Ottarinn, I sent you an e-mail with the chat that violated the WarLight rules. As a reminder, we can always view the rules here:

http://warlight.net/TermsOfService.aspx

So you can ban people and not fix stuck games? Kind of sucks for everybody. Not that I want to criticize, love the site, but still...

Seriously, is the sanctity of "game creator's intent" so important that there's no way to fix an obviously broken situation?

Frankly I lay the blame at the programmer who created the "never" boot option to begin with.

If you agree, vote here:

https://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/1142291-kill-the-never-boot-option

Although Enrico is a little more . . . direct than I would be, I principally agree with his sentiment, and addressed this in the "longest stuck game" post at length.

Incidentally, although I voted for the "kill the never boot option," I don't believe that will solve the problem of already-existing games that are stuck, or become stuck from here on out because of carelessness, new users who don't understand the import, or actively obstructing users such as this Alexander person.

I'm with Guderian - - you can ban people and autosurrender them in multiple (aparently dozens of) games, but can or will not address this relatively benign issue? Seems out of whack to me. Also addressed in greater detail in the other thread.

And now, in another thread (http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=864), it's revealed that Fizzer can unstick individual games.

Now that we know that he can do it, his refusal to do so in this case is increasingly baffling to me. Maybe he can explain, because I am highly confused.

The thread you're linking had a direct boot time. However, due to a bug, whenever someone clicked the boot button they were presented with an error dialog, and the boot wouldn't work. There's a big difference between a bug and a game creator that explicitly doesn't want booting in their game.

Honest question: Every game creator or player joining a game with a "never" direct boot time gets a big warning they *have* to dismiss to join the game. Now that this is in place, do you still feel that the "never" option should be removed? After all, everyone knows exactly what they're getting into.

Or is your concern just about the games that were created with the "never" option before this warning existed, since these players may not have known what they were getting into?

You say you're talking about the former camp - that the "never" option should be removed even though the warning exists. I find this a difficult pill to swallow - if players know exactly what they're getting into, and choose to do so anyway, why should I stop them? It's what they wanted! You think I need to protect them from themselves?

Part of WarLight's philosophy is that players are in control of their games. You're advocating that I remove some of that control.

I could understand it more if you were arguing to just fix older games (since it's logical to assume some of them didn't know what they were getting into since the warning did not exist yet), but leave the rules for new as they are now.

To clarify, here is my suggestion: there should be a universal auto-boot period of (say) 30 days. This will two related problems:
-Games where one person quit warlight and the boot is set to NEVER
-Games where two people quit warlight and there is no direct boot option

There are a lot of games of this sort, and the number will by definition go up over time. This is especially a problem in tournaments, where by the time you get to round 4 the tournament is several months old and some of the initial participants have stopped playing warlight.

The drawbacks of this suggestion are:
-people in the past who chose games where boot is set to NEVER, and somebody left for 30+ days. But who really is being harmed here? The person who remains in the stuck game is almost certainly frustrated (and regrets his/her choice to sign up for a game with that setting) and would welcome the boot. The person who has not moved for 30+ days has probably quit warlight, or else is being abusive. Of course we can conceive of far-fetched scenarios involving somebody travelling for 60 days, but surely that is the distinct minority.
-some people may want to be in very, very, very slow games, but again I think this population is very small and you have to consider that what's in their best interests may not be in the best interests of the vast majority of users.
-there may be extreme situations where somebody has to go on vacation or deployment for 30+ days and other people agree that it's OK. If this is a concern you have, you could mitigate it by having a setting that lets everybody vote (unanimously) to set aside the auto-boot.

I really think you are placing too much emphasis on the "Airplane!" argument, i.e. "They bought the tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em die!"

