AbigailII: but you don't know about the opponents pieces or if you have more that 2

Thad: But they can already find out now. Pieces that do not have a move available are not clickable (and hence will show a destination in the status bar when the mouse hoovers over it). And a piece that only has one available move already does that move when clicked.

AbigailII: I'm not in favor of a 'play forced move' button. In certain situations, when it didn't appear it would let a player who might not see a second move know that one is available.

Well, a new year. Since you never know, it may be a lucky year for me.
So, here's my list of "wishes" - some of them I've wished for for a long
time.

First, changes in apparance to make playing some games more enjoyable:

• Differentiate between 'racing' and 'non-racing' checkers in the
  gammon games where it matters.


• Highlight captured (but not yet removed) pieces in the various
  checkers and camelot games.


• In the Frog Finder/Frog Legs, mark squares that have been guessed,
  but do not have a frog.

Wishes that reduce the number of mouse clicks, and hence the number of
server requests:

• Make shooting the default in Frog Finder/Frog Legs; require only an
  extra click if you want to guess (as shooting occurs far more often
  than guessing). If you make guess/shoot a radio button (with 'guess'
  the default) one never needs two server requests to make a single
  move.


• Use some Javascript to allow people to select their colours for a
  guess in Logic. This reduces the number of server requests by nine
  for each turn.


• When setting up a position in (Crazy) Screen Chess, keep the current
  placed piece "active" after placing - if there's still such a piece
  in hand. This allows one to set up their pawns with 9 server requests
  instead of 16 requests.


• Don't force people to roll the dice in gammon games if they have a
  non-racing checker on the bar, and the opponent keeps their entire
  home blocked with at least 2 checkers on each point (that is, don't
  force the die to be rolled if there's no way a checker can be moved).

Autoplay.

• A full autoplay (that is, the computer moves (or passes) on behalf of
  the player if the player has just one possible move. Useful for games
  like Ludo, the various Gammon variants, the Checkers variants (with
  their forced capturing), Camelot variants and to a lesser extend for
  the Chess variants.


• Since the above is unlikely to happen, how about having a button
  "Play forced move" which will be there when you only have one move
  available. Then you can play your forced moves with just one click.


• Better even, have a button "Play all forced moves" on the main page
  that playes all forced moves.

Tournaments.

• Being able to create a tournament with "all games", where "all games"
  means "all games as exist when the tournament starts", as
  opposed to the current "all games as exist when the tournament is
  defined". If you have dozens of open tournaments, it takes
  a lot of work to add a game to all the tournaments.


• Elimination tournaments that allow for a number of players that isn't
  a power of 2. That way, you can have a large elimination tournament
  without having a high risk it gets deleted because you didn't guess the
  number of willing participants correctly.

Messages.

• I'm only interested in a small fraction of the automated messages I get.
  I can easily do without the message you get when a game in a multi-point
  backgammon match ends (just notify me when the match is finished). I
  don't care whether a next round of a tournament I created starts. I'm
  not interested in the couple of pawns that sign up for a million tournaments
  and get booted off when the tournament starts because they don't have
  enough slots (how about removing pawns from *all* open tournaments when
  they filled up their slots?). I can do without messages about postponed
  or deleted tournaments. I'd like to see some configuration options about
  what kind of automated messages you want to get, and which ones you don't
  want.

is it possible to add plakoto and fevga to the triple gammon tournament?

Rozenkoning, that was a game I tried at the "Spellen Spektakel", a Dutch game exchange. I liked it, but not the €20 they were asking for the game...

You do not need roses for the stones as well, just another name.

----

Furthermore, add BLOKUS! It is highly addictive and playable for 2 and 4 players (yes I'ld like to see more multiplayer..)

---

And still,
Why can't pawn members join ponds? With them, ponds are better filled up and pawn players do unknown things in a pond. Of course, for they are pawn members, they can join just a very limited amount (say 1 of each, or 5)

I designed another funny and exciting chess variant ...
This time it's real, orthodox chess game with all the rules traditional chess game use. But, there is a second goal players trying to achieve (first one is of course check mate)... namely 32 points which are collected during the game (and collecting is nothing more than killing opponent's piece)... why 32 points ? Here is the explanation:
Figures are assigned points and there are 64 points total. List below tells the story ...
BISHOP = 2 points
KNIGHT = 3 points
ROOK = 4 points
QUEEN = 10 points
PAWNS :
1st taken = 1 point
2nd taken = 2 points
3rd taken = 3 points
and up to
8th taken = 8 points
KING = 0 points

