Groeneveld: Actually only the tournament creator gets the message, not the people who signed up. (but if it is added, hopefully it is an option - I already get too much "junk" mail here on my BK Message box of information I don't really need.)

this normal happens allready

I'd like to get a message when a tournament section that I signed up for is deleted due to lack of sign-ups. I might want to go looking for another tournament when this happens.

alilsassy: Ahh, I see i misunderstood your question. I was going to mention the "Who is online" link in the "Statistics" part of the left menu, as Pedro did, but I assumed you knew about that. lol.

alilsassy: a function showing the members that are present

http://brainking.com/cz/PlayerList

alilsassy: The chat room already does tell who is "present". It looks like it lists people who are either on the "static" page, or have the actual chat box enabled. It looks like it is split up in to 2 parts. From what I have seen, when someone has actively typed something in the chat box, their name goes to the top section of the list. After a certain period of time, it drops back down to the bottom part of the list.

With the new BK3 in the makings, I'm curious if there would be any way to add a function showing the members that are present, as in the Chat room?
I also think there may be an issue with pawns clicking on private fellowships just to boost ratings on the "Today's top visited boards"....If a pawn is unable to be part of the private fellowship then their clicks should not count as a visit.

Are there any plans in BK3 for fellowships to beable to delete smilies or put them in folders (like smilies for Christmas; happy smilies' dancing ones' etc?)

the ability to catalog would be useful.

I wish the system made it easier to gather the data that would demonstrate the severity of this problem.  As I've said elsewhere (I think), it could also help pinpoint when the problem began (or was it always this way?), which should help identify what changed to cause it.  I also wish the problem occurred 100% of the time, which would make it impossible to dismiss.  As it is, we have only the beginnings of statistical support for our claim, and gathering the aggregate data that would provide more solid support is a daunting task...for us the members.

Fencer is quite correct about the groundless wailing over poker or dice cheats.  There's plenty of that online; such complainers are easy to find, and the vast majority deserve our scorn and satire.  But the genuine exceptions (in online poker especially) that have come to light should give one pause.

Hats off to those who stood their ground in such cases, labored to gather the data, and revealed the truth at last.

(added comment Wednesday evening / Thursday morning):  I plan to make one last good-faith effort to present some useful data.  I plan to examine all of my backgammon (but no variants) games stored here from 2009--that's 13 matches, and a total of 137 games in which at least 2 rolls took place.  I have no reason to believe that that year is appreciably better or worse than any other year of mine.  I'm sorely tempted to separately track the opening rolls that I "won" and "lost", but I don't plan to do so for this exercise.  If I'm understanding the situation correctly (and there are good "numbers" people here who will be able to correct me if I'm wrong), the responder's roll should theoretically match the opener's roll 1 in 18 times (or 5.555_ %), on average.  I'm also going to report the percentage of responder's rolls where both dice differ from the opener's roll.  Theoretically, I think that should happen 4 times in 9 (or 44.444_%), on average.  But I think the actual observed value is going to shock and convince even the most diehard skeptics here.


Average expectation of opener's and responder's both dice exactly matching out of 137 played = 7.6111_ games.  Observed number=38 games (27.737%)

That's about 5 times the expected frequency!

Average expectation of responder's dice both differing from opener's dice out of 137 played = 60.888_ games.  Observed number=28 games (20.438%)

That's less than half of what's expected.

Pedro Martínez: oh, that should be interesting. i'll have a look.

plaintiger: Read also the Backgammon board. It has been discussed there quite a lot, and someone has even downloaded a bunch of games and made a statistical analysis of the occurrence of the opening rolls.

Pedro Martínez: oh good...i'm glad to hear somebody chime in so i don't sound like the lone lunatic (however clear-sighted). thanks, Pedro.

plaintiger: It is obvious to everyone who plays back on a regular basis here and has their eyes open.

Fencer: sounds good, Filip (i say, having just taken yet another screenshot of yet another hyper backgammon game (#4697746) in which both my opponent and i had the same first rolls...just as happened in the last hyper backgammon game i started before that - yesterday, game #4692215)).

and for the record, i play poker at Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet, and used to play at Live Poker when their Mac software worked, and i never had any complaints about their deals. they seem obviously random to me (and i don't know about Live Poker, but Full Tilt's and Ultimate Bet's shuffles i know to be monitored by outside agencies). but the un-randomness of die rolls on BK is very - and i mean VERY - obvious to me and to several people i play with. real dice just do *not* roll the same, twice in a row, 85 or 90 percent of the time...but at least on the first two moves of each game, BK dice do. heck, if you want, i'll start logging real statistics with my game numbers and let you know what the percentage of identical first rolls really is. i promise it will be very high.

