P-G: I second the feature request for the ability to take a game to a practice board!

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

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

MadMonkey: I would like to be able to set up the maximum number of vacation days allowed in a game before it starts. I don't want a random opponent to be able to hijack my game. But I;d be happy to let a friend have extra time in another game.

brain008: Yes, that would be a great feature.

Hrqls: Percentile rank seems to be what you are asking for and would fit well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentile_rank

pgt: I don't see why each player shouldn't be able to set the default for who goes first to whomever they want. You can have white (or black) and I can have random. ;-)

pgt: No, players should always have the options of setting up games so they are P1 or their opponent is P1 or it is randomly chosen!

happyjuggler0: I think each user should be able to set his/her own default time limits. I *hate* seven days/move as my default. I prefer Fischer settings of 3.1.5. I would also like to have 'Random' as the default for who moves first.

BK should give each user the ability to set the defaults up as s/he wants.

earldrake: To date, Fencer has *refused* to do that. It has been asked for numerous times.

If you send Fencer a (nice) PM, he will usually start the next round manually.

rednaz23: Or why not have that info come up on the next page right after you submit your winning move, maybe in a box somewhere on the page.

grenv: The cancel button is essential to me. Sometimes you need to undo a move and keep thinking about the turn.

ketchuplover: I asked to have it right-justified once and was unceremoniously told no.

1300. I wasn't sure about that number.

I think the real problem for pgt and others including me is that the BRK formula which works fine for chess does not work well for other games. I wish there were different formulae for different games based on their skill vs luck factor and other factors. Or is there a better one-size-fits-all formula that could be used?

pgt: If you're rated 400 (I think it's 400) BKR above an opponent, you'll gain zero points in a win, but lose plenty in a loss. Unrated players basically have a 'hidden' rating that starts at 1600. So if your rating is high enough, it doesn't make sense to play unrated players, but if your rating isn't that high, then playing against unrated players is fine.

Aganju: I think I'm OK with the words I used, but I do see your point.

In order to implement an online turn-based tournament properly, a site needs to advance rounds when the players who will advance are determined, regardless of whether or not there are 'meaningless' games remaining, especially when those 'meaningless' games can take a significant time to complete. This site doesn't do that.

I wish it did.

I would love to see tournament advancement implemented properly here at BrainKing.

Every time I go to start a new game, I have to change all the settings from the defaults to my preferred settings. This is a major pain. I would like to see a way to save my preferred default settings for time, who goes first, number of games, etc.

grenv: Do you think that's a good assumption, grenv? ;-)

grenv: I agree. I thought of that half way thru what I had typed up, but didn't feel like changing it. ;-)

The rest might not be trivial if half of the code for the page is already generated, but it wouldn't be too hard to do if done right.

Aganju: It seems to me that BrainKing should never display a game as active if time has expired. I would almost certainly guess that the ending time of the game is what's stored in the database, so, in order to show the game page to a user, the time remaining must be calculated every time the game page is shown to the user. BrainKing should detect when the time remaining is negative and should end the game right then and there rather than show games with negative time remaining and allow users to continue to play in them.

happyjuggler0: I've asked for that repeatedly.

Fencer's first priority is definitely not satisfying users of the site.

grenv: Ah, if he plays on different servers, then that could explain the kinda random difference in the links in my emails.

Wasn't the idea of using the different domains (brainking.com, brainking.it, etc.) supposed to allow players to connect with their 'home' server, improving speeds or efficiency or something and thusly giving us a better experience? I'm in the US. I shouldn't be directed to brainking.it.

Fencer: You are wrong. The link in the email take me straight to my game in one click when I have a move to make. They make playing at BrainKing quite convenient. There IS a point to them and to having them right. I hope you can see that and that you were only trying to make a joke with your earlier comment.

coan.net: I am currently only playing three games, and I get the .it links in emails concerning only one of those three games. And, yes, that opponent is in Italy. But the weird part is that I only get the .it links some of the time. Other times I get the .com link.

It's weird. Sometimes my move notification emails contain a link to brainking.com and other times they contain a link to brainking.it. This happens for emails regarding the same game! Fencer, why is this?

grenv: Because my browser has the password stored for brainking.com but not all the others.

grenv: I click on the links in the emails to get to my games, so, yes, I need them to go to brainking.com not brainking.xx.

