[11-Apr-2006] Holding and ignoring

by **lackattack** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:42 pm

Hello Conkies!

I have good news... we just finished the first major gameplay improvement in quite some time...

"Holding" is a term used to describe when players don't finish their turn and remain in the deployment, attack or fortify phase for hours. Sometimes this is done as a tactic, sometimes it is unintentional, but either way it is annoying! The solution is a 1-hour time limit to finish your turn.

Keep in mind that the 24-hour round time limit can interrupt your turn as well. Therefore, once you begin a turn, the "Time Remaining" will display either 01:00:00 or the amount of time left in the round, whichever is smaller. Whenever there is less than 10 minutes left, "Time Remaining" will flash in red.

Another change that went live is the Ignore List. If you believe someone had a secret alliance, or for whatever reason you don't want to play with someone ever again, you can put their username on your Ignore List. In the not-so-distant future we intend to add a reputation feedback feature which will compliment the Ignore List in the fight against cheating. To give your input on it, please visit How to enforce the rules

by **SMITH197** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:44 pm

thanks lack!

by **areyouincahoots** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:45 pm

Absolutely wonderful, Lack! As much as I hated to be shut off of CC for even an hour for good reasons, I know that these improvements are much needed, and people will definitely be grateful! You're the best!

by **Fieryo** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:45 pm

(me bowing to Lack in all his superiority)

by **SMITH197** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:46 pm

already using my ignore list!

by **kingwaffles** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:55 pm

Hooray!
Thanks a ton Lack! :mrgreen:

by **haha** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:04 pm

thanx
lack

by **Zepy12** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:34 pm

Excellent Lack! Thank you for ALL the work you do for us! It is very much appreciated.

Zepy

by **Alcibiades** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:26 pm

I have a quick question about the "feedback" part.

I was involved in a game the first month here, another player accused me and another of being the same person. While it was confirmed by another member on the baord later that both of us were two seperate people, this was too late for the other 3-4 people on the game to know.

Now with this system in place, all 3-4 would probally have said me and the other guy was the same person, and put it on our feedback, even thouh thier whining had no truth to it, BUt my feedback is harmed for no reason other then spite/ignorance.

Anyway to fix that situation?

by **Twill** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:10 pm

Alci, you raise a good point, one way around it is to go ebay style where there is a space for a user to "challenge" a feedback rating and for the original rater to modify or withdraw the feedback.

This way, if you have proof that you are not deserving of the feedback, or you just wish to defend yourself, then you have that opportunity.

In addition, there should be included in the feedback list an option for other users (neither the rater or the rate-ee(?)) to flag a rating for inappropriate content which then gets passed on to a higher power - that way we can stop flame wars moving over onto the feedback post.

An additional safeguard would be to require the user to have played a certain number of games (to require them to play a game against the person is debatable as it could be feedback for general forum etiquett) before being able to rate - this ensures that someone doesnt sign up 10 accounts to be a dick and flame the same person's account over and over again - perhaps have a per-game feedback option where at the end of a game, a person has the ability to rate the player's actions in that game this then gives the person being rated a degree of control over potentially damamging flamers because they can put them on their ignore list, theoretically blocking them from any future rating and destruction of one's reputation.

Feedback should always have a comment, not only be thumbs up, thumbs down as I for one would like to know what reason the person has for giving a good or bad rating, if it's just "the a-hole took me out of my f****ing continent. I'm going to pwnage his azz with my l337 haxorz ski11z" then I'm going to ignore them.

Anyhoo, enough rambling about the feedback options. Lack, thanks as always, another purely good addition to the site

Twill

by **zorba_ca** on Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:43 pm

Thanks Lack.

Great stuff!

by **Patroclus** on Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:49 am

Thanks, Lack. Now, I know why my turn was interrupted yesterday. No problem as I was getting decimated anyways....

I added AppleDumplin, wachica, Scarus and a few others to my "IGNORE" List.

I put dogcart1 on my "ADD" list. I just love playin' the fool! :mrgreen:

(sic, pun intended....)

by **Tr0y** on Wed Apr 12, 2006 12:32 pm

I was wondering, how about a friends ( people you like playing with ) and rivals ( people you like to play against ) list? :lol:

you could store it in a database like the following

Code: Select all: [User_ID][User2_ID][Relationship_Type] 1234567 98765434 FRIEND 1234563 98765432 RIVAL 1234561 98765430 BLOCKED

You could see if your friends and/or rivals are online...
Maybe when creating a game, you see checkboxes to allow friends and rivals join the game without knowing the password.

Great Job so Far

by **wicked** on Wed Apr 12, 2006 12:47 pm

I like the idea of rivals! And while you're at it, how about stats for rivals (e.g. how many times I've beated KoolBak!)? :lol:

by **KoolBak** on Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:35 pm

RIVAL RIVAL RIVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by **lilwdlnddude** on Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:21 pm

i dont know if someone said this already but, i think it would be a good idea to have a pm sent to the "ignored" player so that they dont have to find out by being rejected from a game.

by **Haydena** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:50 am

Think of how many PMs dugcarr would get though...

by **KoolBak** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:27 am

Here is (a stupid?) question......what does the ignore list DO?

Is it a handy list to look at or does it interact somehow with new games, eg, if I make a public game, will the system automatically prohibit the ignore list folks from joining my game? If I try to join a game that includes, say dugcarr1 ( ! ), will a red light flash and say "don't play with him!"?

Thanks-

by **Patroclus** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:40 am

Good questions, Upside Down Rottweiler.

Also: If you add someone, like for instance, dugcarr1 to your IGNORE list, can you change it back in case you want to take some more idiotic verbal abuse from a grammatically and spelling inhibited ne'er do well (that was just a randomly picked member name that popped, ummmm, exploded into my head.....). :mrgreen:

by **wicked** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:40 am

From the ignore list page:
Players on your ignore list "will be blocked from joining any game that you are part of".
Read much Kool? :mrgreen:

by **KoolBak** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 12:44 pm

Actually I just wanted to give you another chance to thrash on me (damn it - nice one!).

No it never ocurred to me to RTFM, as usual....

P - upside down Doberman!! Close.....

by **Dick Tater** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:03 pm

This 1 hour limit is kind of a pain in the ass considering some of the server problems. Twice so far I've been in the middle of a turn when the site stopped responding. When I was finnally able to get back onto the site, I had found that my turn had expired and I got no cards for my attacks. I don't know what can be done about it, but it's definately a problem.

by **VanCleef** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:15 pm

First i must say that reducing time to finish a turn is real good, well done:).
However it need to be adjusted to maybe 2 instead of 1 hour as it is now.
In a turn with trades on fly and several kills that take time itself, its to tight with 1 hour for even a short serverproblem.
It happend to me twice today i couldnt finish my turn when server was down 20-30 minutes something.
I think a limit of 2 or 3 hours still serve the purpose of latest update, so please reconsider.
Even if there are no technical problems it can be needed to make a turn that take more then 1 hour even if its rare.

by **AndyDufresne** on Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:32 pm

I'd like a turn a little longer than 1 hour.

But anyways...I'm wondering if a feature for games (similar to the ignore list) would be an interesting idea. If you could limit games to say '<Sergeant' allowing people only that or higher to join. Or '>Sergeant', etc. But of course you wouldn't want to have it so people never allow New players in their games, but I think that kind of feature would be interesting. Too often than not the more experienced players strike in and overwhelm some of the less experienced ones. Now playing with them isn't always bad, but sometimes I want to have a chance to boost my ego and win once and a while.

--Andy