c4countdown

As you've probably seen on the front page, a small number of people are now trialling the new apterous interface. The trial pool will be gradually expanding over the next week. This is a good place to report bugs and make other suggestions.

I am willing to help with the trialling.

Hey. Just been using the new interface which looks damn sexy, if a little confusing at first. It is compartmentalized well, but there are a few things which I have picked up on. As a "trial member" of this new interface, I feel I should share them..... but don't shoot me!

Unless I'm being dead silly, I can't see how you can see your current status (seeking, busy or online). I know it only takes one click to make sure, but I think being able to see your own status by having yourself in the right hand player column (maybe separate at the top or something?) would be a good addition. I can't see how to view my current rating either. While not really essential, this would be nice to retain imo. Another point is that you can see the order of ratings, but not the actual points unless you click on an individual. This may be a bit confusing for new member who aren't used to the names of the big guns or people closer to the bottom, so won't know who to challenge from the "match quality" rating alone.

Also, I know it's only in the trial stages so the way in which the "match quality" is determined may fluctuate a bit, but I don't understand this part really. Is it based on previous head to heads and ratings so that players way above and way below in terms of ratings are deemed poor quality (red), while players of closest rating are green? Also, would this be the same for both people? Another thing I noticed is that, upon entering the room just now, my best and worst matches were Joyce Phillips and Ned Pendleton respectively. However, they were next to each other in terms of ratings, so this left me confused. Another thing is that my match quality vs Joyce changed when refreshing the page, and Tracey Mills became my best option. A few minutes later, Tracey was at the bottom of the list. Eff, these examples are irrelevant now as everything has changed again since typing this (e.g. Innis went from being a terrible match to a good match). I don't understand why this is so dynamic basically, and is it likely to have the same dynamism when it gets rolled out to everyone, or is this purely a testing thing? If it does stay this dynamic, I really don't see the point in it. I've probably just answered my own question there haven't I?

I don't want to sound like a whiney bitch, so I'll leave on a positive. I like how the player column and aptochat are now separate, and you can see more of each, meaning less scrolling/need to go to chat logs to catch up on a conversation.

I served a bit of a shit sandwich there. Hope it tastes good.

Also, you can't see a person's latest games, display case etc anymore. I think it would be a shame to lose this feature, as it's good for knowing when to challenge people at their weakest, or avoid someone on a good run.... if you're of a cowardly inclination.

Looking very sexy, I love it.

The one thing I did notice was the number of challenges you have only subtly changes when someone challenges you, so I didn't notice at first. Perhaps there could be an announcement in chat or similar?

All in all, great work

Come on you selfish bunch of privileged cunts, screenshots.

I haven't got it but, as Supee has, I've had a brief look.

Fist impressions lasting all of a couple of minutes......

Display/layout great, no issues with that. In fact, much better as (above) less scrolling. And prettier.

Challenges - Unless you're sat on the challenge screen it could be easy to not notice when someone has challenged you. With the existing interface you can't really miss it but I imagine you could with this (especially if you have volume off). Personally I'd like a visual notification of challenge whichever section you happen to be looking at.

Users - As mentioned above, it would be very useful to still be able to link to users previous games, see their ratings, and have your own name/rating slotted into the player list also.

Best matches - Supee had 3 people listed as her best match, one of which was Ian Volante. No disrespect to Supee intended but Ian was far from being the best match from the players available at the time and this selection seemed not to correlate with ratings/previous games etc.

All said it looks promising and maybe needs just a few tweaks.

Thanks for all the feedback, really useful. Hopefully I can answer some questions and make more changes in the next few days.

Unless I'm being dead silly, I can't see how you can see your current status (seeking, busy or online). I know it only takes one click to make sure, but I think being able to see your own status by having yourself in the right hand player column (maybe separate at the top or something?) would be a good addition.

Isn't that already covered by looking at which of the three buttons is depressed? Or do you mean when you're in other tabs?

I can't see how to view my current rating either. While not really essential, this would be nice to retain imo.

Agreed. There are some server-side changes that haven't been pushed yet which will fix this.

Another point is that you can see the order of ratings, but not the actual points unless you click on an individual. This may be a bit confusing for new member who aren't used to the names of the big guns or people closer to the bottom, so won't know who to challenge from the "match quality" rating alone.

Yeah, I wonder whether it should show you ratings instead of match quality when you click "Sort by > Ratings", or something like that. I'll probably do that.

