Turn Time Limit

[Matija]

As an option, at game creation, the time limit for players turns could be set (in days or even hours). When the time ran out, the player's turn would be skipped. However, even when the game is running, it should be possible to switch the time limit off and back on (perhaps by creator of the game only).

I'm undecided whether partially playing a turn should reset the time or not.

[Matija]

Yes, that's what I meant by turning it on and off.

[Perun]

So what's the use if I as a player can turn it off?

I don't agree with turn skipping. I'm for abandoning game completely if it's not played for a long time. But, that introduces a problem of players that are about to lose stopping game until abandoned...

[Matija]

Everyone should agree to turn it off, and perhaps only the player who created the game could actually do it.

The point is to 'encourage' the players to play regularly or not at all. If players knew their turn would get skipped, they'd make some effort to see it didn't happen - and it would make them more councious of how many games they enter.

As things stand now, there are periods of inactivity, when I'm tempted to start a new game. But then, suddenly, the games that were dead start to reactivate and I get swamped by turns for me to play, and not only that, I have to go through journal and see all lords positions to get an idea what was happening, even before I star playing! It then takes me more than a day (if it's a busy working day) to play all my turns, delaying games that were played regularly.

If time limit was in effect, I don't think that would be happening, since turns would come regularly and I would be better able to judge how many games I can take on.

[Perun]

I see you point, but...

Everyone should agree to turn it off, and perhaps only the player who created the game could actually do it.

If all agree BEFORE game starts, than there's possibility that you'll end up with delayed game.

If creator is the player that is missing, your suggestion doesn't work again.

Hmmm... there must be a nice solution...

[Matija]

No, I meant during the game, if someone goes on a trip or something, then everyone can agree to delay a game during his absence.

[Perun]

So what's the point then? It's happeining right now, only without officially declaring absence... ;D

[sparrowhawk]

Also, I don't have access to any scheduling daemons on the server, so I'd have to make the check on every game every time the games page was accessed, which would be an unacceptable overhead.

At the moment, I am planning to have a manually-invoked facility from the admin pages that runs a check for games stalled > chosen number of days, and delete these, or possibly email the player who's turn it is, flag their record, and if the flag is still there at the next check, the game is deleted.

[Matija]

But they shouldn't be just deleted if other players wanted to play on?

[sparrowhawk]

I've always said that games that have not been played for, say 2 weeks, *may* be deleted without warning. I don't want to get to a situation where old games litter the database.

But don't worry, I won't delete any beta games, just when a wider audience get to it and the number of games increases significantly.

[Ringthane]

Game 59 is a monument to the Unexpected

[princegaz]

I don't know if anyone has suggested this already, but how about allowing players to set something in their profile (in addition to an "unavailable for new games" indicator for those who are involved in plenty) an option to say they will be away until a certain date.

When used this would be displayed with their details in the game information so the other players know when they can expect the next turn to be played by someone who is away for a few days. You could have it display something like:

He completed his last turn on 19 Feb 2004 at 11:38 UK time.
Away until 23 Feb 2004.

That seems the simplest option which doesn't involve either automatically deleting players after a set period or whatever -- though if they didn't set the indicator and went a week before taking their turn, it should be considered as web access is available almost everywhere these days and popping into a net-cafe for half an hour to set it would be easy enough to do should your computer unexpectedly explode or something.

I will actually be away for nearly a week next month and I'd rather there was an easy way to inform other players about it rather than having them wait wondering if I'll ever take it.

[sparrowhawk]

Good suggestion Gaz (hi BTW!). I'll do it for 0.1h as 0.1g is now bedded down and should be out tonight or tomorrow (probably tomorrow, as I've got some kind of flu like bug and I feel like someone had been hitting me withy sticks all night and zapping all my energy too )