Board Game Arena

Hi folks,

Is there a way to undo the choice of character v harvest action before carrying it out?

I placed a dice intending to harvest but fat fingered to chose character (of no use to me). Cant see an obvious way to go back but decisiohs like this are the core of madeira and it seems weird that you csnt go back before actually fullfilling the action.

There are hardly any undo functions for that game. If a button to undo didn't appear then, no. You can't undo.

Thanks. Seems pretty harsh with the action not completed. That can really screw over a long heavy game. Oh well.

There are literally dozens of posts requesting undo/confirm buttons for many different games. Adding these would help mitigate the effects of misclicks (which never happen at a table IRL) and make things accessible/fair for people with physical disabilities - with no downsides whatsoever.

Yet the admins are against it for some reason, despite the fact that a large number of users clearly want it.

veme wrote:There are literally dozens of posts requesting undo/confirm buttons for many different games. Adding these would help mitigate the effects of misclicks (which never happen at a table IRL) and make things accessible/fair for people with physical disabilities - with no downsides whatsoever.

Yet the admins are against it for some reason, despite the fact that a large number of users clearly want it.

And yet we explained multiple times already...
Here I go again, maybe this time I'll do a better explanation job:
1) There is no way to implement this as a site wide functionnality, as game development is very open including the data structures.
2) Implementing a full or partial undo is thus a choice of the developer for every game, and can easily represent +30% work or more on a game.
3) This may be solved in a generic way in the future for games created with the sandbox tool when it's made available to developers (you can see this at work on early sandbox games implemented by admins such as Tiki) as the sandbox layer takes care of a larger chunk of the game implementation including data structures.

1) There is no way to implement this as a site wide functionnality, as game development is very open including the data structures.

Yes, I understand this. Not sure why it is relevant to whether or not you should or can implement it, all this means is that it would be tedious and have to be done one game at a time. I would rather see undo added in ONE game I like than a laundry list of the other improvements you have made to the site in the past. I have full confidence in the ability of admins who can program whole new games, to add undo one game at a time to the old ones.

2) Implementing a full or partial undo is thus a choice of the developer for every game, and can easily represent +30% work or more on a game.

My belief is that this should not be a choice, it should be a design requirement - whether imposed by the system on every game (maybe like how sandbox works, I have not played one of those games), or imposed by the admins on new games by fiat. Again, I don't care about the extra work personally, and it is certainly not relevant to my argument. I'll happily wait 30% longer for more playable games, although you could probably bring that number way down if the method was standardized (sandbox?).


Anyway, you have not addressed in this post the arguments for whether undo is or is not a good idea; you have simply said once again that you have other priorities for the site and don't feel like doing the work of implementing it, or of making it a design spec going forward. Which is your prerogative, of course, as it is mine to get on the forums and tell you when I think you could be spending your time more wisely.

I would rather see undo added in ONE game I like than a laundry list of the other improvements you have made to the site in the past.

Well, for sure you understand that this is quite extreme and that we can't be of the same opinion.

I have full confidence in the ability of admins who can program whole new games, to add undo one game at a time to the old ones.

Thanks. But that's actually not taking into account that getting into another developers code is hugely difficult and time consuming, and that with time your own code becomes like the one of a stranger. Ask any professional developer if you don't believe me.
And by the way, that's also why some bugs are tough to fix.

My belief is that this should not be a choice, it should be a design requirement - whether imposed by the system on every game (maybe like how sandbox works, I have not played one of those games), or imposed by the admins on new games by fiat.

Ok, that's your belief. We have chosen otherwise, to leave it to the developer to make the choice of how much (if any) undo was to be included in a game. That doesn't mean that we are in any way against it like you asserted. In some cases, we may even request it.

I don't care about the extra work personally, and it is certainly not relevant to my argument.

Ok, that's pretty extreme too, and we pretty much care about it and find it relevant. Work is volunteer developer's time (or ours) and it should be treated with all due consideration.

I'll happily wait 30% longer for more playable games

But how many games would never get released because the developer looses heart over the extra difficulty? While the game would have been perfectly playable and enjoyable, with just the occasional frustrating player error. Isn't being able to play many games with an occasional frustration better than not playing at all? Are you such an idealist?

