No, its not a vacation feature for Correspondence!
We are actually starting to plan some developing vacations for ourselves.
We started Kaya.gs full time on september 2011. Kaya.gs first version came out on christmas that year and for the following 6 months, I worked weekends and more than 10 hours a day !
Lots of effort has been put in and Kaya is better than ever. Now that emergencies are rare and can be handled easily, we need some rest time.
We are still working over the dates.
Moreover, the past two weeks were insane for me. My grandfather passed away and I spent a few days with my family last week.
This happened midweek and definitely changed plans, both on Kaya and daily life. Even worse, my computer finally broke down again!
So until today i wasnt able to work, hence the thin but important fixes for correspondence, and the next big feature was put on hold until the next week.
Im also glad to see so many correspondence games being played, and people enjoying the server at all times. Shikkis problem solving has become a classic, and Franciscos constant challenge in the server is thrilling :)
Stay tuned for the next newsletter!
Friday, January 18, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
The first newsletter
We just sent Kaya.gs's first newsletter.
We had planned on making it a long time ago and surprisingly, styling it and give it a feel took a lot more effort than was expected.
Since inception 100's of correspondence games were started and we expect a lot more to come. This way, starting and continuing games is super easy in our platform, while you can also enjoy the novel features of the real time go server, such as malkovich comments, live chat and more.
Because we didn't think about the newsletter until later of 2012, we didnt include the classic opt-in in user sign up, so we sent an initial newsletter to people that had it off and from before the time we had the opt-in.
This is only a one time sending for them, with the option to join in the newsletter. The rest of the users will get the regular newsletter very shortly! Stay tuned, it looks awesome :).
Regards, Gabriel.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
The Killer feature: Correspondence games
A few versions back we finally release the Killer Feature.
Over the course of Kaya we noticed that many users are very busy and use the server at Work or visiting friends, so they have a small window of opportunity to play a few moves and then come back.
Thats why we implemented correspondence games, becoming the First Hybrid server of live/correspondence games out there.
Over 100 correspondence games are ongoing right now and it is extremely easy to get a game on Kaya.
Furthermore you can also play the game live just as any other if your opponent is online.
We also gave correspondence games the ability to use the score estimator and also being able to use the edit-offline feature giving the players absolute ease of study and time to produce and think the best move possible.
Try it out! Get on kaya and get a correspondence game, and play at your own pace :)
Over the course of Kaya we noticed that many users are very busy and use the server at Work or visiting friends, so they have a small window of opportunity to play a few moves and then come back.
Thats why we implemented correspondence games, becoming the First Hybrid server of live/correspondence games out there.
Over 100 correspondence games are ongoing right now and it is extremely easy to get a game on Kaya.
Furthermore you can also play the game live just as any other if your opponent is online.
We also gave correspondence games the ability to use the score estimator and also being able to use the edit-offline feature giving the players absolute ease of study and time to produce and think the best move possible.
Try it out! Get on kaya and get a correspondence game, and play at your own pace :)
Friday, December 7, 2012
Meijin, Open Kaya and Sports Accord.
As promised on the last post, i was going to talk more about OpenKaya.
Part of our original plan and strategy for Kaya is to be a open platform. The go community has a high degree of computer scientists and mathematicians, including famous Ruby programmer Ryan Bates (who did the GovsGo site).
And thus we opened the OpenKaya Github Repository.
There are many features and independent projects to be run from OpenKaya and that will get into the server.
Actually Kaya has many things done by collaborators: The scoring algorithm, the Score Estimator, the rating system.
Ideas for the rank graph, the gtp bot client and more came from there. And there are a big number of things to do to.
All work done on OpenKaya is open-sourced: anyone can use code made available from there , thus enriching the community.
We help out by providing an outline, tests and code for contributors to hack into problems directly and provide a solution that we assess and decide to put on the server later.
