We JUST released the 200 accounts, they are up for grabs.
We worked VERY intensely the past two weeks to deliver the best experience we could.
We have a long road ahead, but we also traveled a lot! Kaya is looking beautiful, and we have several novelties that make both the chatting and the playing experience unique and new.
I hope everyone can enjoy it. We will be on the server providing live technical support and with the rest of the founders, help out so new users can set up quickly.
Check it out at beta.kaya.gs !
Friday, August 3, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Kaya.gs announces Beta Launch date!
Finally the Beta is coming!
Kaya.gs will open up its doors with version 1.0.0 Beta on the 3rd of August.
After 32 weekly and steady releases, we are ready to intake new users that want to start experiencing a new way to play Go online.
With the new design, bots, a big board, and many new and novel features like malkovich, variation sharing, video broadcasting and more, Kaya has a lot to offer both to new players and to experienced online go enthusiasts.
When we release, we will start allowing only 200 new registrants. So stay tuned to get your account quickly!
Friday, July 20, 2012
Major changes on Kaya, the last stepping stone to Beta.
0.31 came with amazing changes. A completely new Main page UI was done, with great aid from Gryn, one of our most enthusiastic supporters.
The new UI is very modern, and uses space a lot better than the old one. We want to release before the EGC finishes so we are moving as fast as we can, and this is the last huge change before release.
Although all works fine, there are many tweaks and fixes to do, so shoot away at the tweaki! Lets find all the imperfections, so we can fix them and make the long awaited final release.
The stability of this release will decide the Beta launch date!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Kaya 0.29 Alpha comes with huge performance boosts and GoGameGuru's Baduk TV!
Sit tight because im going Fast & Furious on this post!
Since we got out on december, there were always performance matters at hand. We are using a very small server ( this week i calculated it has 1/4 CPU power of my 4 year old laptop) so fine tuning it becomes a necessity quickly.
Last week the canadian open was coming and i wanted to improve performance before the event ocurred, so the server had less lag and worked smoother.
The event was very successful, and JeansebL is doing an awesome job with the broadcasts. It is very rewarding to see Guo Juan using Kaya for her public lectures, and we expect these activities to grow in quantity and numbers, specially after outing.
Unfortunately, the first day of the event proceeded before the updates, but the improvements were vast.
When the games got large enough (100's of moves) the game would start to slow down. It was a problem in the parser so i would have to revisit it. After making a small but significant change, i could reduce the processing by 4x , making it way faster.
But it still wasnt fast enough, so this week i devoted myself almost exclusively to performance. And oh boy did things get better.
As of today i have a complete understanding on how the server works from a performance level, from bottlenecks to pending improvements. This time, i improved the parser from that 4x solution to 50x faster. Its blazing fast. Which means games will run much smoother now and there will be only a fraction of the lag we used to have sometimes.
Also, i improved a lot of things from the main page. Its 10x faster and uses less resources.
So in this version we will experience a much quicker experience, and im dying to check it out :).
If all goes fine, and the performance fixes are polished, we are very well ready to intake a decent number of users. Beta is getting closer!
See you guys around!
Since we got out on december, there were always performance matters at hand. We are using a very small server ( this week i calculated it has 1/4 CPU power of my 4 year old laptop) so fine tuning it becomes a necessity quickly.
Last week the canadian open was coming and i wanted to improve performance before the event ocurred, so the server had less lag and worked smoother.
The event was very successful, and JeansebL is doing an awesome job with the broadcasts. It is very rewarding to see Guo Juan using Kaya for her public lectures, and we expect these activities to grow in quantity and numbers, specially after outing.
Unfortunately, the first day of the event proceeded before the updates, but the improvements were vast.
When the games got large enough (100's of moves) the game would start to slow down. It was a problem in the parser so i would have to revisit it. After making a small but significant change, i could reduce the processing by 4x , making it way faster.
But it still wasnt fast enough, so this week i devoted myself almost exclusively to performance. And oh boy did things get better.
As of today i have a complete understanding on how the server works from a performance level, from bottlenecks to pending improvements. This time, i improved the parser from that 4x solution to 50x faster. Its blazing fast. Which means games will run much smoother now and there will be only a fraction of the lag we used to have sometimes.
Also, i improved a lot of things from the main page. Its 10x faster and uses less resources.
So in this version we will experience a much quicker experience, and im dying to check it out :).
If all goes fine, and the performance fixes are polished, we are very well ready to intake a decent number of users. Beta is getting closer!
See you guys around!
Friday, June 29, 2012
Canadian Open with Commentary by Guo Juan 5p
Hey guys. Kaya's #1 fan is going to broadcast the Canadian Open live as it is being played.
We intend to broadcast the first board of this tournament the whole weekend, and GuoJuan will be sharing variations as she comments the games live from the Tournament.
You can checkout the first game http://alpha.kaya.gs:9292/broadcast/71/ . I will be around and comment on the game also.
We intend to broadcast the first board of this tournament the whole weekend, and GuoJuan will be sharing variations as she comments the games live from the Tournament.
You can checkout the first game http://alpha.kaya.gs:9292/broadcast/71/ . I will be around and comment on the game also.
Monday, June 18, 2012
How to collaborate?
Kaya.gs from inception wants to advance with the effort from the community. Besides donations, there are many other ways to help Kaya.gs reach its very high goals of becoming a top-notch place to experience Go.
So far enthusiasts, translators, programmers have been aided us in all sorts of ways. Sigilus with the Go Dictionary, Enders with an AMAZING amount of code on different sub-projects, AOA with score estimator algorithms, JJ and his RGF standard (which could become one of Kaya.gs's strongest features). They have earnt their Collaborator status, which besides distinction has some special privileges and perks.
The Go community has many developers, and many of them enjoy doing things, even if they are little, for Go. I get approached regularly and this post is to help clarify what you can do as a collaborator developer.
Kaya.gs has a decent part of its construct in an open license. Its grouped as OpenKaya and a very large part of it was done by eager collaborators.
There are several libraries and sub-projects grouped there which include:
So far enthusiasts, translators, programmers have been aided us in all sorts of ways. Sigilus with the Go Dictionary, Enders with an AMAZING amount of code on different sub-projects, AOA with score estimator algorithms, JJ and his RGF standard (which could become one of Kaya.gs's strongest features). They have earnt their Collaborator status, which besides distinction has some special privileges and perks.
The Go community has many developers, and many of them enjoy doing things, even if they are little, for Go. I get approached regularly and this post is to help clarify what you can do as a collaborator developer.
Kaya.gs has a decent part of its construct in an open license. Its grouped as OpenKaya and a very large part of it was done by eager collaborators.
There are several libraries and sub-projects grouped there which include:
- Gem to run bots in Kaya
- Rating system
- Scoring algorithm
- Score estimator algorithm
- Tournaments (High priority right now)
- Widgets
There is work for web designers (graphic or simply HTML and basic CSS) in pages like tournaments, or direct code to use Cuba, a great Ruby framework, for the Tournament site.
You can take a peek at the documentation in OpenKaya and see what is most interesting. The key questions to ask yourself are:
What can i do?
Not only on your skillset, but on the time you think you will dedicate. If you dont want to use much time, pick small tasks .
What do i want to do?
This is also important. Starting on something you dont like on an open source project is very demotivating. So what would you like to do, what attracts you the most?
You can always fork the project and go rogue, test and do whatever you want. However contacting me is very easy, both inside and outside the server. Right now im coordinating and organizing the people collaborating so there is no collision.
After you pick a task and want to do something, i will help out in the design of the feature. I will check the code every time I merge it into OpenKaya through a Pull Request.
Tests are mandatory. Because I need to know more than anything, that the code is doing what its supposed to do, and I cant know that without running unit tests. Check Score or rating to see examples of unit testings.
We are working a lot , and to make the server we envision we have a long road ahead of us. Its vital for us that the community makes this ride with us, and help the process.
Kaya.gs has already been heavily influenced by feedback, collaboration and support. Its an awesome opportunity to make a difference and make a change in how Go players will experience the game online.
I hope this clarifies some doubts :) And i hope some of you finally decide to put your hands on the changing of the online Go World.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Resizable Board and UI and 0.26
At last. One of the most important UI changes pending since Alpha is the ability of the board to fit a larger space depending on the user's screen.
Now big screens will have a more efficiently sized board, bigger stones and a much better experience!
We haven't posted in a while and we have another good news. An awesome collaborator of the project is helping out with the redesign, and he had some amazing and novel ideas on how the main page should look like.
Its really ground-breaking and different and it exploits some of Kaya.gs's top features. It looks slick, clean and clear.
As we finish this resizable board and delve into that page, we get closer and closer to opening up. We are ready from a stability point of view: we have no performance issues, and we can take a decent nunmber of users immediately without worries.
This makes Kaya.gs 26th release. For 26 weeks we have non-stop provided new features weekly. There are so many things to do inside and they will only grow larger and better.
I hope everyone is as excited as we are, specially all those founders and supporters that helped make this possible.
Now big screens will have a more efficiently sized board, bigger stones and a much better experience!
We haven't posted in a while and we have another good news. An awesome collaborator of the project is helping out with the redesign, and he had some amazing and novel ideas on how the main page should look like.
Its really ground-breaking and different and it exploits some of Kaya.gs's top features. It looks slick, clean and clear.
As we finish this resizable board and delve into that page, we get closer and closer to opening up. We are ready from a stability point of view: we have no performance issues, and we can take a decent nunmber of users immediately without worries.
This makes Kaya.gs 26th release. For 26 weeks we have non-stop provided new features weekly. There are so many things to do inside and they will only grow larger and better.
I hope everyone is as excited as we are, specially all those founders and supporters that helped make this possible.
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