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I think a post or posts about ratings not going up after a game are relevant to this discussion board. NOnetheless, harley has deleted these posts. I find this puzzling. harley seems to have gone power mad, deleting almost everything. What's the deal? What is eveyrone so afraid of?
perhaps these questions can be deemed relevant by the almighty moderator:
1) Is gothic taking over the site, and
2) is it true that he is offering a 200% refund to dissatisfied users?
"Dmitri..an advice. If you want a post to stay, PM it to Harley in advance for her approval :)"
I can only hope that was meant in jest, otherwise that is a sorry state of affairs. I don't see what censorship accomplishes, and as a paying member, I consider the banishment of another member to be important, especially since his banishment has affected the outcome of a big tournament.
2000 out of 4000 is indeed quite a milestone! Why, just the other day, I flipped a cion 4000 times, predictiing a heads every timne. s it turns out, I was a winner about 2000 times. Now, obviously the 50% rate was not very impressive, but just the sheer fact that I flipped the coin so many times is an accomplishment in and of itself! of course, I just realize I was silly to stop at 4000-- I could have flipped it 10,000 times and then boasted about my 5000th correct call! the possibilities are endless!
I don't know what personal milestones have to do with with brainking.com message board, but since there were about twnety or thirty posts on the subject, I guess I'll chime in also.
With no disrespect meant towards Eddie Spagetthi, exactly what is there to congratulate about someone playing 3900 games and winning 2000 of them? This is a winning percentage that is barely over 50%, nothing to get veyr excited about. I have noticed that few (if any) of the players who play the high volumes of games manage a good winning percnetage. this is most likely because it is difficult to make good moves or plan the necessary strategies when simply clicking on game screens one after another in a frenzied effort to complete 2000, 3000, 0r 4000 games in less than a year.
As often is the case, I am sure I will get flamed for this post, with poeople telling me I am mean, insulting, or whatever, but I don't care, because I just don't see winning 51 or 52% of one's games as much of an accomplishment. Am I the only one who feels this way?
what Jason said-- I agree with him. It sounds like the problem has to do with bandwith, I am not sure if a new server will be the panacea that it is being made out to be.
UIL and Tactician-- I think the number of games played by an opponent should be irrelevant. Why does it matter? Once a player is established, who cares? I think ti is absurd that I gain more opints winning a game against a 2000 player with 50 games than against a 2000 player with 45 games.
Radiant-- storing old messages uses almsot no resources. message opsts are veyr small to begin with, in terms of how much space they take up, and additionally, site performance has little or nothing to do with how much data is stored.
Elma, I think you have missed the point. Revenue needs to be increased. I don't really see your suggestions as increasing revenue. Perhaps pawns will give the server downtime as reason for not becoming members, but I am not sure if I buy that.
you made an excelent post. I was about to post, but you said everything I was going to say. But, I'll add some words anyway.
I am puzzled by people like unacanta, with comments like
"Non paying pawns accomplish this, if you discourage people from coming to your site then the pool of new players disapates. "
and people like The Rat, who talk about how important the non paying members are.
I do not think people understand the economics of this situation veyr well. This site costs money to run. The pawns often mention how thye are essential to the site, which might be. But, at the same time, they are contributing NO money to the site.
Is this because they cannot afford a membership? that they so desperately want to become a member but just can't manage the minuscule membership fee? Unlikely. NO, more likely is that the brain pawns have no reason to buy a membership because they are satisfied with hwat they have.
I will address this directly to The RAt, since you spoke on behalf of the non paying members, but any pawn is welcome to answer this:
HOW do you suggest Fencer increase revenue? I am sure you realize that 250 memberships does NOT provide enough revenue to run this site. We all hope that Fencer will run the site forever as a hobby, getting almost no sleep, just because he is a fan of board games. But, that might be too much to ask. So, I repeat my question: How do you suggest increasing revenue? You oppose measures to restrict what pawns get, calling such measures "attempts to discourage pawns from coming to the site," so what do you suggest?