or heck, if you really want to see this in action, just put move logs next to backgammon games that show the die rolls for each turn. *then* you and everybody else will see the pattern in black-and-white.

i'm glad to hear the game models are being rewritten. sounds like it might address this issue.

thanks for your reply. all the best...

plaintiger: I recommend to visit Facebook, find pages of popular poker rooms and look at their respective discussion boards. You will find them full of such complaints: "Full Tilt Poker is rigged! Chip leader always wins! I have been playing poker for 20 years and I never saw something like that. Cards are definitely NOT random!".

Heh heh. Given the fact that online casinos and poker rooms are usually regulated in order to keep a fairness and balance, it is clear that no matter what you do, there will be always someone who provides a "guaranteed proof" of the opposite.

As I said many times, BrainKing dice rolls are driven by time in milliseconds (or even nanoseconds), so they cannot be more random and no player has a better chance than others.

However, all game models are being rewritten, so I will have a close look to all pieces of the code and if I find anything suspicious, it will be taken cared of.

i know that, last i read, Fencer was still defending the supposed randomness of the algorithm that determines the die rolls on BK...but however sound and watertight that algorithm may look on paper or on the screen, there's something wrong with it. i'm in my 40s, and i've seen a lot of die rolls in my time - enough to know that dice that are truly rolled at random do not come up the same, twice in a row, anywhere near as often as do the dice on brainking. and nowhere is this more obvious than in the first two rolls of a given game. i haven't counted so i can't give an exact percentage, but based on my experience, i'd say the first two die rolls of my dice-based games on BK come up the same about 85-90% of the time. i just started a game of Ludo, in which both players roll three dice each until they get one of their pieces out of the holding dock. my opponent went first, and rolled 1-1-1. then came my turn...and you'll never guess what i rolled.

*gasp!* you guessed!! you're amazing!! how did you *do* that?!

*ahem.*

56 possible combinations when rolling three six-sided dice, if i'm not mistaken...and my opponent and i roll the same exact combination twice in a row. random? you be the judge.

the last die-based game i started before that was hyper backgammon; same exact scenario (except with two dice instead of three) - which is the usual way of die rolls, and especially starting die rolls, in BK backgammon games. it's a running joke among the people i play with. "wow - look at that!! we rolled the SAME THING!! AMAZING!! that NEVER happens on brainking!" (laugh, laugh)...

so yeah, that would be my feature request: a re-write of the randomization code for BK die rolls. because no matter how little sense it may make to someone looking at the code, that code *is* flawed. maybe it's perfectly sound in and of itself, but it's just calling a number in the ROM that isn't as random as it's supposed to be...or something. i don't know. it's been too long since i coded anything. i just know what random looks like, and that BK die rolls are not it.

that's all.

"GERRY": Can you not just (remove from favourite boards) then it wouold not be on the left hand side, you would have to goto Discussion Boards to find it

"GERRY": Thats ok. Donna worry bout it!

Mousetrap: I must have missed that then sorry about that

Gerry. The music board always shows up same as any other public board when someone post. Even every other game site shows when ther is a new post.

Is there a chance that music board be like ( Other Game Sites) so it does not show up when posted.

Dominoes Would be a great addition here!

rod03801: I have a request to see a remove/delete button for the smileys in the fellowships. Once released there is no way to remove them if you accidentally have 2 of the same one or you get tired of certain ones.

Could the center intersections be marked with dots in games like Pente and Connect6. It would be a small change an a big hlep.

Mahalo,
Thad

rod03801: Thanks Rod i got them working now:))

"GERRY": Feature Requests isn't really the best board for this sort of thing, but what exactly does "not playing for me today" mean? I personally am not having problems with any of my games, but if you get more specific, someone might be able to help.

Hyper Backgammon Game ID 4668586
Backgammon Game ID 4668654
" " " ID 4668658

My Hyper Backgammon games are not playing for me today
Thats 3 i got now

Fencer: With Ludo being one of the more popular games with no variants, you could always throw out a quick Ludo variant to take a break from the new BK version.

