Social DGames Social | V/LA |

[UtopianPoyzin]

some other info

- the first game was by drab emordnilap. the second game was by thedocsalive. these games were hosted in "forum games" before dgames existed. drab was the mod of forum games
- some prominent old school players were the above two, frozenflame, eorlingas, ronike, camoman, pythag. some other ppl who were around here and there were me, medi, kevinm, prob others im forgetting, this is "pre dgames generation/og generation"
- in 2008 eor got the green light to make a room dedicated to mafia and adventure games, birthing dgames. at this point he is the mod and he chooses tom to co moderate with him
- tom takes the torch and oversees the boom in dgames, hosting "back to basics" simple mafia setups to get people playing mafia in the new room
- some people who were active around that time were macman, jungle, rockin, me, kevinm, chaco, mentosman, handorin, gheb, etc. this is "first generation dgames"
- at a certain point tom is away due to irl stuff, he mods me
- i mod for a while. a bunch of **** happens but i forget, lots of games. i mod sold2
- for a time the mods are like me, xiivi (not zen -_-. xiivi was an admin so he spent a lot of time here), sold2. players like ryker, swiss, mac, omni, kataefi, vanderzant, adumbrodeus, cello marl, nicholas1024, j are active. this is "second generation dgames" which is the biggest group
- i leave and sold2 mods raziek. theres a "ryker era" where he and swiss become the most dominant players, dgames starts meeting on skype or something
- the above players stay active and you have some other ppl who are there as the meta morphs like th3kuzinator, gorf, sworddancer, nabe, overswarm, circus, laundry, jtb, raziek, zen, bardull, ranmaru, july, red ryu, rajam, it was a very fun time, colorful games and personalities, this is probably what ppl most remember
- overswarm becomes the rooms favorite host. he hosts a bunch of role madness games which we really had a lot of fun with
- xiivi departs, sold2 departs, i come back and am remodded. the mods are me and raziek. j gets modded for a season
- the meta morphs but it is a pretty fun time, lots of the above players and a whole bunch of others i forget are active
- at a certain point dgames dies, hard to pinpoint why, prolly just everyone grew up and moved on
- nzoners come, bardull is mod. the room becomes a weird mesh of dgames and much faster-paced games with role madness mechanics, i guess this is "third generation dgames"
- nzoners go
- were now a melting pot of dgames and hav players from xkcd, mafia colloseum, prolly some others
- mod timeline: drab emordnilap -> eorlingas -> tom -> marshy -> xiivi (admin) -> sold2 -> red ryu (smod) -> raziek -> j -> bardull -> thirdkoopa -> giraffelasergun -> moydow (admin) -> pokechu

i left a ****ton out due to memory. these are broad strokes and i didnt do it full justice but you could write a book on it cuz this really has a rich history. a lot of the ppl who grew up in it look back on it fondly, it was a great community with some epic af games. this is hopefully loosely accurate and/or enough to get a sense of whats happened. this room had some epic times and i think many of the games that were played here were among the most enjoyable mafia experiences anywhere

Documentary time!

 

[#HBC | marshy]

hey for all the anime fans out there ive come across the next big show

Spoiler

im sorry

 

[ranmaru]

I'll watch it

 

[Pythag]

Xivii mission accomplished!

 

[Strong Badam]

While you nerds were playing mafia here in DGames, I was being an obnoxious, insolent brawl-hater in the melee discussion boards. I'm pretty sure that's why I'm now an Admin, and not the several years of good behavior after being a hater.

 

[ranmaru]

I played melee while playing mafia

 

[Pythag]

I played melee while playing mafia

Same.
it literally was like, my entire senior year of high school.
Sneaking away to play melee in the auditorium during lunch, and then playing mafia both irl and on forums.

 

[ranmaru]

That was my lunch too, in high school. Except it wasn't sneaking, but more so playing in the computer class room.

 

[Pythag]

That was my lunch too, in high school. Except it wasn't sneaking, but more so playing in the computer class room.

