Suggestions to make #mafia more active

Discussion in 'Mafia' started by Karp Karpity, Nov 16, 2014.

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  1. Karp Karpity

    Karp Karpity Active Member

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    This is a thread, where people can make comments about why mafia is down. If you have a suggestion, those are good to because more ideas can lead to a better understanding of what's going on.
     
  2. Whereabouts Unknown

    Whereabouts Unknown Absolutely Stunning Forum Moderator Channel Leader Forum Moderator Channel Leader

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    Offer university credits for mafia participation.

    Really though, the decline in activity coincided with school coming into session for a lot of the channel's regulars. While some of us can manage to come on occasionally, everyone's activity is so sporadic that it's hard to get enough people together to keep the channel running. Occasionally there are spurts of 10-11 player games, but they always die away fast because there are not enough people coming in to replace those leaving.

    With QC operating again, it would be great to get more test subjects participants, but I'm not sure how this can be accomplished, since we can't do much to influence external factors. Outreaching to those who generally play Pokémon on the Simulator is an option, but I don't know how it can be expanded from what is done presently.

    The most practical option is, given that we can't feasibly expand how much time people can spend in the channel, to coordinate amongst each other to decide when to meet and play 10+ sized games, rather than hoping it happens spontaneously. I don't know how it could be made efficient, but it would be nice to have a set time, even if rarely, that people can come to mafia and know that there will be decent sized games.
     
  3. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    Probably increasing the overall userbase of PO could help a bit (or a lot). It's not only Mafia that's low, PO as a whole is.
     
  4. Joeypals!!

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

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    Ironically, I already have a plan in motion that involves reviving iconic themes, bringing in new people from Tohjo and Tournaments, and getting some official stuff going. All shall be revealed soon ^.^
     
  5. Marquis

    Marquis beez in the whazzit??

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    looking forward to it!
     
  6. VirajVora

    VirajVora VirajVora...

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    Well, I had already told this in Project Mafia Boost, but I am gonna tell this again here with few new changes added in it...

    Note : This is not only solution in Mafia boost but an overall population increase...

    Main Problem -

    For any new player online, the first thing he notices on Tohjo Falls (default) is channel Tournaments (90% times)...
    Later he forgets about Tohjo Falls and sticks to Tournaments for 15-30 days...
    Then he gets bored and leaves Pokemon Online forever...

    Example -

    Let me tell you me and my friends examples...
    I was just surfing Google Play Store and this time I searched Pokemon...
    I found Pokemon Online, got interested and started to download...
    First I knew nothing about tiers/channels, I just kept battling in Battle Factory for next 3 hours...
    Next day I understood about tiers (somewhat) and I told my 5 friends and we all started playing fun tiers... (as they need no teambuilding)
    The same day we learnt about Tournaments and started playing that...
    That kept on for 15 days...
    Then all got bored and 1 by 1 all started to leave it except for me...
    After 2 months ago, a server friend of me told about Mafia...
    I didn't understood it all...
    I was about to leave it but I won 4 games continuously...
    I became happy and now I was interested to play more games of it...
    In 2 days I learnt to play it...
    I tried telling all 5 of my friends about it...
    No one was interested in it... 1 of them did download it again but uninstalled it within 24 hours because there were no games going on and even when few games started, he didn't understood how to play it...

    Solutions -

    1)
    I have seen Pokemon Online promotion in Twitter and Facebook. We just need to link Facebook and Twitter page in the home page of this site... This will lead to newbies getting to know about these things and they may share/retweet this promotional page that will lead to more and more people at a greater speed... I also got to knew about Facebook and twitter page today (which is a bad thing)...

    2) New players do not understand tiers at all... There must be a link in Welcome Message of Tohjo Falls which gives detailed information about all tiers...

    3) All official sites in Channel List must be colored instead of black...
    Newbies will be interested why these channels are colored and hence they will show their interest in visiting these channels...

    4) There must be a Mafia guide in Welcome Message of Mafia...

    5) There must be a Championship to increase Mafia population like this one just considering Mafia in its place...


    6) I got interested to play Mafia as I won 4 games continuously... All newbies might not be as lucky as me... So giving a better chance to win to newbies by experienced people... However, this thing is too partial and depends on nature and mood of the experienced person... So I mentioned this thing at last...


    I know it :]
    If you need help please ask me, I'll be happy to volunteer myself for this thing...
     
