why is "final game situation" only avail 24 hours? this is super annoying

[SerBaldur]

Love bga and am premium member, but seriously thinking about dropping it, bec I find it so incredibly annoying to not see the final game situation or replay final turn. Many times, I won't see a game is over in time, and never get to see what even happened or know how did I win or lose. I find this incredibly frustrating.

How is it these things are available only 24 hours, but full game replay is available indefinitely? Yes I could in theory use full replay to see the final turn, but it's very cumbersome and doesn't work well on phone.

Meanwhile it should be very simple to keep the final result / last turn available for longer. Am I wrong?

[GTSchemer]

I assume it's to reduce server disk usage, but I don't know how much impact it has.

What's even stranger to me is that it is very unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it seems to be available to one player, but not another, in the same game. Sometimes even for a very simple, short game it seems to vanish quickly after one player views it, and then the other cannot view it at all.

[Strode]

I assume it's to reduce server disk usage, but I don't know how much impact it has.

Wouldn't the full replay take up a lot more server space than the final situation? I suspect that's the OP's point.

Maybe they don't think anyone values final position. We wouldn't need it if full replay worked better (i.e., you could just quickly skip to the end).

[GTSchemer]

I assume it's to reduce server disk usage, but I don't know how much impact it has.

Wouldn't the full replay take up a lot more server space than the final situation? I suspect that's the OP's point.

Maybe they don't think anyone values final position. We wouldn't need it if full replay worked better (i.e., you could just quickly skip to the end).

I wouldn't think so, because the full replay already exists on the server during the game, but the final situation display requires all databases tables for that game to be preserved by the server, just as though the game were still in progress.

Replay does let you skip to the end, though how quickly fast-forward works depends on the game. It is still much easier to click view final situation since it's one click and shows the exact rendered state.

[FrankJones]

I assume it's to reduce server disk usage, but I don't know how much impact it has.

Wouldn't the full replay take up a lot more server space than the final situation? I suspect that's the OP's point.

Maybe they don't think anyone values final position. We wouldn't need it if full replay worked better (i.e., you could just quickly skip to the end).

I wouldn't think so, because the full replay already exists on the server during the game, but the final situation display requires all databases tables for that game to be preserved by the server, just as though the game were still in progress.

Replay does let you skip to the end, though how quickly fast-forward works depends on the game. It is still much easier to click view final situation since it's one click and shows the exact rendered state.

This part always seems odd to me.

For some games, it will move though the 300-500 moves to "go to end game (fast)" in a few seconds. Other games, Terraforming Mars notably, move very slowly.

Usually I just click "go to end-game (fast)" and then step away from the computer to get a snack or refill my water glass.

[SerBaldur]

I assume it's to reduce server disk usage, but I don't know how much impact it has.

What's even stranger to me is that it is very unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it seems to be available to one player, but not another, in the same game. Sometimes even for a very simple, short game it seems to vanish quickly after one player views it, and then the other cannot view it at all.

Oh I hadn't realized it wasn't reliable. That explains a lot and is also even more annoying!

I can't imagine final game state, even an image of final game state, is more space than keeping the replay. My hunch is it is just not on anybody's priority list or somehow doesn't fit in with the existing platform design

[SerBaldur]

I assume it's to reduce server disk usage, but I don't know how much impact it has.

Wouldn't the full replay take up a lot more server space than the final situation? I suspect that's the OP's point.

Maybe they don't think anyone values final position. We wouldn't need it if full replay worked better (i.e., you could just quickly skip to the end).

I wouldn't think so, because the full replay already exists on the server during the game, but the final situation display requires all databases tables for that game to be preserved by the server, just as though the game were still in progress.

Replay does let you skip to the end, though how quickly fast-forward works depends on the game. It is still much easier to click view final situation since it's one click and shows the exact rendered state.

Replay doesn't require the database? I would've thought that it does.

I can't get replay to work on my phone many times, and yes it's usually very clunky if it does.

[GTSchemer]

Replay doesn't require the database? I would've thought that it does.

I can't get replay to work on my phone many times, and yes it's usually very clunky if it does.

I can't imagine final game state, even an image of final game state, is more space than keeping the replay. My hunch is it is just not on anybody's priority list or somehow doesn't fit in with the existing platform design

I'm only speaking as a BGA game module developer, I don't actually know the BGA site code and server mechanics.

The thing is that a replay is (as I understand) just an ordered set of notifications such as "Player A used an ability" and "Player B drew a card". I would guess that when a replay is viewed, it temporarily creates the database tables representing the game state as it progresses throughout the game.

The final game situation consists of the notifications PLUS all database content that the game uses, which may be substantial.

To go into more depth, the final game situation represents the full set of database info for a game. In the case of something like Twilight Imperium, that includes not only several database tables which represent all the various pieces of game state, but ALSO the ordered set of notifications that happened throughout the game, so it would be a greater amount of storage space for each game compared to only the replay data. For very popular games which finish quickly, this could result in storage space rapidly growing until it is cleared up 24 hours later, which is why I am guessing some sort of cleanup happens to prevent excess storage.

[SerBaldur]

Interesting. I guess I can see how a system built around game replay might be inefficient at storing game state. It seems like the best of both worlds, bec in theory you can get to any game state by replay, but not so much in reality bec it's very slow and controls are bad.

I would think they could at least store a few medium rez images of the end game. To be kept for one month even. Or have a user option to email the images if they don't even want to pony up for the image storage.

Either way it bothers me enough that I doubt I will renew. Playing the game and then not getting to see the final board or figure out how I won or lost is like watching a long movie with a terrible ending.

[Meeplelowda]

I would think they could at least store a few medium rez images of the end game.

Captured how exactly? This is rendered in the client browser. It's not broadcast from the server.