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Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 04:36
by sprockitz
Is it just me, or are the playing hours when restricting to a 12 hour period all screwed up?

It might be just for tournaments, but when you restrict a clock to a 12 hour playing time, it isn’t the same 12 hours for everyone.

Noticed this months ago and started a bug report, but haven’t gotten any response and it seems like a pretty big deal if you are trying to get people who play at the same time by having a playing window to allow for faster tournaments by getting people with similar playing hours...but then it has no effect because the hours are different for everyone!

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=13244

Recently joined another tournament with playing hours to see if anything behind the scenes have changed, and seeing the problem where players clocks are counting down outside the playing hours that I see. (Says 6:00-18:00 for me on this tournament, and tournament started at 18:00, yet players clock has been going down for the last four hours (18:00-22:00). Still tbd if everyone’s clocks are different but seems a MAJOR ISSUE WITH TIMEZONE IMPLEMENTATION.

Tournament: https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=36296
Game: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=60014311

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 14:15
by Caffe Latte
I think time always had been this way hrre. My 8-16 hours may be different from yours and why should I play in time night when it is day for you, if playing hours are 8-16. You saying "same 12 hours for all' - have there everbeen system like this? I guess I joining tournament then should see that for me it will mean playing eg 3 am - 10 am. Other player would see his hours like 4 pm - 1 am etc and decide does they want to join night tournament.

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 14:36
by sourisdudesert
I confirm what Caffe Latte just said. This is exactly how it works.

We designed this so you don't have to care about timezones: you always see the playing hours related to YOUR timezone, so at the end you can forget timezones.

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 14:43
by sprockitz
So you are saying you designed it so one person’s clock will tick down while another will not? That is what I’ve seen on previous tournaments. We were playing during the same time period (ignoring timezones) and my clock was ticking down while my opponents did not!

Furthermore the time it states in the playing hours does not match when the clock is ticking down.

In that tournament posted above what time do other people see. It says 6-18 america ny time for me. If I logout it says it is 6-18 berlin time. One of those can’t be right if it is the same time for everyone.

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 15:40
by sourisdudesert
sprockitz wrote: 15 November 2019, 14:43 So you are saying you designed it so one person’s clock will tick down while another will not? That is what I’ve seen on previous tournaments. We were playing during the same time period (ignoring timezones) and my clock was ticking down while my opponents did not!
No.

But at a given time, only active player's timer is ticking down, so that sounds normal. At the very moment I post this message, table 60014311 is inside playing hourd and timer is decreasing for active player so everything looks good.

To debug all these problem, we introduced last year a very useful feature: once a game is finished, if you click on "Replay this game", you can see the full log of the game, and at the very bottom of the page you can see a graph with the thinking time of each players. I suggest you to check this once one of this game has ended, and see if there is really an issue. However, this system is here for quite a moment now and it would be surprising if it is buggy.

In the contrary, there may be a problem in tournament display, as you suggested. I checked your account and see that you were connected from 2 different countries (and timezone) within an hour (maybe using a VPN): it may explain that the system is going crazy.

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 15:45
by sprockitz
Here is an already completed game that shows the issue perfectly with the time log graph at the bottom

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=56146485


Hmm I use my wifi and a cellular network from a few different devices but no vpn so not sure why it is showing up as another country

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 16:15
by sprockitz
With regard to the current nippon game if i goto the game the clock is ticking down from 15h33m but then if i refresh it jumps backup to 15h33m. Last night that clock was down to 13 something hours...it was going down even with page refreshes....but then this morning was a higher time that last night.

The non tournament games I haven’t seen the same issues which might be why this hasn’t been brought up before.

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 17:17
by sourisdudesert
sprockitz wrote: 15 November 2019, 15:45 Here is an already completed game that shows the issue perfectly with the time log graph at the bottom

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=56146485
There is obviously an issue with this one. And yes this is probably linked to the combination of "tournament + playing hours", or maybe just a display issue because the player changes his username. I'm going to have a deep look into it.

Thanks for pointing this.

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 15 November 2019, 17:33
by sprockitz
Thanks for looking into it!

Here is one where player hasn’t changed name and has same issue so you can rule that out.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=56155828

Re: Playing Hours (12 hour clock issues)

Posted: 18 November 2019, 20:47
by sourisdudesert
Just a word to close this topic: problem has been identified and fixed.