BBW: well, since that has been assumed, if anyone plays less than 19000 they are risking getting wet, since they must assume that most everyone else will be playing over 19000.
So one troublemaker won't make a difference ;)
You know there will be at least 1 troublemaker who will bid less then the min big of 19,000, which will mess up the game quick, unless Fencer would be able to remove anyone who did not play by the rules.
fencer : the smiley above the box in which you can type a message in the pond games when you make your bet ... it doesnt give the popup for me when i hover over it .. clicking on the ? does give me the normal screen though :)
changnig the starting number can reduce the number of rounds ... when you use a low number (for example 100) of points to start with people will have to be very careful to have enough points left in the end .. and will start to bid much lower .. also with less points its more likely to have more than 1 player to have the minimum bet and so more than 1 player can easily fall in the pound per round
I can deal with scrolling down to the 'Running ponds', but I wish there was a way on the 'Ponds to sign up' to show which ones I've signed up for so I don't keep clicking on them.
say, sir Fencer: can you either make a player's ponds show up with all his other games on his main page, or make the red number next to the "Ponds" link clickable like the one next to the "Main Page" link so we don't have to look through the whole list of running ponds to find the one we're playing in? thank you thank you!
21 days ?
Yikes, I better go get myself out of that one. I didnt notice the days. I was just joining them all in hopes of a better chance of actually winning one
Anyway, it's interesting that even though almost everybody complained about the long runs caused by too many players, there are 6 new ponds with unlimited number of participants :-)
Hm, the best tactics for the first run is obviously to bet constantly 5 points. There seem to be every turn some runners who are bored and bet suicidaly less than would be save. :-)
Let's make it so the creator of the game can specify the bonus and the starting points. I think the very first game would have played better if the starting point was 1,000 instead of 20,000. Then the bonus of 500 would already be figuring into the play and Czuch would be having a little more fun.
As for the amount of people at the start, I really don't see how that matters much aside from the length of the game. When there's just three people left, the game will be determined by their scores. If close, it could make for a good finish.
Varying the bonus in proportion to the starting point will make a big difference though. From no bonus all the way to say three quarters of the starting point. There's room for lots of experimenting in this game. Now the we can create the game, eventually good amounts will shake out and most creators will try to have parameters near it for a good game. Imagine starting the game with 30 players and 60 or so points and no bonus. Lots of guts and no extraneous bull worry about a bonus awarded. Or same parameters, but a bonus of 30. Now it'd be a whole different deal and you'd have to think about that bonus.
The way the first game is going, I'd be surprised if the bonus figures too much in the final outcome. By the time alesh gets to 0 maybe the bonus will start to figure in the play.
What all of you seem to be forgetting is that some people have a different agenda than playing to win. If any of you are familiar with a board game called "Risk" it only takes one of the players to spoil it for everyone else. All one player in that game has to do is attack one other player until their whole army is depleted. Yes, it makes no sense to play that way, but I've seen it plenty of times. The person that was attacked has suffered a lot and the rest of the players can move to take him out. Three or four handed "Line Five" is the same way. This "Pond" game seems a little more robust to such playing "tactics", but we've already seen some problems from players purposely playing poorly and it having an effect on the rest of the players.