As an idea:

Ludo Express

Same Board, pieces as regular ludo

Get out of start with either a 1 or a 6

Roll 2 dice each turn. Each turn, 2 dice rolled. (6’s don’t do anything special – doubles don’t do anything special – Just 2 dice rolled each turn by each player)

Each dice is separate. Like Backgammon, you first make a move with Dice #1 – then make a move with Dice #2 (or swap and move first with Dice #2, then Dice #1 – order is up to player) You can move the same piece twice, OR move 2 different pieces – 1 with each die

So for example, first turn of the game, you roll a 1 & 6 – you have 2 options. Use the “1” to get out of start, and then use the “6” to move 6 spaces – or use the “6” to get our of start, and then use the “1” to move 1 space.

You can split the dice up between different men. You can use the “1” to get a piece out, and use “6” on a different piece on the board.

NOTE: If you own man is sitting on your “start space”, you have to move it BEFORE you can get another piece out of the board.

If you can move – you have to move. (only pass if you have no move) Plus it is possible to move with 1 die, and then pass the other if there is no move with that one. I would say make it like the gammon games. BOTH dice must be used if possible. If only one of the dice can be used, the highest is used.

The rest are the same rules as regular Ludo

Fencer:
There's no rush, even one new game a month is ok.

mella2000: Just 33 new games? Give me 2 days and you will have it.
Now seriously, it is very unlikely that I would ever do all of this. It might be easier if I release BrainKing game model API and delegate this work to skilled volunteer programmers.

Hi Fencer,
I'd like to play more Shogi variations, more connections games and some chess variations (progressive chess for example).
Also I haven't ever played, but I'd like to find opponents to play with for the following board games:
Hive, Zèrtz, Yinsh, Dvonn, Tzaar, Gipf, Pünct, Army of Frogs, Che, Micropul, Palago, Spangles, Trax, Santorini, Fanorona, Exxit, Gobblet, Plateau, Dipole,
Truchet, Volcano, Traboulet, Qyshinsu, Knockabout, Warp6, Breaking Away, Cannon, Triad, Mutton, Octiles, Medina, Bushka, Tumblingdown

A new Reversi Game...
Instead of using pieces... Use dice numbers...
Every time you place a piece it is a 1...
When you capture pieces just like on regular reversi... those pieces turns your color and each number dice goes up on to a max of 6.... The object is to get the most points...
I still have to iron our the game directions...

Any ideas about this game idea let me know...

Black is obviously in disadvantage in this game. Black has to checkmate white, this is only possible if white makes a couple of bad moves... . - How about giving black the win when, for example, two of the pawns reach the last row?

Shogi Database Software

There is a program called BCM Shogi, available from http://home.arcor.de/Bernhard.Maerz/BCMShogi/, for doing analysis and recording games.
It supports all the different types of handicaps used in Shogi and allows the entry of Tsume Shogi (Mating problems) which are a great way to build up tactical ability.
There are a great many books (in Japanese) for Shogi problems.  Many are quite useful as long as a person knows how to read moves in Japanese, which doesn't require that much effort.
Talen314

El Cid: If you goto the Friends link on the left, you can add notes about players (of course they must be on your friends list).

Maybe Fencer could add some sort of balloon pop-up beside a players name

Could it be possible to associate personal notes to another user? For example, I don't like to play private games, however, since most games are public, I don't often realize that at the invitation screen, so If by any chance I realized that in the middle of the game, I could associate a note to the user so that in the next time it would warn me that he might have sent me a private game request. Or if on a game where there is the possibility to choose the starting position (logik, battleboats, etc), and if I noticed a pattern on the first move of a certain player, I would like to associate a note to his username, so that the next time I would play him(her), I would avoid a game configuration that he would most probably choose.

I don't know if this is already possible with the notepad right now, since I don't use it much, but it seems to me that I have to remember to go there and see what is written, instead of something like "make this note visible if I play against ..."

ive just created a team tournament in feva
and i noticed there wasnt an option to include auto move in it
can you add it please Fencer

cd power: Right!

Although this post is regarding achievements, it is a feature request. For those of us who have fellowship "won tournaments" mixed in with our public "won tournaments," it is difficult to know how close we are to achieving some of the public won tournament achievements. For example, the achievement "10 won tournaments of 50 game types" means "Win 10 public tournaments in 50 games." Well, my stat says 21/50, but I have no idea which 21 game types I have won 10 public tournaments in, because I have many game types with fellowship tournaments mixed in there (many more than 21 game types in which there are 10 won tournaments). It would be nice to have a more detailed breakdown of which game types have satisfied this achievement, and the number I am lacking in the others as well. This way, I might want to focus on playing more tournaments of that particular game type. There are several of the tournament achievements that could use this more detailed breakdown.

BrainKing is calculating this in a table somewhere, so there should be a way to give the player visibility to this.

