Gabriel Almeida: Respect is furthest from my mind.

I totally happy cuz I only really like Ludo, Hyper, and Backgammon. I guess I'm not much of a gamer. LOL I guess I'm a lamer gamer!

I do not see any flame war here and there is no need for something like this anyway. But it must be allowed to write honestly about the disappointment of a paying customer. Personally, I would sugggest employing people - for free or not - in order to guarantee that BK is working well.

diogenysos & Gabriel Almeida: I have to agree.

There used to be quite a few Code writers here (sadly most have left now) who could have helped. Maybe if Fencer was interested he could look about for someone, make then 2nd in charge (under him of course) or something. It would be such a shame if this site ever has to close just beause there are too many bug problems etc..... to keep it running.

There must be someone interested (if Fencer is of course).....its a shame Tibs started his own site, he may have been.

Anyway, just have to wait and see

MadMonkey: Wish Liquid was still involved. Maybe that would of taken a load off fencer.

If BK was usa based I'd make a offer.

Last action: 13. February 2014, 00:23:19 :

Marshmud: you move here, and i will take up writing code

Marshmud: BK can be deployed anywhere. The migration would take some time (especially the database) but we did it several times in the past.

Fencer: I've hired someone for advice. Its a member of my Uncles law firm, Covahey- Boozer- Devan & Dore- out of Towson MD. Im not sure what will become of it but I'm interested. Is it ok for someone to contact you if necessary? fencer@ brainking.com?

Marshmud: Yes, it is OK. Thank you.

Vikings: He stops by every now and then but hasn't played games for years.

Why does automatic vacation get randomly turned off? I set AV and had 8 games "you ran out of time". But I guess the boss is not interested. At least we're not playing for cattle ranches!

pgt: I dont think automatic vacation is available to pawns.

pgt: According to the automatic vacation help, the feature is only available to paying members.

pgt: I think that what happens when you change your "weekend days" is that "automatic vacation" gets turned off, and then you have to go back and turn it on again.

At least that is what happened to me the past time I changed my weekend days....

That'll be it! Caused me to time out unintentionally in 8 games when I was away for three days.

Cloning Backgammon (diogenysos gegen dr_Brainsurfer)

Wow! A cloning gammon game "gifted" to me 300 points in one move.
Well I am not reporting this to the bug-tracker as I know now we are just paying people without any rights!

Aah, by the way, before someone is mentioning "flame wars" against Fencer now (again) I have to tell you I was writing him a fair E-Mail a couple of weeks ago but - as always - there is no response.

For me as a 12-year BK member, long-term-non-profit traducer and helper (well, many of us helped this site grow a lot without getting back a lot of respect) this is more and more disappointing because a game site without fair games is no longer a game site. Not many places in the business world give the boss the opportunity to treat his clients that bad without consequences :-(

So as a "feature request" I am officially requesting a money-back-system and/or the change of the ownership!

I am not happy to write this, but I am not the only one who tried to communicate with respect and moderately with the "servide provider" and one day even the best patience must have an end.

diogenysos: "This game is private and the players do not allow you to see it." - so what exactly are you talking about?

diogenysos: You should keep using the bug tracker. You never know what may happen next and, if something changes, the person that will be fixing the bugs will be going through the bug tracker, most likely, and not the forums.

diogenysos: Has Fencer ever mentioned a selling price for BK? Or is he waiting for someone to make him an offer?

Thad: Read several messages below.

ThunderGr: $35,000? I wonder what the revenue stream is. How many annual & monthly (not lifetime) memberships are there? What advertising revenue is there?

about the Easter Egg bonuses and other special deals-if any.

..to have a list of ALL the achievements that are possible to try to acheive.
this would certainly encourage players to strive for them.
maybe in the FAQ or as a commentary in achievements.
I have thought that perhaps this does not exist intentionally,but I can't think of a reason for hiding this.

I have looked to see if this exists.If it does,someone please share a link.

nobleheart: If you go to your profile->achievements and you click on each separate category, you can see all available achievements. Those you have accomplished are lighted on. The rest are darker.

Fencer: I'm just going out on a limb here, but would it be an idea to feature a donation box on the main page, or within the 'support us' section?

With the addition of a donation box, people that are enthusiastic can support brainking financially, even if they can't afford (or have allready bought) a membership. I for one, wouldn't mind chipping in every now and then.

Perhaps the additional income could somehow simplify matters concerning the future of Brainking.

Aerodynamics: Good idea!

My shogi boards have suddenly got white squares where the last piece to move came from. How do I get rid of this distracting feature?

This is on my chess boards too. How do I get rid of it?

ughaibu: i don't think mine does this, i just looked at my last move in chess and it appears to be the way it's always been.

ughaibu: You should go to your Settings and make sure you have not changed the color for the white squares background. When I first joined the site, the Shogi board squares were all white for me, making playing shogi impossible. I do not remember how I fixed it back then but it might be related to the color of white squares for the chess board.

It's on my tablut boards as well. I haven't changed any settings and I can't see what I could change to repair it.
Thanks for the suggestions, in any case.

ughaibu: Try changing them to something else and back again. Also, try clearing your browser's cache. There must be a reason for the change and it may the browser's fault. Also, try to login to the site from another browser.