Also, I know it's only in the trial stages so the way in which the "match quality" is determined may fluctuate a bit, but I don't understand this part really.

People who are currently playing or set to Busy are shifted down, and people who are Seeking are boosted up a bit, so you were probably seeing that in action.

Also, you can't see a person's latest games, display case etc anymore. I think it would be a shame to lose this feature, as it's good for knowing when to challenge people at their weakest, or avoid someone on a good run.... if you're of a cowardly inclination.

"Latest games" will be back with the new server changes which should be up by tomorrow. Display case and other things like that seemed pointless to me since you can see it on the website in a much nicer layout.

The one thing I did notice was the number of challenges you have only subtly changes when someone challenges you, so I didn't notice at first. Perhaps there could be an announcement in chat or similar?

Since you're not the only person mentioning this, I wonder whether it's either not working properly or my perception is different to everyone else's. It should be a little grey circle changing to a big red one with a number in the middle, which to me is a more obvious change than an extra box popping up in a list of boxes, and it stays red until you go into the challenges window and check on it. Do other people use that in a different way to me?

Best matches - Supee had 3 people listed as her best match, one of which was Ian Volante. No disrespect to Supee intended but Ian was far from being the best match from the players available at the time and this selection seemed not to correlate with ratings/previous games etc.

I don't know who else was online at the time, but if most people were in a game and Ian was idling then he might have been the best available match.


Oh, and for Matt:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Unless I'm being dead silly, I can't see how you can see your current status (seeking, busy or online). I know it only takes one click to make sure, but I think being able to see your own status by having yourself in the right hand player column (maybe separate at the top or something?) would be a good addition.

Isn't that already covered by looking at which of the three buttons is depressed? Or do you mean when you're in other tabs?

Yeah, I was being dead silly. My bad!

Charlie Reams wrote:

Also, I know it's only in the trial stages so the way in which the "match quality" is determined may fluctuate a bit, but I don't understand this part really.

People who are currently playing or set to Busy are shifted down, and people who are Seeking are boosted up a bit, so you were probably seeing that in action.

Best matches - Supee had 3 people listed as her best match, one of which was Ian Volante. No disrespect to Supee intended but Ian was far from being the best match from the players available at the time and this selection seemed not to correlate with ratings/previous games etc.

I don't know who else was online at the time, but if most people were in a game and Ian was idling then he might have been the best available match.

Ah, ok. So "match quality" means "suitability of pairing for playing a match" rather than "quality of match expected between these two participants", or am I still being an utter fucktard?

Charlie Reams wrote:

The one thing I did notice was the number of challenges you have only subtly changes when someone challenges you, so I didn't notice at first. Perhaps there could be an announcement in chat or similar?

Since you're not the only person mentioning this, I wonder whether it's either not working properly or my perception is different to everyone else's. It should be a little grey circle changing to a big red one with a number in the middle, which to me is a more obvious change than an extra box popping up in a list of boxes, and it stays red until you go into the challenges window and check on it. Do other people use that in a different way to me?

I was going to comment on this first, then realised that the red icon with a number inside is probably better than a box inside some boxes. My "testing" of this feature was kind of limited because I couldn't go back and see how the two things compare, but I think the new way is better for this personally.

Cheers for clearing it all up Charlie... you're just like Anusol!

Josh Hurst wrote: Ah, ok. So "match quality" means "suitability of pairing for playing a match" rather than "quality of match expected between these two participants", or am I still being an utter fucktard?

Exactly. "Match quality" was the best two-word summary I could think of.

Josh Hurst wrote:Cheers for clearing it all up Charlie... you're just like Anusol!

I guess this new interface feels good... on the whole.

Some Feedback

I'm not fond of the match system, i know ur trying to change things for the better but personally i think the way it was with a list of rating is essential, the other systems are fine for a sort function but i think its essential there is still an exact way it was with innis (2200ish) then the next person right down to prune.

Where u said above about the challenges not showing, i think its working fine. the challenges tab changes to a big 1 when someone challenged me.

Also as Josh said, i think u really need to be able to see ur own profile as well. i know in games it still says how many points lost or won but it would be nice to still see at a glance what ur rating is so u know roughly when ur challenging someone how many rating points are between the 2 of u.

All in all tho it seems to be pretty nice.