I'll help you out with this one: To increase revenue, there has to be either 1) more memberships or 2) a higher membership fee charged.
option 2 is not desirable, because with the number of members currently, a raise in the prices would not help much, and it would irritate the members because it owuld mean we are further financing the free loaders.
so that leaves option 1, getting more memberships. So, the question becomes one of "How do we increase memberships?"
one way is to add features. BUt, the suggestion that this site does not have enough features is preposterous. There are more than enough features, and anyone who says he is not becoming a member because "there are not enough games or features" is likely lying.
Another way is to keep the membership price the same BUT make it more important to have one by WIDENING the gap between what members have and what non members have.
OBVIOUSLY, if you have too small of a gap, people will have little incentive to become members.
But, people constantly reply with the tiresome remarks such as "But there is ALREADY a big gain from becoming a member. non members can only enter one tournamnet, canot join fellowships, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH............"
WELL, CLEARLY this gap is not veyr wide at all, because 90% or more of the users are SATISFIED with what they have without a membership!
<I see one obvious drawback. Say a member is in a game with a non-member at the time the non-members 3 months expire, this means the game is terminated. If I was the member playing the game I would feel I'm being denied the opportunity to complete a game based on a policy directed at non-members. I still say limitation on the number of games played as a non-member is the best incentive to become a paying member.>>>>
a response with a possible solution: After 3 months, the account is put on "to be deleted" status. the games in progress can bew finished, but nothing else can be done unless a membership is purchased.
I think a good suggestion would be to examine the rating system Dweebo uses at Dweebo's Stone games. The formula is similar, but would not have some of the odd results obtained with the current brain King formula.
Pioneer54, I partially agree with what you said, mostly in regard to the high number of games. But, just because people can improve their ratings by studying does NOT mean that a possibly flawed ratings system should not be changed. I am not saying that the rating system is definitely flawed, because maybe it isn't, but I think it could and should be improved. The fact that people can study and improve their ratings is no reason to have a weak rating system.
ALso, although it is hardly relevant, I dare say that my ratings in the 4 games I play (in which I am the top rated player) have not suffered any as a result of my spending 5 minutes complaining about the ratings system.
I agree with these opints. Players having 300 and 400 or even 700 games going is too much.
ALso, the rating systme is suspect. I took a look at the formula used, and it seems to base the rating on the number of games the opponents have played. But, the way I interpreted the website, it was not intended to work this way--the number of games played was used in determining ratings within a tournament, as I understood it, not over the lifetime of players. I could be wrong on this. But, Once a player is established, I think it ashould not mattewr hoew many games he has played. Dweebo's stone games uses this formula, and everyone knows how it works and knows how their rating will change after a game.
I do not see where the infinite circle comes in. As I understand it, the process is relatively simple. whoever's defeated opponents won more games would have the higher placement. In this case, that seems not to have happened.
yes, it is self explanatory-- you are a hypocrite. I don't really care about the post or posts supporting you. The world is full of fools. You can find millions of people who think Elvis is still alive also, but that doesn't mean a damn thing. But as you said, the matter is finished, is it not?
I thought I had the facts, based on the posts that you and kitti had made. I still do not understand why you could not play two games, one as eahc color, although I suppose a match would be simialr enough. Regardless, if you are a top player, you should win as either color against a weaker player.
Also, I still take issue with what you said, specifically:
(Kitti speaking about you): But he declined the invite saying that he doesn't want to risk losing many points (he has much higher rating than me) by playing black against me!
then you said:
"I think people should just chill out more & stop getting paranoid by thinking there being persecuted...If they want to play then fine, if they dont want to play, the fine again! Its only a game & theres alot more serious things in life than this. "
so again, I ask you, which one is it? Are you overly concerned with your rating, or are ratings and wins and losses not a serious matter because it's only a game?
kitti.. you are actually apologing here? I am appalled. If what you say is true, you owe no apology. Any opponent who does and says what you are claiming your opponent did, is a FRAUD. Anyone who claims to be one of the best players at anything would NEVER try to take the huge advantage of playing only as player 1 in a game where player 1 has a huge advanatge!
If he is such a big player, he should not fear playing you or anyone lese for that matter. Only a fraud is nervous about playing as player 2.
Spiderman, what you said in your defense does not add up. If you do not wish to play individual games, but only two game matches, why did YOU send out the invite to theo ther player? Do you think you are doing the "lesser" players a favor by playing them only with the upper hand?
