phpDiplomacy.net 0.8
Kestas Kuliukas
Around this time last year I released 0.75 and it generated some
interest. The main problem people had was the adjudicator, so I thought
you'd be interested to know that the adjudicator is now very much
improved. It passes all of the DATC tests except for the retreats and
unit-placement tests (which haven't been tried), and also all orders are
now drawn onto the map.
I can't say so for sure but I expect the only test it wouldn't pass is
the strange one regarding which units are removed first from a civil
disorder player.
Here's a screenshot: http://phpdiplomacy.net/doc/0.8-screenshot.png
The site is: http://phpdiplomacy.net/
Thanks to Lucas for his helpful DATC. By the way what do you do if
certain tests are invalid? e.g. A test for what happens when an
inspecific order is entered, when phpDip generates a list of orders to
choose from.
I posted this message a while back, but it got no response. This may
be because no-one is interested (unlike the previous release), but it
may also be that I posted via Google Groups, which I later found out
that a lot of news servers ignore due to spam.
If you're reading this for the second time I apologize
Regards,
Kestas
Jim Burgess
Hi Kestas, I don't like to see when people post and don't get answers, so
I thought I would send you something even if that is relatively minimal in
terms of content. First, just as a comparison, you might want to take a
gander at the post that immediately precedes yours, the stabbeurfou site
is one of the other sites that does most of what you're doing, plus more.
I'm not sure, but talking to Jeremie about his site might be useful to
you. It is difficult to create a community from scratch and to generate
interest in your site, you need to do that. I can look at the shots and
the site and say "hmm, looks OK", but people are looking for actual games.
Not many people are looking around to look at sites and adjudicators.
What you need to ask (and wouldn't include me) is for volunteers for a
test game, so that you can have a real live game running on the site for
people to see when they visit it. Jeremie's site not that long ago
started that way, and now look at it..... of course he had a Diplomacy
National World Cup tournament to draw attention to it.
Good luck with your site,
Jim
Kestas Kuliukas
> Kestas Kuliukas <kes...@kuliukas.com> writes:
>
> Hi Kestas, I don't like to see when people post and don't get answers, so
> I thought I would send you something even if that is relatively minimal in
> terms of content. First, just as a comparison, you might want to take a
> gander at the post that immediately precedes yours, the stabbeurfou site
> is one of the other sites that does most of what you're doing, plus more.
> I'm not sure, but talking to Jeremie about his site might be useful to
> you. It is difficult to create a community from scratch and to generate
> interest in your site, you need to do that. I can look at the shots and
> the site and say "hmm, looks OK", but people are looking for actual games.
> Not many people are looking around to look at sites and adjudicators.
>
> What you need to ask (and wouldn't include me) is for volunteers for a
> test game, so that you can have a real live game running on the site for
> people to see when they visit it. Jeremie's site not that long ago
> started that way, and now look at it..... of course he had a Diplomacy
> National World Cup tournament to draw attention to it.
>
> Good luck with your site,
> Jim
Hi Jim,
Stabberfou started over a year after phpDiplomacy, which was started in
2004; phpdiplomacy.net currently has over 5000 registered users, over
200 active games, over 2000 completed games, and 47 users are currently
online at the time of posting this message.
On the Facebook phpDiplomacy fork (currently a seperate site, but
eventually we plan to merge the two back into one site) there are over
400 daily active users, and over 300 active games (after being available
on Facebook for only a couple of months).
So this isn't a new project which I'm trying to get users for; I
genuinely thought some of the people who expressed interest last time I
posted would be interested in a follow-up.
Anyway thanks for writing back, glad to know I'm now getting around the
Google filter (if there was one).
Regards,
Kestas
abgemacht
Keep up the great work. Your site is a lot of fun; we all appreciate
the work you put into it.
-abgemacht
Jim Burgess
>In article <fvsn0d$5eg$1...@pcls6.std.com>, bur...@TheWorld.com says...
>> Kestas Kuliukas <kes...@kuliukas.com> writes:
>>
>> Hi Kestas, I don't like to see when people post and don't get answers, so
>> I thought I would send you something even if that is relatively minimal in
>> terms of content. First, just as a comparison, you might want to take a
>> gander at the post that immediately precedes yours, the stabbeurfou site
>> is one of the other sites that does most of what you're doing, plus more.
>> I'm not sure, but talking to Jeremie about his site might be useful to
>> you. It is difficult to create a community from scratch and to generate
>> interest in your site, you need to do that. I can look at the shots and
>> the site and say "hmm, looks OK", but people are looking for actual games.