Charlie Reams wrote:Oh, and for Matt:

Thanks matey. Certainly looks interesting. I'll obviously provide full feedback if and when I get to play with it, but initially:
- also agree you need a ratings list. rather than sort button, you could have three sortable headers - so a simple click would order them by "match quality", "player name" and "rating" - easy, and excellent, solution.
- what control over fonts do you have? you know i hate times new roman, (and I know you'll hate me talking GUI at such an early stage!) but I can cope with it for the chat panel and that - it's just the four big buttons at the top look out of place in terms of visual style, a bit clunky. i could make you graphics to use for them.

anyway am looking forward to seeing how it progresses and sticking more of my oar in a bit later. keep up the good work etc.

Matt Morrison wrote:also agree you need a ratings list. rather than sort button, you could have three sortable headers - so a simple click would order them by "match quality", "player name" and "rating" - easy, and excellent, solution.

I'm gonna stick with a sort button for reasons which will become clear when you see the current iteration. Sort by name is a nice idea though.

- what control over fonts do you have? you know i hate times new roman, (and I know you'll hate me talking GUI at such an early stage!) but I can cope with it for the chat panel and that - it's just the four big buttons at the top look out of place in terms of visual style, a bit clunky.

It just uses the system's local serif font.

i could make you graphics to use for them.

Feel free, I made the icons from wikicommons images in about 10 seconds.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:The one thing I did notice was the number of challenges you have only subtly changes when someone challenges you, so I didn't notice at first. Perhaps there could be an announcement in chat or similar?

Since you're not the only person mentioning this, I wonder whether it's either not working properly or my perception is different to everyone else's. It should be a little grey circle changing to a big red one with a number in the middle, which to me is a more obvious change than an extra box popping up in a list of boxes, and it stays red until you go into the challenges window and check on it. Do other people use that in a different way to me?

Ah, I hadn't noticed that, because I couldn't be bothered to do the Duel, so I already had 1 challenge when someone challenged me.

Scott Gillies wrote:but i think its essential there is still an exact way it was with innis (2200ish)

Why is it essential to know someone's 'exact' rating?

Now that I'm having a peek, here's some hopefully helpful input. Of course it should be started with a caveat to say a definite improvement over the previous/current layout, methinks...

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:Unless I'm being dead silly, I can't see how you can see your current status (seeking, busy or online). I know it only takes one click to make sure, but I think being able to see your own status by having yourself in the right hand player column (maybe separate at the top or something?) would be a good addition.

Isn't that already covered by looking at which of the three buttons is depressed? Or do you mean when you're in other tabs?

I agree with Josh (if this is what he meant) that you should probably be able to control this from all tabs - for example, if you go and have a look at the star chart or ascension, decide to play some and want to mark yourself as busy you have to change away from the tab where you want to be to do so.
I'm also tempted to say that you could put in a very reasonable argument for having the player list (and status buttons) appear on all tabs. For a start, none of the other three tabs (Challenges, Solo Player, and Misc) actually need all the horizontal width (in their current forms, obviously you might have plans for a lot more content on these pages) and all would look fine rearranged into a smaller horizontal space. Obviously the Solo Player seems the oddest one to have a list of players appear on, but it's not as nonsense as it sounds - I think A LOT of the time that people play solo is when no one is online they want to play, so in a very real way it's just as important to have a good look at the players online when you're playing solo as when you're immediately looking to play another player.

As far as the buttons themselves providing more feedback, you could provide extra visual notification of being marked as busy or seeking by using the grey and red colours we've become familiar with - this could be in the form of adding a thick (2px?) border of the appropriate colour around the selected button (presumably just black for Online), or (less good I think) changing the colour of the text used for the main Find a game button.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:I can't see how to view my current rating either. While not really essential, this would be nice to retain imo.

Agreed. There are some server-side changes that haven't been pushed yet which will fix this.

Although the latest incarnation lists your rating at the top of the player list, for me this still lacks a sense of comparison you get with the old layout where you are listed yourself as a player in the list - that way it's so much easier to see that a particular player is just above you, just below you, and to see how you directly compare with other ratings. You have to kind of cross reference between the player list ratings and your own rating at the top of the player list now.