As you can see, value of pawns increases. exactly like in every chess game, but this time, more than ever, players try to protect their pawns due to increasing value they have ...
So, 32 points being exactly HALF of 64 is the goal ... either you check mate or collect 32 points by killing your opponent's men ...
I have chosen 64 points just for one reason ... to match the number of squares on a chess board ... there can be any other number, but 64 is just elegant ...
Hope you like this idea ... chess and point scoring feature will change the tactics and strategy significantly ... and this is the whole idea behind any chess variant...
Andy.

agentofchaos: thats my thought as well :)
i think yourturnmyturn.com is the english version of jijbent.nl .. or jijbent is the dutch version of yourturnmyturn :)

Hrqls: Yourturnmyturn.com has war of the roses (turn-based) - if they have it, why not this site?

pauloaguia: Some Team challenge matches do, though you have to go through Fencer to organise them. Maybe both should be added in some form

wetware: currently tournaments don't have that, why should individual games?

pauloaguia: Or maybe the winner doesn't quite take all--we'd probably have a bit of a "rake".

pauloaguia: Now there is a GREAT idea

Someone at http://brainking.com/pt/Board?bc=80 suggested that it would be nice to be able to bet Brains when creating a new game...
Like: I put in 20 Brains, my opponent puts in another 20 and the winner takes all...

On our Fellowship ---> Matches tab we can see you many games we have completed

Can we have a link or something that without going through and counting manually we can see how many we have Won / Lost / Drawn please Fencer, just so we can keep the Fellowship informed. I was doing it manually until we got to about 300 matches, but its easy to get lost, especially as only Team Captains get told about results.

(would be nice if the Big Boss got a message on all Team results as well .....wooohooo 4 days into new year before my first request lol)

AbigailII: nice .. i love it :)

i understand that jijbent.nl has the game online as well .. i wonder if brainking can do it as well without getting into any copyright problems ?

El Cid: I second and third that lol. The amount of times i have entered Team Tournaments (or Captains have) just to find they do not play here any more drives me crazy.

The first big help would be on the page that you sign a team up for a Tournament that anyone who has not been here for a month (hence in grey now) that they do not show up on that page. that would be a start.

Of course a better thing would be able to substitute a player IF that player has not made a move in a game. Also be be helpful if a Team manages to get through to a second round, and finds one of there Team have left, they could replace them

Rainbow Road: 2 moves are enough.

Is there any way for the rating of a game to go into effect until after the 4th move...
This would eliminate the given wins some people give because they take a game and never play...

Hrqls: Board game.

This has been asked a few times, but could team captains be able to change the members of a team, between rounds. Team tournaments take even longer than single tournaments to advance to the next round, and if a member stops playing on the site between the end of his first round games, and the start of the second round, it will give some defeats in advance in the next round, and that team starts with a disadvantage. If we could remake the team (even if we were only able to remove inactive players, and were forced to stay all the others), it would be a more fair second round

Besides, in the good of sportivity, on a team game we can always make substitutions, when a player becomes unable to continue playing

AbigailII: a copy ? computer game ?
my gf and i borred the board game from friends .. we will return it today though :(

Hrqls: I own a copy of the game.

has anyone played the game 'war of the roses'
i think thats the english name .. its a game of 999 .. in dutch its called 'rozenkoning'

I posted this request on another board a month or so ago, but realized it should be here... and wanted to repost it since it is still causing me all kinds of issues - I can multi-task on every other game site - except for the coding on this site does not allow me to do this.

Original post:

I've had this problem for awhile, and my usually way to fix it is to just close the BrainKing site and play on other sites - but I would love if a solution could be found.

I use Firefox (most current version). I have the no-fonts, use external style ccs (which "hides" the flying dragon but is really still there), have all my JavaScript choices in settings turned off (except smiley window on mouse click).

The issue is whenever I have BrainKing up in a tab - on the main pages, reading the boards, in private message (just about everyone except actual games), my Firefox starts to use between 75-97% of the CPU. If I don't change pages, this will last anywhere between 45 - 90 seconds.

It is a simple thing for me to test - I simply close the BrainKing tab (leaving the other 8 open), and the CPU goes down to very low. Open BrainKing in a tab again - BOOM, CPU pegged.

This has been a pain lately since I've hooked up a second monitor to my PC, I'm currently doing a lot more work - like currently a large batch job on pictures (normally can resize/watermark 1 picture every second - when BrainKing is up, it is down to about 1 every 20-30 seconds), plus when I watch a movie. (normally works perfectly, but when BrainKing is up, the picture will stop and usually I keep hearing the sound and the picture just won't move)

Again, when BrainKing is closed - everything works perfectly. (or if BrainKing is open but I've let some time go by 45-90 seconds), but usually I'm done reading a page by then, so when I switch - BOOM, starts over again.

