I like roast beef, I would wait in that line.

I agree to keep it simple. 3x, 5x, ????? Very confusing. If you are planning to go on vacation for more than two weeks, either, finish up your games, or find an internet cafe once a a fortnight on your holiday.

Self-boot... that's so Risky yet brilliant!

I agree - keeping it simple is good. My problem is that, to me, it seems a little ridiculous to get kicked out a game because I'm away from my laptop for the weekend. Fine, skip my turn - that's cool. Kick me out of the game entirely? That rubs me the wrong way. Then again, as has been noted over and over again, boots are nowhere near as catastrophic here as they are on other sites, so maybe that's the balance. Of course, getting into games isn't anywhere near the chore that it is on other sites, either, so that also helps.

The advantage of auto-skipping, at least from my perspective, is it lets people continue to play if something comes up unexpectedly while also not stalling a game. Sometimes something comes up and you don't have time to hit "Vacation Mode", and, when that happens, getting kicked out of every game you were playing is a bit of a bummer. Besides, if somebody gets skipped enough, they'll be effectively "booted" sooner or later anyhow.

OK, I've read this thread a few times... it's a great topic because the game mechanism in question is trying to balance several things, some of which a are opposed to each other:

1. Keep games moving.
2. Not punish people too harshly for temporarily holding up a game.
3. Provide some incentive for Premium Members.
4. Allow for unexpected events like a computer blowing up, hit by a bus, etc.
5. Allow for vacation.
6. Graciously ending 'stuck' games.
7. Keep it simple.
8. Host control of the game?

Let's see if we can lay if out to satisfy the points everyone has made so far in the thread:

Vacation Time: Any and all boot or skip times are suspended when vacation starts and only resume when vacation ends. For an extreme case, if it's not your turn in a 1 hour autoboot game when you go away, and it is when vacation time ends, you still have exactly one hour to take that turn. If it's 59 minutes into your turn on that same game when you start vacation, you would still have exactly 1 minute to take that turn when vacation ends. So #5 is a relatively easy requirement since it basically trumps all the others.

Auto-skip: It seems like this is the key to satisfying the conflicting requirements of keeping the game moving vs. requirements 2 and 3. If the auto-skip could be coded such that any units you get on your turn were randomly placed on your current territories it would be even less of a hit for a temporary absence.

With autoskip a game would never get stuck as long as a single person is still playing. Assuming everyone else got hit by a bus, that one person would eventually win even if everyone else was still getting their bonuses placed each turn.

So for requirement #6, you'd just need to add something along the lines of.. if EVERYONE has skipped their turn for X times in a row, the game is over. Kinda like scrabble =]

If this all worked I can't see a reason to have autoboots, they wouldn't contribute to any other requirement and would negatively impact requirement #7.

Having non automated boots *might* be worthwhile for #8, but maybe not.

#3 Premium Member influence is the tough one. My 2x boot vote idea was stupid and I knew it was stupid when I typed it but I was trying to shoehorn in a benefit for Members. A 2x base auto-skip would only negatively impact #7 and #1, but help with #2, #3 and #4.. so it would seem a more logical choice.

One final thing that might be worth implementing is to make Saturdays and Sundays site-wide vacation days. I notice that WF dies on weekends, it's the type of game that I think most people play during the week while they are supposed to be working (hehe) because it's the type of game you CAN play.

So taking your average Premium Member with a default 1-day autoskip game:

The longest you'd have to wait is if someone is on vacation.
Second longest is 4 days if another premium member's turn stretches over the weekend
Third longest is 2 days when a premium member gets skipped.
Fourth longest is 1 day when a regular member gets skipped.

The harshest penalties you would get:

Worst is if you die, you will eventually lose the game.

Second worst is if you are say, abducted by aliens and can't log in for a month. You would have a lot of turns skipped, some at the 2 day mark and some at the 4 day mark. You would lose any cards you might have gotten. You would still get your bonuses.

Third worst is a temporary lapse, you lose a card and some strategic and tactical positioning.

