I really like this idea too, but this is a really big change that requires a rewrite of the current chat-system. I try to leave such large changes to kestas (the main webdip-programmer) as he is much smarter in such things. He was busy last year with multi-language-support (a really needed improvement) so he couldn't add much more features. Now that this is done we might see more new features the next months.

Awesome, Oli. Thanks for the intel!

Having used (and championed) this before on the old Dip Judges, I think this feature really adds a lot to the game, as it allows other powers to verify that you told a power what you said you did, as well as helping to facilitate all types of group coordination. I would love to see this feature here and encourage this as a priority.

+1 Gman... although it does make it harder to sell the lie that you're brokering a deal between powers when you're actually sowing dischord....

So true. But if you keep up a good one on one dialog and keep your group dialog more simple, it's still often possible to play it both ways.

They have that feature on PlayDip and while it does seem good, it tends to lead to more alliance vs. alliance games and less individual skill.

@Mapu: How did they solve this on Playdip.
How do you add a group-tab?

On PlayDiplomacy (IIRC - I haven't played there in a while) they have a messaging system which allows you to type the message, and then you tick tickboxes at the bottom of who you want to send it to - for example, I might type 'Hello' in the message box and then tick the 'France', 'Germany' and 'Russia' tickboxes at the bottom.

The country receiving has 2 options - 'Reply' or 'Reply to all'. Both of them quote the previous message and allow you to add a message of your own, but 'Reply' would only send it to the person who sent the message, whereas 'Reply to all' sends it to everyone in the conversation.

It seemed a lot more like an e-mail interface than a diplomacy one.

@ Oli,

you talked above about multi-language support.
Perhaps you should have a look at this: https://www.transifex.com/

hmm, it seems to me that the group-chat feature does not really bring much benefits ... we only save the copy-and-paste effort and that's all I guess? Isn't using this to verify claims and spot out lies a bit against the principles of diplomacy? I mean, players should not rely on the system and technical instruments to seek truths ... they do that through normal communication with others and judge on their own.

Or am I wrong on that?

I fully agree with Lukas Podolski ! As a matter of fact, if there was such a feature, I would NOT use it at all ! Even though I very often write the same message to several different players.

@Lukas & Retillion- While I do agree(as something similar posted in my first post) It could come in handy in some of the many many many team games that get started up around here, and as someone stated earlier, it would help for small powers to coordinate against bigger ones. not to mention you could still post a group chat with your ally and your "ally" and then in private chat your ally and you could plot against your "ally"... it really could add another layer to the game of Diplomacy, if used properly and sparingly...

@butterhead :

1° As far as team games are concerned, do you realize that this new feature would only be "helpful" when there are at least 3 players per team ? Are there so many many many team games with at least 3 players per team ?

2° You write that "you could still post a group chat with your ally and your "ally" and then in private chat your ally and you could plot against your "ally"..."

Well, isn't that a bit uselessly complicated ? Diplomacy can be VERY time-consuming ! Do we really need an extra feature that will bring so much complication and require in fact MORE TIME while it is SO SIMPLE to copy and paste a message ?

The feature makes it much easier to work as a group, such as when everyone is teaming-up to prevent a solo. You don't need to keep up with five conversations and spend any time verifying what one power supposedly said to another, but only need to have the one conversation.

@ LP and Retillion: This is the same as dragging four people into a room in face-to-face. It in no way goes against the nature of the game. Sometimes it is much easier than meeting with each individually and each of those players meeting with each other.

@Retillion

"Diplomacy can be VERY time-consuming ! Do we really need an extra feature that will bring so much complication and require in fact MORE TIME while it is SO SIMPLE to copy and paste a message ?"

I feel that this feature would be useful to actually cut down on time. Especially when mega alliances are coordinating moves. Granted, it will take time to develop the feature, but any feature being developed will take time.

Cut and paste is a remarkable feature of the computer that has helped many a student pass school. However, when an alliance is coordinating moves, all too often there is a need to verify moves if there is doubt or distrust. That verification takes up time - often large amounts of it in fact. This helps cut down on that.

@ Halt :

From my personal experience, when an alliance coordinate moves, it is most of the time one single player who makes suggestions to the team. There are many reasons why it is so but one of them is the fact that we are playing online and that we don't have the opportunity to all communicate simultaneously verbally as we can in face to face games.

So the time-consuming aspect of these situations is in fact most important for the player who is the "coordinator" of the team.

