|> Any other ideas? Testing maps is important.
Looks like the core of the problem is the difficulty in setting up real-time test games. I see two possible solutions:
- Have some way of determining who's online, for instance on the last page of game creation (and possibly on your manage invite list as well, so you can view it more easily), so you can see whom it makes sense to invite.
- Have a site-wide chatbox / shoutbox, where you can (among other things) ask who, of the people currently online of course, would like to help test. This could be implemented as a cyclic buffer of 20 (??) posts, with a low maximum length, shown on the dashboard.
ps. I completely agree with you; testing maps in multi-day games takes a long time (I'm currently taking part in a [test game](
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=2089666) for a New Jersey map which is already taking over a month and I've thought multiple times it's a pity I can't set up other games on it yet), but testing maps is indeed very important; unbalanced bonuses for instance can completely ruin an otherwise great map and on non-trivial maps, it's very easy to overlook a few connections here and there.
