Why can't everyone have their preferred color?

[Strode]

The point is that I could see my pieces as red and yours as blue, and you could see yours as red and mine as blue. We're not looking at the same screen.

And which colours would a third player see for those two players? And can you see how this gets more and more complex with each increase of player number?

I'm not arguing that BGA should do this. In fact, I couldn't give two you-know-whats about player color. I was just correcting the previous poster's misconception.

[BartholomewBart]

Yes, this could cause confusion. In the meantime, though, there is still some confusion, because when I am purple (my first choice color) most of the time, I occasionally get confused when my opponent is Purple instead.

That's a you-problem, not a a gameplay-problem.
You need to pay attention to the game.

[flamesplash]

I've been a professional programmer for over 20 years fwiw This should not be hard in a reasonable code base.

If you’ve been a developer that long you should recognize what I mean when I say “edge case”. (Or is that something only 25+ year engineers know? ) It’s true that I can see a way for the bulk of the work to be fairly straightforward, through means of clever stylesheets and resource bundles etc.

But the edge cases in a site like this would be innumerable. I can think of far better uses of BGA staff time than fixing all the edge cases involved in a project like this.

Yes I am. I'm also well aware of the "boys club" the software industry can be and how that has toxic traits like not to subtly trying to tell others they know less than you and are inferior because they can't express themselves like adults; like your comment is trying to do. These forums should be productive places, not gate keeping ones.

[BarnardsStar]

Well, I don’t know where that came from. No part of my comment was attempting to say you know less than me, gatekeep, or criticize any part of your communication style.

[dschingis27]

what I mean when I say “edge case”

I don't recall you saying that, it was me. You probably spent too much time in the forum when you confuse other people's statements for your own. Have a break..

[BarnardsStar]

what I mean when I say “edge case”

I don't recall you saying that, it was me. You probably spent too much time in the forum when you confuse other people's statements for your own. Have a break..

Ah, I was not the first to bring it up. I’d forgotten you mentioned them.

No, I was just mentioning the phrase, in a “here’s a good reason it may be difficult: edge cases” sort of way. At least that was my intent. Instead it ends up looking like I had an out-of-body experience instead.

[FrankJones]

Yes, this could cause confusion. In the meantime, though, there is still some confusion, because when I am purple (my first choice color) most of the time, I occasionally get confused when my opponent is Purple instead.

That's a you-problem, not a a gameplay-problem.
You need to pay attention to the game.

Most suggestions could be called a "you" problem by someone else. That is irrelevant to whether the suggestion has merit.

For a popular game like Terraforming Mars, we spend a lot of time and effort examining and some sometimes implementing suggestions that you would probably make the exact same response to as you did to my suggestion here.

Perhaps when games were initially programmed here, all players were assigned a random player color. And perhaps some people said, "I have many turn-based games going simultaneously, and it's confusing that I am different colors in all of them. Could we have the option to pick a specific preferred player color?"

And perhaps the developers for some (or all) games decided, "Yes, that's a reasonable UI improvement I am willing and able to implement."

I'm glad they chose that path rather than saying, "Well, that's a 'you' problem, stop complaining and start paying attention."

[flamesplash]

Well, I don’t know where that came from. No part of my comment was attempting to say you know less than me, gatekeep, or criticize any part of your communication style.

To have a constructive conversation,

This is specifically implying I don't know what a simple concept like "edge case" is after 20 years in the industry. "Or is that something only 25+ year engineers know?"

And your comment suggests that because of that I'm inferior. That is gate keeping. You may not have meant that, but it is how comments like this are perceived by those you direct them at.

You may have meant it as a joke, but it is teasing at best, and we do not have the friendly relationship needed for teasing to be positive when it is otherwise negative.

[FrankJones]

I've been a professional programmer for over 20 years fwiw This should not be hard in a reasonable code base.

If you’ve been a developer that long you should recognize what I mean when I say “edge case”. (Or is that something only 25+ year engineers know? ) It’s true that I can see a way for the bulk of the work to be fairly straightforward, through means of clever stylesheets and resource bundles etc.

But the edge cases in a site like this would be innumerable. I can think of far better uses of BGA staff time than fixing all the edge cases involved in a project like this.

I agree this would be a poor use of BGA staff resources -
by which I mean, the staff who work on the website as a whole. I don't see this as an upgrade that would be made across-the-board with code that would cover the 1400? games.

But, on a game-by-game basis, it could likely be done, right? To some extent, this is already done for any game in which player colors need to be assigned. So, some part of the code is already functioning to display player colors on each player's screen.

Something like:

if(FrankJonesColor=='purple')
FrankJonesDisplayColor=purple

Or something like that. (I know that's not proper syntax or format for any specific programming language; just trying to write it in a way that conveys the point.).

Which, I would think makes it not too far of a leap to have a toggle setting to modify how the game looks to one participant while in progress, while not affecting the manner in which the game is stored or viewed in the database for replay viewing.

In some games, significant visible changes can be toggled on and off without issue. In Terraforming Mars, any player can toggle the entire visible page from a space themed appearance to an old-fashioned appearance that mimics the actual player boards and cubes on the resource mat. Toggling this back and forth has no effect on what the other player sees or how other people view the game replay. (In fact, people viewing the replay can toggle this on or off for any player.)

I would think toggling a setting that simply inverts the player colors (only from the vantage point of the player viewing the game) would be no more difficult, and very easy to quickly play-test for errors.

[BarnardsStar]

This is specifically implying I don't know what a simple concept like "edge case" is after 20 years in the industry. "Or is that something only 25+ year engineers know?"

No, if I actually thought there was even the slightest chance you wouldn’t know what it meant, I would have defined it.

You may have meant it as a joke, but it is teasing at best, and we do not have the friendly relationship needed for teasing to be positive when it is otherwise negative.

Teasing? As in making fun of? Really? I’m willing to concede my jokes aren’t always funny (whose are?), but I frankly do not see a reasonable interpretation of my words that assigns a negative trait to you, makes fun of you, subjects you to ridicule, or makes you look less than to the other participants here. I would genuinely be interested to hear if others reading this think I’m in the wrong here.

(To avoid any further misunderstanding, nothing above should be read as a general indictment. I think everybody can be unreasonable at times, and that doesn’t mean anything about their general character. I know I can be, on occasion. Which is why I do want to hear if anyone else thinks so of me on this occasion.)

Otherwise, though, I think I’m done with this subtopic, though I do appreciate you raising it and giving me the chance to explain myself.