Fencer: I thought so! But thought I reminded you, just in case ;)

pauloaguia: That's what I mean by the end of the Server News :-) It must be implemented first.

I know there aren't any portuguese DB's (yet). But since I've changed my language to portuguese I have only two options: either don't see any DB's at all (since there are no portuguese - yet), or see all language DB's.
Would it be possible to select to see only the DB's in the languages we'd be interested in?

This is turning into a discussion of some sort, please take it to the appropriate board.

The ratings system is not a so-called zero sum.

If you play only against each other, and split every other game, your ratings will oscillate then eventually become equal.

But along the way, the ratings functions will look like a carrier wave enveloping another signal.

You might be -17, +19, -15, +17, -13, +15 ... with an odd-even cancelation kicking in at some point too.

There are 2 numbers per opponent: rating, and rating deviation (rd). The rating number is published, the rd is part of a hidden calculation.

Your rd governs the rate of change of your rating more than the individual combat against another player.

If you lose your first 30 games against the lowest rated people on here, then win 30 games in a row against the highest rated people on here, your rating would still be near the middle of the pack.

If you won your first 30 games against the top players on here, then lost your next 30 games against the lowest rated players on here, your rating would be much higher.

Ummm. what? Que?

My opponent seems to have been rated correctly, but I should have lost points by splitting the games against an opponent rated below me. Both our ratings were well established.

In the first instance, you have a rating of 1992, with some built in "uncertainty" about how accurate it is. Your opponent has a rating of 1725 which may be a more accurate representation of his "true rating".

So, your 17 point penalty reflects two things:

1. You lost to someone "far" below you with a more certain estimate of their strength. This reinforces the notion that your "true" rating has not been properly tuned yet. So, there was a larger adjustment.

2. Their rating was a more accurate representation of their performance, so you "should have" been able to win if the 1992 rating was accurate, which the systems stipulates is not the case yet.

Your subsequent win of 19 points reflects the fact that the previous "rating correction" was too aggressive. Your 1975 rating was more accurate than your 1992 rating, based on the information known at the time of that previous event. But now your opponent was more accurately rated at 1760, and you won.

Your opponent was penalized 33 points because his gain from the last game was "too high". He lost to a more accurate rating from a lower rated opponent, so the penalty should not be as great.

I'd like to know why this happens. I lost and then won against an opponent rated more than 200 points lower than me, yet I ended up better off than before. As did my opponent! ???

here they are

sLaMdAnCe is the winner.

sLaMdAnCe: old BKR = 1725, new BKR = 1760 (+35)
grenv: old BKR = 1992, new BKR = 1975 (-17)

Game type: Hyper Backgammon

You are the winner.

grenv: old BKR = 1975, new BKR = 1994 (+19)
sLaMdAnCe: old BKR = 1760, new BKR = 1727 (-33)

Game type: Hyper Backgammon

AbigailII: Most sofisticated time control system I saw in GameCourier on chessvariants.org, see http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/userguide.html#timecontrols

You can specify "Spare time", "Grace time", "Extra time" and "Bonus time"!

grenv: I wasn't proposing any fixed time setting. Considering the current system has configurable time settings, that wouldn't make any sense.

AbigailII: schemingmind.com has 5 days + 12 hours per move. This is plenty of time in my opinion. In fact I'd rather it was 1 day + 6 hours per. How about making it configurable?

It would be nice to have time controls where you have a certain amount of time per game, plus some time per move. For instance "5days + 36hours", meaning you start the game with 5 days on your clock, and get another 36 hours for each move you make. This would allow you to take a break from a game for a couple of days, without having to resort to really long time controls that could drag a game to last months.

Littlegolem uses "10days + 36hours/move" which I find really nice. It allows you enough time to explore a hairy situation on a board, without having the risk in playing a game that lasts for years (some people make it a sport to wait time their clock always runs out to make a move. For every move they make).

an additional button for battleboats "clear and place" I really tested long now
but I still say, simply hitting refresh would make setups much more convenient.
Please ? And regarding the participation by Quousque Tandem below, thanks - eye2nd. ...

EdTrice: Yeah.. that would be a nice addition.. ;)

Has it ever been discussed to track the "history" of an ID's name changes? I just saw games I "played" against names I really don't recognize, and I really can't remember who they may have been, "screen-name-wise".

