I am totally with JeffDG on this.

1 single player being able to Extend ? That sounds most insane to me !

Disagree with JeffDG....

Or, for instance, being able to extend a 1v1 game if your opponent is about to NMR.

1v1 would definitely have it's place. For larger games though? I can see it now.
" Are you sure you want to join this game? Looking at our stats this game may take(roughly) 3 years to finish.

I have just drawn a game and I could see that there was no such a thing as a message saying :

“Are you sure you want to vote Draw ?”

Would it be please possible to consider adding this feature to the "Draw" button ?

And... Bump!

Back to the topic of the Extend feature, let’s summarize:

On the Help page, Vdiplomacy features section, we have as description:
"
Extend
If 2/3 of the active players vote Extend the the current phase will be extended by 4 days.
You can extend the same phase more than once to push the process-date back even further.
"


Those are the messages on the game Global page:

After the 1st vote:
"
GameMaster: Russia voted for a Extend. If 2/3 of the active players vote Extend the the current phase will be extend by 4 days.
Please consider backing this. If the majority is not reached by "Autumn, 19XX" the votes will be cleared.
"

After the majority is reached:
"
GameMaster: Per 2/3 majority vote the gamephase got extended by 4 days.
(Voters: Russia, Austria, England, ...........)
"

This is the notice received by PM by the players in the game:
“
*GAME_TITLE*
The gamephase got extended by 4 days.
"


We miss an important communication:
IF ALL the players in the extended game do ready their orders the Extend is cleared and the game can proceed
Somehow I assumed that this info was written somewhere, but apparently it is not.

I write this cause in my recent gunboat experience many game extends took the whole 4 days without some players readying their orders.
4 days is the maximum time set for extends, not necessarily the time actually needed nor the time that the game is supposed to be stopped.
Very often, the Extend feature is required for a busy weekend, not for a busy 4days trip.

In order to have a more conscious use of the feature, I would like this information to be displayed for completeness inside the above mentioned messages.
Some unnecessary days of game delays could be cut down through information.

Let’s help to save some “game momentum”, when we can.

Decima, I agree to put that notice, but for the OPPOSITE reason.

The first time I used an extend, I pushed the "extend" button and then readied my orders. After a few hours, I got the message that 2/3 of the other players "accepted" the extension, and the deadline was moved back 4 days.. but after a few more hours the phase was processed, just because everyone (including me) had readied their orders.
Since then, when a phase gets extended and I see that the requesting player has readied her/her orders, I save but do not finalize my orders, just to be sure that the extension is not wasted.

Actually I would expect the player in need for an Extend not-to-ready his orders and all the others to ready their orders, as same as it should be in the old-fashioned Pause feature.

If you ask for an Extend you are not ready to proceed at the time deadline so you do not ready your orders.
If you instead do not ask for an Extend you should be ready to proceed at the time deadline.

Anyway, whatever is the case, either reducing the actual time of game Extends (more likely in my opinion) or avoiding accidental Extend ends, including that information inside those messages should be a good thing.

Well, I thought it was obvious, that a phase will progress if everybody hit "Ready", because this is like it always works...

Yes, I thought it was obvious too, but according to my and others' experience, apparently it is not.

I concur with Oli. I mean, why would the basic function of the "Ready" feature change just because of an extend?

In all honesty, I would prefer to see the extend feature simply double the phase length instead of a blanket 4 day extension. I feel this could help save some of the momentum that Decima is referring to as a 36 hour phase becomes 72 hours, instead of 132 hours. And in the case of games where the entire extend is needed, there's still always the "pause" feature that seems to have been mostly left by the way-side.

“as a 36 hour phase becomes 72 hours, instead of 132 hours.”
Instead of 24*4=96 hours. It’s a blanket period of time.


Drano, don’t get me wrong.
I don’t want to stole what belongs to the Pause feature.
The Pause feature fits well for games with press.
You can say how many days you need, you can tell the others “please ready your orders so that the game will proceed as soon as I am back on Monday and it is not delayed further”.
If you like, you can say why you need the pause.




Gunboats are popular.
Looks like you aren’t used to play gunboats. Ok, but please consider the gunboat scenario.
Nothing of what’s written above is possible: ***you can’t talk***.
Pause votes basically don’t work there unless there’s a Mod intervention. They don’t work because of unanimity requirement and because players are not keen to vote for a I-don’t-know-how-long-it-will-be pause.
Extend votes can work. At least you don’t risk that your game gets stuck forever, at most 4days.
We need the players to have a “reasonably commonly accepted” way to behave with the feature. Else you lose much of the potential of the Extend.

Doubling the Phase length could sometimes be a good thing but sometimes would be really bad : that depends on the Phase length.
The current Extend duration allows to deal with many RL situations that interfere with a Diplomacy game.

Maybe a good solution could be that when a player asks for an Extend, then he is asked by the system how many days he needs for that Extend. That would have the advantage, for example, to avoid that uselessly too long Extends are in effect.

Much of this entire matter could be resolved if we had a culture of respect and courtesy for the integrity of the game. Instead players routinely abuse the extend pause and ready features to affect results in the game that they cannot get from regular play. And sadly the most influential voices in this community shield and protect the abusers while punishing those that play with integrity.

The answer to this and a great many problems here is to get the community to accept by consensus that abuses, exploitation, and cheating are bad things, and to get the leaders to stop sweeping the occurrences under the carpet, and pretending that they do not go on.

I do agree with Retillion that having a variable number of days for an extend request is a good thing, particularly in faster paced games with one day deadlines. A four day extension throws off the rhythm of the game sequencing significantly. Now if a four day extend in necessary, it can be asked for, but if only one day is necessary, much of the lost game momentum can be avoided. Of course having the community leaders encourage a policy of respectful use of the ready button would go a long way towards allowing for games to be extended for the period necessary without unduly dragging games on. Apathy kills more diplomacy games than NMRs and CDs.

Decima -

Where do you get 24x4? It's a 4 day extension = 24x4 PLUS the original 36 hour phase still. That equals 132.

However, Retillion hit the nail on the head. A choice of extend length would be ideal.

Oli, Decima
In the case I was describing, it was obviously my fault that the extend got wasted: everything actually went as expected.
But I was trying to be as nice as possible with the other players, and in addition to asking for an extension, I also readied my orders. It was the first time I used this feature, and didn't realize there was a risk that I might waste the extension.
Now that I know it, it's no problem (and I try to prevent others to do the same mistake). But a message like the one in Decima's post might be helpful for newcomers.

Apart from that, I like a lot Retillon's idea of asking how long the extension should be.

I like Drano's idea to double the game phase, as it does seem like too much time generally gets wasted during Extends.

I'd like to see something like the following message when an Extend or Pause is granted:

"Please ready your orders as soon as possible so that the game can proceed if the player requesting an Extend or Pause returns before the deadline."

A double phase length does not save a weekend. I think it's important that an extetend lasts at least for a weekend, because that's the time we had the most problems with CDs and pause requests.
Also flexible extendlenghts are not easy to implementing the current webdiplomacy framework.

In order to compromise the conflicting requirements "saving momentum" with "ability to cover weekends", should we consider to reduce the current fixed time for Extend from 4 days to 3 or 2,5 days?

Is there any news about the possibility that a player could choose the length of the Extend that he is asking ?