Ahh.

I was a techie, so I had keys to the tech booth where the GameCube was stashed. Did that for awhile before the vice principal followed me one day. That put an abrupt end to that. :/

At the risk of feeling super old, when we’re you in high school Ran?

 

[ranmaru]

I graduated high school in 2007.

 

[Xivii]

Welp pythag, you are a god and I am not worthy of standing in your presence. That score is so satisfying to see.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

It's really interesting to me to hear about the origins and history of dgames. I feel like I want to add more but I don't really know where to start.
Things that are different between when I joined (2012 - before J was modded in marshy's list)
-we used to have an mvp system with a user icon 'dice' given to players who did especially well.
-we used to have queues for hosting games, there was one for large games (16+ players) and one for small, also newbie and mini games ran inbetween.
-we used to have dedicated newbie games and you had to play a newbie game before joining a regular game.
-smashboards used to use vbulletin for forums. pretty sure you couldn't 'Like' a post back in the day.

I have a few theories on why dgames 'died' but I think the simplest answer is that we had more players leaving than we had new players coming in and sticking around. I would be interested to see some stats like the number of users on all of smashboards over time to see if that was a factor, and I'm sure I recall marshy doing a survey of active players a while ago with some demographic information like age which might also indicate why people were leaving/joining. I'm pretty sure overswarm stopped hosting games because he got married and had twins for instance.

For older stuff, if you're curious you can check the DGames Archive thread by Rajam (check the sticky for Dgames Directory for a link) which has a list of games hosted up until 2014.

 

[Pythag]

Kary when do you think Dgames ‘died’?

i ask just cause it looks like you joined during the period I know the least about.

@Ran same.

I'm actually still curious how everyone else found this place to begin with.

I honestly would've thought that with developments in the internet that forums really would've absolutely been abandoned.

 

[Maven89]

This place died around 2016. People stopped coming up, and some personalities just had meltdowns and couldn’t take it. Everything since then has been a dead cat bounce.

 

[Pythag]

This place died around 2016. People stopped coming up, and some personalities just had meltdowns and couldn’t take it. Everything since then has been a dead cat bounce.

So I should buy Puts on DGames?

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

I honestly would've thought that with developments in the internet that forums really would've absolutely been abandoned.

This is probably one of the reasons why it happened, DGames always a had a steady stream of people finding out about smashboards -> people finding out about DGames -> People joining the community that kept it alive for new generations. Social media killing forums prevented new people from coming in to replace the last wave.

 

[giraffelasergun]

It’s thah gosh darn discord all the kids keep rambling about

 

[ranmaru]

I found out about it through terywij and x1-x2 U forgot how to spell his name. There was a Mario themed newbie and I didn't seek out mafia. They were like *come on, play!* and so I did. Then I was hooked oh no. Then I got lynched as newbie town in my second game. Then played a ton of aim mafia.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Kary when do you think Dgames ‘died’?

sometime in 2015-16. Between when Circus left and Gheb left.

I'm actually still curious how everyone else found this place to begin with.

I found out about it through X1-12.

 

[giraffelasergun]

I'm actually still curious how everyone else found this place to begin with.

Myself, Nabe, Dooplissity, Ryker, Fandangox, Vult Redux, and a few others used to play together on All is Brawl(lol). We played a few games with a group we referred to as Kentucky(Sold2, Mayling, Joey, Mcfox and a few others I'm sure) that all used to play on here, and as AIB slowly died they convinced us to all come here.

