In a recent match i overheard the crew of my allied ship proposing to resolve a double gunner situation by paper-scissors-rock. This proved somewhat impractical over voice chat but it got me thinking about the idea of adding such minigames to the lobby. As we all know the lobbies can drag on a bit on occasion, adding something mildly distracting could help mitigate the boredom with some conditions:
-It would have to be small enough to fit into the main lobby screen somewhere so you could still see whats happening & any text chat. (this is where using things outside the game fails for the most part)
-It can't too entertaining or it will contribute to slowing down the lobby more than it would make it seem shorter.
-It should be something easily cut off mid way when the match starts.
Paper-Scissors-Rock
It meets the above conditions and additionaly could be used to resolve petty disputes. It does bear some risk that people would use its existence to justify starting disputes then claiming the 50:50 chance to have it go thier way (ex unwanted gunner joins ship, claims they should get to paper scissors rock to decide, wins: uses that to justify thier behavior, loses: pretends it never happened and continues, this may or may not be outweighed by its use to solve disputes).
Betting
A simple system to bet on the match outcome (betting against your own team prohibited for obvious reasons)
Possible stakes
-Small amounts of exp, transferred from loser to winner. Winning bets has some correlation to skill so wouldnt be a total distortion and could be capped per level or per amount of normal exp gain.
-Hats (might be problematic as far as hurting store revenue)
-Smug hat and loser hat, special hats that become available for one game after the bet, loser hat is automatically worn for that time
-Progress towards special achievements
-A separate and entirely arbitrary score system
There is also the possibility of including the rules for some games that can be done with the current lobby (over voice or text) in some of the hints and splash texts around the game, this way players would become familar with the rules for those games (whatever they are, i don't actually know any off the top of my head).
Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions for games of either kind?
