Inactivity

[ArtNJ]

(07-07-2012 04:38 AM)Harti Wrote:  Another thing to note:
If people are going to stall a game, they will always find their way around it. One could always wait 23:59 h and then perform their turn.

In Advance Wars, we had an AET (auto end turn) limit until which you must have submitted your turn or else you end your turn empty. Many people did their whole turn, then waited for AET to kick in just to piss people off. The neat addition that, after 2 weeks of "being active", you could set a vacation flag which gave you 14 days security from AET.
In a game which lasted 20 turns each, with an AET of 7 days, it usually took 2-3 months to finish it. It was horrible. We also discussed to get the chess clock but it didn't happen in the last 3 years.



I think we could use the AET idea. The opponent doesn't directly get booted after three days but their turn gets ended automatically. This way, even if someone wasn't able to play due to work or something, it would not be impossible for them to get back into the game with a Special unit.
So I think this could be somewhat fair. AET at 3 / 4 days. If someone gets AET'd twice, they should be booted from the game.

That means a 7 day vacation on a cruise ship without internet forfeits all your games.

I think it can be a lot simpler than that: if any game is older than 3 days, you MUST move in your oldest game before moving in any other game. That would allow you to keep the 7 day deadline, but really minimize strategic slowdowns.

This feels bad right now because Outwitters is a free game, many are trying it and stopping mid-game. Same exact thing happened in Hero Academy, and lasted a few weeks. It eventually stops and the people that are left are the ones that want to play.