Opinions needed... should the hosts of Lightning mode games be able to terminate the game if it is still in the Join phase and over an hour has passed?

It seems unfair that the game host could potentially be booted straight away if the game takes a while to fill (e.g. a few hours) and they have since gone to bed...

1. Yes
2. I wouldn't call it 'unfair'. If you start a 10-player lightning game and expect it to fill up in 5 minutes, you take what you get.
3. This will become less of a problem as the WG player base expands.

I had a similar situation the other day when I started a game that I'd hoped would fill in a half hour, but it actually took more like three hours; it was only a three player game too.  I had to go to work and was worried we wouldn't get things going in time.  Fortunately, one of the guys got himself booted and the two of us left were less than 5 min per turn so it got done in time, but I was about 20 mins away from needing to leave and getting booted.

What if the host was able to set an expiration time on the game when creating it?  As in:

The join phase of this game will expire in... (and then some radio buttons)

• 10 minutes
• 15 minutes
• 30 minutes
• 1 hour
• 2 hours
• Never

Once the expiration time is reached, the game should...

• Be Deleted
• Start, as long as at least ___ number of players have joined. 

I had this also. I started a Lightning game at 10am to play while at work and I got worried it wouldn't fill up before I went home and it was only 4 players. It did but the 2 of the players that joined early got booted on their first turn because they joined several hours before the game started.

I think any game still in the join phase ought to be able to be deleted by the host. It's mildly annoying, but I can't think of any serious consequences of it happening. You can enemy people if you think you'd be deleting games if they join...

I'm wondering if lightning games need a different amount of time for the 2nd move onwards? Perhaps 15 minutes for the first move, so the first player doesn't get caught out, but should it then be maybe only 10 minutes for each move after that? If you have 8 players, then that is 2 hours per round...hardly what you'd call lightning, and 1/2 the players would most likely need to leave before the game is over.

Not really sure about the best solution, but I think it still needs some thought and tweaking perhaps?

Since everyone is present during a lightning game, what about giving the host the option of switching the game into the standard time mode if the game doesn't play out quickly enough?

This would solve the issue with people having things come up during the game and getting a boot for having to leave, as well as making it so that if a host starts a lightning game but it doesn't fill up it's not a problem because he just switches the game over to standard time.

Can't think of huge abuse possibilities off the top of my head... worse that I think could happen is the game you were trying to play quickly turns into a regular game that takes a while. Just a thought...

Thanks for feedback all - for now I've set it so that Lightning mode games can be terminated at any time during the Join phase by the game host - we'll see how this goes, it may need to be tightened up in future if there is any abuse / gaming of the system.

The most obvious abuse would be to create a lightning game, and then sit and wait to see who joins. The host could then cancel, or let the game play out, effectively choosing who they play against. It would be very difficult to police this.

Bengaltiger's idea of being able to switch to standard timing removes the ability to do this.

Also, toaster's idea (see above) to choose the expiry time at the creation of the lightning game also removes the ability for this type of abuse.  I like his idea, as anyone joining will know how long until the game begins. 

Possibly combing toaster's idea and Bengal tigers idea would be good.  Host chooses an expiry time, after which the game either terminates, or switches to standard timing.

paulharrow wrote:

Possibly combing toaster's idea and Bengal tigers idea would be good.  Host chooses an expiry time, after which the game either terminates, or switches to standard timing.

Or, instead of terminating or switching, the game starts with however many people have joined. You set a "Game Starts In X" variable and a "Maximum Players" variable, and when either number is met, the game goes. If no one has joined, then it could terminate.

Cramchakle wrote:

paulharrow wrote:

Possibly combing toaster's idea and Bengal tigers idea would be good.  Host chooses an expiry time, after which the game either terminates, or switches to standard timing.

Or, instead of terminating or switching, the game starts with however many people have joined. You set a "Game Starts In X" variable and a "Maximum Players" variable, and when either number is met, the game goes. If no one has joined, then it could terminate.

be hard on a board that had a needed amount of players to start.

Cramchakle wrote:

paulharrow wrote:

Possibly combing toaster's idea and Bengal tigers idea would be good.  Host chooses an expiry time, after which the game either terminates, or switches to standard timing.

Or, instead of terminating or switching, the game starts with however many people have joined. You set a "Game Starts In X" variable and a "Maximum Players" variable, and when either number is met, the game goes. If no one has joined, then it could terminate.

Bleh, too much IMO.

I don't like the idea of host switching game type. When i join a game I expect that game to keep the same rules the whole time.