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        Arimaa >> Site Discussion >> Some suggestions
        
(Message started by: Swynndla on Apr 20^th, 2006, 4:26pm)

Title: Some suggestions
Post by Swynndla on Apr 20^th, 2006, 4:26pm

These suggestions are all about newbies really ...

1) The very first time I started to play arimaa in the game room, when I was gold, believe it or not, I was sitting there wondering why the game didn't start, until I figured out that I'm meant to click on "Start". It seems so obvious now that it's almost too embarrassing to mention. But I've since come across other people who had the same problem, and who overcame the confusion after just a little while. But some people may not figured it out quickly, and may get frustrated and leave. Take amca for example ... I started a game for anyone to join, and amca filled the seat, but didn't click Start, and left, and hasn't been back (this is one of my live postal games). I don't know the solution to the Start issue not being as obvious as we may think, but I thought I'd "swallow my pride" and point it out.

2) Also, the thing about that game with amca, because amca didn't click on start, I can't get rid of that game from My Current Games. No clock has started, so it won't time out, and also I can't resign. The time limit isn't 0/0/0/0/0 so it won't be caught in the monthly auto-cleanup (or what ever it is that I've been told that gets run). It was suggested that I point this out on the forum, as it could affect others too. I'm not sure of the answer here either ... whether the solution is to start the clocks automatically (like in the postal tournament) or to add these sorts of games to the monthly auto-cleanup?

3) When I play someone new, I try and chat to them and be nice and polite so they'll come back again. Some people are chattier than others, and some others may not be confident to chat in English if it's their second language. Now when they do a bad move, they may see and click on the "Takeback" button ... now I'm not sure what the rules are here, but I do know (through experimenting) that in a rated game, takeback isn't allowed (I'm not sure about unrated). The problem is, that if the newbie clicks on the takeback button, I don't get any message at all, and neither does the newbie get a message that takebacks aren't allowed (and the takeback button isn't greyed out to begin with), and so my opponent may think that I'm being mean and competitive because the newbie sees me doing my next move instead of allowing the takeback (and there may also be a message saying that the takeback was allowed, even though it wasn't). So the newbie may think that takeback is allowed (since it's not greyed out) but that I'm being mean, and they may not think that this is the friendly community that it is. So I guess the simple solution is to grey out the takeback button when it's not allowed?

Maybe some of the solutions to these problems will make the newbies first experience to this "strange" game easier ;)

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by IdahoEv on Apr 20^th, 2006, 4:45pm

Another little suggestion that might be easy: make the default silver position not put the elephant opposite the default gold position's elephant. (or in fact, perhaps detect the position of the gold elephant and if it is on file D or E, start with the silver elephant on E or D, respectively.) This would save almost every silver player 5-6 seconds in initial setup.

Evan

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by chessandgo on Apr 21^st, 2006, 10:57am

Yeah, the silver elephant in a plausible line would be great, and even greater to get rid of that takeback button ... as Nathan said, when clicking it, one gets the message : your takeback has been allowed, but play goes on ... that' embarrassing ...

Or maybe really allow takeback even in rated games would be ok ? In other games it is ...

Jean

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by omar on May 5^th, 2006, 10:33pm

Great suggestions guys. I've made a note of them. There are actually a bunch of changes I need to make to the client. Hope to make them this summer.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by IdahoEv on May 6^th, 2006, 5:50am

Three minor website suggestions - just personal preferences / UI tweaks. If you decide to incorporate them, Omar, I'd be happy to help with the coding.

1) I tend to prefer when websites do not use linking with target="_new" too much. On the Arimaa site, if you visit the front page, click "play now", then "forum", you already have three windows open. Click a game, you have a fourth... nearly every link spawns a new window. I prefer it where for the most part the links are standard links, allowing the user to select non-default behavior (new window or new tab) they want via right-clicking.

2) In similar vein, I think it would be nice if the pop-up client window was resizable, and had normal scrollbar behavior. It can be extremely hard for a web designer to guarantee that his content will fit a certain size window, and so fixed-size non-scrollable pop-ups often end up hiding content from the user when the page does something the web designer didn't expect.

