Thanks to amazing work of chessmec (formerly started by Dresden) who worked hard to translate the whole BrainKing to German, you can switch to this language now. And, of course, his army of testers (diogenes, Caissus, danoschek, andreas, Sumerian, Mely, Luke Skywalker, estanto and snowflake) should be mentioned as well.
Note: I still speak only English and Czech, any questions in German please address to chessmec :-)
The main source of recent site problems has been fixed. However, some strange events still can happen (a negative value of time left in games, etc.), that's why the game time will stay suspended until it is solved as well.
Hello,
since we are currently having unexpected problems with one of our servers, the site performance is very bad at the moment. Please be patient, the problem will be solved as soon as possible.
Consequences:
The time for games and ponds has been suspended in order to avoid timeouts. It will be started after the problems are fixed.
Please expect some downtimes and slow loading of pages, we are currently running on only one machine which is very overloaded. The tests and attempts to make the second server running can cause the site inactivity. Please don't report it as a bug.
The "time left" value for certain games is showing as a very big negative number. This is a temporary and harmless bug (because the timeouts are disabled), please don't report it.
Some games (especially battleboats) can become unstable (disappearing game board). This is related to the mentioned problems, please don't report it and let the games as they are until the problem is solved.
In order to make the discussion boards better arranged and prepared for new supported languages, several game discussion boards have been combined into one (e.g. Checkers variants, Reversi variants etc.). It means that certain boards could disappear from your list of favourite boards which is not a bug, just a consequence of this action.
Thanks to amazing work of aissi and pauloaguia who worked hard to translate the whole BrainKing to Portuguese, you can switch to this language now. More changes reflecting the new multilingual structure (especially in discussion boards and fellowships) will follow soon.
Note: I still speak only English and Czech :-)
A prize tournament in backgammon (created by Luisifer) with 13,000 CZK membership value, sponsored by thirteen sponsors, who earned our endless gratitude, has been created :-) Only Czech or Slovak players can apply. (Why? Because that's how Luisifer defined his rules. In case of questions please ask him, not me. Thank you.)
Since we plan to upgrade our database system to a new version supporting a better and more secure crypting system, please go to your Profile / Change Password page and use it to reset your password. It's okay to set the same password as you use now, the purpose is to activate the new store function.
After the database is upgraded (within several weeks), it will be still possible to set a password on the Login Page. However, who follows this instructions now, will not be surprised if his password suddenly stops working after the upgrade is performed.
1) I have added a new option for paying members on the main Settings page - the banner ads can be moved to the page bottom. The purpose is to give them a possibility to see interesting links related to our site content without being disturbed by them in other cases.
2) The system of Server News has been improved and separated from discussion boards. Soon it will be applied to fellowship news as well. Since the new structure is not fully compatible with the current one, it is recommended save important posts from the News boards (if you are a Big Boss) because I cannot guarantee that all of them would survive the conversion.
BrainKing introduces a new chess variant called Fischer Random Chess. By the way, in case somebody is still not aware of it, since the last week we have another backgammon variant Hyper backgammon :-)
1) BrainKing brings two Five in Line variants - Pro Five in Line and Swap Five in Line.
2) Users with Brain Rook or higher membership level can create Ponds, starting today.
We apologize for the "deja vu" effect and the return in time (2 hours to the past), caused by a bug in the configuration files. Due to this situation, the game time will be suspended till tomorrow morning.
Everything works correctly now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
1) A planned downtime of BrainKing is scheduled to the 2nd January 2005, due to moving data to archive databases. The whole action should not exceed 1 hour. The game time will be turned off, just for a case of unexpected events.
2) There are still several days left for everyone who didn't take advantage of the Christmas Special! Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends the current one) and makes it to the end of this year (2004), will automatically get one FREE month of the same membership as a Christmas present.
1) Christmas Special! Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends the current one) and makes it to the end of this year (2004), will automatically get one FREE month of the same membership as a Christmas present.
2) And for the doubtful ones, there is one temptation - BrainKing brings the first multiplayer game which is accessible for paying members only. The number of participants is unlimited and the name is Run round the Pond.
3) The User Agreement has been improved in order to make it more understandable and clear.
Hello,
as you can see, all hardware problems have been (hopefully) solved and BrainKing is operating in its standard way.
Now it is time to announce the very first third-party tool created for BrainKing paying members. It is called BrainKing Notify, it should be working on all Windows platforms and after installation it keeps you informed about a number of games to play.
Important: This application was developed by Klokan, not me, therefore all questions/suggestions/reports send directly to him, please. It can be downloaded from this site and after some testing period, I will officially add it to BrainKing domain.
The last note: The application works for paying members only.
...phew, I've reincarnated "Maja" the database server and after a sleepless night we've moved (with Fencer) the database back to Maja. This was the cause of today's downtime.
The game time will be started again as of Friday 26th November 2004, 12:00 GMT+1 after a sufficient review of full BK functionality.
Due to a sudden malfunction of the database server, the whole BrainKing is currently running on one machine only, which can have a negative impact on the site speed and response time. This is the reason why the game time has been suspended until the problem is solved.
If somebody can observe a "time warp" effect (missing last moves in games, etc.), it is caused by a broken data replication to a backup machine. I recommend to continue in games with their current status and not to report it as a bug.
Global BKR recalculation based on all finished games since October 2002 will be performed next week, most likely as of Monday 25th October 2004, 8:00 CET. This process can take 10-15 minutes which will cause a temporary site unavailability.
New system of timeout calculating and processing has been launched in a test mode. It means that initial values of "time left" can be a bit inaccurate. After all tests are passed, the time for games will be started again (most likely on Friday 15th October 2004, about 12:00 CET).
