Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

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JimE
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri May 09, 2014 12:04 am

Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by JimE »

Hi Dave,

This game has a description that says the turns are every 7 days, or earlier. But, the current turn says 9.5 days. Can we have a clarification of this, as few of us want the schedule to be 7 days or earlier. Also one of the players says "Runs ervery 0 weeks (every 0 minutes), or when all players have submitted orders."

Jim
drwr
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Re: Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by drwr »

guarded6q is set to run each Friday at 9:00 am PST, or when all players have submitted orders.

This means that if turn 1 runs (say) on November 7, then turn 2 will be scheduled for November 14, which is 7 days later.

Imagine that all of the players get their orders in a little bit ahead of that deadline, and the last player puts his orders in on November 12, two days ahead of the deadline. The turn can now run immediately, so it becomes turn 2 on November 12, two days ahead of the original schedule.

However, turn 3 is still scheduled for November 21, because it wouldn't make sense to schedule it on the very next Friday, which is only two days away. This means if you check the game on November 12, you will see that it is currently turn 2, and the next turn is scheduled in 9 days' time.

The general rule with schedules of this nature is, if the turn runs early, then the *second* next scheduled time is chosen for the next turn. This means that every player has at least the full expected time to view and process the turn. The game can still run faster than the full wait time if all of the players consistently get their turns in quickly.

As to the player whose game says "0 weeks", that sounds like a bug in the client. I've seen this bug happen from time to time but haven't tracked it down yet; I think it has to do with the first update from the server following a new turn. The scheduled time reported on the website is always accurate.

David
JimE
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Re: Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by JimE »

Could be change the schedule to be every 7 days, or sooner. Not a specific day?
drwr
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Re: Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by drwr »

This is one of the options that is specified at the time the game is created. This particular game was created by sun-e, and he specified the game should run at this specific time each week. Of course it would have been an option to specify that it run every 7 days, but that's not what he did. There are reasons to prefer one kind of schedule or another; games that run every X days may tend to run a bit faster, while games that run on a fixed schedule are more predictable and it's easier for players to remember when their turns are due.

Are you asking me to change the game parameters now that it's already started?
JimE
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Re: Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by JimE »

Yes. If need be you could consult others in the game and get their consent too.
drwr
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Re: Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by drwr »

If you can ask some of these players to post their consent on this thread, I'd accept that, and make the change. Especially sun-e, the game's creator.

But note that the game, as currently specified, will run every Friday. That's once every 7 days. It will never run slower than this, and it could run faster, if all the players get in several turns within the same week (though in practice this rarely happens after turn 3). You might occasionally see wait times longer than 7 days, but this only happens when the previous turn ran early, which means the the true wait time is really only 7 days.

In this game specifically, past turns have run on Oct 3, 17, 24, 26, 29, and Nov 3, 7, and 14. You can check your email history. That's pretty much once per week, except the weeks ending October 31 and November 7, which got two turns in each. That's pretty spritely, actually.

Changing the turn schedule to an explicit "every 7 days" won't have a big effect on the turn times. In both cases, the game will run once per week if some players wait till the last minute; or it might run faster if all players get their orders in faster. But people being people, it will probably run once per week.

If you want to play a game that runs faster than once per week, I suggest you create a game with an explicitly faster schedule and invite others to join you in it. :)

David
octguard
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Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:12 am

Re: Discrepancy in description of game guarded6q

Post by octguard »

leave it on the current schedule
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