The new OGS

[Bantari]

Remember though Bantari, Real Time games on Nova can be set up as Correspondence. Due to the auto update on the page of moves, you can set up a game where you're playing real time when you're both logged on or correspondence when you're not. Most of my correspondence games on there have played mostly at real time speed. I'm usually playing people I know and they poke me on Skype or whatever so we can get some moves in.

Oh, I did not know that.
So when I sort the games by time, and the times says 1week+1day it can actually be a RT game?

In any case - all the best to Nova or OGS or both (whichever is appropriate.)
I would still love to see some interface improvements though.

[matburt]

we've had dozens of live games just this morning alone. I think part of the problem was that OGS just didn't have an interface to play live games and nova didn't have the users. now that we've solved both of those problems it becomes less of an issue.

you almost can't pick up a live challenge right now they are accepted so fast.

[Boidhre]

Remember though Bantari, Real Time games on Nova can be set up as Correspondence. Due to the auto update on the page of moves, you can set up a game where you're playing real time when you're both logged on or correspondence when you're not. Most of my correspondence games on there have played mostly at real time speed. I'm usually playing people I know and they poke me on Skype or whatever so we can get some moves in.

Oh, I did not know that.
So when I sort the games by time, and the times says 1week+1day it can actually be a RT game?

In any case - all the best to Nova or OGS or both (whichever is appropriate.)
I would still love to see some interface improvements though.

It's that if the time says 1 week + 1 day, if the players want, it can be played at real time speed. I mean that, you can't know from looking at the time settings what speed the game is actually being played at here due to the hybrid system. I imagine the majority of games would be played at correspondence speed though for the most part.

[RBerenguel]

Now I only need you add a RewriteRule to send http://online-go.com/games/mygames.php to the current game list (can't find it, since I just moved in all my games.)

Also... Is it possible to mark on-screen the two previous moves by number (or dot)? In "OGS" I used to quickly tap back and forth moves to see what I moved (I easily forget my intention with a move) to decide what my next move should be. In Nova tapping back-and-forth enables analyse mode, which requires an extra tap to get back into the game. Seeing the last two moves solves the problem without changing how the UI works, which is always interesting

[leichtloeslich]

It's that if the time says 1 week + 1 day, if the players want, it can be played at real time speed. I mean that, you can't know from looking at the time settings what speed the game is actually being played at here due to the hybrid system.

I think it's you (or anyone else making a similar argument) that is missing that go is a competitive game, and the time setting is part of the competition.

Basically your idea works in the social context of people who know each other (comparable to a game in a go club, where clocks usually aren't needed). However, to have a lot of people play go against each other anonymously and competitively, you need to assume that both players want to win the game, and will use the time setting to their advantage.

On that note, a lot of games on OGS (before the merger) were actually played as you describe it, with many moves being played in a single session in quick succession. That didn't make those games "real time", since when a tricky tactical situation cropped up, each player could have stopped to think thoroughly, which would have been impossible in 10s blitz, for example.

[jts]

I have never played on OGS, so perhaps my opinions are entirely irrelevant. But I did use the OGS website a lot, because there were interesting games there, especially Uberdude's. OGS was a beautifully designed website, at least for the purpose of observing other's games; easy to look at, easy to navigate, well-suited to the game of Go and the way we tend to comment up our games afterwards.

As it stands, I would have loved to see the archived games from some other live server receive the visual presentation that OGS gives its games. Instead we get OGS giving all of its games to the second-ugliest Go server (after DGS). I don't want to go wild criticizing Nova.gs because it's a new server and I'm sure they had many other things to take care of: copying the visual "feel" of the server from Yahoo or FlyOrDie is not a move that I would have expected from Go players, but it's pretty logical, especially as a starting point for later development. But I can't imagine what ever could have possessed OGS to sacrifice its own appearance in this way. The sensible thing would have been to fold NGS's real-time capabilities into OGS's visual lay-out. I can understand if there were programming challenges that made that impossible, but if you can only effect a merger by defaulting both servers to the lowest common denominator...

[leichtloeslich]

My favourite colour is blue!

Well mine is green.


Seriously, though. I found DGS much more elegant in terms of visual appearence than OGS. OGS seemed a bit cluttered, and I'm not really a big fan of javascript.

And I happen to think that nova looks better than OGS did. Have you tried the "dark theme" on nova?

[Bantari]

I have never played on OGS, so perhaps my opinions are entirely irrelevant. But I did use the OGS website a lot, because there were interesting games there, especially Uberdude's. OGS was a beautifully designed website, at least for the purpose of observing other's games; easy to look at, easy to navigate, well-suited to the game of Go and the way we tend to comment up our games afterwards.

