I love Crams suggestions, unfortunatly it seems very confusing. Any time that happens you have people crying and complaning that they didn't understand the rules, regardless of the fact they didn't take the time to read them in the first place.
I am one of those people who rarely gets on the computer on the weekends, as I have two young boys and a pregnant wife, I have accepted the fact that I may get booted during that time. As long as it doesn't affect anything other than my rankings, it isn't a big deal to me. I play for fun not glory, unless I win then its for glory. :-)

Cramchakle wrote:

 

Tough Shit - ...... Live with it.

Don't try to fix something that's not broken! that's my first suggestion.

If you want to start fuckin with the system then you have 4 options:

-10 minute autoskip/boot (lightning rounds)

-1 day autoskip/boot

-3 day autoskip/boot

-7 day autoskip/boot

when joining a game once you click the join button a confirmation "window" with the boot information pops up (you have the ability to turn this option off in the player settings) then you click confirm or cancel.

KrocK wrote:

Cramchakle wrote:

 

 

Tough Shit - ...... Live with it.

Don't try to fix something that's not broken! that's my first suggestion.

If you want to start fuckin with the system then you have 4 options:

-10 minute autoskip/boot (lightning rounds)

-1 day autoskip/boot

-3 day autoskip/boot

-7 day autoskip/boot

when joining a game once you click the join button a confirmation "window" with the boot information pops up (you have the ability to turn this option off in the player settings) then you click confirm or cancel.

Way to say everything I did in 20 words or less...

KrocK wrote:

when joining a game once you click the join button a confirmation "window" with the boot information pops up (you have the ability to turn this option off in the player settings) then you click confirm or cancel.

I like this idea a LOT.

Cramchakle wrote:

KrocK wrote:

Don't try to fix something that's not broken! that's my first suggestion.

If you want to start fuckin with the system then you have 4 options:

-10 minute autoskip/boot (lightning rounds)

-1 day autoskip/boot

-3 day autoskip/boot

-7 day autoskip/boot

when joining a game once you click the join button a confirmation "window" with the boot information pops up (you have the ability to turn this option off in the player settings) then you click confirm or cancel.

Way to say everything I did in 20 words or less...

I am fine with this.... the only one I'm not sure about is the 1 day setting, seems from past feedback that it will result in lots of people being unhappily booted.

I think that the 5 day games really do drag on, and the 1 day games can skip you even if you do log in once a day. I find 2 days is pretty good. I am yet to join a lightning game, because I can see that there is a 90% chance that I will have to leave before the game is over, as all those 15 min turns really begin to add up. Not sure what to do about the weekend issue. I know I'm gonna run out of vacation time rather quickly, and since I'm on the other side of the world, I end up wasting an extra day of vacation time to cover a weekend.

I think the current system is working pretty well and no matter what you do, it will not suit everyone.  I also think the simpler the system is, the better.  Maybe it is easier to just give people a little extra vacation time to let them cover their weekends away?  (6 weeks instead of 4?)

P.S.  Are people really serious about a 7 day boot time?  One month per round for a 4 player game!

I like adding one more time frame option, say 5 or 7 days. I have friends that just won't play unless they have a week to think about it or whatever?

Perhaps with a start up situation you need to keep option list short. Ideally, I like 1 day, 2 days and 1 week. However, that's just the friends I play with and their preferences. Personally I average about 2 hrs a turn and find 24 hrs more than enough.

Have you taken a vote on time frames people want. Or looked at turn times with Warfish--maybe that's not applicable here?

Way out in the future when time permits I like speed chess with a total time allowable per player. I don't know if it is even feasible but it puts a time limit on the game and forces each player to focus on quick moves to save time for the hard and decisive moves.

No more pop ups!!! I know to look at the Boot time, and if people get booted, they will learn to look at the Boot time too. It's even very simple to see right now, either the lightning symbol is there or it's not, 15 minutes or 2 days. If did add an extended time, I'd say keep the 2 day and just add a 5 day.

I agree with Yertle. I understand that the player base needs to be expanded, but if people get pissed because they get booted once because they didn't look at what kind of game it was, they probably won't be sticking around for long anyways. No pop ups!

Thinking some more about the boot time issue, I have arrived at the following opinion:

Lightning: 10 minutes.
Short: 2 days.
Long: 5 days.

- 15 minutes I think just drags on too long, and if you can't make your move in 10 minutes, will 15 minutes help you at all?