>> Not many people are looking around to look at sites and adjudicators.
>>
>> What you need to ask (and wouldn't include me) is for volunteers for a
>> test game, so that you can have a real live game running on the site for
>> people to see when they visit it. Jeremie's site not that long ago
>> started that way, and now look at it..... of course he had a Diplomacy
>> National World Cup tournament to draw attention to it.
>>
>> Good luck with your site,
>> Jim
>Hi Jim,
Hi Kestas, so, I access rec.games.diplomacy through a Unix newsreader with
one of those filters, so yes, perhaps I missed your other messages....
>Stabberfou started over a year after phpDiplomacy, which was started in
>2004; phpdiplomacy.net currently has over 5000 registered users, over
>200 active games, over 2000 completed games, and 47 users are currently
>online at the time of posting this message.
Whoops, I just looked at your screenshot.... which certainly impressed me
with its beauty. But now seeing the main site, open mouth, insert
foot....
>On the Facebook phpDiplomacy fork (currently a seperate site, but
>eventually we plan to merge the two back into one site) there are over
>400 daily active users, and over 300 active games (after being available
>on Facebook for only a couple of months).
Very interesting, are you a major or the major access point to Diplomacy
on Facebook?
>So this isn't a new project which I'm trying to get users for; I
>genuinely thought some of the people who expressed interest last time I
>posted would be interested in a follow-up.
And maybe they are and they should post. I know I saw at least one of
your posts before, but had not visited your site until this week. I
especially like your use of color.
You also have some players playing in a HUGE number of games at once, how
can they do that? Also, there seems to be a large number of games with
outright 18 center wins.
>Anyway thanks for writing back, glad to know I'm now getting around the
>Google filter (if there was one).
>Regards,
>Kestas
Thanks, and sorry for the misunderstanding of your message,
Jim-Bob
Kestas Kuliukas
> with its beauty. But now seeing the main site, open mouth, insert
> foot....
days. :-)
> >On the Facebook phpDiplomacy fork (currently a seperate site, but
> >eventually we plan to merge the two back into one site) there are over
> >400 daily active users, and over 300 active games (after being available
> >on Facebook for only a couple of months).
>
> Very interesting, are you a major or the major access point to Diplomacy
> on Facebook?
Actually someone took the phpDip source and ported it to Facebook
themselves, it's currently a separate site run by someone else.
He's running an old version though, 0.75, which still has all the
adjudicator bugs which I fixed in 0.8, so we're coordinating on making
phpdiplomacy.net have a Facebook front-end. This way Facebook and
phpdiplomacy.net players can play alongside each other, and we can work
together on the same source code.
> And maybe they are and they should post. I know I saw at least one of
> your posts before, but had not visited your site until this week. I
> especially like your use of color.
Thanks, phpDip is about making veteran players feel at home but also
making Diplomacy something that a total newbie can immidiately pick up
and feel at home with. Making it attractive and easy is a big part of
that, I think.
> You also have some players playing in a HUGE number of games at once, how
> can they do that? Also, there seems to be a large number of games with
> outright 18 center wins.
phpDip has a points system, to join a game you need to bet a certain
number of points; if you lose or quit you lose the points, if you
survive/win you get a portion of the game's points equal to your portion
of the supply centers.
This way a player can join lots of small games, or a small number of big
games. If a player is winning and has lots of points they can join lots
of big games, or a small number of really big games.
And if a player joins lots of games, but it turns out they joined too
many and play badly, they're likely to lose, and so they lose their
points and can't play in so many games any more.
It's nice because it's self-moderating, and lets people play in as many
games as they can play well in, and it also lets beginners play with
beginners and experts play with experts, it definitely helped a lot when
it was first added.
Anyway I don't want this to sound like a phpDip advertisement. :-)
> Thanks, and sorry for the misunderstanding of your message,
> Jim-Bob
No problem, regards,
Kestas
> Hey, you used me in your screenshot! Awesome!
P.S I should note that abgemacht stabbed me immidiately after that
screenshot was taken. ;-) I should have seen it coming though.
Kestas Kuliukas
> >eventually we plan to merge the two back into one site) there are over
> >400 daily active users, and over 300 active games (after being available
> >on Facebook for only a couple of months).
> Very interesting, are you a major or the major access point to Diplomacy
> on Facebook?
