Mousetrap: Did you not read Fencers Blog lol .......................go look now

MadMonkey: How did you do that?

coan.net:

Vikings:

Bernice:

Snoopy: welcome.........it is your fault, and there is noway it isnt....we all have been told at different time.s...why I have even been told....."go to another site", you arent wanted ROFL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHGAHA

joshi tm: I did it once, but you can easily find out how many are active.

Go to Players List

Sort by last action

Then just start going back pages at a time and you can roughly figure out how many have been on in the last week - the last month - etc....

Totaal aantal spelers: 66666, waarvan op dit moment aanwezig: 120 // Number of players: 66666 , online 120

Congratulations for having another milestone reached! But how many of these accounts are active?

Hrqls: thanks everyone for all your suggestions I have tried them all and still no luck, no smileys for me :( also just noticed that I no longer have the rich text editor for the message box)

Snoopy: please could you try to clear your browser cache ?
also try to press ctrl-F5 which might help when graphics arent loading

beach: HI.mine are the same way no smileys in blank box also that dragon dont go across the top as it used too.i am using the same IE 7 as you too

beach: See if you have any windows updates.. usually tools to win updates.. or you can check to see if your java needs updated.. not sure what system you are running or what other online gaming you do.. I don't mind helping you with your internet option settings.. it is under the Tool Menu as well..

Can someone help me my smileys haven't worked since last Thursday, when I click on them just a blank box opens up, I am using IE7,

Roberto Silva: Yes, that is why Byes are often seeded in Tournaments, the higher rated seed normally go through

As in football, the Top Teams normally do not have to qualify, Golf, the Masters, Top seeds do not have to qualify, it is common place in the world of Sport Competitions.

On BrainKing i do not think seeding (even done by BKR) is fair though, and it probably would have to be just Random, but at least EVERYONE gets to play.

Anyway, if i dont make it a Private Tournament, i will give up on the idea & will award the Prizes elsewhere. People here are all to happy to look backwards, not forwards

Its such a shame, i have just been asked by someone that if they get a life membership, could we use the 10,000 BKR points as Prizes and Memberships.

Well, we know the answer to that now....do not bother

MadMonkey: I think your idea would be unfair because some players would have to win more matches to qualify for the Final Elimination while others would qualify by winning shorter tournaments.

I like rabbitoid's idea though.

rabbitoid: Yes, a good idea OR set it for 128, and if we do not get enough start a 64 one, a 32 one, a 16 one, a 8 one one etc..etc.. until all the players were used up. Then all them winners could play each other in a Final Elimination (which would be the same as having Byes, but a lot more work).

Either way the code would still have to be written, and if doing that why not do a proper job and write a couple of lines of code so that everyone could play, everyone would be happy (well, the BrainKing players would)

Its a system that is used world wide in nearly all sporting Tournaments.

Question: Does someone hold something together with a piece of tape, or use a nut & bolt and do it right (well , i know what i mean)

rabbitoid: That's a good idea.

Fencer: Counter proposal:
Set an open ended elimination tournament, with a fixed starting date. On the starting date, all players which are above the 8, 16, 32... limit, in the order of their subscription, are chopped off. So that it's a first come - first play tournament

As MadMonkey rightly points out, trying to guess in advance if you can interest 32 or 64 or 128 people in your tournament is impossible.

Czuch:

Czuch: 100% agree

I know i put forward a lot of Feature Requests, but thinking about it, most the things would of been found out given a proper testing period before releasing to the site & therefore would not have to be mentioned and looked at is if it was just nit picking

Czuch:

coan.net: I have a whole fellowship (IE paying members), dedicated to multi player games, full of people waiting for that one too!

Fencer,I dont think anyone will disagree that you have a great site here, and that you certainly are more responsive to our wants and needs than any other site owner.... having said that, my opinion is that people would prefer quality over quantity, and you have provided many new innovations when the old ones are not yet perfected.

For example, you rating system is adequate, but it is not state of the art, and there is no reason for the best turn based game site on the web to not have the best possible ratings sytems.

You wasted a lot of time begrudgingly implementing an auto pass type of system that people do not find adequate or meeting our requirements, and you get nothing but greif for your efforts.

You gave us ponds to alleviate our craving for multi player type of games, but I dont remember one update made to the format that has been requested, IE more control in the number of players or other variables like the amount of the bonus etc

I understand there is a lot to do and a lot of requests and you really can never please everyone. But you have only added to the amount of requests and complaints by adding and adding before perfecting.

Like I said before.... the best gamesite on the web should have the best of everything, not the most

Fencer: Something from you I would be supplying the Prize

If you mean, using Byes, i am surprised it was not introduced when you brought in Elimination Tournaments as they are part of it.

There is certainly no point in trying to create a large one on BrainKing, as once you get to one milestone, say 65 players, you then need to find another 63 or you get to 127 and can not find one more to get your 128, the Tournament can not start and will be deleted.

Having Byes would at least let those who enter play.

I do not call that wanting, i call it common sense, letting those who want to play.......PLAY

Fencer: I want BrainWar

MadMonkey: And you probably think that you are the only one who wants something from me, right?

Czuch: Someone else just asked me why i bother as well

I am starting to wonder myself now. I was just trying to bring some happiness to others, though that does not seem to be allowed here anymore

MadMonkey: Why bother when all of the real money is in a brainface type of website?

Fencer: So it will have to be 32 or 64 ?

