I'm assuming this was discussed at some point before so it's not so much a request as it is a technical question.

How hard is it to program a custom turn timer that can be set by the host of the game?  ..and while I'm at it, ..was it ever discussed?

that

would

be

awesome

!

Discussed and one of the rebuttals was that it just made the whole turn timer more confusing rather than probably helping any problems.  Not too sure about the feasibility, although I think some rough design ideas were thrown out there, not sure if any were from tom though.

Are there particular values that you would like to set the turn timer to that are not available?

Ozyman wrote:

Are there particular values that you would like to set the turn timer to that are not available?

O, Recently I've been thinking about the M-Engine design in the context of making it as lightning game friendly as possible (because I believe that's where the need is on this site), and the flexibility of the turn-timer is an area of interest to me - although not critical.  I'll be starting another thread shortly where I outline the idea. 

I personally think the gap between lightning time, normal time, and extended 3 day time is not ideall. If I were to choose time gaps that would benefit the most people it would be lightning turns, 10 hour turns, and finally the 2 day turns. What's the real different between 2 and 3 days? Does it afford the players that much more?

I would bet that the majority of players would love a 10 hour gap: time to breath, but quick enough to keep games exciting.

The reason for 3 days is so people who can't play on the weekend don't get booted just for having kids or a wife or a honeydo list or no home internet or whatever.  It was easier than having a no boot on Sundays thing or something.

10 hours seems cool to me but I think the issue would be if I start a 10HR game at 2pm and it doesn't fill until 8pm and then it's not my turn until 11pm and I crazily go to bed and don't log in until I go to work the next day I have been skiped on my first turn even though I was around for quite a long time to take my turn.

RiskyBack wrote:

The reason for 3 days is so people who can't play on the weekend don't get booted just for having kids or a wife or a honeydo list or no home internet or whatever.  It was easier than having a no boot on Sundays thing or something.

10 hours seems cool to me but I think the issue would be if I start a 10HR game at 2pm and it doesn't fill until 8pm and then it's not my turn until 11pm and I crazily go to bed and don't log in until I go to work the next day I have been skiped on my first turn even though I was around for quite a long time to take my turn.

If it's not your turn until 11pm, then you shouldn't have to take your turn until 9 the next morning, right?

For those of us that can check in before work, then after work, and them once again later in the evening, a 10-12 hour timer seems to make a lot of sense to me.

12 hour turns were there originally when the site started. They proved very unpopular as the boot rate was astronomical. Perhaps now the site is busier they might be more popular but I'm not so sure. I think 12 hours just seems to coincide uncomfortably with the amount of time you have to spend away from a computer sleeping / commuting to work in the morning.

tom wrote:

12 hour turns were there originally when the site started. They proved very unpopular as the boot rate was astronomical. Perhaps now the site is busier they might be more popular but I'm not so sure. I think 12 hours just seems to coincide uncomfortably with the amount of time you have to spend away from a computer sleeping / commuting to work in the morning.

I'm a new player so I cannot argue something that's already been tested. However, as the other member mentioned, perhaps now with a larger player base we'd have more luck with it. Instead of removing the other turn times in favour of this one, can we not add the 12 hour turn as an extra choice and then see how popular it may be?

My concern is that the people who got booted the most were the people that had just joined the site and didn't know to double check the boot time before joining. This creates a very unfavorable view of the site so they leave and never come back.

I know the answer to this is to make the boot time more visible but there's only so many ways you can do this!

tom wrote:

My concern is that the people who got booted the most were the people that had just joined the site and didn't know to double check the boot time before joining. This creates a very unfavorable view of the site so they leave and never come back.

If this were the case, why don't we have the problem right now with Lightning games?

I'll bet some of these options have been discussed before, but what if you had a button on the Join Screen page that either opens up a separate page for joining Lightning (10 min) and Speedy (12 hour) games?  OR a button that opens/shows a separate list of Lightning and Speedy games.

This is a psuedo-related question. Tom, could you give us an idea of the growth of the site in the last year in terms of moves made per day, or hits, or some other criteria that you are monitoring?