By the way, as you know very well since you have already been in a large alliance with me, I have already been such a "coordinator" : as a consequence, I am talking from personal experience.

On the other hand, you say that there could be some distrust and that verification takes time. Are you saying that the fact that you receive a collective message will make you so sure that there is no stab against you that you will not "waste" time by checking that everything is alright ?

I don't see any real benefit to this feature. If you can't spend the time to copy it yourself, you shouldn't say it.

To the point of "private" chat.... All chat is private unless its on the public board. Part of press diplomacy is not knowing if all the players involved in this "private" chat are on board with the plan. I feel that this is a lot of unnecessary and pointless work for Oli.

I guess that the main reason for this request is to simulate a FtF game. Group messaging could be similar to a situation where you: speak your intentions loudly so that the entire group hear what you are saying... and then you make a side deal with Austria.

Sort of thing.

@Imagonnalose- I must disagree... We have already outlined the benefits of this. Team Games(Will address Retillions comment on these soon) would be easier to communicate with teammates and other teams as well. Team games are a growing thing on the site still, so It would be useful for those.
It also makes it easier to coordinate group efforts to stop a Solo(without having to go to everyone and say, well what about this, oh so-and-so doesn't like that, lets do this instead... you just do it all in one chat that all allies can read)
People seem to be thinking that if you send a message to a group, you can't still talk to the other players individually. It really could add a whole extra layer of the game to work with. I could tell you and Retillion that we are going to attack Halt, then go to Retillion and say we are going after you, then Retillion could go to you and Halt about hitting me, then Halt comes to me about hitting Retillion. It doesn't change anything about the Private chat options, just gives people MORE options for chat and MORE options for setting up mega-stabs of people... THAT is the benefit of it all.
@Retillion- Currently I do not believe any 3+ team games are ongoing, but they tend to come around Summer time since they take longer to play, so we will likely see those in the next month or so(colleges getting out means players have more time).

+1 Gman, +1 Kaner406. As usual the voice of experience, reason, and wisdom wins the day. Multiplayer conversations are indeed a valuable feature to consider adding. It's rather shocking that someone could be so vehemently opposed to the idea.

Hey RUFFHAUS do you disagree with everything Retillion says? :D

I think they agreed on something a couple of weeks ago but I forget what it was. Maybe the HoF scoring.

I guess there are two ways it could work. Either everyone gets the same message but noone knows for sure who received it or everyone gets the message and it tells you who all received it.

Maybe those against would be ok with the first? Same as cut and pasting but a little easier.

@ Scuba Steve :

I would certainly be OK with your first option.

This should be no technical problem. Would be more interesting how to solve this with the tabs, as it's obvious you can't make a separate chat-window for all possibillities...

"as it's obvious you can't make a separate chat-window for all possibillities..."

That seems to be the only real benefit that I've sen from this discussion, and since it is entirely ridiculous to even think about coding it, I just don't see why one would waste the time to do it.

I must be missing the real benefit here. Could one of those who are in support of this give me a bulletted list as to why this is a useful feature?

@Imagonnalose
1. Team Games and other certain SRG's
2. Coordinating with multiple players to stop a Solo
3. Add extra layers of Diplomacy
4. Simulate f2f scenarios
5. It's something new and interesting
6. One of the best players on the site(RUFF) agrees that it would be beneficial, and even though he can be a real a$$ sometimes, he knows what he is talking about.

Diplomacy is about communications first and foremost. The logic that tells us that communication can only be between two parties is rather flawed. I suppose that it needs to be explained to the dense and unenlightened here that alliances in Diplomacy are not in any way constrained to two nations. Multi-nation alliances are extremely powerful, effective, and more importantly, fun. Modifying the chat feature to enable this would be a huge boon to the community. Why would anyone object to such a feature being added?

Here's one of the objections from earlier today:

"From my personal experience, when an alliance coordinate moves, it is most of the time one single player who makes suggestions to the team."

I wonder who that 'one single player' is in this player's personal experience? Could it be the person objecting is typically the 'one single player' that likes to dictate everyone else's moves?

Ordinarily I wouldn't go out of my way to publicly analyze and critique another player's style of play, but since our objecting friend here has opened that can of worms with his objections to this and many other helpful discussions for improvements of play, it bears noting that is very much the behavior of a control freak. He wants things his way, and he's not shy about letting you know that. He has all the right moves for your nations, just ask him... There's no need to talk to other nations about it. There's no need to be held accountable for the content of the conversation.

