alright, i would like to AGAIN request that auto-pass be enabled for Ludo. Fencer, i know you've said (way too long ago) that this will be addressed in "the next version of brainking," but that doesn't help any of us who are using the *current* version of brainking. a fix talked about and a fix applied are two different things, and i'm getting really tired of waiting for a fix to be applied for this (and i know i'm not the only one). it would be one thing if you said that and then produced the fabled "next version" two weeks later, but this has been going on for a long time now. repeatedly being summoned to game boards on which i am unable to make moves is a very real and persistent annoyance, and daydreaming of a happy (and as far as we subscribers can tell, entirely imaginary) day when i won't have to deal with that anymore really doesn't solve the problem.

thank you.

MTC: the only reason i can think of for disagreeing is not wanting a game to "get away from you" in the event of a chain-autopass, such that when you look at it again you don't even recognize it as the same game you last moved on. but even so, i can't see this as justification for not including the *option* of autopass in such games; it would just be a justification for a player who wants to avoid that situation leaving the autopass option unchecked for that game.

it seems clear to me that there should be an autopass option for every game in which it could conceivably be used, and whether to enable it or not should be left to the discretion of each individual player. problem solved!

Fencer: ah, i see. i'm glad to know it'll be in the next version. thanks, Filip!

Bwild: i'll just let this lie until we see how Fencer responds. i trust he'll know an opportunity to build goodwill when he sees it...

auto-pass for Ludo, *please*?

i can't help but think i've already wasted a lot more time dismissing games that i can't move on - to say nothing of all the other players who are doing the same thing - than it would take to implement auto-pass on BrainKing's end. is it a lot more involved than copying and pasting a few lines of code from one of the games that already features auto-pass? if it is, i'll be quiet (i try not to be a complainer as it is). but if it's something that would take five or ten minutes to do, i'd like to ask that it be moved up the priority list and done, so it can be checked off the list once and for all and forgotten. one less thing on the to-do list! woohoo!

that would save a lot of players a lot of wasted time and clicking, is all.

thanks, Filip!

i'd like to see Ludo added to the list of auto-passable games. thanks, Filip.

that's a figure of speech, but what i mean is that i'd like for finished Stairs matches to be made to stand out somehow...the results notices flagged in some way in the Events box, maybe?...so that when a stairs match ends i'll know to go to those stairs and start another match. the red text in the stairs' game lists that shows me which stairs i'm enrolled in is great, and that's the kind of thing i'm talking about; but what i'd like is some way of easily seeing which stairs games i'm signed up for but not currently playing in, so i can go straight to them and start a new match without having to periodically look through all the stairs i'm playing to make sure none of them is lying idle without my knowledge.

thanks!

Pedro Martínez: oh, that should be interesting. i'll have a look.

Pedro Martínez: oh good...i'm glad to hear somebody chime in so i don't sound like the lone lunatic (however clear-sighted). thanks, Pedro.

Fencer: sounds good, Filip (i say, having just taken yet another screenshot of yet another hyper backgammon game (#4697746) in which both my opponent and i had the same first rolls...just as happened in the last hyper backgammon game i started before that - yesterday, game #4692215)).

and for the record, i play poker at Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet, and used to play at Live Poker when their Mac software worked, and i never had any complaints about their deals. they seem obviously random to me (and i don't know about Live Poker, but Full Tilt's and Ultimate Bet's shuffles i know to be monitored by outside agencies). but the un-randomness of die rolls on BK is very - and i mean VERY - obvious to me and to several people i play with. real dice just do *not* roll the same, twice in a row, 85 or 90 percent of the time...but at least on the first two moves of each game, BK dice do. heck, if you want, i'll start logging real statistics with my game numbers and let you know what the percentage of identical first rolls really is. i promise it will be very high.

or heck, if you really want to see this in action, just put move logs next to backgammon games that show the die rolls for each turn. *then* you and everybody else will see the pattern in black-and-white.

i'm glad to hear the game models are being rewritten. sounds like it might address this issue.

thanks for your reply. all the best...

i know that, last i read, Fencer was still defending the supposed randomness of the algorithm that determines the die rolls on BK...but however sound and watertight that algorithm may look on paper or on the screen, there's something wrong with it. i'm in my 40s, and i've seen a lot of die rolls in my time - enough to know that dice that are truly rolled at random do not come up the same, twice in a row, anywhere near as often as do the dice on brainking. and nowhere is this more obvious than in the first two rolls of a given game. i haven't counted so i can't give an exact percentage, but based on my experience, i'd say the first two die rolls of my dice-based games on BK come up the same about 85-90% of the time. i just started a game of Ludo, in which both players roll three dice each until they get one of their pieces out of the holding dock. my opponent went first, and rolled 1-1-1. then came my turn...and you'll never guess what i rolled.

