Should be able to alternate starting in 2 player games

[Pedros]

Some of the two-player games depend a lot on who goes first - Chess and Hive are two well'known examples, and in each of them when two players play a series of games it is usual for them to alternate starting colours. It would be great if this were included as an option.

I would not favour a simple ability to choose who starts (as in Noir); nor would it be appropriate for Backgammon, where first to play is normally determined randomly. But for games where it is standard practice it shouldn't be difficult to build in this feature.

[Pedros]

The simple way to arrange this would be that in the relevant games, pressing "Rematch" would automatically swap the colours

[senatorhung]

The simple way to arrange this would be that in the relevant games, pressing "Rematch" would automatically swap the colours

i like the idea that a rematch of 2.player games automatically switches the first player. not sure how easy that would be to code tho ...

[Een]

i like the idea that a rematch of 2.player games automatically switches the first player. not sure how easy that would be to code tho ...

Not easy at all in fact... the lobby where the games are organized and the game itself (in which the player order is chosen) are disjointed objects running on different servers, so the lobby doesn't know the order of players in the game that just ended.

The recommended way for game developers to allow for rematches is indeed that of Noir and Chess, that is to have an option for choosing the least powerful role/color, allowing the winner who got the strong role/color in the first match to offer a rematch with swapped roles/color.

[senatorhung]

i like the idea that a rematch of 2.player games automatically switches the first player. not sure how easy that would be to code tho ...

Not easy at all in fact... the lobby where the games are organized and the game itself (in which the player order is chosen) are disjointed objects running on different servers, so the lobby doesn't know the order of players in the game that just ended.

The recommended way for game developers to allow for rematches is indeed that of Noir and Chess, that is to have an option for choosing the least powerful role/color, allowing the winner who got the strong role/color in the first match to offer a rematch with swapped roles/color.

thanks for the explanation Een. i figured that if it was easy to do, it would have been done already

on the online poker sites with rush poker, they keep track of the last time a player has been in the big blind. when a new table is generated, the player who has not been big blind for the longest time gets that honour.

so along that line, i thought about having a stat added to each player, indicating what they had last played as first or second for each game. the 2.player games (including multiplayer games any time player number = 2) could then look at that stat before assigning player order. if both are the same ... then the random order can be done as usual. if they are different, the order gets swapped. that way, the new game table doesn't have to inherit anything from the previous game table ... it is only associated with the players involved. also, this means if 2 tables are set up and started simultaneously, both players will get a turn as first player. this stat could also be checked during tournament games, which is where i most feel the frustration when turn order consistently goes against me

[Een]

so along that line, i thought about having a stat added to each player, indicating what they had last played as first or second for each game. the 2.player games (including multiplayer games any time player number = 2) could then look at that stat before assigning player order. if both are the same ... then the random order can be done as usual. if they are different, the order gets swapped. that way, the new game table doesn't have to inherit anything from the previous game table ... it is only associated with the players involved. also, this means if 2 tables are set up and started simultaneously, both players will get a turn as first player. this stat could also be checked during tournament games, which is where i most feel the frustration when turn order consistently goes against me

Still pretty complex, doesn't remove the necessity to get extra specific info from the game back to the main site, and it would be sort of a hack.
Sorry but I won't go there

Also, nobody would understand what happens with the setup any more

[senatorhung]

so along that line, i thought about having a stat added to each player, indicating what they had last played as first or second for each game. the 2.player games (including multiplayer games any time player number = 2) could then look at that stat before assigning player order. if both are the same ... then the random order can be done as usual. if they are different, the order gets swapped. that way, the new game table doesn't have to inherit anything from the previous game table ... it is only associated with the players involved. <snip> this stat could also be checked during tournament games, which is where i most feel the frustration when turn order consistently goes against me

Still pretty complex, doesn't remove the necessity to get extra specific info from the game back to the main site, and it would be sort of a hack.
Sorry but I won't go there

Also, nobody would understand what happens with the setup any more

as far as getting game info back to the main site, i was thinking that the player order stat could get updated at the same time that ELO is updated (so it would be based off of the most.recently completed game ... but then that can get messed up if you have multiple games of the same game ending before your next play ....).

but i understand that adding the extra player order coding check for every 2.player or 2.player possible game would be a burden that might not make the change worthwhile, giving the bugs that could be introduced. it was just a thought about how the OP's idea might be implemented.

[Pedros]

Thanks for your input Een, though I confess it's seriously disappointing. Hive more than most 2-player games is hugely dependent on the starting order. And the option of simply choosing the starting player when creating the game would be even worse than the present situation. As we saw with Noir, some players would only play games where they were certain to play White, and would thereby boost their ratings enormously.

I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the game server and the main site. Already the main site retrives information from the game server when reporting the result after the "Return to main site" link. Would it not be possible to return the colour of each player alongside the other information reported? If so that information would be available when creating the game.

It's interesting that there don't seem to be any Hive tournaments being created despite it's being a hugely popular game. This may be a result of this problem.

[sourisdudesert]

This suggestion has been implemented the following: when you do a rematch with the exact same players, player order is rotating.

Examples:
[*] Players A,B are doing a rematch: player order will be B,A.
[*] Players A,B,C are doing a rematch: player order will be C,A,B. If they are doing another rematch, playing order will be B, C, A. And so on.
[*] Players A,B are doing a rematch, and player C joins the game. Playing order will be random.

[Caffe Latte]

I noticed now no more rematches are offered - instead of this the opponent creates a new table and suggests to join