Thad: I removed it because the algorithm was written very ineffectively and caused occasional performance problems. When I find out a better solution, it will be added again.

When creating new games, didn't there used to be an 'allow players already playing games with me' checkbox one could uncheck so a player couldn't accept a whole bunch of your games at once? I can't seem to find it now.

There will be no further arguing on this board. No debate about this decision either. Further posts will be deleted, and people banned. Thanks!

aww, is it over already? Just when it started to be fun

oooooOOOOOooooooo

(V): Because I do it only when I decide to do so. It is my site and my decisions. And I am not interested in your messages. Spamming is not allowed.

Fencer: So why don't you stop them then?

I'll send you a pm.

(V): Maaaan, I don't care how many people pay for memberships. BrainKing has been living on a more interesting source of income for more than 5 years. So it's not about money, trust me.

Fencer: Then why dude do you let so many abuse the system via multinicks.. as long as they pay it seems. Why then have you let the likes of Purple and LongJohn back on this site.

I would like to talk to you via PM.... hence my efforts to get your attention.

(V): Dude, you don't want to see an answer because no matter what I write, you won't like it. You know it, I know it. Ergo, answering is illogical. I haven't noticed a question, anyway.

Let me give you some hints:

1) This is a game site, not a chat site. You are free to play games, create tournaments, join fellowships etc. Regarding discussion and private messages, you have no rights here.

2) I am quite busy with more important things and I don't have time to observe and evaluate every clash of idiots. When I decide that someone is abusing other people or simply acts as a moron (periodically), I just click the ban button and don't think about it too much. Deal with it.

3) There is a small group of troublemakers who continuously make problems and probably think that it's their right to post anything they want and send as many annoying messages as they want. Then, there is a big group of normal people (more than 95%) who are happy to play games and never make any problems. I don't care how many morons of the first group leave BrainKing. In fact, I would be more than happy if all of them get out of here and never come back.

As long as I own this site, these rules are set and won't be changed. No matter how unpopular it could be.

well... I now understand why the likes of Harvey and other Globs gave up on this site.

customer support usually includes a back and forth convo.

Is it because it was said you lied?

customer support usually includes a back and forth convo.

... an answer would be nice...

Fencer: Really....... Not from what I've seen.

(V): This board is not for your personal problems.
And, shortly said, troublemakers who went too far are always punished. No exceptions.

Fencer.. what is going on.. read my pm!!

Fencer, just been reading an article in this months WebUser magazine. Wondered if it would ever be useful to you

Page Speed Service

Though of course you may already know about it

Just done 3 brainking.com tests

Results:

U.S. California - http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110910_SF_87d5421fa5e490fa2bb0cbdabf877a57/


Europe Ireland - http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110910_56_dc6a67925a59dab07c5f00bd23cc07c0/


Asia Singapore - http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110910_AA_48dd1c47805ac84fced99efe92291082/

Seems pretty good at distance

nabla's post seems sarcastic to me, and he is true. What's the worth of pre-manufactured words of thank, that might be sent out automatically to every purchaser of a membership?

The best thank is to maintain the site well. And there I see some possible improvements. It annoys me that bugs in the game implementations, the most important thing of a game playing site, are often not fixed as soon as possible. For example the return-bug in espionage, see here or here .
Fixing bugs in the games should have priority over all other things. It is not a shame to make bugs, every programmer does it. But it is a shame to put them at the far end of the todo-list, where they may remain for years, as in the example.

And the rules description should be complete and conform with the game implementation, so that the players know what they are playing. E.g. the espionage rules should explicitely say that the spying of pieces takes place after every single movement of a piece, but not after the whole turn when captured pieces are already removed (I would prefer, though, to change the implementation to the latter, but I can't say how big the effort would be). This was discussed and proposed already on the espionage board.

Another thing I'd wish is that the game notation gives always a complete description of the game, containing not only the exact moves made by the players but also the random decisions.
For example Dice Poker: currently it contains only the dice after the last roll, but not the re-roll decisions of the player and the dice before the re-rolls.

nabla: That's a cracker.

