Oatworm wrote:

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.

As Y said, it's a ten-minute timer.  And based on the few times I've tried L games with 2 players, I think it's fair to say that the average turn time is more like 5+ minutes.   Still, that's more time than not just waiting, and when you add in the 5+ minutes your opponent is waiting per turn, an 18 turn game will take 3 hours.

But if you were playing a real 4 player board game of Risk (even with escalating card sets) it would probably take 3 hours as well. Is this a case of it being symptomatic of the game itself that it takes a long time to play?

Is it realistic to expect to be able to complete a Risk-like board game in 30 minutes even with computer assisted dice rolling? Perhaps you are expecting too much?

tom wrote:

But if you were playing a real 4 player board game of Risk (even with escalating card sets) it would probably take 3 hours as well. Is this a case of it being symptomatic of the game itself that it takes a long time to play?

Is it realistic to expect to be able to complete a Risk-like board game in 30 minutes even with computer assisted dice rolling? Perhaps you are expecting too much?

I think 1-2 hours is the goal.  And yes, I think it is very realistic.  I remember being able to complete RT on-line Monopoly games in 10-15 minutes, and that's a game that normally takes hours to play. The interface took care of everything; money, rent, deed management, calculating income taxes instantly, etc.   Rpll, move buy, roll move buy.. 

With Risk style games, there are similarities.  Computer generated die rolls and troop movements are much much more efficient than the human driven equivalent.  I can attack a stack of 20 with a stack of 30 and move my armies into the losing territory one hundred times faster than it would take in real life - literally.   Add to this the simultaneous order capability that SG and the ME offer, and I see no reason that we shouldn't be able to expect most games on a standard board to come in around an hour or under if the mechanics of the player notification system can be refined.

The way I see it, the only enemy is down-time. 

M57 wrote:

tom wrote:

But if you were playing a real 4 player board game of Risk (even with escalating card sets) it would probably take 3 hours as well. Is this a case of it being symptomatic of the game itself that it takes a long time to play?

Is it realistic to expect to be able to complete a Risk-like board game in 30 minutes even with computer assisted dice rolling? Perhaps you are expecting too much?

I think 1-2 hours is the goal.  And yes, I think it is very realistic.  I remember being able to complete RT on-line Monopoly games in 10-15 minutes, and that's a game that normally takes hours to play. The interface took care of everything; money, rent, deed management, calculating income taxes instantly, etc.   Rpll, move buy, roll move buy.. 

With Risk style games, there are similarities.  Computer generated die rolls and troop movements are much much more efficient than the human driven equivalent.  I can attack a stack of 20 with a stack of 30 and move my armies into the losing territory one hundred times faster than it would take in real life - literally.   Add to this the simultaneous order capability that SG and the ME offer, and I see no reason that we shouldn't be able to expect most games on a standard board to come in around an hour or under if the mechanics of the player notification system can be refined.

The way I see it, the only enemy is down-time. 

M57's last comment here is an important point.  I think the basic assumption we have to make about lightning games is that the people who join them want to/are able to think about and make their moves immediately upon notification that it's their turn.  Those that think lightning games give you the luxury to move, work a little bit, grab a bite to eat, move, etc. are more often than not booted and should be disregarded in the discussion.

That being said I think the goal of 1-2 hours can be reached with a creative solution around real-time notification and map refresh rates.  For the notification I"m thinking something like the old-time AOL IM notifications that show up at the bottom of your screen with a little box reading "Lightning game is ready."  Rather than a full pop-out box/window this notification would still be viewable outside the Wargear window and could be customizable for how much time it stays visible.  The Wargear "My Turn" add-on would be good for this and maybe could show a little lightning bolt if it's your turn in any lightning games.

As far as the refresh rates I'm no website designer so wouldn't know how that works exactly but from my view playing a lightning game would just need to refresh after my opponents move was taken.  That in conjunction with the notification system would give a RT feel for the game.  Another option for refresh could be to refresh "real-time" as my opponent makes their moves on the board.  This was more possible on ToS for some reason as you hit "update" and could track your opponents advance.

AttilaTheHun wrote:

M57's last comment here is an important point.  I think the basic assumption we have to make about lightning games is that the people who join them want to/are able to think about and make their moves immediately upon notification that it's their turn.  Those that think lightning games give you the luxury to move, work a little bit, grab a bite to eat, move, etc. are more often than not booted and should be disregarded in the discussion.

 

That being said I think the goal of 1-2 hours can be reached with a creative solution around real-time notification and map refresh rates.  For the notification I"m thinking something like the old-time AOL IM notifications that show up at the bottom of your screen with a little box reading "Lightning game is ready."  Rather than a full pop-out box/window this notification would still be viewable outside the Wargear window and could be customizable for how much time it stays visible.  The Wargear "My Turn" add-on would be good for this and maybe could show a little lightning bolt if it's your turn in any lightning games.

As far as the refresh rates I'm no website designer so wouldn't know how that works exactly but from my view playing a lightning game would just need to refresh after my opponents move was taken.  That in conjunction with the notification system would give a RT feel for the game.  Another option for refresh could be to refresh "real-time" as my opponent makes their moves on the board.  This was more possible on ToS for some reason as you hit "update" and could track your opponents advance.

I'm also not at all savvy in the mechanics of the site and engine so I don't know why the difference but being able to watch the play as it happened by hitting refresh did two things. It showed me the other person is playing and I shouldn't go to the bathroom yet and allowed me to know my next move and I could take it the minute the other person hit done.  I sometimes have to watch the history if I'm not exactly sure everything they did especially on a fog board.

I never have the time to devote to playing lighting timer games, but here is my idea.
Let's have a chess timer.
  This would be a timer where each player is given a fixed amount of time at the beginning of the game, say 30 min, 45 min, 60 minutes, whatever you like.  This will fix the length of the game so you have good idea when you join when it will finish.  Each turn simply subtracts from the allotted time.

Alpha wrote:

I never have the time to devote to playing lighting timer games, but here is my idea.
Let's have a chess timer.
  This would be a timer where each player is given a fixed amount of time at the beginning of the game, say 30 min, 45 min, 60 minutes, whatever you like.  This will fix the length of the game so you have good idea when you join when it will finish.  Each turn simply subtracts from the allotted time.

..interesting idea.  I think I like.

Alpha wrote:

I never have the time to devote to playing lighting timer games, but here is my idea.
Let's have a chess timer.
  This would be a timer where each player is given a fixed amount of time at the beginning of the game, say 30 min, 45 min, 60 minutes, whatever you like.  This will fix the length of the game so you have good idea when you join when it will finish.  Each turn simply subtracts from the allotted time.

Sounds good to me too.  Gosh those chess people are SMART! :)