An example case where this fails: if I switch to email in the middle of a game and click on a hyperlink, the default behavior for firefox is to open that link as a new tab in my most recent web window. So I get a pair of tabs in my tiny, non-resizable non-scrolling Arimaa client window. This both makes that new document unreadable, but also the tab row pushes down the arimaa board content so that the chat entry box is off the bottom of the window. The only solution is to close my game and hope I can open a new one before it's my turn again. General rule of thumb: the web page should not disable any user adjustments, because you can't predict what adjustments the user might need or how a target browser might behave.

3) Last, the refresh script that reloads the gameroom page every few minutes shouldn't force it to come to the foreground. This can pull a user away from other pages they are reading if they have left the gameroom open in one of several tabs. In both firefox and safari, the gameroom forces itself in front of all other tabs every few minutes.

See news.google.com for an example of an auto-refreshing page that doesn't force to the foreground.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by 99of9 on May 6^th, 2006, 8:51am

I fully support all of Swyndla's suggestions. Those features all annoy me too. Since I enjoy arimaa so much I have developed habits to get around them.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by chessandgo on May 6^th, 2006, 1:47pm

I completely agree with you Evans.
first time I came, I didn't realize that Swynndla was wanting to play with me, as my firewall blocked this kind of pop-up ... it would be great if the site had less of them ...

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by aaaa on May 6^th, 2006, 6:53pm

During setup allow a player to directly swap two major pieces by moving one on top of the other.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by leo on May 6^th, 2006, 7:16pm

There is so much work to be done that I'm thinking of the idea of raising funds to help Omar improve the server and site. What do you all think of that?

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Fritzlein on May 6^th, 2006, 10:44pm

on 05/06/06 at 18:53:31, aaaa wrote:

During setup allow a player to directly swap two major pieces by moving one on top of the other.

That wouldn't be the top of my priority list, but it is a nice refinement. Many's the time I have had to make three moves when I wanted to swap two pieces; it would be cool to be able to swap in just one move.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Fritzlein on May 6^th, 2006, 10:49pm

on 05/06/06 at 19:16:40, leo wrote:

There is so much work to be done that I'm thinking of the idea of raising funds to help Omar improve the server and site. What do you all think of that?

Who are the target contributors? All of us players?

If we're going to donate money, I'll bet Omar would like to receive it in the form of pledges the annual Challenge fund. If a dozen people would pledge towards the Challenge, even if only $20 each, that would be a huge boost for Omar in his efforts to raise money from corporate sponsors. He could pitch potential underwriters on the size of the Arimaa community that doesn't think the bots can win, and the number of people with a vested interest in beating the bots.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by leo on May 6^th, 2006, 11:50pm

on 05/06/06 at 22:49:29, Fritzlein wrote:

Who are the target contributors? All of us players?

Well, yes :) We are the ones who enjoy the game, after all...

Quote:

If we're going to donate money, I'll bet Omar would like to receive it in the form of pledges the annual Challenge fund. If a dozen people would pledge towards the Challenge, even if only $20 each, that would be a huge boost for Omar in his efforts to raise money from corporate sponsors. He could pitch potential underwriters on the size of the Arimaa community that doesn't think the bots can win, and the number of people with a vested interest in beating the bots.

That's a very good idea!

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Swynndla on May 7^th, 2006, 5:03am

Fritzl, is that the one where we only lose the money in the challenge is won? (ie a bot beats the humans?) ... and that we can pledge for just one year if we like? (ie we can specify the time period that the challenge must be won by ... eg someone can pledge $20 but only for the 2007 challenge?)

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Fritzlein on May 7^th, 2006, 7:31am

That's right, Swynndla. If you pledge to the Challenge fund, you only lose your money if the bots win. Otherwise you pay nothing. Also you can sign up for just one year if you like, instead of through 2020.

I already pledged $600 for the coming year only, but I'm starting to feel that it would be cheesy of me to pledge a big dollar amount each year when I was confident of not losing it, then pull it all out some year if a new bot looked threatening. As of next year, I'm going to switch to a smaller number, say $50, but pledge it through 2020. Putting $50 on the line for twelve Challenges is approximately the same risk to me, and it just seems better advertisement if the money is committed for years in advance. I can write it off right now as a pure donation, send the money in to Omar immediately, and if humans prevail in the end, it's like a $50 time capsule gift back to myself. :-)

Furthermore, I reiterate that the number of people contributing is more important that the dollar amount. If a bunch of us each send Omar $20 today, pledged to the Challenge fund through 2020, the promotional value of each vote of confidence is much greater than the dollar value of the gift. It's the kind of money that tends to attract more money.

