http://184.106.245.61/App.aspx?GameID=1024249

This is mine.

It's at 202 days (as of Dec 12, 2010)

It was supposed to be a fast game but didn't set a direct boot time. Which is stupid. I set the vote time to probably 5 minutes thinking that nobody could boot to win but if more than one player goes missing at a time the game is stuck because to boot one absent player requires the vote of another.

I have started a small tourney between a group of people from another forum. They quit Warlight, quit the forum, and now games from tourney are clogging my list. Seven of them.

This is the oldest one: http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1061477 - stuck for 113 days as of now.

Fizzer - - wouldn't it be fair and useful if people could e-mail details on stuck games, and stuck tournaments to you, and then you could autosurrender the people holding the games up in obvious cases like these, or do something to make them end? Just wondering, honestly. Thanks.

perhaps a maximum boot time of 20 days, so that games are never stuck for longer than that

> wouldn't it be fair and useful if people could e-mail details on stuck games, and stuck tournaments to you, and then you could autosurrender the people holding the games up in obvious cases like these, or do something to make them end?

WarLight already has a built-in system for resolving stuck games - it's called booting. Now if a game creator explicitly decides, "I don't want anyone to ever get booted from my game", then who am I to override his or her wishes and go kick people out of their game just because someone who joined their game asked me to? Even if I wanted to, WarLight doesn't have such a feature - I'd have to create that feature first.

What I have done is add a warning any time you create or join a game that uses the "Never" direct boot time. This ensures you know what you're getting info.

I can't imagine why that warning would not be enough, since it applies to both game creators and game joiners. If, for some reason, you feel that a warning isn't enough, feel free to vote for this, "Kill the never boot option":

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

If enough people feel it should be killed, I'd be willing to kill it. But right now, only 4 people do.

I don't mind my stuck game. It's never in my way and I only see it when someone says something in the chat, which is almost never, and now I know not to disable direct booting.

Fizzer - -


>WarLight already has a built-in system for resolving stuck games - it's called >booting. Now if a game creator explicitly decides, "I don't want anyone to ever get >booted from my game", then who am I to override his or her wishes and go kick >people out of their game just because someone who joined their game asked me to? >Even if I wanted to, WarLight doesn't have such a feature - I'd have to create that >feature first.


I apologize sincerely for any confusion that I may have created! I wasn't asking for an explanation of the booting system; I understand it. Instead, I was asking if you, as the site creator, can and will intervene in and help to advance or end games that (a) have become stuck for various reasons and (b) clearly will never become unstuck.

As for asking "who are [you] to override" the wishes of a game creator, the answer is that you are the game creator and the webmaster of the site. That, in my opinion at least, makes you a more significant personage than the creator of one game among thousands that has become stuck and will likely never become unstuck without your intervention. If I understand correctly, you are reluctant to intervene, and I appreciate that restraint. However, games can become stuck in a variety of situations, the solution to virtually none of which involve any override of anyone's wishes, at least not anyone who is acting rationally. I can think of the following such situations:

(1) Participants in a game or a tournament quit Warlight.

(2) Someone accidentally creates a game or a tournament with no direct boot option, and in one game of that tournament, certain individuals will not advance because they are acting with apparent deliberate indifference to the wishes of all of the other tournament participants. (This is the situation covered in the thread started by FBG-Smokedpears, which is currently near the top of the first page of the forum.)


In situation (1), I'm envisioning a solution system whereby the game creator or one or more participants in the game would contact you. They would ask you to "unstick" the game by booting the nonparticipating players. The game creator, if he or she is not one of the players who have quit (or one of the players who has contacted you), could be readily consulted about his or her wishes. Assuming that the game creator is acting rationally, he or she would presumably inform you that it would be acceptable to unstick the game (please see below for my suggestions as to how to do this in a fair and evenhanded manner). If the game creator is one of the departed players, then they have abandoned Warlight and I submit that their wishes (if any should no longer take precedence of those of active participants in the Warlight community. After a certain time, you could unstick or end the game.

