BGA Server issues affecting reputation

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TigerQueenIII
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Joined: 16 April 2020, 03:30

BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by TigerQueenIII »

Hello all. We all know that in recent months BGA has been having some serious (and frustrating) site & server issues. Sometimes it's catastrophic enough that they notice, and we all get an email saying "Oh sorry, our bad, if it messed up your game you won't get a penalty." But actually there are server and site issues quite often that affect some of the players but not all- you can see it in the general chat when a few people are typing in saying "is the site down? my table is not responding?" but other people are still soliciting for more players for tables they're running etc. And as the player being affected, you can see it when the little red error bars keep popping up saying "the server is not responding", "error 503", or even just the table freezes and you just Can Not click confirm or choose a card or whatever- no acknowledgment of an error, just a page that won't respond. And then you click refresh, or even close the browser and reload from scratch, and a lot of the time that kind of reloading works. But sometimes you try to reload and the the page simply Won't Load- and you double check your internet and it is fine, and you go to other pages to make sure the internet really is fine, and it really is Just BGA that Will Not Load and/or dumps you into the error page "we can't reach the page", or my personal favorite the BGA home site will load but the table simply Will Not, and dumps you into the error page for that. And when this happens, there is nothing to be done except keep trying to reload, hoping that your opponent is also someone who understands the Disaster that is the BGA servers and that they choose to give you grace.
But if your opponent does not choose to give you grace (or even if they do, but the connection problem lasts so long that they really just can't wait anymore; 15 minutes is my personal limit but sometimes even ten is a stretch) you get booted off the game as if you had chosen to quit, you lose the ELO and you lose the reputation.

So my question is, where is one supposed to report that the BGA site was the problem?

Because I really don't care about the ELO, but the reputation dock and the prissy little reminder when the site finally loads again "you lost reputation because you CHOSE to just quit a game and that's Not Nice" is really fairly frustrating. Especially because in that little reminder there is a place to click "I had technical issues", but instead of a list of contact resources it is again a prissy little statement "we didn't Detect any issues on Our Side so it must be that Your internet connection is Unstable and that's a You Problem." And not only did I make sure there wasn't an internet problem on my side in this instance, but BGA has had consistent and increasing server problems all this past year. Where do we tell someone "No, it really is a BGA problem, please fix it."
Ms74
Posts: 1
Joined: 09 March 2023, 16:53

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by Ms74 »

Pagare BGA PER un servizio che ha ormai problemi quotidiani é vergognoso! Se non sistemate i continui problemi dovreste per chi paga dare un rimborso
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don1991
Posts: 37
Joined: 03 August 2021, 03:32

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by don1991 »

I fully agree with you and THANK YOU for being another voice talking about this. Because for all that we are preached to about "playing fair" and playing nice and that we should be responsible for our own actions, I see BGA taking none of that responsibility when it comes to their side. The server issues are well-known and widespread. What would be the harm of BGA acknowledging this and erring on the side of cancelling these penalties and removing the pesky time-out notifications and little nastygrams about "us choosing" to quit a game?

Some of the methods that are used to communicate seem downright petty and mean, which is supposed to be the opposite of the behavior that seems expected of us players. Even the term "karma" is supposed to refer to the cause and effect chain, or "what goes around, comes around". The way that we players are treated sometimes is going to reflect how we feel about the site.

I'm not sure of what the right answer is, since I doubt that there is a way for BGA to distinguish between genuine site problems vs. people just being irresponsible and quitting. And I'm sure that would be the site response to this. But I think a little bit of understanding of these issues would go a long way. As would the methods and language that is used to communicate to us.
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cigma
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Joined: 15 December 2020, 00:30

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by cigma »

Thank you for bringing this up. For me this happened now and then during last year, but for the last week or so I lost connection due to BGA every day! To be fair, they cancelled my karma penalty when this happened during gameplay. But I surely would prefer to have a stable connection!
#zan_zendegi_azadi / #woman_life_freedom
#StandWithUkraine
Language is a source of misunderstanding. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery: The Little Prince) But it is also the source of understanding - it all depends on how you use it. :-)
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cigma
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Joined: 15 December 2020, 00:30

