want to start it.

    tl;dr: Go to Social and be sociable about your theme.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2014
  26. two sides of one coin

    two sides of one coin sick of all her shit

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    Two sentences ends the discussion.

    [​IMG]
     
  27. Epikhairz

    Epikhairz Delta Stream

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    Lol solace mafia social was never used in the first place
     
  28. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    Lots of themes got improved and gained popularity when Project Mafia channel was active exactly for the reasons Solace pointed.
     
  29. Solace

    Solace Member

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    Me leading the activity in Mafia Social was one of the reasons for which I was promoted to MA so your argument is invalid. -.-
    And instead of snarky comments like that you could just... use Mafia Social so it is active.
     
  30. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    Mafia Theme Alliance (MTA)! SIGN UP and Be DEDICATED! (Round 1)

    I have decided to follow the suggestion above and decided that I will make an alliance. (Comment if you get the MTA reference) This alliance dedicates itself to promote underused themes that need recognition. So if you decide to join, just comment "Join" and vote 5 themes from the poll that you think we should promote. ONLY VOTE 5. The themes we will NOT promote are the ones in the first post of the thread. Please Join and Vote 5 of the themes. This round lasts 2 weeks. Before the next round gets started, you will nominate the themes into voting. This is not for the 1st round. DO NOT VOTE if you are not becoming a member. The vote will be voided. The post will be postponed until I can fix a problem.
    Happy Promoting UnderUsed Themes!
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2014
  31. Stocke

    Stocke Wat is dis I don't even

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    I can make big lettered comments too.

    But it only makes you look like you don't have actual arguments to bring to the table. Please comment normally if you don't mind.

    I'll go the KISS route about this: Popular games are popular because people like them. If a game isn't popular it's not the popular's game fault and trying to shove unpopular games down people's throats will just make them more hated instead, so be careful about the way you promote them least your efforts only bring your downfall.

    I know, late to the discussion, but I've been busy. I blame the real world.
     
  32. kyucumber

    kyucumber DNA Pin FTW

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    I'm still in there, I would help if we rebooted it...

    I've been flaking out of #Mafia because all we ever play is the same game. I will come play every once in a while to see some changes made to themes, but never really go on long streaks.

    I'd be interested in seeing a marathon of lesser played themes, perhaps an hour or so running up to primetime, so like 17:30-18:30 bEST, there could be a time where when Lesser played themes can be played. I don't see "disabling" themes for this hour to be too disruptive. Then when people primetime starts to roll in, themes can be re-enabled, with the crowd of players from before the channel hit primetime, maybe there would be more who would try to start themes they played earlier in the night...

    If any of that doesn't make sense, just ask me to clarify
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 30, 2014
  33. Scatterbrain

    Scatterbrain You only live once*

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    This.

    I'm pretty sure this can be done, with a little help from math.Random and it's definitely worth it. That way we have newer players getting to the older themes or the ones that don't receive much love, we can get a lot more activity on the channel hopefully.
     
  34. Shazan

    Shazan Obey to Kyubey

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    This is why i proposed the Alliance Idea, and even because the problem is provoked by the players and not from the system, so the solution would be better if comes from the players selves instead then from the game AI.
    With this comments you make me guess that some of you doesn't understand the point of this conversation.
    The point is not : oh poor Mafia theme Makers with no popular themes they need some loves too.
    The point is: The same old 12 themes again and again? Booooring. After all we have 52 themes, why do we have to use the only thw 25% of them?
    Wait! There was a time with 120 themes on? I am not saying that you are lying, if you say so i believe you, after all you are on server from more time then me. I was only surprised because when i joined the server 2 octobers ago, there were no more then 12-20 themes loaded in it, so i thought that the 50+ themes that we have now was the max that the server reached until now.
    Anyway, i don't agree completely with your point that the top 10 themes have got their position only because their authors have worked hard of them for 2 motives.
    First: My theme Trust is often on the top 10, but between the themes that i have coded, it is the one which needed less work, so much less work, that i coded it during the dead times during my Chrono Trigger's theme coding and meanwhile i was waiting some critique for this last one.
    Second: There are some themes really fun that are on the bottom of the theme list not because they are no good enough, but because they are not known to new players that when they start to join experience only the same themes and because of some lazy old players that hate to learn new themes (please don't tell me that this is not true because i have seen so much people hating some themes only because that themes use rules different from the top one). There are some great themes which authors have worked hard that are on the bottom, like chinchous, asylum, cosa, ocean (even if it has lost part of the appealing when Sushi chef has been moved only on games with a great number of players), fantasy, caterpie, creatures and others that me too don't know much how they works because they are started rarely like eclipse. Don't take me wrong there are some themes that are not bad but neither great on the bottom, like my Monster Hunter theme that has some good roles but there is not such a different strategy from default to make it unique.
    Mafia Players are more attracted to themes that have something that they know on, there is a motive if between the popular one there are often nintendo based themes like Hoenn, Zelda and Fire Emblem, (afterall typically who join there on pokemon online has at least played to one Nintendo console if they know the pokemon games.) and i understand why people tend to not like often themes with some unfamiliar or not-english concepts and names like themes of less known comic books/anime like geass and yaiba or with some fantasy or exotic names like the "romance of the 3 kingdoms" (it was actually even simple to understand the roles, because any role had the name of their faction on it), hunter and Chrono Trigger (yes this 2 are mine, but i am adding them here because i received on both critique because they had names like Lucca and Jaggi).

