Board for everybody who is interested in BrainKing itself, its structure, features and future.
If you experience connection or speed problems with BrainKing, please visit Host Tracker and check "BrainKing.com" accessibility from various sites around the world. It may answer whether an issue is caused by BrainKing itself or your local network (or ISP provider).
Sumerian: all names are fun :) on another board where i am posting (and moderating) i am being called hrgls because most people didnt see the q when it was underlined .. hrgls made them think of hourglass ... so now i once in a while yell 'its a Q!' ;)
Luke Skywalker: lol ... not for me .. i like puffins better .. not those little blue creatures ... before you know it someone will start a grgml or zrl and i will be running for my life ;)
Sumerian: create a new account (pawn could be enough, paying would be better for fencer ;)) named smirf-program or smirf-computer or something like that .. play only unrated games with it
that way noone can object (i think)
(as fencer is looking over the text in the rules he might change it a bit .. maybe to 'only unrated games are allowed when using external aid' ?)
Sumerian: no wether you tell it or not .. it remains the same .. you telling it clear to everyone is better than not telling .. but still i can see the point of people who dont want to play against a computer .. or if they do they want to be informed about it
by using a program and not telling anyone in any you are breaking the rules .. but using a program and making it possible for other people to find out is a vague area .. to use a program and tell everyone explicitely about it .. is a less vague area and could be allowed more easily .. not to use a computer would be the best though ;)
(not to make a computer to think out your moves for you of course .. you always need a computer to connect to this site ;))
Caissus: heh .. so lets say i am a top chess player .. would like to play persons and not computers .. i see a tournament .. i check all people who are signed up already to see if they are not computers .. they are not .. i sign up .. then just before the tournament starts i have to check all profiles of newly signed up players as well ? .. hmm i am lazy ;)
(but then again being lazy probably also doesnt give me a high chess rating, so its not really an issue fo rme personally ;))
Sumerian: but what about players who joined the tournament before you did ?
personally i dont mind (that much) playing against a computer .. you cant check it for real anyway .. but i can understand people who dont like it. especially if they have a high rating and can lose a lot
if summarian wasnt in your group then someone else with a bkr almost as high would be in his place (thats the way the players in the tournament are sorted)
i think vacation days are only used up when a game needs them
a game only needs it when the normal time of the game is over (the 5 days in pauloaguia example)
i wonder though .. if i have 2 games running .. 1 games times out monday .. the other game times out on tuesday
suppose i wont be online on monday .. the first game will use 1 vacation day and time out on tuesday ... my question is if the other game will also be awarded the vacation day (and time out on wednessday) or if the vacation day which is used only counts for the first game and i will use another vacation day if i only move in the first game on tuesday and dont play in the second game
of course you can write english on the czech boards .. just as i can write dutch on the english boards .. but being polite (as little people on here can read it and might wonder if i am writing something evil) i dont do so.
the same might apply to the czech boards .. some people on there cant read english (or not that fluently) and might wonder whats being written
Fencer: ok ... we will wait in suspense/anticipation/excitement/.. ;)
its nice to see how 'good' the poster is in the specific type of game .. like if i am posting some stretegy tips on tablut .. then noone should be listening .. but if ughaibu would .. its a different thing :)
not yet ... but i never thought it slow .. except maybe the emoticon java popup .. which seems a bit faster now .. but that could also be my network/configuration/..
will have to try it when i am at home :)
(i did notice a downtime around 10:30 this morning though .. which might be the time at which i had a downtime on other days as well ?)
i am not sure if the pond games also showed in the autorefresh .. when i clicked on the main page link it showed a pond awaiting for my move, while it didnt before that .. it might be a coincidence that i clicked on the main page link while it wasnt there for 3 minutes yet (which is my refresh time) but i am not sure .. did a pond show up on autorefresh for anyone else ?
whats the effect on the bkr for a newly added game on the site ? is it better for your bkr to wait until your opponents have at least a (prof) ranking ? or is it just as good for the bkr to play other players who play the game for the first time ?
we had great fun with some fast hyper gammon games yesterday .. but it seems that players who joined the fun later have a higher bkr now although they have the same ratio of won/loss games (or even worse ;))
Stevie: the bkr graphs didnt load for me for a short time yesterday .. other graphics sometimes dont load the first time, but often do after a refresh .. most of the times it works fine :)
i have seen other players not play ... while their time was ticking .. their time got negative .. to a max of -10 minutes .. and then they had a day added.
the server checks for timeouts every 10 minutes .. if it finds any .. it checks if there are any (auto) vacation days to be used .. if so .. a day is added
i dont know what happens when you have 2 games timing out though .. will it use 2 days ? or is a day added to all your games ? *ponder*
so if we are only playing 1 game of a certain type .. and that game takes more than 6 months .. we have to start another one (and finish it) before those 6 months end ?
(hmm now i think of it i dont think i have had any game which took longer than that .. as i am not even a member that long ;))
do you need to finish a game each 6 months or make a move in that type of game each 6 months ?
what happens to the overal ratings ? do people still have to have at least 11 active bkrs to get on that list or can inactive bkrs also used for that ?
*nod* i was a pawn not too long ago (oh time flies! ;)) ... i love rankings .. not just the points but the position compared to other players .. i am not sure if i would like a game site without a ranking
but i also love a fast database :) .. and the fee isnt that high ...