Abililty to Request that Games Be Unstuck
This would allow players who get into stuck games to submit them to Fizzer, via either a private e-mail or a chat room post (whatever he prefers), and ask that he unstick the games in question. No one would be allowed to make the request unless the game has not moved in 30 days and there are some other indicia that the game will be permanently stuck - - for example, the nonmover(s) has or have left Warlight, or some user is deliberately holding up a game or an entire tournament by refusing to move.
Upon submission of a request, Fizzer would unstick the game and allow it to proceed normally.
This idea is really the same thing as “Kill the ‘never’ boot option” idea.
Let me explain.
Let’s say I set up a service where players could notify someone of “stuck” games, and then boot the offending players.
What would be the criteria for determining if the game was stuck? It would have to be the duration that the game has been stuck for.
Let’s say a “stuck” game is one that hasn’t moved for 100 days. If WarLight says that anyone that doesn’t move within 100 days can be removed via this new feature, isn’t that sort of the same as saying the maximum boot duration is 100 days? Why would WarLight let a game creator set a boot duration of “never” or 200 days if players can be removed after 100 via this other process?
That’s just misleading. If this were to be implemented, it would also make sense to remove the “never” option and replace it with the same duration as this option.
But if you think about it, you’ll realize that the "boot’ button really does the same thing – the only difference is one is done automatically, and the other requires human intervention. It doesn’t make sense to involve a human in a process that can be done automatically, since that adds ongoing work forever.
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Aerial Assault commented
Duke, yes, that would work as well, although I thought set out fairly solid criteria for Fizzer to evaluate requests. I'll remove my votes from some other feature (sigh) and add them to yours. In other news, is it time to give people more "rations" around here?
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DUKE commented
Would adding "active/inactive" status and auto-surrenderring inactive players from all open games address this problem (i.e. your games are stuck because they left WL, not because they won't play that particular game)? If yes, then add your votes to that solution. It has the virtue of not requiring Fizz to elvauate each request (not scalable) and it avoids any issues of targeting ridiculously slow players in a long boot time (or never boot) games.
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Aerial Assault commented
No, it's actually much more nuanced than that. As I've tried to explain to you (to which you responded by deleting my posts in the bug forum, I believe, which is fine - - it's your show and I apologize for any inconvenience that I'm causing you), this is more of the fix of a bug than a new feature. And moreover, certain "features" have time-criticality and other distinguishing characteristics that make them more relevant than others. Since Uservoice treats everything on a "rationing" basis as makes no allowances for the passage of time, it doesn't apply very well to this situation. A better gauge of how much users want certain features might be, for example, the amount of message board traffic on the forum that a particular item is receiving.
Finally, I believe that this feature would be relatively easy for you to implement vis a vis others. The front end work is zero, other than announcing that people can now e-mail you with requests to fix stuck games. I'm guessing that the more popular (by Uservoice standards) items would require more time investment on your part.
Thanks as always for your time and for creating a terrific game.
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AdminFizzer (WarLight Creator, WarLight) commented
> I have to remove my votes from other items to address this problem. It's actually a really good argument that UserVoice doesn't always address certain problems.
Actually, it's an argument that it's working perfectly, since I'd have to take my time away from working on the other items to work on this item. The point of the forum is for me to determine what players want the most.
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Aerial Assault commented
Ruthless, thanks.
I agree that it's a shame that I have to remove my votes from other items to address this problem. It's actually a really good argument that UserVoice doesn't always address certain problems.
And I agree with your filter request too. If we didn't have to see these stuck games, it wouldn't be so bad.
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Ruthless commented
It's sad that I have to take my votes out of other big ticket items but I feel strongly about this issue.
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Ruthless commented
Aerial, I agree with your request. I have made a user voice myself that should band aid the problem, at least in my opinion. I just don't like seeing the game on my list so i requested a new filter for My Games.
Uservoice request:
My Games Filter by Waiting For -
Aerial Assault commented
Oh, and note that I don't think that the UserVoice forum is the way to make this request, since this situation is a bug rather than a new feature, but Fizzer has twice directed me to UserVoice, so here we are. Thanks for your consideration.