    As i said this thread is not about the non-top themes beign played rarely but that rarely there is a variety of themes played, and it is hard to start something different when there are 10 person together sniping DN or another Top.
    Look i am happy for you if you have been able to make better themes thanks to other mafia players and #Mafia Social, but i have bad experience with them. Me too i tried that road with my first themes, mainly Chrono Trigger, but no one: neither on social or mafia channel have helped me much, they only have been able to not say a word or to say that they hate or find confusing the theme without anyone that would give me some tips what was confusing on the theme, the most precise comment was that the names of the roles like Lucca. Robo, Frog ana Ozzie were strange. The only one that really helped me was Roild and i didn't talked with him on #social mafia, but on review and pmming him on forum, Results? I wasted a great amount of hours, second only to Animals, on a theme that still today i wonder what could i have done to make it work well and to have tormented Roild because was the only one answering me.
    So sorry but i don't have the faith that you have on social @Solace
    Joining the alliance, Fiery Espeon, it seems to be the most viable option until now proposed, that doesn't damage the other themes.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2014
  35. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    @Shazan:
    I practically skipped your last post, so my replies were not directed at you. This is not to say I disagree with you or anything, but I simply feel like any attempt to suggest a disablement of any theme should be immediately stopped, and that was what my posts aimed for (which ended with some deviation from the main topic).

    As for the whole effort part, you are probably understimating the work you put on Trust yourself. It's not only about coding, but everything starting from making an interesting concept work, and Trust clearly shows how that step was worked well (even if it was a fast process, as hard work does not necessarily means it took lots of time).
    I never said that themes that are on the bottom are bad. I've been always talking in terms of popularity here. Also, I'm not saying the ranking indicates which theme had more effort put into them. My point was, again, merely to state that themes on the top deserve their position (which is an argument focused on prevent the "Disable top 10 themes" movement, not to justify anything else).
    As for what makes players get interested in themes, I too have noticed that Pokémon and Nintendo-related stuff get some kind of boost here, but that's hardly an absolute rule. Look at the theme right on 1st place: It's a Manga/Anime-based theme. Ever since mafia themes became possible, never before any Manga/Anime-related theme (excluding Pokémon) had any success. On the other side, we often see pokémon-based themes getting ignored, while Elements get quite a decent position (used to be higher). The point is, putting the blame on what the theme is based of is not going to help. They give us a base, but ultimately, that alone is not enough to make a theme enjoy success.

    Lastly, I can imagine why you didn't have lucky with Mafia Social, but that is mostly because that channel is far from its ideal form. If we managed to make it like the old Project Mafia was, you probably would be able to get better feedback there.

    P.S.: Yes, at some point we had over 128 themes (even more, possibly). I remember that because when I was coding /sides, I made a few errors that would print 2 lines of error for each theme in the server, and there was over 250 lines of error.
     
  36. Shazan

    Shazan Obey to Kyubey

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    About this, sorry i have to learn to be more direct instead to do so much exemples.
    The nintendo one was an exemple, what i meant is simply that if people feel related and find a theme familiar, like the one about a known concept or about some media that players have experienced, like a famous videogame or manga, then is more easier for people to simpatize with them and even learning the roles is easier because people will associate them with the characters of that medias. As the exemple with Nintendo, we can make the exemple with other medias, for exemple manga/anime where Death Note, Naruto and Dragon Ball are obviously more known then Yaiba and Geass that are or were less played then the first three.
    We can make a similar discussion on Elements, where we can easily associate poisonous and radioactive elements as nocive for human beings and nature, meanwhile elements like oxygen and hidrogen are obviously necessary to live, making so the first group easily associated as bad guys roles and the last group easily associated with village/good guy roles without the need of a great knowledge of chemistry. This explain how even themes like body and elements are played often without being based on famous medias but at the same time based of familiar concepts.

    P.S.
    I didn't wanted to blame all the success of this themes on what they are based, because they obviously need to be good themes too to be liked. What i wanted is simply to make it clear that their success is not to blame all to their gameplay neither, but giving part to the merit to how much a theme is easier to follow if it is related on something that we know or better we like.
    I think that FIM's theme is the most explaniatory of this theory, because is easily understandable by who likes the show and know the characters, meanwhile is hated and hardly understandable by who connect it instead with merchandise for little girls on which if this players are males: they will highly feel unrelated with it.
     
  37. two sides of one coin

    two sides of one coin sick of all her shit

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  38. Dark Phoenix

    Dark Phoenix Multidimensional Hero

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    Without making a tl;dr post, the only thing that can be done is:

    - making it so that themes that were started have a longer waiting queue before being started again.


    In all honesty I don't see why this is a big deal. Themes that get started more often are that way because people enjoy playing them. If you disable them, themes that people do not like to play will result in lesser quantities of players. Don't believe me? There are several instances where starting a lesser appreciated theme results in a lesser queue of players whereas if you start a more popular theme begins, more people will join. I apologize if you do not like the current system but you should just be .01 seconds faster in starting /starttheme to play a different theme.

    We once had a roulette system set up by [redacted] where every theme was completely random and had to be voted on. It was not appreciated.
     
  39. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    For the next two weeks, we will be focusing on and promoting Fruit and Ember.
     
  40. two sides of one coin

    two sides of one coin sick of all her shit

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    How many people have joined the THEME ALLIANCE?
     
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