BrainKing brings 3 new games - Jarmo, Alquerque and Froglet. My thanks go to white for those little froggies and Sinay for boards of Jarmo and Alquerque. Yes, I know that boards for Jarmo and Alquerque are too big, I will add smaller ones soon.
Besides, lots of bugs was fixed (e.g. multiple jumps in Czech Checkers) and added several improvements.
I have added a simple bug tracking and reporting system. It is accessible through a new Bug tracker menu item. This first version will be improved in the future, according to requirements and feedback.
For Pente players: The World Championship will be held in Las Vegas, NV on August 7 & 8, 2004. You can find more information here.
1) The First Team Tournament has been started! Although some minor bugs can occur (i.e. in score counting), it should be working properly.
2) The User Agreement has been officially released and is valid for everyone. I would recommend to read it at least once.
1) I have added a new page Store where you can order an original BrainKing.com T-shirt and more similar things in the future.
2) Suspended time will be restarted next week, most likely as of 10th July 2004 (Saturday).
Okay, I don't say anything ... let's wait and observe :-)
We've already found some small bugs but they should have no negative impact on the functionality. One of them is showing incorrect red numbers at the menu column, so please don't report it, I am aware of it.
Btw, what not to try Battleboats Plus, Dark Battleboats and Amazons? :-D
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Monday 28th June 2004, 7:00 a.m. GMT+01:00 due to a conversion of our database. The process should not exceed two or three hours. In case of additional problems I will inform about the situation on BrainKing.info.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Saturday 12th June 2004 due to a replacement of damaged hardware components. The process should not take more than 2 hours, hopefully.
Ehm ... hmmmm ... well, due to unexpected problems, we have decided to re-launch former BrainKing 1.0 again, until all possible [recently detected] performance bugs are fixed. I am sure it's better to have at least this site running. Sorry :-) We will try the switchover again next weekend, probably.
UPDATE: Due to recent access problems of WebTV users, I have stopped game time [to prevent timeouts] until it is solved. It will be started again on Monday 14th June 2004.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Saturday 5th June 2004 due to a conversion of our database. In case of additional problems (which are not expected) I will inform about the situation on BrainKing.info.
IMPORTANT: The "suspended time" will be turned off within several days [as of 9th January 2004]. Please make sure that none of your games (where it is your turn to move) has "0" as time left. Thank you.
Update: I have temporarily disabled posting on discussion boards for non-paying users. It is a short time solution before I improve our anti-spam filter.
Due to some New Year bug, several games had been finished by a timeout. I would like to ask everybody not to panic, everything is under control now. Please send me game IDs of all timeouted games, I will restore them. Thanks and I apologize.
IMPORTANT: The "suspended time" will be turned off within several days [as of 14th November 2003]. Please make sure that none of your games (where it is your turn to move) has "0" as time left. Thank you.
Since the description of the recent events is too long to be posted here, please read it on BrainKing.info before you ask me about anything. Thank you.
A hardware failure has occured at our web/database server. We are currently running on the second server only and the time for games will be suspended until the first one is fixed. Since we have only Saturday database backup, all Sunday and Monday actions are lost. I apologize for the inconvenience.
I have added two new tournament options:
1) Unrated tournaments - no games generated for the tournament will affect the players' BKR.
2) Private tournaments - only players invited by the tournament creator can sign up.
These options can be found on "define new tournament" page (visible for Brain Rooks only).
I have added pgn encoder for chess games. Since I have never used this format before, I would like to ask anybody who is familiar with this format to test it. There is a new link "download pgn code" at the notation column of chess games.
I have slightly modified the discussion board system to improve the overall site performance. Please do not be alarmed if all board posts are marked as "new", it is a harmless side-effect.
1) BrainKing.com releases three new games - Battleboats, Screen Chess and Crazy Screen Chess.
2) There is also new menu item Game editors to create game positions for later use. Please test everything and report any bugs :-)
3) According to many requests from Pente players, Easy Pente and Easy Keryo Pente have been renamed to Open Pente and Open Keryo Pente.
This is a reminder for all Brain Pawn and Brain Knight players who signed up for $250 Gothic Chess tournament - please make sure that you have at least 5 empty slots for tournament games, otherwise you will be automatically removed from the tournament.
A $250 prize will be awarded to the top finisher of the Gothic Chess tournament that will start on June 5. THIS IS FREE FOR EVERYONE TO JOIN!! The second place finisher will receive a FREE Gothic Chess set. A "brilliancy prize" will be awarded to the game judged to be the best by Gothic Chess inventor Ed Trice. A FREE Gothic Chess mug (stainless steel) will be awarded to the winner of this prize.
NOTE: Ed Trice (GothicChessPro) will NOT be playing in the event.
To join this tournament, click here.
To see more about Gothic Chess strategies and review completed games, go to http://www.geocities.com/bow_of_odysseus/index.html.
1) Congratulations to panda and bumble on the birth of your second set of twins (a girl and boy), with love from cariad and all your many friends here on BrainKing.com :-)
2) BrainKing.info has been updated. More information will follow soon.
3) I've completely forgotten to announce an addition of Easy Pente and Easy Keryo Pente last week ;-)
I would like to thank everybody who responded to the discussion boards moderator request. Because I cannot send a personal response to all of you, here is the current status - several moderator posts are already occupied and if you are still interested, pick any of non-system and "open" (moderated by Fencer) discussion board and send me a message about that. Thanks again :-)
Thanks to amazing work of 
...phew, I've reincarnated "Maja" the database server and after a sleepless night we've moved (with Fencer) the database back to Maja. This was the cause of today's downtime.