This is nonsense, and it reflects poorly on you as a supposed top player. I have never delcined an invite, because I know that players of all levels like to play aginst the top players. As the top player in 4 games, I want to be fair and give others a chance to gain the top spots. But if I did not want to play for some reason, I would tell the person I am not playing any games right now. I would never tell the person I would play only as player 1, that is most unfair.
Spiderman, you said you are NOT opint grabbing or protecting your rating, yet you told Kitty you would not play her as player 2 because you did not want to risk losing points!
But hwat you said that most disgusts me is this:
"I think people should just chill out more & stop getting paranoid by thinking there being persecuted...If they want to play then fine, if they dont want to play, the fine again! Its only a game & theres alot more serious things in life than this."
WHAT A PILE OPF GARBAGE! Make up your mind! If you are overly concerned about losing some opints to Kitty, then you obviously do not believe what you said there.
vikings, if you are surfing the site and clikcing on different pages, the auto refresh serves no purpose. I am not sure you understand what it does. The auto refresh refreshes the page when you are idle, doing nothing at all. So it does not apply to the situation you described.
This has to go. what is the point iof having auto refresh? If it slows down the server AT ALL, GTE RID OF IT! IT is NOT neeeded! I have heard only one person give a reaosn for having it, and it was a TERRILBE one. The reason was "I can sit on the couhc and watch TV and not have to gte up to see if it is my turn."
A statement of such extreme laziness should come as no surprise in a nation where 50% or more of the people are overweight and 20% are obese.
BUt it is hardly a reason for hacing auto refresh and I tihnk it is time to get rid of it.
what the heck started this nonsense? Bernice, I am not sure hwat it is that Jason did that bothered you so much. Your reaction was somewhat childish. Jason-- I am not sure hwy you are so bent out of shape about the tehc info page. I found it quite interesting and informative. It is there to provide information. If you don't care about the technical aspects of the site and its probklems, I understand, but why are you so annoyed that the info is there fior those who want it?
Pioneer54-- I agree with you on all points. Multiple panw IDs should not be allowed from the same IP address. If there really are tow different pawns using the same computer, oh well.
I am sure I will sound like a broken record, but one of them can buy a membership to solve that problem.
Well, maybe you have a point there. Perhaps there is so much debate about this because there is no good answer. Flaws have been opinted out in every proposed solution. Of course, I am not sure there is really such a big problem. The site seems to be running most of the time.
mad monkey, I never said any of that. I was very clear in what I said. But, I'll repeat it anyway. What I said was this: If Brain pawns get LESS then what they have now, they might be more inclined to be paying members.
It is clear that the high number of brain pawns has more to do with their being satisfied with what pawns have than inability to pay for a membership.
to put it another way-- people pay for something when they have enough to gain to make it worthwhile. Perhaps there is not enough to gain by becoming a rook instead of a pawn. There are two solutions: Give rooks more (this would be difficult, if not impossible), or give the pawns less.
So you see, I am not suggesting giving pawns less because I don't give a crap about them or because I think it would be cool to stick it to them. No, I that wasn't what I suggested at all. My suggestion togive them less is to make the gain by becoming a member GREATER than it currently is. Obviosuly the gain right now is not enough because the pawns are NOT becoming rooks!
IT does not take months to decide if the site is worth it or not. After a few weeks, any Brain pawn who has not become a rook or knight is CONTENT being a pawn.
Mad Monkey, I heard someone say "we were all brain pawns once" a few weeks ago. perhaps it was you, I do not remember. I sure wish I knew what that has to do with ANYTHING, because as far as I can tell, it is a meaningless statement, as it is an obvious fact (since one cannot log onto the site without being a brain pawn at some point).
I don't think anyone is trying to drive brain pawns away. WHat is being suggested is that brain pawns have some of their benefits reduced, wihch has two possible consequences:
1) They might feel ti more necessary to become a member, because they obviously do not now (I very much doubt ythat financial woes are the reason people are not becoming members. Did all of the destitute people in this coutnry suddenly become board games players at brain King? I doubt it.)