Right now there are a few collaborators with tasks, such as JQ and crodgers (Yes guys, im totally burning you. If you dont commit soon this post will be your shame :) ) and Enders.
This brings us to one huge collaborator of the project: Enders. He has provided high quality code on the covert-ops projects of Kaya, and the scoring algorithm. And this week he became a Meijin of the project, helping us out even further.
Kaya is run thanks to the donations of the users, that had not been here, we would not be able to dedicate all the time we do to the project.
Last but not least, programming is not the only way to collaborate or do something for the Go community. Kaya has the unique broadcast system and next week there is an awesome opportunity: The SportsAccord tournament.
Several users have contacted me about broadcasting them, but the more the merrier, as there is a game every day and we should not strain collaborators :).
IF you want to get the collaborator kanji and a load of karma, contact us at the server and we will show you how to make broadcasts.
Next week i will be around surely to comment the games and make sure all goes smoothly.
Part of our original plan and strategy for Kaya is to be a open platform. The go community has a high degree of computer scientists and mathematicians, including famous Ruby programmer Ryan Bates (who did the GovsGo site).
And thus we opened the OpenKaya Github Repository.
There are many features and independent projects to be run from OpenKaya and that will get into the server.
Actually Kaya has many things done by collaborators: The scoring algorithm, the Score Estimator, the rating system.
Ideas for the rank graph, the gtp bot client and more came from there. And there are a big number of things to do to.
All work done on OpenKaya is open-sourced: anyone can use code made available from there , thus enriching the community.
We help out by providing an outline, tests and code for contributors to hack into problems directly and provide a solution that we assess and decide to put on the server later.
Right now there are a few collaborators with tasks, such as JQ and crodgers (Yes guys, im totally burning you. If you dont commit soon this post will be your shame :) ) and Enders.
This brings us to one huge collaborator of the project: Enders. He has provided high quality code on the covert-ops projects of Kaya, and the scoring algorithm. And this week he became a Meijin of the project, helping us out even further.
Kaya is run thanks to the donations of the users, that had not been here, we would not be able to dedicate all the time we do to the project.
Last but not least, programming is not the only way to collaborate or do something for the Go community. Kaya has the unique broadcast system and next week there is an awesome opportunity: The SportsAccord tournament.
Several users have contacted me about broadcasting them, but the more the merrier, as there is a game every day and we should not strain collaborators :).
IF you want to get the collaborator kanji and a load of karma, contact us at the server and we will show you how to make broadcasts.
Next week i will be around surely to comment the games and make sure all goes smoothly.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
More UI changes on 1.17
On the last release we finally removed the footer, and we used a Kongregate-style menu to organize different links.
We are happy with the practicality of the new location, although we are sure to ask a designer for extra tips on how to make it look best.
This week we also had several adjustment because of a big server improvement regarding game saving. The process is not always foolproof in the sense that our storage db does not always answer quickly.
So I improved the way storing is handled to make sure data is saved properly and it does not affect the server itself when there are delays or inconveniences.
December also started now and we have to get ready for 25th of december : the birthday of Kaya;s server!. We are planning some changes for then, i hope we make it on time :).
This week was rough because a pervasive problem has been happening a lot since the latest change. We had smoe heavy discussion on some of the tools we use on Kaya.
Kaya is built with state of the art tools, servers , libraries and services and that is a double edged sword: we are super ahead in html5 gaming services , as we are truly pioneers of such a complex experience on a browser. However, these technologies dont have the same level of maturity and as such, we have to patch or work over weaknesses in these new technologies.
I worked a lot for almost a month in making kaya work more stable an w e are getting to the point where any issue that arises is small and easy to handle.
For the moment, stay tuned for the Killer Feature, we might be able to make it for 1.18!
Also i have more news for OpenKaya, as more collaborators join the open side of the project, but that will be another post :)
See you guys on Kaya!
Friday, November 23, 2012
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!
Sunday, November 18, 2012
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!
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!
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