[GO] Relaxing Weekend Turns

[Matthys]

I have discussed this with king achilles via email, and he suggested that I get some community input on the topic.

Firstly, it seems there were similar requests in the past but I'd like to make one or two different suggestions.

My case:
I like to play this game while at work, it's a pleasant break-away from work every few hours or so.
On the weekends however, I do not take my turns as I am rarely close to a computer, and I definitely do not receive emails reminding me of game turns. So, obviously I miss up to two turns per game over certain weekends. I'm sure that I'm not the only player experiencing this "problem".

My Suggestion:
From what I've read in other forums, I predict that some members may fiercely or even harshly oppose my suggestion, but that's what this discussion is here for, please give your feedback objectively.

I propose that a game option is added to every newly created game in which the creator can choose to allow the game to "relax" over weekends. With relax I mean, be more lenient towards people missing their turns. Yes, I know that those people will receive extra troops on their next turn, but it really doesn't make up for the tactical disadvantage of missing a turn.

My suggested solution is to extend turn lengths as follows...
Increase turn time from 24h to:
60h for turns started after 12AM on a Friday
48h for turns started after 12AM on a Saturday
Turns starting after 12AM on a Sunday will have a normal 24h limit.

With this solution, all turns started over weekends will start expiring from 12AM on the following Monday.

I know that many members are opposed to "slow games", and that's why I suggested that this be made a game option.
Members opposing this notion, could simply avoid these "Weekend Relaxed" games.

I believe this option will allow all members like myself to thoroughly enjoy strategizing their games and not simply log in and try to catch up the thrashing they received over the weekend.

Please respond with your input/suggestions or improvements on my proposed solution.

Kind Regards

[Woodruff]

I have discussed this with king achilles via email, and he suggested that I get some community input on the topic.

Firstly, it seems there were similar requests in the past but I'd like to make one or two different suggestions.

My case:
I like to play this game while at work, it's a pleasant break-away from work every few hours or so.
On the weekends however, I do not take my turns as I am rarely close to a computer, and I definitely do not receive emails reminding me of game turns. So, obviously I miss up to two turns per game over certain weekends. I'm sure that I'm not the only player experiencing this "problem".

And yet, I have precisely the opposite problem. I play only from home, and don't have the ability to play at work...so I'd prefer to have the standards relaxed over the weekday.

My suggested solution is to extend turn lengths as follows...
Increase turn time from 24h to:
60h for turns started after 12AM on a Friday
48h for turns started after 12AM on a Saturday
Turns starting after 12AM on a Sunday will have a normal 24h limit.

Oh my...for my reason stated above, this would absolutely KILL my participation on the site if it were commonplace, as the weekends are the best time for me. I understand you're only offering it as an option, but it seems like there are so many BETTER options that could be implemented than this, from my perspective.

[haggispittjr]

i can understand how this could be convenient for some, but i think that it would annoy people more having to check every public game to make sure its not a relax game.

[phantomzero]

While I see some merit in this suggestion as I am in the exact same boat as the OP, I think it would cause problems. I play from work 6 days a week but Sundays I barely have any time. It's even worse if there are a ton of PM's or game invites Saturday night that I have to attend to before they expire. I would feel much more comfortable if there were relaxed weekends, but what about those people who get Tuesday and Wednesday off each week? Just wouldn't work for the majority of people.

[ender516]

I'm with Woodruff on this one. I have much more time to play on the weekend, and often wish more people took their turns so the rounds would go 'round. Weekdays, I can usually cover my turns at lunch.
Another problem with implementing something like this would be the timezone issue. 12 AM Friday where?

[urbansloth]

Here here!!

I too like my weekends to do other things - my suggestion was an option to increase round length overall, for the more casual gamer:

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=101393

Personally I still think my suggestion would be easier to implement, and open the audience to more people...

[SuicidalSnowman]

OP, I have played on other gaming sites with the exact settings you describe. You get 24 hours per turn, and then have the option for weekend moves under the same 24 hour limit, a 48 hour limit, or no weekend moves.

Here is the feedback learned from the other site.

1) It often is too complicated. I know CC takes somewhat of a hands off approach in this regard, but remember, we have people who can't write coherent message board posts. One user has 150 posts in the "dice are rigged" topic and yet continues to post each lost roll as though it is earth shattering news. Calculating time outs over the weekend became confusing for new players, and there was much complaining.

