I get so tired of "MY" games being timed out when I can't get on here-yet others never seem to do so, I play alot of
NO Days off games"  ppl are sooooo slow on here, I still am playing tournament games from 2006!

Just let players set the maximum number of vacation days in any game/ tournament/round allowed when setting up and new game/tournament and the problem is solved. We can set the level of opponent, time parameters, etc. Why not let us allow the maximum number of vacation days? Why do we get to set most of the parameters, but Fencer gets to set that one? Doesn't make sense to me.

pauloaguia & coan.net: Just one thing i would like to add (which i know is not popular) is the ability to purchase extra vacation days. I used all mine up when i had computer problems.

Now i have none, i have to make sure i am here every day, just so nothing times out (sadly i still miss the odd one).

Last month i was away 3 days as i had to go away for a funeral. Luckily, i managed to use a relations laptop to keep an eye on my games. To me i would of been happy to purchase and extra couple of days to save the hassle, but i am not allowed.

Yet i can still come up against players who seem to have unlimited vacation days........its sickening really

How comes mine could not be deducted from next years days as they are already paid for

I know the argument is people would take advantage of any system where you are able to purchase extra days, BUT is that not what we have already. I guess it only applies to certain players

pauloaguia: yes, I agree - it would be better for the system to calculate time-out days without even paying attention if there is a vacation day set - since it won't time out anyway.

(If this is indeed a bug which some are taking advantage of, I'm just trying to come up with a solution to fix it.) People like that give good slow players like myself a bad name

coan.net: Disallowing changes in vacation days is not a good option in my opinion. There are always mistakes or last minutes change of plans and being able to unset vacations seems quite natural to me.
What I don't get is why is it that the system should account for vacation days that haven't even been set. I understand it comes from the old vacation system but the way it is now you can't timeout on a vacation day anyway...

pauloaguia: yea, I knew there was some way to play around with the vacations to get more then you really have - and that is why I would LOVE to have Fencer take a look and see if this person is doing something that is allowed (buying more vacation days), or messing with the system to get themselves more vacation days - which of course hurts the site & is a pain for every other good person on the site. (in which possible either 1. take away rest of vacations for offender, or better yet - fix it so once a vacation day is set, it can't be removed or something similar so the system is not abused.)

coan.net: another one is playing around with weekend days and unsetting previously marked vacation days (if you set 20 vacation days and make a move on a 1 day game it will only timeout 20 days later. If you then unset the vacation days, the timeout is not changed - if the timeout date was set to only 1 day this wouldn't happen - currently if, when timing out, there is a vacation day set the timeout is already postponed 1 day)

I don't even know the game or the name of the player so I'm only guessing...

pauloaguia: Is that what happened in this case, or are you just saying that might be a possibility? If so, then they are purchasing a membership every couple of months to be able to continue to get vacation days. (and if not - would still like Fencer to look at it to make sure it isn't a bug)

I would agree that the practice of getting more vacation days when purchasing another membership should go away.

rod03801: imo you shouldn't even be able to get extra vacation days... but I'm not the decision maker around here, so no point in going any further with that...

pauloaguia: Yes, there should be a limit as to how many times one person can do that in a year. I can see possibly letting someone do it once, but after that it becomes unfair to that person's opponents!

coan.net: You get extra vacation days if you renew your membership (or buy another for someone else in case of Black Rooks).

MadMonkey: Well I hope Fencer will look into it. How a person has used up to 75 vacation days (should have 45 vacation days at most for Black Rook) - and still have 13 left.

If it's a bug - it needs to be fixed. If it's not a bug, then how is it done?

coan.net: Its not just my game, its every game in that Tournament that player is in. I thought Logik was a pretty quick game.

What is worse it the player is still getting entered into Team Tournaments. I actually refused a Team challenge yesterday until the player was removed.

Crazy

mctrivia: Speed rating would not help in tournament & team tournament games when you don't pick the person you play.

In MadMonkey's game, I'm curious if the other person is using vacation days or somehow getting around them since doing quick math - July 7th - 15 weeks - can use 5 vacation days a week (2 weekend days) = 75 vacation days used!!!!!

If this is indeed a bug of some sort, then it needs to be fixed. The current system should work pretty well - yea, someone can hold up a game, but not forever like it seems some are able to do.

