During the past demogame, (DG4), I did a survey on why people left back in February. There's 3 main reasons why people left:
About 60% - Too busy (usually school).
About 20% - To much legal discussion/tight ruleset/preoccupied
About 20% - Got boring.
Notice the top one. This is why I liked having the science and culture advisors seperate. Even if they seemed like "dull posistion" (governors of corrupt provinces are "dull positions" when your queues take the entire term to complete!) it would all those who didn't have enough time to participate in the game to atleast have something.
2nd and third have to do with the ruleset and the pace at which the demogame went. The first 2 turns, we tried to micromanage EVERYTHING, and wound up stopping for every little detail for fear of a CC. The slow pace drives people away because nothing ever happens. (and we wonder why we have low participation).
My remedy -
1st rule - Don't try to micromanage the ruleset! It creates more problems than its' worth. Just look at the judiciary for example - they have yet to complete 95% of the CC's. The first few terms were flooded with Judicial Review threads that a lot of people probably didn't even care about. At one point, there were so many judicial threads that you couldn't even find real in-game discussion! The Game of Democracy should be more about the actual civ game itself, not some forum bueracracy that is the judicial system! This is the one reason people found it so boring, not to mention the turnchats were spaced out every 5 turns. Those terms also only had 0-3 turns per turnchat. The slow pace killed participation.
2nd rule - Use a backbone ruleset. That is, a basic outline each posistion and their requirements, and basic gameplay rules, such as how the turnchats work, and chatroom rules.
3rd rule - Not everyone is an Internet Zombie sitting at their computers 24/7 waiting for someone to post. I've been saying this since DG1. People do have a life, and to say, "Well, if they don't have time, then they shouldn't be in the game!" is exclusive, which is against the forum rules BTW. Posistions like science, culture, and corrupt governor provinces are PERFECT for those with little time. They still get to contribute, while not having to worry about messing up the game with a lack of discussions.
4th rule - Go back to the basics on which the first demogame was founded. The idea was to have advisors based on the advisors in the Civ3 game. That includes culture and science. Don't worry about some not having as much to do.
There's other things that I have in mind too.
- Do away with the rigid "instructions can't be changed during the turnchat" rule. It's very inflexible and doesn't allow for random elements that happen in the game. It doesn't help when there's someone new to the game, and they feel that their instructions must be perfect. It doesn't help when you're the military advisor, and you have to plan 200+ steps just incase something goes wrong. (I know i haven't done that. Why? Because I don't have enough time - I have a life.) Does that mean I shouldn't participate? If so, then that's excluding people because they have lives. Governors might post instructions at the last minute that I have no time to adjust my instructions to (i.e., "Put bombers on our 3rd carrier" when the 3rd carrier won't be built. Technically, I can't say, "Move those bombers to XYZ city instead" during the turnchat).
- Bring back the roleplay in the early DG1 sense. This game had virtually nothing. It should be in the citizens forum, too. There were no "top 5 cities/provinces" threads, no governors competiting for best province, or mayors competiting for best city. That's part of what made DG1 fun.
About 60% - Too busy (usually school).
About 20% - To much legal discussion/tight ruleset/preoccupied
About 20% - Got boring.
Notice the top one. This is why I liked having the science and culture advisors seperate. Even if they seemed like "dull posistion" (governors of corrupt provinces are "dull positions" when your queues take the entire term to complete!) it would all those who didn't have enough time to participate in the game to atleast have something.
2nd and third have to do with the ruleset and the pace at which the demogame went. The first 2 turns, we tried to micromanage EVERYTHING, and wound up stopping for every little detail for fear of a CC. The slow pace drives people away because nothing ever happens. (and we wonder why we have low participation).
My remedy -
1st rule - Don't try to micromanage the ruleset! It creates more problems than its' worth. Just look at the judiciary for example - they have yet to complete 95% of the CC's. The first few terms were flooded with Judicial Review threads that a lot of people probably didn't even care about. At one point, there were so many judicial threads that you couldn't even find real in-game discussion! The Game of Democracy should be more about the actual civ game itself, not some forum bueracracy that is the judicial system! This is the one reason people found it so boring, not to mention the turnchats were spaced out every 5 turns. Those terms also only had 0-3 turns per turnchat. The slow pace killed participation.
2nd rule - Use a backbone ruleset. That is, a basic outline each posistion and their requirements, and basic gameplay rules, such as how the turnchats work, and chatroom rules.
3rd rule - Not everyone is an Internet Zombie sitting at their computers 24/7 waiting for someone to post. I've been saying this since DG1. People do have a life, and to say, "Well, if they don't have time, then they shouldn't be in the game!" is exclusive, which is against the forum rules BTW. Posistions like science, culture, and corrupt governor provinces are PERFECT for those with little time. They still get to contribute, while not having to worry about messing up the game with a lack of discussions.
4th rule - Go back to the basics on which the first demogame was founded. The idea was to have advisors based on the advisors in the Civ3 game. That includes culture and science. Don't worry about some not having as much to do.
There's other things that I have in mind too.
- Do away with the rigid "instructions can't be changed during the turnchat" rule. It's very inflexible and doesn't allow for random elements that happen in the game. It doesn't help when there's someone new to the game, and they feel that their instructions must be perfect. It doesn't help when you're the military advisor, and you have to plan 200+ steps just incase something goes wrong. (I know i haven't done that. Why? Because I don't have enough time - I have a life.) Does that mean I shouldn't participate? If so, then that's excluding people because they have lives. Governors might post instructions at the last minute that I have no time to adjust my instructions to (i.e., "Put bombers on our 3rd carrier" when the 3rd carrier won't be built. Technically, I can't say, "Move those bombers to XYZ city instead" during the turnchat).
- Bring back the roleplay in the early DG1 sense. This game had virtually nothing. It should be in the citizens forum, too. There were no "top 5 cities/provinces" threads, no governors competiting for best province, or mayors competiting for best city. That's part of what made DG1 fun.