Board Game Arena

Currently I'm at work... it's so quiet and boring I was thinking: might as well fire up a game! But then I remembered the Real time conditions... and they are simply not realistic for "between tasks" kind of play. On the other side of that spectrum I have the choice for 2 moves a day... That would be to slow. What would be perfect for this day and others like it, would be a realtime option that has a larger than normal base time or per turn time alotted. Perhaps with the opportunity to limit joining players from a specific continent. How about it?

I too would REALLY love to have the possibility to play some kind of pseudo-live games on BGA. And I know that BGA admins are (or were) thinking about it (at least about faster turn-based games, I talked about it with sourisdudesert last year). Don't know exactly what would be the better way to go: slower live game or faster turn-based game, or something else. If some people explain here what they would like, maybe we can try to find the most suitable way? I'll start:

When I play online with people I don't know, I don't like to feel I have to play fast, and not interrupt the game at all, otherwise they might be upset. But I dislike even more playing real turn-based games, one or a few moves at a time, and forgetting most of the "game flow" when there's more than, say, 30 minutes between two moves. So I'd like to play with people that are not stuck in front of the game waiting for my moves, that can do other things while playing (on their computer or not), and that can play at a pace varying between, say, slow live and a few moves per hour.

It's possible to play like this on yucata.de, a mainly asynchronous (turn-based) website, because it's possible to set desired speed to "live", which is actually pseudo-live (often not as fast as live games on bga, and no time penalties), or to ask on the chat for players willing to play live. I sometimes play like this when I have things to do at home (on yucata.de or on BoiteAJeux.net, but it's less convenient to find players willing to play at this pace on BAJ.net). But they don't have caylus or RFTG there . So I'd love to be able to play like this on BGA.
(Maybe I'll say more about how I think this could be possible later, but basically I think that implementing new time settings is not the only way to find people willing to play with less time requirements. Forum, groups, pm's can be other ways.)

Did you steal that term "pseudo live" from me?

First, I agree with fafa-fr that I don't think it's necessarily necessary to make an official new time element, because you can always get together with people, set it to turn-based, but play the game live but slowly, with breaks if you need them, etc. I do play like this cause I log in and just stay around, check back for new turns up, etc. I play live with one person, set to turn-based unlimited, so we can chat, take a break, etc., and not have to worry if we get interrupted and need to change it over to turn-based. So it certainly works without an official setting.

But if such a speed were available, my preference would be for a fast turn-based. You could maybe make something like 6 hour start time and one hour per turn, or some such. This preference is mostly because I doubt a slow live game would be good enough to allow for long breaks and the like, and "turn-based" can also be just a really slow game, rather than a game where there's only a turn a day (or less).

That said, I don't think the continent idea will necessarily work, nor the suggestion I always see about time zones. There's an underlying assumption in those suggestions that everyone works the same type of hours, works Monday thru Friday, free on weekends, and some people also assume everyone can play at work, or can't play at work. But everyone has different schedules, work different types of days, they may or may not have free time at work. Rather than making games by time zones, you could simply request a time interval for the game.

I see some problems still though. What happens if it still runs too long and someone can't stay around? It may need an option to turn it into a different turn-based speed. Varying schedules is also a problem, but I think giving a time range for the game would be helpful. I'm sure someone will think of other issues.

(Now, along the same lines, I'd love to see a slow live speed, but not really for this same reason, and I would not choose this as a solution here. But rather because I detest having a clock running and it makes me feel like I'm on hyper-drugs or something - feel like I need caffeine just to keep up. I also like to be able to chat and think about the game. But a slow-speed live would be nice, say, double the normal speed.)

Liallan wrote:Did you steal that term "pseudo live" from me?

Don't remember, either from you, or from someone (Sparhawk ?) that had stolen it from you.

How about 3–6 moves per 1 day?