Nova.gs -- A modern web go server

[anoek]

Hey Folks, it looks like the new year has brought a number of new go sites and servers to the community which is awesome to see... and here's another one!

http://nova.gs/

This is a project a buddy of mine and I have been working on for awhile now. We've tried to bring together some of the better features of KGS, OGS, and Kaya into one system, as well as throw in a number of features we've come to love and expect from other games and sites.

Some specific features include:

• Totally free (no premium / pay to play garbage)
  
• Incredibly easy signup (we don't even need your email address!)
  
• All games are "instant play" (no refreshing or anything)
  
• Support for "Live" and "Correspondence" games (there is no difference in the game play, which means you can readily play a fast paced game with a friend over multiple sittings if you wish)
  
• All time systems are accurate down to the millisecond for accurate competitive game play
  
• Five different rule sets:
  
  • AGA
    
  • Japanese
    
  • Chinese
    
  • Ing
    
  • New Zealand
    
• Five types of time control:
  
  • Canadian Byo-Yomi
    
  • Fischer
    
  • Simple (X time per turn)
    
  • Absolute (X time total)
    
  • None (This one was the easiest to implement!)
    
• Conditional moves
  
• In-game analysis mode (where you can easily play out variations and mark up the board)
  
• Easily share game analyses
  
• Malkovich logs
  
• EGF ranking and stats
  
• Full game history
  
• Downloadable SGFs during and after play
  
• Advanced challenge and match making system
  
• Group system for clubs / organizations / friends (we're still working a bit on this one)
  
• Chat system
  
• User mail system
  
• Works in mobile browsers and on tablets
  
• (optional) Email turn notifications, as well as notifications for challenges, friend notifications, etc..) - and settings to control exactly what kind of notifications you receive (if any).
  
• Tournaments
  
• Live review mode
  
• Seek Graphs for quickly finding good matches
  
• Personal library for all of your games, sgfs, reviews, etc...
  
• Vacation time and auto-weekend pausing for correspondence games
  
• Pause controls for live games
  
• Dedicated forum for your group(s)
  
• Group ladders and rankings
  
• Translation to several languages
  
• Voice chatting in reviews and games

And we have some more features planned and in the works:

• Game history searching via pattern matching
  
• Mobile app (for non-email turn notifications as well as a better mobile playing experience)
  
• Chrome / Firefox extension for non-email turn notifications

So give it a try and tell us what you think! We'd love some feedback, both positive and negative!

[Javaness2]

So it's a correspondence server?

[anoek]

It's both a correspondence and live server, we've built it so we can blur that distinction

The only difference between a correspondence game and a live game is how much time is on the clock, so that's the only distinction on this server. Other than that, the game play, capabilities, and features are all the same.

[matburt]

Thought I'd post a few screen grabs.

Here's a look at the main screen showing only your games:



Here's a live game going on:

[EdLee]

Got an account.

[matburt]

Come join us in chat too, if you feel inclined!

[msgreg]

Generated message at the top of the browser window:

"Error connecting to the game server! You won't be able to play any game or recieve any notifications until the connection can be reestablished!"

[matburt]

That's no good, does refreshing the page fix that? What browser are you using?

[msgreg]

That's no good, does refreshing the page fix that? What browser are you using?

Firefox. The message appears after a 10 second timeout after refreshing Chat, News and the main page. (those pages are what I tested)

[anoek]

Hmm. I'm wondering if there is something interfering with the websocket connection between you and the server.

You might try Google Chrome to see if that works any better for you, but if that doesn't work for you then it's probably something kinda subtle. We should be falling back to a mode you can use regardless of any of that, so I'll do some digging to try and replicate what you're seeing and get it fixed up for you.

Sorry about that Hate to have it not work for some folks on release day..

[EdLee]

Feature requests/suggestions:
- option for Full-screen board (height of board = 99+% of physical screen height)
- better stone click sounds (record sound of slate on kaya board, and sound of shell stones on kaya board ? )
- smaller star points (on 9x9, the star points are too big; not sure about 19x19 yet, but probably still too big.)
- a way to see all open and on-going games.
- option to enable and disable score-estimator
- see the new Panda2 Go client -- it is BEAUTIFUL -- their board, shell & slate stones, and their wooden bowls and captured stones!
- option to disable co-ordinates in the thumbnail screen -- so we can see bigger stones there, too! (The thunbnail view is nice!)
- make the Ladybug button a bit more clear (I couldn't tell if it was a tomato or something else)? Like:

ladybugs.jpg (43.69 KiB) Viewed 16281 times

- "Browse Open Challenges" -> "Time Control": show more info than "simple", "canadian", "fischer" -- for example, "Canadian 1 min + ( 25 moves / 10 mins.)", "Absolute 30 mins.", "Byoyomi 30 mins. + ( 5 x 30 secs )etc.

[anoek]

Thanks for the feedback EdLee!

- option for Full-screen board (height of board = 99+% of physical screen height)

That's a great idea, I'll add it to the planned features list.

- better stone click sounds (record sound of slate on kaya board, and sound of shell stones on kaya board ? )

We'd love some better samples! We've never done any sampling ourselves though, so we may need to find some help for this

- smaller star points (on 9x9, the star points are too big; not sure about 19x19 yet, but probably still too big.)

Are you sure you weren't seeing placed handicap stones on the star points?

- a way to see all open and on-going games.

Yep, that's the #1 feature of the day it sounds like, we'll be making this a top priority.

- option to enable and disable score-estimator

As in, you want an option to disable it on *your* screen, or you want a game option whereby the score isn't displayed on either players screen throughout the game?

- see the new Panda2 Go client -- it is BEAUTIFUL -- their board, shell & slate stones, and their wooden bowls and captured stones!

Very true! We'll be certainly working on improving the appearance as we progress here.

[Solomon]

This server has some good aji, certainly a better vibe than go9dan.com.

[Xa17u]

We've tried to bring together some of the better features of KGS, OGS, and Kaya into one system

Kaya IS bringing out the better features of currently popular servers, but then also adds a huge amount of novelty of its own.

It's a very open server. You could freely contribute to it instead of making another one from scratch, which barely adds anything kaya isn't going to (canadian time... Browser extension... .)

[schultz]

Kaya IS bringing out the better features of currently popular servers, but then also adds a huge amount of novelty of its own.

It's a very open server. You could freely contribute to it instead of making another one from scratch, which barely adds anything kaya isn't going to (canadian time... Browser extension... .)

An excellent XKCD comic.

Either way, though, I don't see any problem with another Go server. More competition of high-quality servers should push this community (and it's servers/tools/etc.) forward, not backward. And if it's not high-quality? The problem will fix itself in due time.

I'll need to check this out. Thanks for the heads up, and the pro-active work you guys are doing on it.