 

[#HBC | marshy]

as for how i found out

i came to this site when brawl was announced. i used to chill on the character boards talking about how i wanted geno for smash

i saw some mafia games played in forum games. i joined one, and the final 3 came down to me (town), ronike (town), and frozenflame (mafia or sk, i forget which)

frozen and i voted each other and ronike had hammer. i typed up some arguments against frozen and he rebutted. ronike voted frozen and we won. then frozen posted more rebuttals in postgame, flamed me for being bad at the game and said my arguments were ****. lmfao

ever since then i was hooked. frozen and i became great friends to the point i visited him and his roommates when i was in north carolina and he was living in virginia

 

[Pythag]

Myself, Nabe, Dooplissity, Ryker, Fandangox, Vult Redux, and a few others used to play together on All is Brawl(lol). We played a few games with a group we referred to as Kentucky(Sold2, Mayling, Joey, Mcfox and a few others I'm sure) that all used to play on here, and as AIB slowly died they convinced us to all come here.

All is brawl, isn’t that a comic?

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

I was shopping for cloth face masks on amazon, saw this among all the others and couldn't stop laughing for a good minute.

Spoiler

 

[Pokechu]

that smiling totodile is infectious. it should really should become an emoji lol

Looking back, I agree. I'll see what I can do about this. I believe Totodile deserves justice

Fun fact! I actually made the emoji of the new Nintendo of America president. Doug Bowser?

 

[Spak]

Same.
it literally was like, my entire senior year of high school.
Sneaking away to play melee in the auditorium during lunch, and then playing mafia both irl and on forums.

Same, I just graduated in 2016 though.

Off the top of my head, Maven and I are the only people who joined while DGames was "dead" who are still around (although I'd still argue that Revival of DGames revived DGames for a bit (that was 2015 iirc)). Nintenzone Invasion was 2018-ish I think, and there's my personal DGames history lol. I do remember being considered a new player for ~3-4 years due to the miniscule amount of regular newbies at the time, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing because I'd never tried my hand at forum Mafia lol.

 

[Pythag]

Ran's statements always crack me up, so I made this.

 

[somitomi]

This place died around 2016. People stopped coming up, and some personalities just had meltdowns and couldn’t take it. Everything since then has been a dead cat bounce.

Is it just me or did people say the same things about xkcd mafia?

 

[Pythag]

Is it just me or did people say the same things about xkcd mafia?

hmmmm

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

I found out about it through terywij and x1-x2 U forgot how to spell his name. There was a Mario themed newbie and I didn't seek out mafia. They were like *come on, play!* and so I did. Then I was hooked oh no. Then I got lynched as newbie town in my second game. Then played a ton of aim mafia.

Wait. Were we seriously in the same newbie together?
Pretty sure I was scum this game and brutally ****ed up in the end.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Spak I don't know. Back in earlier games you had a lot of people phoning it in. When you approach the game from a slightly different angle than other people, it becomes transparent who is trying to actually play the game and who is humping Ryker for his daily reads. Literally there were certain games that felt like they were auto-lock town or auto-luck scum if so-and-so was "confirmed clear" through role or PR report with a protective PR. I do feel like if every individual was upfront invested and straight forward, then it really does narrow down scum to forcing to adopt self-preservation and motive oriented behavior that ought to stick out like a sore thumb. That's why I got frustrated, you could lurk as scum and auto-pilot to a win if half the room was also on auto-pilot and just target someone leading the town with night actions to eliminate them and leave town for a loss.

At a certain point I just wish some people were more honest with themselves, would admit they were playing games to feel included in a social circle but admit that they didn't give a **** about actually asserting their own reads or making plays to increase the odds in their favor. I think that coming into mafia after players like Mello/Swiss phased the game out or got bored meant that read dynamics were too much in favor of the few more respected old school players who decided to drop in and continue to play in games. Going back into archives and looking at games with Tom/Handorin had more plurality to them and the dynamic of the game seemed to have more purpose than simply being formulaic.