Skeeky: Thank you so much for your feedback. We appreciate the time and pain you have taken in order to help us improving the quality of service on brainking.com. Your message is important to us. We are very much concerned with providing you with the best possible experience on brainking.com. You rule.

 The New Customer Service.

Skeeky: Is there a Like button? Thanks.. and well said

Skeeky: well said.

I have been away from this site for some time, but have recently renewed my membership.  I enjoy the diversity of players along with the choices of games.  I tend to spend more time on this site, just wandering around and exploring.

My disappointment is with the membership process.  Since June of this year I have purchased two memberships for myself, including a 12 month membership.  Along with that I have purchased two gift memberships for other players here.  I have also purchased a prize for a tourney. 

It disappoints me that I have not received one thank you from the operators of this site.  I have been in the retail business for 30 years, and it is the folks that spend money with you that keep your business up and running.  I am a strong believer in acknowledging those who have contributed to your success.

This can be as simple as a thank you in your inbox or as big as:  well let your creativity work on that one.  I plan to stay with Brainking.   My customer service background feels that a little more should be done for those that support the site.

Thank you,
Terry

moistfinger: Or, if you don't want to wait until the games are finished, you can ask the Big Boss to remove you themselves. (The games will continue)

Roberto Silva: Thanks mate!

moistfinger: Click on the fellowship name and scroll down, right at the bottom there should be a button to leave (remember to tick the checkbox first).

If there isn't one, you probably still have fellowship games or tournaments going on, and you need to finish them before you can leave.

Fencer: and at the same time this: Masters 3 which starts in -298 days, and has only 2 sub-tournaments, both finished (?)

Hi,
I'd like to remove myself from a fellowship, does anyone know how to do this?
Thanks.

Fencer: that would be nice :)

Hrqls: That should be easy.

Fencer:

Fencer: when you have time could you please also remove the old tournaments which wont be started because no price has been submitted yet ... there are some which are there for more than a year already :)

MadMonkey: When I have some time, I'll try to make a script that would automatically fix winner lists.

Fencer, Are we going to have anymore Team Tournaments ? and some wins in Tournaments are still not being credited to Fellowships that won them. Madhouse posted 2 wins yesterday, it has added the Logik one to our list, but not the Nackgammon. This has not been working for some time now

No, probably the timeout demon has crahed. It happens for everybody now.

likewowman2cool: most likely has to do with auto vacation. This from Fencer in December, about new vacation time...

Fencer New vacation system announcement 10. December 2010, 10:50:35
Modified by Fencer (11. December 2010, 03:33:24)
I would like to announce a new system of vacations and weekend days for games. The purpose of this change is that current system seems to be too complicated and there are make many users confused, which leads to unexpected losses by timeouts.

This new feature is already completed and I have programmed BrainKing to activate it automatically on 1st January 2011, 00:00:01 GMT+01:00. The old system will be used for the rest of this year.

Vacation days will be turned to vacation hours. The reason is that BrainKing users live in different time zones and it is not always clear when a day actually starts, according to the server time. Total vacation hours a year will correspond to current numbers of days - for instance, a Brain Rook member would be given 840 hours (35 x 24).
All vacation will be automatic, which also means that the calendar would be removed from Settings page (it should disable all attempts of cheating by periodical setting/unsetting of scheduled vacation days, as we could see in the past). Users of all membership levels will be allowed to activate/deactivate automatic vacation anytime.
How it works: All started games are checked for timeouts every 10 minutes. If a timeout is detected in a game (and the game can use a vacation), 1 hour is added to all games of the particular player (where it's their turn to move) and it is also deducted from their total vacation hours. This system ensures that you don't spend more vacation time than it is really necessary - for instance, if you play a game 7 hours after it would normally timeout, you use only 7 hours of your vacation hours left, not the full day (24 hours) like before.
Weekend days should work without any changes. By default, they are set to Saturday and Sunday, and you can change them once in 30 days. The day start is determined by the server time - GMT+01:00 zone.
Vacation rebuy option will be altered accordingly - instead of 10 and 5 days for the first and second 1 year renewal of your membership, you would get 240 and 120 hours.