Personally, I don't think this is a problem, but I am just offering feedback.

2) This is an international site. Although primarily in English, a quick look at the scoreboard reveals that we draw players from all over the globe. How do we handle this? Do their weekends start based on GMT? That is about 8 hours different from most US time zones, so it won't help your weekend cause. Do we do it based on US Eastern Time? That screws over much of the rest of the world. Also, what about our personal wackiness of Daylight savings time? Do we force internationals to take that into account?

This is, in my opinion, a fairly large hurdle.

3) Your logic is sound for a lot of people. I am in the "Its easy to move during the week hard on the weekends" category. But Holidays are even worse. Sometimes I am traveling, sometimes I am with family all day, sometimes I am just too busy. So do we include Holidays too? And then, if so, what holidays? If not, then why do you make an exception for weekends but not holidays?

I actually like your suggestion OP, but those are some major problems that you will need to overcome in addition to Woodruff's concern about weekdays.

My two cents, I think it makes sense to let players set the time limit when creating a new game. 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, or 72 hours.

-Snow

[Matthys]

3) Your logic is sound for a lot of people. I am in the "Its easy to move during the week hard on the weekends" category. But Holidays are even worse. Sometimes I am traveling, sometimes I am with family all day, sometimes I am just too busy. So do we include Holidays too? And then, if so, what holidays? If not, then why do you make an exception for weekends but not holidays?

I actually like your suggestion OP, but those are some major problems that you will need to overcome in addition to Woodruff's concern about weekdays.

-Snow

A system with this option should have record of the user's time-zone, should a user attempt to participate in a "Weekend Relaxed" game, and had not yet specified a time-zone on his/her profile, he/she will be requested to do so first.

As for public holidays, as this is an international site, we cannot possibly accommodate holidays. My proposal is for a weekend-only option. Weekends are 3 days per week more-or-less overlapping for everyone, regardless of where you are. The idea is not to prevent turns being missed for every possible combination a non-working days.

And I would like to stress again, that this would be an OPTION.
From replies in this topic it's clear that we have both "Week" and "Weekend" players, if I may categorize them.

As for semi-english-illiterate players, I see no problem, they would not have to do anything different from what they are currently doing, their turns will simply be longer over weekends.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION:
I can understand that this will not be a simple task to undertake, I am a programmer myself. (perhaps that is why I do not want to see a PC over weekends).

So, instead of increasing turn lengths, let's add WEEKEND RULES to "Weekend Relaxed" games.
WEEKEND RULES could work as follows - If a user's turn time runs out without having played his/her turn, AND the day is a Saturday or a Sunday in his/her local time, extend the user's turn time with a further 24hours.

So if my turn time runs out 20:00 on a Saturday evening, I receive an additional 24h, causing my turn to once again run out the following Sunday at 20:00; following the rule, I receive another 24h leniency, causing my turn time to be extended to end Monday at 20:00. In my case, I will take my turn first thing Monday morning.

The developers should decide which is the simpler option to implement.

Regards

[Matthys]

i can understand how this could be convenient for some, but i think that it would annoy people more having to check every public game to make sure its not a relax game.

Really, it's one word you would have to read, just like you read:
Game Type,
Initial Troops,
Play Order,
Spoils,
Reinforcements,
Fog of war

Now simply add:

"Weekend Relaxed" = Yes/No

[ender516]

3) Your logic is sound for a lot of people. I am in the "Its easy to move during the week hard on the weekends" category. But Holidays are even worse. Sometimes I am traveling, sometimes I am with family all day, sometimes I am just too busy. So do we include Holidays too? And then, if so, what holidays? If not, then why do you make an exception for weekends but not holidays?

I actually like your suggestion OP, but those are some major problems that you will need to overcome in addition to Woodruff's concern about weekdays.

-Snow

A system with this option should have record of the user's time-zone, should a user attempt to participate in a "Weekend Relaxed" game, and had not yet specified a time-zone on his/her profile, he/she will be requested to do so first.

As for public holidays, as this is an international site, we cannot possibly accommodate holidays. My proposal is for a weekend-only option. Weekends are 3 days per week more-or-less overlapping for everyone, regardless of where you are. The idea is not to prevent turns being missed for every possible combination a non-working days.

