Time zone filters?

[stefko007]

So, by you own argument, you are cutting out 10% of the population from gaming, correct? 880 000 current users can't play?

Don't know how you calculated that .. but my argument is simply that most people sleep during night. That's what I am saying in that post. Its related to the point that time zone actually do say about when people are likely to play and when they are likely to sleep, work etc.

[Jellby]

If you want to restrict your games to be played during certain hours that fit you, make a setting for which hours a game must be played (which already exists). Don't try to design a "smart" way of figuring out when a player will be playing based on their timezone (which is not guaranteed to correspond to their actual location), username, country, language, or whatever.

If you want to restrict games to players that have their computer set to some particular timezone, then a timezone setting would be perfect. But it may not do what you believe it will do.

[stefko007]

That's the problem .. I already do that and people ignore it. You overestimate how much people study game setups. Most people read the game setup only afterward they already timeout, complain and are pointed toward reading the setup by me ...

[Jellby]

And my point is setting a timezone would not fix that. It would allow people located in a different timezone, but with the "wrong" timezone set to join, and people in the right timezone but who play during the night (or at otherwise "unusual" times for you), and again your games would be ruined. At the same time it would prevent people perfectly capable/willing to comply with your playing times but who are in the "wrong" timezone from joining.

If the problem is that people don't read settings and table descriptions (and I agree with that), let's try to fix that, and not invent ways around it.

[Jellby]

Trying to be constructive. Perhaps an improvement would be if fast turn-based games (those with limited playing hours) could only be joined during the playing hours. At least you'd be sure that the player has been active once in the right period.

[stefko007]

Trying to be constructive. Perhaps an improvement would be if fast turn-based games (those with limited playing hours) could only be joined during the playing hours. At least you'd be sure that the player has been active once in the right period.

Yeah, that makes sense, that actually could help. Or if BGA would track what times people play and provide a heatmap in the profile or automatically alert the player that he is about to join a game he probably can not finish based on his playing habits ..

My point with the time zone filters is to filter out people that don't read and don't care for game setups. Simply, because the automation around that is too complicated to do.

On the other hand, if somebody changes his timezone on purpose and then causes timeouts and delays that should be punishable by moderation .. No illusion about how much capacity of enforcement BGA has, just saying .. for me if that is at least considered an offence, that's actually an improvement on the current situation. Because now, the organizer is blamed for everything, even for ignorance of game setup Shifting the blame to the right place is already an improvement of the BGA experience ..

[Jest Phulin]

So, by you own argument, you are cutting out 10% of the population from gaming, correct? 880 000 current users can't play?

Don't know how you calculated that .. but my argument is simply that most people sleep during night.

Your statement was that 90% of the population sleeps at a specific tine. Leaving 10% of the population that does NOT sleep at that time, and therefore would be excluded based on time zone. There are currently about 8 800 000 current users. 10% of that is 880 000. That's how I made the calculation.

[Petter Sjoberg]

I like very much the possibility to play with people all over the world given by BGA, but I think that turn-based games (especially when involving many players, but also with just two players) play better/smoother when time zones differences between players are not big, otherwise sometimes they become too slow.
Could we have an optional filter related to time zones, when creating a turn-based game?
E.g.:
- no filter (default)
- time zones +/- 6 with respect to game creator
- time zones +/- 3 with respect to game creator

Good idea, a turn based game with players from Asia, Europe and America goes on forever. Since i live in europe I would prefer to be able to play with people awake at the same time (roughly).

[Jellby]

There are two assumptions that will only cause disappointment when you face the truth:

1. People are active when it's daylight in their timezone. Timezone settings are fragile, and there are all kinds of people around. Some play during the night, some play during work hours.

2. People will play turn-based games faster than required. Many will, sure, but others will just make one move per day, regardless of when you make yours. You may try to be fast and play while they're online... but they'll just wait another day (if that's the time setting) until their next move.

[Pifec]

I agree that some people are playing during the night, but my expereince in BGA is :
1) if you have a turn based game with one person in Asia, one person in Europe and one person is Amerioca, it is highly delayed.
2) some people do not look at time settings and get timed-out. then you have the dilema to stop a game where you have invested some time or continue wth the timed-out people.

I would love to see some feature to adress this issue. A setting of playing hour is an interesting solution, a time-zone filter is also a solution (and it is easier to implement).