It would be nice if some of the games created by Mark Steere got implemented here on Brainking.
http://www.marksteeregames.com/

Can Dots and Boxes added to the site?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes

For East Asian players the fact that Japanese and Chess notation is only of western style is really inconvenient.

Japanese chess notation style does not even has longer chess-style notation such as P7g-7f for short P-7f. Longer style is used for some of the Japanese chess softwares for non-Japanese. Also Chinese Chess and Japanese chess should have Kanji notation now that Japanese and Chinese localization have been released.

My fellow, tenuki has just chipped in an idea: neutral discs could dissappear when they create a line of 4, making all discs above them fall down.

Another idea:

How about rhombus-shaped 10x10 board. Discs fall down diagonally (from either left or right side) and can block making part of the board unplayable and stick to other discs.

I've been thinking how to "refresh" line4 games here. I have searched the internet for some unusual variants of line4, and reported to Fencer as soon as I had found something interesting. Now, after holidays, I'm full of new ideas that I want to share with other players:

*** A mix of line4 and connect6. It combines line4's board, gravity and goal, and connect6's number of placed discs.
*** Same as above, but the goal is opposite (like in anti line4). The rule "do not put in the same column your opponent did in last move" is not applied.

I've been thinking about some additional features, because putting 2 discs a turn is much more challenging and tricky.
In order to balance chances there are two things that could be done:
*** A player, instead of putting his two discs, puts one disc of his color and is allowed to destroy any other (his or his opponent's) disc that is on the top of a particular column. Beacuse this feature enables 3-fold repetition, when the same situation occurs for the third time, the game is a draw.
Example: White starts by playing e1. Black plays c1 and destroys white's disc in e1. The c1 disc is the only one on the board now.
*** A player, instead of putting his two discs, puts one disc of his color, and is allowed to put two NEUTRAL discs (both in the same column) in a column of his choice. These neutral discs are just blockers, they don't belong to any player, and they cannot be used to create a line of 4 discs.

Of course those blockers should be limited by adding the tetris feature, and:
*** to 2 uses/player/game;
*** no more frequently than once in 5 moves.

TC: And the game number by the way (like 5th game in the match)

It would be nice if we have in our game list:

My points-Opponent's points/Match points

It is not so hard to implement in programm, and see immediately!

Thanks

Since this is feature requests, I will request what I would like to see with the tournament list.

1. Having 20 "fee" prize tournaments at the top of the list is a pain, having to scroll down through. I would like to see either (A) be able to close that box to not see it at all, or (B) limit it to 5... and next to the title "Top entry fee prize tournaments" add a (see all) which will filter and show all of them if clicked.

2. I never understood why a tournament can go 30 days past start date - that is just WAY too long. YES - it is nice that it goes past the start date, but 5 days should be plenty. Within those 5 days, it will give the tournament creator time to change the start date if needed if they want to extend the time, or just let it go.

3. I think there should be a limit of 20 public tournaments to sign up for from 1 person. 20 may sound high, but 20 would be a good number - I know for myself when I was created a lot of the "Fast Start - First 5" tournaments, I could easily get 10-15 tournament up on the page, which wasn't too much since for the most part, all of them would start within 1-3 days (before even reaching the date since it was set to start when full) - So a limit of 20 public tournaments I think would be good. (With fellowships being unlimited as it is now.)

AbigailII: Thought it might have been helpful to those prolific tournament creators, and you're right, i don't look beyond the first couple of pages.

rod03801: Yes, that would explain it.

SL-Mark: I create tournaments with start dates month or even a year in advance. The reason is that that way, I don't have to remember when to create new tournaments. And it's not that you have to wade through them. Tournaments are sorted by start date. If you're not interested in a tournament that starts in the far future, don't go to the last pages.

SL-Mark: My guess would be that maybe if a tournament consists of 10 different game types, that tournament is 10, and if one contains only one game type it is just 1? Just a thought.

El Cid: No, I have the same too, and it's not because it's adding in the fellowship tournaments, nor having a creator on block either. Perhaps they were created by someone who has since been banned from the site

SL-Mark: Is it just me, or the counter is wrong. I have 50 tournaments on the first page (with all the default filters - every game; every type of tournament; every type of prize). It shows me 21 pages (1029/50=20,6). However, the last page that shows tournaments is page 11, with 33 tournaments (10x50=500; 500+33=533), so there are almost 500 ghost tournaments

Snoopy: And what's the point of posting tournaments starting in a years time? Who cares. People are interested in signing up for tournaments that will start in a few days or weeks.

cd power: only another 31 to go to hit the thousand mark
and who in there right mind wants to wade thou 1000 tournaments to find one they want

Snoopy: I agree... it is silly and annoying - the amount of tourneys created by one person

furbster: since i wrote my first post less than 10 mins ago over 100 more have been created

Snoopy: I agree, the unique ones often gets lost amongst the ones that flood the room!

its getting really crazy now 818 and counting... to choose from alot of them created by one player
we have a limit on how many games we can have in the waiting area
can we please have some control on how many tournaments one player can create at a time

i know its been mentioned on more than one occasion

Rainbow Road: These are the tourneys created by you, for example. :)

is there a way to have a search tourney by creator?