*gasp!* you guessed!! you're amazing!! how did you *do* that?!

*ahem.*

56 possible combinations when rolling three six-sided dice, if i'm not mistaken...and my opponent and i roll the same exact combination twice in a row. random? you be the judge.

the last die-based game i started before that was hyper backgammon; same exact scenario (except with two dice instead of three) - which is the usual way of die rolls, and especially starting die rolls, in BK backgammon games. it's a running joke among the people i play with. "wow - look at that!! we rolled the SAME THING!! AMAZING!! that NEVER happens on brainking!" (laugh, laugh)...

so yeah, that would be my feature request: a re-write of the randomization code for BK die rolls. because no matter how little sense it may make to someone looking at the code, that code *is* flawed. maybe it's perfectly sound in and of itself, but it's just calling a number in the ROM that isn't as random as it's supposed to be...or something. i don't know. it's been too long since i coded anything. i just know what random looks like, and that BK die rolls are not it.

that's all.

I'd like Ludo to be added to the auto-pass game pick list thingy.

mctrivia: is this fact, or your opinion?

i'm not interested in anyone's opinion on this matter; i'm interested only in the facts. thanks...

and you know, i think my query is for this board anyways. i'll take it to another board.

Czuch Czuckers: thank you, Czuch. your interpretation seems the correct one to me. the point is that there must be only one user of a given account. i don't think permanent transfer of an account from one user to another would void that stipulation in the mind of any sane person. of course, Fencer would have the last word on this. we'll see what he says.

Czuch Czuckers: thank you, Czuch. your interpretation seems the correct one to me. the point is that there must be only one user of a given account. i don't think permanent transfer of an account from one user to another would void that stipulation in the mind of any sane person. of course, Fencer would have the last word on this. we'll see what he says.

Fencer: it wasn't a joke - it was an honest inquiry. regarding your bullet points:

• no need to construe it as a threat unless the thought of me leaving the site is threatening to you (and i don't know why it would be)

• i know memberships are not refundable - that's why i asked if i have the option of transferring my membership to someone else. do i?

• perhaps it's because i'm using Safari, but i see no black border nor any other highlighting of any kind around any cells on any dice poker form

• i think just shading the opponent's cells in gray would do, or implementing some other Safari-friendly highlighting system, so everyone can see the highlighting. i've tried Firefox, which is more widely compatible, but it's slow and as ugly and poorly designed as all the other Mozilla-based browsers. i'd rather not have to use a browser i don't like in order to make use of all of brainking's features. but i understand that i'm surely in a minority on this point (at least insofar as i'm a Safari user), so the "tough luck" response would be a little more understandable in this case...

MadMonkey: sounds good, as far as it goes...but then what about all my dice poker games outside the fellowship? will i be able to modify those too?

Fencer: and when your "i run the site - i don't have to be reasonable!" attitude goes too far for my tastes, i can sell my black rook membership to someone else, right?

Fencer: do you like having your pieces sometimes displayed on the top side of the board and sometimes displayed on the bottom side of the board when you play chess?

i'd like something to make it more obvious which column(s) are mine on the single and triple dice poker forms. my attention is focused on the dice below the form, and i raise my eyes to look at the columns, but i don't tend to raise them high enough to read the names at the top and i can wind up making mistakes about which column(s) are mine. i just wasted a turn shooting for a large or small straight when in fact i already had both...i just thought my column was my opponent's and vice-versa.

this is especially problematic since one's own column is not always on the same side of the form. i play a game or two where my column's on the right and then when i get to my next game i assume my column's on the right there too, but it may not be.

