Selfish players refusing to abandon the game with a bug

[Strode]

I've had this happen. Nothing I can do except red-thumb (personal reasons) that player so I don't have to deal with that again. In my opinion, there is no excuse for not paying attention to the chat box, especially if the timer has run out.

It's possible the opponents don''t even speak English.

This could be true but if someone chats to me in a different language, I use Google translate so I can read it. I realize some of these things are difficult but nevertheless, it is frustrating when a player ignores your pleas for abandoning a game due to BGA glitches. Regardless, it is unfortunate and I still will not play with that player again, as penalties that I do not deserve frustrate me.

BGA contributes to this problem by not fixing these issues and/or at least recognizing when they occur and waiving the penalties. They need a better system for this. As I have said before, the "Karma" system is supposed to measure and encourage player harmony and fair play. But many of the policies on this website do the opposite.

See, I would say BGG doesn't "contribute" to it, but is the main cause (though I understand developing a game is a thankless task). I would not blame your opponents much, who may have not understood the bugs (or believe), or perhaps not have not thought to use Google translate.

But I personally wouldn't sweat the penalties. They go away soon enough.

[Catariina81]

I've had this happen. Nothing I can do except red-thumb (personal reasons) that player so I don't have to deal with that again. In my opinion, there is no excuse for not paying attention to the chat box, especially if the timer has run out.

It's possible the opponents don''t even speak English.

They are an American and Aussies so they should speak English.

[BarnardsStar]

They are an American and Aussies so they should speak English.

I am reminded of the apocryphal quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.”

[FrankJones]

Send a direct message to each opponent (not using the in-game chat, but a direct message that will pop up on any BGA screen that player has open), and use google translate to write the message in each opponent's displayed language.

Exploiting a known bug is against the BGA rules, and this is clearly a known bug. (In your direct messages to the opponents, include the link to the bug report.)

At that point, if the opponents do not abandon the game, they might be committing a reportable offense by exploiting the known bug to cause you to forfeit on time.

One important question: If the game outcome still undetermined? Meaning, is it possible that one of the other players is far enough ahead to win anyway even if you were properly dealt a new tile as per the game rules? In that case, I could see an opponent not wanting to abandon the game.

[FrankJones]

My next piece of advice: Don't play ranked games in a game that has a known game-ruining bug that has not been fixed for 6 years.

If the developer has acknowledged the bug and still not fixed it, I would consider that a game that has been abandoned by the developer. Perhaps you would write a post somewhere asking if any developers here are willing to take over the development and maintenance of this game.

[nik592]

My next piece of advice: Don't play ranked games in a game that has a known game-ruining bug that has not been fixed for 6 years.

From the description of the bug, and my knowledge of Kingdom Builder (and the fact that I've played 158 games since joining BGA a few years ago without ever hitting that bug), it's a pretty rare occurrence. I'd personally just take the hit and move on (well, I'd try to get my opponents to agree to abandon, but if not, 10 pts of karma isn't a big deal).

[Catariina81]

Send a direct message to each opponent (not using the in-game chat, but a direct message that will pop up on any BGA screen that player has open), and use google translate to write the message in each opponent's displayed language.

Exploiting a known bug is against the BGA rules, and this is clearly a known bug. (In your direct messages to the opponents, include the link to the bug report.)

At that point, if the opponents do not abandon the game, they might be committing a reportable offense by exploiting the known bug to cause you to forfeit on time.

One important question: If the game outcome still undetermined? Meaning, is it possible that one of the other players is far enough ahead to win anyway even if you were properly dealt a new tile as per the game rules? In that case, I could see an opponent not wanting to abandon the game.

This game has a setting that scoring won’t show while playing so it’s hard to calculate at this point but no one is clearly ahead of others and even the last turn could still impact the results with farmer task. The direct msg is a good advice. Otherwise I think KB is a very popular game in BGA with a lot of tournaments and after hundreds of games this is the first time I encountered this issue so proportionately it doesn’t happen all the time.