Fencer: I just made that up. But it looks like I spoke too soon. My latest move email has a link to brainking.it. :-(

I always found it very frustrating when an email notifying me of a move included a link to brainking.it or brainking.pl instead of brainking.com. Now they all the links seem to be brainking.com links. Yay and thanks!

Where's the 'like' button? I want to like the post three posts down. ;-)

coan.net: I'm fine with only paying members being allowed to play in ponds. I think that's a good incentive to buy a membership here, but ya still gotta allow players who's paid membership expires finish their current ponds. It only makes sense.

I think of it this way, if you sat down and made up a game, would you make it the way Ponds are now? Or would you make it the way it 'should' be? I think almost everyone would design it in the most sensible way, which is to allow everyone to play until they fall, even if it means giving away a few extra days of eligibility to someone whose paid membership has expired.

It also seems that the goodwill gained by allowing players to finish their ponds, rather than marring the game for everyone still in it would be worth it.

rabbitoid: I thought pond games were about making good (and sometimes lucky) bets, not about stalking your opponents and checking and rechecking to see who has been online right before deadlines. ;-)

grenv: I agree. Pawn ought to at least be able to finish the ones they're in. It stinks to play in a pond where others downgrade to pawns almost as much as it does to be the one who downgrades. This would benefit all pond players.

There's no reason not to allow anyone to edit a post up until the point where someone else has replied to it. Then the post should not be edited (unless by a mod to fix some profanity, etc.).

It's simple.

I can do it in a comment in a game, why not on a discussion board?

Some of the rules here don't make sense.

rabbitoid: We can call it whatever you like, rabbitoid, just lemme have it! ;-)

It's just like this message board. When I came and looked at it, my pointer pointed to seven new messages, but other users may have it point to a different number of new messages. A game might point to a different place, depending on when they last looked at it and how many moves (auto or played) have occurred.

I would really like to see autopass in antichess. It might even push me to start playing it here again. ;-)

nabla: I don't see that as abuse. Are they actively playing? Yes. Should they appear on the leader board? Yes.

Could a player take advantage and stay on the leader board with minimum effort? Yes. But the benefits of having other players (like me) who are playing games in multi-game matches and who deserve to be there (in several different games) would outweigh what one or two top players might do in Backgammon. In games with less luck, it would be just as easy, or maybe even easier, to play a game against someone with a really low rating every four weeks in order to maintain a top rating using the system that is in place now than it would be to maintain a multi-game match and finish a game every month, so my proposal doesn't introduce any new risk or abuse.

I agree that a complete overhaul of the scoring system would be a benefit to all. BK could be a lot better if he'd just be willing to implement a few key things that matter to many players even though they don't matter to him.

My point is that, if a player finishes a game, whether it's part of a multi-game match or not, he/she should stay on the leader board. The way it is now, I could have finished 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 games over the previous month, but if they're all part of unfinished multi-game matches, I'll still fall off the leader board. It shouldn't be that way, should it?

I finish games all the time, but since most of them are part of a multi-game match, BK doesn't record them for purposes of keeping my BKRs active and I fall off the leader boards a lot. I'd like to see players stay active on the leader boards anytime they complete a game, even if it's part of a multi-game match.

I want to see my opponent's dice roll right away in games where it can be shown (games without the doubling cube, etc.).

Thom27: Yes, this is a much needed feature.

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

I was just sitting here thinking about a reply to AbigailII's post when I thought of another idea:

Fischer vacation days!

Artful Dodger: A GREAT solution would be to be able to specify the maximum number of vacation days useable in any game//tournament. That way, players who want to buy 35 extra vacation days so that can make no moves can do so and those of us who think that's ridiculous can keep them out of our games and tournaments.

Fencer is not going to change the current set-up that allows players to buy additional vacation days. Why should he. He's getting extra money from inactive members of his site!

PS: I had a player re-up his vacation count TWICE in a game against me. That's 105 vacation days!! I feel your pain.

PSS: I think listing the names of players who play super slow, buy extra vacation days, etc. should be allowed on this board. After all, we're not stating anything that isn't fact.

Carl: Play tournaments that use the Fischer's Clock. That way, you know the game will be done by a certain time (for the most part).

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.

Fencer: And making some people upset is a part of the strategy.

What book on how to run a good business did you read?