IMO - there should be some penalty for boots - more than currently, but I agree I think having a way to keep players with boots out of games will do more harm then good.

>a rolling average of turn timer would be better indicator (average turn timer for the last 7 days < 24 or something of that nature).

yeah, something like that is better than my suggestions.

I still like the idea of using the fisher clock in non-lightning type games.  That's something I would use all the time, because I generally take turns every day, but on occasion need 2 or 3 days to get to a game when life gets busy, so I rarely join 1-day games.

I had never really thought of it before, but, after reading through this thread I tend to think that if we had an hour based fisher system with boot restrictions then I think it could be set up in such a way that we might not need to be too concerned about the "unintentional" boot as has been expressed in a few of the earlier posts.  For instance, it could simply keep track of boots for this new type of game ONLY when considering the boot restriction.  If the game is say a 16 hour starting clock and tacks on 12 hours each round to a maximum of 48 hours then I think it would be reasonable to expect that there should be no "unintentional" boots as were being described previously, plus, with it being a completely flexible fisher based clock it could be programmed in all sorts of ways to accompany all sorts of life situations that one might need it to cater for and then players should enter knowing fair well what they are getting them self into.  It's not really like a lightning game where one might have a household emergency that takes them off the computer long enough to be dropped.  Surely with 12 hours added on to whatever one's running total is they should find the time to get back to their game in time, or else they should have picked a longer clock?  So, by just tracking boots for 12+hour fisher type of game when considering boot restrictions and then giving a player who allows themselves to get booted from such a game a restriction from entering this same type of game for the next two weeks, or a month, or whatever period were determined to be sufficient for discouraging getting intentionally booted from such, then I get a basic concept of how such could work and be fair to all involved.

To reiterate, getting booted from lightening games and standard 1d/2d/3d clock games would NOT count against entering this new style of games.  They would only be regulated by boots committed in this type alone and such boots would only cost someone from being able to play in 12+hour fisher clock games.  I think that that largely addresses the "unintentional" boot situation stated above.  It's an enter at your own peril situation.  The exact equation could be tweaked, of course, Ozy had some suggestions for that above, but, even if we wanted to keep it to boots to keep that type of player honest, it could be like baseball and three strikes you're out and keep a rolling boot average of three over two months, or something like that?  That would even allow for a couple of unintentional  boots withing this game style.

To stop a player from defeating the purpose by joining 100 12+hour fisher games and then getting booted from all of them, it might also be considered to limit how many 12+ hour fisher games can be joined at any one time which could be a flat rate, or adjustable according to one's boot history within this style of game.  For instance, It could be something like a flat rate of 5, or, something like 3 to start and then +1 for every 12+hour fisher that you complete and -5(to a minimum of 3 games ceiling) for every previous boot in this style of game. In that way reliable premium players would quickly be able to play as many of this style as they want and players with bad boot habits would quickly impose themself to a ceiling of three games every time their boot restriction came clean again.

The only problem would be if this type of game setting became the staple such that if everyone only played such, then those players who get booted all the time would have no more games to enter anymore.

On top of restricting the numbers that could be joined as described above, a better way to avoid such a style becoming the mainstay and potentially excluding others would be to add another restriction which would further correspond with the niche that I see this type of game filling.  Since it seems we're trying to make these games flow at a constant and reasonable speed without players intentionally letting them self get booted, then shouldn't such games also be made to be "holiday" exempt such that the same jerk who used to annoy you by getting booted once they got on the losing side of things and dragging your game out for 6 days as they did it, isn't just now putting you on a two-week holiday before they surrender.  By doing so these games would fill a specific niche and would offer something that day timers don't in that they would play steadily to their completion without delays, but, would not provide the security of being able to put on your holiday timer.  It would be the responsibility of the player to join the correct starting hours + hours added to their turn each round in order to build up enough hours to do whatever they have on their calendar without getting booted.