This is a great site, and one of the reasons is because we have different options regarding gameplay. But there are some options which contribute to unpleasant gameplay, and do so in a way that is not obvious at the outset (even if it should be). This is an example. Another would be really long sliding boot times (I'm currently in a game where the creator set it up for 3 day sliding boots and then promptly quit warlight. We waited 23 days to boot the creator, and are now on month 3 (I think) and about turn five. Multiple people have posted on chat that this is the worst game they ever joined. Yes, we all could have read the rules more carefully before signing up, but I also think the presence of such obviously unpleasant gameplay situations indicates that you shouldn't be completely laissez-faire in your settings philosophy, or at least that there should be failsafe mechanisms in the most obviously bad outcomes.

Imho, there should never have been a never boot time, instead with a max boot time of 30 days orsome such etc. for those that wanted a long boot time to prevent such occurances, *and arguements* similar to this..
and in most instances where people want to never boot, the boot time is relatively irrelevant. I am playing with a person that we never change the boot time because we never boot each other.. settin Never doesn't change when we will boot each other. It seems like that option was designed with good intentions, but now that warlight is getting more popular, situations where people leave unforeseen are causing problems, as well as trolls trying to cause hassle.
IMHO, the never boot time should be removed, and Fizzer should Manually handle the games with a current boot time based on a case by case basis, which would require alot of time and effort which If i was foolish enough to enter one of those games I would be patient for him to help me with my individual case.

I agree that the warning that there is a never boot time warning should be bad enough, my mere arguement is trolls... the never boot, like the 0 minute boot, should be removed to help the noobs from gettings trolled, and the like.

Of course the end choice is always Fizzers.. as i understand it, this game is a hobby of his, not a job, he makes nothing from it besides his own enjoyment, and while it is frustrating to some of us to now be capable of finishing our tournaments/games remember this is still probably one of the best free games out there.

I think that a better option would be a Quit option, or 30 day auto-vote to end, where the players that have been Absent for 30 days, auto-vote to end, and all other players must vote to end to process it.. it wouldn't solve the tournaments, but also wouldn't make players cause the inability to play incredibly long duration games.


and now that i have probably gotten into a rant, i will desist..

Certainly a good perspective worth reiterating:

>Of course the end choice is always Fizzers.. as i understand it, this game is a hobby of his, not a job, he makes nothing from it besides his own enjoyment, and while it is frustrating to some of us to now be capable of finishing our tournaments/games remember this is still probably one of the best free games out there.



This is a great site; I spend far too much time on here ;-). I used to be a paying member of conquerclub but quit to join this one a while ago.

Fizzer wrote:

*****[begin Fizzer quote]*****
Honest question: Every game creator or player joining a game with a "never" direct boot time gets a big warning they *have* to dismiss to join the game. Now that this is in place, do you still feel that the "never" option should be removed? After all, everyone knows exactly what they're getting into.

Or is your concern just about the games that were created with the "never" option before this warning existed, since these players may not have known what they were getting into?

You say you're talking about the former camp - that the "never" option should be removed even though the warning exists. I find this a difficult pill to swallow - if players know exactly what they're getting into, and choose to do so anyway, why should I stop them? It's what they wanted! You think I need to protect them from themselves?

Part of WarLight's philosophy is that players are in control of their games. You're advocating that I remove some of that control.

I could understand it more if you were arguing to just fix older games (since it's logical to assume some of them didn't know what they were getting into since the warning did not exist yet), but leave the rules for new as they are now.
*****[end Fizzer quote]*****



Fizzer, your last sentence is right on target. For the moment, I am arguing just to fix older games. In a moment, I will post the stuck tournament that is the subject of this thread and the most spectacular example of what I'm talking about.

Please note, however, that what Enrico Pallazzo says above is correct - - you're saving people from themselves, but in most cases, you're just helping the needs of the many without really harming anyone. But for the moment, I'll settle for just having old stuck games fixed.

More in a moment.

Fizzer,

Here is the worst example of a stuck tournament that I'm aware of. It is the original subject of this thread.

