BIG BAD WOLF: of course its all optional

nobleheart: Instead of trying to get everyone else on the site to play within the time limits that you like, why not leave all the time limit options available and each person can join what most fits their needs.

playBunny: ty 4 the link looks intersting will ck it out.

AbigailII: I think multi player games & many 2 player games that by their nature have many moves could/should be encouraging to move along a little faster by:
1-eliminating the possiblity of a game time of more than 10 days.
2-eliminating the possiblity of a game bonus time to longer than 10 hours per move.
3-allowing really fast games but the time out penalty could be loss of turn instead of loss of game(optional)

AbigailII: I don't remember saying that the per-move checking was a replacement for the periodic checking. The need for the periodic checks is obvious. ;-p

AbigailII: I believe checking every 10 minutes AND when a player moves would suffice.

AbigailII: Please do not assume that all jobs require that you work all the time - mine doesn't. Secondly, for security purposes, most firewalls block any and all non-HTTP-related connections, regardless where they are initiated, therefore that point is moot as well.

playBunny: You can't check time outs with each move. You want the time out to happen approximately when it happens (and 10 minutes after is close enough when you have a few days per move). But if you check the time out when someone moves, games that are being played by people never returning to the site would never time out.

AbigailII: Seems to me that an hour-long Fischer clock game is heading towards the fuzzy edges between live and turn based. While it's not as quick as a live site's 5-10 seconds per move, quite a few of my own games involve spurts of a move per minute. I wonder why the timeouts aren't checked with each move. That way the displayed info may be incorrect but the game action wouldn't.

WhiteTower: Well, you shouldn't be playing during work time anyway. ;-) Or work at a place where they've configured the firewall to allow connection initiated from the inside.

AbigailII: Yes, but if you are behind a firewall, like most corporate workers lucky enough to have an Internet connection in the first place, canNOT use most live sites... Why do you think I come here and not at my former field of glory, FIBS? :) (used to be near the top of the rankings there in the early '90s)

playBunny: For a Fischer clock game with a length of only an hour or two, shouldn't there be a bonuses in minutes available?

I don't think so. Considering the server only checks every 5 to 10 minutes for timed out games, having increments of mere minutes don't make sense. Remember that this is a turn based site - not a live site. There are live-backgammon servers (and chess servers) out there.

I agree. like a normal game, 2 hours + 90 minutes after 40 moves,

That equates to 2 hours + 2 minutes/move (actually 2.25 for the pedants).

BIG BAD WOLF: Thanks, that's interesting. We had chess clocks when I was at school but without the increment per move that makes it a Fischer clock. Sounds like a good idea to avoid the 5-mins-left panic.

Fencer: For a Fischer clock game with a length of only an hour or two, shouldn't there be a bonuses in minutes available?

playBunny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_clock

Walter Montego: Ahah, Thanks, Walter. :-)

playBunny: I'm thinking it's Bobby Fischer. He saw a number of problems with Chess a few years back. Some of his ideas have been used. Fischer Random Chess is one, though some call it Chess 960, and this clock thingy is probably one too.

BIG BAD WOLF: Why isn't it Fencer's clock? ;-)

::points wand at grenv:: *petrificus totalis*

For those that don't know, Fischer's cloak is similar to Harry Potter's cloak, and is what he used to evade the authorities for so long.

WhiteTower: Plus some have already played with using the Fischer's Cloak set to 1 hour time limit (no bonus) - which made for almost "live" games - with a game / tournament taking no longer then 2 hours to complete (up to 1 hour for each player).

There was just the minor problem that when you reach 0 minutes left, since the time-out process does not run on BK every minute - a couple people got a little over an hour to play - but still complete a full game/tournament is a very short amount of time.

BIG BAD WOLF: Oh yes, fully aware of it. I was just contributing into the ideas of others, just in case any other mathematically-advanced brains in here, like ChessMaster1000 ;) would recognise something that the Fischer clock wouldn't somehow cover...

WhiteTower: You do know that Fencer recently added a different type of time control called Fischer's clock.

You can set it up for example so each player gets a "pool" of 24 hours to make their moves in. I would add in a BONUS of 6 hours or something so people are not caught while in bed - with maybe a top "pool" limit of 36 hours or something - which of course has no vacations or weekends, and should bring along a pretty fast game.

