Discouraging procrastination

[drwr]

Here I some of the ideas I was tossing around to encourage players to get off their duff and put in their orders:

* Send a "hey, you're holding everyone up" email to the last player in a given turn to submit orders.

* On the game page, report the number of players who have yet to enter orders.

* On the game page, report the names of the players who have yet to enter orders. This is problematic for several reasons. We can't report their actual names, since we promised to keep the players in the game secret until the end. If we report their player handles, that may reveal information to other players in the game (the other players now know the handle of at least one other player they haven't otherwise met, which they can now contact directly for secret alliances). Maybe we don't care; maybe we should just make the full set of player handles in the game public information.

* Sweeten the pot with points. Award five points to the first player to submit orders in a given turn; dock five points from the last player to submit orders. To avoid people submitting bogus orders early, we'd have to make this determination based on the final set of orders a player submits. This may have the side effect of discouraging people from reevaluating their orders.

* As above, but on a progressive scale: the first time you are the last to submit orders, dock 5 points, the second time, 10 points, then 20, 30, and 40, and 50 points each time thereafter. Similar scale for the first-player bonus. This might really encourage the orders to roll in, but it might add so much pressure to the game that it should be an optional feature selected when the game is created.

Discuss.

David

[gilthian]

I like these 2:
* Send a "hey, you're holding everyone up" email to the last player in a given turn to submit orders.

* On the game page, report the number of players who have yet to enter orders.

My suggestion is anything that affects points be a game option. Just in case the players want a more relaxed game.
Other ideas
1. Scale the points deducted/awarded based on the number of players in a game
2. Scale the points deducted based on how someone held the game up. If everyone else turned in their orders on day 1, and the last player waited till day 7, that would be a bigger deduction if everyone else turned in their orders on day 6, and the last player waited till day 7.

[drwr]

My suggestion is anything that affects points be a game option. Just in case the players want a more relaxed game.

I agree.

1. Scale the points deducted/awarded based on the number of players in a game
2. Scale the points deducted based on how someone held the game up. If everyone else turned in their orders on day 1, and the last player waited till day 7, that would be a bigger deduction if everyone else turned in their orders on day 6, and the last player waited till day 7.

These ideas make a lot of sense. But they complicate the rules considerably, and may make it difficult for a player to anticipate how many points his procrastination will cost him. Since the only reason for doing this at all is to motivate players to enter turns faster, I think it's very important that all the players fully and easily understand the rules--probably even more important than trying to award points based on the honest cost to the other players' time.

David

[FishSpeaker]

I like these 2:
* Send a "hey, you're holding everyone up" email to the last player in a given turn to submit orders.

* On the game page, report the number of players who have yet to enter orders.

I agree. I think these two would be effective and have no downside.

I think it's dangerous to start granting or docking points. You have to get the point values just right. If it's too many points, the nature of the game changes and people are encouraged to make quick decisions rather than well thought out orders. If it's too few points, you won't actually change anyone's behavior. Also, what if everyone's playing lightning fast? Is it really fair to dock someone who got their orders in after 30 minutes just because everyone else got their orders in within 20 minutes?

I also like the suggestion, made earlier, that the first few turns have a much shorter schedule than the remainder of the game. That's when people have little excuse for taking a long time to make their turn, and when many are anxious for the game to develop quickly.

[drwr]

The only problem with this idea:

* Send a "hey, you're holding everyone up" email to the last player in a given turn to submit orders.

is that it's only effective if there is just one slowpoke in a game. If there are thirty prompt players, and two procrastinators, neither of them will get a hurry-up notice.

If it's too many points, the nature of the game changes and people are encouraged to make quick decisions rather than well thought out orders.

This is not necessarily a bad thing; it might make for a very exciting game. Have you ever played blitz chess? It certainly does change the nature of the game, though, and therefore shouldn't be imposed arbitrarily.

David

[Syclone]

If you give and take points for been first and last. The last person can take there turn, lossing points. The turn will update and they can be the first person on the next turn, gaining points. If you have one person slowing the game, then this will work. One turn will be slow the next fast. If two players are slowing the game, then they will just switch off every turn, slowing the game down.

I can't think of a way to make a person take there turn. They just have to want to.

[drwr]

Now that we have implemented this idea:

* On the game page, report the number of players who have yet to enter orders.

it appears to me that the net result is that more people are inclined to procrastinate than previously. In past games, my experience is that it was typically just one person who held each turn up to its near maximum runtime. Now we are habitually seeing four or more people waiting till the zero hour to put their final orders in.

It might be due to any of a number of other factors. For instance, now that the in-game messaging system is working so well, people might be inclined to wait until they've had a chance to thoroughly discuss their turn with their allies. But it might also be at least partly due to the psychology of "oh, there are still three other people who haven't entered orders yet. So I'm not the last one, whew, no rush."

David