I'm so psyched by the idea that I will immediately match any new "through 2020" donations, up to $50 total, while leaving my $600 pledge intact for this year only.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by unic on May 8^th, 2006, 9:14am

A few random suggestions regarding the game-room and the client:

When observing a game, let me choose which side is at the bottom. (Right now it seems to be random...)

Stability - the server seems to go down fairly regularly as things are now.

Adjourning and resuming games - allow games to get adjourned and saved (for example when the server goes down or a player gets disconnected) and later resumed.

Kibitzing (i.e. allowing observers to comment on a game).

Being able to see who is currently observing a game.

Less clumsy chat - personally, I would be inclined towards something IRC-compatible, so that people who want can choose their own client. There exists java clients out there for IRC which could be used from the web page. Of course, even better would be if the chat was somehow integrated with the rest of the gameroom.

Remembering whether I set my status to "don't invite me" - right now, I rarely want to be invited (as I'm mainly watching Fairy), but often forget to change my status. Especially as the gameroom automatically logs me out after a while (which is annoying in itself).

I've had a challenge from lelievre on my gameroom screen for ages - when I try to decline it, nothing happens. Perhaps challenges for non-postal games ought to automatically go away when the challenger goes offline?

Being able to see more information when watching a game replay - like time used for the various moves.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by unic on May 8^th, 2006, 9:16am

Oh, and one more thing I just noticed - is the time allowed for setup always one minute, regardless of time control?

That seems illogical... I plan to let Fairy think about setup at some point, and would rather it had as much time for that move than for any other move in the game.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Fritzlein on May 8^th, 2006, 10:32am

If the interface is going to be overhauled, my first priority would be greater stability. Otherwise, a few more thoughts in no particular order

* Buttons that don't work (Takeback, Help, Options) should be greyed out. I was definitely confused as a newcomer by the unusable buttons.

* Postal games should start automatically as soon as both seats are assigned, without Gold needing to push the Start button

* When I create a game against "any oppnent", and I wait for someone to sit, I usually have the window backgrounded, so that I don't see when some opponent eventually sits down. Maybe a bell could ring to warn me when the second seat is assigned.

* Be able to toggle the game sound on and off. Unic suggested this because he may be playing a game and watching a game, and only want sound in the game he is playing. I might like it when I am playing a game and listening to something else on my computer, so I want no sound from the game but I don't want to turn my speaker off.

Let me say again, Omar, that we appreciate everything you do. You don't have to make any improvements whatsoever for me to be eternally grateful for this wonderful game and wonderful place to play it. And if you do spend time on improving anything, capacity and stability seem more important than any bells and whistles, so that more people can experience the joy of Arimaa rather than we select few having a slightly smoother experience. Just being able to play is the main thing.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by unic on May 8^th, 2006, 11:07am

I agree with Fritzlein - having a place to play is important and great, and server stability is more important than any bells and whistles that might get added.

Having an easy way for it to play online (and readily available opponents) was what made me choose to program an Arimaa bot instead of a bot for some other abstract game (of which there are plenty that I enjoy - and while I think Arimaa is good, there are many I think are more enjoyable for me as a human to play).

And the server stability (or rather lack thereof) was what almost caused me to give up on Arimaa... though I did come back - had too many ideas for programming, and didn't want to start over from scratch with a different game.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by leo on May 8^th, 2006, 3:51pm

on 05/08/06 at 09:14:35, unic wrote:

When observing a game, let me choose which side is at the bottom. (Right now it seems to be random...)

Unic, it depends on which half of the board you click - left or right.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by unic on May 8^th, 2006, 5:58pm

on 05/08/06 at 15:51:47, leo wrote:

Unic, it depends on which half of the board you click - left or right.

Duh - so it does! And as I not known, and just clicked somewhere around the middle of the board, it had appeared random to me. Thanks for telling me :) Makes it more pleasant to observe games.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by RonWeasley on May 9^th, 2006, 11:14am

Quote:

Oh, and one more thing I just noticed - is the time allowed for setup always one minute, regardless of time control?