There is a common conversation that often happens about having too many power players in a room that runs similar to having too many chefs working in the kitchen. Certain players could cause too much of a ruckus especially by engaging in rogue vigilante like behavior if they felt strongly about their own reads if it was contrary to town consensus, but you knew where they stood when it came to the game and it was interesting to read their post-game analysis on the game and see why they took the approach they did based on their own rationale. I do admit that there comes a conflict when you have multiple people who think they are Michael Jordan and want to hold the ball 24/7, but people paint it as if adopting a team oriented model in mafia can be like the 1991-1998 Chicago Bulls championship run. The difference in a game like mafia is that you can't always guarantee that Jordan will always play for the Bulls and the only way to produce discernment and farm tells is by attempting to challenge them.

 

[ranmaru]

#HBC | Acrostic Yes, I was scum, you were town tracker. You were right on me but wrong on Vanderzant.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

At a certain point I just wish some people were more honest with themselves, would admit they were playing games to feel included in a social circle but admit that they didn't give a **** about actually asserting their own reads or making plays to increase the odds in their favor. I think that coming into mafia after players like Mello/Swiss phased the game out or got bored meant that read dynamics were too much in favor of the few more respected old school players who decided to drop in and continue to play in games. Going back into archives and looking at games with Tom/Handorin had more plurality to them and the dynamic of the game seemed to have more purpose than simply being formulaic.

I feel like this is due to the inherent uncertainty in mafia more than any deliberate intent. It’s hard to be assertive in your reads if you have no confidence in them, and people who have justified confidence are pretty rare to find across any mafia site.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

#HBC | Dark Horse No, there were a **** ton of games that were more about player slots consuming content space about things they were doing outside the game which was always prefaced with, "I'm so sorry guys, I had a xxx meet and we have to practice for the entire week, will catch up sometime later today." And then the next week, "Sorry guys, for not posting this week, had to practice for xxx but will post a summary of reads." Then they would just dumpster useless quotes with superficial analysis and then leave a vote on someone who was already lynched at the end of the day. Then post-game would always read, "Yeah I'm sorry I wish I could have been more involved but life got me sideways, promise it'll be better next game."

Then it would be the same bull**** in the next game. And I don't know at this time if there was a big Skype group thing going on. But if there was then they would definitely be a part of it and have time to **** around on that. So for me the way I read that is that mafia was sort of just the **** they did to talk about to feel like being part of the Skype gang. Which I get, mafia is a social game, but I just kind of wish they would just type, "Hey **** it I really don't care about this game, I'm just doing this to fill in some part of my social life that I feel is missing and I really don't give a **** about fulfilling my alignment goals this game."

I would be okay with that. Because for a game centered around people playing against your win-con it makes it a lot easier to know whether someone else is playing against yours because they just don't give a **** or if they actually have a competing alignment and you need to take them out.

 

[#HBC | marshy]

LMFAO

 

[#HBC | Kary]

I have a story that's about the opposite. I played IRL mafia a few years ago.
Game 1 vig claims day 1 and so I doc him night 1 as you do. This guy MJ dies in the night, he's recognized as a pretty good player so yeah.
day 2 and 3 I lead town and lynch 2 scum, then I die in the night. not important to the story but yknow recognize
Game 2 i roll mafia and our team is stacked. we have probably 3 of the top 4 players in the room. easy mislynch day 1.
night 1 we open our eyes to discuss the kill. MJ is clearly the strongest player in the town, so I point at him. Everyone else nods.
we steamroll the game, feat. x1 fake claiming cop and the real cop doing this awkward laugh for about 10s before they claim.
afterwards I'm getting a drink in the kitchen and I hear MJ in the other room saying something like:
"I've been sitting on my ****ing ass for 3 hours and I got to play for 20 minutes **** you guys"
and it was at that moment that I realized, playing social irl mafia that you don't always have to play exactly to your win condition.

idk if this is a good story, but maybe y'all can learn from my mistakes.

this is not meant to detract from acro's post. it's a good post and I agree with his conclusion entirely.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