  7. Joeypals!!

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

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    If anyone wants to PM me with ideas on how to revive classic themes (Popularity, Pokemon, Vepix, Castle, etc), go right on ahead. I plan reviving all of these eventually in some way.
     
  8. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    I agree with ^Joeypals.
    Anyways, the reason I am not active anymore is the same reason @Scatterbrain isn't active. There's the dumb tests where they make you take earlier (9th grade) where they are actually 11th grade material. + actual 9th grade curriculum. (It's a NY thing).
    Back to what Joeypals said, Mafia would be much more improved if we have a combination of reviving old themes + interesting new people/old people that have quit.
     
  9. Joeypals!!

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

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    Have both of these plans already underway in what I call Operations Revive and Respawn. Right now, as I figure out how to rework the themes in an appropriate format to today's standards, I have people going around educating people on the basics of Mafia in both Tournaments and Tohjo Falls in order to generate interest.
     
  10. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    Popularity was never an official theme, so it wouldn't exactly be revived :x
    Castle should be easy to revive, it just need someone who knows what they are doing. Pokémon could be tricky, since it needs some restraints to prevent it from becoming a mess.

    On a different topic, another thing I've been thinking about is to continue the Mafia Guide project by making an Intermediate Guide. Not exactly something to revive Mafia (at least directly), but it could help keeping some new players around for a longer time.
     
  11. Joeypals!!

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

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    I'm completely on board for an Intermediate Guide, so go right on ahead.
     
  12. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    In any words, anyone can make a intermediate guide but the best will be used. So anyone is free to do these things. Just post it here or on the previous guide thread and we'll be able to determine which is the best one.
     
  13. Veteran Padgett

    Veteran Padgett TFT Main Developer Developer

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    I think it would be better if Rice was the main person to write an intermediate guide since he made the beginner one.
     
  14. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    I was actually thinking of making this one differently this time. It would be mostly a collection of general tips and hints, so it would be better to have a thread to gather ideas for those and then I would organize them into a guide.
     
  15. Joeypals!!

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

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    Let's do this then. Rice, make a thread for the Intermediate Guide with a foundation for what the guide should look like with additional tips suggested by others. When considered complete, we can go ahead and make another thread with the complete guide, lock and sticky that.
     
  16. Scatterbrain

    Scatterbrain You only live once*

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    I was wondering what ever happened to PO. I stumbled upon this after getting a little curious.

    The reason Pokemon Online (and consequently, Mafia) isn't getting so many players is mainly because it's not summer in the Americas, which is where most of Pokemon Online's users come from. The second is basically Showdown>PO. Showdown has everything PO desperately needs - a functioning web client, ~10,000 people on during peak times, easily accessible replays, interactive teambuilding, and a bunch of developers to help out with Showdown.

    The only thing that Showdown doesn't have is automated Mafia. I'm pretty sure they have some sort of variant of Trivia, and last time I checked they had some sort of Hangman too (I can't check now, server is down). Would be nice to finally get to play Mafia on Showdown. If we could get hundred player games, that would be sweet. But games would take at least an hour to complete, should that be the case.

    In conclusion, Pokemon Online is not the "most popular, accurate, and complete Pokémon battle simulator out there" as described on the home page. But as long as Mafia is on the channel, PO will always have some sort of exclusive feeling to it. Until, of course, Showdown puts Mafia up. Which is way overdue.
     
  17. TraceofLife

    TraceofLife Lucky Strike

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    Showdown doesn't has Hangman js.
     
  18. Joeypals!!

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

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    I'm not on PS often, but I've scrolled through and they do have a Mafia channel, it's just not a good system. And honey, it's nice that you think PS is better, bravo for you thinking quantity>quality (based on your list, you care mostly about how many people are online at a time). But last I checked, this is a thread to help revive Mafia, not compare PO against PS. So please, cut out the propaganda and use the thread for what it's meant for, k?

    Anyway, as I said up in #7, if you have ideas on how to revive older, classic themes such as Vepix, Castle, Pokemon, Minesweeper, Popularity, etc, please hit me up with a conversation.
     
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  19. VirajVora

    VirajVora VirajVora...

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    There is one place where PO gets most players and PS gets none... That is Android... Most newbie players were from Android (when PO was available at Google Play Store)...
     
  20. Pangaea

    Pangaea resto en peaco

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    I asked Fuzzy if I could adopt Pokemon a few months ago. He told me that everyone had decided that the theme had lost all hope and that it couldn't be fixed without removing the entire gameplay. Something like that.