i'm thinking it would be great if my opponent's column was shaded gray during my turn so i could still read my opponent's column but could also tell at a glance which column was mine without having to read the names at the top. and making one's own column always appear to be on the same side of the form would be helpful too.

many thanks, Filip.

redfrog: yeah, i just use Command-left arrow (which i guess would be Control-left arrow on a Windows box...not sure...)

this may be kind of an obscure function, but it would be very handy when it was needed:

a team of mine has just been invited to a match. our team has more than the four players needed to play, so i've sent out a message to the team members asking who'd like to take part. i'm thinking that it would be very nice if, as i got positive responses back from team members, i could go to the match invitation page, check the checkboxes next to those players' names to indicate that they want to play, and then save that checked status without having to start the match. that would allow me to see how many people want to play and how many more players we need before we can start, right on the match invitation page, without having to keep an external list somewhere else, and then when we have our four players i'll already be there and can simply accept the invitation to start the match.

i'm envisioning this manifesting itself as a simple "save" or "save player status" button below the player list on the match invitation page.

thanks, Filip!

nobleheart: um...minus your suggested variation, this game is called Scrabble. you really have never seen it?? it's been an extremely popular and well-known board game for many decades. and Fencer would have to be careful how he implemented it - no references to Scrabble anywhere - because i know of one excellent website dedicated to this game that was shut down through legal action by Hasbro on grounds of copyright infringement.

it appears it can be done legally though. http://www.bugcafe.net/ offers the game and hasn't been taken down...at least not yet...

we really need it. sphere froglet is the only kind of froglet i play any more, so when i play anti-froglet it's positively confusing to not be able to hop past the edges of the board. messes up mah mind!

not that my mind isn't already messed up. but that just messes it up more!

thanks, Filip...

tiger

Fencer: hmm, yeah, i think that would work...though i might like to see the board again even if i didn't hit a boat, just so i could plan my next move.

grenv: ah, okay. thank you. it still seems an obscure thing to me, but i'm glad it got implemented for those who value it.

nabla and pauloaguia: thank you. the more games it applies to the more practical the feature will be.

anyone: are there still other games where a player might want to see the results of their moves but can only do so after the move has been submitted? Atomic chess shows the results of the move before the "move" button is hit, right?

first a small rant: i personally don't see the usefulness of the "play next game of battleboats plus" link - why would it matter whether the next game you move on is battleboats plus or not? it's not like playing a different type of game between two battleboats moves can break your concentration - battleboats doesn't involve concentration! i understand that the feature was implemented because people asked for it - i just don't understand why they asked for it.

:: end rant ::

now then: what i think would be a *real* improvement would be the ability to set "move and stay here" as the default action for battleboats variants only. that would save me having to manually choose "stay here" from the popup menu after every battleboats plus move while allowing me to keep the default for all my other game types as "move and go to next game."

thanks, Filip!

re: "mark as unread" and "delete and next" buttons: go, *Fencer!* yesssss! thank you!!!

ChrisC: i don't know, but it's my guess that the games are in alphabetical order in Czech and what we see in English is the games in the same order. but i agree that if we could somehow get the games in alphabetical order in English that would save a lot of time and frustration, especially with so (commendably) long a game list.

gambler104: there's already a link to all the stairs - it's the sixth link from the top in the link list at the left side of the page - and once you're there, it's just one more click - on the "show your stairs only" link - to get to your own stairs. if that helps.

King Reza: unless i'm misunderstanding what you're saying, we can already do that. setting the BKR range of people who can accept your invitation is in step 1 of the game creation process.

i was thinking my suggestion of a series of games would be more useful when you're inviting a specific person to play than when you're putting a standing invitation into the waiting room anyway. when you invite a friend, you know you're up for a number of games with them in a row, but you won't know that if you don't know against whom you're going to wind up playing.

skipinnz: exactly. glad you like it... :)

something i'd like to see - though i may be alone in seeing the advantage of this - is the ability to invite someone to a series of individual, counted games. right now we can invite someone to a series of games the end result of which counts as a single win or loss, or we can invite someone to a bunch of individual, counted games, but all those individual counted games start at the same time. what i'd like to see added is the ability to invite someone to, say, 5 individual games that don't start all at the same time, but in sequence - only one running at a time, and the next one in the series starts when the one before it ends, and each game in the series counts as a win or a loss for the players' records (unless of course the "not counted" option is chosen by the invitor).

does that sound like a good idea to anyone else? it seems to me the only thing missing from BK's invitation options.

it would basically be the same as inviting your opponent to a new game each time your game with them ends - just without having to go through the invitation process all over again for each game. or conversely, it would be the same as playing an [x number]-games match, but with each game counting toward the players' ratings.

in fact, it could be implemented in just that way: as an option to count each game under the [x number]-games match choice.

