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leader board
Posted:
Oct 29, 2010, 4:04 AM
have you seen the leader board? no reds have played rated in over a month.. only one yellow on there. and a bunch of blues n greens. is this the end of the golden years?
if we could just fix the bug that kicks us and causes our ghosting name to time our sets out, we might see more rated games of master players. just a thought.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
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Re: leader board
Posted:
Oct 30, 2010, 11:25 AM
i can think of some reasons of why ide say no that doesnt work too well for several reasons. yes radical to say the least.
and even if you did, it still doesnt bring the reds back.
the only reds visiting the lobby for some unrated pente are xtraclassy pente_man zoeyk and thats about all,.. all the other ones have retired either all together, or only will play at BK now. the ones only at BK now, its either becuase they only like turn based, or becuase they dont like to get kicked and have a rated set time out as a result.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Hey Zoe, you know I think you might be on to something about the missing reds. I don't play here that much so I guess I don't mind if I offend a few folks (unintentionally of course)
Maybe the lack of Reds is because the ones that do play here are too good. I mean basically you and nosovs and a couple of the other luminaries when they show up like RichardIII etc. I think you play too well in real time at such a high level and it is tough to win against you, and maybe some of these 'stars' at BrainKing are just afraid to come out from the protection of turn-based to test their metal at pente.org. Perhaps they are hiding over there, protecting their reputations, and don't want to come to pente.org and be knocked back down to yellow or blue.
If you and the abovementioned were not quite so good I think perhaps some of these people might be brave enough to come here and play you. I think maybe they are just afraid, what do you think?
At pente.org I suspect there are one or two 'faux reds' that acquired their score from beating up on lower ranked players, but even this is preferable to those who will not even come to officially face the talent pool here. It is a lot easier to play at a high level when you have 'days' during which to work out your next move. If pente players of the world want true recognition then they should come here and put their XXXXs on the line in real time.
My message is simple. To all you 'reds' (or BK equivalent) who want bragging rights, winning regularly at real-time pente against other reds is the only way to go in my opinion.
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Re: leader board
Posted:
Oct 31, 2010, 5:49 PM
Piecraft you make some good points but it's not the whole story.
I especially agree when you make the distinction between real time play and turn-based play. Personally, I feel that these are completely different games -- as different as checkers and chess. They happen to follow the same rules but don't let that fool you. The entire thought process, strategy and approach to the game is so extremely different that it feels like it's not even in the same genre. One is basically a board game, the other is more like playing solitaire or solving a puzzle or maybe even writing a research paper -- so maybe checkers and chess are actually too similar for this comparison. But I digress...
As for reds not playing as much, I believe there are several reasons that are more important and more relavent than simply being afraid...
By far the biggest culprit is the ability to play unrated, and most recently, the change to the site's design to make unrated play the default standard. I believe this is a big mistake. It was probably an attempt to cater to the casual players who might be intimidated by the competitive nature of a rating system -- an attempt to increase participation on the site overall. I think the opposite has happened. As the culture shifts towards unrated play in general, a lot of players are losing interest and less players are now participating on the site on a daily basis.
In my opinion, unrated play should be the exception, not the standard, and should be available for specific special circumstances. These might include players getting together and doing some analysis on a specific position and using the board for convenience, players who wish to sit in one seat or the other for several games in a row, players who only have time for one game and not a set, introducing a new player to the site, two players with vastly different ratings playing against each other, and so on. These are special cases. Players really should be playing rated games under normal conditions.
Combine this with the next factor, another change in the site design, and you begin to see a much different leader board. A good while back the main leaderboard for the site was switched to display only players who have played a rated set within the past month. This was another attempt to encourage increased participation, and this one makes more sense. If you'd like to be on the top of the leaderboard, you really should be playing more -- and by that I mean playing more rated sets. Personally, I'd like to see some slightly different criteria (he was thinking about requiring a rated set weekly instead of monthly! Wow, we'd really be seeing some unstable leaderboards then!). How about instead of requiring monthly rated sets -- maybe something like 10 rated sets within the most recent 6 month period -- completed on 10 different days. So if for some reason a player goes away for a few months he won't lose his spot on the leaderboard right away. Calling a player inactive after just one month is a little too tight in my opinion.
Next, there might be technical reasons like the one zoey has referred to. I'm not sure I understand exactly what has happened to zoey but I can understand players shying away from rated sets if they lose points from being disconnected. If, in fact, your opponent is pressing the Force Resignation button, then I would say don't play against that opponent any more. If somehow both players get disconnected and then BOTH players somehow end up with a loss, that is not a good situation and should be corrected. However, I feel pretty confident that an extremely small number of players are intentionally staying away just for this reason.
