Life In 19x19

Yeah, nova OGS is missing a player list and has been requested:

http://online-go.com/forum/thread/3123/ ... rs+list%3F
http://online-go.com/forum/thread/3192/ ... players%3F

The devs say they don't have it yet as people may have joined nova wanting to be private and thus not want to appear on a user list, but that seems bogus to me given I can type whatever user id I want into my address bar to find these secretive people anyway(if they exist) .

Uberdude wrote:Yeah, nova OGS is missing a player list and has been requested:

http://online-go.com/forum/thread/3123/ ... rs+list%3F
http://online-go.com/forum/thread/3192/ ... players%3F

The devs say they don't have it yet as people may have joined nova wanting to be private and thus not want to appear on a user list, but that seems bogus to me given I can type whatever user id I want into my address bar to find these secretive people anyway(if they exist) .

That does seem rather absurd.

Although a user list might be nice, I would very much dislike to have it on my front page.

When I go to OGS, I care about:

1. Do I have correspondence games where it is my move?
2. Are any of my friends online?
3. Are there any interesting open games that I might like to accept?
4. Is there active chat in any of the groups I am a member of?

Being able to access additional information, such as a user list, is useful. But on my front page I would consider it useless clutter.

Now, AFAIK, KGS does not actually have that list either. Every list of users you see is linked to where you are, i.e. players in the current room, or players observing the current game. Generally, since most players are members of the English Game Room, that list is pretty comprehensive, but it is not necessarily complete. I think the same is true for IGS, where it is also only the people currently in the room.

What would be a good idea, in my opinion, is to automatically drop people into the chat if they have no current games they're playing (or perhaps, no current games where it is their move). The chat also shows notifications of every new open game being posted, with an accept button, so it is quite easy to get a game from there.

HermanHiddema wrote:Although a user list might be nice, I would very much dislike to have it on my front page.

Sure, but did anyone actually say they want it on the front page? I don't. I actually want less stuff on the pages of nova OGS (e.g. user profile) as the fancy websockets and separate game server they are using makes page loads too slow. The most important page for me, namely my games list, was a lot faster on old OGS. But I do like the board thumbnails now to be fair.

Uberdude wrote:

HermanHiddema wrote:Although a user list might be nice, I would very much dislike to have it on my front page.

Sure, but did anyone actually say they want it on the front page?

Well, Ember says he does not want it in an extra tab, so I concluded from that he wants it on the front page

old OGS had one, so new OGS should have one too, kgs, igs don't matter. easy decision.

i was fond of the old list especially at the time I was within the top20. uberdude must be missing it badly

Drew wrote:OP needs to create a game him/herself. I'd be shocked if you didn't have a taker within 30 minutes assuming you're not choosing some really unusual time period.

Maybe I have high expectations, but 30 minutes seems like a really long time to wait for a game.

tapir wrote:old OGS had one, so new OGS should have one too, kgs, igs don't matter. easy decision.

i was fond of the old list especially at the time I was within the top20. uberdude must be missing it badly

So it seems like people are talking about two different things here:

1. List of all registered players (optionally restricted to active players)
2. List of players currently online

The first isn't really relevant to the subject of this thread, I think, but I do agree it should be available.
The second might make OGS feel more busy/active.

HermanHiddema wrote:Well, Ember says he does not want it in an extra tab, so I concluded from that he wants it on the front page

Yes, she'd like that a lot.
I understand the feeling of cluttering, bu for me it's an important information that should be given on every page except forums and chat. Maybe the best solution would be that it is either optional and can be activated through each players preferences, or that this bar (if it would be done like e.g. it is working on KGS) can be folded, just like it can already be done with other parts of the bar-menu on the left side. But ok, that's wishful thinking here. I'll wait and see and hope that the developers will make some kind of announcement on what they are working on and maybe when we'll see some results. I hope, that after christmas there'll be some major debugging. *crosses her fingers*

Whatever it is that we want, IMHO we should definitely let matburt and anoek know, preferrably in the chat there (I think the “nova” chatroom might be best), or in the "Help” menu —> “Report Bugs & Give Feedback” since we don’t know how closely they are watching this forum.

skydyr wrote:

Drew wrote:OP needs to create a game him/herself. I'd be shocked if you didn't have a taker within 30 minutes assuming you're not choosing some really unusual time period.

Maybe I have high expectations, but 30 minutes seems like a really long time to wait for a game.

You might have high expectations, but you certainly have a short attention span, as a bit further down the page I actually tested this at a random time of day and had games almost instantly.

Drew wrote:

skydyr wrote:

Drew wrote:OP needs to create a game him/herself. I'd be shocked if you didn't have a taker within 30 minutes assuming you're not choosing some really unusual time period.

Maybe I have high expectations, but 30 minutes seems like a really long time to wait for a game.

You might have high expectations, but you certainly have a short attention span, as a bit further down the page I actually tested this at a random time of day and had games almost instantly.

I don't think it's helpful to start ad hominim responses from a personal observation of 1 at a particular rank. 30 minutes is indeed a bit long, and I've had game offers up for up to 2 hours last weekend.

OGS is my favorite go server by far. Of course, this has to do a lot with the fact that I like correspondence games.

OGS guarantees that you can get a correspondence game anytime you want. Join one of the ladders and you have gained a list of opponents who MUST accept your challenge if they want to keep their place on the ladder! Because the ranks on OGS are not very accurate, the ladder might be a more fun way to get games than challenges.

I guess there are places you can find a game faster if you want live games.