Can't skip a player who ran out of time?

[Cos-]

In one of my games, there have been no moves since the game got started 4 days ago. The player whose move it is is long out of time, and the "skip players" red button shows up. But when I click on it, I get an error telling me there aren't any players out of time - and that player remains the next player. I opened a bug with a screenshot - https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=27399

Is this happening to anyone else?

Do you know a way around it?

Do you know if it's safe to click the "quit" button and not be penalized?

[RicardoRix]

Someone already has done this - see the message underneath the dialog.

It's giving you the option of carrying on the game, but you can if you want - hit the 'quit' button and you will then safely drop out the game altogether.

It's not a bug.

[Cos-]

I don't understand how that can be true. The player who you say has already been skipped, is the player whose turn it currently is. If they'd been successfully skipped, their turn would have been skipped, and it would be the next person's turn. We'd have the option to quit _or to continue_. But we don't have the option to continue because the game is waiting for this one person to move, for four days, and they cannot be skipped.

Why do you say "someone has already done this" when it's the supposedly-skipped persons turn still? There's definitely a bug.

[N_Faker]

"Zombie players" don't work for many games, many games also become unplayable if a player quits.

[Cos-]

Oh, I've never encountered a game like that. But I have been on several instances of this specific game where someone got skipped, and they always actually got skipped, allowing the remaining players to complete the game.

[Cos-]

I'm going to leave that game as-is and not try to quite, hoping that someone eventually looks at my bug and that game will still be there for them to investigate.

Do some games normally act like this? Or have you seen games where it offers you the option to skip a player who's out of time and that usually works but occasionally doesn't work?

[N_Faker]

You would be waiting for nothing. While they could make zombie players function 'better' or end the table after someone quits, it would be an insignificant improvement and a general waste of time.

[Cos-]

I think you missed what I said earlier, which is that I've seen players quit or run out of time on this particular game many times before and it has always actually skipped them and allowed other players to keep playing. This one instance is an anomaly, not just how it usually works.

[Tisaac]

I think you missed what I said earlier, which is that I've seen players quit or run out of time on this particular game many times before and it has always actually skipped them and allowed other players to keep playing. This one instance is an anomaly, not just how it usually works.

There is no "usually" for these scenario. As N_Faker said, handling zombie players is really painful for developpers and in most game it does'nt even make sense to go on one someone quit the table.
The first level of handling zombie player is when the player quit oustide of its turn, which is not that hard to handle since you can just skip its upcoming turns, so most games where it still makes sense to play offer this possibility.
On the other hand, the next level of handling zombie player is when the player quits during its turn and that's harder since you would need to somehow "complete" his turn to make sure the others players can still go on. As N_Faker said, that can be a lot of work (implementing/testing for each step during the turn) for a not so big improvement, so that's the reasons why there are games that don't fully support this and probably will never do.
That being said, if you think that it's really a pitty for the particular game you are playing, feel free to create a developper account on the studio and propose a code modification that will handle that !

[Cos-]

No player quit this game, though. I think you did not look at my bug link so you misunderstood what happened.

There is a player who just hasn't moved for days, and it's their turn. The game has a button that I can use to skip their turn, and there is a "usually" - this has happened to me on a number of other occasions with this same game before (different tables) and I was able to use that button to skip that player. Once I did that, all their turns would get skipped.

In this game, however, pressing the skip button gives an error message that says there aren't any players who are out of time. Even though there very obviously is a player who is out of time. It shows their timer next to their username and says they are out of time. But when I click the button to skip their turn, the error message says no player is out of time.

That's very obviously a bug. I just wondered if that bug has been happening to other people, or if this table is an unusual case.