In order to make the new system work properly, the automatic vacation will be activated for all users as of 1st January 2011. Everybody can turn it off then if necessary.

likewowman2cool: The second problem doesn't seem to be repeating. In other words, the refresh cycle seems to be working now. The other problem is still going on.....

I apologize for posting this here, maybe I should make out a bug report, but these are general malfunctions applicable to everyone, instead of just some random thing happening in a certain game.

First, one of my opponents has -1 hour 15 mins left to move in her game with me. Yes, *minus* 1 hour and 15 minutes!!! It is not just my game with her, but her game with several of her opponents that something similar is happening. vike

Second, I moved away from my computer for a few minutes, and when I came back, it seemed like she had the same amount of time left vs me. So I refreshed, and her time left was reduced by something like 12 minutes. This despite the fact that my settings are set for 30 second refreshing.

I suspect that both problems are related. It occurs to me that many people don't manually refresh, so they might not notice that the times are the same, and think they have no games where it is their turn to play. While in reality if they refresh then they might find it is their turn in several games. Multiply this across the site, and I suspect that many players aren't playing too much right now because of this problem....

Please move this over to the Computers Discussion board. Thanks!

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=52

Fwiffo: ... a bit. A bit also just to use whatever browser you prefer.

is this about computers?

toedder: Reminds me off when Amstrad went floppy from cassette. 3" disks rather than the then pretty much industry standard for the age of 3.5". It cost extra... so did having to use the monitor rather than a TV as most did at that time.

"You realize you can do that already with PC hardware? And not only the display, but like - everything! "

Even me mate "mac head" loves that bit of having a PC.

My prediction is that we should see separation of the processor and the display into two distinct physical devices.

1985 called, they want their idea back!

But then you can upgrade one without upgrading the other

You realize you can do that already with PC hardware? And not only the display, but like - everything!

(I usually try to stay away from those debates because they're useless. It's just like the browser wars or in the old days the editor wars, in the end it boils down to personal preferences, and everybody that thinks their favorite product would be the right one for everybody, just because it works for them, is just being narrow-minded. Plus IMHO both Windows and Mac OS suck, so I avoid them whenever I can. Doesn't mean I run around and tell every Mac or Windows user they're being stupid. But I found it mildly funny that you would bring up things as a positive idea for the future that have always been one of the drawbacks of the whole "hardware and software from the same vendor" thing you are praising. To me it is an extremely repelling thought to get both out of the same hands. Not because the product is necessarily bad. But because you lock yourself in pretty easily to one vendor. And locking myself in is something I try to avoid like the plague.)

Thad: I already do... It's called a tower with a separate monitor. As to being tiny.. yes, as long as they can sort out the need for cooling or, make that small as well... Screens, I've already seen the next gen... they make HD look very 70's

Aganju: But then you can upgrade one without upgrading the other and you can use different displays, one at work, one at school, at home, in the car, wherever...

Thad: But if you need a large display anway, the small processing component doesn't make any difference so you can keep it inside the screen. Can't loose it that way either.

(V): My guess is that a lot of people will be using Apple products. It will be interesting to see where technology goes in the next decade. My prediction is that we should see separation of the processor and the display into two distinct physical devices. Computing devices will become so tiny that we'll wear them as bracelets or earrings. We'll still need devices to view our content on, though, and we won't want those to be tiny!

Thad: .. basically in ten years time or so (as with video toaster back ten years or so ago) what will be what people use? N' yes.. I have a mate nearby who's a mac head. ;-)

(V): Sorry, but that's meaningless. A grandmaster and I use the same chess pieces, but the results we produce are vastly different! ;-)