And I would like to stress again, that this would be an OPTION.
From replies in this topic it's clear that we have both "Week" and "Weekend" players, if I may categorize them.

As for semi-english-illiterate players, I see no problem, they would not have to do anything different from what they are currently doing, their turns will simply be longer over weekends.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION:
I can understand that this will not be a simple task to undertake, I am a programmer myself. (perhaps that is why I do not want to see a PC over weekends).

So, instead of increasing turn lengths, let's add WEEKEND RULES to "Weekend Relaxed" games.
WEEKEND RULES could work as follows - If a user's turn time runs out without having played his/her turn, AND the day is a Saturday or a Sunday in his/her local time, extend the user's turn time with a further 24hours.

So if my turn time runs out 20:00 on a Saturday evening, I receive an additional 24h, causing my turn to once again run out the following Sunday at 20:00; following the rule, I receive another 24h leniency, causing my turn time to be extended to end Monday at 20:00. In my case, I will take my turn first thing Monday morning.

The developers should decide which is the simpler option to implement.

Regards

So the extension would be applied based on each user's local idea of when the weekend starts and ends? Hmm. It might work, provided we can keep users from changing their time zone during a game to stretch this feature. Locking in the user's time zone setting for a given game when joining the game might be enough to prevent abuse. The question of time over the weekends when the change from standard to daylight time is made would need some review, but it might be just a matter of documenting the extra or missing hour as a feature. Anybody who is using this Weekend Relaxed rule should not need to worry about another hour one way or the other.

EDIT: It might be advisable to show the locked-in time zone setting for each user on the Join a Game and Game Finder pages, so a player planning to join can tell just when the other users will be able to stretch their turns.

[Woodruff]

3) Your logic is sound for a lot of people. I am in the "Its easy to move during the week hard on the weekends" category. But Holidays are even worse. Sometimes I am traveling, sometimes I am with family all day, sometimes I am just too busy. So do we include Holidays too? And then, if so, what holidays? If not, then why do you make an exception for weekends but not holidays?

I actually like your suggestion OP, but those are some major problems that you will need to overcome in addition to Woodruff's concern about weekdays.

-Snow

A system with this option should have record of the user's time-zone, should a user attempt to participate in a "Weekend Relaxed" game, and had not yet specified a time-zone on his/her profile, he/she will be requested to do so first.

As for public holidays, as this is an international site, we cannot possibly accommodate holidays. My proposal is for a weekend-only option. Weekends are 3 days per week more-or-less overlapping for everyone, regardless of where you are. The idea is not to prevent turns being missed for every possible combination a non-working days.

You're right...the idea being proposed here is to prevent turns being missed for those days when YOU would expect you might. And to hell with everyone else's situations. Sorry, but the suggestion and even moreso your justification really comes across to me as being thorougly selfish in nature, rather than an attempt to help the site in a significant way.

[Matthys]

Sorry, but the suggestion and even moreso your justification really comes across to me as being thorougly selfish in nature, rather than an attempt to help the site in a significant way.

And so does your opposition to the proposal. (As a self-proclaimed weekend player)

[brian fletcher]

In my opinion it would never work.
What about tournaments? If this proposal was implemented and added to tournaments there would be hardly any sign ups.
I know freemiums shouldnt really be given any consideration as they use the site for nothing, but with only 4 games to play on they would be restricted even more.
This idea should be a non starter.
I use the site every including weekends and im not prepared to have to wait up to 3 days longer for my turn to come around.

[JCKing]

Alright I like the idea here:
But for one why don't we have like a: weekdays only, where games are played only during the week. Then freeze everyones turn over the weekend starting at like 6pm or something.
Then also since that's an idea, why not make a weekends only setting. This will allow people who are busy during the week, but have time during the weekend to play only on like a Friday night after 6pm, through Sunday at like 12am.
I think this would work well, allowing more people to play games, and miss less turns. Shouldn't be hard setting up the coding, considering all that lack has done already.
By the way all times are central. And the times are hypothetically speaking, not exact times, I'm sure there is a better time for everyone to start this.

[Ray Rider]

My two cents, I think it makes sense to let players set the time limit when creating a new game. 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, or 72 hours.

As I see it, this makes the most sense out of any suggestion so far (although 72 hrs is just too long). Once you get into adjusting games according to certain days or work hours (as some have been suggesting), you run into far too many problems because of the different timezones.

