. Let me answer each one.Haha, Araban kind of beat me to the punch on this one.
For me, one of the greatest things about Gmail was its support of pop3--and especially imap, which very few services at the time offered (actually, I think it may still be one of the few free webmail providers that also offers imap access...although I've not really bothered looking around since 2004).
As for desktop applications being a "forsaken technology"...I understand where you're coming from on this one, but I'm sure I'm not the only one with something of a disdain for webapps. I'll take the forsaken technology of local, always available software any day, rather than something that may or may not work based on a multitude of factors, including browser version, network connectivity and performance, and server compliance. Sure, many of these factors are implicit with any online game, but with the KGS et al, I can at least fire up the client and replay any of my archived sgf's (cgoban happens to be my favorite editor/viewer, at the moment...even though it admittedly leaves something to be desired).
With that all said, there is nothing wrong with more competition, and especially innovation. Some of the things you're talking about do sound pretty neat.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, and you can disagree. What i am trying to convey to you is that pages like facebook , or online email clients like Gmail/hotmail etc could have never been what they are if they were done through a java client. You can see thunderbird from mozilla as an example of a java client that lost badly to online email clients. Still i dont intend to follow this analogy, only wanted to answer this. To each his own
.let's ask some random questions here to see how you are going to run this server.
what kind of rating system are you going to use on your server and to which other server does it most compare?
how will you cope with nuisances like escapers? also the policy for bans, will they be long/short or possibly permanent?
I suppose there will be a chatroom, will this be like KGS, or more like an IRC chat?
will there be something like KGS+? are there ideas on how much such a thing will cost?
When is there gonna be beta testing and how could one sign up?^^
Many things are still being defined but thought of.
Rating system: i want to implement an ELO system, very much like Wbaduk and Tygem and most Asian servers. I will make it so that the first set of games define the rank like KGS does which i think is the only advantage of the system.
So a few games to get a solid rank quickly, and then a transparent point based system.
One thing im talking with my partner about the rating system which we will try is the following: "14 victories gives you a rank up". These is something that happens with some club-rating systems like in the Nihon-kiin.
This means that we would always adjust the strength difference of any game, so if a weak 5d plays a strong 5d, there will a difference in komi. It is a more granular way to handle the rating system, and also a very predictable one. Each game you play is basically worth the same.
KGS rating system has some disadvantages, the main one being that accounts get "heavy", hence people always have multiple accounts. Wbaduk, for example, poeple never make more than 1 account. But it still a drag that when you are close to rank up, you have to play way more many games.
Escapers: similar to Asian servers. The whole idea from kgs to keep the games is interesting but it just doesnt work. IF a player is disconnected or leaves, he can join back in a certain amount of time (15 mins ~) or else he loses. I dont want Kaya.gs to have escaper policies in the main room to explain it to people. Simple is good
.Channels/Rooms: This is also a key point. Good question
. In Kaya.gs we differenciate between a room and a channel. It is very important that people can make a flexible group to chat with however they want. On the other hand its not cool that you have 500 rooms with 1 people, making it harder to find the active/valuable ones.So there is a channel list, very open and people can open them up as many as they want. Its simply a chat-tab that people can talk simultaneously in.
And there is a room list with much more features and support. Only active communities, or qualified services get on the rooms list which will be very limited and on sight. A room will have a description, links and other website related technology. Depending on the service, joining a room could be opening up a new "client". Think of joining the room goproblems.com, where you can solve problems and share demonstrations on specific problems you or other people want to solve.
We are still ironing details on how we are going to do the latter, but the differenciation of channels and rooms is here to stay. Also we want to put IRC-like commands on the chat. So you will be able to write to someone when you mention their name (i.e. Dexmorgan what do you mean? would be shown in bold to me) and other similar commands.
I will make a public beta call when its time
. 1. Fischer time controls
2. Something for tsumego lover
Nice!. Fishcer time is actually the first time system im pushing my partner to do. i never tried it but i dont see how it could possible not be better than byoyomi. It is a great time setting and i think blitz people will love it.
There will be something special about tsumego..but that is classified information
9x9 and 13x13 wont be ranked which is something i feel strongly about. However, we will make an option when you create your account to mark it as 'beginner'. Beginner accounts will have a progress window to guide them into getting out of beginner-ship.
We will start with something very simple on that like solving a certain set of problems, and playing a certain number of Atari-Gos, 9x9 and 13x13. We really want to make the server a great place to learn Go from scratch, although most beginner stuff will come later on when the server is already mature.
