Advanced games Problems amp solutions

  

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Thibault de Vassal    (2010-02-05)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

Hi all,

There's a real problem with the advanced games so far, anyone who tested it lost on time at least once without having played and/or won a game because his opponent forgot to play or to retire from the waiting list.

The challenges partly solves the problem as the program verifies if both players are connected to the server (also I added some warning messages explaining how to use the advanced games) but it seems it is far to be enough.....

Anyway I agree that a web interface is not really designed to such games, particularly when it is hard to find an opponent for these games (which is probably the main problem).

Whatever the way, both opponents should probably be able to discuss just before their game in the chat bar, so one solution would be to verify if the players wrote (or even posted a kind of "start" message) in the chat bar during the last few minutes, it would be a way to be "SURE" that both players are ready to play, even if I'm not sure that it would be enough again.

In my opinion, no more advanced game should start if both opponents did not confirm their presence to the other player in the chat bar.

Any opinion on this ? Any other idea to solve this ?

Thanks in advance and sorry again to all players who experienced this.


Scott Nichols    (2010-02-05 22:05:29)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

If you could figure a way to automatically remove the player from the waiting list if he signs off. Of course some players stay signed on, even if they are not at computer. That solution eludes me I'm afraid.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-02-05 22:39:18)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

When a player signs off (or sign on), his challenges are cancelled, the problem is that players rarely sign off (/logout) anyway. And it would partly solve the problem only, this is a web interface, people jump on other pages while waiting an opponent and just forget, even pop up windows are not enough.


Garvin Gray    (2010-02-09 16:08:18)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

An idea might be set a time period that challenges are valid for ie after a person sends out challenges or joins the waiting list, if no one has accepted inside a certain time period (say 15 minutes) the challenge automatically expires.

If the challenger wants to keep their challenge going, they have to re-send, helping to ensure that they are online, or at least near the computer.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-02-09 18:55:17)
Vocal message

A new small improvement, now FICGS should announce (in the pop up window) the start of a new advanced game with a vocal message. This will not totally solve the problem, but it gives some more chances to not miss the start of a game.