OK... discuss =]

BTW this would also address Risky's self-boot option while minimizing the impact of a person dropping out to the rest of the players.  You simply stop playing the game.  Maybe an option to 'AI this game' so that:

it drops off your game's list and turn waiting indicator
sets your autoskip time to 0

good summary. i think you've pretty much made everyones suggestions into this concise bit. heres my take

vacation time: you get my vote

auto skip: i like the tweak you made with the auto-skip insinuating boot's place. this replacing boot entirely is (i think) a good thing. you get my vote

self/host booting: this still can do with some tweaking. like Risky said there needs to be an option for the host or player to declare oneself 'done'. this can be handled thusly: if i were to hit the button saying 'AI this game' it sets my auto-skip time to 0 and refuses to place any units; effectively keeping me from impacting anything the same as a boot does now. the only part that now needs to be worked is the timing of the host to be able to do the same. i say if the host notices you being auto-skipped, say 3 times in a row, then host can hit that 'AI this game' button for you.

whatever else is done, there should ultimately an auto-boot (or skip?) eventually. especially if two peope give up on a game (and one of them is the host) you just cant get the game to move on.

IRoll11's - I think you just stumbled, in a roundabout sort of way, into a compelling feature for Premium Members:

Automatic Weekend Vacation Mode

Presumably, if you're the kind of person that's playing this game at work, you're the kind of person that can afford $10 every three months, right? Well, if you are, then here's your chance to make sure you don't drop out of games while you're hanging out with family and friends. If you're a Premium Member, your turn doesn't get skipped at all on Saturday or Sunday. Heck, depending on how complicated it was, you could even implement a "work week ends at Xpm in my time zone on Friday" and a "work week begins at Xam in my time zone" slider, with a maximum break of 72 hours between the two (i.e. enough to cover 5pm in Friday to 8am on Monday).

That's pretty compelling, no? Best of all, it's simple, there's no weird multiplier, and everything still hums along nicely.

As for random placement of armies... *shrug* Personally, I think they should go into reserve, assuming they go anywhere in the first place. Granted, if you're gone for a while, you won't have much on the board, but at least you'll have two or three turns worth of armies sitting in your reserve that you can use to get back into the thick of things. Then, make the reserve a host option instead of a map option - if the host wants to keep things moving, he can set the auto-skip to a low time and set the reserve to a low number (or off!). On the other hand, if the host is feeling nice, they can set a reasonable auto-skip and set the reserve high enough where people can get back in if they've been gone for a while but low enough where the leader can't treat the reserve like a second set of cards or something.

blah blah blah -- too much reading.

All public games: Autoskip at 5 days then 4 days then 3 days then 2 days then 1 day for boot, no options, no adjustments, no weekend considerations, no vacations, no resetting the counter by taking a turn (e.g. use up your 5 and 4 days, then your next absence gets 3 days). Since all public games are reflected in rankings and champ points, there shouldn't be much in the way of allowable tweaks to any rules. That's 2 weeks worth of skips to take a fucking turn and then another free day before you're booted. Too much in my mind, but I'm feeling friendly tonight.

All private games: Who cares. Let people adjust it to whatever they want.

This is you being friendly?

*shudders*

Yes, actually it is.

i'm hoping that's a per game implementation. in any case you'd still have to have self-boot capability (for kindness if nothing else); and a choice of something on private games so we would still have to figure something out for that. plus i'm not thrilled with the idea someone could take 4 days to make every one of their turns.

while your idea definately has some merit (took me quite a while to decide if i liked it or not!), i think it will create the possibility for too much slow play.

i still like a vacation status. that way you can tell and expect that the game is going to be held up for a week. it gives me a warm fuzzy to know that there is a reason that things are being held up. and really, what hot blooded man doesen't like a warm fuzzy?

i still like host choice of auto-skip time, place the units in reserve. host capability to set auto-skip time to 0 at some point.

i still like ability to set auto-skip time to zero anytime i choose in order to surrender/quit.

The one catch I'd have with setting auto-skip to a different value in the middle of the game is that, if I was the host and I was falling behind, I could just alter the auto-skip so the leader lost his turn, then adjust it to a more advantageous level when it came time to take my turn. Though that would certainly add an extra dimension of strategy for the game host, I'm not sure the other players would appreciate it.

I still think abandoning auto-boots in favor of auto-skips would be the most effective method of dealing with absent players. Show me a board where you can afford to skip more than two turns and still have a fighting chance of victory. Alternatively, if only to keep the game moving, I'd also find an auto-boot after three auto-skips in the same game a solid compromise.

For the Cramchackles of the world, I'd even be in favor of implementing a "no vacation time" host option, where you get auto-skipped and potentially auto-booted in a game regardless of what your vacation status is. This might add a more "extreme" scheduling option for those hard-core types that are into such things, especially if somebody combined it with a truly heinous auto-skip level (say, 1 hour). Of course, if that flag is checked, the system would have to notify potential players that it was a "No Vacation" board.

