To find out what stairs you can currently challenge someone in, first go to the Main Stairs Page, then click on "Show your stairs only" link. The ones in BOLD are ones you can make a challenge in. .
As you might have noticed, we have recently introduced the auto pass feature for backgammon games. When a player accepts a game invitation, he can choose if he agrees to play with auto pass or not. However, this system doesn't work with Stairs because there are no invitations to accept/reject. There are two possible solutions of the problem:
All Stairs games will be played with auto pass by default. Who joins Stairs, must accept this rule.
Players will be able to specify whether they want to play Stairs games with the auto pass or not. Then, when a new Stairs game is created, it will use the auto pass feature only if both players have this option set to "accept".
Luke Skywalker: Yeah, I agree with Luke here. I had always imagined autopass as a player attribute and not an attribute of a game. After all, how could a player object against his opponent using autopass? From a player's point of view there's no difference between a pass made automatically, or a pass made by a quick player.
Luke Skywalker: I was about to write almost the exact same thing on this discussion on Feature Request, but decided to read the other boards before replying - and you said almost exactly what I was thinking also.
For example - I like to use AutoPass, and Fencer does not - we have a game together - if Fencer makes a move, and goes to me - let the system autopass it (if it can) and give it back to Fencer to make a move. In this way, Fencer is happy that he does not have to use autopass, and I'm happy because I can use autopass.
Anyway, the exact 3 things you listed is exactly what I would love to see also. Even though I don't like the idea of an opponent being able to just write " . " as a message to mess me up since you know there will be a few users who just like to cause problems who would do that.... but that can be a suggestion later down the road - to autopass even if there is a new message (with the reply of "Opponenet autopassed without reading last message" sent back) - but again, that suggestion can wait for now.
BIG BAD WOLF: Wrong. I won't be happy because the autopass would force me to make a move again instead of going to sleep and relax for several hours before you log in to make the pass move manually.
Luke Skywalker: Why not use auto-pass for fisher-timed games?
I mean I guess I always try to play for win/loss, and not timeout of my opponent - so if an auto-pass can help keep a game going even if it's fisher-timed game, I can only see that as a disadvantage to those who try to wait until their opponent is off-line to play their move in the hopes to get them to time out.... which I guess is one way of doing things but what is the point of playing games if you are not going to let your opponent move? OK, sorry... i'm getting off on a tangent.... I try to not even play fisher-timed games anyway...
Andersp: So I just went and selected autopass, but it's only available for backgammon and variants, right? And do I really have to "ask" each opponent if it's okey to use with them?
srnity: No..you dont need to "ask", but if you challenge an opponent who has "no autopass" in settings than you cant use it either. So in fact its your opponent who decides if your settings are in use or not....fair?...ask Fencer :)
Andersp: Ok, so if they have autopass and I have autopass, it just automatically uses itself, yes?...So what happens if it's turned off in the middle of a game tho?...by either player, that is...
Andersp: Yeah, which makes autopass a pretty useless feature if you ask me. I've set my setting to autopass as soon as it was possible, but so far, I've yet to encounter an opponent that lets me play with it.
Perhaps I should change strategy. Whenever I have to use pass manually I wait till just before my time runs out. ;-)