Thats sad, sorry everyone who misses out, i tried

MadMonkey: Absolutely not.

Fencer, have you had chance working on using in Byes in Elimination Tournaments that do not get the required amount of players yet ?

Once the current Madhouse PRIZE Tournaments starts, i want to release another PRIZE one.

This time though i would like to do an Elimination one using between 10 and 20(who knows) BrainKing games, and those who take part MUST play in every game.
I will give points to how far a Player gets in each one, then total them up, and the Winner will be the one with the most points overall. In the event of a draw, i will set another Private Tournament up for those involved.

If we had Byes, then no one would have to miss out. Of course i could just say first come first served, but would like for everyone to have a chance

Snoopy: they have stopped working for me too since yesterday, when you click on smiles I just get a blank white box

Vikings: oh, ok. Surely page numbers would be better

MadMonkey: they are there, you have to click on the 20th photo to enlarge it and then hit next to see any further, I'd suggest you start a 2nd photo album

When viewing a Photo Album LIKE HERE , what happens to the Photos when you get past 20 ?

I have 23, but how do you get to them ?

Snoopy: did you click on Change smileys?
make sure you have it set for mouse click.

Snoopy: my "white box" as you call is has all hte icons dancing, bouncing etc.......do a refresh, might help

they worked perfectly for me

Czuch:  I have to confess I know nothing about ponds or how the BKR system works there.  I know that in backgammon large ratings swings are possible, though 500 points would be extreme.

alanback: yeah, it doesnt really matter much anyway, except maybe you can tell me how, when I time out in a pond in the first round, and then a year later I have my rating calculated and I go from 2400 to 1900, that really is a measure of my ability?

Obviously if you want to measure my true ability in pond games, then I am a lot closer to 2400 than to 1900....

Dont misunderstand me, I fully realize that I messed up in a big pond, and my rating will reflect that, but why does it have to wait until the whole pond is finished? I should have gotten that 1900 rating a year ago and moved on from it, instead, I spend a year building my BKR in other smaller games, only for waste. It just doesnt make any sense to me

Czuch:  I think you have overlooked the fact that the purpose of the ratings system is to measure your ability, not to allow you to manage your rating.

AbigailII: Wouldn't 1800 make more sense than using 2200 in this particular case?


Not really, since the only way someone would have such a bkr drop is if they had timed out on a bunch of games or something strange like that. I would think it would be more fair to take their "true" ranking, not the one they got from a bunch of timer outs?


Anyway, any comments on doing a pond bkr straight away after a person has actually fallen and therefore technically already lost the game? Why wait for the whole pond to finish, especially like the one I mentioned, where I could have finished another 50 or 100 ponds since I fell in that one and the time it actually finished?

"Splash, you fell in the pond. Old BKR 2315 new BKR 2245."

Instead of... ""your pond is finished 1 year after you fell, your BKR when you splashed was 2315, your BKR now is 2600, your new BKR 1950"!

Czuch: Why would using the BKR at game start make more sense than the BKR at game end? As for a counter example, take a game with a 30 day move limit. At the start, my opponent has a rating of 2200. 4 weeks later, when he makes his first move, his rating has dropped to 1800. After his first move, the game is finished in a few hours. Wouldn't 1800 make more sense than using 2200 in this particular case?

The problem is that whatever BKR you use, there will always be an example that can be constructed that shows the choice was bad. Ratings will chance over time, and games here take a long time. There's no way around it. The only answer is to not take ratings too seriously.

scottsan: click on the link to one of your started games on your main page.

alanback: Well, using the example of a tournament, if I want to play in a tournament with all people who have a similar BKR as myself, maybe because the game has a high luck value, so I make it for only people with a BKR over 2200, then the game goes on for a year and some guy beats me but they now have a 1800 BKR, does that make sense to use their 1800 BKR instead of the one we both started with?


Okay, how about with ponds then? I sign up for a large pond with 200 people and my BKR is 1900. My computer goes down and I miss the first round and come in last place. In the mean time my BKR rises to 2400 by the time this other game finally ends, and then I am killed because now I have lost to everyone else, most of whom have a lower BKR now than mine!

Shouldnt at least in ponds the rating be calculated at the time you actually lose, rather than when the thing finally ends?

after i log in how do I get to the game board for my next move?

alanback: Yes, for the reasons you said it is better to use the rating at the end of the match, as it is done.

But I don't understand your last remark about backgammon ratings. Since they don't work properly, backgammon tournaments with a BKR limit are skewed anyway, so the eligibility problem sort of vanishes. It remains a problem when the BKR is reliable though.

coan.net: Your example of a player timing out in all games looks unfair at first glance, but in fact it would be even more unfair if the ratings were taken at the beginning of the game. The rating points won by those timeouts are undeserved anyway, so the fewest points won the better.

Czuch:  Theoretically the players' ratings at the end of a match should be more indicative of their "true" ability than their ratings at the beginning, since being later in time they should reflect a larger statistical sample (i.e. more games played).  Remember your own rating will also change during the term of a match.  This is just a feature of a turn based site you can't do anything about.

One thing I have noticed that might be fixed is in setting the BKR range for a tournament.  Eligibility is based on a player's rating at the time he or she joins the tournament.  At the time the tournament starts, his or her rating may be significantly lower than the eligibility threshold.   This  diminishes the utility of being able to set a minimum BKR for entry.  This would not be particularly important if the BKR system for backgammon worked properly, but it does not so this is a major problem.
 

Snoopy: Try it now.