Fencer: oh, *thank* you! bravo, bravo, bravo. =) finally i can keep all my blocked user info on one page! woohoooooo!!!!

Jason: ah - good idea. thank you.

(that doesn't mean i wouldn't still like the capacity for notes, Fencer! )

i still would like to see the ability to add notes on blocked users. i have blocked users on my list from years ago now and i have no idea why i blocked them because the blocked users list has no capacity for the addition of notes.

i've started listing my reasons for blocking people in a note in my notepad, but that's a workaround, not a fix, and if a user changes their username, my note in the notepad won't tell me who they are or why i blocked them any more.

i find the ability to add notes to friends less useful - if they're my friends, i'm reminded why they're my friends every time i see them - but we have that ability. the more useful ability to add notes to blocked users we don't have.

someday, maybe?

Mr. Shumway: ooh! i didn't know it could be moved! thank you for enlightening me! :)

and while we're on the subject...i think divvying the smilies up on to pages is probably a good idea...it'll be more useful once i memorize which ones are on which page...but i do miss the ability to click anywhere outside the smiley panel to dismiss it. we couldn't possibly get that ability back, could we?

KotDB: there is also the option of changing your mind and deciding you like them and think they're colorful and cute and fun. i did that a year or two ago and there's been one more thing i can enjoy - and one less thing that annoys me - in the world ever since.

i agree with mctrivia that it would be not only fun but very useful to be able to include images in our posts on message and discussion boards. to prevent the feature's being abused, i suggest that all posts containing images automatically require the approval of the BB or a moderator.

i'd like to see images appear small (i.e., thumbnails) in the post itself, and when the thumbnail is clicked, the image opens larger in its own window, where the viewer could use Save As... or whatever to copy the image to their drive if desired.

Mr. Shumway: oh my goodness! i didn't see that at all (obviously)! :D thank you!

the ability to enter notes on a game would be a lot more useful if one's notes appeared above the board on subsequent moves, right above the opponent's comments, if any. as it is, i make notes and often forget i've made them, especially if some hours or days elapse between the time i make the note and my next move. i'll make a note for my next move and then never see the note again, or only see it when the game's over. that's not a very useful note.

i've got a suggestion, if it hasn't been made already: Sphere Anti-Froglet.

alanback: hmmm...i wonder.

playBunny: i trust you went to the funfair naked. in the interests of everyone seeing everything.

playBunny: lol...sounds like it was prety weird, too.

ScarletRose: yes Lady.   :)

Walter Montego: thank you! i think you're nuts too. *kiss kiss*

it boils down to a matter of personal preference. whether my reasons for wanting to use cloak mode meet with the approval of Your Loftiness is of no consequence to anyone. cloak mode wasn't my idea. i didn't think it up; i didn't lobby for it. but now that it's here (because some other people thought it up and lobbied for it), i'll use it. and i don't give a damn whether you understand my reasons or whether you like it or not. that doesn't matter in the least, to me or anyone else. sorry.

Fencer: still. it allows one to be watched by persons unknown, and some of us aren't comfortable with that.

further, there are only a million other ways to detect your activities when you connect to the 'net with a Windows machine. there are far fewer ways if you use Macs, which is one of the (many) reasons some of us do.

Fencer: there are some truly malicious people on this site, in case you've had the good fortune not to notice. but even if there weren't, the feature of this site that tells others what a person is up to at any given moment can be seen as an invasion of privacy. if i want people to know where i am and what i'm doing, i'll choose whom i want to tell and tell them; it's none of anybody else's business. that tattletale feature is the brainking equivalent of injecting a subdermal tracking chip into each member. it puts everybody on a publicly visible radar screen, whether they want to be there or not. some of us just aren't comfortable with being on public-access radar, malicious members or no. it's the principle of the thing.