    One theme I want brought back is Magikarp. I've been trying to think of ways to possibly fix that, but it's pretty challenging to do so while at the same time keeping the same goal/gameplay of the theme.
     
  21. Keima Katsuragi

    Keima Katsuragi New Member

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    1- get more people (sharing page or spam idk)
    2- make known mafia from the main channel (how tournaments)
    3- video tutorial of mafia?
    3- if the mafia staff play more could help (i played before because MA always was playing )
    4- if you could add the option 1 vs 1 (min 2 players) because no matter how small. the important thing is to have one game running (is one game is always running more people join)
    5 - new peak games (and maybe disable not repeat theme on peak game)
     
  22. Joeypals!!

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

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    It'd be tricky, but if reworked it could probably work with today's standards. It'd just be tough keeping things respectful to the original while moving to today's standards... while not ripping off of Chinchous.

    I already have a plan in motion for 1, and if by 2 you mean having announcements in Tohjo whenever a game is starting, we already have that (as does Trivia, Tournaments, and Hangman, Tournaments just has a bigger banner so it's more noticable). 3 isn't really an issue since someone that's an MA is usually playing, 4 has been brought up in the past but either has limitations as far as being able to actually work or was denied (forgot which), and 5 shouldn't be a point since we're adding themes anyway through review.

    Where we need to go is the revival path, bring back themes from the days of old that people loved when the numbers were still strong. Teaching new people how to play is also a great idea, thus why Rice's guides will be beneficial. And finally, we need to get something official going. You saw LTT, got over 90 sign-ups iirc. If we can bump up activity and start up official things, we can easily mend the activity even as PS has a numbers advantage on us.
     
  23. Whereabouts Unknown

    Whereabouts Unknown Absolutely Stunning Forum Moderator Channel Leader Forum Moderator Channel Leader

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    As for 1 and 2, outreach is important, thing is it's also the server as a whole with decreased activity.
    3 - Rice's beginners guide is sufficient imo.
    3 again - MAs have to deal with time constraints too. Still, we are committed to keeping the channel active. If someone else shows up and starts games, we'll readily join if we are available. What we can't do is start themes in an empty channel 24/7.
    4 - This is discussed often. The issue is that 1v1 isn't really mafia. Sure, a few themes could still be played feasibly (EV, Rotom, RPS, a few others maybe) but a 1v1 scenario defeats the purpose of the game, which is using deductions to determine who is on your side and who isn't. In 2p there is no question of who's on your side or not.
    5 - QC is active and running, so expect not only more themes, but also improved themes. Disabling repeat is completely counterproductive to the first point, and I don't think it's going to happen. There are at least 6 peak themes that keep crowds around at a given time, and those 6 get repeated to death during peaks as it is.

    Sort of unrelated, would anyone be interested in coordinating availability through some sort of document online? Even a straw poll would probably work. Just to get a general idea of when people can come to the mafia channel. There are people who want to play mafia - it's evident there are based on this thread - the issue is that the channel is "dead" and so it's unlikely everyone happens to be in channel at once. Once a week, if we could run a poll for when everyone can be online, I think we could easily get 15+ people and play all the peak themes. This would create an atmosphere appealing to new players as well, and more users are going to stick around if they see how many people actually play.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2014
  24. Joeypals!!

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

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    I made spreadsheets for July-October's tournament leaderboards (that still need to be posted), so that should be a piece of cake to do.
     
  25. Pangaea

    Pangaea resto en peaco

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    In my completely unbiased and totally not the author of Chinchous mind, I think the movement to today's standards was successful. The main core of Chinchous was its humor and silliness, which wasn't changed at all when I was remaking the theme.

    Magikarp would be difficult, because the main point of it is to die a hero, which unfortunately was one of the problems of the theme. Not to mention it was a very simple setup with very few roles, so I think it'd be really difficult to try to fix it without almost entirely redoing the entire theme.
     
  26. Karp Karpity

    Karp Karpity Active Member

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    As for the video tutorial, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N68n1IGph5k
     
  27. VirajVora

    VirajVora VirajVora...

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  28. Withoutatrace

    Withoutatrace im a filthy weeb

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    If you're going to do a video tutorial, perhaps use a more current recording that actually teaches you the game? That was just a play through.

    I have no problem with a video tutorial, some learn better from seeing and hearing rather than reading. The only thing is that you're going to have to talk, and actually make the video a resource for learning, which I don't know if anyone will want to.