Additionally, if you do keep it as it is then at least make your own rating number bigger/bolder. Also - I noticed when playing in small mode on Heather's laptop that you can only see 2 or 3 (can't remember) numbers in your rating, the right side of it is chopped off. I know you might be aware of some of this sort of thing (or are fully aware you haven't adapted it to small mode yet) but worth mentioning for informativity.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:Another point is that you can see the order of ratings, but not the actual points unless you click on an individual. This may be a bit confusing for new member who aren't used to the names of the big guns or people closer to the bottom, so won't know who to challenge from the "match quality" rating alone.

Yeah, I wonder whether it should show you ratings instead of match quality when you click "Sort by > Ratings", or something like that. I'll probably do that.

The new sort options are great, well needed. Would it be good (in more closely mimicking regular OS behaviour) to allow ascending and descending order? No need for extra buttons, just if you sort by Rating when it is already sorted by Rating it switches them back to front as you'd expect. Not sure how often it'd be useful but imagine it's easy to do and makes sorting options that little bit more complete.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:Also, I know it's only in the trial stages so the way in which the "match quality" is determined may fluctuate a bit, but I don't understand this part really.

People who are currently playing or set to Busy are shifted down, and people who are Seeking are boosted up a bit, so you were probably seeing that in action.

This was going to be one of my points - re: players who are playing - but you've already said it. In which case it isn't working, every time I've been on over the last day or so the top-rated match quality suggestion has always been someone who is currently playing.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:Also, you can't see a person's latest games, display case etc anymore. I think it would be a shame to lose this feature, as it's good for knowing when to challenge people at their weakest, or avoid someone on a good run.... if you're of a cowardly inclination.

"Latest games" will be back with the new server changes which should be up by tomorrow. Display case and other things like that seemed pointless to me since you can see it on the website in a much nicer layout.

Nothing to add other than agreement - display case completely unnecessary, latest games completely essential. Well, also to say that, as Scott suggests later in this thread, being able to see your own latest games at a glance is another reason for having your own name in the player list, I use that a fair bit.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:The one thing I did notice was the number of challenges you have only subtly changes when someone challenges you, so I didn't notice at first. Perhaps there could be an announcement in chat or similar?

Since you're not the only person mentioning this, I wonder whether it's either not working properly or my perception is different to everyone else's. It should be a little grey circle changing to a big red one with a number in the middle, which to me is a more obvious change than an extra box popping up in a list of boxes, and it stays red until you go into the challenges window and check on it. Do other people use that in a different way to me?

I agree the method you've chosen (red circle) is definitely better than anything popping up in chat. To make it more obvious you could have the whole button flash red, not just the number (though the number would stay red after the button had flashed until the tab is clicked).

Some of the behaviour doesn't quite feel right though. Like if someone turns down one of your challenges, or retracts a challenge to you of their own, the number will flash red again and every time this has happened I've excitedly checked the challenges tab thinking I have another challenge when actually I have one less. What Kai also later said about Duels is something that keeps bugging me too. I don't know if it's overcomplicating things but you could separate the button into "x Challenges / y Duel / z Unfinished" or something to give more details as to what is going on and keep duel/ascension/top dog/guardian games that are in progress or awaiting acceptance more obviously separate from real human challenges. Obviously the "y Duel" and "z Unfinished" parts only need appear when appropriate. (Note that I haven't yet seen the current behaviour for unfinished games or anything.)


OTHER COMMENTS

Today's update - the only change I noticed was that when you log on a player is not auto-selected, which is good - I kept getting confused to see Barry Bridger's face staring back at me every time I logged in earlier this morning. HOWEVER - the top player in the player list IS still selected/highlighted, which needs to be sorted as at the moment if I DO want to see that player's profile and challenge them, I have to click away from them onto another player and then click back on to their name.

Player List - can no longer remove bots from the player list.

Chat Room invites - Further to the "keep chat as chat" thing touched on for showing challenges, the one thing that does appear in chat which IMO shouldn't is an invitation to a private chat room. Maybe with the new layout they could somehow appear in challenges (in terms of it being a request or something) or elsewhere. I dunno where really, I just do know that a lot of the time I've tried to grab someone for a chat they don't see it (playing or not), and similarly I've often missed people trying to get me in a chat room, and you end up having to send several consecutive invites.

Chat names - a general topic but names still appear as links when someone leaves the room, and they shouldn't. Also, sure you're again entirely aware but in general name links don't open up their profiles in the new layout.


---
Hope all that helps to some extent, and doesn't look unappreciative - as you know it isn't!

