"Blindfold" or "Fog-of-Player"

[The Voice]

This suggestion has my full support. Well articulated, Funky.

[Funkyterrance]

This suggestion has my full support. Well articulated, Funky.

Thanks, Voice.

[Funkyterrance]

UPDATE:

So I joined a tournament a while back(don't even remember joining tbh) and on my first game it is me vs 3 sergeants. I am getting inexplicably piled on for what I can see is no other reason but my rank. I haven't been in a non-clan tourney for so long I forgot how crappy this situation is. It's quite hard to have a chance when all eyes are on you, looking at you like a point pork chop.

[chapcrap]

UPDATE:

So I joined a tournament a while back(don't even remember joining tbh) and on my first game it is me vs 3 sergeants. I am getting inexplicably piled on for what I can see is no other reason but my rank. I haven't been in a non-clan tourney for so long I forgot how crappy this situation is. It's quite hard to have a chance when all eyes are on you, looking at you like a point pork chop.

I don't feel like that happens to me when I play. But I don't mind the option.

[Funkyterrance]

UPDATE:

So I joined a tournament a while back(don't even remember joining tbh) and on my first game it is me vs 3 sergeants. I am getting inexplicably piled on for what I can see is no other reason but my rank. I haven't been in a non-clan tourney for so long I forgot how crappy this situation is. It's quite hard to have a chance when all eyes are on you, looking at you like a point pork chop.

I don't feel like that happens to me when I play. But I don't mind the option.

You are probably just more charming.

[sirgermaine]

I discussed this in my sticky thread about fog viewtopic.php?f=4&t=171747&start=30, where this would be a further option. This takes it a step further than I had proposed, where even the waiting for players stage is totally anonymous. I would agree with some of the earlier posts here which state that Foe list implementation would be very difficult. This also poses some other potential problems for team games. I do not like to join team games and leave a slot open for my teammate, since I do not know if they are going to deadbeat out or ignore me or whatnot, so I only play team games with players I know on my team. I assume that you cannot invite a player to this sort of game, since then you would know who someone was, but nobody else would. This would keep a lot of people from playing any team game on this setting.

[Funkyterrance]

This also poses some other potential problems for team games. I do not like to join team games and leave a slot open for my teammate, since I do not know if they are going to deadbeat out or ignore me or whatnot, so I only play team games with players I know on my team. I assume that you cannot invite a player to this sort of game, since then you would know who someone was, but nobody else would. This would keep a lot of people from playing any team game on this setting.

This is a very good point sirgermaine. Invites to free-for-all games would not work with this option since you would have an unfair advantage as you stated. As far as team games however, this would essentially still be in the same vein of the original idea since all of your opponents would remain anonymous and therefore no advantage would really be gained. Either team would still see their opponents as just two other players, the anonymity meant to be attained by the blindfold option is still there and the playing field remains even since either team can now discuss their rank with each other. The dynamics remain the same as any team game invite scenario.

[agentcom]

Some version of this has been posted before. The downside to it is the following: You have to hide every piece of information about the game to make it truly workable. I just picked the settings at random, but let's say you start a trips Japan game. You just give someone the game number and tell them to join team 1.

Fine, you say, so hide the game number. Well, there are currently zero (0!) games waiting for players with those settings. You could easily tell someone to do a search for trips Japan games and join team 1 and know who your teammates are. Fine, you say, hide the map.

Well, then they just search by settings. If you set up a nuke, adjacent, trench game, there are currently zero (0!) games waiting for that game type.

Fine, you say, hide all the identifying information about the game. Well, now only you know the settings and every other player is signing up for a completely random game that only you know the settings of. Can you say farmer's paradise?

The only way that I can see this working is for a player to be allowed to create a completely random game (size, type, teams, settings) and have other people be able to sign up for it until it is full. Perhaps that is a good suggestion, but it's much different from what is being proposed here.

