FAQ : About Go and Sandbox games

[Liallan]

Aside from the possibility of intentional abuse of the sandbox system with opponents breaking rules, there is also a huge chance of accidental rule-breaking. Many, many times when I'm playing games that I'm not 100% familiar with, it's nice when I try to do something for the interface to tell me I'm not allowed to. In fact, there are cases where I've played a game many times in person only to realize by playing here that I had some aspect of the rules wrong!!

This to me is a reason not to have ELO. I'm not concerned that they won't have rule enforcement, or that someone may not know the rules correctly, because I play games in person like this. I'm pretty picky about learning rules. The only advantage of rule enforcement is when I find something questionable, and that's what BGG forums are for. I just think it's probably a good idea not to include ELO on these, and I totally agree on keeping them separate from the "regular" games in all ways. I could even see just separating them off completely in their own area.

Sure, it can be added to the list of "play real time," "play turn based," and "games in progress." But I have a list of my interested games up at the top of that, and don't like the idea of having Sandbox games mixed in with that. So just a different area altogether would be a nice idea. (As long as they're working on the site... )

I do look forward to the prospect of more quality games on the site, but am afraid that I'll likely only be playing new sandbox games with my closest friends on the site whom I can trust to play honestly and for the fun of it. I just don't feel like putting up with someone intentionally (or unintentionally) breaking all sorts of rules in a game.

I agree. If we're going to be left on our own, I'd only want to play people I know, and honestly would suggest everyone do the same. I don't want someone leaving me a red thumb because I have to point out they didn't follow a rule correctly.

As long as the path on this is a careful one, I have no issues with the concept in and of itself.

[squarerootofthree]

Well said, Liallan. I especially agree on these points:

I just think it's probably a good idea not to include ELO on these, and I totally agree on keeping them separate from the "regular" games in all ways. I could even see just separating them off completely in their own area.

As long as the path on this is a careful one, I have no issues with the concept in and of itself.

I'm trying out a couple games of Go at the moment with a friend of mine on the site. It's fun because even though the game doesn't allow for smaller board sizes than 19x19, we both agreed ahead of time to play a 9x9 game (a common smaller board size for that game). So we were just able to cordon off a portion of the board and will play on the smaller size. So in that respect, the sandbox mode is nice. But, it also means that it's not a good representation of skill with the standard ELO rating, since all sorts of things might be done or modified in the game.

But yeah, I'm not opposed to the idea of sandbox games as long as 1) they're clearly marked as such, and 2) the regular games with rules-enforcement don't go anywhere.

[mandalana]

On peut imaginer de petits sets automatisés. Par exemple au lieu de voir un amas de pierres de go, on ne pourrait voir qu'une occurence avec le nombre de pierres disponibles à côté.
Et idem pour les pierres capturées dans une autre "boite"
Quand pourra t'on implémenter ses jeux ?
Quid des droits éditeurs, seront-ce les mêmes ?

You can imagine small automatics sets. For example an occurence of pawns with number instead a moutain of pawns. And for the captured pawns too (in an other "box")
When do you implementate his owns games ?

[wurfmaul]

It seems to me like the implementation of Go is broken (no one can see the board or stones) since the introduction of the new Board Game Arena interface. See also what I wrote in https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!bug?id=5257 (I think the three bug reports on Go are actually the same bug)

[Willie333b]

I earn ELO by skipping.