... are supposed to warn me if it's a gammon or backgammon position (so I don't give up double or triple points without realizing).

However, it also warns me if the game has been doubled, but it's not a gammon or backgammon position. I believe this is unnecessary... no?

Pason69: "go to the next game of similar type"

Pason69: Well, it isn't exactly what you are asking for, but there is the option of using "Move and go to next game of this type", which we already have.

Sometimes I want to play Chess-games only, or BG-games only since I have the thoughtprocess in chess (or whatever group). Would be nice to sort the games on a group of games. Today, BG, Nackgammon and crowded are impossible (?) to get in a row if you have many games. Either predetermined groups (chess, bg, checkers etc) or userdefined groups (max x groups to decide in the settings)

I've recently learned about this game, and it seems to be a nice game, so I'd like to see it on BrainKing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gess

pauloaguia: Wow, you think starting 1 live pond every hour would be too many - Heck, I was expecting to hear complaints about it not being enough - that people would be done with their pond at 10 minutes past the hour, and have to wait 50 more minutes for the next live pond to start.

Yes - A Optional Pop-up to remind you to play would be great. Not sure if a pop up to put your bid in would help much since you would probable want to go to the page and take a quick look at past bids & totals left & such to make a good educated bid.

pauloaguia: Yeah, the pop up idea would be good. I was about to comment that I think 1 minute is too short, because personally, I doubt I would just sit there waiting. I would probably make a move in a game or 2 and come back.

A pop up would solve that though. Especially if you could make your bid right on that pop up!

coan.net: I LOVE the strategy war idea. I hope the big guy will consider that one someday.

coan.net: I don't know if such an abbundance would be good. Take a look at the poker tables - you can go in and out when you feel like it, but there's usually only 1 or 2 tables with players at most...
Now, think about people signing in for a game that starts in 10 minutes, keep playing the rest of their games, and when they go in to play in the pond, find out that either they have just timed out, or go in advance and wait 3 minutes staring at a page, waiting for the pond to start...
Doesn't seem like it will be very popular to me...

Suggestion to add onto this, if they are implemented this way - If I'm in a live Pond, have something popup on me when the time comes for me to make a bet no matter what page I'm at (as long as it's a page in BK, of course ).

I mention this game idea every once and awhile, and I know there was interest in it in the past, but thought I would mention it again:

http://www.coan.net/strategy-war.html

The game would be set up similar to ponds (multi-players, 2-10 players) - and could even work pretty well as a live game also.

.... anyway, just wanted to throw out that idea again.

I think Live Ponds are a good idea (AS LONG AS the normal ponds keep working the way they do)

My thinking on the game:

1. Only SYSTEM live ponds – no user created live ponds (if you make only certain system ponds, the hope would be enough will sign up for those, where if you start creating a lot of them… it might dilute the players.)

2. Live Ponds – System starts a new one EVERY HOUR, on the top of the hour. So 24 ponds a day. Starting at 1:00am, 2:00am, 3:00am, ….

3. Live Dark ponds – System starts a new one EVERY HOUR, on the ½ Hour. So 24 dark live ponds a day. Starting at 12:30am, 1:30am, 2:30am…..

NOTE: By starting it on the top of each hour (and ½ hour for dark), it will allow the users to know EXACTLY when the next pond is starting. If I know I will be here at the top of the hour, I know I can play through a live pond pretty quickly.

TIME PER MOVE.

I would suggest that the time for each move is 1 minute to place a bid. EXCEPTION – for the FIRST bid, maybe make it a 2 or 3 minute time frame to place their first bid. This is so people won’t time out if their clock on the wall is a little fast/slow. After the first bid, the limit goes down to 1 minute per bid.

IF everyone who is still in has placed their bid before the 1 minute time frame, then PROCESS the round and go to next round. (no point in waiting.)

NUMBER OF PLAYERS:

I would say as long as 5 players join the live pond, then start it. It won’t be as fun as bigger ponds, but still something.

STATISTICS:

1. Keep stats SEPARATE from normal ponds.

2. Keep 3 different stats for live ponds. (Live ponds under 10 players), (Live ponds 10-19 players), and (Live pond 20+ players) So a Live Pond rating would look like:

Live Pond 1768/1819/2012

(with the 1768 as the under 10, 1819 is 10-10, and 2012 for 20+ players)

Why different stats for number of players – Because the game is played very differently depending on the number of players. With less players, you need to be aggressive and take chances… with more players, it is more of trying to wait out some of the other aggressive players & know when to make your move with your own aggressive play.

