i rest my case...if you (or someone) were playing in a tournament and that happened, then im sure that some people would not want to give their game away!

Completely agree.

A time limit in the finals should be pretty much moot anyways and at least should have a chess clock format there too so stalling players hurt themselves instead of their opponents.

now THERE is an idea!

but the only question is how long we set the time limit...and do we also impose a time limit per shot (say 30 seconds) so we arnt waiting 5 minutes for a person whos milking the clock??

Hello Funkypool forums, this is my first post!

It's funny that this thread appeared as the other day I was having a similar problem to some of those addressed here. My opponent was 'not responding' almost after every shot, I could be waiting for about two minutes to take each shot.

Where I come from we do not have a very solid infrastructure and electricity/internet can be very inconsistent. When my internet is having a bad day I do not play, as I don't feel it is fair to my opponent.

What I'm saying is, even though its essentially nobody's fault, it is especially unfair on the player who currently has a good connection and may be enjoying a quick game during their lunch break (as I often do)

I believe three instances of 'not responding' in any given game should lead to the player in question forfeiting the game and being moved to the chat room with a kind error message stating that they should attempt to play later when their connection issues have been resolved as their current situation can affect gameplay for others. (this is especially true in tournaments I would think though haven't tried yet!)

Thank you
Jerome

With this thread in mind I'm currently recording times of people not responding. This may help decide a better time period to remove users.

I think for tournament games a shot clock would be a good idea. Probably average shot time though.

Being kicked out after 3 times non-responding is possible too.

At the moment, im one of the users where i keep not responding, due to my internet just being plain annoying.

I think 120 secs is enough, as i usually start responing after 15-30 secs which is generally only 2 shots which is no big deal.

So i think you should just leave it as it is

For me the problem isn't the duration, its the recurrence. I have played a game or two, as I said, where they might 'not respond' for 4 shots consecutively, then get a clean shot then do it again. It is very frustrating for the opponent. I did wonder whether it was done maliciously!

Well after just over a day of taking samples:



These are the times that people started responding after = 637 people.

Total that were kicked out after the 2 minutes expired = 635 people.

Reducing the time limit to 90 seconds seems reasonable.

This would have kicked out an extra 45 people, but 635 didn't come back at all. Or to put it another way, there's only a 7% chance people will return after 90 seconds (but before 120).

I like it at 120 seconds as it gives me time to run downstairs and turn the router off and back on and get back.

But i guess i could run a lil faster if it was 90 seconds

180 seconds sounds good to me :)

Remember the longer the more time you have to wait for opponent to reconnect or timeout.

Are you really prepared to wait 3 minutes during a normal game, let alone during a speed tournament?

Definitely. That way, games that time out get to DQ one player instead of both.

I take a 15 minute coffee break. I take 5 minutes to get my coffee. I take an hour lunch, and usually spend 50 minutes 'out of the office'.

That leaves 10 minute slots to play a game. In school you usually get half an hour, so even less.

@ 2 minute time outs, should my opponent use just 100 seconds of it an return and do so four times in a row thats 400s or almost 7 minutes of me waiting to play. and he could do it again after one clean shot. Of course thats the worst case, but seems to happen to me all the time.

I would be happy with a reduction in both time and number of connection failures. I also believe the time outs should be 3 per game rather than 5 consecutively. Its not fair for someone to have to spend 4 minutes (of a game that usually takes 4 minutes total) waiting.

Jerome..

Ps love the Quants Nick!

Oh and I should think just evacuating them from the game rather than the server seems reasonable, at least then they can chat or try again.

Edited at 19:42 Fri 5/09/08 (BST)

yeh because i always don't respnd lately for some reason. When i do respond it gets to like 170 seconds :S
Lost so much ran cos of it!

I think 90 seconds is enough time.

I think that we need to think of tounaments here.

But would it be possible to have say two diffent time limits?

90 seconds for a tournament, and say 120-150 seconds for a normal match?

Right, log out time for non responding is reduced to 90 seconds. Log out for not taking a shot is reduced to 3 random shots.

nice