Change the dice back!

[stavros.maginty]

If the event dice were, in general, easier to read, would you still push for this option?

I guess it depends how you define 'easier'. My preference would be to have the same dice, all the time. Simple, easy to read, no fuss. Not broken, don't fix.

What I mean is, if the dice were all equally easy to read.

But that is just it. To some they are not, so unless they are totally redone, which I doubt then people will not be able to see them properly.

I was asking a hypothetical question to make a point about his post. Namely, that he claimed in the post it was about legibility, but his response makes it clear that even if he could read them without real effort, he wouldn't want to just because it's change. I just want people to be honest about their arguments. If you don't want change, then just say that; the point about legibility is not that important because we can have the dice redone.

I don't think you've made that point at all, and it's certainly not what I said, so please don't put words in my mouth. I just come here to play a game. Messing around with the dice affects my enjoyment of the game.

In my original submission I asked if there could be an option for dice to be kept as they were, or if they could be reverted back within a set time frame (eg 24 hours).

How about you respond to that, instead of nitpicking over nuance?

[Metsfanmax]

In order for your suggestion to be considered, there needs to be a coherent reason why it improves the gaming experience on the site for the community in general. You claimed in your post that you don't like it because of legibility issues, but you're implying (even if you're not openly admitting to it) that it's not really about that, you just don't like changes to the dice. That's fine, I just want to clarify what the issue is. Now it's clear that you just object to changes with the dice.

This is not just nitpicking. If it's actually about legibility, then there's an independent reason besides you not liking the changes, for your suggestion to be considered. If it's not about that, then there's only one reason why your suggestion is better for the gaming experience. And I'm not going to submit a suggestion based only on this vague reason of "I don't like it" unless there's a lot of support, which there's currently not.

By the way -- there's generally always a set time frame after which the dice revert back to their normal state, it's just never as short as 24 hours.

[stavros.maginty]

You asked a hypothetical question and received a hypothetical response! I can't possibly tell you if I would like different dice if I have never seen the dice you're talking about. For you to then base your responses to me on what I haven't said rather than what I have is quite startlingly confrontational. Show me the hypothetical dice that you're talking about and then you can attempt your cross computer psychoanalysis of my deep hidden motives. I can't fathom that coming to this forum to provide a suggestion would provoke someone trying to pick apart my every word.

To reiterate:

All I can base my response on is previous tournaments or events or whatever it is that CC does that prompts the changes. On at least the past 3 occasions I can think of (this Summer, Valentines and Halloween) the dice have been garishly coloured, and as a result, hard to read. This is especially true when looking at who has won and who has lost in a battle - the highlight around the dice signifying winners and losers is in yellow. When the dice are orange, this highlight is almost completely invisible.

My preference, therefore, would be that CC retain the original dice, or provide an option for users to switch back during events, as per my original suggestion.

I still fail to understand why there is no discussion of my actual suggestion!

I am also wondering who merged my thread with this one? I don't have any truck whatsoever with the people in this thread who are talking about stats and unfair dice. I never visit these forums and I am really starting to get a first class experience as to why.

[Incandenza]

This is not just nitpicking. If it's actually about legibility, then there's an independent reason besides you not liking the changes, for your suggestion to be considered. If it's not about that, then there's only one reason why your suggestion is better for the gaming experience. And I'm not going to submit a suggestion based only on this vague reason of "I don't like it" unless there's a lot of support, which there's currently not.

What's amazing to me is that when people have legitimately complained about legibility of event dice, you've pretty much blown them off:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=148423

Uh, why do you need to read what the numbers are anyway? Isn't it only the results that matter?

I'm not saying the dice should be impossible to read, but you can actually read those if you're looking.

At any rate, the World Cup dice are entirely legible.

Do you design the various event dice or something? I cannot for the life of me understand why you've been repeatedly hostile to the idea that some people cannot read them, and many can't read them without squinting at the screen (myself included, and I'm neither colorblind nor nearsighted).

[Metsfanmax]

You asked a hypothetical question and received a hypothetical response! I can't possibly tell you if I would like different dice if I have never seen the dice you're talking about. For you to then base your responses to me on what I haven't said rather than what I have is quite startlingly confrontational. Show me the hypothetical dice that you're talking about and then you can attempt your cross computer psychoanalysis of my deep hidden motives. I can't fathom that coming to this forum to provide a suggestion would provoke someone trying to pick apart my every word.

I have no idea why you are seemingly hostile about this. I am simply trying to determine whether your suggestion is motivated by a general dislike of change of the dice, or a specific dislike of the particular dice we've used in the past. This is in no way an abstract question. The first one cannot be helped except by removing the event dice entirely, but the second one can be helped by engaging in a discussion with the Entertainment Team about what you haven't liked about the previous event dice and making suggestions about what types of changes to avoid on the event dice. So ultimately it comes down to this -- do you want to engage in a conversation about how to improve the event dice, or do you just want to advocate getting rid of them entirely? I ask this because it seems rather premature to advocate removing them from the site if we don't at least engage in a constructive conversation about how to keep the feature (which adds a nice element of inclusiveness and variety to the community). I'm not sure why you are upset that I'm engaging you on the motivation of this suggestion -- as a moderator here, it's my job to help flesh out suggestions and provide suggestions for improvement where I can.

All I can base my response on is previous tournaments or events or whatever it is that CC does that prompts the changes. On at least the past 3 occasions I can think of (this Summer, Valentines and Halloween) the dice have been garishly coloured, and as a result, hard to read. This is especially true when looking at who has won and who has lost in a battle - the highlight around the dice signifying winners and losers is in yellow. When the dice are orange, this highlight is almost completely invisible.

This is an example of the type of comments we could start to build a conversation on regarding what colors/styles are inappropriate for the event dice.

I am also wondering who merged my thread with this one? I don't have any truck whatsoever with the people in this thread who are talking about stats and unfair dice. I never visit these forums and I am really starting to get a first class experience as to why.

I am not sure who merged your thread, but if you look at the OP and first few replies of this thread, it is actually a complaint about the legibility of the dice, similar to your suggestion. The comments about unfair dice stats are actually kind of off topic!

What's amazing to me is that when people have legitimately complained about legibility of event dice, you've pretty much blown them off:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=148423

I don't personally actually ever look at the dice and wouldn't care even a little bit if they were removed. I don't even understand why people insist that it's important to be able to read the dice, and if you pay attention to that thread, no one provides a logical reason why they should even be there. Why is it amazing to you that I simply don't share your opinion?

Do you design the various event dice or something? I cannot for the life of me understand why you've been repeatedly hostile to the idea that some people cannot read them, and many can't read them without squinting at the screen (myself included, and I'm neither colorblind nor nearsighted).

I understand that some people have trouble reading them. I'm not going to personally see that as a reason why we should remove event dice unless someone even begins to argue why it's important to be able to read them.

Of course, as a Suggestions moderator, if a majority of players said they had trouble reading them, then we should be seriously considering the merit of these suggestions, since the whole point of the event dice is to actually be enjoyed when they're looked at, but as it stands the count of players who have made their negative feelings known here is less than 20.

[WILLIAMS5232]

I understand that some people have trouble reading them. I'm not going to personally see that as a reason why we should remove event dice unless someone even begins to argue why it's important to be able to read them.

why even state this. pretty much what this says is every time we hit the assault button we should only have a reminder that it's labor day this weekend. that's silly and i don't see how you can even make sense of it. the dice being here have far less of a chance of being removed than your sacred event dice.

Of course, as a Suggestions moderator, if a majority of players said they had trouble reading them, then we should be seriously considering the merit of these suggestions, since the whole point of the event dice is to actually be enjoyed when they're looked at, but as it stands the count of players who have made their negative feelings known here is less than 20.

another pointless argument, everyone knows that only people with no life read forums, very few people have no life, after that only a percent would ever make a post.
with that said 20 is a high number. and should be well in the way of making a concerted effort to find ways to make this problem go away. unless you just enjoy pissing people off with all your "mod power". how impressive.

i don't like the event dice, and as stated before, i really only look when i lose bad. also, i do alot of autorolling, so it's pretty important because it helps me to keep up with how many armies i just killed vs lost. i probably use it as often as one turn a day.

one suggestion would be to just invert the colors. not sure if that's possible as you may not be able to change the number text colors. if this is the case then start with the black base for the number text, and only use really light pastels for your beautiful site enhancing artwork. if this were done, you could make every day a holiday with your event dice.

[daniely]

Metsfanmax: I just read this entire thread, and all I can say is that your posts read as antagonistic and defensive to others who are making constructive suggestions. Read Stavros original post. He began by making a coherent and intelligent suggestion: Can or will CC give players the option of opting out of the seasonal dice? Apparently you are a Mod...I suggest you take the suggestion as constructive and not dissect every minutia of the argument to prove others wrong. Of course, I"m just a paying member so why listen to me.

[stavros.maginty]

I ask this because it seems rather premature to advocate removing them from the site

Again, you're putting words in my mouth. At no point have I advocated removing them from the site.

I have said, repeatedly and consistently, that I would like the option of switching back to the original dice during the events, or for the dice change to be limited to a set time frame (eg 24 hours).

I repeat as well, that I don't understand why your responses are so confrontational. Isn't your role as a moderator to facilitate discussion, not bring your own agenda into it?

[stavros.maginty]

another pointless argument, everyone knows that only people with no life read forums, very few people have no life, after that only a percent would ever make a post.
with that said 20 is a high number. and should be well in the way of making a concerted effort to find ways to make this problem go away.

@ Williams5232

I'm not sure I would have worded it so forcefully but your point is valid - it's a relatively small section of the community that even use the forums, and a smaller percentage still that actually post.

Without any actual data to prove if the dice are popular or unpopular, I can't understand why "Metsfanmax" has chosen to draw an arbitrary conclusion that people like them.

[TheForgivenOne]

I repeat as well, that I don't understand why your responses are so confrontational. Isn't your role as a moderator to facilitate discussion, not bring your own agenda into it?

He may be a mod, but he still gets to have an opinion on Suggestions.

[Incandenza]

I repeat as well, that I don't understand why your responses are so confrontational. Isn't your role as a moderator to facilitate discussion, not bring your own agenda into it?

He may be a mod, but he still gets to have an opinion on Suggestions.

But as a mod, I find it odd that he so liberally discards the opinions of others.

[Metsfanmax]

why even state this. pretty much what this says is every time we hit the assault button we should only have a reminder that it's labor day this weekend. that's silly and i don't see how you can even make sense of it. the dice being here have far less of a chance of being removed than your sacred event dice.

I think you misinterpreted my point. I'm not making a comment one way or the other as to what's likely to happen -- I'm only pointing out that I don't actually look at the numbers at on my dice, so it doesn't make one bit of difference to me whether I can read them or not. I do occasionally look at that to see the outcome of that battle (as opposed to looking at the number of armies on each territory), but then I only need to see where the yellow outlines are. Of course, that could be solved as well just by removing the dice graphics entirely and replacing it with just the information about which players lost troops.

Of course, as a Suggestions moderator, if a majority of players said they had trouble reading them, then we should be seriously considering the merit of these suggestions, since the whole point of the event dice is to actually be enjoyed when they're looked at, but as it stands the count of players who have made their negative feelings known here is less than 20.

another pointless argument, everyone knows that only people with no life read forums, very few people have no life, after that only a percent would ever make a post.
with that said 20 is a high number. and should be well in the way of making a concerted effort to find ways to make this problem go away. unless you just enjoy pissing people off with all your "mod power". how impressive.

The problem is that pretty much everyone who has posted about this isn't looking for a middle ground -- they just want the event dice to "go away." Pretty much the only option that inherently gives me is to submit that suggestion if there's enough support.

i don't like the event dice, and as stated before, i really only look when i lose bad. also, i do alot of autorolling, so it's pretty important because it helps me to keep up with how many armies i just killed vs lost. i probably use it as often as one turn a day.

You can figure out that information without actually seeing the numbers on the dice.

one suggestion would be to just invert the colors. not sure if that's possible as you may not be able to change the number text colors. if this is the case then start with the black base for the number text, and only use really light pastels for your beautiful site enhancing artwork. if this were done, you could make every day a holiday with your event dice.

I don't know much about the event dice or how they are made. I would very much like to see a conversation happen between those of us who are graphically-minded, but I don't think I personally can offer useful input on the subject. I do also think that one constructive thing to do is to make a list of problems people have in general with past event dice so they can be avoided in the future.

Metsfanmax: I just read this entire thread, and all I can say is that your posts read as antagonistic and defensive to others who are making constructive suggestions. Read Stavros original post. He began by making a coherent and intelligent suggestion: Can or will CC give players the option of opting out of the seasonal dice? Apparently you are a Mod...I suggest you take the suggestion as constructive and not dissect every minutia of the argument to prove others wrong. Of course, I"m just a paying member so why listen to me.

For this suggestion I'm not sure what type of constructive discussion stavros wanted to have -- how can we debate about this? Obviously in an ideal world every little option that everyone wants would be given to them (so long as that doesn't make the experience worse for other players), but look at Submitted suggestions right now -- there are 40-odd sitting in there. It is my job to ensure that we don't send suggestions to the webmaster if all the alternatives and consequences haven't been fleshed out. I seriously think that we should consider changing the event dice before asking for an option to not display them, at least partially because that is something the Entertainment Team can work on (as opposed to the webmaster), and all of my posts have not been antagonistic but have been leading to that point.

Again, you're putting words in my mouth. At no point have I advocated removing them from the site.

You said the following:

My preference, therefore, would be that CC retain the original dice...

I interpreted this as saying that you would want the event dice to stop being displayed if it was not an option to allow each user to filter out the event dice. My apologies if I interpreted this incorrectly, but the argument does also apply to most of the other people who have posted in this thread, so I stand by it.

I have said, repeatedly and consistently, that I would like the option of switching back to the original dice during the events, or for the dice change to be limited to a set time frame (eg 24 hours).

I understand this, I just have nothing to say about this option (see my comments to daniely). The most anyone is going to be able to do is basically give a "+1" post because there's really not much to discuss -- you either want this option or you don't. It doesn't affect other players like many of the suggestions in Submitted.

I repeat as well, that I don't understand why your responses are so confrontational. Isn't your role as a moderator to facilitate discussion, not bring your own agenda into it?

Nearly every one of my posts in this thread (and many of my posts in this forum in general) come from me as an individual, a player of CC like yourself. As TFO pointed out, I don't think it's fair to expect that I shouldn't be allowed to voice my opinion as an individual simply because of my green tag. It is fair to expect that I will not let my individual bias affect my job as a volunteer, and I believe I have a handle on that well. If I'm making a comment on the content of a suggestion, I ask you to simply read that as comments from just another concerned CC player, because that's exactly what I am.

By the way -- I dare say that this thread is getting a lot more discussion than it would have gotten had I not responded

But as a mod, I find it odd that he so liberally discards the opinions of others.

I said those things as an individual (see above). At any rate, please keep comments on topic, this is not a thread about whether you all like me and the quickest way to derail the actual suggestion is to get off topic like that. I am always available via private message if anyone has concerns they would like to broach with me.

[watsy]

Dice have got back the balance play again cc summer bash over

[stavros.maginty]

@Metsfanmax

I don't have the time or the inclination to read and write essays about this every day. It's a shame that something as simple as posting a suggestion should be such a negative experience.

[Metsfanmax]

@Metsfanmax

I don't have the time or the inclination to read and write essays about this every day. It's a shame that something as simple as posting a suggestion should be such a negative experience.

I don't think it should be a negative experience -- I just don't think you should be put off when someone engages you on the suggestion! Not everyone is going to agree with you, but if you really care about the issue then stick with it.

[chapcrap]

It seems like there are a lot of upset people about dice. Does it change things for you? Really? It's just something for fun.

Personally, I don't care about the dice. I rarely look at them and don't really care what they look like. As mets pointed out, he just looks at the yellow around the dice when he looks.

The one problem I do have with the dice is the fact that I think time could be spent more effectively elsewhere instead of changing the dice on the site. However, I really doubt changing the dice graphics is very long process at all, so if the powers that be get jollies from having 'fun' dice every now and again, who cares who should care? No one.

[Metsfanmax]

The one problem I do have with the dice is the fact that I think time could be spent more effectively elsewhere instead of changing the dice on the site. However, I really doubt changing the dice graphics is very long process at all, so if the powers that be get jollies from having 'fun' dice every now and again, who cares who should care? No one.

Just for clarity, since this has been brought up before -- event dice are done by the Entertainment Team and therefore don't really take away any time from actual site updates by the webmaster and features from the tech team

[1931roadster]

metsfan,
You should work in Washington.
They never listen, but talk alot.
maybe create a committee, throw money at it.
Lets try this.
OPT OUT OF THE SILLY EVENT DICE.
Do you really think anyone enjoys this distraction?
To me its a pain in the ass.
Keep it ledgeable.