El Cid:
One possible way to address this problem would be to have the site keep track of the percentage of forfeits.  If an option was added to the tournament page that would allow selection of a maximum forfeit rate for players entering the tournament.  It could be percentage of forfeits or a maximum number of forfeits for a set period like a month or year.  IF the site tracks forfeits over a limited period like the last year it is possible for players to recover from their past high forfeit rates by routinely completing games.
Talen314

Nothingness: I like your idea.  It would also be nice if a person could search for tournaments that only need one more player in order to start so that less time is spent waiting for a tournament to begin.  One help would be having a feature that would allow only tournaments that a player is qualified to enter to be displayed or, alternatively also allow only tournaments with a certain number of players already entered to be displayed which would get rid of many tournaments in the list.  Unless a player has all of their ratings memorized it is impossible to know for sure which tournaments a person is qualified to enter.
Talen314

Some features I would like to see for game invitations include ways to use ratings to determine which invitations to display.  For example limit the players that can send invitations to those within certain rating ranges which could be set on a global or game by game basis.  Two ideas come to mind here.  One is to display invitations within a certain range of a players own rating.  'The other is to be able to set the actual ranges like players do when creating games for the waiting area.  It would also be nice to set default actions for invitations.  Examples might include auto accepting invitations until a certain number of total active games is reached.  Auto accepting invitations for some games but not others which would be displayed as normal. Another option would be to limit the total number of games for each game type as desired so that invitations only come for games that a player wants to play more.
It would also be nice to have settings to control what time limits would be displayed or accepted.
The friends list might be enhanced so that players can allow friends to always be able to send invitations regardless of the rating limits.
Talen314 

is there a way to be able to filter the tourney creators and not just the game types. for example the tourney board is flooded with old or repetetive touneys. Many times i might be looking for a specific tourney group of games and not one that has been there for a year.

El Cid: I propose a simpler method... award vacation days each month instead of each year (proportionately of course), but only if that player has been online in the last month.

Since the site is being re-written, and since there has been many requests to change the way new vacation days are added in the beginning of the year, how about something like "number of vacation days given = 1 / (number months not online + 1)".
Since vacation days are added, on the 1st January, this means that if the player has been online on December he would get 1/(0+1) (all) of the vacation days heis allowed to, if he has not been online on December, but has logged in on November he would get 1/ (1+1) = 1/2 of the vacation days he is allowed to, and so on...
This would mean that if a person hasn't been online for a year, and he is a black rook, he would get about 8% of the vacation days he is allowed (4 days to be exactly), instead of the 45 days he gets now.
Of course there should be a way to give the rest of the vacation days to that player if he ever logged in again.

Universal Eyes: thanks for your opinion ... this, like any other game can be played different ways ... MUSTANGO can be played as follow:
1. First tile is placed randomly somewhere on the board ...
2. there are 54 tiles left ...
3. each player gets 3 tiles and after they make a move their hands are replenished from the stock ... so, their hands will always have 3 tiles to choose from ...
4. I think it will add some planning and strategy ..
5. This is the option I would support ...and this is the only nice option since 54 divides nicely into 27 stones for each player .
***
yes, you are right, there will be plenty of scoring opportunities with each move, I hope this game would get many fans ....
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: Personally i think we should start with normal Dominoes, then add same variants...... after we have Cribbage of course

Herlock Sholmes:I think i would like to try that one,there is sure to be a lot of thinking for ever piece placed.

hi, this time I created a game that combines domino tiles with the beauty of knight's jump ... and everything happens on a 11x10 size board ... read on:
1. We need one set of 9x9 domino (55 tiles) ...
2. First tile may be placed anywhere on the board.
3. Next tiles have to touch other tile(s) already on the board . Touching with only corner to corner is considered illegal.
4. Counting points is as follow:
-whenever a tile (two halves of it) and the half(s) of the other tile(s) create L shaped knight's move, points for this/these "creature" are scored for the player who placed the tile ... simply, points on the tile plus the third half makes the score ...
5. One tile can create up to 4 different scoring situation ...
6. The game ends when all the tiles are positioned on the board (highly unlikely, but possible since there are 110 squares on the board to accomodate 55 domino tiles) or, what most likely will happen, playwers cannot put anymore tiles on the board ...
7. Player who got more points is the winner ... when the same score, game is a draw ...
***
Rules cannot be simpler, but fight starts from the very beginning ...
Since 6x6 is the most popular domino set, I ask you to try with this smaller set at home ... just pull out one of the tile open on the table and draw tile after tile and try to form knight's shape and make scores ...
have a very good weekend,
Andy.