The three things that that would take care of all annoyances due to stalled games:

1. Force host to set auto-skip (max 3 weeks), with 7 days as default. Auto-boot after two consecutive auto-skips or three cumulative auto-skips for the same player.
2. Allow host to set a boot time, after which players can be booted by majority vote.
3. Allow players to leave a game (i.e. "self-boot") at any time, but they incur the same penalty as a player who is auto-booted or booted by majority vote.

That is all.

I think you have to honor Vacation time in some way/form (otherwise what's the point of Vacation).

I don't like the idea of Self-Boot, too much potential for abuse...getting ready to get eliminated? Self-Boot so whoever eliminates you doesn't get your cards. Don't like your starting position? Self-Boot and jack the whole game. Sure there are ways you can make sure this doesn't happen, but then again it goes back to getting complicated, and there's already the option to Surrender (and I like the ability to not allow a Surrender).

Vacation time just gives you an extension on the auto-skip and boot time. And as for the self-boot, as long as it carries a penalty (as all boots should), I don't think people will overly abuse it. But that's another topic for discussion.

Yertle wrote: I think you have to honor Vacation time in some way/form (otherwise what's the point of Vacation).

I don't like the idea of Self-Boot, too much potential for abuse...getting ready to get eliminated? Self-Boot so whoever eliminates you doesn't get your cards. Don't like your starting position? Self-Boot and jack the whole game. Sure there are ways you can make sure this doesn't happen, but then again it goes back to getting complicated, and there's already the option to Surrender (and I like the ability to not allow a Surrender).

I definitely agree with this - self-booting to spite another player who has annoyed you in some way would be too easy and would ruin games. That's why the surrender option with all players having to accept the surrender is important.

The only way I can see this being avoided is if the player self boots their turns get set to Autoskip so it's the exact same as if they just stopped playing. That way noone is given an advantage.

yeah i don't see the need for boots at all, just the ability to set your auto-skip time to 0.

sure Yertle you could set your time to 0 if you didn't like your positioning, or if you're about to be eliminated (for whatever reason - like ending the game that much faster); but i don't see how those would affect anything. you would then just become another neutral in the first case, they still get your cards in the second.

if i want to surrender for whatever reason it shouldn't matter if you want me to or not, i'm not affecting the game (unless in my not continuining to attack someone that screws up someone's plans, but in that case tough titties).

in response to oatworm:
i wasn't proposing the host can alter the auto-skip time or alter it multiple times - just the ability to set it from whatever the inital game invite time was (say 2 days) to zero (a single instance at changing the setting) similar to the host-boot in WF; with none of the bad side-effects (see yertle's concerns).

cute forum title yertle...! ;^P

New tournament type! No turn minimum, but after X amount of accumulated hours you get booted from the game/tournament! (No permanent boot record for this type of tournament).

Really though, there's nothing wrong with setting the vote to boot time, allowing the host to boot at twice that and other players to direct-boot at 3 times that.

You could create a pretty big benefit to premium members that doesn't unbalance the game - if you're a member you auto-skip, if you're a non-member you auto-boot.

VACATION - I don't really care what the boot periods are like as long as I can take vacation, I want to know when I take an extended trip (last time I was hiking for two weeks in the B.C. Mountains) that I won't be booted when I get back, I had to give out my password instead. Sometimes it's hard to finish all the games first (ie. impossible).

Thanks for all the great discussion, it's obviously a topic that's close to everyone's heart! How about this setup which is not too different to what we have now but should help alleviate some of the problems:

Boot times available:

1 day (default setting)
2 days
5 days

Game host can direct boot at 3x boot time
Any player can direct boot at 5x boot time

Premium players get protected only when AutoBoot and AutoSkip are turned on as this is generally going to be a lot more aggressive than player generated boots, they get twice the boot time in this case.

Surrenders - as per current setup, needs to be accepted by all players

Stalled games - if no turns have been taken for 60 days, game is terminated (needs to be a longish time in case of vacations)

Vacation time honored as per current system

What do you guys think? I'm not 100% sure about the AutoSkip part, it would get quite annoying if one player bugged out and you had to keep waiting x days for each of his turns as they were skipped, it would be nice if the skip interval decremented maybe.


ps Love the idea of an accumulated time tourney!