Fencer: Liquid

Fencer: I got ponds!!!!! THANKS

Anyway, I'll let the time suspended, at least for a day or two. Because the negative time left values can happen again.

will it get sent back to normal? or will a pond that say is on a 1 day time limit continue on with its current time limit o fsay 5 days. or will you immediately set it back to normal?

I agree with Walter, the new cloak thing is a bad idea because it only allows a chosen few their privacy and pawns have no choice whatssoever. Also, it makes the cloaked person look like they're trying to hide something.

if people wanted to hide what they was doing they could easily do it without the cloak thing , all you need to do is open more than one web browser and it will only count the last click ,not the other pages you are looking at ,
people should not feel pressured to take there cloak off by the few that are moaning . wether they like the cloak or not its upto the individual .

<I don't understand why it isn't given to everyone on the gamesite????
>
>that would make it even, don't you think?

Marfitalu: Oh I understand that. Just I think a privacy option is a differnt kind of option, why should pay members be able to see non-pay membbers, if non-pay members can't see pay members? Or do you think that's ok? I really like this site and tell friends about it, but if this is how privacy stuff is handled, I don't know...

Marfitalu: what is the board?

Marfitalu: I think I saw something at features requests, want to try that one?

i dont have any room left for games. i was in pnonds that shouldve ended by nwo and now i cant fit into the ponds i had signed up for. will we be able to enter mroe games than our memberships allow?

Nothingness: Ponds are not counted for the number of started games.

I'm wondering how the fix for the bug with the negative days in coming along. I'm glad it doen't time out the game being negative, but it also means that games that should legitimately time out are getting to slide by. Some of my games will say -12919 days left on them. When I or my opponent moves the time left counter will sometimes go to the proper amount like 2 days, 23 hours and other times will read the -12919 days left.

Walter Montego: I cannot risk and start the time until I am absolutely sure everything is fixed. This is the worst kind of a problem and it takes some time.

Fencer: I shall be patient then and await developements. It's such a strange thing to have happen. I can only imagine the grief it's caused and the difficulty in finding out what's causing it. It might something as simple as a colon where a semi-colon should be. : ;

I assume the back ups are ready. If it's going to take a real testing out before you're ready, let me and others know. I'll not make any moves for the day of the test and this will cause less problems for the games I have going if the backups have to be used. Especially darkness type games.

Walter Montego: I bet on a date1 - date2 where date1 is sometimes uninitialized. Takers, anyone?

rabbitoid: Anyway seems to be fixed. My negative times have been coming back to normal on all the games I moved today... The only ones remaining are the ones that still haven't moved today and those that should have normally timed out.

pauloaguia: mine seem to be fixed as well ..

(but it was funny to see that when i had 2 games with one opponent one of the games always ended up ok .. while the other ended up with a negative time ;))

Hrqls:You ever wonder if Fencer does that on purpose sometimes just to make us appreciate him?

when will ponds be back on ?

Jason: mine were back on yesterday

mine still has nearly 4 days left , all are on one day limits

Jason: i think the ponds are back on already .. but each pond had some extra days added for this round to make sure it wouldnt time out last week .. i guess once those days are over the ponds will be working normal again

the ponds which started today and yesterday were working for me (at the first round)

ok thanks ;)

rabbitoid: I'm down to one game with the negative 12920 days on it. I had gotten up to about ten games that were doing it.
I too can speculate about its cause. Perhaps the Cloak Mode implementation had something to do with it?
Are we lining up side bets on this?

Filip is busy enough as it is, I am sure (Clay!) he does not do this to make himself feel appreciated. As a programmer, I can say with certainty that there are times when a seemingly insignificant change in one area has very unanticipated results in another area. About 80% of the time, the programmer "is certain" that what is being demonstrated "is impossible" based on the small coding change.

It takes patience and a great deal of detective work to uncover such bugs. In most cases, the actually item "being whacked" is just something that had an overlooked dependency.

As code, structure, and releationships get more complex, being able to handle every possible permutation that comes up becomes an impossible task.

I think we should spare the jest at Filip's expense and just let him resolve the issues at hand. It is hard enough to fix stuff like this without feeling 30,000 eyes are upon you.

EdTrice, ah...Only 15373 registered players. But still, that's a lot of eyes.

Summertop: 15373 users, 746 of them are one-eyed, that makes exactly 30000 eyes...

It seems that newly created ponds are running normally but existing ones have effectively been stalled. When I saw the message 'Game time is suspended' I assumed I was safe but in fact I have messed up once or twice. I think that message is a bit confusing.