By exempting holiday time for 12+ hour fisher clock I think that that could create an interesting type of game between lightening and day timers where the pros and cons of each would keep all styles being played. Lightening for fast, 12+hour fisher for steady play of those who know they come around frequently, or at least frequently enough over a certain time frame to build up a cushion for when they need to make use of the time they built up, and 1d/2d/3d with the use of holiday, need be, for the more relaxed, meandering style of play or, for people who want to play steadily (and hopefully like minded individuals will join), but, with the added security of knowing they want to be able to put their holiday timer on, need be.  I think that by creating pros and cons for each then that might prevent one from becoming a staple over another and keep all play styles active in the new games to join?  Yes/No?

So as not to hijack this thread, I've created a new one with a proposed new feature (Voluntary Skip) and a proposed modification to Surrender, both of which were spurred on from this discussion, in case anyone would like to read and comment.
http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/3873p1

berick, i'd be ok with all but the no vacation. some of these games (even with good players) can take a while. because i know i'm going on a trip where i may not get a daily turn in two weeks, i'm already not joining new games. but if i couldn't take vacation day i'd have to not join this type of a game style for up to a month prior to vacation

I can't imagine not being able to find internet access for two weeks.  Even if I were on safari if I walk around with my phone eventually I find a bar, even if I have to stand on top of a Land Rover to get it and then sit up there with my laptop to take a turn.  When I went to Ethiopia for a week, however, their sim card wasn't working to give my phone internet so I did have to use the cyber cafe there.  Once I was doing a zebra census and our home base was a town in the far north of kenya.  There was a 3m strip on the main road where one could get network because of a tower somewhere that got direct line of site between two mountains.  The people with mobiles in that town would line up to stand in that 3m strip to make calls, including myself.  I used to play Conquer Club and luckily that one I could play from my phone (WarGear doesn't like my phone, though, it's ok with my wife's phone?) because when I climbed Mount Kenya I had no network till I got to the peak and then played a few turns with my shaky freezing hands.  I probably hold the Guiness book of records for Risk played at the highest altitude! ;-)

To the point at hand however, lets say someone knew they were taking a one week holiday in a month and wanted to use this sort of game timer.  With a fisher clock set to 24 hours to start, 12 hours added each round minus the time it took to play, to a maximum of seven days, then, if a player was taking their turns really quickly over the month prior, by the time their vacation came around they will have built up 7 days, but, to do that they played really quickly up till then.  So, by this type of game, you'd have to "earn" your vacation days through quick play to build up what you needed.  Meanwhile, on holiday, you could play from a cyber, could get a local sim and play from your phone or tablet, or use an airport's wifi with your laptop on the way to and from or a hotel's wifi while you were there, and by doing so, you could tack on another few 12 hour chunks to your timer to increase your cushion.  Or, since you're on holiday, you could use it as an excuse to meet a local!  Find someone using unlimited internet and convince them to do adhoc internet sharing or install a virtual router to create a hotspot!  After you finish your turns you can pick the local's brain as to the secret gems (sights or restaurants) of where you are, and then they can help you to bookmark and cut/paste save anything relevant from the internet to your laptop while you're linked to their modem. Something like that?

except my holiday will be deep in the timber and part of the fun is that I don't use the internet for more than a week! very good break (and usually the only one i take from wargear)

When you say "deep in the timber" does that mean that there is absolutely no network, or, just that you'd prefer not to use it even if it could be found?  I come from Canada, originally, and, with my father being a doctor it's pretty important he be reachable and got a mobile phone way back when they were big and chunky for that very reason. He came home once with a semi-funny story of his phone ringing when he went up into the hills for some lake fishing and he having to tip-toe in his canoe with the phone held at arms width so as to hear and be heard in the call, and nearly tipping the boat to take it.  A baby was on the way into the world, so, he had to rush back to work!  Then, there is another story I heard about a group of scientists in the Tana river national reserve in Kenya being chased by the locals because of fears that the reports the scientists made would risk their livelihood.  One of the scientist, who is a friend of mine, showed me a newspaper article reporting that she had to climb a tree to escape their attackers and to find network so as to call the authorities to their aid! ;-)

