Eriisa:but I'm still brainless

no comment LMAO

really, i put your id in and everything :(

it showed you name as being the id as well .. wonder why. will fencer be able to give u them anyway?

furbster: glad I could help out. LOL, but I'm still brainless. Maybe that's the price of being blonde?

Bad Bishop: LOL, yes it was easily understood :)

There are people who routinly play games with longer limits who agree to play a "fast" game, sometime to finish the game in one sitting. Thats all I want to be able to do. People with a life would not have to participate. But as it is right now, the fastest games will still be just under half a month...

It seems to be a good compromise, but I'm affraid there would be a problem. (I mean not for me and surely not for the majority of us, sitting in front of a computer 16+ hours a day :-))

Let's say, the deadline for a move is every 24 hours, at 1 pm. A player gives his bid shortly after the previous move, at 2 pm (23 hours before deadline), in the hope that he has 47 hours time for the next move and can leave for a trip or whatever (They say, there is a life outside... :-o). Unfortunatelly all bids will be given in the next 2 hours, the actual move will be done at 4 pm (21 hours before the original deadline) and the next deadline would be at 4 pm next day, 21 hours before our player originally thought...

(Aaaaarrrgghh, I hope you can understand my Pidgin English and what I mean... :-))

As Bad Bishop says.....a site that is turn based wouldnt work with 10 mins or 1hr etc etc.
But if the other suggestion of a 1 or 2 day move..but if all have bid, next round comes into play...that would be a good compromise :oD

Czuch Chuckers: Oh, sorry for misunderstanding the "starting pool", in this case I agree with you again. (I'd say more than 30 runners is rather a pain, but 200+ is sooo perverted that it's fun again :-))
Shorter time for a move -- in hours or minutes -- would certainly guarantee quick games and I'd probably participate, but I think on an e-mail game site (as BK is) is 1 day ok.

Bad Bishop: First, A "smaller starting pool" was meant to mean the number of players that start a game.

Second, yes am bored, but I am not very patient, and especially in a new game that I am learning, I want to see results straight away, I really cant wait to see how the "end game" works out in this game. I think even a game with as few as 16 people which will take half a month to complete is too long for people who prefer faster games. And since this game doesnt continue at the pace of the players moves like all other games, I would like to see shorter time limit games, or have a game continue to the next round as soon as everyone has submitted a move.

Czuch Chuckers: I agree with you of course that it makes no sense to bid more than, let say, 510 in order to get the bonus of 500. But as you can see, there are people willing to bid much more. Well, if they want, it's probably fun. After every runner recognize that the difference between the bonus and his/her bid is much higher than the average bid, it will probably change. (In our run rather after Alesh will wake up/falls into the pond. :-)) I'm quite sure there will be the same (or similar) problem with any bonus. But maybe I'm wrong.

The smaller starting pool would speed the game? I don't know why, I think it's technically not possible (IMHO the lenght of the game is limited by the number of runners, not by the given starting points), but obviously some (you say "most") people seem to think so. Strange...

The game is boring rather because we started with 250 runners... (Is it really boring? Not really, it's a very very long run for sure, but I'm not bored. Are you?)

Czuch Chuckers: one started earlier as soon as maximum players were obtained. I think thats why it started LOL

I just found that we are able to play/create more pond games! Whoooohoooo!

I would like to play faster games, and since this game is not typical, and the next turn does not advance when all players have made a move, I would like to see the ability to create a game with shorter time limits, ie 10 minute moves or 5 minute moves or something. Also the abilty for a game to start when everyone has signed up, right away. Also to play with fewer than 16 people.

I would love to try a "quick game" with other people online where we could start and finish a game right then :)

Bad Bishop: I said I hadnt really thought it through.... But it seems that since it makes no sense to go for a 500 point bonus with more than a 500 point bid, that there is really no "safe" chance to go for it now. (although it is a game of "guts") Even if you bid 300 and you have to do it twice to get the bonus it is not worth it. It does seem that there will be a better risk/reward ratio later in the game, and that if the bonus were higher, it would come into play sooner.

I guess many people are simply bored with the slow pace of the game, and are looking for ways to improve this. Most agree that a smaller starting pool would help also.

Opps - did not finish my post from before...

.... but I think once we start playing a few games completely, we all will have beter ideas on what may or may not work. Like Fencer said, many players have played this way for years - so it would probable be best if we can complete a few games before we can really suggest workable ideas.

