Monday, November 14, 2011

Correspondence Go (A.K.A "Turn Based") and GoLibrary

So the video working frenzy is over now,and we can focus on the next tasks at hand.

I did some clean-up and implemented some features people suggested at the Feedback section of the site. Now im implementing another suggesstion which is allowing "Turn Based " Games, like DGS/OGS and other servers like them.

First of all, i hate the phrase "Turn Based". Its always turn based. Or with a clock, u can actually play twice? . Truly silly name :)

In the Feedback section some suggestions were made and i think the one that is more appropriate is Correspondence Go. The word is a little uncomfortable but its the most accurate.

For those that dont know, Correspondence Go is basically a game with a very large clock setting (as in, main time 30 days, byo-yomi 1 day). This leads to a very relaxed kind of game, with no real time pressure. You can devote very little time in a day to play a move, which is as easy as checking your email.
Also , games with this settings are more studied: its more common to check at pattern variations, study the joseki, which is a good study and makes the players be able to reach the best decision they can make. Due to time pressure, we often fear or skip variations, or are forced to make rush decisions.

Usually Correspondence Go is much easier to do than real time go, because there are no strong time constrains on the software system. Thats why "Turn Based" servers are usually smaller in features , as they are a much easier problem to solve.

In our case, we have solved Real time games already, so allowing for Correspondence games is trivial: After all, they are a subset of real-time games. (just large clock settings).
They are a little different in other aspects. Because there are games where you play 1 move a day, usually you get more games going at the same time.

So we are going hybrid and allowing both types of games. The core solution is already done, but this brought to me the challenge on how to present the different type of games for the users. So i've been working on the UI.

Novelties? you can see which games are players playing and join them through their profile, just like its done on CGoban. Correspondence games are now supported and i will polish them a little before closing this feature. It will not be as rich as DGS/OGS, with vacation time and other minorities, certainly not now, but this might be a very good way to get initial games going on on the server.

Ill be back soon with updates!

1 comment:

  1. "GoLibrary" was also in the headline. Did you forget some news about that topic? ;)

    Regarding the differences between regular and Correspondence games:
    On Kgs the clock runs for a player only if he is online. The clock is even set back when a player reconnects from a short disconnection period. This would not work for Correspondence games. So i was wondering that you call them a subset of regular games.

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