    If everyone wants to come up with ideas, ie a Playlist of multiple videos that show different aspects of Mafia, ie basic commands and rules video, explaining different roles, etc., I can get around to making some test videos.
     
  29. Pyanda

    Pyanda New Member

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    Hi is this thread dead?
    Anyways I was reading through and thought about the idea of 2 players Mafia. So the purpose is to determine the alignment of another player right? So I was wondering if we can introduce a Bot when a 2 players Mafia game starts (If this has already been suggested then you can stop reading). There will be no killing and the game will end upon a lynch.

    There will only be three roles: Mayor, Mafia, Villager Dummy.
    The Town Mayor will always be a player and will have 2 votes to avoid ties when the other player is the Mafia.
    Mafia and Villager Dummy both have 1 vote so it doesn't matter which role is the Bot.
    The purpose of this game would be the Mayor deciding on who to lynch between the other player and the Bot.
    The job of the other player is to convince the Mayor to lynch the Bot.
    The Bot just sits there and do nothing, they either get lynched or they win as Town when the Mayor vote right, or as Mafia when the Mayor vote wrong.

    A time limit could be set so the game doesn't last for ever or a staff might want to watch it every time this game starts.
    I don't know how to code Mafia games so yeah.

    Oh and to make it more interesting the Mayor and Dummy can both see themselves as just Villager so nobody knows if they have 2 votes.
     
  30. VirajVora

    VirajVora VirajVora...

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    Well if 2 player is gonna happen I have a simple and plain suggestion...

    2 player RPS... As simple as small kids play...
     
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  31. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    A bot is simply too much trouble to code. If we are going to code something so complex, I'd rather code something that actually revives mafia as a whole instead of simply allowing for 2p games.
     
  32. Pyanda

    Pyanda New Member

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    I was going off what WU said here:
    But good point, why isn't 2 players RPS already on the server?

    I didn't think a dead Bot would be too much of a problem to code, I just thought of it as an extra variable, my mistake.

    I don't think an amazing theme is going to make Mafia active, the current themes on the server is all good, the problem is the player base isn't it?
     
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  33. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    I was not talking about coding a theme, but features. Like an idea I had these days: Having /flashme default to on, so people would notice new games more often. Of course, they still would be able to turn it off if they wish, so maybe have something to encourage them having flashme on could be added too.
     
  34. Elite's Aaron

    Elite's Aaron Sinnoh's Elite

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    I blame QC. I guess mafia is "their" standards of "cool".
     
  35. Joeypals!!

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

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    We currently have Vepix and crew back in the channel, I'm not sure what else you want.
     
  36. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    Actually, we don't. Only Castle survived, while Vepix/Daypix/Qwerty and I don't know what else were removed.
     
  37. Joeypals!!

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

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    ...well fuck, didn't even use /themes today haha. But still, Castle is one of the more fun themes that we had that got removed, but it's still here now. I'm not sure what you want Aaron.
     
  38. IceKirby

    IceKirby A.K.A. RiceKirby

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    He's probably still blaming QC for not understanding his geniality and declining the "ultra-popular" themes Arceus and FFIX that he made.
     
  39. Shazan

    Shazan Obey to Kyubey

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    Could you please express your motivation? Because simply saying it's QC fault doesn't help much.
     
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  40. Fiery Espeon

    Fiery Espeon The fire never bothered me anyway ~

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    Adding on to what Shazan said, the themes are certainly not the problem. The problem is activity, and the people playing. Even when we had one of the most popular themes on the server, more people joined during certain times, but there were a lot of time where there was no activity at all. The reason for Mafia being dead, cannot possibly be the fault of the QC, as the themes are not the problem;the people and activity are. As you can see a few threads ago, that a Beginner's Guide be made to help ease players into Mafia and help people learn. Rice's guide was successful, but almost no one realizes it is there, and it exists. A solution to this problem may be that the guide could be linked to, by the bot in Tohjo, that announces Mafia games.
    However, we cannot force people who already know about mafia to play. Activity in PO has been really low lately, and many of Mafia's own dedicated people have fled to Trivia, Hangman, or Tours. Trivia, Hangman, and Tours all have a leaderboard point system, which is not suitable for Mafia. A proposed idea could be a leaderboard that is only visible to sMA's. At the end of each month, the sMA's can reveal this info. It prevents the targetting problem with a leaderboard, but it also means that the sMA's don't abuse their power.
     
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