Board Game Arena

This isn't a bug report because I can't characterize the problem well enough, but twice today I have had my BGA tab freeze up (in Firefox) while playing Carcassonne. The fan on my laptop started humming and Firefox indicated that browser performance was suffering because of something BGA was doing. All I could do was close the tab which meant abandoning games in progress on two occasions. Now my reputation is in the toilet and it will be a long time before I can join arena games again (if ever - presumably this problem could strike again any time).

Is there anybody monitoring these forums who is able to verify that what I am saying is true and restore my rep?

Icy-Hand-o-Death wrote: ↑25 February 2025, 04:14 Now my reputation is in the toilet and it will be a long time before I can join arena games again

It will not be a long time if you choose to rebuild your karma playing short games. People have suggested Can't Stop or Lucky Numbers. You don't have to like the games. You're just farming karma like farming resources in some video games. It's a grind just like farming in a video game, but it's not hard, just tedious.

All you can do is play fast games for reputation increase.

If I had to choose I would play Faraway personally.

The first time I got an internet issue on my computer while playing real time I was very upset. What I immediately did was log in on my phone so my phone was always available.

Next time I had a computer disconnect I used my phone to play instead of losing reputation. The game plays well on phone so it wasn’t a big deal. If the game is to clumsy you can still use phone for a few moves and message then to move to turn based.

Thanks for the suggestions Meeplelowda and BananaHarambe. I will begin my Karma comeback.

BananaHarambe wrote: ↑25 February 2025, 07:44 If I had to choose I would play Faraway personally.

I just tried it last night after this mention. Definitely more interesting than Can't Stop and Lucky Numbers, but still pretty short.

Connect 4 should be a powerhouse for getting reputation back. Fast, popular, and very straightforward rules while maintaining a decent degree of depth if you're looking for an interesting game due to being a no luck abstract.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑25 February 2025, 22:57

BananaHarambe wrote: ↑25 February 2025, 07:44 If I had to choose I would play Faraway personally.

I just tried it last night after this mention. Definitely more interesting than Can't Stop and Lucky Numbers, but still pretty short.

Yeah it's really nice. It's strategic, short (if you play fast) and has a lot of depth. Lots of randomness too but in a fun way. Most importantly is has less than 1 minute queue time. I always fire up a game almost instantly, which is a real blessing for real time.

It's a good game to play a bunch in a row without getting bored. I wouldn't recommend playing a braindead dice game just for faster karma if you aren't going to enjoy it. That sounds like a job.

Race for the Galaxy is pretty fast. I have not heard of these other games (except for Connect 4, which would be agonizing for me to play), so perhaps those are lightning quick games that make RFTG seem slow.

FrankJones wrote: ↑26 February 2025, 04:40 Race for the Galaxy is pretty fast. I have not heard of these other games (except for Connect 4, which would be agonizing for me to play), so perhaps those are lightning quick games that make RFTG seem slow.

No love for my suggestion I see. Given how short Connect 4 is I wasn't expecting anything worse than apathy for players that didn't get into it.

Icy-Hand-o-Death wrote: ↑25 February 2025, 04:14 All I could do was close the tab which meant abandoning games in progress on two occasions.

Are you sure you automatically abandom the game when you chose the tab? Every time I had any issues with a game on desktop, if I close the window, I was always able to go back to the game after re-opening BGA in new browser window (of course if I was still on positive time), and once I had an issue with game that was stuck on loading and restarting browser and even whole computer didn't help, but when I opened BGA app after closing the browser completely, I discovered that the game is ongoing, my opponent was kind enough to wait for me and I was able to play it, despite closing the browser tab on desktop in which this game was supposed to load several times.

If this happens again, perhaps you can find a way to reconnect to the game within the time?

Also, I think you should make a bug report anyway, with the table numbers there. If this is connected to some issue that BGA team is investigating, it might be helpful to know the table number of a game where something went wrong.

It's possible too that there is some problem on your side. Is your browser updated? Is your system updated? If you use any extensions for Firefox, are they updated?