[brian fletcher]

In the UK we have countless mondays as holidays. So can i propose we extend it through to tuesdays.
Also at easter shrove tuesday and ash wednesday is a celebration.
My birthday is a thursday this year so that days out as well.
Which brings us back to friday.
What about the shopworkers, nurses and other service workers who have a split shift over 7 days and need to take 2 days off mid-week? Do they have any consideration in this plan?

[kingpin01]

One other monkey wrench to throw into the mix. If you have relaxed weekends, how does that work with Freestyle games? One of the draws of freestyle is that I can log in once every 24 hours, and I always know that I will be able to play. This would mess that up.
I think I like more round time limit options (12h, 48h, 72h, etc) to go along with the speed games.

[pearljamrox2]

Gee, lets just do away with time limits all together. Yes, you can wait for your turn until infinite. Why should anyone ever have to miss a turn?
I mean, why just cater to some people who are only half committed to playing the games that they obligated themselves to play, when you can do it for all of 'em. I'm sure all the people who actually care to finish a game now and then, wont mind waiting potential 3 days per player to take their turns. It's no big deal for thousands of people who enjoy playing here on a daily basis to be affected by a few people who are unfairly expected to maintain more than a blase passing interest in the site and the games they are in. That's all the site is anyway right? Just a bunch of folks wasting away a little bit of the time clock at work..right? Noone here loses any sleep waiting for their next turn. We should be able to play when it's convenient, and when it fits into our little schedule.
Or, on second thought, maybe instead of trying to change the basic plan of the game to fit your personal schedule, maybe you should just find a new game. I hear Yahtzee is a blast. And it has dice and everything!

[brian fletcher]

Another option for people who cant play their games at the weekend is for them to only play speed games during the week. That way they wont miss any turns when they cant be by a computer. Oh. Silly me.... The guy who initiated this thread is a freemium player who contributes nothing to the site. Yet he expects paid up members to wait around for the weekend so he can still have his free fun.

[hahaha3hahaha]

-deleted-

[danfrank]

Although i do not play as often as i once did. The idea sounds great .BUT if i was the webmaster I would not consider implementing a change for a person that does not support the site.

[Matthys]

My two cents, I think it makes sense to let players set the time limit when creating a new game. 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, or 72 hours.

-Snow

This does sound feasible, however it slows down the entire game too much.

If the original idea is actually do-able , it would still be first prize in my opinion.

[Matthys]

Although i do not play as often as i once did. The idea sounds great .BUT if i was the webmaster I would not consider implementing a change for a person that does not support the site.

Danfrank,

I would have joined this site over a year ago if there had been such an option. I only recently started playing again, hoping that I could make such a suggestion. What's the harm?

As for pearljamrox2 and brian fletcher, thanks for remaining objective, smell my sarcasm. Are you opposed to:
1. The idea?
2. My membership status?

Since you made this personal; taking the gloves of, I think that you probably go through life opposing all change, and having that change proposed by a newbie must really trigger your territorial instincts. Simply put, I play this game like I described in the OP, and it would have been a nice option for a player like myself. Sharing my idea with the rest of you was merely a way of finding out if there are others that would appreciate such an option as well.

But you come charging up to the fence like those little dogs barking furiously to any passers by.
A simple: "I oppose this idea, because......" will suffice, unless of course, you have nothing better to do? (Very likely)

Regards

[slowreactor]

:/

Guys cmon... think about this abit... What if you don't have a account sitter available or didn't get a chance to contact them to ask them to account sit for you? Wouldn't it just be better to "pause" the game?

[brian fletcher]

You guys are so missing the big picture here.
If you implement this for the weekends, then it should be available for other days also. As i stated in an earlier post, not everybody works a standard 5 day week. There must be many people who have to take days off during the week, so would like a 2 day pause on those days. Where would it end?
If this needs introducing to the games then it should be a completely new format. No time limit. If you decide to join those games then there is no restriction on when a person takes their turn. That way if say person A needs to ignore his games at the weekend then he/she can wait until Monday. Then person B who has Monday and Tuesday off can forget his until Wednesday. Person C has a 2 week holiday so he ignores his but doesn't deadbeat because there is no limit on when he has to take his turn.
This of course is open to all sorts of abuse. Whats to stop a premium from joining with a freemium and never taking a turn? That way the freemium would be down to 3 games in play.