I think it should work like real chess clocks, so you have N days to finish the game (or play 40 moves or whatever). Your clock stops counting down after you move and starts again when your opponent moves.

Hrqls: Maybe we can say that, if you have X hours to move, if your opponent moves before the X/2 first hours, the clock is not reset, otherwise it is not... just an idea.

Hrqls: ... actually, now I fully understood your meaning... I retract my previous message and I am going back to the drawing board :)

Hrqls: If he does not move within the allotted time, YOU win,, THEY lose. When each player moves, the clock is reset to the time limit set for the N moves.

WhiteTower: but you cant make any subsequent moves until your opponent has moved .. therefore you are dependent of your opponent and he could stall the game until you are asleep and thereby make you lose the game due to a timeout

Hrqls: From what I understood, it's as simple as replacing N in the concept of "next N moves to be made within X hours" from 1 to >1.

from what time would you have to make 6 moves within 24 hours ?

like abigail says ... suppose i make a move, then my opponent makes 1 move 23 hours later ... do i have to make 5 moves within an hour ? ... what if i move directly after my opponent did .. then i have to wait until he moves .. which he doesnt have to as his move was just 1 hour ago ... so he can wait easily for 1 hour ... which makes it impossible for me to make 6 moves within 24 hours

suppose its from the start of the game ... i make a move directly after the game starts .. my opponent waits 23 hours (which might be night for me) and makes his move then ... i am asleep so i wont be able to make my 2nd move (let alone my 3rd till 6th move) within the 24 hours since the start

would it add up my waiting times ? (the time between my opponents move and my move) .. but then again .. i could be asleep when my opponent moves and thereby have several hours added to my total time

it sounds quite difficult .. of course you can just chose not to join such a tournament or not accept such an invitation .. but you will have to look carefully :)

the more time controls the better. you can always choose who to play or which tournament to play. arguments like this guy is from here and this one from there is a complete waste of time....

playBunny: 6 moves/day would be totally unworkable, because you do not know when your opponent will move. Imagine a player from Europe (say Germany or France) vs someone from California. Say both players are both online from 9 AM till 9 PM, their local time. Player in Europe moves first, at 9 AM his time. Californian player moves as soon as he logs on. Now the European player plays his second move. But it's already 6 PM *his* time - three hours to go and five moves to play. If the Californian player plays at a rate of 1 move an hour, the European play will time out.

With players scattered around the globe, it hard to make fair time controls. And time controls that gives less than 24 hours/move will be unfair to one of the players.

How about a Moves per time control as well as the Time per move/game? A 6 moves per day game could be more practical for some people than a Move per 4 hours - get the moves over in an hour, say, and have the rest of the day free.

NobleHeart: One variation of your multiplayer backgammon is called Chouette.

Your four colour backgammon sounds like a real challenge to design. It would need a different board and setup (eg, where are the home tables for the extra two players?), but it could be a great game. Extra players means extra possibilities, such as alliances (eg, green and blue could elect to share points which will block black and white). I'd say that Fencer has enough to do with all the existing games, the bug list and wishlist - so what time has he to spend creating a new game? - but if you were to give him a complete and well thought out design, something that can be implemented without any major development being required ... well, it could be the birth of something very special.


Abigail: Indeed, wouldn't a game with such tortoises be a draaaaaag! It's a good thing that time controls are getting more sophisticated. I look forward to the N moves per day option.

"you know who you are": Lol. I suspect some of them deny that reality but we certainly know who they are. One of my opponents has 2000 games going!!


pgt: Abigail's a lady. ;-)

grenv: Yes, the <u> tag works in my browser and I had expected it to work here. It was enough effort putting in the <u>'s; correcting the message was more action than it was worth. Thanks for doing it yourself and making my illustration clearer. :-D

nobleheart: or a 3 player game .. the player who moves the last piece of any color off the board wins .. you would switch sides every move .. but there might be some problems with it i dont see right now :)

pgt: But what's the point towards nobelheart's idea? That it shouldn't be implemented because of that, or what?

Pedro Martínez: I thought he made it quite clear .... A 40 move game could last 5 years.

pgt: Really? What is it?