Anyway, you have not addressed in this post the arguments for whether undo is or is not a good idea; you have simply said once again that you have other priorities for the site and don't feel like doing the work of implementing it, or of making it a design spec going forward.

It's actually your interpretation of what I said. Anyway, not so far. But for example if we didn't think at all it was a good idea, we wouldn't be going in this direction with sandbox.

Which is your prerogative, of course, as it is mine to get on the forums and tell you when I think you could be spending your time more wisely.

Yes, and you could probably tell me that I could have spent my time more wisely than writing this too long answer

Well, for sure you understand that this is quite extreme and that we can't be of the same opinion.

I understand we are not of the same opinion, but I do not think that mine is 'extreme'. Here are just a few examples of changes to the site that were pretty much a complete waste of time, and why, IMO:

A/V chat and built in links to themed music: Functions that can already be performed by any device running the site in the first place.
3D view, player color choice, site art redesign: Irrelevant to play and/or uglier anyway.
Merging of message and discuss: Actually worse as I can no longer send long form messages to players.

Why not make some games or their interfaces better instead of all this silliness? Perhaps tons of users like this stuff, and my opinion is unpopular, but calling it 'extreme' is an unfair characterization as it is rooted in a basic logical argument that usability simply trumps this cosmetic garbage.

But that's actually not taking into account that getting into another developers code is hugely difficult and time consuming, and that with time your own code becomes like the one of a stranger. Ask any professional developer if you don't believe me.
And by the way, that's also why some bugs are tough to fix.

Yes it is; I admitted it would be tedious. I used to write code professionally, and I know it is a pain in the butt to understand another coder's logic (or lack thereof) sometimes, but it is certainly possible with effort (and hopefully comments!). The alternative is to throw your hands up any time an old game has a bug or interface issue and say 'sorry, we don't support that game anymore.' This is unacceptable to me as a paying user of the site; I expect all the advertised games to be supported equally, not just the ones that are most convenient for the current staff to work on.

Isn't being able to play many games with an occasional frustration better than not playing at all? Are you such an idealist?

This is a false dilemma for starters, as increasing standards would not result in no new games and development grinding to a halt. You already impose many quality standards on developers, this would simply be one more. I would have no problem with a reduction in number of total games, in exchange for a higher percentage without half-assed interfaces, bugs, and parity issues.

Frankly, I'm surprised that there still are volunteers at all since the announcement that the admins were making enough money for at least one of them to work on the site in lieu of another job. Y'all are getting paid for the work that volunteers do, and then often refusing to support/improve said work if they ever have to stop volunteering. My inner capitalist chafes at this.

Yes, and you could probably tell me that I could have spent my time more wisely than writing this too long answer

Lol, I suppose so, although I've yet to see an answer I thought was too long. It's true though, any time you get the urge to reply to me, I would prefer you work on interface/rules/bugs/parity issues instead - just don't tell me or I might be tempted to make even more posts...

I'm not going to take somebody's side in this discussion (because even if I'd rather see more work on games' implementation than on some of the new features, I understand that some people want the opposite), but I can answer on one point:

veme wrote:Y'all are getting paid for the work that volunteers do,

No, they're not. We, as volunteers, are coding games. It's fun to code games, but it's less much fun (at least I'm quite sure, even if I've never done that) to maintain servers, manage a company, try to figure out which features would be welcome by most users, code the features that some users want, then explain to the unhappy users why they implemented that, and even sometimes remove the new features, deal with cheaters and all kind of moderation job, deal with people who see cheaters (or bad randomization, or persecutor admins) everywhere, etc. I wouldn't do that, even for a good wage.
The admins do code a few games, but I'm quite sure it's not the main part of their job. And I'm not the only voluntary dev to think this, I remember pikiou said more or less the same thing.

I can also add that as a (not very active) BGA studio developer, I'm aware that some people (but I don't know if it's a significant part) really want to be able to undo moves (at least the most important and easy-to-misclick ones), and that there will be some undo features in some moves of the game I'm working on at the moment. And some other developers seem to go in this direction, too.