BrainKing - Discussion boards (Feature requests)

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Feature requests

Do you miss something on BrainKing.com and would you like to see it here? Post your request into this board!
If there is a more specific board for the request, (i.e. game rule changes etc) then it should be posted and discussed on that specific board.

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20. October 2008, 13:59:45

AbigailII

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Subject: Re: Vacation Suggestion

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.

20. October 2008, 15:19:56

trohat

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Subject: Re: Vacation Suggestion

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.

20. October 2008, 18:00:50

AbigailII

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Subject: Re: Vacation Suggestion

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.