2) There might be fewer occasions when a paying member cannot gte on the site to make his moves.
of course, you will probably counter that a 3rd consequence is that brain pawns may leave the site altogether. I suppose that somehow this loss of zero revenue is more important than dissatisfied PAYING members, but I don't quite understand how.
whether or not a person can afford a membership is really not relevant to the discussion anyway. I only discuss it because people don't seem to understand the difference between not wanting to pay for something and not being able to afford something.
"Pawns are where our future members come from. We should encourage brain pawns to play all they want."
I agree, it is simple. Not enough money is ocming in because not enough people are becoming paying members. Supply and demand can be used here. The demand for a membership is too low. This might be due to excess supply. By reducing supply (reducing the benefits extended to brain Pawns), demand will increase, because a membership will be worth more. Right now, it does not appear that a mambership is worth enough for people to become members.
I would guess that the thought process goes something like this: "Hmm. If I become a member, I can join fellowships and play unlimited games. But I can play 20 games for free, and I don't really care about joining fellowships. so I'll continue to be a brain Pawn."
Who said that pawns should be made to feel unwelcome? I simply said that the brain pawns already receive enough benefits for the amount of money they pay (ZERO dollars, let's not forget that small fact). It seems like quite a few pawns have some kind of sob story about why they cannot afford a membership, and that is fine. BUt, those stories do not change the fact that the server gets overloaded, paying members cannot make their moves, and meanwhile some brain pawns continue to complain about not getting enough features.
some people have distorted my arguments to make it sem that I have a vendetta against brain pawns. Not so. I am just giving simple solutions to a problem. For some reason, thoase who choose not to pay (or the very rare people who really cannot pay) get very offended by my having the "audacity" to suggest that they should have fewer benefits than they do now. I must admit that giving slihgtly less to those who pay ABSOLUTELY NOTHING may seem like a wild concept, but I think it may have some merit.
I could be wrong, but I think the problem is there are too many Brain Pawns. Brain Pawns do not help the site because they do not pay any money. A site costs money to run.
Some people have indicated that the brain pawns need to be given more features or more games or less restrictions in order to entice them to become paying members.
Of course, this is preposterous. If a brain Pawn is given MORE than the already NUMEROUS features he has, why would he pay for a membership at that point?
Generally, I have found that I (and others) pay for something when they have a lot to gain from doing so.
How can it be made so that Brain Pawns have more to gain by paying for a membership? By giving them LESS, not more. THe less they have, the more they have to gain by becoming a paying member.
WOW. I know I can be a bit of a negative NElly sometimes, but It loosk like we have found someone with a worse attitude that I have. At least I make some effort to be constructive and make suggestions.
Initially, I thought Buckwheat was using his complaints as a reason to decline invites, because he likes his 2500 rating and knows he won't keep it if he accepts invites. That still may be the case, but now it seems more likely that he just finds anything to complain about and can't see a good thing if there is the smallest drawback to it.
Buckwheat-- Running a site costs money. SOme of us have decided to contribute to the cause, while others have decided to complain. Maybe you are saying "Hey, it is not my job to subsidize a site, they are a business and they have to give me something before I pay up."
To this I have two responses.
1) In the real world, one has to PAY before receiving any service most or all of the time, and
2) although gaming sites are a buit different in that the gaming site must provide something to the customer BEFORE the customer will pay, I would argue that Brain King has provided plenty so far.
That was my post that got deleted. It was a somewhat long post too. BUt, not to worry-- by clicking "back" on my browser about 100 or 150 times, it returned me to the screen where I typed thre message about 5 hours ago, and so I was able to copy and paste it here! here is the original message:
<The worst consequence of a donw period is timing out in a game. BUt, this is avoidable. I realzie that in the best acse scenario, one would not have to worry about this at all. But, donwtime will happen occasionally, and one can easily prepare for it.
Many people, like me, are addicts, and are at the computer almost all the time and can make moevs at almost any opint in the day. For this reason, I do not fear timing out.
but, if you are a person who only makes moves once a day, or maybe twice a day, you are in greater danger of timing out, so you might want to consider playing games that have 3 or 4 days to move (or longer), then consider one of those days to be "emergency only" days. By that I mean pretend it isn't there at all. If you have a 5 day gamne, pretend it is a 4 day game, then if the site goes down for a full day, you have that extra day to make your moves. If you never let your games gte below one day to move, you will not time out even if the site is down for a full day (and it has not yet been done for more than 24 hours).