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by cigma »

The server status https://boardgamearena.com/serverstatus ... ves_played now shows 17 servers. If I remember correctly, they had less (13?) the week before. Hopefully BGA did someupgrade?
#zan_zendegi_azadi / #woman_life_freedom
#StandWithUkraine
Language is a source of misunderstanding. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery: The Little Prince) But it is also the source of understanding - it all depends on how you use it. :-)
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BalGAmor
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Joined: 25 September 2025, 15:22
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Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by BalGAmor »

TigerQueenIII wrote: 16 January 2026, 12:49 Where do we tell someone "No, it really is a BGA problem, please fix it."
Here is a good start. We do acknowledge the servers issue when they are caused by us. And we it happens, everything is done to mitigate and fix quickly. Probably not fast enough for some...

At the moment, there isn't much more to say than our team is investigating to figure out what caused them.
don1991 wrote: 16 January 2026, 21:16 Some of the methods that are used to communicate seem downright petty and mean
When it comes to the wording, maybe you're right and we should look into this but there is no intention to be mean, or petty. When we say we care about the community, we mean it.
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MarkSteere
Posts: 265
Joined: 09 March 2021, 19:21

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by MarkSteere »

Simply doing away with the "I understand" button would be a HUGE improvement. A false accusation is blunder enough. No need to compound the abomination by forcing a false confession of wrongdoing. All considered, "caring" is not the word that comes to mind.
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don1991
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Joined: 03 August 2021, 03:32

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by don1991 »

[/quote]

When it comes to the wording, maybe you're right and we should look into this but there is no intention to be mean, or petty. When we say we care about the community, we mean it.
[/quote]

Thank you - I do sincerely believe this and again, I really appreciate what goes into this game platform and all that the developers and mods do. But yes, it would be nice if some of the language could be reviewed. I do understand that it is hard to please everyone and that there are probably lots of complaints and disputes and everything else that goes on. And overall, I think it is good that there are consequences for quitting games and the like. I just wish there was a better way to streamline this when there were problems. Yet, I don't know what that is and that is probably the same dilemma you face. But thank you for at least reading and responding. Much appreciated :)
FrankJones
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Joined: 30 June 2024, 00:24

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by FrankJones »

1) Forcing player to click "I understand and accept" when a possibly unfair moderation penalty has been applied to them is absurd.

2) @ BalGAmor : Thank you for your dedication to these forums and responding to all of us.

Please take this suggestion into advisement:

Disable the categories "block" and "access" for bug reports for a specific game. These bug reports are always nonsense and have zero to do with the code for that game, and 100% to do with (internet/database/sever/whatever) failures.

It is a waste of everyone's time to post and review and deal with these meaningless reports.

I maintain Terraforming Mars bug forum, and 90% of the reports are nonsense reports about "access" or "block" which neither the developer nor I can do anything about.

The bug report forum should be for actual bugs that impede game play or have rules or cards nor working properly.
The fact that BGA's site allows players to post nonsense meaningless reports for timing out because (blah blah blah whatever), and "I demand my Elo and Karma back" is a failure. It's a waste of my time and everyone else's, and needs to be done away with.

Players do not grasp the fact that neither I nor the developer for TFM can do anything about any of this. So why do they post? Because the in-game bug report button gives these two categories as options.

Please, please, please, please, please, DO AWAY with these two meaningless options.

No game that is out of Beta is going to have problems within the programming code that causes access ore block issues.

Please help out we few unpaid volunteers by eliminating the option for people to do this, thereby eliminating 90% of the nonsense bug reports.

Thank you.
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MarkSteere
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Joined: 09 March 2021, 19:21

Re: BGA Server issues affecting reputation

Post by MarkSteere »

FrankJones wrote: 22 January 2026, 02:23 1) Forcing player to click "I understand and accept" when a possibly unfair moderation penalty has been applied to them is absurd.
Right. If there must be a button, it should say something like...

"Get me out of here," or

"Proceed while not admitting guilt."

Something professional. Something that projects "Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day."

Not something devised by a ten year old. Not something that projects "Confess, you * customer."

Hello ?? This is Customer Service 101.

*Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.
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