Best idea for growth of the site is to go to the charts page and use the options there. Games started since All Time will give you a good idea of the growth.

The labels on the x-axis of the chart for 'total players' 'all-time' seems to be off.  It shows all the growth starting in Oct 2010.  For that matter the 'games started' all time labels seem to be off also.  Time seems to be running backwards from left to right, and ends with April instead of January.

I know it has been discussed a bit before, but if we did have some sort of wargear leveling system, a part-day turn timer might fit in well there.  Like you'd have to be a level 5 wargearer (implying a minimal amount of experience with the site), before the 12-hour games would show up for you to join, or be possible for you to create.

M57 wrote:

tom wrote:

My concern is that the people who got booted the most were the people that had just joined the site and didn't know to double check the boot time before joining. This creates a very unfavorable view of the site so they leave and never come back.

If this were the case, why don't we have the problem right now with Lightning games?

I think it is a problem with Lightning games.  Anything above 2-3 players usually results in Boots and see games like this http://www.wargear.net/games/join/44695 where it's easy to see the potential problem.

Ozyman wrote:

The labels on the x-axis of the chart for 'total players' 'all-time' seems to be off.  It shows all the growth starting in Oct 2010.  For that matter the 'games started' all time labels seem to be off also.  Time seems to be running backwards from left to right, and ends with April instead of January.

They are wacky, http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1209/Charts_Page_Dates

Ozyman wrote:

...

I know it has been discussed a bit before, but if we did have some sort of wargear leveling system, a part-day turn timer might fit in well there.  Like you'd have to be a level 5 wargearer (implying a minimal amount of experience with the site), before the 12-hour games would show up for you to join, or be possible for you to create.

I like this idea of "unlocking" certain gameplay features depending on experience with the site.

Yertle wrote:

M57 wrote:

tom wrote:

My concern is that the people who got booted the most were the people that had just joined the site and didn't know to double check the boot time before joining. This creates a very unfavorable view of the site so they leave and never come back.

If this were the case, why don't we have the problem right now with Lightning games?

I think it is a problem with Lightning games.  Anything above 2-3 players usually results in Boots...

This is just one of the problems with Lightning games.  There are a few.

• Lack of an alert system. Waiting 10 minutes to take your turn while having to hit a refresh button every 2-3 minutes is a kill-joy.
• 2-3 player games heavily favor the player who moves first. 
• The 10 minute timer turns many games that should only take an hour or so into 3+ hour marathons.
• 4+ player games are unrealistic.  Who wants to take a turn every 20 minutes?

IMO, a turn-based format is doomed to fail.  It just makes sense that players who choose this timer format want to be making their moves every few minutes if at all possible. For this to happen, play needs to have a real-time feel.  In fact, I wonder that a 2.5 minute timer wouldn't fair better, though even here players in a 4-player game are going to be waiting ~5-10 minutes between turns. At the risk of undermining the M-E solution, I would say that taking a Simulgear board and only allowing one order per territory would be a better solution - at least everyone is placing their moves at the same time (but even here, I can imagine players agonizing over the order of their 3-4 moves and wishing they had more time - not to mention that percentage-dice is a different game).

M57, the trouble with 4+ player lightning games isn't that people don't want to take turns every 20 minutes, it's that you might not have a turn for over an hour (4+ players taking nearly 15 minutes each to take their turns will reach this), which means the first person to go to bed loses by default, which then causes cascading boots as people try to log in when they think their turn might be and log in too late.

Players in Lightning games have a max of 10 minutes to complete their turn.  So in a 4 player game you should get a turn at least every 30 minutes. 

One thing that is a bummer is a player gets Skipped then plays a turn then gets skipped then plays, essentially really drawing out his/her turns.  Maybe a more restrictive setting for Lightning games in which there is Auto-Boot instead of Auto-Skip, or a max of 1 Skip then next is a Boot and doesn't have to be in sequential order.  Not sure I'm a fan of this, as it could just result in more Boots and not really aiding the problem, just a thought.