SpielByWeb

[sig titan]

I think that the admins need to create a button within the games that will allow the active pllayers to notify them when a game has completely stalled. I am currently in a Tikal game with a player that just registered and has yet to make a move (three days so far). In another game, there is a player that has played three or four times in the past three weeks.

I love the competition and the gameplay, but the prospect of having games last more than a week or two is beginning to sour me on playing non-password games.

I don't know if this has been suggested before, but I'm sure that coding a button would be extremely simple and would allow a degree of moderation to the users that would benefit all.

By the way...I love this format.
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All warfare is based on deception. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

[RyanMC]

This has been discussed to death, and you will find people on both sides of it. To expect a game to take less than a week or two is not realistic. Many of the games we play take hundreds of player choices and even if people take a turn or two a day games can drag on for more than a month with no problem. I have seen games take 6-7 months to complete. If the game did not specifiy how often turns were expected then its not likely that people will be on the same page. Some people may do a turn every day or so, others 15 times a day.

Games get abandoned after 60 days of inactivity. It used to be 90 days. There is a plan to let people sub into a game, but its a lot of work, and none of us have the time to get to it right now. Even then it will probably require a 2 week inactivity before we would allow people to sub in. Expecting a game to be abandoned after 3 days or a week is just not realistic.
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-=RyanMC=-
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[stargate]

Thank You Ryan

[sig titan]

I am not suggesting that every game that has innactivity should be abandoned after a couple of days, just that in some cases, it becomes obvious that a player has chosen to abandon a game on his\her own. It seems that two weeks of innactivity might indicate that a player has lost interest. I'd be interested to see the list of players that caused the aandoned games and see if they are still using this site.

Once again, I love the work that you've done to make the games work as well as they do.

Sorry if I offend your sensibillities, I just like the games and want them to move at a pace where I can expect to make a play more than once per week.
_________________
All warfare is based on deception. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

[stargate]

for information on abandoned games:

go to the games list >>>
click on the abandoned games list
check the users who have abandoned games
(note: a few games are on this list because they had a bug that
could not or did not get fixed)

[sig titan]

I decided to look through the forums to see if there were any that I was interested in commenting about, and WOW , I see why Ryan said that the subject had been discussed to death.

It's too bad that a few people can make so many others this irritated.

I didn't mean to sound like a bit_ _y newbie or anything , I've just been lucky enough to play in some games that moved along at a steady pace. This makes the slow ones seem even slower. All in all, I love the website and am addicted to it. You guy's have done a great job.
_________________
All warfare is based on deception. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

[stargate]

congrats to >> sig titan

on his promotion from "bit..y newbie" to veteran

[gische]

One recommendation that I haven't seen before (and I've been reading these threads for years now...) is that all new members of the site can only sign up for one game at a time. Basically, you start off on probation.

We can figure out how many games they need to complete before the unlimited signups are opened to them (it might even be just one completed game.)

I figure this will remove the big problem of the brand new player who finds the site, signs up for 10 games, and then after two weeks never makes a move again, frustrating 30+ other players. If we limit it to one game, we drastically reduce the number of users that are adversely affected by the newbie figuring out that they aren't going to become a regular on sbw.

[Kanga]

and at the same time, drastically reduce the number of new players that come to this site.

I'd never have bothered playing here if there was a 1 game limit for new players.

I think the problem is seriously overstated in this thread. It's actually very rare for new players to sign up then disappear. Abandoned games are rare. They are indeed annoying, but the great thing about online gaming is that you can just go start a new game or three and you'll still have games to play.

[sig titan]

Not to make this subject drone on...because I realize that it's something that we all have to live with, like it or not, but, my original suggestion was just a button that the active players could use to let the admins know about very slow play.
_________________
All warfare is based on deception. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

[gische]

[spearjr]

[sig titan]

Identify the culprit and gut them like a fish....or, perhaps, once the admins are aware of the issue, they could nudge the slow player with a tactful message. If this fails, then it's on to more drastic measures...beheading and the like.
_________________
All warfare is based on deception. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

[HappyProle]

For what it's worth, I think the idea that we (developers) sort of agreed on was this:

-- If it's been a player's turn for 2 weeks or more (maybe 1 week) they become eligible to be kicked out of the game.
-- The game creator (would go to next person who joins if the creator is the dilinquent) or an admin can then kick that person out of the game, which will open a replacement spot.
-- There will be a new tab in the games list for "Games Waiting for Replacements" where users can fill in. (Not sure what to do about replacement game stats)
-- The eligibility timeline would ignore vacation and we'd leave it up to the game creator to take that into account. (Since some people already creatively use the vacation feature, I'd hate for people to exploit it to avoid being kicked out)
-- How often people are kicked out of games and how often people kick others out would of course be recorded for the sake of addressing any issues that come up.

This would put a little more power in the hands of the game creators, but I think that would be an easier group to regulate/manage/babysit than all the possible delinquent users.

[stargate]