Something i've thought about for a while.

Many players like myself, like to come on to the site and simply enjoy the game without having to find an opponent of a certain gender, rank, shoe size etc, wait for who who thinks we look "suitable" before they click the rack button.

Therefore, i suggest a "play quick game" button, which will place you into a game room (selected in the normal manner) and if there is someone waiting, the game starts. If there is no-one waiting, you wait there for the next quick game opponent to join.

Nice idea spinner, your the man!

Nice idea spinns :)

I just thought of another idea for a game,

Random game button.

Simply when you click play online game, there is another button called random game. Simply click on it and it puts you in a random room that it waiting for someone.

yeah like the create game buttons on the home page?

thts a gd idea

I like that idea. In fact it could work together, if you dont select a specific game type, it just sticks you into the next free game or a random type if none are waiting.

Yep, fully back the idea. Nice little addition it would make.

spinner you did it again!

FANTASTIC IDEA!

lets just see if it happens sounds really good

Simple and excellent idea.

If I read you correctly, you would also like that game to auto-start (like in tourny games) right?

The way I read Spinners suggestion, that's virtually exactly what you would do.

There's a slight difference tho - Spinner's suggestion allows for the "quick" game to be auto-startable (which in my opinion is an important aspect here), while a "join random, free game room" option does not.

Yes, i did mean to have the games auto-start like a tournament game.

If we didnt have that, then we would be bound to have people leaving if they didnt like some aspect and thus defeating the point.

The only difference between my suggestion and Damee's, was that i meant people could still have the option of selecting a game type. Both options could be catered for by a drop down like :

Random
8 Ball
9 Ball
8 Ball UK

Exactly.

And that's also why this has to be a completely different and optional way of joining/creating a game, compared to the standard method.

Merely adding a "join random waiting game" for each game type wouldn't be enough, since you in that case wouldn't have the possibility of making the game auto-start (which is a requirement for this idea imo)

The reason why you can't auto-start games that are created normally should be fairly obvious, but in case someone doesn't see it, it's simply because players who have created a game the normal way should have the option of choosing who to accept as an opponent.

Adding a completely separate game creating/joining system, like Spinner first suggested, would sound like the most sensible way to go about this.

To add onto this I think there should be a way of seeing the rank of a player before you enter their ranked games. If I'm looking for a game I hate going into one room finding 900 apologising leaving...finding a 650 apologising leaving.
Just another idea.

Don't you think people could get confused on this?

First up I will admit that I am probably not the best person to comment on this as ranking holds no interest to me however can someone explain why all ranked games shouldn't be autostart? Why should you be able to pick and choose your opponents, and decide who you agree to play and who you don't? Is this not creating potentially artificial rankings for those that do that? For a ranking to be meaningful surely you should be prepared to play anybody - a good player, a bad player or a new player. If you find yourself consistently losing to low ranked players and losing lots of points then perhaps you weren't as good as you thought you were! The top players will always win far more than they lose against any opposition, middle ranked players will probably break even and so on and so on. If for any reason you are sitting in a ranked room but not ready to play then remove yourself to a chat room.

Edited at 14:32 Tue 15/04/08 (BST)

i think ranking games should be looked on in the same way as tournaments - if you still want to pick and choose your opponents or dont wish to have autostart on your games then the option of friendly games is still always there.

Anyway just another opinion on the subject

1: It should be your choice since you are the one creating the game. It's really that simple. Also, you DO have that choice already, the discussion on that topic is really if we should make it more convenient for everyone by showing rank and being able to tag games with a required rank.

2: It doesn't create any artificial ranks since the ranking system is weighted to correctly reward/punish each game regardless of rank difference between the two players.

The only thing in this game that really hurts the ranking system are people sitting at an artificially low rank compared to their skill level. Which is one major reason why so many players are vary about playing low rank opponents.

Edited at 16:14 Tue 15/04/08 (BST)

Apologies if I am misunderstanding your point but isnt that exactly why you should not be able to pick and choose your opponents in ranked games? If you are better than your opponent more times than not you will win and vice versa. Given time everyone that plays ranked games seriously and to achieve the highest rank they can would find their true position. Im not sure that could be said at the moment.

Also I cannot think of a game or sport with a ranking system based on you being able to pick and choose your opponent. The nearest might be boxing but even then they are forced into taking on opponents at times with penalties if they refuse.

It doesn't matter either way.... If someone chooses to play anyone and everyone, that's fine. If someone chooses to limit the range of opponents they want to play, that's fine too - since the rank gets right regardless of this.

The only thing you can willingly manipulate by this is the win percentage. By playing only low level players, you can get a very good win rate. Just like playing high ranked opponents means getting a lot weaker win rate, but still the same rank.

Just because the rank allows for good and bad players to compete, doesn't mean they have to, or shouldn't have the choice to choose their opposition.

Just like a golf handicap allows any golf player to compete with any other doesn't mean Tiger Woods would bother playing... for example... me.