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 :)

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.

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!

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!