Uncle Fatty and his Amazing Unstoppable Mouth
On the one hand, I love things like “10 worst” lists. They help me remember that other people out there hate things as much as I do.
On the other hand, if you’re going to write a Ten Worst DS Game list, you just need to read through the game list. I can tell this author didn’t. How?
Nowhere in his ten worst occurs Whack a Mole. Then again, IGN gives whack-a-mole a five, so I guess the stupid isn’t yet monopolized.
So, I’m writing a web-based game, and I would like to know how people feel about timing out people who have disconnected. The game is a turn-based strategy game with moderately fast play, on the order of every 30 seconds to 1 minute, comparable to Reversi/Othello (Havannah, to be specific.) In particular, I’m not sure where to set the threshholds for a given person timing out.
My plan is to have three threshholds. If you’re playing a game, and someone disconnects, it’s generally for one of two reasons: their connection failed, or they’re quitting to avoid losing. On the one hand, I have spotty wifi at home, and I frequently lose connection for several minutes at a time, and I wouldn’t want to be counted a loser and a poor sport while I waited on my DSL modem to stop sucking. On the other hand, sitting around waiting for someone you don’t know is frequently the suck, and many people do quit to get out of a loss.
So, I’m setting the upper threshhold at 20 minutes. No matter what, if they log off and stay gone for 20 minutes, the game is discarded, and called in favor of the person still online. However, obviously I don’t want people to have to wait around for 20 minutes, so I need to set a lower threshhold. That threshhold will be the point at which someone gets to choose what to do. If I’m gone a little over the lower threshhold, the system will say to the other player “do you want to call it a tie, save it for later, or claim a disconnect win?” If it’s someone who doesn’t know me, they shouldn’t be forced to wait, and should have the option of calling it a tie if the game isn’t very far in, or if I’ve obviously been having connection trouble. However, they should also be able to claim a disconnect win if they smell a jerk.
It would be nice if they could call a tie or a save very early, much earlier than would be appropriate for calling a quitter loss, so the other two threshholds are those two issues seperately. The lowest threshhold is the “save or tie” threshhold, and it should be fairly fast. Someone can choose to ignore it if they want. The next threshhold is the “you quit to cheat” threshhold, and it should be at least somewhat patient. At the 20 minute line, the system will call it, no matter what.
So, the question is, how long should those two lower timeouts be? Twenty minutes is obviously far too long for either. On the balance, ten seconds obviously isn’t long enough; most people can’t reconnect that fast, and we need to be accomodating of people’s computers rebooting, of modem reconnect cycles, of DSL reconnect cycles, and so on.
I’m going to set a range of options. If you don’t see the time you want, feel free to add it; I’ll be using the distribution of answers, not just the most popular, so it’ll still count.
That’s right, it’s not a dub, it’s a cover. As in, they actually remade the entire episode themselves. Brace yourself for the lowest budget “The Man Trap” you’ve ever seen. Cardboard cutout people, transporters that look like macaroni beams, girls who aren’t even close to hot - it’s got it all.
It’s not the same as those pictures you already saw, even though it seems like it is. Watch it. You’ll see.
So, I handed over some webspace to a guy on IRC who was converting books from Project Gutenberg for use with the bookreader in MoonShell for the Nintendo DS. He was trying to share a few books I recognized and they’re all legal, and his webspace was fail, so I figured I’d be goodbear and share.
Lo and behold, I take a look at the space I gave him - http://moonbooks.stonecypher.net/ - a few weeks later. He’s already got 150+ books up. Very rarely am I as happy with someone to whom I give resources as I am this time. This is a great example of shared resources being put to very good use. In particular, Brandon asked me what authors I liked, and when I name-dropped Ambrose Bierce, he went and converted what appears to be everything Bierce ever wrote, including a personal favorite called “Write it Right.”
Bravo. Makes me wonder who else I should be helping out, and I gave out another account today. We’ll see if it’s also put to good use.
Yeah, I know I’ve been quiet for a long time. There’s a good reason, and it’ll all make sense soon. However, I just stumbled across an article that is so amazing that I just can’t wait, and I need to share it. Andrei Alexandrescu is a brain, but this one’s special, even for him.
yasli::vector is on the move - read it or fail. Miserably.
(Sorry about the PDF. I hate them too. Nothing I can do.)