[Woodruff]

UPDATE:

So I joined a tournament a while back(don't even remember joining tbh) and on my first game it is me vs 3 sergeants. I am getting inexplicably piled on for what I can see is no other reason but my rank. I haven't been in a non-clan tourney for so long I forgot how crappy this situation is. It's quite hard to have a chance when all eyes are on you, looking at you like a point pork chop.

I can honestly say I don't see this happen very often in tournaments. Normal play, yes...but in tournaments, typically folks are too concerned about winning the tournament to engage in this sort of thing.

[Funkyterrance]

UPDATE:

So I joined a tournament a while back(don't even remember joining tbh) and on my first game it is me vs 3 sergeants. I am getting inexplicably piled on for what I can see is no other reason but my rank. I haven't been in a non-clan tourney for so long I forgot how crappy this situation is. It's quite hard to have a chance when all eyes are on you, looking at you like a point pork chop.

I can honestly say I don't see this happen very often in tournaments. Normal play, yes...but in tournaments, typically folks are too concerned about winning the tournament to engage in this sort of thing.

You guys could totally be right about this, I don't do very many tournaments.

[agentcom]

Given the problems that I see with this in regular games, I actually think that tournaments are about the only place where this could actually be used, but it would be in a different way than the OP originally intended.

A TO could elect to create "blind" games, so that nobody knows who they're playing. This would be most useful in a couple scenarios:

1) Tournaments with terminator games (for the reasons in the OP)
2) Tournaments with a list of available games to play (so that people have to join games without knowing their opponents)
3) Tournaments with multiple-player games, but with individual scoring (so that people can't game the points system by targeting the leader or the leader targeting the second place guy)

Then the TO would have to have a rule about posting in the forum or in game chat cuz you might tip someone off as to your or someone else's identity.

[Funkyterrance]

Agentcom, thanks a bunch for your contributions and succinct explanations. They have really advanced the progress of this thread, be it towards this idea being scrapped or it being pushed forward.
It appears that, as Agent has proved, the only way that the game could remain truly anonymous(due to opportunities for corruption) would be if the games were set up by a third party(TO) so that it would be impossible for one player to communicate to another which game was which. Considering this,the process would for obvious reasons be somewhat labor intensive in its setup by TOs and therefore would most likely not be an everyday occurrence. However, the silver lining of this limitation is that it stands to reason that significantly less programming would be required since the setting up of the games would most likely be more or less manually controlled by the TO. In other words, the revised suggestion would be technically less intensive than the original suggestion but probably more labor intensive in the long run since it involves actual human organization/intervention.
I still think that this option would be a ton of fun in it's suspense-fullness and worth the extra work each tournament would involve.

[ItzPetey]

Concise description:

• A way to hide which player is which colour.

Specifics/Details:

• The only thing that would change would be that instead of seeing "r: ItzPetey" in the Players list you would see "r: ??????". There would be no indication anywhere that I was red. In the logs it would say "Red received 3 troops for holding 9 regions." etc. There would be an alphabetical list of players involved in the game and their ranks somewhere under the current Players list. When the game began it would have to randomly assign a colour to a player instead of doing based on join order as it does now.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:

• In a number of games, players are targeted. Either because of their rank, their standing in a tournament, prior conflicts (personal or game related) or in my case (the inspiration) because in our group of friends, we'll all just gang up on one person for several games in a row just to bug them. Not always me, but often me .
• It would bring a level of objectivity. If two players were far ahead of everyone else, yet one of the two is slightly further, you wouldn't attack the guy in 2nd because he bugged you last game. You wouldn't know it was him.
• It would make alliances a little tougher as well. You couldn't always team up with the same person, and you couldn't instantly avoid someone because they stabbed you in the back earlier. You'd have to really keep on your toes even with your allies.

[Funkyterrance]

Something like this? : viewtopic.php?f=4&t=179054

[chapcrap]

Something like this? : http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... 4&t=179054

That seems like the exact same.

Petey, is it ok with you if we merge the threads?