The only thing I can think it is - is the dragon that "flys" across the screen.... since I think that normally takes 45-90 seconds. Even though I have it not to be shown on my screen through my external style, the browser still loads it.

Oh yea, my request.

Can there be a setting option to remove the dragon so it won't even load? You allow us to remove almost all the other JavaScript items from BrainKing, but not this one - and I know it probable isn't a problem for a lot of others, but for some reason the BK JavaScript stuff has always caused me speed issues.

Thanks.

nodnarbo: Of course. Thanks.

Fencer: reading the game rules I wonder, should "The goal is to be the first one who moves own king to the last row (H),", read as "The goal is to be the first one who moves own king to the last row (8)," ?

After my holidays I'll take a look ;) Sounds pretty nice for a Christmas present ;) Better to have more Christmasses per year this way ;)

Fencer: Thank you ...

Fencer: Awesome...my favorite Christmas present this year!

KnightFighter: Racing Kings.

Forgive me if any of these have already been suggested.

Progressive Chess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_chess


Monster Chess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_chess

(perhaps 5 pawns instead of 4 to balance it out?)
Shatranj:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj

Fencer: I am glad you like it ...

KnightFighter: That's a nice one.

wetware: Yes, it is .. and is played at:
http://www.schemingmind.com/

KnightFighter:  That's one variant I'd love to try.  It's among those covered in David Pritchard's Popular Chess Variants

is a must ... this is the most beautiful and rich in unexpected turns chess variations ... actually, it has little common with usuall chess goals ... it uses chess pieces and movements but the goal is to race (Kings) to the last row on a board ...
here is the link:
http://www.chessvariants.com/diffobjective.dir/racing.html

rod03801: I can understand it if they are genuinely ill or otherwise restricted to when they get on a PC, but not if they are on here everyday.

And yes, I think one 'top up' holiday wise is enough except for genuine extreme cases. And in those circumstances a PM to Fencer or a Glob would resolve such a problem as has happened before I believe for members who are having 'bad times'.

(V): Or, a limit to how many times in one year that you can "renew", in order to get more vacation days. I think having vacation days "re-upped" once in a year is plenty! There are people who have done it 2 or 3 times throughout the year, in order to get more vacation days.

But in regards to noticed abuse of the holiday system, can it be added that restrictions apply to how many days you can delay a game especially in cases when the person is active on this site, but just refuses to move on games for various reasons, including that of not playing 'lost' games?

Some of the delays in games are going on for over a year.

Rainbow Road: I'm always looking for new ideas for polls - better if it has something to do with "BrainKing", but any good poll I will make.

Anyone can make suggestions on the Opinion Poll board: http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=153

Polls have drooped off... Can any rook player make a polll for the main polls...

Pah Tum would be nice on a bigger scale... and a variation of Mancala...

Rainbow Road: Yes Dots and boxes! That game is truly great! I'ld like to see that one here at BK! Of course, playable for up to 4 players ;) but a 2 player variant is fine too ;)

Pedro Martínez: Perhaps because the core of the copyright rules are international? Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is the bases of the copyright laws of all countries that signed the convention. Both the US (since 1989) and the Czech republic (since 1993) are parties to the convention.

AbigailII: Why would anyone considering the future of BrainKing want to deal with some US laws? Act 121/2000 Coll. (the Czech Copyright Act) is the only thing that matters in this respect.

mctrivia: This page on a US government site dealing with copyright starts with:

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

AbigailII: nope this is not true. If you want proof that games can be copyright. Look at Scrabble. Hasbro/Mattel have successfully shut down every major copy cat game. scrabulous for example.

Ceiter: I like the idea. And while on the subject, I'd like to add one more feature request: a simple progress bar (like those we see while downloading a large file or during a software setup process) showing percentage of games completed versus total games to be played until a tournament is over. Like this:

In the progress tables of round-robin (n games for every 2 players) tournaments, it would be nice to have some information on losses, rather than just the currently accumulated points.

The reason is that I often like to see how I stand in a tournament that's in progress, but since people play games at very different rates, I can't tell at a glance. One player may have more points than everyone else, but if that player has finished more matches, that doesn't mean he's really in a better position. He could have more points than other players but also have more losses, putting him in a weak position overall.

If there were another column that contained the win/loss ratio, it would be easy to see at a glance where everyone stands. Or maybe instead of win/loss, make it points divided by the number of completed matches, to take into account draws or games that earn more than one point (if there are any; I'm not sure).