|
||||||||
|
Title: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 19th, 2010, 5:23am Dear Fellow Community Members, After consultation with Omar, there's an exciting idea I have to run past you all. With a bit of help we can make this a reality: The first ever ARIMAA ONLINE FESTIVAL, a special day of events and activities. Because we'll all have several months' notice, more of us will be likely to make it. So events like live blitz tournaments should get more participation. Also, we should be able to generate some publicity. Arimaa.com is available 24/7, but telling people we have a special event planned should get us some more attention. And if all goes well we may be able to plan more of these things in the future. ------ So, that's the idea. Now to the details. Of course, everybody's input is most welcome. However, I'd be very grateful of some "co-organizers." If you have some time and you'd like to help please say so and we'll divide the tasks and collaborate on the final decisions. Also in this thread, I'd like to get your feedback on the following topics (I'm numbering them so we can refer to each topic by number in our replies.) 1. Date. My own favourite date would be a Sunday 12th of September. I could make it for the 5th, but after the 12th I'm away until the 17th of October. Saturdays are harder but doable. 2. Events. 2a. Of course, a blitz tournament. Maybe only 4 or 5 rounds depending on what else we plan. 2b. Simultaneous games with present and former world champions. 2c. Collaborative games, where we set up two teams who debate their moves on two separate Teamspeak channels 2d. Scheduled discussions. The first thing that comes to mind is perhaps an interview with Omar as the creator of the game, maybe reminiscing how Arimaa got started etc. This might be good for general Arimaa publicity. 2e. Strategy workshops. An Arimaa expert gives a workshop over Teamspeak about certain aspects of strategy or chats with fellow players about significant past games. 3. Live Coverage I was thinking it would be exciting to provide commentary, interviews, discussions etc. using Teamspeak throughout the day. After talking with Omar it seems relatively simple to connect the Teamspeak feed to a webcast, so somebody who enters the gameroom could just click on a link and listen in. I would probably be able to moderate for the beginning (because I'm GMT+3) but towards the middle and the end I would need some help. Any volunteers? 4. Schedule Considering that we want to appeal audiences both sides of the pond, I had come up with the following hazy schedule: Start: Around noon CET -Simul with Jean Daligault -European Collaborative -Blitz Tourney (timed to start after California's woken up) -Interviews/Workshops -Simul with Karl Juhnke (by this point it's quite late in Europe, but a decent time for all time zones in the US) -American Collaborative Finish: Evening EST 5. Publicity & Advertising Marketing expertise will come in handy here. Both ideas on how to get the maximum exposure possible, and volunteers to design logos and publicity materials etc. Phew! That was a longer post than I expected. :) All your comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Jun 19th, 2010, 5:33am Hey, sounds great! I think I should be available the 12th of September, but I'm not sure yet. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Jun 19th, 2010, 6:57am I think this event would be a great way to get pepped up before the registrations for the yearly championships and spectator contest begin. I'll be glad to do an interview. I also like the idea of having some workshops to discuss Arimaa concepts and strategies. And I will definitely participate in the simuls and take a crack a beating the top players :-) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 19th, 2010, 9:15am My 0.02 Euros. If there could be something scheduled on teamspeak all day long that would be a great plus. It always makes things more interesting when you hear people actually talk about it, that is people from both sides of the pond could alternatively take a crack at it. What I mean is that if there was something to talk about or to listen to, you’d definitely get my attention in a big way. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nevermind on Jun 19th, 2010, 9:29am I think this is an absolutely great idea. The strategy workshops sound particularly interesting. I guess the central "hub" of the event would be the chatroom, and teamspeak used for the various discussion events. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by FireBorn on Jun 19th, 2010, 10:03am Awesome, love the idea. Let's do it |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Jun 20th, 2010, 9:02am It sounds great! And if there's enough people we might even need additional Teamspeak channels in other languages than English. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 20th, 2010, 10:04am on 06/20/10 at 09:02:35, leo wrote:
The one channel we have is barely used as it is... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by RonWeasley on Jun 21st, 2010, 5:11am on 06/19/10 at 10:03:53, FireBorn wrote:
And it is the will of Landru. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Jun 21st, 2010, 12:45pm @Arimabuff: I hope it would be different during the festival. In normal times I would avoid voice chatting at 2am ^^ |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 21st, 2010, 9:36pm on 06/21/10 at 05:11:03, RonWeasley wrote:
The man who killed women and then burned their bodies in his stove? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 22nd, 2010, 2:22am I think Ron is talking about some mind-controlling computer from Star Trek.... Annnnnyway to get back to the main topic: I think we've established the Festival is a good idea, so we can start working out the practicalities. Is there anybody willing to help out with one or more of the numbered points? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 22nd, 2010, 7:33am on 06/22/10 at 02:22:20, megajester wrote:
I've seen that episode, that was Jack the Ripper. Same kind of guy though... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 22nd, 2010, 2:55pm on 06/22/10 at 02:22:20, megajester wrote:
It looks like I have already been volunteered for a couple of the numbered points, and that is great as far as I am concerned. :) I can't plan ahead as far as September 12, but there is nothing on my calendar now that would stop me from participating, and I can defend that day against other commitments. I'm happy to give a simul in the North American afternoon, but I would like to cap the ratings of the participants to 1900. The point of a simul is quantity, and if the festival is at all well-attended, I should have no trouble getting more opponents than I can handle even with a cap in place. You have a workshop scheduled for before the simul. The most straightforward thing for me to do for that would be to pick a game, analyze it before hand, and then discuss it with whoever shows up. I would hope the discussion could be a lot more interactive than my regular live commentary, because I wouldn't have to keep up with the action. We could go through the game as slowly or quickly as the participants wanted to, spending more time wherever there were more questions. I guess ideally I should pick the game well in advance, so that extra-assiduous participants could also study and think of questions in advance. Maybe my 2009 Postal Mixer game against Adanac (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=115864). Do we have the ability to have spectators of a plan window? It would greatly help the discussion if I didn't just have to replay the actual moves while everything else was merely talked about rather than displayed. Hmmm... seems we need a bit of additional infrastructure to make a workshop run smoothly. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by knarl on Jun 22nd, 2010, 8:13pm on 06/19/10 at 05:23:58, megajester wrote:
You say Saturdays are doable; I would say that a Saturday would be better for a good turn out, because more people in leading timezones will be able to stay up later on a Saturday. Obviously I'm biased, becaused I'm at GMT+10, and I have to work on monday 13th Sep, so a 9pm sunday start isn't ideal. But a saturday would be ok. Other people must be in the same boat? Cheers, knarl. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 23rd, 2010, 10:47am Well, yes, Saturdays are doable, but I'm outta here from 14:00 GMT and wouldn't be back before 20:30. Which means I would need more help with the commentary. I'm quite happy to be the organizer, but I'd need somebody ready to take the mic from that point onwards. Even if it's Sunday I'm not staying up all night when I've got work on Monday, so for at least the last part of the American stint I'm gonna need a replacement. In addition to that we really want some backups to be able to cover if one of us loses our connection for any reason. Also that would happen to coincide with 9/11. "Arimaa Online Festival: Sep 11th" might not look too good on an ad in the US. Perhaps the previous week? In any case we can start rolling up our sleeves. I've made a tentative schedule: (All times are summer time. London is currently GMT+1. In case of any error, the GMT times are correct.) PST EST GMT CET Brisbane, AUS -7 -4 = +2 +10 04:00 07:00 11:00 13:00 22:00 Launch 04:15 07:15 11:15 13:15 22:15 Simultaneous Match: Jean Daligault 06:00 08:00 13:00 15:00 00:00 European Collaborative Match 08:00 11:00 15:00 17:00 03:00 Blitz Tournament 14:00 17:00 21:00 23:00 09:00 Interview with Omar 14:45 17:45 21:45 23:45 09:45 Fritz's Workshop 15:45 18:45 22:30 00:30 10:30 American Collaborative Match 17:45 20:15 00:15 02:15 12:15 Simultaneous Match: Karl Juhnke 19:00 22:00 02:00 04:00 14:00 Close (All comments are, as always, most welcome. For example, I've scheduled 6 hours for the Blitz tourney, will that be enough?) Many thanks to Jean and Karl for being prepared to help out with all this. (@Fritz, do whatever you like with the workshop, I'm sure it'll be great. I've emailed Omar about this, setting up public plan windows seems a tuffie. How about using a dummy account with a second browser and challenging yourself to a postal?) What we really need now is the following: 1. Commentators. We need both moderators and co-commentators. Please indicate at what times you will be available throughout the day. It doesn't matter if you're an expert or not, just having someone there with something to say is enough to create an atmosphere. Although having some of our seasoned veterans to help out will be very helpful indeed. 2. Publicity. Anybody with any graphics skills? I need a logo, and some banners that say "1st Arimaa Online Festival Sep xx, 2010 @ arimaa.com" Also, anybody with any ideas as to which forums or which websites we can post in? Who will be interested? Don't forget we'll be webcasting the whole thing like a radio station. Perhaps the interview could be a highlight for generating new interest. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions so far. Keep it coming! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Jun 23rd, 2010, 11:10am on 06/23/10 at 10:47:54, megajester wrote:
I'm more into drawings than graphics, but I'll try to put something together during the next days, unless a pro chimes in. I'll sure do all I can to be there on the festival day, but my spoken English is too crappy to provide live comments. I can help with minor things though. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Janzert on Jun 23rd, 2010, 7:53pm I'd love to see a bot developer "roundtable", but I probably wouldn't be able to participate myself if the festival lands on a Sunday. Janzert |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 23rd, 2010, 10:23pm on 06/23/10 at 10:47:54, megajester wrote:
It will be somewhat awkward playing out lines if I have to switch between two game windows depending on which side I am trying to make a move for, or take back a move for. Furthermore, there is a known bug with nested takebacks in 0/0/0/0/0 learning games: you can get stuck in a branch and be unable to rewind to an earlier position. I don't think the existing infrastructure is quite adequate to the task of giving a workshop. We truly need a plan window that is visible to spectators. I understand that there is a lot on Omar's plate, and that a technical solution might not be doable in the time available. I rather like Janzert's suggestion of a developer roundtable. That would make a good substitute for my schedule slot, and I would even be willing to act as moderator. (Not to reserve a plum job for myself; there are others more qualified for that task than I am.) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Harren on Jun 24th, 2010, 4:19am This Festival seems very cool! If I'm not too busy with wrapping up my PhD, I'll definitely be present. Also a suggestion: it would be very interesting to have two top players play against each other, while they themselves give live commentary on their thoughts. I read a similar suggestion a while back somewhere on the forum but then with one player giving commentary. If we work with multiple channels anyway, they both could do it, while others can switch between the two channels at will, and see for instance if at certain points both players believe they have an advantage :P |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 24th, 2010, 7:09am on 06/24/10 at 04:19:29, Harren wrote:
Interesting. I wonder if there would be a technical possibility for the spectators to hear both players without the players hearing each other. I think the way it would work best would be for each player to speak only when it is not his own turn. Then they never would talk over each other, and never be burdened with having to think and talk at the same time. Whoever was on move could concentrate entirely on making a good move, and then chit-chat to pass the time when not on move. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 24th, 2010, 7:14am on 06/23/10 at 22:23:30, Fritzlein wrote:
I like the developers' roundtable as well. Maybe we can slot it in the middle of the day somewhere. As I'm sure you'll have noticed, there is a narrow window between when California wakes up and Europe goes to bed, most of which is eaten up by the blitz tourney... How about this: PST EST GMT CET Brisbane, AUS -7 -4 = +2 +10 03:00 06:00 10:00 12:00 21:00 Launch 03:15 06:15 10:15 12:15 21:15 Simultaneous Match: Jean Daligault 05:00 07:00 12:00 14:00 23:00 European Collaborative Match 07:00 10:00 14:00 16:00 02:00 Open Blitz Tournament 13:00 16:00 20:00 22:00 08:00 Interview with Omar Syed 14:00 17:00 21:00 23:00 09:00 Bot Developers' Roundtable 14:45 17:45 21:45 23:45 09:45 Karl's Strategy Workshop 15:45 18:45 22:30 00:30 10:30 American Collaborative Match 17:45 20:15 00:15 02:15 12:15 Simultaneous Match: Karl Juhnke 19:00 22:00 02:00 04:00 14:00 Close For the workshop, if all else fails perhaps we could simply post a link to the game in the gameroom or somewhere, and you could ask the players to move forward or backward to whichever move you're commenting on. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 24th, 2010, 7:27am on 06/24/10 at 07:09:02, Fritzlein wrote:
Hm, interesting. (For the moment I'm going to call this the Think Out Loud Match.) It wouldn't be possible to prevent players from hearing each other, because we'll hopefully be broadcasting the whole thing live over the internet. But I think this could be an interesting format as a demonstration match. As I said in my last post, we don't actually have a whole lot of time for events that we want everybody both sides of the Atlantic to benefit from. We're going to be having live commentary the whole time anyway. Adanac (Greg Mayne), for instance, is a very able commentator as you will remember from the WC. Having him on board for the collaborative matches I think would be just as instructive. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 24th, 2010, 8:07am on 06/24/10 at 07:09:02, Fritzlein wrote:
I think that's the only way it could work; otherwise, the audience is bound to be frustrated of more than half of what each player would say. I think that could be done if both players mute their teamspeak program while retaining the mike capability. That way they would be able to talk but not to hear what the other one is saying. I don’t know if it’s feasible without muting their speakers altogether, it shouldn’t be too hard to find out though. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 24th, 2010, 8:12am on 06/24/10 at 07:27:29, megajester wrote:
I think we can safely rely on the honor system on that one. ;) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Jun 24th, 2010, 8:19am on 06/24/10 at 07:09:02, Fritzlein wrote:
on 06/24/10 at 08:07:09, Arimabuff wrote:
This and this :) Great idea, I think it's much better than with two channels, not only everyone gets to hear all both players have to say, but it also gives better game quality since players can think without speaking on their move. EDIT: actually, the speaking player would always get cut midsentence by his opponent's move. I think having a policy of the just-moved player waiting for his opponent to be finished with his chat would work as players can see with the teamspeak lights when someone else is already speaking. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 24th, 2010, 8:32am on 06/24/10 at 08:12:06, Arimabuff wrote:
Of course we can. Sorry, that was my League Co-ordinator brain on autopilot. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 24th, 2010, 8:37am OK I'm sold on this one. Only problem now is where to fit in. I think the Think Out Loud Match will be more instructive and more exciting than the workshop, so what do people think about having it instead of the workshop? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Janzert on Jun 24th, 2010, 8:56am Or if there is a teamspeak admin present they can move the appropriate player in and out of the main channel when a move is made. This would allow some interaction with the player currently doing the speaking. Janzert |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Jun 24th, 2010, 9:36am I'll be able to help out with commentary. As for a workshop, I would think we could find a "netmeeting" type of software that would let Fritz (or anyone else) share a window on their computer for everyone to view. As for "time" to fit everything in the schedule, can more than one event be scheduled for the same time? I know that is how most festivals work, but also understand we might not have enough people to have two simultaneous events well attended. (For example, how many developers would want to go to the developers round table and also be participating in the Blitz tournament?) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 24th, 2010, 9:59am on 06/24/10 at 08:56:56, Janzert wrote:
That would be some tedious repetitive work... plus the admin may be forced to take a break once in a while which would mess up everything. I think the less human intervention there is the better... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 24th, 2010, 1:34pm on 06/24/10 at 09:36:13, Nombril wrote:
Now there's a good idea, if feasible. I could then just have a plan window on my computer. Does that sort of thing usually require a server, and if so is there a free (Linux-based) netmeeting server Omar could install on Arimaa.com? Absent a technical solution for broadcasting a plan window, my solution for how to finesse the schedule is to lose the workshop and put some other event in its place. I expect we should prioritize and make the best events with can think of go as well as possible, rather than try to cram in as many events as we can think of. I could be underestimating potential turnout, but two things going on at once seems very ambitious. Indeed, even having two full teams in a game that is too early for America or too late for Europe seems ambitious. Those events would be lower in my priority list than "think out loud" games. But perhaps a live team game is an idea near and dear to the hearts of some. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Jun 25th, 2010, 7:41am there are mikogo type of software (mikogo works fine for 2 persons but maybe not for many??). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 25th, 2010, 8:51am OK, trying to slot all this in leads me to the question... How long does a blitz tournament take to play? Per round? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 25th, 2010, 1:12pm on 06/25/10 at 08:51:00, megajester wrote:
I would schedule it for 40 minutes per round with no break. Most players will finish early and have ten minutes between each round to use the toilet and grab a sandwich, but players of long games would have to play back-to-back. The TD would have to keep hopping between rounds, and the players would have to be cooperative (e.g. no 15-minute grace for starting rounds like in the WC; maybe instead a 2-minute grace before forfeit). So, a six-round tournament would take four hours. One important feature will be allowing late joins and dropouts. We want to encourage people who are leaving to officially drop out, so that they don't get paired one last time, thereby depriving an opponent of a game. We also want to encourage people to swing by any time and play a few even if they can't make a four-hour commitment. Some blitz fanatics might argue for more than six rounds, but with a plethora of good events vying for schedule time, I would argue against letting blitz squeeze out other events. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 26th, 2010, 2:42am on 06/25/10 at 13:12:30, Fritzlein wrote:
Great, six rounds at 40 minutes each, adding another 5 minutes of leeway each round just for good measure, works out at 4 and a half hours. Excellent. New schedule: PST EST GMT CET Brisbane, AUS -7 -4 = +2 +10 03:00 06:00 10:00 12:00 20:00 Launch 03:15 06:15 10:15 12:15 20:15 Simultaneous Match: Jean Daligault 05:00 08:00 12:00 14:00 22:00 European Collaborative Match 07:00 10:00 14:00 16:00 00:00 Open Blitz Tournament 11:30 14:30 18:30 20:30 04:30 'Think Out Loud' Match 13:00 16:00 20:00 22:00 06:00 Interview with Omar Syed 14:00 17:00 21:00 23:00 07:00 Bot Developers' Roundtable 15:30 18:30 22:30 00:30 08:30 Karl's Strategy Workshop 17:15 20:15 00:15 02:15 10:15 American Collaborative Match 21:00 00:00 04:00 06:00 14:00 Simultaneous Match: Karl Juhnke 19:00 22:00 02:00 04:00 12:00 Close |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Jun 26th, 2010, 6:43am Wow, this is coming along very nicely. Lots of good ideas and the event is starting to sound very exciting. Maybe a wiki page for the event would be a good place to capture the things that have been decided on. Also, I can send out a message to all the users to let them know about the Festival (once things are more settled). So, let me know when you want me to do that. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 26th, 2010, 5:07pm Who did you have in mind for the "Think Out Loud" match? I am willing. It's clear that I'm going to want to do everything, but I will have to pace myself somewhat. Maybe I can skip Omar's interview, since I already know everything he has to say, and skip the American Collaborative match. I do want to listen in on the developers, though. So that would leave me with five events: Open Blitz Tournament 'Think Out Loud' Match Bot Developers' Roundtable Fritz's Strategy Workshop Simultaneous Match: Fritz Juhnke What a day full of Arimaa! By the way, I also prefer Saturday to Sunday. In order to respect the victims and heroes of 9/11, we could have a moment of silence and/or remembrances before the beginning of the Blitz tournament (approximately the time of the attacks). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Jun 27th, 2010, 3:31am Would bots also be able to play in the blitz tournament? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 27th, 2010, 6:24am on 06/27/10 at 03:31:41, rbarreira wrote:
I think it'd be prudent to take the bots off line for the duration of the festival. If there are more people in the room, it is most likely that a part of them will be playing the bots and that could create an overload... I believe it's happened before. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Jun 27th, 2010, 6:53am on 06/27/10 at 06:24:34, Arimabuff wrote:
I meant bots running on the bot's developer machine, entering the tournament just like the human players. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Jun 27th, 2010, 10:56am on 06/27/10 at 06:53:03, rbarreira wrote:
In that case then I don't see why not. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 28th, 2010, 10:26am OK I've set up a page on the wiki, but I'm going to need everybody's help to flesh it out. Click here. (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/1st_Arimaa_Online_Festival) I do apologize if I've forgotten anybody's suggestions or to add the names of those who've indicated they'll be willing to participate. I will be going back over the thread to check, but please still tell me if I've missed anything. If you have any suggestions, or you'd be willing to put your name forward for any of the roles, please let me know. Thanks for all your help. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Janzert on Jun 28th, 2010, 11:10am Assuming I can make it and at this point it seems I should be able to, I would be willing to participate as either a panel member or moderator for the developer roundtable. Also even though I'm the one that suggested it I've been thinking that the name might imply a little narrower focus for the discussion than I really wanted. A more appropriate name and description for what I would like to see is maybe: State of the Challenge A discussion on the current state and future prospects of computer play. I think a panel between 3-5 people would be great and I expect it will be somewhat interactive with the audience as well. Janzert |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Jun 28th, 2010, 11:31am This page might be handy for people in different timezones. This is the time at which the event starts: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=11&month=9&year=2010&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=0 It's set to the correct date so it should take care of things like daylight savings time adjustments, etc. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 28th, 2010, 2:23pm It appears that "Close" is before the start off my simultaneous match. I'm off the hook! ;D The wiki table implies that only five slots are open in my simul. I limited the opponent rating to 1900 specifically so that I could take on more opponents than that. I guess I would cap it at twelve opponents, but only because of the difficulty of switching between games. If the Arimaa game room had a feature that the ICC has, namely that a simul-giver is automatically switched to the game where he has the least remaining time on his clock, I would offer to play twenty games. Alas, even at a mere twelve games much of my time and attention will be spent manually switching between windows and making sure I don't miss any. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 28th, 2010, 9:35pm on 06/28/10 at 11:10:12, Janzert wrote:
OK that's done. I'm not going to pretend I'm qualified to know what is worthy of discussion and what isn't. If you'd like to, I'd be very happy for you to determine who will be on the panel from among the applicants, and what topics will be debated. @Fritz Oops! Sorted that one out now... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Jun 29th, 2010, 2:15am on 06/28/10 at 14:23:00, Fritzlein wrote:
A possible way to manage all the windows is to resize them all just big enough so that you can see all the opponent's timers at the top of each window. Or you can do that and then scroll them down so your timer is visible instead. That should allow you to keep all the windows open and visible, when you want to make a move you just have to restore it to the usual size, then make it small again after you move. It's not optimal, but it's surely much better than to keep switching windows... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Jun 29th, 2010, 12:31pm What time controls would you like for the Simul games? The euro collaborative match is currently scheduled 1h 45mn after the start of the simul. If we want no overlap, I guess we can use the 45 sec/move or 1mn/move. Or if overlap is not a problem we can play up to 2mn per move I guess. I have no idea how many games I can play, but it will heavily change depending on whether the 45 sec or 2mn time control is chosen :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Jun 29th, 2010, 12:47pm Btw, I'm available too for the think out loud match, but I'm also willing to step aside if Adanac or someone else wants to play it. As mentioned before Greg is a great commentator :) And, unless I've missed something, the specifics of the collaborative games have not been discussed. If I understand correctly, the team discussion will be vocal, with a captain who actually plays the move elected by the team. Once again, do you we go for no-overlap with the TOL match? If so, that's 6h30 available, so maybe something like a 6mn/move game? Even longer if we don't mind this game extending through the day, like 10mn/move? I'm a little concerned; on the one hand discussing the position, selecting some candidate moves and having a rough vote to elect the move to play might be really long, not easy to fit in a 5 mn window. On the other hand, since the game is going to last for a long time, players will drop in and out, and I fear there might be some periods during which some team gets very severly depleted, especially since the blitz tourney runs concurrently. Or would this event be intended not to overlap the blitz tourney, just a 2hour game with regular time controls? I'm even more worried, since discussing moves is really complicated, when even naming a move and getting understood by others is highly non-easy/lengthy. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jun 29th, 2010, 1:17pm Thanks a lot Jean for all your support. I'd like to see how many others are available before we divvy it all out. As a general rule, none of the events should clash with any other. I've tried to plan them so that one should end with enough breathing space before the next. With the collaborative games... What I had imagined was that the captain would ultimately be in the driving seat and the others would be more like advisors. Because as you rightly point out, a truly democratic way of doing things would take waaay too long. Looking at the schedule I think it would have to be a 2 mins/move time control. I had imagined it would be enough time for the captain to say "I'm thinking of going for this" and the others to say "Yeah looks good" or "I think you should do this other thing instead" or "You want to be putting that piece there, not where you said." What do you think people, is this realistic? Maybe if we keep the teams small? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Hippo on Jun 29th, 2010, 2:50pm This game day would be amazing. Unfortunately we have a lot of birthday celebrations during september so I could participate with probability approaching zero. I hope both teams would do recording during the collaborative game. It may be exciting to hear the conversation even afterwards. Simul game on 8 boards with 1m per move would be just a bit faster than lightning speed for the performer. It must be played agressively to finish some games early enough to slow down the average ... good luck c&g. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jun 29th, 2010, 4:45pm I was imagining playing my simul at 0/0/0/0/0 time control and just moving as fast as I can, at least equivalent to blitz speed. My experience is that most of the players themselves move promptly without being clocked. I guess it is lucky for me that my event is last so I don't have to worry about when it finishes; stragglers have only themselves to blame for being slow, and if I have to finish off a couple games at slow speeds at the end, it is their funeral for delaying until I had attention to spare for them. If it were clocked, I would want to have 15 seconds/move/participant to make it through the early stages without losing on time, but once most of the games are under control or easily won, with just a few where I am in trouble, that time control would be far more than necessary. Maybe the way to address that is to start with a smaller-than-necessary increment but with a large block of time. I would be interested to see chessandgo experiment with something like 60 min/game plus 5 sec/move, with the intention of forcing stragglers to finish up but also with the hope that it would be enough time for the simul-giver to not lose games on time. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rajmahendra on Jul 29th, 2010, 8:31am This is a great news..... I have some thoughts on this... 1) Festival must be more than one day (Sat, Sun) or any holiday.(or something like Last week end of a month) 2) Try to sync with timezones... so many can attend. Or festivals based on continuations (Not sure how to bring in life but just a thought ) 3) If we follow Point 1 we can split event in (Beginners,novice, expert or beginners and expert ) one for a day (so we can cover all levels) 4) Entry form for joining (so we can know who and how many people can join with there levels ) We need to encourage blogger post on the game, game play, experience etc. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jul 29th, 2010, 10:34am on 07/29/10 at 08:31:18, rajmahendra wrote:
Hiya, thanks for dropping in. 1) Well ideally yes, but I won't be around to organize any more than one day. In any case, we've never done this before so we can only make an educated guess as to how much participation we'll get. It's probably best to not to bite off more than we're sure we can chew. 2) Come back when you've read the rest of this thread and then we'll talk. 3) Again, until we're sure of the level of participation... 4) OK, I'll see what I can do about that... And yes, we want as much publicity as we can get. I hadn't thought about contacting bloggers, do you have any in mind? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Jul 29th, 2010, 11:17am I finally mustered the strength to venture into the intricacies of Inkscape, and here is a first draft of a banner for the festival. No style and no picture for now, just food for thought and discussion about layout and composition. If anybody wants the Inkscape SVG source to fiddle with please let me know. I'll keep adding to it in the next days. EDIT: The PNG export is slightly screwed up... http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/104/festivalbanner.png |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jul 29th, 2010, 12:07pm Thanks Leo! All the best with Inkscape... I think it would be nice to have a logo. What if we reused the "elephant" concept, but have a different take... What if you made an outline of an elephant front-on, a bit like this http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDal2OnM2XEUptZiLaeKuDqXzQrtzdHb7KB6Xvy56oUIzXnnQ&t=1&usg=__zBeUmH15ubjlwfFTzKuGTI3tyfk= but make it minimalist, in this kind of style http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS04Oc8o3seV7PR83sE3F29p5SKKEp1yWCiC4qhBlOMFhYwORk&t=1&usg=__vv2V0amyEOHUbpxmiuRZVUNllY8= Though for a web banner perhaps we could have "Arimaa Online Festival" superimposed over the elephant logo, both centered, and the date "2010.09.11" or "September 11, 2010" in smaller letters underneath... ...what do you think? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Jul 29th, 2010, 12:32pm Yes, a logo is a must have. Would something of that kind do? It's an awful draft but I hope you get the feeling of it. I'll attempt vector logos with a reduced palette this week end according to the ideas that pour into the thread ^^ I'll try the layout you suggest with superimposed letters. http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/8329/festivallogo.jpg |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jul 29th, 2010, 6:54pm I like the draft, leo. It would be sweet if the Arimaa Festival had its own logo. Not necessary, but a lot of fun. :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Jul 30th, 2010, 8:28am That's cool. I think something like this would be great. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Jul 30th, 2010, 8:45am Great! But hey, what's Rimby doing here!? :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jul 30th, 2010, 3:40pm on 07/29/10 at 12:32:23, leo wrote:
Yeah, that's nice. (I wish I could knock up "awful drafts" like that so quick...) I would just like to make a couple of suggestions. Firstly, let's keep the elephant gold. And, following a minimalistic approach, we could perhaps have just gaps for eyes instead of too much detail. Rimby can stay so long as he doesn't end up looking too playboy-esque. ;D But you know what, if that's your awful draft the real thing must be amazing. So just go ahead and do whatever you imagined, don't let me throw you off. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Aug 6th, 2010, 4:00pm Real life coming in the way I don't think I'll have the logo ready until the week end of August 14. I hope it won't be too late for advertising the Festival. If someone can make it faster please go ahead. Chat room v2 will suffer the same delay. Thank you for all the suggestions, I'm all ears for more. And yes, Rimbit seems to sneak in everywhere ;) Maybe I'll remove it, or make it more discrete. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Aug 7th, 2010, 7:22am Nah, I was just kidding, I love seeing Rimbit :) (why did I call him [or her?] Rimby?) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Aug 7th, 2010, 3:12pm @chessandgo: I did sense the joking tone, no worries :) But I'm a bit worried about the rabbit becoming a mere scribble when the logo is reduced, or it looking like the playboy rabbit as megajester said. And Rimby looks like a fine nickname for Rimbit. I managed some time for more drafts to keep the machine going. I should try an Asian elephant for a change though - what do you guys think? http://a.imageshack.us/img717/5755/festivallogo2.jpg For this one I picked the exact colors of the game interface: http://a.imageshack.us/img717/4020/festivallogo3.jpg And this one is an alternate view: http://a.imageshack.us/img717/8355/festivallogo4.jpg And that's just Rimbit acting up: http://a.imageshack.us/img717/3072/rimbitfestival.jpg I'll tackle the dreaded vector drawing next week end. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Aug 8th, 2010, 9:43am hahahaha ... love it! :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Aug 8th, 2010, 2:08pm You know what, I really like the "alternate view." It's fun! And you can have the writing to one side of it instead of on top. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by knarl on Aug 16th, 2010, 6:00pm Taken from a site development thread: on 08/16/10 at 03:37:24, Fritzlein wrote:
Someone suggested netmeeting style software. I'd just like to point out, I noticed skype has a 'share my screen' option. Also I think skype can do conference calls, so assuming Fritzlein has a fast internet connection, maybe that's an option?? Edit: A quick web search also gave a few different screen sharing options with free trials. Assuming fritz has access to Windows: http://www.beamyourscreen.com . Viewers use a web interface. Another option may be to use a plugin for VLC media player to capture a window as video and live stream it. Then it could always be mirrored by arimaa.com to cut down fritzlein's required bandwidth. Can you tell I'm looking forward to a strategy workshop? :) cheers, knarl. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 16th, 2010, 8:57pm I do have Skype and a fast Internet connection. Do you want to schedule a time to test the "share my screen" feature? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by novacat on Aug 16th, 2010, 9:49pm I looked into sharing a screen using Skype for school, and Skype directed me to a program called InnerPass. Only the person sharing needs to have the software, but they need to invite the viewers personally. I just checked, and it seems you can give out a code generated for your meeting, so all people have to do is go to www.innerpass.com, click on "join a screen sharing session," and enter the code and their name. My group members also informed me that conference calls with video cannot be done for free on Skype. This information comes with limited research on my part, so feel free to investigate further. Hope this helps, novacat |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by knarl on Aug 17th, 2010, 12:00am on 08/16/10 at 20:57:14, Fritzlein wrote:
Sure. I'm available between about 0700 and 1200 GMT most week days, and 0000 to 1200 GMT on weekends. As long as I have a day or two notice. Cheers, knarl. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by knarl on Aug 17th, 2010, 12:02am on 08/16/10 at 21:49:56, novacat wrote:
How long ago are you talking? Skype is faily actively developed. Maybe they got the idea for screen sharing off you ;) Cheers, knarl. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 17th, 2010, 2:51am on 08/17/10 at 00:00:38, knarl wrote:
OK, let's shoot for 0800 GMT August 19 for testing Skype screen share. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by knarl on Aug 17th, 2010, 7:21pm on 08/17/10 at 02:51:13, Fritzlein wrote:
OK, we can meet in the chatroom. Anyone else that can show up would be handy, to test conferencing. Should we also test a backup system to Skype? Like one of the web based desktop sharing systems? cheers, knarl. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Janzert on Aug 17th, 2010, 10:45pm If a web based system can be found that works, it would save people from having to setup another voice chat program. Janzert |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 18th, 2010, 12:27am on 08/17/10 at 19:21:12, knarl wrote:
Let's just pick one and use it if it works. Skype was more or less working for voice chat before we set up TeamSpeak, but if Skype voice+screen sharing isn't the preferred workshop solution compared to TeamSpeak for voice plus some other screen sharing, let's try that instead. I'm not doing this for the joy of exploration, but as a means to an end of doing a workshop, which is what I would truly enjoy. Whatever I have to do before the workshop to make it technically feasible is just a big hassle as far as I am concerned. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 19th, 2010, 3:21am OK, the Skype screen sharing test was a success. Thanks, knarl. I believe the reason we switched from Skype to Teamspeak was Skype's limit of 24 for a conference call, but we never got up to 24 in Teamspeak even during the World Championships, so I doubt we'll hit that limit for the Festival. Leo, if you manage to get an analysis board integrated into the current chat room in time, that plus Teamspeak would still be my first option, but the pressure is now off. The workshop will happen in any case. For anyone who wants to prepare in advance, the game under discussion will be this one (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/showGame.cgi?gid=115864&s=w&client=1), with a general theme of the unbalanced setup. I just need a snazzy title now. Horses: to split or not to split? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Aug 21st, 2010, 7:57pm Good to know that Skype worked and is an option. If I remember correctly when we first tried using Skype, it seemed to be a bit of a nuisance since I had to keep accepting join requests and every so often people were getting dropped out and had to rejoin. We might want to try a larger scale test with Skype next week. Joel and I were planning to have an organizing meeting next weekend as well, so please join us in TeamSpeak for that. I'll post an announcement once we have a time fixed. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Aug 22nd, 2010, 1:49am I know Omar's going to be posting a link to this in the gameroom or something, but here's a link to the 1st ARIMAA ONLINE FESTIVAL SURVEY (http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/354203/1stArimaaOnlineFestival) Whether you're gonna take part or just watch, even just a bit of it, please fill this survey in because it'll be a great help to us in organizing this event, which is just around the corner. Thanks guys! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Aug 22nd, 2010, 9:15am Nice survey, I just answered it (as noted at the end, I'm signing up my bot for the blitz tournament, not me). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 22nd, 2010, 9:25am on 08/22/10 at 01:49:05, megajester wrote:
Yep, this needs to be linked from a new announcement. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by knarl on Aug 23rd, 2010, 11:22pm on 08/22/10 at 01:49:05, megajester wrote:
Is there a way to see what I answered in this survey? I'd hate to not turn up to something I said I would. Cheers, knarl. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Aug 24th, 2010, 10:00am on 08/23/10 at 23:22:33, knarl wrote:
It's a bit difficult to let you see the data, but I can tell you you've said yes you will be available for the European Collaborative and Karl's Workshop, no for the blitz tourney, and maybe to everything else. But seriously don't sweat it, we can't take it as a given that somebody will come even if they say yes, because life is life and stuff happens. It gives us an idea. Thanks for filling in the survey! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Aug 25th, 2010, 12:53pm My parents have decided to come visit us for Eid which will likely be on Sep 10th and will be with us over the Sep 11th weekend. So my prospects for participating on Sep 11th are not looking good. Also I've received some feedback via email saying that having a festival on the same day as 9/11 memorials is probably not a good idea. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 25th, 2010, 4:30pm Omar, I understand that family comes before Arimaa. That is fitting and proper. According to previous discussion, however, not having the festival on 9/11 essentially means not having the festival at all this year. To me it looks like you are suggesting calling the whole thing off. It isn't clear to me what the prospects are for a festival without your active involvement and support. Perhaps we could go ahead on 9/11 with the only change being removing the "Interview with Omar" from the schedule of events. On the other hand, it would be somewhat risky to proceed with all the other events knowing that you wouldn't be available to troubleshoot server issues. For example, if some problem with the TeamSpeak server cropped up during the "Think out loud" event or the team event, then they would have to be canceled as well. I'm still willing to volunteer my time and energy for 9/11, but I don't know how I would feel about it if I were in megajester's shoes as principal organizer. Probably I would not want to take the chance of running the event without you available, and therefore would shelve the whole idea of a festival for the present. It's too bad the chosen date conflicted with your family obligations, but that's the way it goes. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Janzert on Aug 25th, 2010, 6:19pm Would bumping it back a month into October work? The 9th, 23rd or 30th work for me in October. [Edit: Btw, I also rather agree with Fritzlein. Holding this sort of event without having Omar around for it seems quite risky, not just with the possibility of TS going down but any server problems. I would rather expect for the infrastructure overall to get much more stressed during an event like this than it normally does.] Janzert |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Aug 26th, 2010, 12:29am @Fritz Remind me, why couldn't we have it in October? Is it because of the WC or something? I'm in the UK until the 11th of October, so any week after that works for me. Unless there really is an unmanageable clash with something else that's going on, I think October is perfect. It gives us plenty of time to plan, and it starts getting rainy and cold in October for most of us so we're more likely to be home. :) I apologize to everybody for the disappointment of having the festival postponed. But don't go away! We need all the help we can get to organize this thing. Thanks to everybody who's volunteered so far, I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to contact you all personally but I can tell you that your contribution will make a big difference. It's our first time, so subsequent Festivals should be easier. This way we have time to really think things through and assign tasks to people. Omar and I should be having a planning session in Teamspeak towards the weekend, so we'll be happy for everybody who's volunteered to join us. More information will be provided shortly... ...unless Fritz comes up with a spanner in the works. :D |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 26th, 2010, 3:43am on 08/26/10 at 00:29:01, megajester wrote:
October works for me. It's not until November that I have weekend conflicts. Full steam ahead! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Aug 26th, 2010, 8:11am october would be much better for me than early september, so +1 :) And yeah, I fear that if the festival is a success there might be some kind of overload too. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Adanac on Aug 26th, 2010, 1:47pm on 08/26/10 at 08:11:58, chessandgo wrote:
Me too. I wasn't going to be able to participate on the original date so any change is an improvement :) Four of the five weekends in October will work for me, but not October 23-24. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Aug 26th, 2010, 3:33pm Moving it into October, sounds like a good idea. Any weekend that month should work for me. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Aug 26th, 2010, 4:39pm I've made a 1-question survey (http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/357238/1st-Arimaa-Online-Festival-Date-Selector) to work out which weekend will be best. Thanks for your help and understanding. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Aug 28th, 2010, 3:24am I think october is better than september for this kind of events generally - in the northern hemisphere anyway. Plus it leaves me more time to have a logo done ;) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Aug 29th, 2010, 4:36pm All right, after today's planning meeting, we have agreed on October 30th, because that was the date which met the least opposition in the survey. If there's anybody who seriously doesn't like this date for whatever reason, "speak now or forever hold your peace." :D We also need some feedback on the Blitz Tournament. I got my wires crossed a bit with this; what I meant was similar time controls to the WC and AWL, but of course everybody thought I meant 15 seconds per move! We need quick-fire rounds with games that are pretty much guaranteed to finish in 40 minutes. So here's the question, would you prefer: - 15 seconds per move, or - 20 minutes on the clock, with a 1 minute limit on each move? So, thank you for all your feedback so far! This week we'll be working out who'll be doing or playing what, so watch this space! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Aug 29th, 2010, 5:38pm on 08/29/10 at 16:36:08, megajester wrote:
I will play in the tournament either way, but I dislike sudden-death time controls in any form, so I vote for 15 seconds per move. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Aug 29th, 2010, 6:20pm on 08/29/10 at 16:36:08, megajester wrote:
Since my bot can't handle the latter time control, I would prefer the first alternative. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Aug 30th, 2010, 5:53am Yeah, x sec per move is more in touch with usual arimaa time controls. And Oct 30 is fine with me. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Sep 6th, 2010, 12:29am OK, here we go! Get out your diary and a pen, because Saturday October 30th it is! On the basis of the survey data I've divvied out all the slots between people on the basis of enthusiasm and number of events applied for and updated the wiki accordingly (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/1st_Arimaa_Online_Festival). I hope everybody got plenty of what they wanted if not everything. You will need to confirm your availability for the events you're down for by sending a message to arimaaonlinefestival@gmail.com. If you have any suggestions or gripes please don't hesitate to message me or email the festival address. It's not long to go actually. For the organizers and the commentators we'll be organizing some training. And everybody can get involved in publicity! Tell everybody you can about the Festival, and tell us all your ideas about how to spread the word... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Sep 6th, 2010, 10:24am Thanks megajester. As for my participation, I think I'll pass on the American collaborative match. It would do me in to participate in every event; I will need time to catch my breath before giving the simul. The game I will be analyzing for the strategy workshop is the 2009 Postal Mixer game between Adanac and myself: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/showGame.cgi?gid=115864 |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Sep 7th, 2010, 5:11am I wouldn't want to be the gold captain in the European Collaborative Match either (same excuse) :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by aaaa on Sep 7th, 2010, 6:41pm Picking October 30th happens to have the additional advantage that for most Europeans the clock will go back one hour the following night, potentially enlarging their window of participation. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Sep 8th, 2010, 8:15am on 09/07/10 at 18:41:57, aaaa wrote:
OK I've updated the wiki accordingly. I hope everybody "down under" is happy with AEST. I've looked it up on Wikipedia, and I've concluded it's best to let people work it out for themselves instead of try to adjust the times for the end of Summer Time. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Sep 10th, 2010, 5:04pm Doh, clock shift in the middle of the festival, urh!!! I've been trying more side view for the festival logo (I like it more, just as you do, Megajester). But I'm envisioning a problem: when the picture is reduced to -well- logo size, it's just an elephant, and it could be replaced with the picture of the actual game piece which looks better. Moreover there's nothing particularly festival in it, it's more like a generic Arimaa logo. What do we do? Here's the thing: http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5026/festivallogo5.jpg And with thicker lines to see how it goes in reduced size: http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9717/festivallogo5thickline.jpg |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Sep 11th, 2010, 4:21am :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by SpeedRazor on Sep 11th, 2010, 11:44am Really nice! I like the non-bold version better; although bold on the elephant seems pretty striking... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Sep 11th, 2010, 4:46pm Wow, that's cool! I think it's very Arimaa-ish and still unique for the Festival. I don't know which one to prefer, I say stick with what you feel is better. One thing I would say though is if you're going to go with the non-bold one, could you make the elephant a bit happier? Also one observation I would like to make is that the logo itself is "square", whereas I anticipate that we're more likely to use it in "vertical" format, like this: http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/istanbulluingiliz/rimbitvertical.jpg ... or more likely in "banner" format, like this, on the end of forum posts, emails etc: http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/istanbulluingiliz/rimbitbanner.jpg Although to be really useful perhaps it should be a bit more compact than this. This is just to show the composition I have in mind, I'm not saying you should enter the text with a computer or change the colours or anything. I think the style is great, stick with it. BTW I don't know if you've noticed my new signature. I was wondering if, just for a laugh, you could make a Rimbit comic strip with a black chess piece (king?) saying "This is mad chess" and Rimbit saying "this... is... ARIMAAAA!" and kicking the chess piece into a trap square. But then again maybe you wouldn't want Rimbit associated with the extreme violence of 300, it's just that it's such a funny clip... |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Sep 12th, 2010, 5:09pm Thank you for the feedback guys! I'll keep all that in mind for the next step and hopefully we'll have some banners ready this week. And maybe some more in the weeks to come for variety. Megajester, that's a cool cartoon idea :D I'll try some sketches - I guess I'll post them in the Rimbit thread rather than the Festival thread. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Oct 5th, 2010, 2:12pm I had a couple of thoughts and questions for folks: Commentators: There are 6 AWL games scheduled in the game room. I suggest any commentators for the Festival consider giving commentary for one of these games. I know my first time talking had a few hiccups (accidentally refreshing the game rather than turning my microphone on, etc.) and some big pauses, and a little practice can go a long way towards reducing those things. (Not that I do a great job now, but I think it is a little better than before!) Simultaneous Matches: I was thinking about the time control and strategy for these games. Was it decided to use 0/0/0/0? Or if time will be counted, should we should ask the 'challengers' to use all of their move time each turn? (Using reserve when needed, but never adding to it...) Or did someone put together that automatic game switching tool you mentioned? Are there any extra strategies that either side should consider? Fritz - you had a player rating limit that you had mentioned earlier, depending on the number of boards you had. I'm on the slate for your game, but my rating has been creeping up a bit. Let me know if I you think you would need more attention when playing against me... ;D Collaborative Match: Will there be any chance to practice ahead of time? Will the captain use their account for an Unrated game, or will there be a dummy account used? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 8th, 2010, 1:43am Quote:
I am unaware of any automatic game switching tool. I'm not dead set on any time control. I believe that no time control (0/0/0/0/0) is common for OTB simuls, so maybe we should go with conventional wisdom. Otherwise I would probably need 2 minutes/move. If you played, I would definitely have to give your board "too much" attention. I explained to megajester that I would be willing to play the current roster all at once, despite the ratings above my stated cutoff, but no more. Already among the seven who have signed up, I could not expect to go undefeated. On the other hand, if I gave you the boot, I could replace you with about four 1600-level players or a dozen noobs for a similar challenge. I originally envisioned playing lots of newcomer-to-intermediate opponents rather than anyone who is a contender to make the finals of the 2011 World Championship! This is a delicate organizational issue, because I would rather serve more customers, so to speak, but I also don't want to bar you from the simul if nobody else is going to take your place, because that would just make the event smaller and less awesome. I don't want to keep you dangling as on the roster for now but off if someone lower-rated wants to play. This is where the organizer earns his big paycheck. There is a genuine issue to be dealt with, and I don't want to deal with it myself; I just want to show up and play against as big a field as possible that won't overwhelm me. :) Unfortunately, the principal organizer is on vacation, and I'm not sure if anyone would want to pick up responsibility for organizing this particular event. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Oct 8th, 2010, 2:51pm on 10/08/10 at 01:43:34, Fritzlein wrote:
|
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 13th, 2010, 3:59pm http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/tzu/lowres/tzun336l.jpg *[Rubs his hands together]* Right then, only two weeks to go! I will get round to sorting participation issues as soon as possible, and issue some guidelines/suggestions for commentators and participants in collaborative games etc. In the meantime I would like to just ask how the logo/artwork's coming on. We'd like to get a poster together as soon as possible, both for use over the internet and also in a "print-friendly version" for real-world exposure... So leo, will you have anything ready soon or are you snowed under at the moment? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Oct 17th, 2010, 5:54pm Not snowed under but paralysed by my inability of producing clean vector art :( I'm reverting to Plan B, inserting a picture of the elephant piece and trying to make an acceptable layout. A vertical band would need smaller letters, would it be ok? As for the big poster, the letters in SVG can be scaled up as big as needed but not the elephant image which is a small raster picture. Ha, I should have acknowledged sooner that I'm not the man for that job... Any help from graphic artists? In PNG: http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3982/festivalbannera.png In JPG (half the weight but dirtier looking): http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/5267/festivalbanner.jpg |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 18th, 2010, 4:14pm I know nothing at all about drawing / vector art, but your drawings kick ass, and these banners rock as well. You're the man for the job pal! :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 19th, 2010, 12:33am Thanks for all your hard work Leo. You are most definitely the man for the job. Don't worry about "super clean" vector images, what you had before is fine. All I meant in my earlier post was that the positioning of the elements needed to be changed a little, not the graphics themselves. The graphics are beeeautiful. No cleanup required. If you could make another one *exactly* like this: http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9717/festivallogo5thickline.jpg ...just enlarge the flag and the text, and position it so it forms a banner and not a square. That's it. That's all I meant by my suggestion: http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/istanbulluingiliz/rimbitbanner.jpg ...all I'm saying is to enlarge the flag (keep it blue of course), and enlarge the text (your handwritten text is great, don't change it). The reason is because a "square" graphic is not as practical as a rectangular "banner". I want to be able to use it as a letterhead, posterhead, email signature or something similar, that's why. This graphic is already smashing, just give it that tweak and it'll be PERFECT! Can you do that for us? Or is it harder than I suppose? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 23rd, 2010, 2:43pm OK, we now have exactly one week to go, and leo is nowhere to be seen. So I hope he will forgive me for running ahead of him and using his image in a banner. I'd like to see what everybody thinks of it. http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/istanbulluingiliz/banner.png Leo, if you were working on something I'm sorry. Please still finish it and post it though, it might be better than what I've produced. Either way, you're the one who's cooked the meat and potatoes, all I've done is knock up a sauce. That graphic is iconic! Thank you! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 23rd, 2010, 3:59pm on 10/23/10 at 14:43:17, megajester wrote:
I like it a lot if you take the pieces from printed Arimaa set away. I think the combination of real image with the fantasy animals does not create a proper design here. Just my 2. Thanks for the coordination. Oh, btw. if I want to just passively listen/watch lessons from the gurus, do I need to sign up for the festival? If so, why? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 24th, 2010, 6:28pm OK, I think I understood what you mean. We're on quite a tight schedule so instead of changing the design I tried to make the image less photo-like, as you can see here. I hope that was what you meant. http://arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/images/bannermedres.png I have also produced a poster, which has been approved by Omar: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/images/postermedres.png Feel free to use these graphics to spread the word! In particular the poster, if you want to print some out and give them to friends, relatives, colleagues etc or post it on a notice board feel free! It's what it's for! The URL's are as follows: Code:
...for the web banner (one medium resolution [80 dpi], one high resolution [450 dpi), and: Code:
for the poster (same resolutions). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 24th, 2010, 6:42pm Have you planned on posting the announcement of festival on forums where chess players reside in? Or general board game forums. Of course, it would be good if it was done by someone with active account so that it wouldn't be considered too spam-like. Also computer-AI newsgroups might be interested to hear the discussion on the state of AI. Will there be podcasts or videos of separate events that can be heard after the day? Good work! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 24th, 2010, 6:54pm on 10/24/10 at 18:42:46, clojure wrote:
All very very good ideas. I think a first step would be to make an update to the Arimaa group on chess.com. And do everything else you mentioned. But not now, I'm off to bed. Podcasts and videos... well Omar's going to be recording everything so all we would need to do is chop up the audio for podcasts, and then get some long-suffering member of the community to use screen-capture software to make a video of himself watching the game, and then combine it with the audio. Which can all be sorted later. As I said I'm off to bed. PS: Speaking of posters, we might need this one as well for the organizers :) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On_Poster.svg/421px-Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On_Poster.svg.png |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 25th, 2010, 3:11am I received the email with the poster. It rocks :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Oct 26th, 2010, 12:27am The poster is *great*, Joel! I'm sorry for letting you down, I managed my time poorly, plus I've been having the worst internet connection lately, I couldn't view the forum nor my postal games. I hope this post goes through. I should have tried to reach you by email, I'm sorry. Anyway the Festival is going to be a big big thing!!! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 26th, 2010, 12:42am Please don't worry leo, as I said, you'd already done the lion's share of the job. You are hands down the most talented artist around here. It's not your fault your connection went down. I say it's like an extension of Murphy's Law: Always have a Plan B. I look forward to seeing you on the day! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 26th, 2010, 9:10am on 10/24/10 at 18:42:46, clojure wrote:
I've setup this page so small announcements can be posted in fourms with a link to this page: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/ Here is a suggestion for the small announcement, feel free to reword: Quote:
Quote:
I'll try to record it, but it would be good if others try to record it also and upload it to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp/ |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 26th, 2010, 10:12am on 10/26/10 at 09:10:38, omar wrote:
Thanks! I added a link to reddit's chess subsection. Hopefully someone give an upvote so it won't get vanished soon. http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/dwn3x/invitation_to_arimaa_online_festival/ |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 27th, 2010, 3:08pm Only a few days to go now! There have been some cancellations, so if any of the events take your fancy and you think you'll be available, please do send us an email at arimaaonlinefestival@gmail.com. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 28th, 2010, 12:30am on 10/26/10 at 10:12:27, clojure wrote:
Thanks Henrik. Part of Joel's plan for this event was to try to generate some publicity via this event. Quote:
We would not normally go and post about Arimaa on other sites, but this event provides a good opportunity to do so in a proper way. Here are some more places the event could be posted. I guess it would be best if someone who already has an account at the site would do it. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4616/arimaa#forums http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31/boardgamegeek/press-releases http://www.chess.com/forum/category/chess960-chess-variants http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/threadlist.php?subject=General&forumid=1 http://www.chessforums.org/off-topic-discussion/ http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/forum2.jsp?forum=1 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/140/chess-other-board-games/ I do have accounts on some of these sites, but with me being interviewed in the event, it would feel like I'm blowing my own horn :-) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 28th, 2010, 11:51am on 10/28/10 at 00:30:23, omar wrote:
OK I've done them all except for chess.com, which seemed to be having problems with its server, and Little Golem, which told me I wasn't "enough trustworthy". |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 28th, 2010, 4:04pm Please could somebody, anybody, post http://arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/ into Stumbleupon? It's not working for me for some reason. :( More people hear about Arimaa through Stumbleupon than any other website (except for perhaps Wikipedia), so this could make a big difference. Thanks. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 28th, 2010, 4:22pm I posted it: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1RBGPD/arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/ Is it now correctly shared? This was my first time to share in Stumbleupon. I have only once used it before for browsing, I think. It was weird that sharing a new url isn't possible with "one action". |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 28th, 2010, 4:28pm on 10/28/10 at 16:22:23, clojure wrote:
Excellent thanks very much! What tags did you put on it? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 28th, 2010, 4:32pm on 10/28/10 at 16:28:53, megajester wrote:
I'm not sure how I can see that but if I remember correctly: arimaa, chess, board games, abstract It suggested automatically "video games" but I don't know whether it added because I didn't do anything about it or was it just a suggestion. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 28th, 2010, 4:34pm Hmm. If I went to edit it, the form had tag field as empty :/ Now it should have aforementioned tags. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 28th, 2010, 4:43pm Brilliant. Just a reminder everybody, there's still time to post in forums, send emails etc. about the Festival, and it's not hard. All you need to do is copy and paste this message: The Arimaa community is planning an online festival on Saturday Oct. 30, 2010. Please join us for a special day of events and activities. If you are not familiar with Arimaa this is a good time to drop in learn more about it. http://arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/ And if you can, use this image: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/aof/images/bannermedres.png Thanks a lot! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 28th, 2010, 9:21pm Deciding on the time controls for the AOF games is still pending and we need to finalize this quickly. I would like to schedule these games tomorrow and have them setup in the gameroom. That way people can easily see the times of the games in their local time. I'll get the ball rolling with the following proposal and we can adjust it as needed. * Simul Match with Jean Daligault; 1h45m time for the event. Unrated games with time control of 0/0/0/0/1h40m; Jean will cycle through the games and when he comes to your game you must have already submitted you move; watch the game before your to get a cue of when to submit your move. * European Collaborative Match; 2h time for the event. Unrated game with time control of 90s/3m/100/0/1h55m/4m * Open 5-Round Blitz Tourn; 4h30m for the event; about 54m per round. Rated games with time control of 15s/90s/100/0/45m/2m * Think Out Loud Match; 1h30m for the event. Rated game with time control of 60s/60s/100/0/1h25m/3m * American Collaborative Match; 1h45m for the event. Unrated game with time control of 90s/2m/100/0/1h40m/4m * Simul Match with Karl Juhnke; 2h time for the event. Unrated games with time control of 0/0/0/0/2h; Karl will cycle through the games and when he comes to your game you must have already submitted you move; watch the game before your to get a cue of when to submit your move. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by ocmiente on Oct 28th, 2010, 9:56pm on 10/28/10 at 21:21:13, omar wrote:
When there is only one game left, this might not work very well. Can you add some lower bound on the time to move? When it's just down to Jean or Fritz and one other player, what should the time controls be? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 28th, 2010, 10:34pm on 10/28/10 at 21:56:32, ocmiente wrote:
Good question. I guess when there is only 1 player left use about 1 minute per move. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 28th, 2010, 10:37pm on 10/28/10 at 11:51:00, megajester wrote:
Cool. I've posted about the AOF on my Facebook and LinkedIn account and also to the Arimaa group on these sites. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 28th, 2010, 11:16pm Janzert notified us that he will not be able to be online Saturday due to a severe power failure in his area. We need your help to fill in his roles: * Moderate the State of the Challenge discussion. * Gold Captain for the American Collaborative Match * Commentator for the Simul with Karl If you can help with any of these please send an email to arimaaonlinefestival@gmail.com. Thanks. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 28th, 2010, 11:21pm on 10/28/10 at 23:16:48, omar wrote:
I nominate Nombril (so that I don't have to play against him) ;D |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 12:00am on 10/28/10 at 21:21:13, omar wrote:
on 10/28/10 at 21:56:32, ocmiente wrote:
In OTB simuls the convention is to move exactly when the simul-giver arrives at the table. Not before (so he can see the move made) and not after (so he can keep moving around the tables. While that is an excellent convention OTB, I simply don't think that we can enforce it for an Internet simul. Even the suggestion of watching for me to move on the game "before" mine is unworkable without a gameroom tool that lets me cycle through games in order; with no such tool there is no guarantee what order I will approach the games. In this case, letting me see the move is not important, because I can click the "show" button whenever I come to a board for an instant replay. Also, if no move has been made, there is no difficulty for me to move on; I won't have to crisscross the playing hall on foot to find a game where it is my turn. Therefore I conclude that the conventions of when the simul participants should move is as unnecessary as it is infeasible. My proposal is to let the simul participants move whenever they feel like it at all stages of the game. However, it will be awkward if any games are decided on score after two full hours, either because I am slow or because simul participants are slow, so maybe some time control is better after all. The best solution I can think of to prevent me from timing out in every game early but also to stop the last few games from dragging on late is a large initial time bank with a fast increment. How does 15s/45m/100/0/2h sound? The only thing that could go really wrong is if I lose lots of games by timeout, but if that happens we will have learned for next year, and also everyone will have gotten to play me for at least an hour or so. Incidentally, have we decided whether I will play Gold or Silver? Whichever way, I will be less confused if I get the same color in every game. Perhaps I can just decree what I want on this score: let me have Silver in every game. I am still holding out hope that there will be "walk-ons", i.e. lots of interested noobs who show up and want to play. If that happens I reserve the right to boot off the highest-rated player(s), starting with Nombril, but if nobody else shows up the roster of student_t_w, weirdo87, nombril, clojure, camelback, and ocmiente is fine. Maybe Omar can help estimate how many walk-ons there are as the game time approaches. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 12:06am on 10/28/10 at 21:21:13, omar wrote:
Did we ever arrive at a Teamspeak technical solution for this event? It would be a hassle for me to have to do something every move (e.g. mute/unmute, or log in/out, or enter/leave a chat room). Ideally I would just have my headset on and the "push-to-talk" set so that when it isn't my move I can simply push and start talking. My hazy recollection is that we were going to have a chat room for me and a separate chat room for chessandgo, but then wouldn't that mean that everyone else had to switch between rooms on every move? Or is there some setting whereby I can have talking privileges and no listening privileges? Or was the idea that I would be on my honor to turn my volume down and not listen in on chessandgo's thoughts even though I could do so? That would have the disadvantage of preventing me from hearing the clock tick if I am low on time. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Oct 29th, 2010, 1:42am Regarding the collaborative games: Are we going to have a way to share a view of the captain's board to see a move before it is 'Sent', or are we relying on using a spoken description of planned moves? (I hesitate to add another software layer without testing, so am leaning towards just the spoken word...but thought I should put this out there in case there was an easy solution...) Omar - the collaborative games shouldn't be scheduled as Event games - otherwise the teammates will be a few moves behind! For the simul: If we want to reflect the in-person feel of the event, you could type "Hi" or something into the chat, and give the person a few seconds to make their move. Since they can't "see" you coming, they could say pass if they want more time. (Knowing that they are going to get your full attention soon if they drag their heels too much!) If you tab through the windows, you should keep hitting the games in the same order. {15s/45m/100/0/2h sounds reasonable too - though would it cause a time problem for you if one of the players actually moved at Blitz speed?} on 10/28/10 at 23:21:56, Fritzlein wrote:
I'm not sure my voice will last through the American Collaborative and also Fritz's simul. If someone is able to commentate the American Collaborative, then I can talk during the simul. If I try to do both, it would help to have very active co-commentators! on 10/29/10 at 00:06:08, Fritzlein wrote:
That is my recollection. I saw a "mute speaker" button in Teamspeak, I didn't test it, but expect you and Jean could use that and still hear that innocent sound that causes so much panic. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 29th, 2010, 7:30am The Arimaa Radio thing is new, right? Will it be broadcasting the teamspeak audio automatically? edit - also, it seems many people still haven't confirmed their presence at the events (at least according to the wiki). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Oct 29th, 2010, 9:33am on 10/29/10 at 07:30:08, rbarreira wrote:
|
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:28am on 10/29/10 at 00:00:35, Fritzlein wrote:
Sounds good. I'll set up the time controls for 15s/45m/100/0/2h for your game and G=1h40m for Jean's game since he has less time allocated. I'll setup all the games as unrated and with you and Jean playing silver. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:32am on 10/29/10 at 00:06:08, Fritzlein wrote:
I talked to Joel about this and we decided that both players will be in the 'Studio' room, but have their speakers turned off and will push to talk when it isn't their turn. Keep an eye on the 'Studio' chat window in case we need to tell you something. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:41am on 10/29/10 at 11:32:43, omar wrote:
The button that Nombril mentioned is in the Teamspeak toolbar - mute speaker. It mutes the sound from teamspeak only, so players can still hear sounds from the game client. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:46am on 10/29/10 at 01:42:17, Nombril wrote:
Nope, the team with just have to discuss it verbally. Quote:
Yes, it will not be delayed since it is an unrated game. Commentators for the Simul and collaborative games will have to remember not to give any move suggestions since these games will also be unrated and not delayed. Quote:
Good ideas. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:53am on 10/29/10 at 07:30:08, rbarreira wrote:
The 'Studio' room of TS will be relaying to the Radio page. The other rooms are not on the air (or should we say web). In particular the 'Lobby' is meant as a place where people can join together for voice chat. There might be times when the commentator asks a player or someone else to join the Studio, so please have TS setup and ready even if you are not a commentator. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2010, 12:04pm I think Joel's posting on chess.com didn't go through. Probably the banner and link was considered too advertisingish. I posted something which hopefully will be OK with the mods. http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/chess-variant-with-most-possible-moves-per-turn If you every wanted to beat the drum about Arimaa this is the time to do it :-) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Janzert on Oct 29th, 2010, 12:33pm Yay! The power company restored power sooner than expected so I'm back on for tomorrow's panel discussion. It would probably be a good idea if someone can still step forward as an alternate moderator though just in case they decide to take it away again. :) Janzert |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 29th, 2010, 1:56pm If things are not set up yet I think it might be slightly better that we get all gold instead of all silver in the Simuls. Before the game, I'll need some time to resize windows and move them around to fit in the screen(s), so it'll be easier if I get to start the game when ready. All siver is fine as well though. Nombril, I don't think that'd work, it seems much easier to me if people play whenever they're ready. We won't be cycling through the games, just playing on first come first serve basis (or first come random serve when there's too much action ^^) I think. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 2:46pm on 10/29/10 at 11:41:40, rbarreira wrote:
Perfect, thanks! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 2:55pm on 10/29/10 at 13:56:09, chessandgo wrote:
It's fine if you get all Gold and I get all Silver. Also I'm glad that we will experiment with different choices of time control to see which works better for a simul, so that we will have guidance for fall 2011 when we do this again. ;) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 29th, 2010, 3:12pm on 10/29/10 at 14:55:33, Fritzlein wrote:
+1 for experimenting But if the event will be annual, wouldn't it be better if there was a client with support for simul where you could have only one window with automatic game cycling ;) (with possibility to switch to specific game manually). Maybe people would be interested in simuls even much more frequently. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 29th, 2010, 3:16pm You may have to update your version of Teamspeak if you haven't used it for a while. (some not-so-old versions can't connect to the server already) I'm doing it right now so that I don't have to update in a hurry tomorrow. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 29th, 2010, 3:51pm "The button that Nombril mentioned is in the Teamspeak toolbar - mute speaker. It mutes the sound from teamspeak only, so players can still hear sounds from the game client. " Cool, that's convenient! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 29th, 2010, 3:54pm on 10/29/10 at 15:12:12, clojure wrote:
it would be convenient indeed. Poker room clients allow to do this, with the active tables in a queue, with just the first one popping until you've played and then the second one pops up, etc. But I guess there are more crucial things for the arimaa community that should go first :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 29th, 2010, 4:13pm on 10/29/10 at 15:16:12, rbarreira wrote:
Yep, good idea. I've been able to connect for a few seconds and saw Omar, but got disconnected and can't reconnect. I hope it's just temporary (or me doing something wrong ^^). EDIT: ok, seems to be working now. :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 5:15pm on 10/29/10 at 15:12:12, clojure wrote:
Yes, such a interface would be great for simuls. The Internet Chess Club has such an interface that takes the simul-giver to the game where he is on move with the least time on his clock, because the tradition there is for simuls to be timed rather than untimed. However useful that interface would be in the event of a simul, I am not agitating for it to be created, because I wouldn't give many simuls even if it existed. The greatest demand for it would be from players wanting to play lots of bots at the same time, which is problematic in its own right given our limited server resources. I am very content if your development efforts for now focus on the analysis tool instead, because I expect there is a greater user base for it. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 5:28pm on 10/29/10 at 15:16:12, rbarreira wrote:
I installed the latest client. As a bonus Omar was hanging out in chat so I got to verify that it works, and that the mute speakers button works. Thanks for the heads up! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 29th, 2010, 5:31pm on 10/29/10 at 17:15:59, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks for sharing this. Actually now that I think about it, I should put up some kind of feature voting system. Especially "negative votes" with explanation would truly make a difference since I'm not familiar enough yet with analysing board games. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 29th, 2010, 6:17pm I tried talking at the studio room and couldn't hear my voice back in the Arimaa Radio, but maybe that's just because the streaming's not enabled yet? Also, it seems that while Janzert's electricity is back, my ADSL connection is not working. Hopefully it will be working by tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to use my cellphone to connect during the festival, as I'm doing now. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 29th, 2010, 6:19pm on 10/29/10 at 18:17:21, rbarreira wrote:
Correct, Omar's gonna set it up on the day. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2010, 6:53pm I scheduled as many of the games as I can. For the simul Jean and Karl can resign out of games on the first move if they don't want to play a particular game and I can try to setup a replacement game at the time based on who is available. For the Open 5-Round Blitz Tournament, Joel thought that new players would be able to drop out or join in the middle of the tournament. I don't think our swiss pairing program supports that, so I might have to setup all the games as if all the players are there. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 29th, 2010, 8:42pm The "Think Out Loud" game is scheduled at the wrong time, I think. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:22pm Even if we can't allow latecomers to the blitz tournament, surely last-minute walkons before the first round can be allowed, right? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival if I understand cor Post by chessandgo on Oct 30th, 2010, 3:51am I'm worried about the time controls for the Simuls. I'm currently scheduled for 7 games, so even assuming I'm not losing time searching for an active window / wondering in which game to play first, I don't think I can play a move on all boards in less than 2 mn. So after like 25 moves, all games will still be running and I'll find myself with a 7-game blitz simul. So I wonder how I'm going not lose all my games on time ... Also if I understand correctly my games stop after 1h 40 no matter what (and Karl's after 2h). Do we really expect that games will be finished by then? As things stand, it might better for me just to play 4 games rather than expect to time out all 7 :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Hirocon on Oct 30th, 2010, 5:15pm I got confused over the time zones and missed the "think out loud" match. Were the commentaries recorded? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 30th, 2010, 5:36pm on 10/30/10 at 17:15:50, Hirocon wrote:
The whole day should have been recorded but I'm not sure whether with video. That can be work out afterwards with merging the video with playing the game with "real speed" option. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 30th, 2010, 6:31pm on 10/30/10 at 17:15:50, Hirocon wrote:
I am actually uploading the first three parts of my recording right now. The parts are randomly sized, I just restarted the recording a few times to avoid losing too much data if it crashed. They will be visible here later: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp/filemanager/filemanager.php |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 30th, 2010, 7:48pm For the record, the audience for the festival reached a peak toward the end of the Think Out Loud match; folks in chat mentioned that there were 19 in chat simultaneously and 34 logged into the game room simultaneously. The latter ties the record set during the 2010 World Championship. Also Ustream told me after the strategy workshop that a peak of 15 users were watching the video stream simultaneously. Congratulations to megajester and omar! This festival has been a huge success! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 30th, 2010, 11:35pm Thanks for all participating. It was fun and nice to get know people more closely. The European collaboration game was memorable experience, and also I got to feel the huge pressure to play against Fritzlein. Especially thanks to Joel and Omar, and to excellent commentators. Also Fritzlein, it was nice to see very smooth and useful presentation :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Oct 30th, 2010, 11:58pm on 10/30/10 at 23:35:55, clojure wrote:
The presentation couldn't have been smooth without your awesome game tree tool. You rock! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Oct 31st, 2010, 10:15am How did the second half of the festival go while we europeans were asleep? And I'm looking forward to see how the think out loud match sounded :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Oct 31st, 2010, 11:41am The AOF was smashingly fun !!! Thanks everyone for participating and especially Joel for organizing the whole thing. I truly enjoyed watching all the games and listening to the commentary. But without a doubt the Think Out Loud Match was for me the climax of the day. In retrospect the only thing I regret is not having opened up the registrations for the 2011 events a little earlier and announced it in the gameroom during the AOF. If we do it again next year I will try to open the registrations at least a week before the AOF. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Arimabuff on Oct 31st, 2010, 11:52am I must say that the think out loud game went a lot more smoothly than I anticipated. Fritz and Jean's comments were extremely good. I hope we won't have to wait a year before another one of these. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 31st, 2010, 11:55am on 10/30/10 at 18:31:57, rbarreira wrote:
The first three parts are there right now. Part 1: Launch, Simultaneous match with Jean, Blitz Tournament Part 2: End of the Blitz Tournament, discussion, Think Out Loud Match (starts around the 52:00 mark) Part 3: Interview with Omar, State of the Challenge (starts around the 1:15:00 mark). Part 4 will come later. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Oct 31st, 2010, 2:50pm I had a great time yesterday, and really appreciate the work Joel and everyone else put into the event. We tried out a lot of new playing styles and tools, and I thought I would summarize some of the thoughts/suggestions that I had and also heard from others during the day. Since so many people enjoyed the events I expect there will be interest in doing them again. Hopefully someone is interested in some of these projects. In no particular order or priority: The radio station worked great for allowing people to listen to the commentary. I know there were plenty of people that couldn't listen to previous commentaries, and were able to listen yesterday. I think it would be great to use this for future commentated games. a. Is this something that can be made generally available for other people to turn on, or does it require Omar's involvement? b. I noticed the site Fritz used for the training session 'video' indicated "number of people viewing". Is it possible to have the radio page display how many people have the radio turned on? (It seems most commentators are encouraged if they know there is an audience!) Collaborative games: it would be nice to work out a way for teammates to see proposed moves before they are submitted. Think Out Loud game: I believe both players said they would have liked more time. Also, I wonder if the players would be willing to use their full time each turn. This would give them a more reliable chance to finish a thought and have a smoother discussion. (Yes, this would detract a little from the level of play that is is possible.) Simultaneous games: a. Better instructions for the players: *Players should wait for the simul giver to give a message that they are ready to begin. (Mostly if simul giver is silver.) *Clarification if it is allowed to play at Blitz speeds to put time pressure on the simul giver. (I have very little experience with simuls - but it seemed that for an in person game the simul giver was 'making the rounds' and had only their internal pressure to move fast, not a ticking clock. But Fritz did say in chat that it was a good strategy to put time pressure on the simul giver.) b. People have mentioned that chess sites have a tool that automatically switch to the game with the least time. Tournament tools: Ability to add and drop people part way through the tournament. I hope it is understood these are meant to be constructive ideas and suggestions, and not at all a complaint. I had a great time yesterday! None of the above would be required to do things again, just could help make it even better. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Oct 31st, 2010, 4:02pm Thank you all for your support and kind comments. I'm very very happy with how it all turned out. It's a great feeling when you have an idea in your head, and you actually manage to turn it into reality. But it would never have been possible without the support from Omar, the commentators, the participants and the wider community, so thanks to you all. For the first Festival the most important thing for me was that it would be a success, even if not everything went perfectly. Now that the Festival has proven itself and we've had a taste of it I hope we can organize something similar later on with even more helpers. Also this time we'll all have a clearer idea of how everything works, and therefore a clearer idea of how to make additions and improvements. I don't know whether we'll have these things yearly or every six months or what. What with everything coming up in the calendar I think we have plenty of time to hammer out all these details. But please don't stop posting! Right now everything is fresh in our minds, so if you have any ideas for the next Festival, write them down and tell us about them now before you forget them! PS: I've checked the history of this thread, and credit for the 'Think Out Loud' Match concept must actually go to Harren. Even though he wasn't with us on the day, his was arguably one of the biggest contributions. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 31st, 2010, 5:34pm Good suggestions from Nombril, but here some additions: If someone *cough* manages to make even simple shared board, it would definitely help collaborative game playing. If the grand plan succeeds, then we would have a shared viewer that could be used for strategy workshop, so that players could suggest variations asynchronously. This is ambitious but could also change how we communicate with Arimaa players daily. If we don't get that proper shared board, then we need to get good online stream video capture software in place, so that the quality of picture is good and accessibility is easy for common visitor (just link url). The capturing tool is very useful for other events, too, so that we could have recorded the think aloud match without needing to manually merge audio with game client real time play for later view. Also it could be streamed live online too. We could also use multiple Teamspeak channels for blitz games / simuls so that when our user base is large enough, one can watch particular game of interest, and hear nice comments, too. Especially people like me could comment on newbie games. If it were recorded, the newbies could listen the commentary later on. I bet they would like it. The radio broadcast was excellent, but if possible, it would be nice to reduce the delay between real time and the moment when radio listener hears voice. This made difference mainly when observing games. If there will be additional events that need new technical solutions, we should discuss them in advance in public, so that as many eyes as possible could see that there will be no problem. There was some creativity needed to setup strategy workshop since Skype sharing eventually was not option; also if it would have been, people were confused right before the start how they could watch the workshop, so were starting to install Skype and noticed that they perhaps couldn't. What I liked was that megajester and Omar had firm control over the whole thing. It felt like they directed the events without hesitation and it gave confident atmosphere. One thing that we could do better is to see more newbies around. Maybe we should have some special event with a small prize (maybe by lottery). Advertising to different board forums didn't seem to yield results. Maybe personal connections worked better? I think we could have this every 6 month. There's enough time so that it feels special and we can organize smaller "party hours" with different experimental events for keep the community interested. Excellent day all in all but nevertheless there's always small things that could smooth things even more out. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Oct 31st, 2010, 5:54pm I'm pretty tired from yesterday, so I think having a similar festival every 6 months may be a bad idea. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Nombril on Oct 31st, 2010, 9:28pm on 10/31/10 at 17:34:19, clojure wrote:
I know one of my good friends came to check things out for the first time, so I know word of mouth worked for at least one person. Omar, do you keep track of 'new visitor' statistics to know if there was a significant change for the festival? I know we hit (tied?) a record for people logged into the gameroom, but I didn't look to see how many were regulars vs. newcomers. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Oct 31st, 2010, 11:36pm I recorded the video for talk aloud match with the "real-time" option in Arimaa.com javascript viewer. Then I merged rbarreira's audio recording with it. But it seems the syncing failed :( Omar, is it possible that the viewer is not showing it exactly as real time? It's as if there's some additional time for each move which accumulates. I have "auto" and "real-time" checked. It would be important for later events if we don't get proper screen capturing software (for some reason what I use doesn't properly capture sound). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2010, 12:48am on 10/31/10 at 23:36:01, clojure wrote:
If the audio was captured from TeamSpeak via the native capture feature, it omits the times when no one is speaking. Thus the TeamSpeak audio file will play back in less than real time. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2010, 1:08am on 10/31/10 at 21:28:52, Nombril wrote:
You can see statistics here: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/growth/players There were 17 new accounts created. This is a lot more than a regular day, but not unheard of. Being linked from a moderately well-trafficked Web site produces more new accounts than this. We had 90 unique human logins over the course of the day. This is quite high, although a bit short of the record set during the 2010 championship events. My own take on the importance of the Arimaa Online Festival is that it is not primarily about bringing in new people who have never encountered Arimaa before. For complete newcomers, the game events (simultaneous exhibition, team game, think out loud game, and strategy workshop) would have been completely inaccessible, and the talking events (interview with Omar, state of the challenge) only partially accessible. The true target of the festival is members of the Arimaa community who aren't obsessed enough with the game to devote their lives to it on a regular basis but who will show up for something especially entertaining. I see it as the hard-core Arimaa community putting on a show for the benefit of the fringe Arimaa community. Arimaa evangelism isn't just about getting new people into the church, it is also about getting the part of the congregation who normally only comes to be married or buried to also come for Christmas and Easter. Hopefully some of the people who came on Saturday after a long hiatus will renew their enthusiasm a bit, work a bit higher on the ladder than when they quit before, possibly sign up for the World Championship Spectator Contest, etc. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2010, 1:21am on 10/31/10 at 17:34:19, clojure wrote:
