Just putting my 2cents out there. I think there needs to be a ceiling on the number of non-tourney open games a player can play at any one time. I'm running into a player that has well over 100 games being played. This person happens to be in several of my 8 games and is delaying the turns in every one of them. The turn speeds right along until it's this player's turn and then it languishes for close to (and sometimes equal to) the max turn time alottment.

This type of behavior is dangerous to a site like this as it severely erodes the fun factor, which is why we all play these games.

Or,

create a game with a shorter time limit.

These are the rules that are in place.  Playing at the end of one's turn timer is allowed and even a potential game changing strategy to wear down the opponents.

If you want games to go faster, use a different time standard.  My $.02.

Thanks CC for that enlightening post.

You are both pointing to the strengths of the system.  If you are frustrated with how long it takes to take a turn, you actually have two solutions. One is to limit the turn time limit, but the other is to play a lot of games.

Just spitballing here, but wouldn't it be nice if you could create a semi-realtime game where after x moves or y time any player could at any time convert the game to a pre-determined 'standard' time limit.   Call it a "Quick-Start" game.  There are a lot of times when I wouldn't mind spending an hour playing a game and can't afford to go overtime.

True, a player could increase one's games. But more to the point - besides increasing the play times for everyone the volume player's performance level is erratic and generally low which also reduces the quality of the games. They don't formulate a plan to win because they can't keep it in mind with 120 games going at once. Should the 90%+ cater to the few on this? The vast majority of players I run into have between 10 and 25 games going.

To illustrate my point, the player whom I am referring to is on a current 51 loss streak and has won only 2 of their last 178 games. This is worse than Shaq's freethrow shooting, for pete's sake.

Secondly, this isn't about me. For me, it's an annoyance I can deal with. But I know a few players who have left the site...good players...and this is one of the reasons they cite. I think it's a real danger, which is why I'm bringing it up here.

seems to be the same (similar in name and play style anyway) player as another who has been brought up in the past...

I, for one, would be very much against limiting the number of games a Premium player can play.  The only reason I can still play on this site is because of having 2 days to take my turn.  For me, I go back and forth between having a lot of time to play and having little to no time to play.  When I'm playing often, I can easily keep up with 40 or so games or more and have gone as high as in the 70s (I've seen some people in over hundreds of games).  But when my day job gets hectic, I have less time and go into a mode where I only have time to play the handful of turns that are about to expire.  Then I catch up when my time frees up.  Overall, I still have a 10.5 hour average turn time, so I don't think it's that big of a deal.  But because of this, I can never play any 1-day games.

I think the takeaway is that there are people on both sides of the fence - those that want fast turns and those that appreciate having the time given by longer turns so that the game can fit into our lives.

Maybe, instead of limiting the number of games someone can be in, we just need additional game duration options.  Perhaps something like a Fisher clock, but with durations in the hours?

But if I join a 2,3,7-day limit game, then I see it as everyone's prerogative to use their time, up to their limit, as they see fit.  Else I wouldn't join those games or I'd start one with a duration I prefer.  And the way I see it, if I'm using up my time and someone gives me crap for it - that's their problem, not mine.

Slander wrote:

Maybe, instead of limiting the number of games someone can be in, we just need additional game duration options.  Perhaps something like a Fisher clock, but with durations in the hours?

+1 I have thought of this before.  A Fischer clock option on extended-play games makes a lot of sense for weekday or weekend players as well.

Consider  a 1-day timer that let's you accumulate up to 3 days of time. If you manage to make a play within 12 hours on week-days, you could easily accrue enough time to take the week-end off.

In the case of those who wish to avoid sluggish players - they could set a 12 hour clock with a 24 hour accrual cap. 

Just out of curiosity, do the player(s) who allegedly 'abuse' the system favor a certain clock?  like a 2 or 3-day?

If there's a player that wants to lose 51 games to me, I'm ok with him taking his time in passing over the points, as long as he does.

Pretty. Damn. Shallow.

It's tough to punish/restrict people for being bad players - there is no real objective measure for that.*  And we could put together a list of people who play large numbers of games and do it well.

The issue for me along these lines is boots.  We've talked some in the past about boot penalties.  (e.g. 1 boot = no new games for 1 day.)  Not sure if something like this would be useful or not.

*It's funny to write that with multiple measures on the site dedicated to comparing how good we are as players.  But really I don't see punishing/restring a player just because their GR falls below X.

Yes, the boots, the bad play, the lingering games...not to mention the unhealthy aspect of playing all those games - those are all factors.

Ok, let's start with this. If you 'had' to put a cap, what would the number be?

My thoughts would be in the 50 to 70 range.

In my old job, I often had to screen applicants, and there was always this tension between screening applicants "out" and screening them "in".  Meaning that sometimes you look at an app and reject it for some reason, and sometimes you look at an app and make an exception for it. 

The outcome was the same (sort of) from both ways of processing - Some applicants didn't get in, and the most qualified ones did. 

I know there is a leap in logic here, but why would the site want to be screening it's players out?

Putting a cap on game numbers seems like an extreme blanket measure to solve a specific problem. I agree that the quality of play declines when some players do not take stuff seriously, but capping all the rest of us in game number can't be a solution to an irrisponsible player - or couple of players. 

Therefore, in an attempt to screen players in, maybe more customizable options that allow one to better control the conditions in which the game happens is the answer, and then if certain individuals want to play at the extremes of those conditions, so be it. 

I agree Ratsy.  I'd rather see a 1-day fisher clock and some kind of a boot penalty.  If someone wants to play 100 games at once, that doesn't bother me.

If a boot penalty were applied, however, it should only apply to the casual 1-2-3 day timers.  Whenever I try to play lightning games I do sometimes fall victim to power outages that often effect internet connectivity, so, since these games are fast anyways and won't be holding any one up for days while getting booted, such boots shouldn't incur penalties as they might be out of the booted player's control.

Extending the Fisher clock concept would be awesome.  I take most of my turns within 24 hours, but only play 3/7 day games because when life gets in the way I don't want to to worry about Wargear.

berickf wrote:

If a boot penalty were applied, however, it should only apply to the casual 1-2-3 day timers.  Whenever I try to play lightning games I do sometimes fall victim to power outages that often effect internet connectivity, so, since these games are fast anyways and won't be holding any one up for days while getting booted, such boots shouldn't incur penalties as they might be out of the booted player's control.

makes sense to me.  getting booted on a lightning game is not a big problem to the rest of the players.

Amidon, to your earlier post, can we get a count of players who are over 100 games? I suspect it would not be a large number.

Thingol wrote: Amidon, to your earlier post, can we get a count of players who are over 100 games? I suspect it would not be a large number.

I don't know.  Is that something someone with more knowledge than me can pull using the API's?  If not we would have to ask Tom.