The message will be improved.

EdTrice: Let me apologize for jesting about Filip, especially for all the hard work he does and for even implying that he was doing it on purpose. I know myself how frustrating it can be when your doing all that you can do and someone starts picking on you. It's tough, even if it's done in jest. Thanks for correcting me..

I have always supported fencer and the tremendous job he does and will continue to do so. I will from now on, not jest as to his intentions under and during difficult times.

"BUT" if I ever catch him goofing off, I will be on him like stink.

Fencer, for all us curious programmers out there, could you please enlighten us to what is/was causing the -12920 days time left

Luke Skywalker: Probably a hidden bug in a virtual machine. It's been replaced by the newest one.

Anyone else notice that when the game time is suspended, some opponents feel that game "play" is suspended. I almost never have an opponent time out on me. As soon as time is suspended, I usually get several that go into the negative (risking a timeout). I just find it curious.

Summertop: Another player mentioned that today to me in a game as well. With time suspended, play slows to a crawl.

it would be fun if fencer resumes game time at once

Hrqls, That would be fun, indeed.

Rose: I agree I hope the time resumes soon, people seem to quit playing when time is suspended, the problem with the big negatives seems to be gone, so hopefully time resumes soon

I'm looking at my Opponent's turn list, and I see 6 games with the -12920. Odd they all are "Hyper Backgammon - IT IS A NEW DAY -- $50 USD Each 1st place winner!" except one!

I am wondering if there is an option for the Fellowship creator (Big Boss) to have their fellowship enabled so that non-member may read the posts, or if the posts can always only be read by members of the fellowship no matter how the Big Boss sets up his fellowship?

Walter Montego: Surely with that scenario a fellowship ceases to be a fellowship and becomes a public board.

bumble: I agree! the whole point of a fellowship is the privacy!

bumble tazman: You miss the point of my question, whether or not it seems like a secret society has nothing to do with it. As you well know, a lot of fellowships have been formed just so people can have a forum to talk about things that aren't covered in the regular public discussion boards. I am wondering if there are fellowships that non-members could read the posts. I had in mind the Big Boss having the abilty to allow non-members to read the posts, but not let them post to the fellowship's discussion board. Also, allow the Big Boss to allow non-members to post to the fellowship too. It'd be the Big Boss's choice when forming the fellowship.
It'd make a semi-private type of group. You could have it in various degrees too. The most restrictive would be Big Boss only, followed by managers, then members of the fellowship, selected members of BrainKing, all paying members of BrainKing, and the most open,
all members of BrainKing. I would have it so the Big Boss could allow each type of BrainKing Member to read the posts or not and to be able to write a post or not. The least restrictive of these fellowships would be almost identical to these public discussion boards.

I think these would be a good thing to have. With the merging of some of the boards that happened a few weeks ago, some members feel that the remaining discussion boards are to general for their particular game and their posts get lost or pushed aside too easily. Since an open fellowship would be just that, open to all, it could serve as another type of public discussion board. It wouldn't be advertised on the big list of public discussion boards, so a person interesting in finding a fellowship with his interest would have to search the fellowship list or hear it by word of mouth. In the list or when you visit a fellowship's home page, the type of fellowship posting and reading allowed would be stated. A completely open fellowship would allow an interested person to read the posts and see if they wanted to join the fellowship without having to ask first. If the Big Boss allowed non-members to post also, then it wouldn't matter if they joined the fellowship and the fellowship's discussion board would serve as a type of public discussion board. Though it might be wise to have it set up so that if non-members may post to one's fellowship, they would only be allowed to do so while the Big Boss was online. Or you might return to find your fellowship a mishmash of posts from outsiders. Do the managers in a fellowship have editing abilites? If so, then this wouldn't need to be a worry.

I have the feeling that the answer is no fron your replies. I'll wait for a day or so, just
in the case that the answer is yes, that the Big Boss can allow non-members to view or write posts. If it is no, I will visit the Feature Request board with a proposal.

Walter Montego: i think that if anyone seriously want to read the fellowship boards, they should put up the measely $37 a year like everyone else who is on them did! i think you'd call it a membership perk! Sorry, but i work for a living and get annoyed when other people get to enjoy things for free that i have to pay for!

Are the server problems solved? I haven't seen any game with -12920 days now. When will the game time be resumed?

No Walter, non paying members cannot read or write to a fellowship, no matter what the Big Boss would prefer. See you at feature requests

Luke Skywalker: After an hour or two.