OTHER RULES:

Everything else, including time outs should work just like the do in ponds currently.

Pedro Martínez: Agree, bringing pawns in would change everything. But that's contrary to the policy of limiting pawns. After all, the site needs to show a profit. I and others had proposed long ago to allow pawns to participate in one pond at a time.

Another possibility is to reduce the holy number of 16, make it a variable. Maybe the 20000 and 500 too, while we're at it. We've always been following the rules defined by, eh, I forgot his name, but...

grenv: I seem to remember Fencer agreeing to pawns in Ponds some time ago... there were some words of caution about how it might change the game strategy and, therefore, caution would have to be taken while the two systems coexisted or if the current ponds suddenly allowed players with an expired membership to carry on playing.
Maybe Fencer's considering it for BK3.0?

Back to feature requests - I tried to search the board for posts using the words "Pawns" and "Ponds" (to check for sure if Fencer had really aggreed to such a thing or if I had just imagined it) but it just won't work like that. So, can we have a better seach feature in the next version? One that accepts multiple search terms...
Also, can the "Show context" link, to display messages around the chosen one (the one with parameter bscx, that you can find in messages from a player's progile page, for instance), be made available also in search results? Sometimes, displaying just the thread isn't enough...
Or just make the "link" link work like that - why would someone want to link only to a single message without seeing what context it was written on, anyway?

rabbitoid: The average pond now has enough trouble collecting 16 reluctant players from all over the planet. for a live game, they'd all need to be present at start.

That is exactly the reason why I brought it up here. My guess is that live ponds would stir the interest and it would not be too difficult to get 16 players for a game. But it's only my "guess" and I wanted to know what other people think of it. Anyhow, I like grenv's idea of allowing Pawns to play live ponds.

may fill up with contestants if you allow pawns ;)

1 minute per move for example... you could even have tournaments - for example say 160 people sign up... 10 ponds of 16, top 3 in each through to semi finals... 2 ponds of 15... top 5 through to final of 10... or something like that. Whole thing could be over in a couple of hours.

pauloaguia: I don't think so. I have stopped even trying to start one day ponds, they take longer to fill than 2 day ones.

rabbitoid: Actually I think live Ponds could attract more players. Nowadays there are many that won't play because the Pond always lasts for at least a couple of weeks and they may not control their availability to play during that period...
For instance, whenever I go on vacation, I have to stop signing up for ponds over 1 month in advance!

Live Ponds might not suffer from this syndrome... Or they may, it all depends on the time limit for each move and of how people decide to (ab)use it...

Fencer: Theoretically yes, but I don't think it would work in practice:

The average pond now has enough trouble collecting 16 reluctant players from all over the planet. for a live game, they'd all need to be present at start.

With poker, it doesn't matter much if someone drops out of the table, but in ponds you need to stay until the end. Difficult too.

rabbitoid: A live solution, similar to poker tables, should be the preferred attitude. My opinion.

pauloaguia: Didn't see that. No, that would work only if all are from the same time zone or night owls :)

rabbitoid: I was commenting on this sentence: however the creator would have the option to set as low time limits as one minute

pauloaguia: But what was suggested is that the pond round is ended as soon as everyone has placed the bet, or until the regular time (whatever it is) elapses. so no one-minute timeouts. I like it too.

Pedro Martínez: as long as the automatic scripts that determine timeouts keep being executed only every few minutes, having a time setting of 1 minute is probably not viable...

Other than that, I like the idea. Though timeouts will be much more easy to spot... and so may rise the number of complaints against people "dragging" the pond by moving at the very last minute just like we have now in tournaments...

Pedro Martínez: I like it too. Of course there are going to be those who are confused, (LOL) and don't understand the implications of the difference.

I wonder what a good name for these ponds would be? People could post suggestions for that too.

alexlee: I should also mention that this idea is not to be interpreted as an effort to change the ponds as we know them. There would be two types of ponds available: the regular ones and these new "live" ponds.

Pedro Martínez:
That sounds like a great idea, so it would be like a "live" pond and you stay and play or go for a swim lol

There has been a idea of starting the next round in ponds immediately after all players submit their bids. In this way, it would be possible to finish a pond within hours or even minutes. Of course, the maximum time per move would still apply, however the creator would have the option to set as low time limits as one minute. I have already informed Fencer about this idea, but I would like to know how popular such ponds would be. So if anyone would post their comments, it would be mostly appreciated.

I was wondering if it would be possible to limit people with high provisional ratings from being ranked high in tourneys until they have an established Rating. In a tourney we are about to start there is a player ranked #1 (1 game played ever in that game type) and he leaped frogged over six 2000+ rated players. This seems very odd! Even though that player may be an excellent player i think that they should only get this high rating through an established rating!