- 1 day simply doesn't deliver what it says, and if you are in a 2 day game, then you really need to log in once a day to keep it covered.

- 5 day games should address the problems for the "weekend away crowd", and if you don't want to wait a week for a move, then simply don't join the 5 day game.

5 day games shouldn't mean everyone will take 5 days to take their turn! I take my turns every day but 1 in 3 week-ends I'm a part of the week-end away crowd. I'd be happy enough with 2 day games if it was 2 "business" day games.

I think I mentioned this before, but you could eliminate the need for a 5-day option if weekends were made non-bootable non-skippable time, for everybody. Andernut apparently agrees =]

IRoll11s wrote: I think I mentioned this before, but you could eliminate the need for a 5-day option if weekends were made non-bootable non-skippable time, for everybody. Andernut apparently agrees =]

Bleh, then you get what's a weekend, what about holidays, what's a holiday and the list just goes on and on.  Some people play more on the weekends and may want people to get booted on the weekend so the game moves on when they can play.

That's only three questions though.

A weekend is Saturday and Sunday. That's a fairly standard universal definition. Holidays are what vacation time is for. We don't need to define holidays since that's what vacation time is for.

I'd be happy to answer your 'list goes on and on' questions too, if you in fact have any ;]

Your other objection though is valid, I guess we'd have to do some sort of polling to find out just what kind of weekday vs. weekend player percentages the site has.

Having read through all these posts, I'm just not seeing the need or wisdom in defining automatic boot times.   No matter what turn-time modality (lightening, 2 day, week, etc) you're playing within, there are going to be reasons why competent, well-intentioned players cannot consistently meet rigid turn-times.   These games can last weeks and months.   That's too long of a period for people to be able to guarantee at the time they join that they wont encounter higher priority distractions.  To require people to have to always anticipate and set vacation mode in advance before they're allowed to deviate a second from some arbitrary turn-time is not only impractical but a bit silly. 

Why impose a rigid system that will more often negatively affect otherwise good games for the sake of avoiding the problems caused by a relative few.  More importantly, this discussion ought to be demonstrating that it's very difficult, perhaps impossible, to craft an algorithm that works for everyone.  

As I see it, the goal of defining turn-times should be to match players of similar enthusiasm and availability and to provide a mechanism that can be used in the exceptional case where a game cannot proceed because of another player's inability or unwillingness to play.  As long as the means exist for the active players to boot those who've disappeared or are regularly abusing the expected turn-time, then I believe most people are quite capable of understanding and coping with occassional delays in play.

For the zealots (and I think "I are one"), I can't understand why a real competitor would want to win by auto-boot.   If you're one who doesn't have the means to tolerate or communicate with another player whose late for some reason, then you probably need to get a bit more perspective in your life or restrict your games to the relative few of similar mindset.

I suspect that this forum is probably skewed towards people who are more zealous than the average player.   And the extent of the current booting issues are probably also skewed for the worst right now because of a high percentage of new players joining with an experimental mindset.  Once things are humming, I think you'll find that most people are taking their turns as expected and most are tolerate of an ocassional late turn.  So, I'd advise against over-thinking things at this point and lean towards  the KISS approach.

Lightening games are a whole different beast and shouldn't be lumped into this discussion.   I love playing games where everyone seems to be present and immediately taking their turns, but risk isn't a time-based game and there are no guarantees that even a brisk game will complete in the time available to all.

In conclusion, I think you're on the right track trying to identify 2-4 classes of playing availability/style.  I'd recommend allowing people to classify their game (and themselves) using those classes, and have optional filters to help people find the right game for them, but once the game has started, let the people playing work out what to do with those who exceed the expectations for that class.   They can do a better job of adjusting to life's unpredictabilities than an algorithm and if  they decide they don't care at the point someone is late, why should the game? I think you've already got a good model in this in Warfish's approach of requiring a unanimous boot when the turn-time is first exceeded, but allow a single player to boot once it exceeds "x" times or x plus the boot time.  (For example, 3x or two weeks past boot time, whichever comes first).  That'd allow those playing the ability to send a courtesy nudge which has the added benefit of treating wargear players with respect ... instead of automatically presuming that they're inconsiderate, unworthy players who deserve to have their days or week's investment of time wasted for the audacity of being late without first having filed in advance all the appropriate "request for delay" paperwork...   If someone get's booted at this point, they really can't complain.  

As a software and web-site designer, I understand the challenges of trying to arrive at a solution that pleases everyone and I appreciate the time you've taken to read all this.