The Council of Wyrms

[The Panther]

On the subject of hosting:

I did not host last night because I was still missing a turn file. Recall that I had delayed hosting last turn by 12 hours, so I decided to delay this time too. I will host today (probably at lunch time) whether I receive the Jontun turn or not.

Also, I will be leaving tomorrow to go on a camping trip to Arizona. I will return sometime over the weekend. There were several people in the game who are also going to be gone over the upcoming holidays. Thus, after I host today, the subsequent turn will host Sunday at 8 PM MST.

[Huntsman]

The Panther said:

Also, I will be leaving tomorrow to go on a camping trip to Arizona.

Scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlers...oh my!
Scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlers...oh my!
Scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlers...oh my!
SCORPIONS, TARANTULAS, and RATTLERS...OH MY!

Don't forget the bug spray.

[The Panther]

Huntsman said:

Don't forget the bug spray.

Interesting that you mention this item. I have a humorous story on the subject.

About 10 years ago, I was playing golf on Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the middle of the summer. Those little biting flies were swarming all over the course. It was really tough to putt when your head and back were covered in bugs. I was complaining about it to my two playing partners, both of whom were locals.

The resulting conversation with one of the guys is something I will never forget. It went something like this:

"You said you were from New Mexico, right?"
"Yes."
"Don't you have scorpions and rattlesnakes?"
"Well, yes we do. I have seen a rattler on the course back home and many a scorpion in my back yard when I first moved into my house."
"And tarantulas too?"
"Oh yes, all the time! They like to cross the fairway near the lake on hole number 11 on the base course back home."
"Well, you can keep all those nasty things. I am perfectly content with my own insects here."
And as I slapped at yet another annoying fly, I replied, "OK, sounds good! You stay here with these flies and mosquitos and I will go back home to my snakes and scorpions and big spiders!"

I always live in fear that the many people living in the eastern US will discover New Mexico and eventually innudate us with tons of people. We already have enough Californians moving in anyways.

[RonD]

Although my wyrm abstained on prop 11, I would have no problem with changing the wiki to require loggin in.

[Wish]

sorry about the late 2h.

its funny you worry about californians. us californians are always complaining that all the freaks and weirdos from other states are inundating us...

you'll find native californians much less... stereotypical... than the "californians" that are actually originally from somewhere else.

[The Panther]

OK, I did receive the Jontun turn file, but I have since discovered that the Atlantis turn file is not working properly. I have sent an email requesting a replayed turn from Atlantis.

Look for the new turn within the next 8 hours or so after this gets resolved.

[Cainehill]

And people think hosted games are so much worse than PBEM - at least with a hosted game, you pretty much know you have valid turn files, and if QH is off, it really has no disadvantages compared to pbem.

[The Panther]

Since we both do love a good argument (I guess it is all that New Mexico sunshine on our heads), I have to disagree:
1. QH off means that the owner of the server has to keep on top of things to force host if someone goes AWOL, or have a fixed hosting schedule.
2. I have seen no less than 3 MP games on a server (2 with me and 1 that my son was in) go crazy such that the game ends. With PBEM, you can always go back to previous fatherland files and attempt to re-start at a point before the game goes Nagot. We did this with the Yarnspinners and managed to recover the game by replaying Turn 29 a couple of times until it got past the game errors.
3. People with servers rarely do the non-QH option, although I did manage to convince the hosts for my last 2 server games to go to a fixed schedule (which, as you know, solves a lot of the problems with QH).
4. Many people forget to do their server turns if not reminded in an email. I know I do. The frequency of stales on a server is probably 5-10 times that of a PBEM.

But ah, the advantages of a server:
1. People uploading the turns KNOW that their 2h file is good, which is certainly not true for PBEM. But a good PBEM host should know also if he takes the time to check throughly.
2. The server game tends to move a LOT faster, especially for the early moves.

Interesting enough, I did check the input files yesterday and somehow overlooked the fact that the little dash next to Atlantis was missing. There ought to be a better way than that tiny little dash thingy to show the host that a turn file is missing.

This delay is not a big deal since the next turn won't be due until next Sunday anyway. Had this been a normal week, I would have probably forced some stales or emailed the missing folks sooner.

Next Sunday, we will get back to our normal schedule. This hopefully will last until the Christmas holidays. By then, most of the indies should be gone and the game will get very interesting.

[shovah]

'4. Many people forget to do their server turns if not reminded in an email. I know I do. The frequency of stales on a server is probably 5-10 times that of a PBEM.'
how does playing pbem make you remember to do it more? i mean surely its just as easy to rememmber to go onto the server as it is to send your turn file?

[The Panther]

shovah said:

how does playing pbem make you remember to do it more? i mean surely its just as easy to rememmber to go onto the server as it is to send your turn file?

It is because you get an email when a new turn is out on PBEM but you don't on a server game. In fact, I keep the turn email sitting in my inbox until I send in my 2h file as a constant reminder that it is due.

Of course, I check my email maybe 10 times a day. I am guessing that not all people do this.

Zooko and some others started a thing where the server automatically sends out an email when a new turn is up. This helps greatly when it works. I did get a stale once because the notification thing failed and the turn hosted without me remebering that a turn was due around that time. That can't happen with PBEM unless your email server messes up (which has been know to happen). This is why I post on this forum about specific turn files due so people have two independant ways to check that their turns are needed.