[31-Aug-2007] Speed games

[maasman]

needs a little work, I got the first game messages twice.

[gimil]

needs a little work, I got the first game messages twice.

lack just said there was a bug with everyone that was online during the update.

Everyone facing the problem should log out and back in again to solve the problem.

[DiM]

i hate to be a bitch but i'm actually disappointed by this update. i guess it's because of the hype. everybody said it will be HUGE and in fact we got only a few things that for some of us aren't even that important. for example for me none of the things mentioned bellow really matter. i don't need speed games i have fast internet so ajax isn't much of an improvement, the terit pick list is nice but i usually pay attention to where i deploy or reinforce, i'm not colourblind, feedback was ok the way it was before, and the noob deadbeats are still going to remain regardless of this new pm system.


if what i wrote above made you hate me then don't read any more because i'm going into detail. that was the short version:

Where did the summer go? I guess I've been too busy with personal life and behind-the-scenes work on CC to get more than one update done in a three month period. I should be able to finish more updates more often in the future...

Speed Games

A Faster game has been the #1 requested feature since the launch of Conquer Club. Finally it has arrived.

Speed Games are fast with only 5 minutes per round. You have to think and act quickly or you'll run out of time. It's a new type of challenge and should be a lot of fun.

To start off, Speed Games will auto-refresh every 15 seconds. Depending on server load I may adjust this higher or lower. I don't really know what the server can handle, so be warned that if things are really bad I may even have to put a cap on the number of active speed games until we can increase capacity.

Speed games are only available for premium members, so now is a good time to re-consider purchasing premium membership if you haven't got it

speed games. sounds really nice but are they? 5 minutes to take a turn? give me a break i for one will never play that. what if i want to piss what if the phone rings or what if i'm playing on a huge map and my internet connection is slow. or what if i have to take out 5 players in an escalating game. that means attacking 50-60 coutries. impossible. a smarter thing would have been to put various options to choose from. like 5-10 20 minutes. or even a custom field where you can insert your max round limit.

as for the speed games being offered only to premium players. i don't like it but it is understandable considering the huge load on the servers.

AJAX Game Interface

AJAX is the latest craze in website technology and now Conquer Club has jumped onboard. AJAX allows a website to update only the parts of a page that have changed rather than reloading the whole page. What does this mean for us? A smoother game experience. Dial-up users should really notice a difference as they no longer have to wait for the entire game log to load each time they click Attack.

Note: AJAX is NOT compatible with the current versions of game-enhancing greasemonkey scripts. Users of such scripts must either disable AJAX from the My Setting page or disable their scripts (by clicking on the monkey).

a good improvement. i haven't noticed any improvement but as i said my connection is fast and the pages loaded really fast. i guess it is really good for slow connections.

Smart Territory Picklists

During attack and fortify, selecting a from territory re-populates the to picklist with only the appropriate choices. This should make it quite easier to find what you're looking for. I also removed some useless choices from the attack from picklist.

a small gimmick that looks nice and it's practical but to be frank it really wasn't that necessary there were other things far more important that this.

Coulourblind Map Armies

Do you have trouble distinguishing which army belongs to which player? Then try this new option on the MySettings page - it will prefix the army values with the first letter of their colour. Credit goes to Tr0y for coming up with this concept.

this was already available via the greasemonkey script. also it adresses a very small portion of people so again a very unimportant thing compared to others on the to do list.

Feedback Improvements

You can now leave feedback as soon as you have been eliminated from a game even if it isn't finished. However, you must now leave all feedback before the game has been archived.

To make things easier, you no longer have to remember the game number when leaving feedback. We put feedback links on the Eliminated and Recently Finished sections of My Games and from within the game itself. You can now manage your feedbacks from the Feedback Left section of your feedback page which is now accessible from left hand menu (as My Feedback).

perhaps this is probably the only thing i didn't want implemented. i really do hate it. and i think we should expect a vast increase in negative feedbacks and etickets sent for feedback removal.
with the old system i often wanted to leave neg feedback after an elimination but by the time the game finished i always realised i was thinking under the influence of the game. you always think clearer after a few days have passed. and to be frank if the guy really deserves a feedback (good or bad) you'll remember to give it a few days after when the game ends. if you don't remember then it wasn't worth it.

