Certainly it has been blogged...

  That a start clock timer would be so cool.

  Everyone could then have better attendance!

This is an interesting idea.  I'm trying to think of how it might work best.

I'm assuming it could be added to a lightning or fisher clock fields.  The idea is that you wouldn't have to wait around for opponents.

• Creator chooses the time that the game will begin (it would need to be converted to the appropriate time zone for each player).
• Any Player (including the creator??) can leave the game up to x hours before it starts (determined by Creator).
• Players must join the game the same x hours before is starts.  This gives players confidence that the game will in fact be played.
• If the game doesn't fill by the above defined pre-start time, it is cancelled.

This could potentially work well for games with 3+ players.

Yes.  You're quite on to it!

A good idea kava.

How about lightning games that are only active during certain times.  Like for example from 9-10pm at night everyone gets 10minutes to go, but then the rest of the day there are no boots. 

Ozyman wrote:

How about lightning games that are only active during certain times.  Like for example from 9-10pm at night everyone gets 10minutes to go, but then the rest of the day there are no boots. 

A while back I thought of the idea of lightning/fisher games that could be 'converted' to a standard 1,, or 3 day clock at the discretion of all players.  I thought it would be too complicated to make it so that the lightning could 'resume'

So the question with your idea O is, would it convert back to lightning every night at 9?  On the one hand, I like it, but on the other it seems a bit restrictive and inflexible. 

>So the question with your idea O is, would it convert back to lightning every night at 9?

That's my thought, although of course it wouldn't have to be at 9pm.  The time the game would be 'active' would be configurable.

Ozyman wrote:

>So the question with your idea O is, would it convert back to lightning every night at 9?

That's my thought, although of course it wouldn't have to be at 9pm.  The time the game would be 'active' would be configurable.

Configurable at the time of creation or configurable during the game??  I guess what I'm saying is, it sounds quite convoluted to make a game "schedule" that most players would be able to reasonably adhere to.

And were all in different timezones...

ratsy wrote:

And were all in different timezones...

• Creator chooses the time that the game will begin (it would need to be converted to the appropriate time zone for each player).

presumably many people who might take advantage of such a feature would be in proximate time zones.

Another method for starting games that I saw in a different online game that I used to play is to have a minimum number of players, a maximum number of players, and a delay time. So for example: 3 minimum, 6 maximum, 20 minute delay time. As soon as the 3rd person joins the game it starts the delay timer. During those 20 minutes another 1 or 2 players can join. Whether they do or not the game starts after the delay time runs out.

This might make people more willing to join larger lightning games since once the minimum is met, the game is guaranteed to start.

In the other game the map was generated dynamically, so players could still join for the first couple turns as well, but that obviously wouldn't work here.

Oh, another feature that game had that I enjoyed is the option to set games with daily turns to not update on the weekends.

Korrun wrote:

Oh, another feature that game had that I enjoyed is the option to set games with daily turns to not update on the weekends.

 

I think at one point a similar timer was discussed here (before we had a 1 day and 3 day timer).   Something like a  'weekends off" box on 1 and 2 day timers.  Arguments against included things like how to reconcile time-zone differences and that it would be too complicated if I'm not mistaken.

Thingol wrote: A good idea kava.

+1

Korrun wrote:

Another method for starting games that I saw in a different online game that I used to play is to have a minimum number of players, a maximum number of players, and a delay time. So for example: 3 minimum, 6 maximum, 20 minute delay time. As soon as the 3rd person joins the game it starts the delay timer. During those 20 minutes another 1 or 2 players can join. Whether they do or not the game starts after the delay time runs out.

This is cool.

Thanks for your many kind replies & ideas about a fair start time.

Seems unfair to change the length once the game in afoot.  This would be to benefit mostly realtime games, and if one wanted daily- plenty of them to join.

As an example to how poorly the sys is now- my Game Name of Sunday 3pm CT was hijacked before 1pm CT - I'm booted before I ever got back to WG two hours before start time.  This also happened last night- same scenario.

The sign up of X amount of players, X date & time, extra players that want in when someone screws up  & doesn't get to the start, may be a workable concept.

Let's keep an idea package rolling here, that we have a good "something" to put in place, as possible.

Just as a repost of Nerd's concepts...

This is an interesting idea.  I'm trying to think of how it might work best.

I'm assuming it could be added to a lightning or fisher clock fields.  The idea is that you wouldn't have to wait around for opponents.

• Creator chooses the time that the game will begin (it would need to be converted to the appropriate time zone for each player).
• Any Player (including the creator??) can leave the game up to x hours before it starts (determined by Creator).
• Players must join the game the same x hours before is starts.  This gives players confidence that the game will in fact be played.
• If the game doesn't fill by the above defined pre-start time, it is cancelled.

This could potentially work well for games with 3+ players.

Could we incorporate & refine some of these ideas?

Could some of these ideas come into fruition?