LOL.. for many things, Yes, definitely.

rod03801: is webtv slower than PC?

Ugh! With WebTV, deleting multiple posts takes long enough without an extra step!

EDIT: ... Not necessarily saying it's a bad idea, though! ... Most often I think we only are deleting one post, so this extra step wouldn't make much difference ...

When a moderator makes a change to a discussion board (particularly a deletion), it would be helpful to have a confirmation question ("Are you sure you want to delete this nice person's post?" or some other such question). I just accidentally deleted a post and pm'ed the recipient of my error so they could repost.

YAHTZEE the one i play with is: http://jamesgart.com/yahtzeeonline/yahtzee.html

Yahtzee is public domain now, so there would be no intellectual property dispute concerning an online implementation.

MadMonkey: I like Monkeys idea, it makes so much sense

OH and YAHTZEE is a good multi player game Darren. More players the better.....

What about the game YAHTZEE?

Fencer: Just an idea (but a good one though lol) about signing up for more than one game in a particular tournament.

If a tournament has more than one game to sign up for (between 2 & 67 obviously) how aboout having tick boxes on the sign up page, rather than having to go into each one, sign up then go back to the list again and do the same over & over again.

It would be alot quicker & easier

How about frighteningly coloured rooks for poor sportsmen who might compell a person to spend the rest of their days demonstrating a win that could be tossed out without any thought in a few minutes, eg: http://brainking.com/game/ShowGame?g=415627 ?

ughaibu: lol

I must've put myself on enemies, I guess.

ughaibu: Works for me still....

We can no longer send messages to ourselves??
(edited for a very, very strange reason)

ughaibu: Yes (1) need to automaticly put something from what fellowship it is from and (2) a way to opt out of the messages.

I'm in tons of fellowships, so I'm starting to get tons of messages that I don't want, but I really don't want to quit the whole fellowship just to get rid of the messages. :-(

One needs to be able to distinguish between bulk fellowship and personal messages. I'm getting so many that I can no longer be bothered to reply to them all (and imagine as a big boss getting all those replies) but some might be personal individually addressed messages.

Daniel Snyder: BBW is correct, the rules as described by you wouldn't make for a true dark game.

This might work: Only show opps pieces if you can jump them. Don't show opps moves at all.

BIG BAD WOLF: I figured the game would work like this... When a person moves a piece, the start square will be highlighted then the finished square will be where the piece has ended... Though this is just a thought...

Daniel Snyder: But lets say you moved a piece 2 turns ago, so I know a piece is there - but it is "black" again - Then the computer would let me jump the piece - and if the computer lets me jump a "black" square - then I know just from that where the pieces are.

It would not do nothing then make extra work to keep track of where the pieces are, and the notepad NEEDS to be moved to above the game before that happens.

But I don't see how Dark Halma would make anything different from regular Halma - other then more work to keep track since your opponent can still easly keep track of where your pieces are.

BIG BAD WOLF: I think it could work... Just make it to where you cannot go back to previous moves... during the game...

Dark Halma - I don't see that working. (1) the game depends on where your opponenets pieces are (so you know if you can jump or not) and (2) if you can see the start & finish of each move, then it would be easy to look at past moves to know where every piece is.

I think they should have a dark halma... Only knowing where the opponent started and finishing each move... Also www.9mensmorris.com/game is a very good program...

I got those links reversed, sorry

Mill is very fun. Here's a sample game to play against the website bot:
http://www.osv.org/morris/index.html

This variant allows diagonal moves:
http://www.9mensmorris.com/game/

danoschek: What kind of improvements?

... although it might be important only
for people fighting dishonesty and infidelity ?
.. . thank you in advance ... ~*~

in my universe outreaching composure I find always some positive. ~*~ .

Fencer:

Bry: The whole fellowship system will be improved soon.

Fencer: In Fellowships, can you add an option to have "Fellowship News" stay indefinately - rather than the 14 day maximum?

Bry: Great, I forgot to test it :-)

Fencer: Thanks for the Next Game improvement. Work's a treat.

Mill aka Nine Men morris or Dominoes would be good here....

Fencer:

Fencer, this is brilliant, makes it so much easier to find game types to play. Thanks