Welcome to Gaia :: A Great Game Idea:Cooperative Jigsaw [thread obsolete]

awesome- more fun for games ^^

You've got a brilliant idea here. It's pure genius. Even I, not one to actually engage in playing games (especially those that involve teamwork), am hyped up about Cooperative Jigsaw. I certainly hope that Gaia adds the game onto the site sometime, because I really can't wait to see how it'd turn out! 3nodding

I have two ideas for how to deal with those people that join the game but refuse to do anything or just sit there and neither play nor complain/refuse to join:

• Say Player A joins Cooperative Jigsaw with his friends, Players B, C, D, and E. While Players A, B, and D happily work on the puzzle together (behold the true beauty of teamwork!), Player C complains about how "boring" the game is and doesn't do anything, while Player E just sits there and neither complains nor tries to work on the puzzle with her friends. While Players A, B, and D get gold for actually playing the game, Players C and E will not only get nothing in the end, they will also be forced to actually try the game at least once. A message appears, saying "You haven't picked up any pieces yet! Please choose one and place it onto the jigsaw.", and Players C and E will have to play the game and help their team out--except they have to do it alone as punishment (meaning they can't get any help from anyone), and on top of that, if somebody else chooses the same piece(s) that they pick, they'll have to keep searching for a puzzle piece that hasn't been picked by someone else. Oh, and in the end they don't get any gold, since they're not volunteering to help their team out. (How often will the message pop up? Say Players C and E haven't done anything in an hour; the message will pop up after an hour of inactivity, then will continue to pop up in less and less time. The second time they don't do anything, the message will pop up after fifty-five minutes of inactivity, the third time after fifty, the fourth after forty-five, the fifth after forty, and so on until the message pops up every five minutes. Needless to say, this will get quite annoying, so those who dread seeing the message will either a) actually participate in the game with their teammates, or b) leave, therefore effectively weeding out undedicated and lazy players from the game.)
  
• Another possible way to punish unresponsive, lazy, and uncooperative players is to use a Three Strikes System: the first time, they get a warning message that pops up and reminds them that they're in a game and should at least try to participate; the second time, they get the warning message again and are forced to actually do something (and they can't get off the hook, either); the third time, if they still haven't actually volunteered and are still just complaining or sitting around silently, then they get kicked out of the room. (This one is similar to the one above, but the difference is that the first one is more forgiving and therefore allows a player to remain in the room since they'll always just get a warning and be forced into playing the game, even if they're not actually participating out of their own free will; the second method, however, is not as forgiving and kicks people out if they don't do anything voluntarily after being warned and being forced to participate.)
  

Well, I don't know if my ideas are any good, and I don't know if they're easy to understand in the way I wrote them, but what's the point of playing a game with people that don't want to play? Therefore there should be some way to get non-contributing players to either a) actually play the game or b) leave if they haven't already and don't actually plan on doing anything other than watching others play Jigsaw and/or complaining.

On a sillier note, I think that this game sounds awesome enough to have its yearly competition of sorts in which players form teams and then compete against each other in a huuuuuge game that involves all sorts of crazy and difficult puzzles (and of course, a really tricky puzzle at the end, for the two teams that make it the farthest). It could be a fun way to test teamwork and play against larger groups of people, and anyone who doesn't want to compete could watch and cheer on the teams that they support. I don't have any real ideas for prizes for the winning team and runners-up, but a trophy, a large amount of Gaia gold, and/or a rare item sound good. (To stop people from joining the competition solely for the gold, item or trophy, however, the prize(s) won't be revealed until the end, when they win. After all, people should compete because they want to have fun and try their best, not because they want a prize or money. However, people won't join the competition if they don't know what the prize is, so the competition should be made to somehow appear really fun and interesting; that way, people will be drawn to the game and actually want to try their hardest just for the sake of it instead of trying their hardest just for a prize.)

I don't know if my ideas are any good, but I hope that at the very least you'll take a look at them. I don't have any other suggestions to contribute, though. sweatdrop Sorry.