Anti-Deadbeat Measures

Newbie deadbeats are the scourge of Counger Club. Many of us have witnessed New Recruits that go into their first game, type "where the heck is everybody, this is dumb", and never come back. This series of "training" PMs is designed to get the message accross to newbies who didn't read the instructions:

Hello ###,

We're glad to see that you have joined your first game! As you must have noticed it's not full yet. Games only begin once all the players have joined so you may have to wait a while. Come back in a few hours or even tomorrow. We'll send you an email notification when it's time for your first turn.

Regards,
The Conquer Club

Hello ###,

Congratulations on completing your first turn! You now have to wait for your opponents to play or for the round to expire. Check on your game at least once a day so that you don't miss your next turns. It takes some patience but you'll soon find that Conquer Club is lots of fun!

Regards,
The Conquer Club

Hello ###,

Congratulations on completing your second turn! You are getting the hang of it, aren't you? Did you know that you can play up to 4 games at once for free? Why not join a few more games? You'll see more action!

Regards,
The Conquer Club

the anti deadbeating method sounds good and perhaps it will have some effect but it will be really really insignificant.

why do new recruits deadbeat? because they join a game and want instant action. they see nobody moves and they leave. even if they receive a pm telling them it might take days befor they start their turn do you really think they'll come back later to check if it is their turn? surely no.


so again sorry for being a negativistic SOB but i guess i was really expecting this update to be huge.
just looking at some of the things that didn't make it to this update makes me even more disappointed.

4 Vs. 4 Option
8 Player Games
Clickable Maps
Deliberately Missing Turns Change
Dynamic Borders
Auto Attack Limits
More Game Types
new xml features
new things on the max resolution for maps.
Clan Rankings
Map Popularity Statistic
More Individual User Stats
Official CC Awards
Player of the Month
Round Time Remaining On My Games
Simultaneous Team Entry
Sort 'Join Games' Page
Sort 'My Games' Page
Sortable Scoreboard
Time Out During Maintenance Fix
Vacation Setting

[wicked]

Dim you're priceless. Just when I think my life has gone to crap, I can look at you and be glad I'm not you. Thanks for being you.

[DiM]

Dim you're priceless. Just when I think my life has gone to crap, I can look at you and be glad I'm not you. Thanks for being you.

if you were me then my wife would be a lesbian with you. kinky. i like it. let's switch

PS: seriously though. you're one of the people to blame for this. with all your "it's HUGE" thing and all the quotes from the extatic tester and all tha immense hype. i worked in marketing and still have a great deal to do with it. one thing i learned is that hype is dangerous. if it's excessive it will have a reverse effect. i guess that's the case here. you kept saying it's huge and people started imagining things and when they saw the update and realized most of what they hoped for was left aside disappointment kicked in.

[Optimus Prime]

I think the only thing that has made a difference to me is that the AJAX makes it far easier for me to attack and fortify using the small screen on my MacBook. Before I had to do a whole lot of extra scrolling that got to be a bit annoying after awhile.

I'm with DiM in that it wasn't quite as interesting as I was expecting, but I think the HUGE aspect of it refers to the large adjustments lackattack had to make to get the AJAX system up and running.

Guess we'll see what happens in the coming months. I have a feeling there will be many more smaller updates coming soon.

[gimil]

Unlike DiM im satisfied. Very much like DiM i blame wicked for hyping the foundry up and getting cena kicked out the house by his girlfriend

[wicked]

No worries Dim, the rest of us will enjoy the new game type enough for you too.

[mightyredarmy]

brilliant brilliant brilliant - gameplay is masively improved with this.

[Gilligan]

Any idea when Doodle Earth will be on?

[wicked]

I didn't hype the foundry up, I rarely go in there. I could care less about maps, so you guys should've known it didn't involve map crap.

[gimil]

I didn't hype the foundry up, I rarely go in there. I could care less about maps, so you guys should've known it didn't involve map crap.

I ment forum

[comic boy]

I partly agree with DiM but the fact is that the update will enhance the gaming experience for some and inconvenience nobody so it has got to be welcomed. Despite Wickeds glib response there is clearly a problem with escalating speed games but its no big deal for me as I simply wont play them. Hopefully in the future this feature can be refined to allow extra time for taking out several players in one turn.