Skype was discussed and tested in advance. Indeed, before Omar installed TeamSpeak on the Arimaa server, Skype was successfully used to broadcast live game commentary. It was a proven solution. The only new element was screen sharing, and that worked in testing. The kerfuffle did not arise because Skype suddenly wasn't working on the day of the festival, it arose because people decided at the last minute that it was too much burden to make people who didn't have Skype download the client, and also that recording Skype would have to be done differently than recording the rest of the festival. These factors were not last-minute techincal glitches; they were always going to be true. I think this is the one aspect in which organization of the festival failed. Maybe the right decision was not to use Skype, but if so, there was no reason not to enforce that decision a month in advance, decide on an alternative, and test that instead. It is was a different kind of problem than the (inevitable) unforeseen hiccups that must be responded to creatively and flexibly on the spot. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2010, 1:42am on 10/31/10 at 17:34:19, clojure wrote:
I think it is not so much a question of the Arimaa community's capacity to show up and party as it is a question of how often megajester and Omar are willing to exhaust themselves making it happen. It's a huge task, and judging by the list of suggestions, it isn't going to be easy the next time just because they have pulled it off successfully once. I would say to you essentially what I said to megajester when he originally floated the idea, but with two words added: I will help out on the day of the event if you want to organize everything beforehand, but I'm not willing to take on the leadership role myself. If you really want an Arimaa Festival in June then you should take charge yourself and do all the work the work that is necessary to make it a reality. But of course I don't really want you organize the next Arimaa Festival for June, because instead I want more features for the game analysis tool. If I have to choose between the two wonderful things, I would much rather wait a full year for the next festival. The idea of volunteering to organize a summer festival must be put out of your head at once. I only leave it floating there for someone else to take up. :) |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 1st, 2010, 3:37am Just uploaded the audio recording to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp/ I missed the launch and start of Jean's simul. Also accidentally stopped recording in the middle of Jean's simul. So maybe this can be recovered form Ricardo's recordings. Have to sleep now. More tomorrow. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by rbarreira on Nov 1st, 2010, 4:34am on 11/01/10 at 00:48:15, Fritzlein wrote:
I recorded from the Arimaa radio so it should be as close to real-time as possible. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Nov 1st, 2010, 7:54am The Festival was *huge*! \o/ And the Think Out Loud Match was *tremendous*! Even if the Festival attracted only few newcomers, I'm sure it helped make the community stronger. More comments to come ^^ |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by clojure on Nov 1st, 2010, 8:28am Fritzlein, we agree on the Skype thing. I explained probably badly. I wasn't sure what was the "problem" but what I tried to say was that whether it was technical or not, we should have discussion on it in public for two reasons 1) people are aware what they need to do beforehand to participate (I think even megajester wasn't 100% sure!) 2) technical and non-technical problems can be anticipated. What comes to 6 month interval, I don't really know. Whether it is organized annually or twice a year, I could help in some small ways; as probably many of us would if it is possible. Like someone could take responsibility for getting information who participates and when it is organized. Someone could design how we advertise this (poster, video from this year's events, information on schedule on wiki), etc. I'd like the idea of having a prize for one of the participants, if we in advance put some amount of money, the official Arimaa set would be good choice. With 10 people, it would be like 3-4 euros each. Fritzlein's and chessandgo's books would be nice, too. I agree that the festival has clear emphasis on arousing existing community spirit. But I don't think it hurts to have something little for newbies. They would have some concrete event to wait for, and they could also observe the wonderful atmosphere by following the other events. Especially, I think the think aloud match is good one to catch attention but actually most of the discussion is still too hard to understand, because of quick tempo and Arimaa jargon. I don't think it would be too much distracting if we get two available average players who would do the same thing but explained things more slowly and carefully. This would be of interested for other average players, too. It would be perhaps sidekick, and it needn't have the attention of radio other than mentioning it. I am just thinking aloud now what comes to my mind, since that could spark other ideas. We can decide whether a thin or dense program would be more beneficial. We don't get often lots of people online, nevermind interacting with them, so it would be nice to get most of it out. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2010, 10:25am on 11/01/10 at 08:28:22, clojure wrote:
Excellent; that's what we all should be doing while the experience is still fresh in our minds. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 1st, 2010, 10:43pm on 10/30/10 at 19:48:54, Fritzlein wrote:
The peak for the radio was 26. I think it was during the state of the challenge discussion. I'll try to show the number of listeners on the radio page next time. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 1st, 2010, 11:03pm on 10/31/10 at 14:50:17, Nombril wrote:
It requires me to login and start up the radio server. Also I need to run a program locally to relay the teamSpeak output over to the radio server. So it requires my involvement, but if you want do something let me know and I can turn it on for you. Quote:
Yes, I'll see if I can get this setup. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 1st, 2010, 11:55pm on 10/31/10 at 17:34:19, clojure wrote:
Before the AOF I spent a lot of time experimenting with the settings to try and reduce the lag. The best I could do was reduce it to about 7 seconds. Quote:
Thanks. If only you knew how nervous I was :-) Quote:
Yes, I think word of mouth is the best advertising. On the new player page someone said this: "Some guy's forum signiture". I'm sure the advertising on forums did help. Even though new people did not participate in the events, they did come to the site and learn about Arimaa. Quote:
A full day of events is quite tiring. I think once a year would be enough for me. However, we could probably do a one item event once a month. For example an interview with Karl or Jean about their book, a man vs machine match with commentary, a bot vs bot match with the developers commentating, a strategy workshop, and of course a think out loud match. One radio event per month would not be a burden and would be good to keep the momentum going. This along with a "join if you can" type tournament once a week (when other events are not scheduled) should help us start to build a critical mass of players. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Nov 2nd, 2010, 11:11am I like the monthly radio single event idea! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by scratchwoodie on Nov 3rd, 2010, 8:47am I'm currently too busy with other things. I missed the festival completely because of that, although I got the mail and thought "Oh yeah, lets go there on saturday evening". The messages in this topic tell me that I certainly did miss a unique event! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 5th, 2010, 12:19pm Yes, it was quite a special event. The blitz games were a blast to watch with all the fast action and live commentary. The event I liked the most was the Think Out Loud Match. You usually never know what the players are thinking during the game, so it was quite interesting to hear their thoughts while the game was in session. We have the audio recording of the events saved. http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp/ I hope we can eventually merge the audios with a replay of the game and make some videos from them to post on the AOF event page. That would make it possible for people who missed the events to still catch the highlights and get a feel of what the event was like. Perhaps this would help increase the attendance next year. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by paldepind on Nov 6th, 2010, 6:31am on 11/05/10 at 12:19:43, omar wrote:
I can do that! :D I just don't know where I can find the Think Out Loud Match replay? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Nov 6th, 2010, 4:49pm on 10/31/10 at 11:55:20, rbarreira wrote:
Is the Think Out Loud match not at the end of Part 2? I think the Think Out Loud match is worthy of being uploaded to Youtube, in parts of course. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by chessandgo on Nov 9th, 2010, 11:28am Is there a video of the Strategy workshop? I started listening to the audio file, hoping to be able to follow just by replaying the game, but it sounds like Fritz displayed variations as well, that we can't guess from the audio I guess. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 9th, 2010, 11:06pm on 11/06/10 at 06:31:14, paldepind wrote:
That would be terrific. You can find the audio file by going to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp and select 'Omar's recordings'. The file should be 6_Think_Out_Load_Match.mp3 You can replay the game here: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=158702&s=w If you select the 'real-time' and 'auto' check box the moves will automatically be made in the same time the players took during the game. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 9th, 2010, 11:13pm on 11/09/10 at 11:28:58, chessandgo wrote:
I don't think there is a video for this. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by paldepind on Nov 12th, 2010, 2:56am on 11/09/10 at 23:06:38, omar wrote:
Thanks! If my video editing program doesn't screw up I'll get it done before the end of the week. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Nov 12th, 2010, 2:40pm on 11/12/10 at 02:56:21, paldepind wrote:
Wow excellent! Thanks paldepind! I've dropped the ball a bit due to post-Festival fatigue, but I'm really enthusiastic about this video. I think it'll be an excellent showcase for newcomers to show just what Arimaa's like, as important as the "How to play" video on the homepage. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Nov 12th, 2010, 6:11pm on 11/12/10 at 14:40:00, megajester wrote:
Yes, I'm really looking forward to how this video turns out. The TOL match was quite fun to watch so I'm hope this video will recreate that experience. Thanks for taking this on paldepind. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jan 8th, 2011, 4:19am I've started uploading the Think Out Loud match to Youtube. I wasn't able to do it all in one go, the next installment should come out in the next couple of days. Let me know what you think. Clicky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YynE3zbQARM). |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Jan 8th, 2011, 12:57pm This is totally awesome!!!! Thanks so much for making this video Joel. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jan 8th, 2011, 7:54pm Finished (finally). I've collated the videos to form a playlist (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=291524CAA7778512) you can share. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Jan 10th, 2011, 6:00pm Thanks Joel. I've linked it in the Videos section of the gameroom. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Jan 24th, 2011, 12:09pm on 01/08/11 at 19:54:09, megajester wrote:
I finally got around to listening to this for the first time. Thank you so much for making this video, Joel, and thank you Omar for linking it from the game room. We were lucky that there was some drama in the game; as it turns out this a pretty good advertisement for Arimaa. It clearly shows that the top players have no real idea what is going on in the opening, middlegame, or endgame, which I think is attractive relative to the impression that grandmasters (or computers) know exactly what to think about everything. Creating this video is yet another excellent service in your long list of excellent services to the community. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jan 24th, 2011, 1:06pm on 01/24/11 at 12:09:01, Fritzlein wrote:
Thank you; it's nice to feel your efforts have been worth it. Speaking of which, you have been going the extra mile yourself in providing commentary for so many games, so thanks to you too. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by omar on Jan 27th, 2011, 1:43pm Yes, it's really an excellent video. Thanks to everyone who contributed to making it happen. Joel how big is the file size for a single continuous video of this. The one I made was over 500 MB and was too big to upload to vimeo. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Jan 27th, 2011, 3:47pm on 01/27/11 at 13:43:24, omar wrote:
The FBR files generated by BB Flashback come to around 310 meg. The program uploaded straight to Youtube so I never had to convert to anything more conventional. |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by leo on Feb 7th, 2011, 1:51am Watching the TOLM videos reminded me the excitement of the Festival. I especially appreciate the visual pointing at the board spots as the thinking out loud goes (I understand it much quicker than square coordinates ;) ) I really hope we have another TOLM in the 2011 Festival! |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by megajester on Feb 7th, 2011, 4:37pm on 02/07/11 at 01:51:45, leo wrote:
I've been meaning to ask people about that. In general did people find the pointing helpful or was it annoying? Do people have any tips for next time? |
||||||||
|
Title: Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival Post by Fritzlein on Feb 7th, 2011, 5:41pm on 02/07/11 at 16:37:41, megajester wrote:
I found the pointing extremely helpful, in particular when I said the wrong coordinates or wrong piece name, but you intelligently parsed what I was talking about and pointed at the correct place in spite of me. Given that I found your error-correction helpful, I am sure it is invaluable to beginners who try to watch. In general I liked the pointing so much, I found that I was disappointed to watch Omar's videos of the World Championship with no pointing. But I understand that it is quite a chore to sit there the whole time the recording is being done simply in order to keep pointing at things. |
||||||||
|
Arimaa Forum » Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1! YaBB © 2000-2003. All Rights Reserved. |