Board Game Arena

The amount of times that I do a fast-paced turn based game and people from across the world join with a 12-hour difference in time zone and then they just time out is too frequent.

Can we do a timezone filter that only allows people within like 5-6hours time difference join.

Proposed several times. That won't work with timezones, because people have different playing habits. Some play at night, some play during the day, some log in only once or twice a day, some stay logged all day long.

What could work is a per-user setting for "active hours" that might then be used for filtering. But if it's just based on timezones it's doomed to fail.

Jellby wrote: ↑15 June 2025, 16:04 Proposed several times. That won't work with timezones, because people have different playing habits. Some play at night, some play during the day, some log in only once or twice a day, some stay logged all day long.

What could work is a per-user setting for "active hours" that might then be used for filtering. But if it's just based on timezones it's doomed to fail.

No doubt there can be enhancement but this is just a start. There are def *some* that are active on weird hours but more often than not they time out.

The concept of "playing hours" on BGA is supposed to address exactly this issue, and in principle it is far more sensible than restricting games by region. However, there often are players who get automatically placed in games with unsuitable hours, and moreover there is not enough flexibility in how to set playing hours. The following proposals are much better than a time zone filter:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=59394 "More options to specify playing hours" (currently 11 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=57379 "Hide fast turn-based games with incompatible playing hours or warn before joining" (currently 38 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=29609 "Warn if turn based tournament has playing hours" (currently 15 upvotes)