1. Is there a problem, and what is it? (is the problem only that we cannot attract new players? or is it that we cannot retain new players? or is it something else?)
Attracting new players and retaining new players is definitely an issue, perhaps the major one. But there are others, I think the lack, or total absence, or roleplaying has diminished the fun of games recently. I'm not an RP guy and I consider analysis more important, but it does help the atmosphere of a game greatly.
I think as a community as a whole we have become a lot less civil to each other - not more aggressive game-play wise (which is fine), but more derogatory to players personally, and whether or not some players may occasionally mess up there is no need to insult them personally; I'm not criticising as I am guilty of this also, but I think this sours the atmosphere of a game. In the older games if someone made a mistake other people would acknowledge it sure, and perhaps take punitive action, but they wouldn't spend so much time complaining. Sometimes I think we take ourselves too seriously. Remember we are designated as an RP game.
Another problem is that any product has a limited life-cycle, there is nothing wrong with the current game but for many people if they play the same game too much they eventually tire of it, the same is true of any game in the world in fact. This is a separate problem from the lack of new recruits: no matter how many new players we get, if our stable group of players continue to grow tired of the game at the rate they do, we will
never have the same numbers we did at our peak.
2. Are there any problems with gameplay? (Euro said it has become chess; is this true? if so, why, and how do we fix it?)
Yes. I was - sometimes still am - one of the worst people for following AOK mindlessly. While I think sometimes this can be beneficial purely for analysis, it reduces the overall fun of the game, and I can understand why many new players wouldn't understand why Werewolf can be so great if all they see are these random bandwagons.
However, I don't think your policy of getting everyone to provide a reason for their vote every day is much better, sometimes there is little to analyse, sometimes players have little time to do the analysis. People who continually offer no justification for their vote, however, should be considered for being lynched.
I think a less structured game would be better, of course throaways and bandwagons are bad for analysis, but I've now come to the conclusion that ordering people how to vote, and providing blueprints for future analysis, is even worse.
In terms of actual role set-up, I think, always have, that the JL is a terrible thing whenever it gets powerful. Non-JL villagers then become totally useless in the game. A lot of GM's try to counterbalance this by making the wolf-packs more powerful, this may balance the game but it does
not address the issue, the games are still stale and boring even if the baddies win.
A JL should not only be less powerful in identifying baddies but should be easier to infiltrate as well. White Daimon in particular is a GM that strives for this and I think future GM's could learn from him.
We need to make the game fun for normal vanilla villagers, being one can be tedious for some players, but it doesn't have to be. Again the answer is not to give everybody traits and make them part of a super-duper organisation, but to structure the game so that each individual players contribution is important, and that also there is greater scope for working behind the scenes.
2a. I have contended that there are cultural problems -- such as AOK outing himself as a wolf, and still somehow surviving to lynch important goodies. Does anyone else think this is a problem?
There has always been collective stupidity in werewolf. You yourself have evaded the lynch as an outed wolf a good few times. The recent episode was one of the more extreme examples of this, true, but that was partly due to the disillusionment of the villagers at the time. I don't think we will ever solve completely that kind of stupidity, and anyway I believe that obtuseness, the whole idea of an uninformed and terrified mob, can sometimes be a good thing in WW.
2b. AOK established the "Coalition Against Werewolf Zombies" a couple of years ago. I contend that zombieism is back and as debilitating to the game as ever -- but because it has been incorporated into our gameplay, it is easily dismissed. Does anyone else think this is the case?
I think you are confusing ''zombieism'' with ''sheepishness'', being a zombie is never doing anything of note and only posting once a day. A sheep can be active but does not think for themselves, and yes I think
this is a problem. But I don't think complete inactivity is part of our gameplay. We still do focus on lynching inactives sometimes, and they certainly aren't looked upon favourably by the community. But I agree that we should place more emphasis on independent thinking.
3. Does our site offer enough positive and unique features to entice players that could spend their time at other WW sites?
I've looked at MafiaScum recently, I haven't played in any of their games but I believe Paradox Werewolf is unique in terms of internet werewolf/mafia - or at least, it used to be. The great thing is the fact that although we do place a lot of value on analysis and discussion, at the same time we don't - or at least we didn't - take ourselves too seriously. And those who didn't wish to participate in that side of the game used to roleplay instead and that was encouraged.
I don't think there's a problem with the level of analysis generally, in fact there is probably more than in the older games, it's just that those people that didn't participate in discussion would RP instead, while now we consistently have a large proportion of players contributing nothing to the game.
Our role-setup I think is superior to most offerings, and the fact that we have one large game at a time and as such our set-ups evolve over time, building on previous games, is better than the behemoth forums where there are countless variations, makes for more balanced and fun set-ups.
Also, the main theme across the internet for this game is mafia, werewolf is considerably rarer and as such we have a bit of a niche in the market, so to speak.
Lastly, and most importantly, Paradox is not a dedicated mafia site, and although many of us love this game a little more than is healthy and frequent the actual main forums very little, we still have the benefit of PI players and OT-goers coming here to play. For dedicated players interested only in this game this may not be an advantage, but I feel most players feel a lot of loyalty to our brand of the game, and wouldn't move to other sites.
3a. What are our shortcomings?
I've kinda covered that already, it sort of overlapped into my other points, so I won't say anything further.
So those are my thoughts. I've just wrote down everything that has occurred to me at this time, and it may not all be very helpful, but I hope that at least some of it may be of some interest.