Interesting discussion. Let me give my two cents.
@Oli
I had indeed noticed that newer players got that reminder. I think it is a very useful feature and that is why I, in fact, had suggested it for webDiplomacy (http://webdiplomacy.net/contrib/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=364).
Getting rid of dPoints is something I hadn't considered before, but I'd say that I like the idea! They don't have any real use anyway, so why not get rid of them indeed.
I dislike the idea of users being able to adjust the weight of games regarding vRanking, though. Let me explain. If you are new to the site or your skill level changes, your vRanking will converge to a point at which it is a good indicator for your skill, and then oscillate around that value. You want the convergence to go as fast as possible, but you want the oscillations to be as small as possible. In the current situation, there is a certain impact factor that games have on your vRanking. The higher the impact factor, the faster the convergence, but the bigger the oscillations, too, so one has to find some good balance for this impact factor. Finding the right balance is already difficult, but if you allow users to tweak the impact factor for different games as well, then you only increase the problems. Let me illustrate with two examples.
Let us take a look at the games played of user 00matthew2000 (http://vdiplomacy.net/hof.php?
userID=5634). At some point, he won a WWIV WTA game and got awarded 1272 vPoints. After that, he was clearly above his equilibrium, as he slowly began losing vPoints after the completion of this game. The same thing happened to the other site member that once won a WWIV WTA game, cypeg, and similar things happen frequently on smaller scales (these were just extreme examples). If one wants to maximize ones own vRanking, the best strategy seems to be to just not play any ranked games after a large victory. This is already not ideal. Now imagine that 00matthews game had double weight and he got awarded 2544 points. Imagine that.
But it is not that I argue for a decrease in overall weight per se. Take a look at the games played of Retillion (http://vdiplomacy.net/hof.php?
userID=2625). He never lost anything and his vPoints do not seem to have reached their equilibrium. Hence, I think that his vRanking underestimates his true skill. Now imagine that he played many games with less weight...
TLDR: Ranking is already troublesome without allowing players to mess with it even more in their game settings.
Also, I just don't see any advantage of allowing players to tweak this. Is there really someone who would want to have this option? Why not just stay with the two options Ranked and Unranked?
@sending press to multiple players
I think that option would be nice and I would probably use it if it were available, but I wouldn't prioritize it.
@grey press
I don't think that adds anything to the game. Like Retillion said, grey press would be of almost no value since it can be written by anyone (I wouldn't trust a message from a source that purposefully chooses to be anonymous); and on top of that, it would allow players to use abusive language more.
@rulebook press and forcing a ready
I pretty much agree with the points Retillion raised. I'd like to add that I personally find Rulebook Press a bit silly: the reason that there are no negotiation phases during builds and retreats in the board game is because that way, the build and retreat phases can me made shorter, and that speeds up the game; but that does not apply to online play.
@Retillions last two posts
I think you make very good points. I have never followed a discussion on vPoints, but I noticed myself by looking at the way vRanking worked that if you draw, you get more vPoints the worse the vRanking of the other players in the draw is. That apparently caused players to stop in the past? Well, I am glad that I play anonymous games only.
I agree that the vRanking system could use improvements. It won't be easy, though. The challenge is making an ELO-like rating system that does not incentivice players of certain rankings to play certain variants. Maybe I could take a look at it in the summer if people want that. When Oli made the thread you linked (10 days after I registered on this site!), he asked for math experts, and I wasn't back then, but I am starting to become it now.
Also, good point that the existence of features/options can have negative impacts even on players who don't use/care about these features/options. As an example, in the old days on webDiplomacy, PPSC scoring was standard, while it (thankfully) doesn't exist there anymore. Sometimes, though, a player of the old days makes a comeback and throws a game because he or she doesn't know any better. As such, the mere existence of the option of PPSC scoring in the past has a negative impact on the present.