The problem that I have personally run into is a bit of a catch-22. On the few times where I log in with some time on my hands and I'm looking for a game -- no one is here to play against. Another problem for me is, quite frankly, I am underrated. When i ask red players who are rated significantly higher than me for a game -- I get excuse after excuse for why they don't want to play rated. I believe that this is a legacy attitude left over from the days prior to set-based play. There is currently absolutely no reason to avoid playing a rated set with someone based solely on ratings since the introduction of set-based play. But I run into this all the time. In fact, set-based play should be resulting in a LARGE increase of participation from reds. Prior to this change, it basically made no sense for reds to play rated. Now, there is no excuse to NOT play rated, and reds should be excited about this change and be playing LOTS of rated sets (preferably against each other). So far this has only happened to a limited extent.
(Of course, set-based play itself has been met with mixed criticism. It is possible that some red players did not like this change and aren't playing as much. For red players that would be surprising, but it's possible.)
Combine this with another factor -- I have less large blocks of free time in my life than I used to -- basically, many reds have played for a long time and they have grown up. They move on to other interests, life gets more complicated, or they just don't have as much time. A rated set between reds takes over an hour.
Yet another factor related to THIS is the site design change to the default timer. Rated games should be at least 20 minutes, if not longer, and red players understand why. Requiring a manual change away from the default standard to play a normal set will turn off red players.
An ongoing reason is the same reason that's always been around for red players in Pente. Once players feel that they have mastered the game, hey lose interest and semi-retire, and eventually just retire from the game completely. I was personally hoping that the introduction of set-based play would significantly prolong this process, but that has happened only to a limited extent. Players are still growing bored with the game and are moving on to other things.
The lack of well-run tournaments or other events that bring all the top players together is likely another factor.
There are probably several other factors that come into play for why reds are not playing as much before we get all the way down to the idea that they might be afraid... But the point is well made that red players have disappeared from the leaderboard at this point. Hopefully they will come back and play some rated sets.
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Re: leader board
Posted:
Oct 31, 2010, 6:47 PM
good points up2, and you said here; I'm not sure I understand exactly what has happened to zoey but I can understand players shying away from rated sets if they lose points from being disconnected. If, in fact, your opponent is pressing the Force Resignation button, then I would say don't play against that opponent any more.
zoey; you misunderstand. it is not the opponent pressing force resignation. no. it is in fact your name ghosts in the table for 20 minutes. you cant log back in. and the timer keeps ticking. and if you come back in as a guest and tell them, there is nothing they can do. they cant cancel. the timer just runs out and points are deducted. this is a new problem over the last 6 months, for many players. it is becomming a very common issue for all players. just ask around. it seems to be a cache issue of the site. something dweebo did in the code has done this.
the window for cancel or resign or force resignation never comes up as a option in this situation now when the name is ghosting like this. very big issue here.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
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Re: leader board
Posted:
Oct 31, 2010, 7:01 PM
here is a example game. this player's P2 defeated me becuase of this problem. i logged back in as a guest, and helplessly watched my zoeyk name ghosting while a 18 minute timer ticked away. nothing we could do. luckily it was unrated. but what if this one was rated? i would plummit in points for a silly cache issue? seems to waste my investment of time i have put in to get my rating up. i wont play rated until this is fixed.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
REDS are AFRAID to play here, the reason is reds are afraid of having their game studied by everyone who is wanting to learn their new material too. I see reds here ALL the time , " browsing only "
up2ng is right about tournaments here, I think a $5 entry fee should be required, so that an administrator would have a real reason to be here. $5 would only be good for 30 days, an addtional $5 fee if tourny last longer than 30 days, even if the tourny lasted for 35 days or even 31 days,
nice work up2. I expect you realise that I was trying to stir up a reaction from the BK clan.
Your list of reasons for lack of reds is pretty comprehensive but there is something missing I think. Why is it that there are 6 - 7 billion people in the world and at any one time only maybe 100 active pente players on line?
The number of Reds ultimately relates to the number of people actively playing. Sure, the number of people actively playing is affected by the features and mechanics of this site, but I think it must be more closely correllated to the number of people who are aware of the game, or that you can play it online.
If say 2% of active players are red, then if there are 10,000 active players then we will have 200 active reds. If you want more reds then just get more people playing the game. I think the numbers are so low that it is hard for any red to play another red in here, and even if you do its the same old ones.
If we have higher numbers then we are creating new reds as the old ones retire.
What will save this site is marketing, tweaking code is all well and good, but if no-one is here to see it...
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Re: leader board
Posted:
Nov 1, 2010, 5:43 AM
I think all red players want to play strong (red) opponents, it is not easy to meet here opponent. But main reason that at brainking there are interesting tournaments. It were Elite Pente Tournament by Zoeyk http://brainking.com/ru/Tournaments?tri=598031#4 SPP by BRF http://brainking.com/ru/Tournaments?tri=624426#1 and finally best 10 players are invited in SUPER Pente Tournament by nosovs So, really all red players are playing many interesting games and are in pente.org to check database.
