Backgammon Online

16-Jul-2010
15:18 PST

Thank you for reporting this problem; it has been fixed! In the future, please report such problems via the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page so it can be directed to the appropriate person as quickly as possible.

17-Jul-2010
05:53 PST

Really simple option to put dice in order, just find it faster to play high low and is easier bearing off...could be under settings so you can leave them as rolled or play them sorted...

17-Jul-2010
13:39 PST

Could you put my games in progress on every page in the site. That would be very convenient.

18-Jul-2010
05:19 PST

yes my games on each page would be great, save time going back thru pages or bookmarks  

19-Jul-2010
02:00 PST

There are a few issues with navigation which I think could be improved:

1) Firstly, since the "My games in progress" is the most frequently visited page, I agree that it makes sense to have a link to this page from every page on the site. Furthermore, I think this link should be bigger, perhaps in the same style as the submit button.

2) On the board page, I feel the following could be improved:

The "My games in progress" link is on the top of the page, but the "More games" link right below the "Submit button" takes you away from backgammon altogether. Many times, I have clicked on "More games" when I wanted to go to my games in progress, because, intuitively, I expect the navigation buttons to be together. (One also assumes that "More games" means more backgammon games that I am playing in, not different types of games altogether.) I find it can be confusing.

3) I think there should be two submit buttons (one below the other) for navigation from the game page (the page with the board on it).

- Submit and go to next game

- Submit and go to "My games in progress"

Often, I only have time for one or two moves, and I like to select which games to move in. Hence, the second option. I don't know how others feel about this, but I'm sure there are many who agree with me?

4) Ladder challenges:

Since ladder games are rarely available, if there are, for example, three ladder games available when I want to challenge new players, I normally want to challenge all three players. However, as soon as I challenge the first player, it takes me to that game and away from the ladder page. By the time I navigate back to the ladder page, the other games are often gone.

My suggestion is that after challenging a player to a ladder game from the main ladder page, the default should be to stay on that page, and not to go directly to the new game.
When a player has finished challenging whoever he wants to, he can simply click on "My games in progress" to go to those new games.

19-Jul-2010
02:18 PST

I've been thinking about the "My games in progress" link

On the main menu (up at the top), there is:
Games..........Messages............Forums............Settings

My suggestion would be to change this to:
Home Page..........My games..........Messages..........Forums..........Settings

"Home page" would replace current "Games" and would take you to the Sudoku, word zoo etc.

"My games" would be the link on each page to "My games in progress".

19-Jul-2010
03:29 PST

An alternative suggestion...
Put all the navigation buttons and links together on the board page:

On the right, where the submit button is now, have two buttons and four links:

- SUBMIT AND GO TO NEXT GAME
- SUBMIT AND GO TO MY GAMES
>Skip to next game
>Resign game
> Go to "My Games"
> Go to ladder

(Replace "My games in progress" with "My games" to take up less space on buttons)

19-Jul-2010
10:42 PST

Saurus,
I feel your pain of not getting all the challenges when three are available and you want all three. Everyone is in the same boat and allowing one person to claim more than one available challenge at the same time just wouldn't be the right way to "fix" the problem.

Would increasing your maximum ladder games from 10 to 30 (or more) help? For better or worse, increasing your available ladder games does open you up to be challenged by lower ranked folks like myself  

Your other ideas, and those before you, are worth ZE's consideration.

21-Jul-2010
00:56 PST

I just thought of how live games for subscribers might be possible without changing too much...

A subscriber places a challenge in the waiting room for a live game.
When someone accepts, the board loads.
After submit, the board stays on the same page.
Auto-refresh every 20 seconds for silver subscribers
Auto-refresh every 5 seconds for gold subscribers.

21-Jul-2010
01:06 PST

On the "My games in progress" page, there could be different auto-refresh times for non, silver and gold subscribers.

Maybe every five minutes for non-subscribers, every minute for silver subscribers and every twenty seconds for gold subscribers. Simply call it 'normal', 'fast' and 'very fast' auto-refresh for non, silver and gold subscribers respectively. This way, the bandwidth could still be regulated without committing to exact auto-refresh exact times, but bandwidth would favour subscribers, particularly gold subscribers.