Anyway, enough bush stories, the point I was making is that if you wanted to tailor a 12+ hour fisher for your case then you'd choose a max 9 day timer to earn 9 days leeway (though I did not intend 12+hour fishers to be used that way) or else just not enter any such games preceding your vacation.  You're actually proving my point of why I suggested no vacation.  In your case, prior to taking your vacation, you'd ideally be looking for day timers to utilize your need for vacation time and thus keeping day timers as an important type of game to have around as well.  I want to keep day timers alive so that players who tend to drop are not boxed out of playing by the fact that most people could turn to 12+ hour fishers that block repeat booted players.  If we extended holiday to 12+hour fishers then since they could be so easily programmed to everyone's need then no one would really need day timers anymore and whatever boot restriction were placed against 12+ hour fishers would quickly seem unreasonable!  So, you have to give up something to get something and pick the right kind of games to play at the right time!  You would not join 3 lightning games when you're out the door to make a doctors appointment half an hour away, and, you'd not join a bunch of 12+hour fisher with no vacation time when you'd be going on a vacation next week!  They'd fill a niche and although they are flexible and could be programmed around some circumstances they are not supposed to fill, like extended top times to work around a short planned vacation, that would not really be the point of them anyways.  Used correctly, 12+ hour fishers with boot penalties and no holiday could create circumstances where games that typically take two months with day timers and vacation could now play out in two weeks and games that were previously spoiled by casual players being booted, or, by spiteful people letting themselves be booted would become less commonplace.  So, a niche so that you could enjoy quicker games with less boots, but, you'd need to join them taking into consideration their restrictions as well, much as you might for lightning games.

I hope that I've gotten the concept across clearly, though, I tend to be a bit wordy!  Also, I'm just trying to create a way to fulfill the request of the op while not alienating any existing or future players.  It's just a brain exercise on how to create a game type that j-bomb is looking for while also trying to keep it equitable to all players no matter how they choose to play the game. Since lightning and day timers fill certain niche, I have tried to create a new niche between the two, but, that hopefully would not displace either of the other completely.  The no vacation thing achieves two things. 1) it maintains the spirit of 12+ hour fishers playing quickly and seamlessly, and 2) it maintains a niche that only day timers can fulfill and thus keeps them relevant as a game style.  I'd be happy to hear of any other ways you might tackle this problem?

berickf wrote:

the point I was making is that if you wanted to tailor a 12+ hour fisher for your case then you'd ... just not enter any such games preceding your vacation.  ... You would not join 3 lightning games when you're out the door to make a doctors appointment half an hour away, and, you'd not join a bunch of 12+hour fisher with no vacation time when you'd be going on a vacation next week!  

go back and re-read post#24...knowing of upcoming vaca, i'd have to refrain from joining this style for close to a month prior to guarantee the game ends before vaca starts. 

weathertop wrote:

berickf wrote:

the point I was making is that if you wanted to tailor a 12+ hour fisher for your case then you'd ... just not enter any such games preceding your vacation.  ... You would not join 3 lightning games when you're out the door to make a doctors appointment half an hour away, and, you'd not join a bunch of 12+hour fisher with no vacation time when you'd be going on a vacation next week!  

go back and re-read post#24...knowing of upcoming vaca, i'd have to refrain from joining this style for close to a month prior to guarantee the game ends before vaca starts. 

It would depend on the board, the number of players in the game and the fisher clock settings.  Also, that's great that there would be times when people couldn't join these types of games because then it'd keep day timers active as an alternative play style that you could freely join without consequence as your vacation approached knowing that you could stall those games for the duration of your vacation when the time came.  I imagine many games, for instance most on Wargear Warfare and other less dense maps (territory wise), could be completed in less then 2 weeks with the right fisher clock settings?  After such a fisher game type were up and running then perhaps some statistics could be put on the board description pages for average game duration for some common initial hours, + hours added  settings so people could more predictably join games that would give them an adequate cushion of time to complete before their intended internet free vacation started? 