Not sure if I understood you right here. If you're asking if phpDip is
the only Diplomacy on Facebook then I think so, yes. But the adjudicator
is still buggy on the Facebook version, so there's no true Diplomacy on
Facebook yet, until 0.8 gets ported over.
Chris Babcock
> certain tests are invalid? e.g. A test for what happens when an
> inspecific order is entered, when phpDip generates a list of orders
> to choose from.
The thing about the DATC is that they don't dictate the behavior of the
adjudicator as much as they give you a language to systematically
describe that behavior. In this case, you list the adjudicator as
compliant and cite that test in the errata as being invalid for the
adjudicator on the basis that the UI forces valid input.
> I posted this message a while back, but it got no response. This may
> be because no-one is interested (unlike the previous release), but it
> may also be that I posted via Google Groups, which I later found out
> that a lot of news servers ignore due to spam.
> If you're reading this for the second time I apologize
I got the first message. I don't know why I didn't reply. It must have
just gotten buried.
I'm a bit paranoid, so I'm only going to play on adjudicators where I
know the security policy of the admins - specifically the USAL, USAZ and
UKYS judges. When I started USAK, I did so because I didn't like to GM
games on some of the judge that had registrations on them grandfathered
from before version 1.5 of the nJudge code and USAL has a limit on the
number of games... and Todd Lawson was using most of that limit before
he started USAZ.
Chris
Kestas Kuliukas
cbab...@kolonelpanic.org says...
> > Thanks to Lucas for his helpful DATC. By the way what do you do if
> > certain tests are invalid? e.g. A test for what happens when an
> > inspecific order is entered, when phpDip generates a list of orders
> > to choose from.
>
> The thing about the DATC is that they don't dictate the behavior of the
> adjudicator as much as they give you a language to systematically
> describe that behavior. In this case, you list the adjudicator as
> compliant and cite that test in the errata as being invalid for the
> adjudicator on the basis that the UI forces valid input.
http://phpdiplomacy.net/datc.php)
> > I posted this message a while back, but it got no response. This may
> > be because no-one is interested (unlike the previous release), but it
> > may also be that I posted via Google Groups, which I later found out
> > that a lot of news servers ignore due to spam.
> > If you're reading this for the second time I apologize
>
> I got the first message. I don't know why I didn't reply. It must have
> just gotten buried.
Apologies for the redundancy
> I'm a bit paranoid, so I'm only going to play on adjudicators where I
> know the security policy of the admins - specifically the USAL, USAZ and
> UKYS judges. When I started USAK, I did so because I didn't like to GM
> games on some of the judge that had registrations on them grandfathered
> from before version 1.5 of the nJudge code and USAL has a limit on the
> number of games... and Todd Lawson was using most of that limit before
> he started USAZ.
I'm not sure with the jargon here, what you mean by "security policy".
If you mean how many games you can join that depends on how many points
you have, you can read about points here:
http://phpdiplomacy.net/points.php
It's a simple idea once you understand it I think, not as simple as a
hard upper limit but pretty straightforward.
Regards,
Kestas
jeremie.l...@gmail.com
If you consider game played with a buggy adjudicator being "no true
Diplomacy", then you should consider games played with the judges as
"no true Diplomacy".
<troll mode off>
I have not tested your Diplomacy/Facebook version, but think such
initiatives should be encouraged.
And actual players do not worry so much about how "correct" an
adjudicator is.
After a lot of thinking the question, the main incentive for players
is "I will prove I am a good players by beating players who are known
to be good".
Motives of site builder are "I have many players so my site is good,
my adjudicator is correct so I am competent". Motives of players are
"Let everyone know how good a player I am".
That was my two cents worth of psychanalysis.
Best.
Chris Babcock
> <troll mode on>
> If you consider game played with a buggy adjudicator being "no true
> Diplomacy", then you should consider games played with the judges as
> "no true Diplomacy".
> <troll mode off>
Not sure where that came from. I think that I was the one who originally
mentioned the DATC. My motive was not to disparage the current
adjudicator but to help the programmers quantify its behavior.
Judge 2.0 will be based on the DAIDE adjudicator. That should do away
with some of the peculiarities of judge syntax (like the need to
specify convoy routes) and eliminate some of the ambiguities in the
licensing, which should spur further development - especially
considering the installed base and the presence of an existing
(albeit inactive) developer community.
> I have not tested your Diplomacy/Facebook version, but think such
> initiatives should be encouraged.
> And actual players do not worry so much about how "correct" an
> adjudicator is.
Until there's something that they construe as an error. :-)
The main frustration I've seen with adjudicators would be some of the
"gotchas" like the way coast specification is treated on the nJudge.