I am struggling to understand how any of this would involve the "override" of anyone's wishes. Quite the opposite, in fact - - no one at all would be harmed (except perhaps those who have left Warlight), and unsticking or ending games as I've suggested would delight people whose games (and tournaments) have become stuck. In the case of a tournament, the number of participants who would presumably be happy that they could resume a game would far outweigh the number of any aggrieved parties - - assuming that the aggrieved parties, people who have long forsaken the game and the site, even cared.

In situation (2), you have users who are actively obstructing the completion of a tournament (or a game, but again, we have a real-life tournament example, namely, the tournament described in FBG-Smokedpears' thread). In this case, does it make sense to elevate the presumably accidental action (no direct boot) by the game or tournament creator to the level of gospel that shall not be disturbed, while rewarding the actions of people who are, if I understand correctly, violating the site's Terms of Service? Shouldn't the latter's wishes defer to those of the former?

Here, I'm envisioning a system whereby the game or tournament creator or participants contact you. You then contact the game or tournament creator and ask for their input within, say, 10 days. If you receive a statement of no objection, or no answer, then isn't it safe to assume that you are not overriding the game/tournament creator's wishes? Instead, quite to the contrary, you would be making several (perhaps dozens, in the case of a tournament) other users quite happy.


>What I have done is add a warning any time you create or join a game that uses >the "Never" direct boot time. This ensures you know what you're getting info.


That is useful; thank you very much for adding that. Of course, I'm moving a bit beyond that issue and addressing the current issue of games that are stuck *now*. Since you recognized that there is enough of a problem to add the warning you described above as we move forward, do you make room for the possibility that doing something with retroactive effect would also be useful?



>I can't imagine why that warning would not be enough, since it applies to both game >creators and game joiners.


I can so imagine. Sometimes people don't read all of the options and warnings before joining games. So, even with the addition of your very helpful warning, it may still be possible for games to become stuck. And in that event, it would - - in my opinion - - be useful to have the ability to "reach back" and do something about stuck games.



>If, for some reason, you feel that a warning isn't >enough, feel free to vote for >this, "Kill the never boot option":
>https://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/1142291->kill-the-never-boot-option?ref=title

>If enough people feel it should be killed, I'd be willing to kill it. But right >now, only 4 people do.


Well, I voted for it, so it now has nine votes. But your implication that it will probably never rise to the top of user-demanded features is probably quite a sound guess.

I might add that if I understand the actual proposed change, it does nothing to address currently stuck games, which are the real problem. This is an evolving community, and this concern is just now becoming relevant - - at least relevant enough to dominate the forum discussion at the moment. Stuck games, as should be obvious, annoy me, and I will be triplechecking all games and tournaments that I join from here until eternity to make certain that I don't get caught in this situation. Even with that diligence, though, it could still happen to me, and it could far more easily happen to new players, or someone who just forgets, is in a hurry to join a game, etc. A game that is as superbly designed as Warlight should, I think, have a system in place for unsticking or ending games that will otherwise remain permanently stuck.

Three more points: from a design perspective, I maintain a website. It probably has about the same traffic as Warlight does, although it's in a totally different area, maybe Warlight's traffic is far greater for all I know, and (most pertinently) the design of my site is not even close to the complexity of yours. However, I'm still using (at considerable risk) my pedestrian web design experience as a base for this question - - is it not a general principle of game design (or programming design, or design logic) that unneeded data should be discarded, unneeded files deleted, and the like? In other words, wouldn't it help Warlight and you to remove some of these stuck games before they become a real problem? Aren't they just consuming resources that could be directed elsewhere? Take this thread! :)

Next, if you don't have the time or inclination to become involved in the give-and-take mechanism that I've suggested above, what about instituing, on a retroactive basis, a 30-day autoboot (no AI replacement - - the player just vanishes) for any game where a request is made for you to unstick it? A warning could be posted on the game page or the tournament page, as applicable, as well as ion this forum, indicating that unless someone objects on very solid grounds within 30 days, the players who have not moved will be autobooted. I doubt you would encounter many, if at all, situations where this became controversial.