Is tihs a mild inconveniemnce? Perhaps. But this ios the only site I have seen that has rated turn based games with such a variety to choose from, so I consider it a worthwhile inconvneience. >>>>>>>>
for a period of about an hour today I had trouble making my moves-- aside from that one hour period, I have had no trouble for about a week straight. I think you are blowing the problem out of proportion.
Sujet: Re: ok, fine, you cannot pay it all at once.
TTJazzberry-- you said " I think its appalling to see anyone take such a better than thou attitude by suggesting they do without a basic item like cable TV in order to purchase a membership to satisfy ANY of its members"
You are grossly distorting my words, I have NO IDEA how you managed to attribute to me what you are saying I said. I never said ANYONE should do ANYTIHNG to satisfy ANYONE. where did you get that? i simply said that no one is do destitute that he cannot afford a membership UNLESS he isn;t wasteful in other areas! AND YOU AGREED WITH ME!
What I find especially disturbing is your reference to cable TV as a "BASIC" item.
This shows how patheticly papmered and lazy our society is, that cable TV is considered a basic item. Heaven forbid soemone not have 80 something channels to watch. Try telling someone who is starving that Cable TV is a basic item, I think he might disagree with you.
CLaiming that people who cannot afford a membership when they enjoy Cble television is a horrible insult to the hungry and homeless out there who TRULY cannot afford a membership.
Let;'s try to keep things in persepctive here!!!!!!
Sujet: Re: ok, fine, you cannot pay it all at once.
TTJazzberry! CALM DOWN! I am NOT judging anyone! In fact, YOU AND I AGREE! I am simply poitning out that people CAN afford a membership, THEY JUST CHOOSE TO DO OTHER TIHNGS with the money, like buy soda, cigarettes, go to movies, or buy cable TV. THAT IS ALL I AM SAYING!
Surely you agree there is a diffreence between "Not being able to afford" a membership and "choosing to do other things with disposable income".
Right? You said so yourself:
" If they cant afford it because they decided they want cable TV then thats thier business and their decision, its about personal choices."
EXACTLY! YOU AGREE WITH ME!
It isn't about not being able to afford it, it is about not WANTING to buy it in lieu of other more desirable LUXURIES. Please do not tell me that Sodas and cigarettes and cable TV are NOT luxuries, because they ARE. Necessities are food and clothes and rent and utilities, health and educational expenses. Junk food, cable TV cigarettes, and other such stuff are luxuries, and if people want those instead of a brain King membership, YOU ARE RIGHT, that is their choice-- The key word there is CHOICE! they CHOOSE to not have money for it because they spend it on other non-essentials.
Bernice makes the opint that it is not really 2 dollars a day, but 12 dollars for 6 months, or something like that. OK, fine.
HOW many of the people qwho CLAIM to not be abl to afford a membership DO HAVE cable TELEVISION!??
ALmost EVERYONE I have ever mewt who complains about finbancial woes has cable TV. Casble TVcosts more per month than a brain King membership does for a year.
So, anyone who has cable TV has no grounds for falsely claiming to not be able to afford a membership. I like to play board games. COnsequently, I do have a membership, but I do NOT have cable TV
Kevin's figures are almost idential to the one I gave. So, the ten dollars to two dollars was a GROSS exaggeration. instead of two dollars a month, we're talking about 3.10 a month. BIg deal. Three less sodas instead of two less sodas.
What exactly is the exchange rate? Last I was in Canade it was 1.6. Are you saying it is closer to 5 now? that seems difficult to believe but I could be wrong. HOwever, I don't really know because the only figure you gave is one that you ackowledged to be off target with your next sentence.
either way my point still stanbds, that most people would rather do something else with the money, not that thye iod not have the money.
limiting non paying members moves DOES negatively affect us. I agree 100%. Thus, I am OPPOSED to any limiting of the number of moves. BUt I do think the numnber of GAMES should then be lowered, as long as a person can move in each game as many times as he wants. Maybe drop the number of games to ten.
If that makes it tough to play in a tournament-- TOUGH. Buy a membership.
if that means you do not get to play as many games as you like, TOUGH. Buy a membership.
