SpielByWeb

[fatbloke]

What are opinions on diplomacy in online gaming?

For instance, in a 5 or 6 person game the setup phase is complete and its obvious that diplomacy with a fellow player is required to avoid un-necessary blood-shed/mutual destruction.

In a real-world I'd probably speak to the other player(s) at the gaming table and openly discuss my thoughts or alternatively suggest that we 'step outside' for a discussion. In the real world instance, even if the discussion is 'outside' so other players would not know the contents of our discussion they do know that we have had one.

In a virtual email/pm world a diplomatic agreement between players isn't openly visible, is this therefore reasonable and/or fair?

(edit: typo mistakes all over the place, must learn to type!)

[striking_cobra]

Well, personally, I think it's fine to use the message system to broker deals, as thats no different than sitting at the table and suggesting a truce.

I have to say that if we were sat face to face and you suggested an "out of the room" meeting, I'd probably have packed up the game by the time you came back in. Gaming is meant to be fun, yes, play to win, but if you need to hold secret meetings in any game (that isn't Diplomacy!) then I think you are taking it too seriously.

I'm not a big fan of secret alliances.

[freduk]

I agree. There is a message board for in-game chat, which can be used for negotiating deals. There are also many examples in these fora of people complaining they were ganged up on, behind their back. Nobody likes being the victim of secret alliances, so don't go making any yourself (not that you are, I'm just using an example).
This is a friendly site, people should be open with their negotiations. You never know, you may get a better offer

[adamdgreat]

i once turned down an offer of a truce made by pm. the player offering the truce was new to the site and offered me the short end of a deal. which made it obvious to turn down, but i felt it was wrong to take either way.
while playing a game with my "friends" the guy who introduced me to sbw pm'd the others and ganged up on me. in that case i found it more amusing.
however, i believe these meetings should take place where all players can see.

[Big Bad Lex]

Deja Vu

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/681179#681179

It's a can of worms this one. There are gamers out there who would need defib if they played face to face with us FB.
_________________
It's not the winning, it's utter annihilation of your opponant that matters.

[TheCat]

If messages were emailed to players when created, you would see more people using the message system to conduct diplomacy during the game. Most people only see messages when they log in to take their turn and don't respond to messages in-between turns. Thus, the best you can usually hope for from the message system is one message per turn. At that rate, you don't see meaningful deal making, and thus you see people not bothering to use the system at all.

[freduk]

That's true of players who only log in if they get an email.
Those of us who log in regularly would see these messages.
Persaonally, I turned email notification off as it was clogging my inbox, and I found I almost always had at least one game waiting for me whenever I logged in.