Testing Grounds Revival
Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:54 pm
Note: I have zero authority to do this, but I'm not sure why it wouldn't be allowed.
The Testing Grounds is dead, and by the looks of it has been dead for at least a year and maybe two. FM also appears to be dying, but it still has some time left. From what I have heard, the TG died because the devs stopped listening to our suggested balance changes. I don't remember the devs ever really paying attention to us, and this was never the main reason why I participated in tests. I always thought that if the TG was able to build a large enough playerbase, the devs would have to listen to us, but I participated in tests because it was fun to try out new roles every once in a while. I know that FM fulfills this purpose and still has a relatively large playerbase, but I don't have 5 hours every day to read hundreds of pages and analyze thousands of posts. I also enjoy the ToS forum community, so I wouldn't want to play shorter games on other sites.
So I'm going to try to revive the TG. We only need seven players to run a viable test, and it's possible to play fun games with even fewer players than that (Town of Vengeance, Town of Morons, etc). The new TG only needs to have a playerbase of around 10 active users to consistently run viable tests, and players only need to commit an hour or less per week. By making this post, we're already one-tenth of the way there. Even if we can't get enough users, we can probably steal a few from one of the regular ToS Discord servers. People who haven't heard of the TG, which includes nearly everyone who isn't active on the forums and every account created after 2018, would be intrigued by the concept of playing games with different roles.
IT'S TIME FOR A REVOLUTION!!!!!
There are a few logistical hurdles that we need to overcome to make this happen, but they should not pose too much of an issue. Here are what I think will be the largest problems in order of importance and how we can solve them:
1. The playerbase
I alluded to this earlier, but we need to create a large enough playerbase to form a functional new TG. Some people might be reluctant to join because it is unlikely that we will grab the attention of the devs, but I doubt anyone who plays FM expects the devs to implement their balance changes or even cares what the devs do. We can market the TG as a less time-consuming alternative to FM. I don't think we will get too many FM people because they have a strong community. However, there are a decent number of people on the ToS forums who play the occasional FM game but don't have time to be active (I'm one of them, or at least I used to be), and it's likely that a few of them would be interested in playing the occasional TG game. As I mentioned before, we can also get people from the ToS Discord. The vast majority would probably rather just play ToS, but there may be a few who are interested in joining us. Don't forget that we only need a few people for the new TG to be functional.
If you think you would be able to commit around an hour per week to the new TG, respond "Yes" to the poll. If you think you would be able to join the occasional game but do not want to commit the time to be a regular participant, respond with "Backup". That way we can determine how much advertising we need on other parts of the forums and other sites.
2. The client
The TG client is outdated and we do not have the people with the expertise to update it. We could still use that client and do everything manually, but it would be hard to add new roles and would become confusing. One of the last attempts to save the TG was through episodes similar to FM, but these games eventually devolved into chaos. Also, making the TG more similar to FM makes it very different from ToS in terms of pacing and takes away our biggest advantage, which is the relatively small time commitment necessary. In my opinion, the most viable alternative is to use Discord. This would make it easy for players to communicate in real time, so the pacing would be similar to ToS. It would also allow for more flexibility and make it easy to create and implement new rolecards. If the current Role Idea Moderators are on board with reviving the TG, we can do this on the existing server. Otherwise, I can create a new server that we can use to run and discuss the new TG tests.
3. Legitimacy
This should probably be above the client, but I wanted to discuss possible platforms first. Even if enough people are interested, the moderators might not like the idea of reviving the TG and possibly creating a rival Discord server to do so. There's probably some sort of rule on the forums preventing me from doing this, but I'm not sure what it is. If the mods also want to revive the TG, this probably won't be an issue. If they're not interested, they can easily shut this whole thing down. However, I do not see why the mods would be upset that someone is trying to revive the TG and help grow their community, especially considering that most of them seem to have given up on the TG at this point.
4. Organization
I haven't fully thought this out because a lot will depend on how many players are interested in the new TG. Although the primary purpose of this iteration of the TG is to have fun, we still need a procedure for incorporating new roles. I think we can do something similar to what we did in 2017 when users submitted role ideas and we voted on which ones to include each month. The biggest problem with this would be getting enough submissions and votes. If we aren't able to get enough roles to do monthly polls, we can make them quarterly instead. I think anything beyond that would be too far apart. If we still do not have enough roles, we can message the authors of the role ideas that receive the most views in a given month and ask them if they are interested in including their role in the TG poll. If we don't have enough people actively voting for roles to include, we can use some sort of ranked choice system to gain more information per person. Even then, I think we would need to get around 5 people voting for it to be viable, but that shouldn't be too hard if our playerbase is closer to 10. The other issue is how often to run the tests. I think weekly tests are often enough to make it engaging while not requiring too much commitment and plan on making a poll to see which days work best for everyone. Until we get enough users, we can keep the days flexible to make sure we have at least 7 players per test.
5. The name
In this post, I have informally referred to this iteration of the Testing Grounds as the new TG. I would call it TG 2, TG 2.0, or something similar, but many previous posts have referred to the TG using these names. We can just go with TG 2.0 or something, but it might be confusing and I think it would be better to come up with a completely new name. Even if the main purpose of the new TG is not to test roles for possible implementation into the game, I think we should keep the TG name since I am reviving the TG instead of creating a completely new community. If anyone has any name ideas, place reply to this thread with suggestions.
The TG may be dead and the forums may not be as active as they used to be, but that doesn't mean we can't create a better version of the TG. We don't need a large playerbase to be able to hold regular tests. It will be a fun, shorter alternative to FM where we will try out new roles that have never been tested before. And who knows, maybe if this goes extremely well we could even catch the attention of the devs!
