Players out of time - code of conduct

[Cile]

Everyone already agrees on that. That doesn't mean we're not gonna criticize it when someone sees that as an invitation to do something even worse.

The person who ran out of time is the one making the necessary conditions for the game to end. Once again, you are providing the argument for why players who run out of time should be automatically removed: The users enforcing the rules are being blamed more than the users breaking the rules.

If the people you were playing with were people you know in real life, would you still feel as free to kick out without consideration for how it may impact the other players in the game? (or even the one you are kicking out)

There are people I know in real life that I will not play certain games with because it will take forever. I know person X is not a good fit for game Y. Online I cannot know that ahead of time, so I am asking my fellow players to know themselves and join appropriate tables.

There have also been real life games that have gone on far longer than expected (due to person X) and I have in fact left mid game because it was getting too late. I would also be fine with the option to leave a table without penalty once a player exceeds the time limit. I do not want to play with them and I should not be forced to.

You don't know that the game won't be completed in a week

Yes, I do. Every time I have kicked a player for running out of time I knew it was going to reach that point for over a week. They consistently run over the standard turn time again and again, over days. They are being incredibly rude joining a table at a speed they have no intention of playing at and I don't have to tolerate it.

If you don't want to play different instances of the same game, that sounds problematic for you.

Ah, so we're not actually talking about empathy for other players. We're talking about what you want, and you want to play at a slower speed. The empathy for other players at the table only extends as far as them agreeing with what you want, but anything I would prefer is "problematic for me".
No, it is not problematic for me, because that kick player button is right there for me. If you don't like it that's problematic for you.

Please stop trying to use empathy arguments. You've thrown that credibility away and I will just quote this again.

[FrankJones]

There is a problem with the time period allocated and time zones. It is fine if all players are in the same time zone, BUT, if a European player is in turn order after (say) a player from the USA there can be an 8 hour time delay. So if a European takes a turn at 10.00PM and other players take their turns shortly after, the North American will take their turn around 3.00PM their time. The following European goes to bed promptly after taking a turn but then wakes up and logs on at say 9.00PM and 10 hours have been deducted from their time allocation. Over a week they will have lost 3 days of time just because they were asleep.

Other players in the same game who might be losing, then see the red timer as an opportunity to snag a win and boot the 'late' guy out. This has now happened to me 4 times in tournaments for loss of ranking points and time penalties. In open play now, I just won't join if there is an American listed.

Could not a 'sleep' allowance be introduced where each player does not incur time loss from say 23.00hrs to o7.00hrs in their time zone to reflect the fact that they aren't being slow, just asleep.

I used to think this was true (that being in a different timezone negatively impacts your chances of being booted), but it's actually not. For one thing, what you need to consider is not timezones, but play times. My partner goes on BGA once per day, usually in the evening. Sometimes earlier in the day on weekends. I go on BGA usually over breakfast, lunch, after work and before bed. On weekends, I may only be on at breakfast and before bed if I'm out doing something. Sometimes, I have insomnia, and I'll be on BGA at 4am. Our play times are different even though we're in the same timezone. Timezones may influence play time - most people probably do play in "standard" waking hours, so yes, it's more likely that two players who live in the same timezone may share similar play times (and my habits overlap somewhat with my partner's), but not always.

Additionally, if you have 4 players who operate on the same play times - let's say they all live in the same region, and are on between 7pm-bedtime for ease of understanding. Someone among them will be the last to go to bed. The player who follows them will then have the clock tick all the way from bedtime til 7pm the next day when they go back on. Assuming that pattern remains the same, that same player will likely eventually run out of time (if it's a tournament game), but they're all running on the same play times.

What you truly want is players with equidistant play times through the 24 hour period. So you want a player who operates from midnight-6am, 6am-midday, midday-6pm, 6pm-midnight. Each player's clock should run down equally. Very possibly, these 4 hypothetical players would be from different timezones, not all from the same one. But the hypothetical is unlikely - even if people had those nice 6 hour periods where they were active, they could make their move anywhere in those 6 hours and some players clocks would tick down more than others.

In short, the tournament framework isn't ideal, but is setup that way for a reason (something about guaranteeing maximum tournament length). If you find yourself getting booted pretty often, your options are to either join tournaments with playing hours that match your playing hours (and this has never been feasible for me, as I've never seen a tournament without a big chunk of hours in my normal sleep time), or choose tournaments with long enough time limits that you'll probably be ok, and rely on the generosity of your fellow players to not boot you just because you're over time with a few moves to go. And if it happens, you need to accept that as a risk of tournaments - the penalty for being booted from a tournament is lesser anyway, possibly because of this "unfairness" - or not play them.

Also, the idea of players nominating their "sleep" time and BGA considering a player's sleep time individually has been floated before, but I suspect that would cause all kinds of havoc with maximum table times for a tournament (I haven't really considered the maths of it). Not to mention, it'd be a pretty big change to the framework and possibly not one BGA can see the benefit in. It's not a bad suggestion, but unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Well said.

[Jellby]

Your post sounds contradictory. If no one wants to get to that point, as you say, then why kick out? If you truly don't like this outcome, then why not just not do it? No one is forcing you to use the feature.

