The Weakest Link '09: The Rules

[Soirana]

okay, we have long term problem:

advicing on server games. In particular i remember two games i've been involved [as adviser] Evariste's round leading to dark orc trial [sensing trial was main reason I went out of my skin to help him] and Quik last round...

These two were in general close to

1NW zap wand 1N kicck wall go towards watter read book

not very funny if you think backwards and apply things like one guys getting all advive and another none.

The question is how we do this in semis to finals. I see no real answer so probbaly some discussion should be started.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Well, I play go on a server and they have a very simple method: there is a chat for each game where spectators and players can talk before, during and after the game. But *during* the game, players cannot read spectators. Spectators can talk among themselves and can also read players, but players cannot read spectators to prevent advice.

So perhaps we could just set a rule such that whoever is playing in the server in a given moment must exit the IRC channel, and cannot enter until his turn is over?

The problem is that this would probably remove advice totally, not only "excessive" advice, but I don't see a fair intermediate solution.

[Grey]

Options are:

1. No advice at all. Can only make fun of player.
2. Only advice from former team-mates
3. Only minimal and non-specific advice allowed. This is a bit hard to define, but would mean no telling the player what to do exactly on that round. No saving them from death by pointing out what wands they have, etc. More general advice that would be allowed is perhaps longer term tactical stuff, like "you should use missiles more" or "try to save on castings".
4. All advice allowed.

Personally I'm in favour of number 2 to encourage spectating a bit, but it still shouldn't degenerate to players being instructed on exactly how to move, when to fire, etc.

Edit: Al-Khwarizmi's suggestion is a great one actually.

[Soirana]

but it kills all the fun to read comments on your play... That is half the fun to play on server for me...

[tapi]

It will be hard to enforce the advice rule if we allow any advising at all.. imho we should go with Al-Khwrarizmi's suggestion. Then atleast we can have our fun from laughing at stupid decisions

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Well, at least you can read all the discussion after you have finished, if the rest of the people send you the logs (which we should).

[Soirana]

fair enough. that is probably best solution.

[JellySlayer]

I agree with Soirana here... part of the fun of server play is being able to interact with the spectators. Otherwise, I'd probably prefer to play without the server so I wouldn't have to worry about lag.

I think it is worth pointing out that in spite of the issue with advice, it doesn't really seem to be having a huge effect in the grand scheme of things: two of the three server leagues are already settled, and the life-expectancy on the server players is, on average, pretty short (on the 3 server leagues, 5 players didn't make it past the first round, for example, whereas only one didn't on the non-server leagues). By the numbers, I don't think there's any real advantage to playing on the server as opposed to not. In principle, all players on the server should have access to the same level of advice--where it might become more of an issue is with leagues where players go from non-server to server, which gives the players who make the switch the advantage in that respect.

[F50]

I prefer Al-Khwarizmi's suggestion as well.

I think it would be fun to wonder about what people are saying, and hear a report of all your blunders afterward. Seeing the chat log while you were away would be nice as well though.

[Soirana]

i think i mixed things and put some replies in general discussion...

In short that about using two channels instead. One spoily and other for fun?