Matt Morrison wrote:I just do know that a lot of the time I've tried to grab someone for a chat they don't see it (playing or not)

They probably just hate you for being a show-off wanker.

Matt Morrison wrote:I've often missed people trying to get me in a chat room, and you end up having to send several consecutive invites.

God, you're such a show-off. Wanker.

I dunno if it's already been said, but another good thing I noticed last night was that if a game with a human gets suspended, you no longer have the unfinished game in grey in the challenges box, it just reappears as a new challenge when the person enters the room again.

Josh Hurst wrote:I dunno if it's already been said, but another good thing I noticed last night was that if a game with a human gets suspended, you no longer have the unfinished game in grey in the challenges box, it just reappears as a new challenge when the person enters the room again.

Yep. There are lots of these overdue tweaks and to me it's actually a good thing if people don't notice them explicitly, they just reap the benefits.

When you issue a challenge, the circle doesn't go red. = Definitely not noticeable enough - has lead me to forget what I was doing and double-challenge once or twice.

If I click someone's name in the chat, instead of going to that particular player, it goes to the player highest on the list.

When are the rest of us going to get the new interface?

Not sure if you read it all Charlie, but in addition to

Matt Morrison wrote:Chat names - a general topic but names still appear as links when someone leaves the room, and they shouldn't.

Classic Players shouldn't be clickable either - unless it causes a new Classic Player tab to pop up with links to all their games to play or something (cool idea).

Only been here a few weeks and not seen the new version yet, whch is fine.

Would like to offer a couple of comments about ratings and the start of a game.

Firstly in looking for/at challenges the rating list seems a very useful guide as it is currently shown (except when someone deliberately crashes theirs, but that's a different matter). I'd be sorry to asee that disappear. Not quite sure how pro-ranks can be so different though. I know level of activity is taken into account, yet several active players with better ratings (in some cases proven conclusively in a game) are behind me on pro-ranks, which seems odd. They include Matt M, Joyce Phillips, Tracey Mills and Ned Pendleton.

Secondly the message at the start of a game gives PB scores and my supposed "chances" of winning. Fine, but what I would be more interested to know is the head-to-head score before we start. I can't always remember who I've beaten or lost to, or indeed sometimes if we've played at all, and although it's obviously available in another tab I'm not normally inclined to hold the game up to go looking for it.

Matt Morrison wrote:I agree with Josh (if this is what he meant) that you should probably be able to control this from all tabs - for example, if you go and have a look at the star chart or ascension, decide to play some and want to mark yourself as busy you have to change away from the tab where you want to be to do so.

Yep fair enough, I'll think about this.

I'm also tempted to say that you could put in a very reasonable argument for having the player list (and status buttons) appear on all tabs. For a start, none of the other three tabs (Challenges, Solo Player, and Misc) actually need all the horizontal width (in their current forms, obviously you might have plans for a lot more content on these pages) and all would look fine rearranged into a smaller horizontal space. Obviously the Solo Player seems the oddest one to have a list of players appear on, but it's not as nonsense as it sounds - I think A LOT of the time that people play solo is when no one is online they want to play, so in a very real way it's just as important to have a good look at the players online when you're playing solo as when you're immediately looking to play another player.

Really don't want to do this. One objective of this redesign is to create some actual SPACE so that I don't have to keep putting new features in obscure submenus that no one looks at. Honestly I can't see any great benefit in being able to see the list of online players at the exact same time as choosing which solo player mode to take on.

As far as the buttons themselves providing more feedback, you could provide extra visual notification of being marked as busy or seeking by using the grey and red colours we've become familiar with - this could be in the form of adding a thick (2px?) border of the appropriate colour around the selected button (presumably just black for Online), or (less good I think) changing the colour of the text used for the main Find a game button.

Sure.

Matt Morrison wrote:Although the latest incarnation lists your rating at the top of the player list, for me this still lacks a sense of comparison you get with the old layout where you are listed yourself as a player in the list - that way it's so much easier to see that a particular player is just above you, just below you, and to see how you directly compare with other ratings. You have to kind of cross reference between the player list ratings and your own rating at the top of the player list now.

Additionally, if you do keep it as it is then at least make your own rating number bigger/bolder. Also - I noticed when playing in small mode on Heather's laptop that you can only see 2 or 3 (can't remember) numbers in your rating, the right side of it is chopped off. I know you might be aware of some of this sort of thing (or are fully aware you haven't adapted it to small mode yet) but worth mentioning for informativity.

Yeah, it looks like people really want to see themselves in the list of online players, and I can see some of the arguments, so I'll probably change that back.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:Also, I know it's only in the trial stages so the way in which the "match quality" is determined may fluctuate a bit, but I don't understand this part really.

People who are currently playing or set to Busy are shifted down, and people who are Seeking are boosted up a bit, so you were probably seeing that in action.

This was going to be one of my points - re: players who are playing - but you've already said it. In which case it isn't working, every time I've been on over the last day or so the top-rated match quality suggestion has always been someone who is currently playing.

It's only a penalty, so if it might be that players in a game are still top choice if there's no one near your rating. But I'll check this is working correctly. Edit: it wasn't. Or rather, I never implemented it in the first place. Oops.

Matt Morrison wrote:Some of the behaviour doesn't quite feel right though. Like if someone turns down one of your challenges, or retracts a challenge to you of their own, the number will flash red again and every time this has happened I've excitedly checked the challenges tab thinking I have another challenge when actually I have one less.

I think you're talking about an older version or something. The button only flashes when a new challenge arrives.

Matt Morrison wrote:What Kai also later said about Duels is something that keeps bugging me too. I don't know if it's overcomplicating things but you could separate the button into "x Challenges / y Duel / z Unfinished" or something to give more details as to what is going on and keep duel/ascension/top dog/guardian games that are in progress or awaiting acceptance more obviously separate from real human challenges. Obviously the "y Duel" and "z Unfinished" parts only need appear when appropriate. (Note that I haven't yet seen the current behaviour for unfinished games or anything.)

Don't really see the point of all this. A challenge is a challenge and adding subwindows just means more wasted space.


OTHER COMMENTS

Today's update - the only change I noticed was that when you log on a player is not auto-selected, which is good - I kept getting confused to see Barry Bridger's face staring back at me every time I logged in earlier this morning. HOWEVER - the top player in the player list IS still selected/highlighted, which needs to be sorted as at the moment if I DO want to see that player's profile and challenge them, I have to click away from them onto another player and then click back on to their name.

Player List - can no longer remove bots from the player list.

Yep. I think this is pretty pointless functionality now that the window has space for as many players as are ever online.

Chat Room invites - Further to the "keep chat as chat" thing touched on for showing challenges, the one thing that does appear in chat which IMO shouldn't is an invitation to a private chat room. Maybe with the new layout they could somehow appear in challenges (in terms of it being a request or something) or elsewhere. I dunno where really, I just do know that a lot of the time I've tried to grab someone for a chat they don't see it (playing or not), and similarly I've often missed people trying to get me in a chat room, and you end up having to send several consecutive invites.

Yeah, I've always thought this was a mess. I might put in some other kind of notification or something.

Matt Morrison wrote:When you issue a challenge, the circle doesn't go red. = Definitely not noticeable enough - has lead me to forget what I was doing and double-challenge once or twice.

This seems weird to me. Why would you want to be notified about something you just did? But I agree that there should be some kind of feedback in that pane so you know that it "worked".

James Bradley wrote:When are the rest of us going to get the new interface?

When it's done.

Keith Bennett wrote:Firstly in looking for/at challenges the rating list seems a very useful guide as it is currently shown (except when someone deliberately crashes theirs, but that's a different matter). I'd be sorry to asee that disappear.

It's been replaced with something better for exactly that purpose.

Keith Bennett wrote:Not quite sure how pro-ranks can be so different though. I know level of activity is taken into account, yet several active players with better ratings (in some cases proven conclusively in a game) are behind me on pro-ranks, which seems odd. They include Matt M, Joyce Phillips, Tracey Mills and Ned Pendleton.

The rolling ratings are absolute crap and that's one reason that I'm trying to wean players off their addiction to them. They fluctuate a lot, they give equal weight to all sorts of strange formats, the bots are hugely underrated and distort everyone else's ratings, and blah blah blah. The only reason they still exist is that 1) ProRanks are only updated weekly 2) ProRanks is only for one format in one language, whereas the rolling ratings keep track of all the different variants and languages.

If whatever replaces rolling rankings is better, fine, and I agree that the bots are clearly under-rated under the present calculations.

The point I was making was merely that it's very useful having an easily visible guide to who is currently online, whether playing or not, and the comparative strength of the people available to play. Some comments previously seemed to suggest that was going. Apologies if that's incorrect.

Anyway it's an excellent site and obviously takes a lot of work to develop and maintain. I don't think anyone who's making comments is really being critical, just giving their (hopefully useful) feedback.


KB

Keith Bennett wrote: Anyway it's an excellent site and obviously takes a lot of work to develop and maintain. I don't think anyone who's making comments is really being critical, just giving their (hopefully useful) feedback.

Yep sure. I'm mostly past taking it personally.

The newest version is quite troublesome for me on my laptop. Firstly, in "PLAY (small)" the bottom options in the "find a game" tab are just cut off. This doesn't change by making the box bigger- so you can't make custom challenges (well, you can just click that button as a bit of it is poking through) or sort players by match quality, ratings etc. The "PLAY" interface has similar problems. The custom challenge button is there, but this time it's impossible for me to participate in aptochat, change my status, or sort players in the "find a game" tab. I don't really know if these issues existed before, as I don't use this option to play as play small is usually best for me on my laptop. However, as it wasn't functioning properly this time, I thought I'd give "PLAY" a try.

Josh Hurst wrote:The newest version is quite troublesome for me on my laptop. Firstly, in "PLAY (small)" the bottom options in the "find a game" tab are just cut off. This doesn't change by making the box bigger- so you can't make custom challenges (well, you can just click that button as a bit of it is poking through) or sort players by match quality, ratings etc. The "PLAY" interface has similar problems. The custom challenge button is there, but this time it's impossible for me to participate in aptochat, change my status, or sort players in the "find a game" tab. I don't really know if these issues existed before, as I don't use this option to play as play small is usually best for me on my laptop. However, as it wasn't functioning properly this time, I thought I'd give "PLAY" a try.

I'm not really supporting small mode at the moment (seriously, it's 2011) but I've fixed it for you because I love you.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:The newest version is quite troublesome for me on my laptop. Firstly, in "PLAY (small)" the bottom options in the "find a game" tab are just cut off. This doesn't change by making the box bigger- so you can't make custom challenges (well, you can just click that button as a bit of it is poking through) or sort players by match quality, ratings etc. The "PLAY" interface has similar problems. The custom challenge button is there, but this time it's impossible for me to participate in aptochat, change my status, or sort players in the "find a game" tab. I don't really know if these issues existed before, as I don't use this option to play as play small is usually best for me on my laptop. However, as it wasn't functioning properly this time, I thought I'd give "PLAY" a try.

I'm not really supporting small mode at the moment (seriously, it's 2011) but I've fixed it for you because I love you.

What size is large mode our if interest?

agreed that large could definitely be bigger, or rather wider at least, which would help you a lot charlie surely.

just seen the "challenge sent" button change state - absolutely brilliant.

Not sure if anyone else would find this useful but how about a "clear challenges" (or "clear unanswered challenges" for more informativeness) button?

When I'm looking for a game and everyone is being lame, I often end up challenging three or four people and waiting for the first person to accept.
At which point there is a mad scramble to retract the other challenges before one of them accepts.
Usually this means two clicks - to select, then to retract - per unwanted challenge.

A button to remove all your unanswered challenges - both from you and to you - would be quite useful.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:The newest version is quite troublesome for me on my laptop. Firstly, in "PLAY (small)" the bottom options in the "find a game" tab are just cut off. This doesn't change by making the box bigger- so you can't make custom challenges (well, you can just click that button as a bit of it is poking through) or sort players by match quality, ratings etc. The "PLAY" interface has similar problems. The custom challenge button is there, but this time it's impossible for me to participate in aptochat, change my status, or sort players in the "find a game" tab. I don't really know if these issues existed before, as I don't use this option to play as play small is usually best for me on my laptop. However, as it wasn't functioning properly this time, I thought I'd give "PLAY" a try.

I'm not really supporting small mode at the moment (seriously, it's 2011) but I've fixed it for you because I love you.

Ah, is this why I can't get to the chat input and status buttons on this laptop?

My eye's are intrinsically drawn to the bottom two thirds of the screen so if you wasn't for the noise you get from a challenge I'd never notice that someone had challenged me. The red dot's just not working for me. If it was lower down the screen it might. Also when I do go to the challenge screen to accept a challenge I have to go back to the find a player screen to see what their rating is. Not that I wouldn't accept the challenge because of their rating, I just like to have an idea of how good someone is before I play them.

