Is that so? I'm sorry, phil, I'll attempt to be clearer.



Phil, this is an admirable goal and quite probably a desirable mechanic, but the current implementation is broken, game-wise, for (as I see it) two main reasons.

Recruiting is completely stripped of meaning and desirability from an influential standpoint. The current implementation of negative feedback is ripe to be, uh, "taken advantage of", and a smaller core of more influential players are prime to do this taking advantage.

Admittedly, you may be targeting this smaller core, but I would hope not, given that skyrates is supposed to be a sporadic game, and that there is a reasonably balanced system that lets you gain influence sporadically.

See here for more of my ranting on this topic, and feel free to tell me why I'm wrong and haven't grokked the situation correctly.

It's not fun. This is the micro-side of the above point -- you can be actively harming your faction, by doing something which there is no warning is a bad thing. Once players realise that (and for that, they'd need to either keep a close watch on the totals themselves, or happen across one of the few threads discussing it), they can: a) embrace it wholeheartedly and incorporate it into their battle strategy, b) reject it and refuse to use it on principle, or c) (and this is the route I feel many are taking, though I will admit I have no proof of it) get annoyed, and paranoid, and leave the influence game altogether.

This particular point could be fixed by making it more obvious ingame that you may be hurting your faction by running influence, but I would suspect that that would simply drive more players away from the influence game, as I do not believe that the NF mechanic itself, as exists, is fun.

See this for my original rant on this issue, and again, feel free to tell me that I'm completely wrong and why.

Thanks.

So I guess I'm the only player which the revolting skylands concept I described only a couple of posts ago really excites?

What am I, chopped Gonker?

Shhh. I'm trying to dredge up sympathy!

/em sympathizes.

Thanks, Calvin.

I just thought of something else. What would happen if skylands with foreign governors were more likely to revolt?

That sounds cool.

I love the cows, but can we get this excellent tool back?

I'm hampered when it comes to tracking individual influence by a lack of available data. If anyone knows who and how to poke to have influence numbers added to either the factions or players pages, I'd really appreciate it. Heck, I even have two ratings points to give away (count 'em, two!).

I may reawaken other bits and pieces as I get the inclination, if I can source some primo hamster clerks, and if I can work out how one gets funding out of the Azure Conclave.

Sadly, http://skyrates.jusque.net/what_have_yo ... tely_1.png gives an error, Kathryn:
Bad Gateway

I'm adding links to http://skyrates.jusque.net/island_control , your pie chart and (a stretched out version of) the skyland control graphic (both from your sig) to the Skybrary nav panel, but is there a spot where all these tools, and these graphics, live?

EDIT: I wasn't able to add the Skyland Control Map. Too many | symbols in the URL, I suspect.

http://skyrates.jusque.net/island_control/ works.

-c.

And so does http://skyrates.jusque.net/what_have_yo ... tely_1.png now.

EDIT: Which is very different data than what is available at http://skyrates.jusque.net/island_control/ .

No. I'll bring up the entire old site, eventually, which had sidebar links to all within. For now I'm taking a little time here and a little time there to revive a toy here and revive a toy there. I get distracted though, and end up making a new toy or rewriting things that don't need rewriting. But a few things are out there, and probably want some explanatory light shone on them.

http://skyrates.jusque.net/control_pie_70x60.png is the pie chart in my sig. It shows the relative number of islands controlled by the factions. Leading faction in the SE, then in descending order clockwise. You can change the numbers in the url for the width and height you want. If you're still seeing a pie from last round, with yellow in it, try tossing your browser cache.

http://skyrates.jusque.net/skytopia_300x48_9.png is the other thing in my sig. Might be easier to see what it represents by tweaking the url, eg http://skyrates.jusque.net/skytopia_300x300_11.png My lowly flight license precludes some places from appearing as yet.

It just occurred to me that the sig probably looks horrible in IE; sorry about that.

http://skyrates.jusque.net/what_have_you_done_for_me_lately_1.png and http://skyrates.jusque.net/what_have_you_done_for_me_lately_2.png were a response to someone suggesting that island control influence should decay over time. The rate in those charts is 0.1% per hour, or a half-life of about 1 month.

http://skyrates.jusque.net/what_have_you_done_for_me_more_lately_1.png and http://skyrates.jusque.net/what_have_you_done_for_me_more_lately_2.png have a more aggressive decay of 1% per hour, or a half-life of about 3 days. That should be useful for seeing where Alessan has been told to focus his attention. It's the same data used for the 'recent' column of http://skyrates.jusque.net/island_control, so you probably only want the more_lately charts if you need an image for a forum post.

The preëxisting influence from when I switched on the scraper a few days ago dominates things for the moment. Give it a while before trying to make use of the decaying numbers. Then run around in circles hollerin' about that menacing purple storm cloud on the horizon.

http://skyrates.jusque.net/island_control also has some buttons up the top to sort the list by control lead/deficit for a particular faction.

All toys update once a hour, usually.

If I find myself with nothing to do at some point this week, I'll see about making http://skyrates.jusque.net/island_leaders not be a picture of cows.


Make sure you link to the urls as they appear here, not the google charts urls some of them hackishly redirect to.


Hmm, yes. Seems I've just introduced a massive memory leak somewhere. How 'bout that.

(edit) Oh yeah: http://skyrates.jusque.net/control_lines_short_400x100.png

/me argues Kathryn's case before the Conclave Award Selection Committee.
(and then runs around in circles hollerin'.)

/me just fell in love with Katie a little more

I'm not the only one? My heart gave a little quiver there.

I'm not such an acutely naïve ingénue as to be unaware that a façade of typographical élan, engendered by an outré diæresis, would be fêted by certain habitués of this forum.

/me lies back and lights a cigarette

And here I was thinking that umlauts were only good for band names.

(That is not an umlaut, that is a diaeresis. Similar, but slightly different usage.)