MadMonkey: nope not fair but unfortnetly there is always a down side to changing the vacation rules. someone will be un happy no matter what. My proposal of giving people a speed rating they can use to see if they want to play a game with someone has no downsides because it is not changing things just giving us more information to make intelligent decisions by. It will not guarantee a game will go fast but will at least let you avoid those chronic dodlers if you care. If such a system is implemented then you should be able to set limits for games and tournaments.

Something should be done about vacation days. I am in the last Logik Team Tournament (well quite a few of us are) that started on July 7th, that is getting on for 3 months.

My opponent has yet to move, that is hardly fair is it

There should be a user-definable maximum number of vacation days that can be used in any game/tournament/round. I played in one tournament where a player used OVER 100 vacation days. That's just stupid.

There should be some implementation of restarting timed-out games. This opens up a whole new can of worms in tournament situations, but there is surely no reason to forbid a timed-out game between friends from being restarted.

I should be able to save the default time for games that I want. I prefer Fiscjer's clock with 7/0/7, but I have to change it every single time I start a new game. This should probably be done on at least a family of games level. I.e. I should be able to set my pente games to default to 7/0/7 and my espionage games to 30/.5/30, etc.

trohat: Imagine you play e.g. 5-win match and because of bad time management (reason can be some family business or easily some unexpected party with friends) you lose one of those games on timeout. Would you like to lose the entire match ??

Well, yes, I would like that to happen. You'd lose the match if it's a 1-game match anyway - family business or unexpected parties or not. I don't see why a multi-game match should be an exception. Heck, I can argue that in BK, it would even make more sense: considering that for ratings, win/loss ratio and tournaments a 1-game match has the same weight as a 21-point cube match or a 5-win match, BK treats a multi-game match to be a single game, so it kind of make sense to do that for timing as well.

trohat: To make my argument stronger, imagine that this game is with a very weak opponent and the loss would ruin your BKR

It wouldn't ruin it any more than losing a single game match on timeout, so I don't see why it would be 'too hard'.

AbigailII: Again, this would be too hard. Imagine you play e.g. 5-win match and because of bad time management (reason can be some family business or easily some unexpected party with friends) you lose one of those games on  timeout. Would you like to lose the entire match ?? To make my argument stronger, imagine that this game is with a very weak opponent and the loss would ruin your BKR :)   

And if someone stops playing many-game gammon match ??
Since you have rook membership, you dont have to care about game positions. So you just make the first move many times and just let the game "sleep" in the "opponents turn" games, where you dont even look too often, so it doesnt bother you.

I forget to add two more points.

• When playing a multi-game match (being it a cubed match, and N-wins match, or an N-game match), the time control is for the entire match - no resetting between games. So if you saved up a lot of bonus time, you carry it over to the next game. And if you time out on a game, you lose the entire match. No more waiting for many months if someone stops playing in a 21 game gammon match.
  
• You don't get a whole lump of vacation days at the beginning of the year. A new account gets a few days to start with, and one gets a new vacation day every N days you make moves. (So non-active people don't accumulate vacation days, and you don't have time-out free months early in the year. No strategical buying of membership either). N would vary on the membership levels. In BK's terms, I'd set N = 35 for pawns, N = 15 for bishops/knights and N = 10 for rooks. Of course, there would also be maximum of saved up vacation days.
  </ul>

trohat: As I said, if you're playing in such a style that you need to move in the few hours you have available, or else lose the game, you're doing that at your own risk. Note that if you have a 24h time grace period, a max pool time of 24h (1d), and some kind of bonus time, you have to play faster than even the very fast stairs on BK, and you still won't time out if the server is unavailable for one evening.

And note, my post didn't contain a proposal. It just something I would do if I had the chance.

grenv: I disagree, when you have 200-300+ games it is impossible to move on every one every day. not allowing someone to move and take vacation on any one day would discourage some people from moving on the games that they would be able to move on. It is much easier to be allowed to move whenever you want.
Of course, like anything else people will find ways to misuse anything, purposely not moving on certain games and such, but I believe removing that ability would do more hurt than good.

I think a simple change would be good:

Autovacation should not be allowed to happen if you've moved already on that day. However if you select a vacation day in advance you can still move if you want to.

AbigailII: One big disadvantage of your proposal is that it is too complicated and difficult to understand to somebody who just comes to play Backgammon or Ludo (there are people who NOW have problems with understanding to it, so what would it be after making it more tricky).
Moreover, many people dont want to bother about the game time and just use the automatic settings when sending an invitation. In your system, they would have to set pool: 0/0, move (any), bonus: 0 (or, if it would be automatically set, at least think about it if it doesnt mean something they dont want)

By the way, I dont agree with number 6. Imagine, that you go to work every day (it happens sometimes :)) ) and you have no possibility to play BK when at work. So, you have time to play only in the evening. And you have some games which need to be played today (or they will timeout tomorrow during the day). Now, if the server is unavailable during all the evening, you can lose all of them, this is why you need 24 hours.

mctrivia: What I would do if I had the power to decide timing:

• No weekends. No special days (holidays) without time outs as BK used
  to have.
  
• Time control consists of:
  
  1. A grace period.
     
  2. Pool time, both initial and max.
     
  3. Move time.
     
  4. Bonus time.
     </ol>
     You loses a game on time if your pool time goes below 0.
     
     
     If it's your move, you first have "grace period" to make your move before
     it starts eating away from your pool time. Because people live in different
     timezones, grace time should be at least 24 hours. I'd require a minimum
     24 hour grace period for rated and tournament games. In the BK system,
     playing a non-Fisher clock game with 3 days/move equals having a grace period
     of 3 days, and no pool or bonus time.
     
     
     Pool time is the amount of time you have to make all your moves (after
     running out of your grace time). This is the time you have in a Fisher
     clock game on BK. There's an initial pool time, and a max pool time;
     equivalent to the first and third components of BK's Fisher clock.
     Pool time runs down when it's your turn and haven't moved within the grace
     period, it can be added to if you make a move with "move time"; the amount
     added to the "bonus time". If "move time" is set to infinity it means you
     get your bonus time for each move, just like bonus time does in BK's Fisher
     clock games. Pool time can not exceed its set max, except for the case
     explained below.
     
     
     Note that both current clocks can be simulated with the system I described
     here.
     
  5. Vacation days must be set in advance; they won't be automatic. If you
     set a vacation day, all your games get 24 hours added to their pool time,
     regardless whether it's your turn on not. (In this case, pool time can exceed
     their set maximum). You cannot make any moves while on vacation. If you
     come back from vacation and make a move, if after your move your pool time
     exceeds its max, it's set to the max.
     
  6. Short server unavailability isn't a reason to grant another 24 hours to
     your pool time; if you time your games you'll time out on a short
     unavailability, it's your risk. In general, if the server hasn't been
     available for X hours, everyone whose turn it is gets X hours added to their
     pool time.
     </ul>
     Now, this isn't a proposal. Fencer wouldn't want to implement it anyway.
     

     
     BTW, Fencer, you need to clean up your HTML parsing. The system doesn't recognize </ol> and </ul> tags. Probably caused by the misbelieve the closing tag of the LI element is mandatory, judging by the closing tags the system adds at the end of my posting.

UzzyLady: i to try to get internet connection on road trips and can play a few games occasionally but not all[well usually. right now I have goten rid of most of my games]

AbigailII: Your suggestion of not being able to take a vacation day on a day you make a move penalizes people like me. When I'm on vacation, I can usually get online for a short time (maybe half an hour) which is enough time to move in my quick games, or fisher clock games, but not enough time to move in all my games. I would be penalized for trying to move forward in my quick games, but letting my longer games sit.

I know it is a pain dealing with those who are obviously on here but just not moving in their games. I play pretty quickly and they irritate me as well. However, you can't make rules to deal with every situation. You end up hurting those who are trying to play by the spirit of the idea in the process.

AbigailII: I think what you really need is a speed rating of each player.

Something that before excepting a game with someone will tell you weather or not they will likely on average play daily or wait until the last possible second.

This value should be:
*boldly shown on the screen where you accept games.
*calculated independently for each game(I play ludo games quicker then say chess games) as well as an overal show in the format [this game/all games] ? should be used if no games of that type have been played for a while.

Suggested formula to calculate:
1) 10*average time taken/average time allowed shown to 1 decimal.
2) average number of days/move shown to 1 decimal.

in each of these systems lower number means faster players. for method 1 players could get values greater then 10 if they often take advantage of weekends and vacations as formula should just compute based on time restraints shown.

I.E. 5 day with vacation and weekend would give you
*14.0 if you waited to the last second without using vacation time
*16.0 if you used up 1 vacation day for each move you made also
*1.9 if on average you played 1 move a day but took a week off every 4th week

Nine Men Morris would be a great game...

coan.net: 5 days will work for many Americans, but among Europeans, a three week vacation is rather common.

But I don't mind people being on vacation. I don't mind people taking the full amount of time sometimes. What I do mind is people that are on-line almost everyday, and for almost all of their moves wait till it's almost the deadline. Well, coan.net, you know which class of people I mean, don't you?

I'd like for games to progress steadily on average, while still allowing people to take vacations or the occasional break. A time control that combines Fisher + vacation days is what I'd like. Unfortunally, BK doesn't offer that possibility.

AbigailII: What I would like to suggest is that possible a setting for a game could be "Max amount of vacation days to use for game 1 person can use".

So for example, 5 days max vacation days - so someone can use vacation days, but after using 5, the vacation days will not work for that game anymore.

On one hand I think there are already a lot of possible settings for games, but I think this one would help those like you who don't mind people using vacation & time - as long as it is not abused.

mctrivia: I very well know how time controls work. But not having vacations doesn't work for me. I will be away for a week or more two or three times a year. And you never know when a second round of a tournament starts.

I don't mind if someone takes 7 days to move when the time control is 7 days or if they are on vacation - as long as they don't for every move, while being online almost every day.

If we would have a time control that combines the Fisher clock with vacation (preferably a "strict" form of vacation that won't allow you to take vacation on a day you also made a move), I'd start using that time control immediately. Currently, I never use the Fisher clock. Sure, I could easily be able to make my moves for the next 6 months on a 5/1/5 time control, but the game or tournament may last for longer than that. And then I would lose my game, because I will be away on vacation.

MadMonkey: well that can happen but does not have to.

mctrivia: oh, not like the Logik Team tournament thats running then. Started 3 months ago today, and still waiting for a players first move................ crazy

AbigailII: true but you can set time limits shorter for those games and not allow vacations.

trohat: there is a 3 player version of that one. I think it would be a good idea.

trohat: A three player game? With the number of people on brainking that consistently use up almost all their time for every move I often find two players already too many players. I don't think I'd fancy any three or more player game where moves cannot be made simultanously on brainking, no matter how fine OTB game play might be.

AbigailII: ok, thats about two player game ... but, version for three players would be really great !!!
(another question is, would it be easy to implement ?)

Nirvana: From the link: Games of Yavalath tend to be short, decisive and dominated by passages of forced play.

Forced plays are ok when doing an OTB game, but, IMO, horribly in turn based site. It can take months before you're facing a real decision in a game.

Nirvana: That game does sound fun - goal to make a line 4 - but can not make a line of 3.

I know the hex board would be more work for Fencer to make - I wonder if the same rules can be played on a normal Five-in-line board? (which would be an easier game to make since Fencer would not have to make a new board)

.... and if Fencer does make a Hex type board - hopefully he will think of the idea of Hex Battleboats Plus.

I have tried this on another site (http://www.googlegamecenter.com/)
and its a good game once you get the hang of it.
http://www.cameronius.com/games/yavalath/

In statistics page, you can see the top best 50 players with summed BKRs. That means, who played much up today here. At the right column same things with averaged totals from 1/1 (played 123/ from 123) to 1/7 (ca. played 17/ from 123) sum of all games -as of October 2008-.

This statistics may be modified up to 1/20 and give more views for interested users.

MadMonkey: I agree.

Fencer: Good point

I wonder if the writers of the game would be open to approach

You would not need anything as elaborate as theres, but still something to consider for the future. I think it would be hugely popular

MadMonkey: Think of a huge amount of images. Who would make them?

I wonder if we could have a game like PackRat here

It would work great on a site like this with the amount of game players we have, and use our friends list

Plus i would not have to spend so much time on Facebook, boy that site is slow for me

What do you think Fencer, could it be looked into ?

This has been asked for many times since we had Polls introduced.
Please an option in a Poll to add an 'Other' selection, when if selected opens a small text box someone can type in a suggestion or comment in.

These could show up as comments at the bottom of the Poll.

Maybe even each Poll should have its own Discussion Board like Tournaments, for people to discuss relevant issues of the Poll

Fencer: I hope I have some time for feature requests now.

Please give us different 'race' and 'regular' backgammon pieces.

Because of recent changes to the Brain prize tournaments, there are a lot more of those tournaments. It would be great to have "Move and go to next prize tournament game"

Of course, an old request of being able to flag certain games, and having a "Move and go to next flagged game" would solve that!

OK, since the site migration is over (and it was not an easy process), I hope I have some time for feature requests now.