After a player disconnects, they should not be able to start a new game while their opponent still has that game open. This would be a small impediment to escapers.

It would also be nice to have better indications that an opponent is available to resume a game. Two ideas: there could be a dialog when you enter the site that tells you that the opponent is logged in. Or the resume button could be highlighted. I believe that currently the only indication is if your opponent actually has opened the game.

Danielm first mentioned one of these ideas in another thread: viewtopic.php?p=70294#p70294

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Occupy Babel!

I just put the escaper in my buddy+fan list. This way, I can not only see when he's online, but also if he's in a game already (so he can't resume our game) or not.

Yeah, that partially solves the notification problem, but it's manual.

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Occupy Babel!

Keep in mind not to punish people who want to play simultaneous turn-based games.

By which I mean me (eventually). The fact that KGS allows turn-based games is one reason why I like it.

Oh I actually agree. I've never used it yet myself, but I think its a cool feature.

Just don't start too many or you'll be an escaper.

I think you're better off using a real turn based server.

Non-timed games will never make the server decide that you are an escaper.

Really!? I thought there was a limit at four games with the opponents waiting for one's turns, based off of this line from http://www.gokgs.com/help/faq/escapers.html:

If you already have some escaped games, you may be forced to forfeit your oldest escaped game. This will happen if you have 5 escaper marks, and you have fewer than 10 legitimate losses for each escape. Only losses are considered because people who walk away from lost games are escapers. The system doesn't allow more than 10 pending escaped games.

But if that doesn't apply to no time limit, sweet! Thanks for letting me know, wms.

(I prefer KGS because is almost has NZ rules.)

Question for wms: then how is escaping handled? If one doesn't make one's turn in six months, one loses?

Since the game drops from the ranking after 6 months I don't think that it's very interesting what happens. I guess it'll just end up as an unfinished game in the archive.

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Sanity is for the weak.

I'm guessing the game becomes unable to be resumed after 6 months from the start and not from the last move.

I sure hope not. Although, that would be incentive for both players not to play too slowly as long as neither is the escaper type.

Li Kao, the game couldn't lose its influence on rank if it wasn't decided yet.

As of 6 months from the game start, the game disappears completely from the server itself. It stays on the web archives as an unfinished game, but it has no effect at all on anything inside the server.

Oh. So although there is no limit to the number of simultaneous turn-based games one could play on KGS without being marked an escaper, not only is escaping entirely unpunished, but in order for a rated game to count, games have to be played at the pace of about two moves per day to finish before six months is up simply because games are removed from the server based on when they start instead of when they end. Not criticizing, but was the no time limit feature an afterthought? Is there going to be more work on getting it to work well as turn-based, as I assume it was partially intended? KGS is great, don't get me wrong. It's great that you have the time to be attentive to these forums.

I don't suppose it would be too difficult to continue the game if 6 months have elapsed. Just start a new game when you and your opponent are on and quickly replay to the position before deletion.

Yeah, that's another downside of KGS. You can't accept a challenge unless your opponent is online...

Well, KGS isn't meant to be a turn-based server so you can't count that as a fault. You might be interested in trying OGS if you have not already registered there.

KGS-New New Zealand Rules come the closest to my ideal ruleset, and its popularity and hence activity is second only to IGS. There is no other server for me.