Now most Diplomacy players can be accused of controlling behavior, but the art of the game is to effect what we want with diplomacy, which is a form of communication. Why should the methods of communication be limited to two party conversations? if you don't want to engage in multi-player negotiations, then don't respond....

And there's the real objection. This feature severely constrains the passive aggressive, intimidation and control, deception through semantics style of play. If these conversations were disseminated to more than one person, well, it's much harder to lie to multiple players at the same time. And good heavens, what if those two nations might start privately discussing the content of the message?

Again, you have to ask yourself why would anyone protest such a feature?

One reason why I don't welcome such a new (by the way, "new" or "more" do not necessarily mean "better") feature has already been expressed here by Mapu :

"They have that feature on PlayDip and while it does seem good, it tends to lead to more alliance vs. alliance games and less individual skill."

I indeed find that many games or not played until completion and that Draws are often voted rather early. Indeed, many alliances are "too" solid, too few players to my taste play for a solo and play in fact in teams : they just want to survive and draw. And by the way, that is shown by the fact that players even play team games which, in my opinion, only limit the possiblities of the variants !

If we are considering adding this to help simulate F2F games (which I think is a delightful addition), then you NEED to make it so that everyone who gets the message knows who else gets it.

After all, if I'm England and I'm talking to Italy and France about attacking Germany in F2F, you better believe I would know if Germany was standing right there listening to the entire thing. If France wanted to PM Germany and tell him what we're saying, by all means do it, this is Diplomacy after all!

@Retillion- We play team games as a variant... How can a variant limit the possibilities of variants? Your logic confuses me.
"I indeed find that many games or not played until completion and that Draws are often voted rather early. Indeed, many alliances are "too" solid, too few players to my taste play for a solo and play in fact in teams : they just want to survive and draw." You also find players who refuse to draw even when there is no chance for any other option to come out without somebody going CD... You also find a lot of people in between these two... Also, PlayDip sucks, lol.

@ butterhead :

You really don't understand how a variant can limit a variant ?

If the variant (i.e. playing a team game) stipulates that you can do everything normal (and nothing additional) except attacking your partner(s), isn't that a limitation ?

Since I'm the one who opened his big mouth and started this kerfuffle, I guess I'll toss my 2 cents back in. Obviously, I like this idea. Mostly because, to me, the more chances for communication and the more open that communication channel appears to be, the more layers of deception, alliance and subtlety must be employed to win. And that seems like a good thing to me.

As for the idea that a solo is preferable to a draw, I strongly disagree. The two are at least equally valid ending to a game, and the draw is in my opinion a better end. The game is called Diplomacy, let's not forget. It's not called Domination, Conqueror or Risk, so a well-coordinated team that eliminates all other players and then decides to draw rather than turn on each other is a truly... diplomatic... end. Moreover, enemies that have fought all comers and each other that near the endgame and make peace in order to draw have acheived a much more impressive and difficult act of diplomacy than simply rabidly and doggedly warring until the end -- no matter the outcome.

The barbarian has spoken.

@Retillion

Granted that 1 player usually coordinate moves. However, from my experience playing with other players, there are times when objections or better move proposals are suggested. Say the move order was changed? You would then have to resend a message to everyone. All good if everyone else isn't curious at the sudden change. But having to explain to each one why?

Group chat would be better because of that.

I certainly like the idea as it mimics F2F. Three people can go off in a corner and have a three-way discussion. And then later, two of them can talk without the third and discuss the real plan.

@alderian, agreed. It would simulate real life conversations nicely.

From a technical perspective, I see a couple of ways to handle it.

The first would be to just add CC checkboxes to each country. So if you are in the England window and want to copy France, just select that checkbox and send the message to England and it would get sent to both. (With both knowing it was sent to both.) The problem with this solution is if you forget to set the checkbox when you meant to, or accidentally set it when you don't, or set the wrong one.

The other option that has been discussed in the past is custom channels. If you want a three way discussion with France and England and yourself, you would setup a channel that included both France and England and then any messages the three of you post to that channel would go to everyone. This would be better, but is likely more difficult to implement. But still doable.

If it ain't broke dont fix it?

@Retillion- you seem to be missing my point... Team games are not variants that limit variants, they are variants OF variants.
Team games don't limit variants as a whole, they limit games on an individual basis...
But anyways, back on topic- even if you ignore the point about team games, there is still plenty of benefits outlined by people as to why this would be good.