The tournament is at:

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?TournamentID=511


This tournament was started by user Hollow with a never boot feature. The tournament was started on August 12, well before, I believe, you launched the warning feature that prompts users to think twice before joining a game or tournament with a "never boot" setting.

The stuck game, holding up the entire tournament, is here:

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?TournamentID=511


In this particular game, one user, a Mary Elizabeth McGlynn ("MEM"), has clearly left Warlight. She/he (I'll assume "she") has been inactive for over six weeks, which is also about the amount of time that the game (and therefore the tourney) have been stuck. Now, the members of the other team (FBG-Smokedpears and FBG-This Guy) waited a reasonable time, then (I assume) voted to boot MEM, and asked her teammate, Alexander the Great, to vote to boot also, which would resolve the entire problem and allow the game and the tournament to advance.

As you'll see if you check the game chat, Alexander not only refused to cooperate, but taunted the team making the request, in what looks to me like a violation of the Terms of Service that you have adopted for the site. Alexander is a currently active Warlight user.

So there you have it. One user is deliberately obstructing the advancement of an entire tournament. Why? We don't know, but from the game chat in question, it sure doesn't look like there's any good reason for his actions. Meanwhile, MEM is rather obviously gone.

I submit this tournament as an example of a situation that

(a) you ought to consider intervening in and fixing, because it involves a user (Alexander the Great) who is rather clearly acting against the interests of the Warlight community; and

(b) supports the adoption of a mechanism whereby people in OLDER stuck games could e-mail you or post here or whatever you prefer and ask you to unstick their games. It doesn't have to be a Uservoice feature, it doesn't have to be a huge production, it doesn't have to violate anyone's intent, and it doesn't have to apply to newer games where everyone received the new warning that you created in November about the "never boot" feature - - it's just a way to make the game more user-friendly.

So, just to be clear, this particular tournament should be fixed because its delay results from a violation of the TOS of the site. It is also a good example that supports what I'm discussing in this thread, namely, the need for a general scheme to resolve older stuck games.

Thanks for your time.

you linked the tourney twice instead of linking the individual game


http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1107491

and alex the great is fail... since even if they surrendered they would have to be accepted and the game would still be stuck without his partners input, lol

Thanks for the correction, Perrin.

Yes, what I'm asking for is for the game to be unstuck in whatever way Fizzer deems appropriate, given that MEM is clearly not coming back and Alexander the Great isn't helping with his behavior. I would think that the greater interest of the Warlight community would support unsticking this game rather than leaving it as is, particularly given Alexander the Great's behavior.

And if anyone cares, here is the suggested fix that I posted to Uservoice:

http://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/1309157-abililty-to-request-that-games-be-unstuck


And yes, I did misspell "ability." :)

Well said, AA.

Weird, I couldn't post earlier but it appears to have cleared up.

Aerial Assault that is an excellent post. I wish I could make my points so clearly and eloquently.

Fizzer, please, this really needs to be fixed. You said it is a hard pill to swallow but I honestly don't see why. Even if you only fix old games I am good with that but even for the newer games I really don't see a problem with unsticking them. Yes people agree to the intent of a never boot game but until this happens to them I don't think they truly understand what it means. In all honestly there is no reason a game should sit idle for more than a month or two. There is no benefit to anybody when that happens. In the game/tournament we are talking about here one person is clearly never coming back. And if they do, will they really be interested in restarting a game they remember nothing about? On the other hand, Alexander is active and knows exactly what he is doing. He's apparently getting a kick out of it. The never boot option is empowering him to do this and it's hurting the Warlight experience. It's sad. Please help.

Wow, just noticed this tourney and man is it a mess. I personally would hate to be in that situation and I agree that this setting is probably no the best idea for anybody other than those who want to get their wins by "cheating" without breaking the rules...

as ottarin, i also got suspended.... and i didnt receive anything justifying it.... i do use some bad language, but i honestly believe that it shouldnt be considered as offensive, but well-..

as ottarin, i dont know why i got suspended