It's back to normal today. A spontaneous recovery from a mysterious ailment.
Thanks for your replies.

I have some suggestions for some really new game ideas--some lines of action variation-rules are the same as the regular game,plus some changes.
( I just dreamed these up now)

lines of action-pool shot:
a lines of action variant in which a player can move a piece to a square which is occupied by an opponent's piece, it is not remove from the board.but it is moved to the edge of the board in a straight line along the the route the piece was moved.If another piece is in the way,it jumps over it and continues to the edge.If a piece exist at the edge,that piece is bumped off the board and can be re-entered to only that spot on the board in place of a turn.this can not be done if the spot is occupied.

lines of action-clone:
a lines of action variant in which a player can move a piece to a square which is occupied by an opponent's piece, it is not remove from the board.but is changed to the opponent's colour.

lines of action-antimatter::
a lines of action variant in which a player can move a piece to a square which is occupied by an opponent's piece, it is not remove from the board.but both pieces are removed from the board.(the attacking and the defending piece)

I hope our fearless leader sees these,some feedback would be interesting.

chupacabraVS2:

correction:
lines of action-pool shot:
a lines of action variant in which a player can move a piece to a square which is occupied by an opponent's piece, it is not remove from the board.but it is moved to the edge of the board in a straight line along the the route the piece was moved.If another piece is in the way,it jumps over it and continues to the edge.If a piece exist at the edge,that piece is bumped off the board and can be re-entered to only that spot on the board in place of a turn.this can not be done if the spot is NOT occupied.

I suggest another Dice Poker variant that I dreamed up.

Painted Dice Poker 6D
This variant is practically identical with the Dice Poker 6D version.The differences are listed here:
the dice can come in any of 6 colours at random on a roll.red,blue,green,yellow,white or grey.

these additional scores come in this variant
1 dice of each colour-80
all dice one colour-80
Painted Full House (3 dice with the same number and colour+ 2 dice with the same number and another colour, and those two numbers must be different-65
Painted Full Car (2 dice with the same number and colour+ 2 dice with the same number and colour+ 2 dice with the same number and colour, and those three numbers & colours must be different) - 55
Painted Full Hotel (3 dice with the same number and colour+ 3 dice with the same number and another colour,and those two numbers must be different) - 70

what ye all think?

What about this? For each player, show on his profile the average time games sat with him until he moved for the last 10000 moves.
(that means the time passed from when his opponent moved till he moved)

This would be very helpful to see which players typically delay tournaments and which not, so others could selectively weed some slow players out (or avoid them), if they care about their tournaments taking years.

For a player that comes here once a day, this would probably show 24h; for a player that plays more often, less than that.
For the typical 'lagger', it should be weeks.

Aganju: it would be nice if that average time could be split into game-type-groups like chess and gammon and line etc

Aganju: tournaments that use the Fischer clocks like my 20 20 tournaments are very good at chasing up the slow players without having to go to any trouble at all. Maybe tournament creaters should consider using them more often. Once somebody's starting time has run out, they've got to make 1 or even 2 moves a day. Problem solved.

BGBedlam: Or, make 10 moves one day then rest for 10. I think that most Fischer clock tournaments have too high maximum days bonus.

ThunderGr: The problem with Fischer clock is that it negates vacation completely - and sometimes I want to make a real vacation, and I need 6 days without internet access, and then I lose all games, no matter how fast I play all year.
Therefore, when I make games/tournaments, I allow a significant build-up of Fischer-clock-time.

There is no perfect way to define the game speed that pleases everyone and considers such situations. That is why I proposed to show that number below; that way you can identify and sort out the players that produce the lag.

I do not know if it has been proposed before but I think that automatic removal of players that have signed up to a tournament but are inactive for 30+ days at the start of the tournament would help avoiding the phenomenon of people simply not showing up to play in a tournament they have registered for.

ThunderGr: Sounds good, but it could lead to a contradiction - if the tournament has a minimum number of participants (most do), and the removal reduces the number below that, the tournament would not start. But if it doesn't start, those people should not be removed. But if they are not removed, it would start, and they would be removed And so on.

Of course there are simple solutions for this, I was just pointing out the issue.

Aganju: Since there is already a system that removes brain pawns at the start of a tournament if they do not have enough free slots for the games, I thought that it is already solved.

tournament games start as soon as players join

GoodFoods' 6th Broiling Backgammon Invitational (Backgammon)
It's 9 (NINE - that's NINE) YEARS (YEARS, not weeks or days - YEARS since this tournament began, and there are still TWO players playing THE FIRST ROUND!! I'm 75 years old now, and fear that I'll die before I am eligible to play in another tournament, if I don't die before the end of the first round. Is there anything anybody can do to speed things up?
Could we have a feature which would just purge the two players who have not finished, so the rest of us can get on with the tournament while we are all still alive?

pgt: Actually it's already round 2. Considering one of them is now a pawn and therefore (slowly) decreasing the number of played games, I would say it will be a bit faster from now on. Moreover, they are still active players and, in their section, one of them will pass to the next round. I think a feature like the one you ask would only be useful in tournaments with no control, since some of them have players that do not log in the site for years.

I would appreciate an optionnal board when playing for analyse, in order to "think with fingers" as one says OTB.
If I am not clear enough, this optionnal board can be seen at Chess.com while playing.