The Testing Grounds is dead, and by the looks of it has been dead for at least a year and maybe two. FM also appears to be dying, but it still has some time left. From what I have heard, the TG died because the devs stopped listening to our suggested balance changes. I don't remember the devs ever really paying attention to us, and this was never the main reason why I participated in tests. I always thought that if the TG was able to build a large enough playerbase, the devs would have to listen to us, but I participated in tests because it was fun to try out new roles every once in a while. I know that FM fulfills this purpose and still has a relatively large playerbase, but I don't have 5 hours every day to read hundreds of pages and analyze thousands of posts. I also enjoy the ToS forum community, so I wouldn't want to play shorter games on other sites.
So I'm going to try to revive the TG. We only need seven players to run a viable test, and it's possible to play fun games with even fewer players than that (Town of Vengeance, Town of Morons, etc). The new TG only needs to have a playerbase of around 10 active users to consistently run viable tests, and players only need to commit an hour or less per week. By making this post, we're already one-tenth of the way there. Even if we can't get enough users, we can probably steal a few from one of the regular ToS Discord servers. People who haven't heard of the TG, which includes nearly everyone who isn't active on the forums and every account created after 2018, would be intrigued by the concept of playing games with different roles.
IT'S TIME FOR A REVOLUTION!!!!!
There are a few logistical hurdles that we need to overcome to make this happen, but they should not pose too much of an issue. Here are what I think will be the largest problems in order of importance and how we can solve them:
1. The playerbase
I alluded to this earlier, but we need to create a large enough playerbase to form a functional new TG. Some people might be reluctant to join because it is unlikely that we will grab the attention of the devs, but I doubt anyone who plays FM expects the devs to implement their balance changes or even cares what the devs do. We can market the TG as a less time-consuming alternative to FM. I don't think we will get too many FM people because they have a strong community. However, there are a decent number of people on the ToS forums who play the occasional FM game but don't have time to be active (I'm one of them, or at least I used to be), and it's likely that a few of them would be interested in playing the occasional TG game. As I mentioned before, we can also get people from the ToS Discord. The vast majority would probably rather just play ToS, but there may be a few who are interested in joining us. Don't forget that we only need a few people for the new TG to be functional.
If you think you would be able to commit around an hour per week to the new TG, respond "Yes" to the poll. If you think you would be able to join the occasional game but do not want to commit the time to be a regular participant, respond with "Backup". That way we can determine how much advertising we need on other parts of the forums and other sites.
2. The client
The TG client is outdated and we do not have the people with the expertise to update it. We could still use that client and do everything manually, but it would be hard to add new roles and would become confusing. One of the last attempts to save the TG was through episodes similar to FM, but these games eventually devolved into chaos. Also, making the TG more similar to FM makes it very different from ToS in terms of pacing and takes away our biggest advantage, which is the relatively small time commitment necessary. In my opinion, the most viable alternative is to use Discord. This would make it easy for players to communicate in real time, so the pacing would be similar to ToS. It would also allow for more flexibility and make it easy to create and implement new rolecards. If the current Role Idea Moderators are on board with reviving the TG, we can do this on the existing server. Otherwise, I can create a new server that we can use to run and discuss the new TG tests.
3. Legitimacy
This should probably be above the client, but I wanted to discuss possible platforms first. Even if enough people are interested, the moderators might not like the idea of reviving the TG and possibly creating a rival Discord server to do so. There's probably some sort of rule on the forums preventing me from doing this, but I'm not sure what it is. If the mods also want to revive the TG, this probably won't be an issue. If they're not interested, they can easily shut this whole thing down. However, I do not see why the mods would be upset that someone is trying to revive the TG and help grow their community, especially considering that most of them seem to have given up on the TG at this point.
4. Organization
I haven't fully thought this out because a lot will depend on how many players are interested in the new TG. Although the primary purpose of this iteration of the TG is to have fun, we still need a procedure for incorporating new roles. I think we can do something similar to what we did in 2017 when users submitted role ideas and we voted on which ones to include each month. The biggest problem with this would be getting enough submissions and votes. If we aren't able to get enough roles to do monthly polls, we can make them quarterly instead. I think anything beyond that would be too far apart. If we still do not have enough roles, we can message the authors of the role ideas that receive the most views in a given month and ask them if they are interested in including their role in the TG poll. If we don't have enough people actively voting for roles to include, we can use some sort of ranked choice system to gain more information per person. Even then, I think we would need to get around 5 people voting for it to be viable, but that shouldn't be too hard if our playerbase is closer to 10. The other issue is how often to run the tests. I think weekly tests are often enough to make it engaging while not requiring too much commitment and plan on making a poll to see which days work best for everyone. Until we get enough users, we can keep the days flexible to make sure we have at least 7 players per test.
5. The name
In this post, I have informally referred to this iteration of the Testing Grounds as the new TG. I would call it TG 2, TG 2.0, or something similar, but many previous posts have referred to the TG using these names. We can just go with TG 2.0 or something, but it might be confusing and I think it would be better to come up with a completely new name. Even if the main purpose of the new TG is not to test roles for possible implementation into the game, I think we should keep the TG name since I am reviving the TG instead of creating a completely new community. If anyone has any name ideas, place reply to this thread with suggestions.
The TG may be dead and the forums may not be as active as they used to be, but that doesn't mean we can't create a better version of the TG. We don't need a large playerbase to be able to hold regular tests. It will be a fun, shorter alternative to FM where we will try out new roles that have never been tested before. And who knows, maybe if this goes extremely well we could even catch the attention of the devs!