No one wants to get the point when a player can be expelled (runs out of time). At that time you have to choose between two undesirable outcomes:
1. Should I expel the player?
2. Should I not expel the player and continue waiting?

As I said, I don't want to do any of them, but I have to do one of them. Sometimes I'll choose #1, sometimes I'll choose #2, it depends on many factors. Perhaps you'd say that I have other options:
3. Should I propose to abandon the game?
4. Should I quit the game myself?
5. Should I ignore the game and let others expel me if they want when the time comes?

Those are also undesirable things that I don't want to do. Sometimes I might choose #3, but never #4 or #5 if #1 is available.

I agree that we can't just give everyone infinite time. But at the same time, there's no need to ever kick out someone who is out of time, because the alternative is continuing the game like normal

No, the alternative is not "continuing the game like normal". The game is already not like normal, it's taking too long, longer than initially agreed. You may not mind having turn-based games lingering on forever, others may.

So... not infinite time, then how long? Is there really any difference between 1 move per 2 days and 4 moves per day if you're always supposed to wait?

[tbhp]

No one wants to get the point when a player can be expelled (runs out of time). At that time you have to choose between two undesirable outcomes:
1. Should I expel the player?
2. Should I not expel the player and continue waiting?

As I said, I don't want to do any of them, but I have to do one of them. Sometimes I'll choose #1, sometimes I'll choose #2, it depends on many factors. Perhaps you'd say that I have other options:
3. Should I propose to abandon the game?
4. Should I quit the game myself?
5. Should I ignore the game and let others expel me if they want when the time comes?

Those are also undesirable things that I don't want to do. Sometimes I might choose #3, but never #4 or #5 if #1 is available.

I don't understand why you would pick anything other than #2. I mean, why did you even start playing the game if at some arbitrary point you decide you don't want to play it anymore? Why do you even play games?

No, the alternative is not "continuing the game like normal". The game is already not like normal, it's taking too long, longer than initially agreed. You may not mind having turn-based games lingering on forever, others may.

Like I said to the other user, the time you agree on is the maximum duration of the game. The time that is allotted to each player has no relation to the duration you signed up for.

If everyone in the game lets their time go down to zero before making their last move, the game will have lasted almost its maximum game duration, despite no one going out of time. So this is the duration you must have in mind when you sign up, like if you have a trip planned in a few days and you need to be sure the game will be over by that time.

Individual people's times have nothing to do with that. If the first player never starts playing, they still start going out of time even though only a fraction of the maximum game duration will have happened. It's totally disingenuous to say "I'm kicking them out because it's not what I signed up for", when in reality the game has only been going for a few days and it's been set up to be able to last weeks.

[tbhp]

The person who ran out of time is the one making the necessary conditions for the game to end. Once again, you are providing the argument for why players who run out of time should be automatically removed: The users enforcing the rules are being blamed more than the users breaking the rules.

That sounds like victim blaming. Being at the origin of a causal chain of events doesn't make you responsible for the choice of the offender. No one forced them to kick out someone, they themselves made that choice.

The point of having a clock is that hopefully the player will start playing faster once their time goes down, or once they are out of time. But if you actually kick them out when they are out of time, this defeats the whole point of why the system exists. You chose to pull the trigger and terminate a game before its natural ending, which is exactly what this website tries to avoid by having this system in place.

[tbhp]

The person who ran out of time is the one making the necessary conditions for the game to end. Once again, you are providing the argument for why players who run out of time should be automatically removed: The users enforcing the rules are being blamed more than the users breaking the rules.

[BarnardsStar]

Like I said to the other user, the time you agree on is the maximum duration of the game. The time that is allotted to each player has no relation to the duration you signed up for.

And, like the other user said to you, this isn’t about tournaments. Nobody else here is talking about tournaments, and this argument makes no sense in that context as there isn’t a “maximum duration” for any other game type.

[tbhp]

Like I said to the other user, the time you agree on is the maximum duration of the game. The time that is allotted to each player has no relation to the duration you signed up for.

And, like the other user said to you, this isn’t about tournaments. Nobody else here is talking about tournaments, and this argument makes no sense in that context as there isn’t a “maximum duration” for any other game type.

You are overlooking that their argument is disingenuous in the first place. Even if it's not a tournament game, you have some idea when starting a game of how long it can potentially last.

When people kick out someone in those games, they aren't doing some calculation where they evaluate whether the game has gone on for longer than it theoretically could while no one ever going out of time. They are kicking out just because they can. They very probably don't have some trip planned or anything justifying their kick out decision. You are defending users who are using obvious flimsy excuses to justify their behavior.

[BarnardsStar]

You are defending users who are using obvious flimsy excuses to justify their behavior.

Golly, I’d love it if you could point out where I was defending anybody. I said your argument makes no sense and your response is to double-down with attacks on me? I think this once again shows that you aren’t listening to what others have to say, you have no interest in a conversation, you just want to spout off and be right.

[Cile]

They are kicking out just because they can.

Reasons having been given beyond "Button was there so I pushed it." Your refusal to acknowledge arguments that have been made doesn't make them disappear.