1.16, Best Score Estimator Ever and Header improvements, and the Killer Feature

Kaya 1.16 Beta brought some delicious features.

Although we've been assigning resources to the Killer Feature (yet to be disclosed) we were able to pull through some changes.

The most important one is the final version of the Score Estimator, that user aleski did, and we merged into Gospeed, our Go Board technology.

This final version is fully editable. You can not only select living/dead groups, you can also single out single points of territory and mark them as you wish, for the most accurate and comfortable Score Estimator out there.

We also improved the header to show more information, mainly how many games you need to rank up and how far from it are you.

As the server matures, more and more tasks that are (almost) invisible to the users show up, improving performance, reliability. 

Currently the Killer Feature is VERY advanced. We may be able to release the first version of it next week. It is really a neat and important feature and we have advanced on its own subfeatures a lot. 

We are excited and it will make Kaya a more lively place :).

Enjoy 1.16!

Updates, Facebook and a Live video commentary.

Many new features have been implemented on Kaya.

This week we made a visual change on the main page, displaying a new header : smaller and more compact, giving more space to the whole site.
And it came with a vast improvement to the inbox: it works more like Facebook now. Its fancy and practical.

Lately both DP and I have been working a lot on some new and exciting changes. Because they are so big, they wont get into the server until they are more or less complete, and we have devoting a lot of resources to them.

I must say that these 2 changes are huge and will change a lot how Kaya is experienced. One of them is what is known on the server as "The killer feature". Hopefully we will be able to deploy it by december, and it will change everything :).

Speaking of Facebook, we also added a very cool feature: Facebook sharing. Its cool because not only you can share a game, but as you do it a snapshot is taken and the board is shared right as you see it on that moment.

Non Kaya users can still see the game after its over, as the whole archiving system does not require an account, and other kaya users can just click and join the game and start chatting!

Also, today i will be making a broadcast from my home commenting the most important match of the Argentinian 2012 Championship.
The event is going to be broadcasted on Kaya and observers will not only be able to see the game, but participate in the discussion. The scribe will check variations and send them back to me and i will respond on them on the mural board.

The whole event will be recorded and used as an example on the power of Broadcasts. Interactive Video can only happen at Kaya :).

You can check the site's countdown(or the servers) to see when its going to start.
site's.


See you on Kaya!

Amazon is down( and so is Kaya)

Unfortunately, our server provider is having huge technical issues, ones we cant go around with (as they affect the server themselves).

We will be back up as soon as they fix it up.

Related news:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/reddit-netflix-down-amazon_n_2002656.html?utm_hp_ref=technology

Sorry for the inconvenience! Amazon is pretty good most of the time, but it can also be pretty mean some of the other time.

Regards, Gabriel.

UPDATE: and as soon as i published this, the server went back up.

Is customer complaining THAT effective? :)

Newsletter, Account releases, 38 community requested features, Rank Graphs and more

Its been a while since i posted, mainly because  I've been giving most announcements through the site's countdown and inside the server.

We are preparing now a newsletter so we can send announcements and important news to all the users of Kaya.gs , which since our consistent releases, has reached over 2000 users.

We are growing steadily as a community, but also growing a lot technically, providing a richer and better experience each week.

Today I checked out our UserVoice Feedback section, which is used to suggest ideas and powerful features for the server.
We have completed 38 community requested features. Most of them absolutely novel ideas, not in any other server in the world.

We really care what our users have to tell us, and we go through a lot of information constantly, and make decisions based on our technical assessment and value of each idea.

Last week we finished what was the #1 Voted requested feature which was the rank graph. We added some basic stats and estimation on how many wins are needed to rank up.

The graph, with the appropiate zoom, also displays individual game results, and links to those games, making it greatly interactive.
And we are working on it right now to add some extra delicacies.

You can check it out on my profile here :
https://beta.kaya.gs/users/conanbatt

We also announced more accounts to be released this wednesday. You can visit kaya.gs for the latest date release.

See you on the server!

Releasing 200 accounts Tomorrow

We are announcing another account release for tomorrow.
Since we started opening up accounts, players have registered within 6 hours! and the last time, they went up in only 3 hours.

1.5 Brought huge changes and the server is healthier than ever. And 1.6 is already packing  a punch for this Friday.  We are focusing on the core playing experience more than ever, and changes to the game page will come frequently.

As users that followed up past the last year, we have been doing a very regular and expected update, improving a lot each week.  Be sure to not miss out the great experience of looking at a server grow, and be here in time to participate in the creation of it.

Kaya has more feedback channels than any other server in the world. Between the idea forum, the tweaki, the constant presence of the developers, the quick-same-day response policy we have on emails, and we've been hearing out everyone. Many of the features we have implemented came from users suggestions.

The countdown is up on the site ! don't miss it .

1.5, Custom Handicap, reliablity and ASR League

This week we havent made an account release. This is because we knew we were going to work on very sensitive stuff and we wouldnt want a whole new wave of players get in so close to this release.

A very large change was done on how Kaya processes and reads SGF, making it much better and more resilient. We are now confident that we can read a lot more games and we now support uploading SGFs and opening a Sandbox with them.

This way you can custom review a game with your friends and other go players.

Also, we added an option to start games with  a desired handicap.

Kaya's  regular autohandicap system means its much easier to start a game, and all games are balanced out, both for rating and for probability of winning.

The more balanced a game is, the more exciting it is and the more worthy towards accurate ratings.

However,  not all games to be played are rated and competitive, and it was impossible to pick any handicap for any opponent before. Now we finally implemented a better challenging system so you can also pick the handicap and komi you wish for a specific opponent.

On the last note, the ASR league has been very successful so far, and over 100 games have been played. We are very happy with this collaboration and i hope this helps the ASR grow as well.


See you guys on the server for 1.5.

ASR Integration on Beta 1.4, Game reviewing and Game Negotiation.

This past week was packed with a lot of action again. This weeks 200 account release was over in 3 hours! Faster than any other release.

And it was a breeze. There was absolutely no lag, marking for us a milestone since the Beta release.
We are technically ready to open up for more and more users.

The great number of users and games has given us a huge amount of feedback. The Tweaki has grown into a 7 headed-Hydra and we are cutting heads as quickly as we can :).

As we improve the quality and reliability of the server, there are a few features in the vecinity.


Two of the most missed features on Kaya right now are the ability to quickly set up a game review, and  being able to pre-set handicap before a game.

They are both in the making and they will be included in the near Future, so be patient about it :).


However, today we are releasing an new feature. Collaborating with the ASR League, specially with founder Stalkor, we have set up an integration of the league into the server.

Starting a league game is extremely easy to do, and the reporting is done automatically. Game rules are enforced, and only other league members are able to accept an ASR game challenge. Of course, you can also pick who you want to play specifically in the league.

Right now there is only one group as this is very new and the first run of the integration. You can quickly sign up by sending a pm to stalkor or to other league admins on the ASR channel.
There are more detailed instructions in the server,  including links with more information.