How can I restrict players from a country, geographic region, or time zone?

[felipe1982]

I am a premium member and live in Australia. I often encounter games with players from the other side of the world that often time-out in my games due to their geography (their time zones)

Can I restrict my games so I am only playing against players that play during the day as I do?

[Jest Phulin]

On fast turn-based games (more than 8 moves per day) you can restrict playing hours. I don't know the details off the top of my head, but basically a 12-hour period is set in which the clock is active, and then it stops for all players. It is based on UTC time (but always displayed in local time), not time zones to allow people who work the graveyard shift on the other side of the world to still play.

[felipe1982]

Thank you for your reply. I have done exactly this, but players don't play during my day time, so they time out.

I don't think they are actually checking the playing hours, so they don't realise they will get likely time out.

If I could select a range of geographies when creating a game I could decrease the chance they time out, because it would increase the chance they would actually play during daylight hours.

[Jest Phulin]

Then be aggressive with the karma restrictions as well. People who time out won't have the greatest of reputation.

As to restricting by geographic/time zones, this has been discussed before. It seems the decision was made that restricting by playing hours should accomplish the same task, while allowing people who are not actively gaming in their region's daylight hours to still participate. For example, much of the tech support/customer service provided in the United States is actually done in India. The Indian players would not be able to play games if they are restricted to India Standard time, which is about 12 hours off from US time -- they would be asleep.

[el cosimo]

Thank you for your reply. I have done exactly this, but players don't play during my day time, so they time out.

I don't think they are actually checking the playing hours, so they don't realise they will get likely time out.

If I could select a range of geographies when creating a game I could decrease the chance they time out, because it would increase the chance they would actually play during daylight hours.

Yeah it is not easy to see, for turn based it can be handy to get a warning if there are special configuration:

Are you sure you can play between … and ..

[haoleboy]

Programmatically, it would be easy to fix; if I'm online, my clock ticks. But after a set time (e.g. 10 pm) you should be able to pause your clock until a set time in the morning, or if you log in earlier.

Call it your sleep window. Open that window and your clock ticks. Otherwise, sleep knowing you aren't losing your thinking time with every hour.

Alternatively, programmatically find the best window to play the game as live as possible based on each player's time zone, their availability notwithstanding.

[donneurus]

I would like to see this problem solved. I think it would be nice to restric games by timezones (for fast games).

[Mazarin26]

Hello,

I came to the forum to talk about a similar problem. When I am looking for a game, and it shows a time restriction, What time zone is it in? Can we have time zones showing? I am in Australia as well, we have four time zones. When people on one side of the country are leaving work, the other side of the country is thinking about going to bed. I need to know what times people are actually available. Saying " 0:00 to 12:00" does not work. 0:00 to 12 where? Is there a time zone that all game times are set to? What is it?

I agree I would love a geographic or time zone restriction to be added, or at least be able to express as a preference.

Also, does anyone reading this know if there are Any Aussie communities that are open to join? This may be one way people get around the problem...

[aesche]

It‘s always shown in the time zone that your acc is set to.

[Diablange74]

I would like to see this problem solved. I think it would be nice to restric games by timezones (for fast games).

Totally agree on that, would be nice to have the option at the same level as reputation I think, it would avoid many problems. On some games I've seen people from all over the globe, and of course it's nice to see many different people, but it does create a few issues as well.