I've sent this to Ryan in the hope that he will have time to read it and be able to respond in some form. I'm also posting it here so you can all see what I've written and perhaps comment if you have anything to add or disagree with something, although I have tried to mostly include points that the majority would seem to agree with as the point is to be a messenger and not a spokesman.

Anyway, here we go:

Dear Ryan,

I am writing to you to suggest a few changes that I believe many XSketch players would like to see in the game.

I think it would be fair to say that most of the players are grateful for the game and appreciative of the efforts that do go into it (myself included, hence my decision to pay for membership). However, there is also a fair amount of frustration among many regulars (again, myself included) at the bugs and other issues affecting the game, especially some of the more long-term problems.

I, of course, understand that many of these fixes and changes would take time to implement and I'm sure you have other priorities. However, many of these changes could be made relatively easily, and that's what causes the bulk of the frustration in my opinion. The other cause of this frustration is the seeming lack of attention players' requests and suggestions are getting. Again, we all know you have other things to be doing, but I believe it would be beneficial to be seen to engage with players occasionally. Posting in the forum now and then would be enough. Even if you don't agree with a suggestion (or can't implement it), I'm sure people would appreciate knowing your thoughts and perhaps an explanation if you can't/won't follow the suggestion.

I'm writing this not to complain, but to summarize what I feel the issues are and hopefully get some kind of response to them.


Mods:

Perhaps the easiest (I assume) change to implement (and probably the most important one) would be more mods, a lot more. The game is often spoiled by either deliberate trolling or cheating, and creating more mods would be the simplest way to counter this. I believe this issue is a major reason for several people either quitting the game or at least choosing to play far less frequently.

I appreciate that you have made a few more mods recently, and that has helped, but we are still without a single mod online the majority of the time (no criticism of existing mods intended at all). Perhaps there is a reason behind the reluctance to create more, but it's not clear to the players. I, personally, would like to see around 5 more XSketch mods created, and the way I see it, we can't have too many (without trying pretty hard anyway). I'm certain there are enough good options, and I'm sure the existing mods could name some for you. Purplechick/PeeCee, TayBren13, Wurlyearly, MrsBrightside/Brighty and MrFoxy/Maffers especially stand out as good options in my mind. They all play the game often, know it well and frequently help new players.


Trolling/cheating:

Perhaps the best answer to trolling and cheating is, as mentioned above, more mods. However, another option to perhaps complement mods would be to allow players to not just "warn" players but to ban them (by consensus) too. An option to vote to ban a player, or even an auto-ban after being skipped by warnings three times, would help to prevent the kind of unchecked trolling that is plaguing XSketch. Of course, there are ways this system can be abused, but I believe there are ways to do it that will minimize misuse of the feature.


The guess box clearing when a player sits in:

This bug has been around for a long time - longer than I've been playing anyway - and can be especially frustrating for players. I expect you know what I'm talking about, but in case not, when anyone sits in while you have text in the guess box (including if you're typing a guess at the time) that text is erased. I expect this is a big more complex to fix than the mod issue, but perhaps not compared to, for example, adding colours. I think I can speak for all the players in saying we would really appreciate a fix to this issue.


The "Find a Seat" button:

This addition is certainly good for new players who may not even be able to work out how to find one for themselves, but it can be very irritating when a player stands up from a full table and the "Find a Seat" button remains, sending the person who clicked it to a random table that hasn't been touched for years instead of letting them take the newly-vacated seat.


Clarity of rules and instructions:

A very large number of players seem to start the game with no idea of how to play it. Few people appear to read the rules and often even those with good intentions will start off by writing all over the place. Perhaps the key rules could be displayed more clearly to help eliminate this problem, as well as instructions on hot to sit in and guess. I suspect a lot of potential players are lost that could be retained if these changes were made.


Site layout:

I can only speak for how it looks on my monitors, but the layout of the site could be more "horizontal". All monitors are wider than they are tall and, on top of this, browsers and operating systems add horizontal bars to the top and bottom of screens so that the actual displayed part of a web page can be almost as wide as 2:1. Even with my limited toolbars the game does not fit on my 1366x768 monitor, and although that is not a big size it's certainly one I'd expect any website to fully support. Perhaps some rules and instructions (as mentioned in the last point), as well as some of the links, could be displayed on the left of the screen?


Brown and white:

It would be great to have brown and white colours in the palette. I don't personally consider this a priority, but it has been asked for a few times already and I can't deny it would be useful.


I will post this letter in the forum for all the players to see (it is an "open letter") and perhaps you could have a look there to see what comments are made. I'm sure someone will point out important points I missed and I'm sure others will have different views worth considering. I'm also sure everyone would appreciate a response (perhaps in the forum) so we know the thinking behind some of your decisions. It's always nice to know you're heard, at least.


Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Ben (Bozuit)