The point still stands however, if you extended vacation to these types of fisher games then what niche would day timers still have that would keep people playing them?  If day timers died via being replaced by 12+ hour fishers then boot restrictions for fisher clocks would begin to seem exceedingly unfair if most players never played the alternative day timers.  So, my solution was to create niche play such that day timers would still have their place in the sun which is exactly what this discussion is highlighting.  2 weeks to a month prior to your internet free vacation you would need to join day timers, and that is good!  This same vacation restriction also conveniently played into the niche that 12+ hour fishers were trying to accomplish, this being a quick playing free flowing game that played without interruption to completion.  In fact, and you'll have to let me know if this is a true threat or not as I'm not all that familiar with vacation time, but, couldn't vacation be used to sabotage 12+hour fisher clocks by using ones vacation to retain your own time while then taking your turn right after the player following you logs off to go to sleep thus running their clock down in an unfair manner?  The whole point of a fisher system is that the clock is always ticking and by making such vacation free (such that the clock can't be stopped) then people could more accurately predict when their turn will come again because everyone is under the same incentive to play as quickly as they can and players wouldn't be able to delay their own play without consequence and to the detriment of others. 

If you don't like the niche as I have created it, however, and want 12+ hour fishers to be vacation eligible, then, what other way would you propose to give a benefit to day timers to offset and create a separate niche to set them apart from the flexibility of 12+ hour fishers?  If all we are doing is killing the day timer via flexible fisher timers that also duplicate all the advantages of day timers, then...  Anyway, you have to give to get, yes?

Fine with me if 1-day games die out in favor of more flexible 1ish day fisher clocks.

A big advantage of the turn timers as we currently use them is that they are really simple, easy to understand and easy to display. 

Whatever you guys choose to put forward, you should try to maintain the simplicity as much as possible.  So everyone can just see and understand what timer the game is using.

Ozyman wrote:

Fine with me if 1-day games die out in favor of more flexible 1ish day fisher clocks.

Here is the conundrum I see with that though...

The op was looking for boot restrictions, which is what I was trying to accomplish with the proposed model, but, I don't think that Tom would want to put boot restrictions if everyone was playing only games with boot restrictions and thus discriminating against a few very casual players who tend to miss turns unintentionally while also blocking those notorious poor-sports who intentionally boot in a poor spirit of play.  So, by default, if you want to have one type of game that does indeed have boot restrictions then you still must maintain the other style of game that does not, so that no player is entirely alienated from playing.  To accomplish this you either allow 12+ hour fishers to completely replace day-timers at which point boot penalties cannot be implemented and you don't accomplish the goal of the op.  If we are to tinker with the idea of having boot penalties as desired by the op, however, then day timers must be maintained so that there are always games for those who are in the penalty box for too many boots so that they have other games that they could play and that other players are still playing them as well.  So, I don't think we can achieve the objectives of the op if day-timers are allowed to "die out"?  Plus, diluted 12+hour fishers with vacation and without boot restrictions really wouldn't be that big of an improvement over day timers anyways.  In fact, without boot restrictions keeping players honest, then I imagine those games would become even worse because poor-sports would just let themselves be booted without consequence.  They'd be booted more quickly, sure, but if it poorly effected the game dynamics there everyone else would just have to be damned by the boot!  Since the turns would pass quicker I tend to like the idea of having boot penalties to keep people committed to taking them.

Also, the more I have thought about it, the more I have come to realize that the intention of fisher clocks is that they are always ticking down, without reprieve, so that people can plan themselves around the inevitable clicking down of the clock.  Thus, vacation would be against the concept and could also possibly be used to "cheat" the system by delaying one's own playing time without penalty at the expense of the player following them.  With fisher, when you are on the clock, you are supposed to be ON the clock.  So, even without considering that vacation allows players to deviate from the design of having quick playing games that play out without undue delay, and also does not encourage the continued existence of day timers as fishers with vacation would do everything and more, I still have a difficult time digesting it being used with fisher clocks where the entire point of fisher is to put a player on a clock and to maintain the integrity of a restricted yet doable play time whereby there is always a consequence to eating into your principal play time and an incentive to playing quickly!