[Squirly]

so does this mean you can't use greasemonkey now?

can someone explain this to me?

[DiM]

I didn't hype the foundry up, I rarely go in there. I could care less about maps, so you guys should've known it didn't involve map crap.

actually you hyped the foundry by saying map resolution is currently discussed and you also hyped the general discussion subforum with dozens of posts saying it will be HUGE and AWESOME

it wasn't huge and it wasn't awesome. it was a normal update that aside from the ajax thing contained only small things.

[lackattack]

I'd like to publicly thank the speed game testers:

AAFitz, AK_iceman, AndyDufresne, bedub1, clapper011, evster, happy2seeyou, Incandenza, Itrade, James Vazquez, Loudawg, moz976, Nephilim, qeee1, The Chosen One, Tisha, Twill, wicked, ZawBanjito, zip_disk

[wicked]

Dim you're like a wet fart. Really dude, you need to find some joy in your life. At least go play a game before ragging on it.

Anyway, I never said the map discussions were tied to this update because they're not. And huge and awesome is all relative. Our many testers said it was huge and awesome, that's good enough for me.

[cena-rules]

Unlike DiM im satisfied. Very much like DiM i blame wicked for hyping the foundry up and getting cena kicked out the house by his girlfriend

stop taunting me.

[gimil]

Unlike DiM im satisfied. Very much like DiM i blame wicked for hyping the foundry up and getting cena kicked out the house by his girlfriend

stop taunting me.

Sorry but it has to be done

[happy2seeyou]

Dim you're like a wet fart. Really dude, you need to find some joy in your life. At least go play a game before ragging on it.

Anyway, I never said the map discussions were tied to this update because they're not. And huge and awesome is all relative. Our many testers said it was huge and awesome, that's good enough for me.

A shard? wait, is that how you spell it??

[DiM]

Dim you're like a wet fart. Really dude, you need to find some joy in your life. At least go play a game before ragging on it.

Anyway, I never said the map discussions were tied to this update because they're not. And huge and awesome is all relative. Our many testers said it was huge and awesome, that's good enough for me.

i really don't see how my life came up in this? just because i'm not that thrilled by the update means i'm a depressed loser?

if i would have said the update is HUGE and AWESOME would that have made me a happy person with a life full of joys and achievemnts?

why should i go play a game? i'm at work now so surely the 5 minute turn limit would mean i'd deadbeat fast


as for the relative crap you just pulled, give me a break, as you can see several other people are also a bit dissapointed with this because of the stunt you did in general discussion.
if you would have kept your mouth shut and stopped posting at 2 minutes intervals it would have been better.

[wicked]

ok crybaby, no one's forcing you to read what I write. feel free to ignore me and I'll do the same to you. I take no responsibility in your disappoint - that's your problem.

now back to the update.... which ROCKS btw... thanks to all the testers for the fun crazy games over the last few days!! now I know why I don't play freestyle team ever!

[rebelman]

I'd like to publicly thank the speed game testers:

AAFitz, AK_iceman, AndyDufresne, bedub1, clapper011, evster, happy2seeyou, Incandenza, Itrade, James Vazquez, Loudawg, moz976, Nephilim, qeee1, The Chosen One, Tisha, Twill, wicked, ZawBanjito, zip_disk

Are you sure KingofGods was not a tester he was born to play this game about to win his second one

http://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=814350

he already beat cena in 1 v 1

[comic boy]

I'd like to publicly thank the speed game testers:

AAFitz, AK_iceman, AndyDufresne, bedub1, clapper011, evster, happy2seeyou, Incandenza, Itrade, James Vazquez, Loudawg, moz976, Nephilim, qeee1, The Chosen One, Tisha, Twill, wicked, ZawBanjito, zip_disk

Lack I dont wish to harp on about this but as I play about 75% 6 player escalating games I would be amazed if the question of insufficient time did not crop up amongst the testers. Surely there was a concensus that additional time was needed to take out a number of players which is essentially how one wins that form of the game.

[The1exile]

I gotta agree to a certain extent with DiM.

The update is great, I do love it, but we were waiting for the other promised things more than (non modifiable time limits on) speed games.

however, I'll openly admit to being a wet fart