Finally, reading between the lines, you've suggested in your comments that I've quoted above that you are powerless to do anything about this situation if the ueservoice forum does not compel a resolution - - and even then, the proposed resolution that you've highlighted, if I understand it correctly, does nothing to solve the problem of stuck games on a retroactive basis.

I find this idea of your powerlessness difficult to believe. In the FBG-Smokedpears thread, you indicated that you recently banned Ottarinn for three days. Ottarinn has indicated this resulted in autosurrenders of his participation in some 65 games. (It did in at least one, in which I'm a participant.) So, you have the ability to ban users and autosurrender their games for violations of the TOS, but you do not have the ability to intervene to unstick or end games where the nonmoving participants have either left Warlight or are actively obstructing the advancement of the game/tournament, which is in itself an apparent violation of the site's TOS? With all due respect to your creation and maintenance of this awesome game that I happen to love, I don't understand your position, and I don't believe that you are incapable of doing something about this problem.

I request that you revisit this topic, solicit other views, and consider my thoughts. I mean no disrepsect. Thanks.

"from a design perspective, I maintain a website. It probably has about the same traffic as Warlight does, although it's in a totally different area, maybe Warlight's traffic is far greater for all I know, and (most pertinently) the design of my site is not even close to the complexity of yours. However, I'm still using (at considerable risk) my pedestrian web design experience as a base for this question - - is it not a general principle of game design (or programming design, or design logic) that unneeded data should be discarded, unneeded files deleted, and the like? In other words, wouldn't it help Warlight and you to remove some of these stuck games before they become a real problem? Aren't they just consuming resources that could be directed elsewhere? Take this thread! :)"

games are never deleted from the warlight server, so a stuck game and an ended game I'd imagine take up the same resources...

Perrin: You are correct :)

Aerial Assault: WarLight uses UserVoice to track features. Pleading your case here doesn't help, since this forum does not give me an easy way to tell how popular feature requests really are - that's what UserVoice excels at. I want to make WarLight a great game, therefore I want to spend my time on the features that are most in-demand by players, and the votes helps me determine that. I understand it can be frustrating when the item you care about isn't getting as many votes as you'd like - you're not the first to express this frustration.

Really? So it doesn't matter how many stuck games there are - - the server load is still the same? And there's no danger of a geometric increase on server load if stuck games continue to propagate? I find that difficult to believe, but I'll subside on that point.

If I'm not the first to express the frustration you mentioned, Fizzer (although you're still mistaking me - - see below), that may be an indication for you that Uservoice is not the ideal way to resolve all concerns relating to Warlight.

Also, you continue to misunderstand what I'm requesting. No one who's complaining about stuck games is asking for a new feature to be added, making any mention of Uservoice inapposite. Instead, we are asking for you, the site creator, to intervene in stuck games and resolve them, a capability that you clearly possess given that fact that you have indicated that you forcibly autosurrendered Ottarinn in multiple games. I repeat - - this is not a request for a new feature to be added to the game. This is a request for you to fix an existing problem with the game by (a) doing something to resolve the stuck games out there with people who have left Warlight by getting involved (I suggested a number of ways for you to do that in your last post) and (b) resolving one particular situation, spelled out in a thread by FBG-Smokedpears, in which a user (Alexander the Great, apparently), is deliberately obstructing the completion of an entire tournament.

Do you truly have no interest in resolving these situations? I'm particularly interested in the Alexander the great situation, as I have to believe that what he has apparently done is in violation of the TOS that you authored for the site.

I've also just reviewed the bug forum, and noted two more mentions of stuck games. Is there really no interest in fixing these? I repeat that Uservoice will not solve the problem - - it's the wrong tool in the box, as no one is requesting a new feature.

And then there's this thread, Fizzer - - http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=864. You indicate therein that you unstuck a game. So why not unstick this tournament? And consider unsticking other games, such as the one Matma Rex mentioned, upon express request?

I'm sure you feel harassed by my questions on this, and if so I apologize, because I mean no disrespect and thoroughly enjoy your game. However, I am truly struggling to understand your response here, and would just request that you take another look at this instead of referring me to Uservoice, which doesn't help in any way. Thanks - - I really appreciate it.