As it stands, I would have loved to see the archived games from some other live server receive the visual presentation that OGS gives its games. Instead we get OGS giving all of its games to the second-ugliest Go server (after DGS). I don't want to go wild criticizing Nova.gs because it's a new server and I'm sure they had many other things to take care of: copying the visual "feel" of the server from Yahoo or FlyOrDie is not a move that I would have expected from Go players, but it's pretty logical, especially as a starting point for later development. But I can't imagine what ever could have possessed OGS to sacrifice its own appearance in this way. The sensible thing would have been to fold NGS's real-time capabilities into OGS's visual lay-out. I can understand if there were programming challenges that made that impossible, but if you can only effect a merger by defaulting both servers to the lowest common denominator...

I agree that the interface leaves a lot to be desired.
But I see it as an intermediary step. First you get the functionality done, work out all the kinks, iron the wrinkles, and then slap a killer interface on it.

Otherwise - you kaya it all up.

[jts]

My favourite colour is blue!

Well mine is green.


Seriously, though. I found DGS much more elegant in terms of visual appearence than OGS. OGS seemed a bit cluttered, and I'm not really a big fan of javascript.

And I happen to think that nova looks better than OGS did. Have you tried the "dark theme" on nova?

Ah, I should have known I could trust you to provide a solution. Not a serious solution, but perhaps that would be asking for too much.

@Bantari - I agree with you completely. I don't think I ever mentioned the look of Nova because functionality should come first. But do you agree that it's backwards to take a server with established functionality and an intelligent interface, and dump all its users onto a server that hasn't had time to work on the interface yet because functionality is still shaky?

[DrStraw]

Well, I took a look at OGS and found it to be very unintuitive. I could not find a list of active game offers, which to me is the most important. And the list of active games did not appear to be scrollable. I also could not find any instructions as to how to use the site.

What am I missing?

[Bantari]

My favourite colour is blue!

Well mine is green.


Seriously, though. I found DGS much more elegant in terms of visual appearence than OGS. OGS seemed a bit cluttered, and I'm not really a big fan of javascript.

And I happen to think that nova looks better than OGS did. Have you tried the "dark theme" on nova?

Ah, I should have known I could trust you to provide a solution. Not a serious solution, but perhaps that would be asking for too much.

@Bantari - I agree with you completely. I don't think I ever mentioned the look of Nova because functionality should come first. But do you agree that it's backwards to take a server with established functionality and an intelligent interface, and dump all its users onto a server that hasn't had time to work on the interface yet because functionality is still shaky?

Yup.

[skydyr]

I can't help but feel that the surprise announcement as a fait accompli reflects a sentiment on the part of the development team that many of the users would not like the changes and did not want to give the opportunity for input.

[Unusedname]

I actually signed up to OGS thinking it was NOVA

but i ended up just sticking with it cause I signed up anyways.

so now i actually get what i wanted

[leichtloeslich]

do you agree that it's backwards to take a server with established functionality and an intelligent interface, and dump all its users onto a server that hasn't had time to work on the interface yet because functionality is still shaky?

Maybe you would be interested in hearing the OGS side of things:
http://online-go.com/forum/thread/2909/

Also I heard that OGS was autotranslated to PHP from some other language, which made maintaining the code (or even adding features) a royal pain in the ass.
Though this is pure hearsay (and I might be remembering it wrong), so you'd need to ask topazg for more info on that.

I could not find a list of active game offers, which to me is the most important.

You were logged in, right? If you were logged in, I have a hard time believing you missed the big blue button that says "browse open challenges". Did I mention it was big, and blue?

It opens a seek graph (a small version of which is also available in the chat-window) and a list-form of the challenges. For questions I would generally advise to go into one of the chat-rooms (on top of the page there is a navigation bar).

The direct links would be:
http://online-go.com/game/showOpen (open challenges)
http://online-go.com/chat (chat)

Although admittedly, I wouldn't know how to get to the open challenges without being logged in (and without using the above direct link). My guess would be that guests aren't allowed to play, so they don't need to see the open challenges anyway.

[DrStraw]

I could not find a list of active game offers, which to me is the most important.

You were logged in, right? If you were logged in, I have a hard time believing you missed the big blue button that says "browse open challenges". Did I mention it was big, and blue?

Of course I saw it. And when I clicked on it all I got was a big empty box with labels "blitz", "live" and "long" below it. Nothing else.