Just had my first look at the new interface, it's great. Really easy to get along with.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Josh Hurst wrote:The newest version is quite troublesome for me on my laptop. Firstly, in "PLAY (small)" the bottom options in the "find a game" tab are just cut off. This doesn't change by making the box bigger- so you can't make custom challenges (well, you can just click that button as a bit of it is poking through) or sort players by match quality, ratings etc. The "PLAY" interface has similar problems. The custom challenge button is there, but this time it's impossible for me to participate in aptochat, change my status, or sort players in the "find a game" tab. I don't really know if these issues existed before, as I don't use this option to play as play small is usually best for me on my laptop. However, as it wasn't functioning properly this time, I thought I'd give "PLAY" a try.

I'm not really supporting small mode at the moment (seriously, it's 2011) but I've fixed it for you because I love you.

The height is the problem. On most laptops with Windows 7 the big version is going to be too big. But you could probably lose some height by making chat, player info box and online players list shorter, shrink challenges a bit, and erduce the gaps in Solo player. Width will not be a problem for anyone above 1024*768 which is like, everyone.

Ooh. Shiny.

Does the new "best people to challenge" system work the same way for the bots, in that bots currently playing are kicked down the list? Nude and Waldorf (idle) were much "better" opponents for me than Plum, who was playing two games at the time. Is this intentional?

N

Chris Hare wrote:Ooh. Shiny.

Does the new "best people to challenge" system work the same way for the bots, in that bots currently playing are kicked down the list? Nude and Waldorf (idle) were much "better" opponents for me than Plum, who was playing two games at the time. Is this intentional?

Good question. Bots are slightly penalized anyway because generally its preferable to play a human, all other things being equal. But they may also be penalized for playing, so I'll fix that if so.

I was gagging last night to give you some positive feedback on the new changes, but c4c was down! So excited to be doing now in stead.

Thanks for sorting the no-link-on-logout in chat - brilliant. Actually looks much more sensible too as well as acting it.

Pictures in chat - wondered what you had planned when you said my previous ideas didn't use the pictures enough - brilliant, brilliant idea. So fucking excellent.
I'd argue you don't need the big gap before each chat though - if that was removed conversations would be a bit easier to follow. Additionally, last night every so often a user pic (absolutely no rhyme no reason to this though) would be stretched vertically, to like 150% or so. Having only just logged on not seen this happen yet.

The new player profiles - also brilliant. Great to have latest games back, and so good having everything on one tab. Really lovely. Just need to shift down the player pics by one line as they're touching the top.

Jesus Christ it's looking good - such improvements from when I first saw the new design.

Thanks matey.

Ok, no more compliments. The fucking player links need to make the tab switch back to Find a Game if you're elsewhere and you click on a player's name in chat.

Matt Morrison wrote:The new player profiles - also brilliant. Great to have latest games back, and so good having everything on one tab. Really lovely. Just need to shift down the player pics by one line as they're touching the top.

Just realised the player's record has disappeared. Shame - this is mad useful, particularly to check against new players whose ratings haven't stabilised yet. But really, for all cases. Reinstate! x

Matt Morrison wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:The new player profiles - also brilliant. Great to have latest games back, and so good having everything on one tab. Really lovely. Just need to shift down the player pics by one line as they're touching the top.

Just realised the player's record has disappeared. Shame - this is mad useful, particularly to check against new players whose ratings haven't stabilised yet. But really, for all cases. Reinstate! x

Huh?

Like "x wins in y games". One of those things where I never had any idea how much I relied on it til it all went and gone.

Matt Morrison wrote:Like "x wins in y games". One of those things where I never had any idea how much I relied on it til it all went and gone.

Oh, I don't remember deleting that. It is a really crap quality metric though.

The space for it is still there, it goes Rating, blank line, preferred variant, blank line, member since.. etc.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Like "x wins in y games". One of those things where I never had any idea how much I relied on it til it all went and gone.

Oh, I don't remember deleting that. It is a really crap quality metric though.

Yeah I know it's not ideal, but I still find it useful. Perhaps you could revolutionise it (a little) by having it show just human 15 rounders.

If you are already on the Challenges tab when challenged then the flashing red ball keeps flashing after you have accepted the challenge, and indeed even after you have finished said game.