When playing from a dial-up connection, like I have at home, it takes minutes for the board to load. This means I can't play Silver against bots ever, because the game times out before my board is loaded. Gold is OK because the program waits for the start button. I'm not sure what to recommend for this. Forcing Silver to click a "ready" button would help me but likely confuse/annoy new and experienced players alike. Some automatic acknowledgement would be ideal but I don't know if that's possible.

Quote:

it depends on which half of the board you click - left or right.

I never knew about this! I thought it was as random as Bernie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Arimanator on May 9^th, 2006, 1:02pm

on 05/09/06 at 11:14:20, RonWeasley wrote:

...I never knew about this! I thought it was as random as Bernie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

Tell you what, I thought that as well for at least a couple of weeks when I came here, then I noticed that the display at the bottom of the screen changed when I moved the pointer from left to right on the little icon and that's when I got my epiphany. ( ;D) Omar's found such a clever way to choose one's side, hasn't he?

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by leo on May 9^th, 2006, 5:21pm

on 05/09/06 at 13:02:18, Arimanator wrote:

This feature is -say- subtly explained in the page :) Another way to change the side once the page is loaded is to manually edit the cgi side parameter from "s=w" to "s=b" and inversely in the url edit control, and press enter or click the ok button or whatever your browser lets you do.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by omar on May 15^th, 2006, 6:48am

on 05/06/06 at 19:16:40, leo wrote:

There is so much work to be done that I'm thinking of the idea of raising funds to help Omar improve the server and site. What do you all think of that?

Yes, there is so much to be done on the site; the todo list is getting pretty long. As the community is growing I am feeling that Arimaa is really wanting to take off and unfortunately I am the one who is becoming the bottle neck and obstacle to it's growth.

I don't think raising funds would be of help to me; nor would I accept it. The pledges for increasing the challenge would be great, but that would not effect the todo list either. What would really be of help is if we can get a few people who know how to program in Perl (for changes on the server) and Flash (for the client) so they can knock an item or two off the list.

If we had such people I could setup a development gameroom and client where changes could be tried out without effecting the production gameroom and after they've been tweeked and tested, copied over to the real gameroom. This would be helpful with improvements to the current gameroom/client. In the long run, I was planning to redo the whole architecture and protocol of the gameroom/gameserver/client and make it an open source project. So perhaphs we can even have some people start on this.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Swynndla on May 15^th, 2006, 8:31pm

I know perl, although I'm no expert, but I am very comfortable with regular expresions. So I could help with perl scripts.

I have no experience with Flash, and I haven't ever been involved with open source projects (although I think an open source bot would be interesting).

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by nbarriga on May 15^th, 2006, 10:52pm

I know some perl too, so i can help on that. Let me know if you decide to bring people to form a dev team.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by seanick on Jun 21^st, 2006, 9:25am

I know a little flash, but my roommate knows much more. Your flash interface is probably at least as advanced as any of his though.

a game he made for his flash development class at BCC is "hexitaire" (hexic solitaire) .. http://www.thegameaddicts.net/components/com_hexitaire/hexitaire.swf

kind of cheeseball; it is based loosely on Popcap games' "Atomica".

Out of curiosity what would be necessary to run the Arimaa flash client offline? would it even be possible, and/or something you would let happen? I don't know what the interface on the server side looks like... but for playing against a bot I was working on locally it might be nice.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by omar on Jun 25^th, 2006, 3:02pm

I've started working on a client that uses only DHTML. Once I get the core code working I'll put it up so others can make improvments to it also. I will be reading the forum a lot less while I am working on this so if there is anything urgent that needs my attention please let me know through the contact forum. Thanks.

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by arimaa_master on Jul 3^rd, 2006, 2:46pm

What about ladder with numeration? - it isn´t needed so much for top_rated_players list (coz there are only 50 players) - I think it will be especially useful for established_players list.

Useful in a way that increases motivation /it works at least for me/
Now I must counting my position by hand :-/

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 4^th, 2006, 11:21am

on 07/03/06 at 14:46:33, arimaa_master wrote:

What about ladder with numeration? - it isn´t needed so much for top_rated_players list (coz there are only 50 players) - I think it will be especially useful for established_players list.

Do you mean you just want an easy way to see your rank among active human players according to your server rating? Or were you thinking of an old-fashioned ladder you can move up and down by challenging people above you to games?

Title: Re: Some suggestions
Post by arimaa_master on Jul 4^th, 2006, 11:26am

Yes, only rank.