Czuch Chuckers: Why do you think the game will be more interesting after the bonus change? In which way? I'm affraid I didn't get the point...

Bad Bishop: /Fencer

Maybe it could be one of the options when setting up a new game, to be able to determine the amount of starting points and the bonus desired by the game creator?

BBW, I think that if the game will eventuALLY BECOME MORE INTERESTING LATER (BASED ON THE BONUS) tHEN WHY NOT MAKE IT A HIGHER BONUS TO STYART AND MAKE THE GAME MORE INTERESTING STRAIGHT AWAY? tHATS ALL...

And many (probably thousands) German players...

Czuch Chuckers: Bad Bishop (and many other Czech players) played this game for several years and I simply trust him that the rules are balanced well.

I don't like the idea of increasing the bonus - otherwise it may end up giving 1 player a VERY big advantage right away.

How it is set up now, it will come into play as the game starts to wind down towards the end.

But

Fencer: I agree that the amount of points is not relevant, but that the percentage of the bonus points in relationship to the overall total is relevant. I have not thought it through completly, but I would like to see the bonas points be a higher percentage of the total starting points than the current 500 bonus with 20000 starting points.

LMAO...my finger was hovering...thought i had a chance to modglob a globmod LOL

Sssh...magis mutus quam piscis. (quieter than a fish).
Fish - pond - on topic? Oh well.

Rose: LMAO @ Rose...I think we're getting off topic here so we best shhhh

Stardust is now Known as the Latin Philosopher "Stardustiest"

:)

furbster: Tempus fugit Mr Rook

k i think i paid to upgrade it. just got to wait 24 hours :o)

for that info eriisa i will make you have the brains:)

oh, really? because thats what i was worried about, only just paying for my knight status and all.?

furbster: You don't have to wait for your knight membership to run out. If you upgrade to a Rook, Fencer will calculate your remaining Knight time onto the Rook time.

Great :o)

furbster: Yes.

aww:( at brain rokos getting to create ponds:(, although when my knight membership runs out ill be getting a rook. fencer can knights still join the other ponds?

Stevie: Bad Bishop already explained why it doesn't matter.

Are all pond games going to be 20000 points at start?
Or is it set so it is an amount relevant to the size of the group playing?

Because 20000 for a pond of say 20 is a bit much dont you think for example

grenv: *nod* i agree with that .. the same like a normal time out on other game types .. the reason why thats not on 'pond' right now is because there are no weekend and vacation days allowed on there

is it possible to bet 0 points on purpose ? (even when you have some points remaining) .. no i wont test it! ;)

I think not moving should equal resigning. They should drop out. In addition the lowest number of those that actually moved drops out.

Hmmm, I'd say it would be the best argument for the possibility to resign. Nobody is forced to bet 1 point if there are players with 0 point reserve. :-)

Mely: There is not a resign right now is there.... or did I miss something?

I also agree that a resign is not a good option as the reason you stated.

Good point, Mely.

@Fencer: it is not good to make an option "resign". Example: if one player have 0 points left, anybody think, he must set 0 points next round - but he resign!

Bad Bishop:

order of players: you can sort the lines of the temporary file in excel, so the players will always be in the same order.

you'd have to do something manually to compensate for the players that were eliminated in the current round.

if the players change their nick it will not work correctly, the text copied contains only nicks and not player IDs. fortunately not too many players change their name every 2 days

I've resolved the bug with automatic moves. It should be correct in the next round (or the round after the next round).

Will it works if the order of the players is not the same as after the previous moves too? Or when some player changes his/her nick? I copied the first move in this way, from the second move I do it manually because I think it's less work and/or the result is better. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not so good in computer matters...

why? you can copy paste the table to a text file, then read the text file into excel.

Well, I have to enter the moves manually, but it's done in a few minutes.

i hope you are filling the table automagically ;)

Yep. But I'm afraid it will be quite large after several moves. It's simply exported from Excel with lot of unnecessary formating tags. I don't want to edit the table manually every two days. :-)

nice table badbishop! thanks! ... i bookmarked it .. i guess the url will be the same for next rounds as well ? :)

i have no idea what the best strategies are. Probably dependent on the competition. I do know that for the last few turns 1000 is a very obviously a very bad number, that's all. Just bet 11, you know there's someone forced to bet 10.

And some of us are just plain cheap! LOL (self included there)