I think that the answer "don't join games with broken settings if you don't want to participate in stuck games" is generally good. I've seen one case where it isn't enough, which is a tournament. In this tournament, the creator of the tournament went inactive. Additionally there are several games where some of the contenders went inactive and have not joined the match. These games are stuck forever due to no fault of the people who joined the games or the tournament and even though the settings provided for normal boot times. Since the matches haven't started, there's no boot button.

+1 to your first point jss.

On your second point: After a while, you can force join someone in a tournament and then boot them if necessary so tournaments shouldn't ever get stuck from missing players. There was another thread somewhere about the relationship between force joining someone and nudging them. If a player gets nudged they can't be nudged again or force joined for 24 hours. I might be wrong on that though.

CuChulainn, two conditions under which your solution doesn't work.

1) Tournament was set with boot=NEVER. Here, Fizzer and I just disagree regarding the sanctity of that particular setting.
2) (more common), Tournament was set with no direct boot, and 2+ people have quit so there is no way to vote them out.

Incidentally, Fizzer, one problem with uservoice is that it doesn't fully capture the severity of issues. Yes, one can vote 1-3 on a bug, but as is probably pretty clear from these threads there are a number of active users who consider this a, I don't know, 10 or 20 in severity.

Chuchu, double elimination tourneys get stuck alot cause multiple inactives invariably end up playing against each other, and thus, no way to force-join/boot

that is a problem that is caused *even with* direct boot and vote to boot set reasonably

Enrico, I voted to keep the suggestions forum as a way to help newbs stay in touch with uservoice and to keep these kind of discussions flowing merely to help see people's points in their reasoning, and the amount of people that chip in reasonably... Creative criticism is never bad, albiet not always possible to implement.

All three are good points. Too bad, I thought I'd fixed something...

I really didn't think anyone would be this concerned with a stuck game, you never have to see them. Seriously, who has their filters set to 'all games' anyway?

I like mine, I'm gonna keep it.

I see an open game I am going to watch to see if it gets stuck or even opened...

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1143630
at the time of this post

See:

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1019662

As of 12/20/2010, we are at 234 days. I too fell into the trap of joining a never boot game. I assumed that in a 4 person free for all, it would never get stuck, but low and behold, two people quit in a 4 person free for all and now we can't vote to boot.

I totally understand that it was my fault for joining the never boot but almost 8 months of non-activity for me constitutes someone leaving the site forever. I understand now that I will never join a game that has no direct boot option. I completely agree with Aerial Assault in that there needs to be some solution to the existing games that are affected as well as the need to abolish the never boot option.

I've talked with Fizzer on several occasions and come to the conclusion that he won't work on it until it gets enough backing from the community. But with only 3 votes to the uservoice, it's hard to put all my votes into something if i still need 400 or more to beat out the top pick. I will post this Forum Thread into the uservoice.

The Uservoice requests are:

My Games Filter by Waiting For
and
Abililty to Request that Games Be Unstuck

Hopefully people will see these and vote on these items as I am pretty frustrated with these stuck games.

POSTED FROM OTHER THREAD:

Go here to vote for it:

http://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/1339405-player-active-inactive-status-where-inactive-pl


Randy -- I like having the widest range of options when creating a game and think a pop-up warning is sufficient for "never boot". Although I could see removing the option in tournaments and I could see why it would be reasonable for you to "unstick" or just closeout games that appear as though they will never be finished.

The problem here is not one of booting per se. It's a problem of inactive accounts. I am not a fan of players who take weeks to make their turns, but I know when I join a game or tournament with those settings (and players) I'm likely to have to deal with it. But if they've truly left WL and haven't made a turn in any game for an extended period (or logged in for that matter), then that's not really a booting issue.

You might want to have a rule that an account that remains totally inactive for an extended period of time (say 60-90 days), becomes "inactive" and that player automatically forfeits any open games, until they return their account to active status.

This approach would have no effect on the stallers, sloths and deliberate delayers (because they take turns in other games), but it would fix the problems from people who've left WL. Which fits your philosophy.

Behold:

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1102142

The tournament is ruined because of these two idiots.