To be blunt, Joey would spam games we all knew he wouldn't be able to finish because of band commitment. There was too much of a laissez faire policy. It got annoying when he would also do the same **** as both town and scum, but everyone gave him a pass for being Joey. Yes there were more people involved in the community, yes it was nice, and yes I'm also guilty of opting out of my fair share of games before I realized that forum mafia was more annoying to me than enjoyable. But, seeing acute cases like that made me notice that there was somewhat broad intrinsic disinterest in other slots and I wasn't interested in playing with other people who had mixed commitment when I deal with the same issues in a team oriented environment at work. Mafia has given me a lot of insight into my own flaws as a human being to which I've realized that I hate it when I'm attempting to be fully committed to something I can tell someone else is not. If you're not on board then you are wasting my ****ing time, and my time is not something that can be replaced.

 

[#HBC | marshy]

...I wasn't interested in playing with other people who had mixed commitment when I deal with the same issues in a team oriented environment at work. Mafia has given me a lot of insight into my own flaws as a human being to which I've realized that I hate it when I'm attempting to be fully committed to something I can tell someone else is not. If you're not on board then you are wasting my ****ing time, and my time is not something that can be replaced.

i feel you on this. i hate people wasting my time both online and offline. and i dislike them wasting it in a work-related manner; i want to get what needs to b done and move on to what else i need to do

back in the day i used to get tilted over inactives. i find it easiest to solve when everyone has made substantial posts. if people are lagging behind im missing a piece of the puzzle to get a better handle on the gamestate. some games i would wait til everyone else posted to get involved or put much more time towards watching what was happening when everyone was posting versus clogging the thread with my own opinions. i generally found it easier to make reads by watching what unfolded naturally versus influencing discussion. the main exception was presenting posts i believed had town/scumtells in them to other players to see what they said or asking ppl for commentary/reads on certain players

anytime i join a mafia game now my biggest priority is finding a playerlist that has a high chance of being active across the board. ive found thats the biggest indicator of whether ill enjoy a game or not. some players like frozenflame or jexs post way less than id like but im so familiar with them i can usually get an accurate read so its alright with me

this intolerance towards wasting my time applies to other games too. i barely play overwatch now cuz the 7 minutes it takes to find a game as dps equates to an entire round in gears of war 5 for example

as for irl if a group of ppl im supposed to meet show up 30 minutes late, im like wtf im probably done with them barring traffic or emergency. a few minutes late is okay tho. i do that often cuz i hav cpt flowing thru my veins

times the most valuable resource we have so its justified to want it respected. it sometimes blows my minds how little of a **** ppl give about others' time

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

#HBC | Dark Horse No, there were a **** ton of games that were more about player slots consuming content space about things they were doing outside the game which was always prefaced with, "I'm so sorry guys, I had a xxx meet and we have to practice for the entire week, will catch up sometime later today." And then the next week, "Sorry guys, for not posting this week, had to practice for xxx but will post a summary of reads." Then they would just dumpster useless quotes with superficial analysis and then leave a vote on someone who was already lynched at the end of the day. Then post-game would always read, "Yeah I'm sorry I wish I could have been more involved but life got me sideways, promise it'll be better next game."

Then it would be the same bull**** in the next game. And I don't know at this time if there was a big Skype group thing going on. But if there was then they would definitely be a part of it and have time to **** around on that. So for me the way I read that is that mafia was sort of just the **** they did to talk about to feel like being part of the Skype gang. Which I get, mafia is a social game, but I just kind of wish they would just type, "Hey **** it I really don't care about this game, I'm just doing this to fill in some part of my social life that I feel is missing and I really don't give a **** about fulfilling my alignment goals this game."

I would be okay with that. Because for a game centered around people playing against your win-con it makes it a lot easier to know whether someone else is playing against yours because they just don't give a **** or if they actually have a competing alignment and you need to take them out.

Yeah you got me, I thought you were talking about sheeping. Inactivity is a lot less excusable.

 

[Handorin]

Hey, I see my name. How am I still relevant to conversation >_>

 

[#HBC | Kary]

i love it when people come out of the woodwork back to this place. puts a smile on my face.