One example is F Lyo S MAO - SPA. Coast specification is required by
the adjudicator, but not checked by the parser. The adjudicator
supplies an arbitrary coast - north - for the order then rejects the
support as invalid because F Lyo can't move to Spa/NC. Now that I think
about it, there's probably an easy fix for that. (Now *another* item on
my "to do" list.)
> After a lot of thinking the question, the main incentive for players
> is "I will prove I am a good players by beating players who are known
> to be good".
>
> Motives of site builder are "I have many players so my site is good,
> my adjudicator is correct so I am competent". Motives of players are
> "Let everyone know how good a player I am".
You may be projecting a bit. :-)
I am looking to improve the quality of the player pool. Objectives
leading to that goal are:
1) Recruit and train new players.
2) Retain the top 20%.
3) Eliminate those with problematic behaviors.
4) Promote ideals that I identify as being beneficial to the community.
I didn't write the adjudicator; I'm just an admin with a funny title. I
guess that means that I don't have as much of my self-image riding on
the acceptance of the platform.
Chris
Chris Babcock
> > I got the first message. I don't know why I didn't reply. It must
> > have just gotten buried.
>
> Apologies for the redundancy
Not necessary. That was intended to be an apology, not a complaint.
> > I'm a bit paranoid, so I'm only going to play on adjudicators where
> > I know the security policy of the admins - specifically the USAL,
> > USAZ and UKYS judges. When I started USAK, I did so because I
> > didn't like to GM games on some of the judge that had registrations
> > on them grandfathered from before version 1.5 of the nJudge code
> > and USAL has a limit on the number of games... and Todd Lawson was
> > using most of that limit before he started USAZ.
> I'm not sure with the jargon here, what you mean by "security
> policy". If you mean how many games you can join that depends on how
> many points you have, you can read about points here:
> http://phpdiplomacy.net/points.php
>
> It's a simple idea once you understand it I think, not as simple as a
> hard upper limit but pretty straightforward.
I do like the point system. It makes me wonder if it would be possible
to implement a per-judge implementation of the JDPR and add a game
control like dedication requirement.
By security, however, I mean limiting the ability for people to cheat
or otherwise misbehave on that server. This includes providing a
description of expected behavior, like the Electronic Protocol House
Rules (believe or not people need to be *told* that taking two
positions or hacking someones password is wrong) and monitoring
activity on the server for indications of duplicate positions,
collusion, etc.
That happens to be my big issue. Once 0.8 is available on Sourceforge,
I'd love to set up an install and provide more detailed input, maybe
some usable patches.
Chris
Kestas Kuliukas
> > initiatives should be encouraged.
> > And actual players do not worry so much about how "correct" an
> > adjudicator is.
>
> Until there's something that they construe as an error. :-)
up about adjudicator problems, and since having a DATC compliant
adjudicator I've gotten a lot fewer complaints, and on Facebook the old
adjudicator still receives constant complaints.
Having a "DATC compliant" adjudicator has given me fewer complaints to
respond to at least, whether or not "true Diplomacy" was a good
expression to use (probably not). :-)
> The main frustration I've seen with adjudicators would be some of the
> "gotchas" like the way coast specification is treated on the nJudge.
> One example is F Lyo S MAO - SPA. Coast specification is required by
> the adjudicator, but not checked by the parser. The adjudicator
> supplies an arbitrary coast - north - for the order then rejects the
> support as invalid because F Lyo can't move to Spa/NC. Now that I think
> about it, there's probably an easy fix for that. (Now *another* item on
> my "to do" list.)
I approached this problem by letting people select options from drop-
down lists of valid orders. A lot of the DATC adjudicator issues become
invalid when you can only select from valid orders, and I do think it
has provided a safety net that newcomers have found useful.
I was actually expecting a backlash from old-style players who prefer
writing orders in full, but I've actually found that no-one misses text-
based orders or 3-letter territory names, which has been a pleasant
surprise. :-)
But it's not suitable where text orders are the only option of course.
Regards,
Kestas
Kestas Kuliukas
> or otherwise misbehave on that server. This includes providing a
> description of expected behavior, like the Electronic Protocol House
> Rules (believe or not people need to be *told* that taking two
> positions or hacking someones password is wrong) and monitoring
> activity on the server for indications of duplicate positions,
> collusion, etc.
make sure cheating like that can't happen. There is a problem with
people using more than one account, but I've added logging of
IP,browser,time details etc and I'm hoping to add moderators to be able
to manage it in a more automated way.