When I was growing up, three was a brief period of time when money was very tight. But at no point was 2 dollars a month impossible to attain. I oculd just do an odd chore for someone and make two dollars. There are plenty of ways to do it.
As I have said, if anyone TRULY is so destitute that two dollars a month is too muhc money, then perhaps the person in question would want to consuider playing fewer board games anyway and finding some way to make a few extra bucks.
BUt, let;s be honest here. of the 4800 Brain Pawns, how many of them TRULY CANNOT AFFORD a membership?
3, maybe 4? I doubt it is even that. For someone to TRULY not be able to afford a membership, the person would ahve to
1) not smoke
2) not drink alcohol or soda
3) not buy ANY candy or sweets
4) Not eat out, EVER.
5) not go to a single movie or even rent one from the video store
Dakota-- the site runs slower as more people are making moves in games. If a person has 20 games oging but is making ten moves in each game, that slows the system as much as someone who has 200 games but moves once per game. The more moves that non members make, the slower the system rusn for paying members. I often hear about people who have family and thus cannot afford to pay for a membership. Well, i chose not to ahev a family, because I think my hobbies and intreests are more important. why do I have to financially support thr gaming interests of those who chose family as their greatest interest?
This si a running debate that really has no good solution, because the site would not be fun to thep aying members if the 4800 non paying members were not here. What I find sad is that people do not pay but then want fencer to do more for them.
Also, regarding the person you mentioned, the one that supposedly cannot afford to pay a membership-- I still maintain that anyone can afford a membership. We are talking about two dollars a month here. Tihs means that twice a month, she could drink a glass of tap water instead of some other beverage, which would amount to a two dolalr savings. I do not believe that ANYONE has suhc a tight budget that TWO DOLLARS cannot be saved somewhere. Until I actually see a budget sheet indicating otherwise, I will stick to that notion.
This doesn't mean every non paying member should become one just because he or she can afford to. But, if you choose not to become one, be satisfied with what you already have and don;t complain if you have restrictions that you do not like. If you want to pay, then complain, if not, then don't.
I agree, 25 MOVES a day is an Absurd limit, that was a mistake on IYT's part. I think being able to play 15-20 games for free is pretty good, as long as one can actually make the moves for those games! with IYT's system, a person can play 20 games, but only make 1.25 moves per game? that's crazy. if he makes 6 extra moves by mistake, he has to forfeit. that is nonsense. At the veyr least, one should be able to make 3 moves per day per game, which would be 60. If 60 it too many,m then the number of games should be reduced to fit the reduction in moves.
I think most of what TTJazzberry said makes sense. BUt, there is only ONE members only board being created, all theo thers are open to everyone, so I don;t see the harm.
ALso, I do not bleieve for one second that there is ANYONE ALIVE who plays games that cannot afford 2 dollars a month. Remmember, "not wanting to pay two dollars am onth" and "not being able to afford" two dollars amo nth are very different. I ahve met lots of people who say "I can't afford this or that" and then I watch them pay: 1 dollar for a soda. 5 dolalrs for cigarettes. 8 dollars for a movie. 3 dollars for s rental movie. etc. etc. etc. ....
have I met every person on the planet? no, of course not. But I am willing to bet that no one who claism to not be able to afford the membership is really that destitute. they wopuld rather just do soemthing else with that two dollars a month.
Tony, I think that p[eople simply like to get something for nothing, so thye will do so whenever they can; and they can always come up with SOME reason or another why they are not completely satisfied yet and why they are not "yet" becoming a paying member.
I am of the opinion that giving the pawns MORE features will make them LESS invclined to pay, but what do I know about running a business (nothing).
Rose-- "I see many non members asking for features etc (all input is great) but always getting so much for free defeats his purpose of wanting to make a living off this site and make it the best site out there!
Likley there will be talk of discrimination againt no members but thats easily rectified.
Just buy a membership! :-)"
Right on! I have asid this many times myself. NOw, I underatsnd that people want to try soemthing out before decideing to purchase it. BUtm Fencer gives the non-member PLENTY, easily enough for them to decideif they want a membership or not. But instead, some of the pawns seem to want various minute details changed to their liking. I wonder if they will be mailing in a membership fee as soon as said changes are made?