Pedro Martínez: I think he is - and a valid one!

AbigailII: Are you trying to make a point?

nobleheart: A four player game, with players who move at the last moment out of principle or because they insist on playing more games than they can manage (yes, you know who you are). Your 5 days/move game, with normal weekends and holidays move at 1 move/month. With four months of vacation a year. A 40 move game could last 5 years.

playBunny: What was <u> supposed to do? underline? try < a href="#" >

334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 > >>

I used to be a purist..loved only backgammon & chess,frowned on "variations".
but I had a change of heart...love them now.they keep the game fresh..open the mind up to alternative strategy.
anyway,I have always loved multi player games.
I have thought of an easy way to make "backgammon for 4 players".
of course use 4 different colours.
adapt this to either backgammon or crowded backgammon.
as for play.player one takes a turn,then player 2,then 3 ,then 4.
---
or keep 2 colours & play as partners.
what ye think?

When perusing the players list forwards it's easy to skip 5 pages ahead because the current page is given first:
<u><<</u> <u><</u>   19 <u>20</u> <u>21</u> <u>22</u> <u>23</u> <u>24</u> <u>25</u> <u>26</u> <u>27</u> <u>28</u>   <u>></u> <u>>></u>

When looking at the list from the end and going back, it's not possible to skip several pages:
<u><<</u> <u><</u>   334 <u>335</u> <u>336</u> <u>337</u> <u>338</u> <u>339</u> <u>340</u> <u>341</u> <u>342</u> <u>343</u>   <u>></u> <u>>></u>

If the current page were placed in the centre of the sequence then it would enable page skipping in both directions.

oh, and there's no <u>, it would seem, lol.

In Halma, if you can make a long sequence of jumps, you have to click on each intermediate spot. Since it doesn't matter how a stone moves from its starting point to its endpoint, it would be convenient after you've selected the stone you want to move with, you can click on any possible spot the stone can end its move in.

Hrqls: Thanks for that explanation and example Matthieu.

Pedro Martínez: I followed you right to the poolside. Interesting to see how the bidding escalates until famine strikes near at the end. Thanks Pedro.

Now where are those graphics with hopeful faces of the "runners" and the other, poor, half-drowned critters splashing in the pond? lol.

Fencer: Feature request changes to a background colour for the Filter dropdown so that people like me who don't see it, lol, just might. ;-) Even better, perhaps, the title "Ponds to sign up" could have the same background colour to signify that the title comes from the filter. (I use the Ponds page as an example but this idea would be applicable to all pages controlled by a Filter dropdown.)

playBunny: everyone starts with 20,000 points

everyone places a bet, the lowest bet falls into the pond and is out of the game

the higher you bet, the bigger is your chance to stay in the pond .. for that round .. but when you bet too high .. you might have less points for the next round as your bet will be substracted from your initial 20,000 points

so for example someone bets 30 points in the first round ... i bet 40 and you bet 50

then the person with a bet of 30 will be out of the game (and wont win it) ... we are both still in the game .. but i will have 19,960 points left and you will have 19,950 points left .. so i will have a small advantage for following rounds .. as you will run out of points before the pond ends and i will have a little more points left

so your bet per round should be high enough to stay in the game (out of the pond) (higher than the lowest bet who will fall in the pond) .. but not too high as you wont have enough points left in the end

hmm something like that ? ;)

playBunny: Click Ponds, then select "Finished" in the left drop-down menu and "Run around the pond" in the right one and click Show. Then choose any pond from the list (I recommend some of those that are at the top of that list). On the page with the pond, you can see how the game looks like and how people bet in individual rounds.

I'ver clicked the Ponds link and there's a great long list of ponds. I've clicked a pond link and see a great long list of players. I've clicked the show rules link and discovered that I start with 20,000 points which I can "use". There's apparently a poolside and some water to plop into .... but despite all this info I still haven't a clue what this game looks like or how it works. It's important enough to have a link of its own rather than be just one if the games but, but, what's it all about?

The feature request is for something to see, graphics, boards, squelching pondside dwellers, whatever. Even better, to be able to go through a game (as can be done with any other game) so I can see how it all works.