Also this problem is limited to the low-points games where the newcomers
play, but it is a problem and if other sites have come up with smart
ways to resolve it effectively without needing moderators I'm interested
to hear.
> That happens to be my big issue. Once 0.8 is available on Sourceforge,
> I'd love to set up an install and provide more detailed input, maybe
> some usable patches.
Great :-) if you subscribe to the sourceforge mailing list you'll get a
notification when it's released (hopefully some time this June/July).
Regards,
Kestas
Chris Babcock
Kestas Kuliukas <kes...@kuliukas.com> wrote:
> > By security, however, I mean limiting the ability for people to
> > cheat or otherwise misbehave on that server. This includes
> > providing a description of expected behavior, like the Electronic
> > Protocol House Rules (believe or not people need to be *told* that
> > taking two positions or hacking someones password is wrong) and
> > monitoring activity on the server for indications of duplicate
> > positions, collusion, etc.
>
> Hmm, the adjudicator on phpDip is supposed to take care of this, and
> make sure cheating like that can't happen. There is a problem with
> people using more than one account, but I've added logging of
> IP,browser,time details etc and I'm hoping to add moderators to be
> able to manage it in a more automated way.
On judges, GMs do manual examination of the registrations in a game
while JKs look at registrations as they come in and sometimes the email
headers. Without getting into the details, duplicate position cheating
is almost impossible this way, which takes care of most of the worst
problems on a judge as long as either the GM or JK insists on a
complete registration and verifies the data. It does mean that most
judges run about 50 games.
In the past couple years I've caught several attempts at duplicates, a
couple illegal uses of another party's password and a couple attempts
to guess passwords. I've seen several accusations of collusion but,
in the rare case that the accusations turn up anything, they are either
better than average attempts to disguise a multi or the alliance falls
apart despite its meta-game origin. Most accusations of collusion are
nothing, however.
A second set of eyes on the data is the only way. I had someone ask me
once why I thought GMs were necessary for on-line Diplomacy games. The
answer is that when there isn't a GM then the JK (or other admin)
becomes the de facto GM for every game on the server. If the number of
games exceeds the GMs capacity to monitor them then cheating will get
out of hand.
> Also this problem is limited to the low-points games where the
> newcomers play, but it is a problem and if other sites have come up
> with smart ways to resolve it effectively without needing moderators
> I'm interested to hear.
You're right that most cheating, abandonment and other issues occur at
a low level of play. It's unfortunate that is also where you have new
players evaluating the game for its long-term entertainment potential.
It's not bad when you catch the problem before game start or even
spring of 1901, which usually happens, but people coming in as
replacements can take a game that's already suffered multiple delays
and force its termination if not identified before their first turn
processes. Also, in the rare cases that cheating does occur at a higher
level of play, the players are more sophisticated about covering their
tracks. Check out Scott Marshman's home page:
http://members.tripod.com/~smarshma/index.html
Nice guy, right? Ask Jay Furr his opinion. Scott once signed on a six
positions in a standard game. If you think that the web page indicates
a narcissistic pathology, you're right in one.
You could use the GeoIP data base with the PHP API to flag a game for
intervention when the IPs in use indicate a possible geographic
overlap by comparing the city or the metro code. Using metro code would
not be as thorough as a proximity check, but has the advantage of being
much easier to automate. The online demo is at:
http://www.maxmind.com/app/locate_ip
There are links to sample code that utilizes the data base. There's a
free version and a commercial version. The difference is that the free
version is updated as often as the JDPR (2005 being the last update).
That means that most of the IP addresses in use will scan. I don't know
how that's going to work when IPv6 comes into common use.
> > That happens to be my big issue. Once 0.8 is available on
> > Sourceforge, I'd love to set up an install and provide more
> > detailed input, maybe some usable patches.
>
> Great :-) if you subscribe to the sourceforge mailing list you'll get
> a notification when it's released (hopefully some time this
> June/July).
I'd already signed up for the list. :-)
Chris
t.ahl...@gmail.com
> The main frustration I've seen with adjudicators would be some of the
> "gotchas" like the way coast specification is treated on the nJudge.
> One example is F Lyo S MAO - SPA. Coast specification is required by
> the adjudicator, but not checked by the parser. The adjudicator
> supplies an arbitrary coast - north - for the order
This is true.
> then rejects the
> support as invalid because F Lyo can't move to Spa/NC.
This is false though.
Tomas Ahlstrand