3.5.20 (this is the version that I get when I get it directly from the KGS home page)
Sound checkbox is enabled.
The combo box below was the problem... Sound is back. Thankx

That's great to hear that you got it working!

Sorry for the thread necro. (But I didn't want to create a 3rd topic of the same name.)

I can not fail to notice the dwindling number of open games nowadays in KGS (and half of that are robot games).
It seems to me that the player base has been reduced under a "critical mass" or is being close to that.
Without enough players ranks will freeze and that will further reduce the number of active players.

I often wonder (while looking for a game) where is everyone? The increasing number of tablets may be a reason, or I don't know.
Or am I mistaken? Do you also feel the player base dwindling?

I think the number of strong players, 6d+, has dwindled alarmingly. I still have no problem getting games at 1k, though.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

You've noticed that 6D+ has decreased, but have you noticed that you rarely see games being offered for lower than 5k? And almost never below 12k. Beginners are almost entirely limited to playing a few bots.

Lower-skilled players outnumber highly skilled players, and new players are the future. A game server that relies on the old veterans being around forever (and somehow multiplying) is doomed.

It seems like a vicious circle--new players who can't find games easily are not going to stick around, and if they don't stick around, other new players are not going to be able to find games either. And if the newbies leave, we are not 'growing' any future players.

In defense to KGS I have to say that Tygem is as much or little maintained/updated as KGS and nevertheless has built and maintained a strong & rich player base. I think once OGS has settled KGS will be dead. I think it has nothing to do with WMS not updating.

Just checked OGS. There were three dans playing, all 1d. Still not a credible alternative.

If Tygem had a Mac client, I'd take a look. But, for now KGS is the best out there for me. Ten years from now, I have no idea.

Funnily enough, my KGS account was registered ten years ago. It was so shiny then.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

Maybe this is specific to the English client. I use the Korean client, and very regularly when I launch it, I have to wait a bit for an update to finish downloading. I used to use AppLocale to run the client, and every time it updated I would run into issues. I finally realized it was because there was a problem with using the default name on my system, instead of using ascii characters for the installation path. Anyway, it's updated pretty often, though typically, the updates are small (not major changes to UI or anything very often).

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be immersed

I'm at work.

Catch me on Fridays, and/or maybe Tuesdays. I try to play on KGS then (or for AYD games, according to my opponent's schedule).

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be immersed

I doubt that very much.

Has anyone ever put up a survey here as to which servers members use? Not that the people here are necessarily a good cross-section of the entire online go playing populace. But it may be interesting.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I hypothesize that many players are just waiting for the bots to open.
There is a general fear to play human opponents online. When playing a bot, you know he's not going to misbehave and if he does it's due to a bug in the program, not some troll trying to psyche you out.
As so often, the fear of mean opponents is worse than the problem itself, with the decrease in open human games as a result.

I think you may not see that many open games as well because people are using the automatch instead of posting custom games.

This is a good point. I had forgotten about automatch as I have never used it. I just looked (at 9pm EST) and there are over 60 automatch games in progress. I would never have thought it was used that much.,

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I still like KGS a lot, but using desktop Java is just such a pain. I think many people nowadays just do not install Java on their PC at all, maybe? It hogs memory, the applet keeps requesting updates and few desktop apps require it nowadays. Then, installing it just for KGS is something they probably will not want to do.

I think gradually, the stronger players are flocking away to Tygem and Wbaduk, since you have such a wide range of very strong opponents and high-level games to watch and the clients are getting more accessible over time. At the same time, the beginners seem to be rapidly moving to OGS - I only re-discovered the server recently and while it has still many glitches, the completely web-based environment is extremely accessible (you don't need to install anything and you can play from anywhere, behind firewalls(!) etc.) and its community seems to be gaining momentum. Overally, I have been quite impressed by OGS, though dan players will feel a little lonely (it's still usually possible to get a game with a low dan if you are fine with waiting 5-10 minutes, though).

(I don't know about IGS, it is filling a niche I never quite understood - there's no community, there's not many very strong players, but then its protocol is open which is a huge asset as many generic Go apps support playing over there - I also played my first games on IGS because I didn't want to install anything and Java repelled me.)

It's a pity because KGS has such a strong community feeling. But to me it appears pretty clear at this point that unless it evolves it will not be around in 10 years, and it seems that evolving it is above the means of a single developer. It's a little fossilized now and needs to do some big changes and I'm not sure there is a will to go through with that. We'll see!

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Go programmer and researcher: http://pasky.or.cz/~pasky/go/
EGF 1921, KGS ~1d and getting weaker

https://plus.google.com/+Gokgs/posts

WMS is working on a JavaScript port of KGS, but it's been roughly two years now, and still no sign of a beta release. I'm a little doubtful that he'll ever get it done, particularly if he insists on being the only developer. OGS has improved steadily over the last couple of years, and it's going to be hard for KGS to catch up. Mostly, the only advantage it has is the community. That is powerful, but from what I can tell, many of them will be reluctant to move to a browser based GUI, despite the overwhelming advantages (I believe) it offers.

I think saying that the only advantage of KGS is the community is a little harsh. OGS has plenty of glitches, ranging from the semi-broken bot support, over many many confusing glitches connected to the multiple user ranks, to reviews just not being nearly as convenient as on KGS (due to a lot of details like hotkeys, forward/backward not remembering the last taken branch, and so on).

KGS is very mature and polished software compared to that, and getting there is a lot more work on various details than it sounds. OGS just has a lot more development momentum now. (And, OGS is not open source either, sadly...)

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Go programmer and researcher: http://pasky.or.cz/~pasky/go/
EGF 1921, KGS ~1d and getting weaker

Fine I did say mostly. Granted, KGS is a little more polished in certain areas, and those will take time to catch up. Allowing for that, however, I don't think KGS has any killer features that OGS does not have, apart from a large community. On the other hand, OGS has many features that KGS does not have, ranging from trivial (country flags) to sophisticated (custom tournaments).

It's also worth bearing in mind that a KGS port will also take a long time to polish. Granted, the services are in place, but JavaScript review tools etc. will take time to polish.

Some of us are more afraid of playing an awful game and looking like a moron than anything the opponent might do. (Though the guy who asked me if I was reading ahead AT ALL didn't help.) I think the real reason I left playing online for so long is when I first got to rank 10kyu, and felt I didn't have the chops to hang on to it. Every game I played, I knew I was not playing up the level my opponents would expect of me. And every time I played a perfectly awful game, I felt like a fraud.

So glad I got over that....mostly.

Bots are non-judgmental and if you self-atari your whole group, you at least know it is not sneering at you in contempt and wondering how you ever managed to get your current rank.

Your self-atari might be just the impetus that Skynet needs for self-awareness and hatred of humanity. Be wary!

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders