Another newbie question about the clock

[detlefchef11]

I honestly wish it was like Steam where they just get booted automatically rather than leave it up to the opponents to be the enforcer.

I prefer it the way it is. It's left up to the individual player whether they want to win on time. I like that you have to own it and not pretend you didn't want to win that way, but you have no choice because the system just did it.

Well, in this case, I didn't want to "win on time". Rather, I didn't want to be in a game with someone who used up their entire allotment of time before they took their 2nd turn and already had a very low rating due to frequent time penalties. So my other opponent and I continued the game without them and I won anyway (thank you very much). If anything, my decision to "win on time" cost me the proper win points because I shared the victory with the player I ultimately beat head to head.

Mind you, I would still rather play than not, so...

[zoomboom]

I honestly wish it was like Steam where they just get booted automatically rather than leave it up to the opponents to be the enforcer.

I prefer it the way it is. It's left up to the individual player whether they want to win on time. I like that you have to own it and not pretend you didn't want to win that way, but you have no choice because the system just did it.

I wish both modes existed.

[zoomboom]

There are occasionally good reasons for people being late with their turns, although I still get annoyed by it in turn-based play, especially if they don't bother to explain. If you feel people should be auto-kicked on running over time, then just do it, that's up to you. But sometimes I figure I'd rather be playing a game, so a game waiting for someone to play is better than no game at all (unless of course it's a game where you can expect to get a new game pretty quickly). The other point is, if their reputation is bad, I'd also feel less inclined to give them a pass. Personally, I kick people after they've been AWOL for a few days - I have plenty of games going on, so often times I don't even notice I'm still waiting for that other game to continue.

Why not use friendly mode then?

I haven't used it before, but it says no time limit for that mode. What's weird is that it also says "Real-time game". I dunno why it says that.

To answer my own first question, the site could do a better job making "friendly mode" visibly available when choosing it for our settings when in automatic player-choosing mode, and explaining what it means there.

[cigma]

Why not use friendly mode then?

This is a bit off topic. For your information: The pros and cons of friendly mode (former training mode) are widely discussed in this thread: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28186

[Jest Phulin]

it says no time limit for that mode. What's weird is that it also says "Real-time game". I dunno why it says that.

There is a slight technical difference between an untimed real-time and an untimed turn-based game, in that the system will automatically close them due to inactivity after different amounts. 24 hours for real-time, 30 days for turn-based, if I recall correctly (which I seriously doubt I do).

[nik592]

Why not use friendly mode then?

Because it doesn't include ELO. ELO isn't strictly necessary either, but I, like many people on this site, like to see what happens with mine as I play different games.

There is a slight technical difference between an untimed real-time and an untimed turn-based game, in that the system will automatically close them due to inactivity after different amounts. 24 hours for real-time, 30 days for turn-based, if I recall correctly (which I seriously doubt I do).

It's 4-hours timeout for real-time untimed games. People frequently turn up complaining about that on the forum, cause they get confused that their "untimed" game has been closed when they left it for a bit. Really, they should ditch that mode, and just have untimed being turn-based (or really, neither, since time doesn't come into it, but certainly taking the longer inactivity timeout). This used to be a thing where people got stuck in their real-time games when ELO was in the mix, and couldn't quit these games without getting a penalty. So instead of removing "real-time" untimed, they removed ELO from friendly mode, which annoys a lot of people, but no one making decisions for BGA seems prepared to explain (beyond the "people used to get stuck"). But that's a whole other issue.