RD: If Harle penalizes a dropper, Harle may well lose that guy as a player. Certainly some droppers are just irresponsible, but others may have a family emergency besides which playing ME and even contacting Harle suddenly do not seem important. For the same reason they don't contact their team-mates. Who are they to judge? Therefore my argument is, give droppers the benefit of the doubt.
If you think a guy has dropped "badly", don't play on the same team next time. Simple.
Richard.
I've transferred more that my share of games due to "circumstances beyond my control". These include things like "life going to crap when I leaned my wife of 10 years had affairs"(yes, plural), couple of years later giving up on the reconciliation and divorcing the bi..., getting laid off and having to move 900+ miles to find another job. Little stuff like that got in the way of the game and forced my to transfer positions on several occasions.
Then there is just the plain old, this game just isn't fun anymore and I need a break.
That said, I've NEVER dropped a game. I've always continued playing until a replacement could be found. It usually doesn't take but a turn or two to find a replacement. With ME Games policy of letting a player of the same team pick up a dropped position, I see NO reason to just drop a position. Player's SHOULD be punished for it. Besides, if they are willing to leave the game over something so small, they are unlikely to care about the points anyway.
As someone else said, if you do not punish drops, then anyone concerend for their points will drop as soon as the game starts looking bad. In that way, they can avoid ever getting dropped points.
Darrell
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