Board Game Arena

All across the site and games I see people skipping a late player's turn and then quitting the game. OFTEN, the late person is doing turns but they have run out of the time, or whatever. It makes me laugh that people are so eager to skip and quite when the game is still viable. What a waste of a game... and "punishing" someone like this

How about you ask the player what the delay is and could they play faster?

Andy

I agree, I try to use the "Are you still there" auto-translated query, which should be visible to players of any language.

I may also ask in the chat.

Both these things take minimal effort and show a minimum of humanity. I wish more players were willing to do that.

It's been mentioned many times in other threads that any call to, "play faster," even if polite, is a reportable and actionable offense. However, you can ask things like, "Are you OK?" or "Are you still there?" and it's fine.

When I was new to BGA, I clicked the "Kick" button as soon as it became available. After getting more games under my belt and a better feel for the system, I'll never kick someone who has been active, either in play or in chat. Real life (and/or spotty internet!) can cause minor delays while still allowing someone to complete the game. It's only when they go stone silent that I start considering the kick button.

Medievalbanquet wrote: ↑02 July 2024, 15:08 All across the site and games I see people skipping a late player's turn and then quitting the game. OFTEN, the late person is doing turns but they have run out of the time, or whatever. It makes me laugh that people are so eager to skip and quite when the game is still viable. What a waste of a game... and "punishing" someone like this

How about you ask the player what the delay is and could they play faster?

Andy

In most places, if you run out of time, that's considered losing on the spot. You don't even get the extra 20 second notice.

Nekojin wrote: ↑03 July 2024, 02:15 It's been mentioned many times in other threads that any call to, "play faster," even if polite, is a reportable and actionable offense. However, you can ask things like, "Are you OK?" or "Are you still there?" and it's fine.

Yes, it is so rude! "Zzzzzzzzzzzz" is the other one--I'm like, I've got two minutes left on my clock, calm down ! I've tried to be friendly and advise them where the settings are so they can avoid automatically joining "slow" or even "normal" games in future.

Nekojin wrote: ↑03 July 2024, 02:15 When I was new to BGA, I clicked the "Kick" button as soon as it became available. After getting more games under my belt and a better feel for the system, I'll never kick someone who has been active, either in play or in chat. Real life (and/or spotty internet!) can cause minor delays while still allowing someone to complete the game. It's only when they go stone silent that I start considering the kick button.

This is me! I feel bad about my beginnings...

Ceaseless wrote: ↑04 July 2024, 14:34 In most places, if you run out of time, that's considered losing on the spot. You don't even get the extra 20 second notice.

I'm not sure that works as an argument here--BGA has a unique community and culture, I've been discovering.

I've been wondering if there's any way to implement some actual functionality for the "I need more time to think" blue link at the top of the screen, besides adding a note to the game log (which nobody seems to see when I use it anyway--I wish it also/instead posted to chat). I don't know if that should be a very small amount of extra turn time usable once or twice per game, a very small amount of extra 'before kick' time (once or twice per game again) in case somebody tries to kick them despite communicating and playing, requiring a vote among other players to enforce a skip that turn (wouldn't help 2-player games), a once-per-game increase of time to the full single turn length time (whatever that is--but could help them 'catch up' so they're not forced to play frantically on successive turns), or what, but I think something is needed. It feels like thumbs-downing folks who are really aggressive about skipping doesn't do much.