MP: BearTrap - Early age game. Running like a cripple in a running competition.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

You don't have to have met someone in the game in order to message them, no.

Hhhhmmmm, personally I wouldn't be too quick off the mark saying this (that "making contact before meeting in-game" is ok) is the accepted norm for games.

Early on in one of the Newbie games I am currently running, one of the players wasn't too happy about two of his neighbours chatting before they had met in-game, since as the game developed, these two players were also the same two neighbours who ended up rushing him. I looked into the complaint at the time, and concluded the original contact was more-or-less harmless. But at the same time I could certainly understand the player who got rushed feeling a bit aggrieved, as it appeared to him his two neighbour agreed to rush him just a few turns after the game had started, and well before they even got close to having in-game borders, or finding out where each other was on the map. Indeed, the rushed player hadn't even met one of his would-be rushers in-game at the time, which didn't help matters, as it only aided his opinion that one of his rushers might only have known about his cap location from the other rusher he had contact with pre-meeting in-game.

So again personally, in future newbie games I run I will likely have a rule that contact between players inside the first 15 turns must be limited to those you have in-game borders with, as I want to avoid unwanted drama in my newbie games. (although this particular game isn't a newbie game of course. So you can likely expect more 'advanced' settings on all options. But just thought I'd point out that I don't think llamabeast's quote should be automatically accepted as the standard norm on the "making contact before meeting in-game" issue for all games)