I for one would be in complete support of the 'Extend' button on webDip. It works great on vDip for if a player won't have access to the computer for several days. I believe on vDip a 2/3 majority is needed for the extend to come into effect, which prevents the 1 jerk from screwing up the game for someone.

Yeah, that's exactly how it works. Although, there are two problems. One is that the games can drag on a fair bit because of an extend. With a good group, a Pause could actually be quicker.
Also, every time someone says they need a pause, people jump in with the idea of extend forgetting that a pause can be better sometimes. (Although, I have seen a double extend go through.)

...And that the '2/3' does not actually prevent a single player from changing things. On larger maps it can be very difficult to get half even, let alone the two thirds.

Currently it is based on number of players, yes? I worry that two players could extend a live game over and over to keep the third player from soloing once it is clear they blew the stalemate line. I think it might be better to be based on the number of centers for each voter. I told Oli I would take a look at the code but haven't done so yet.

Maybe it should simply be by one phase (or at least a smaller amount) so that people being dicks have less of an opportunity to be a dick. And should only be applicable once per phase so that the game can move.

I love the extend button on VDip. All for it here as well!

Maybe restrict it's use in a live game altogether. It's easy enough to hide the voting button and turn off the cpabaility if the phase length is less than 12 hours.

Definitely think it would work with bo_sox's mod - extend by a phase length, and no more than 1 extension per phase

But that might not be enough for people in 1 day phases. That's why it is set at 4 days in VDip.

I suggest 4x the phase length, once per phase, capped at 4 (or 5 or 6 or 7) days, whatever feels right. So live games could be extended by 20 minutes once per phase.

But honestly, I think just eliminating the option for phase lengths considered "live" would be better.

Another option would be to only allow a player to initiate an extend once in a game. So if a game got down to three players, it could only be extended three total times during the rest of the game and then only if none of the three had initiated the extend. then two players could only do two extends to try and convince the third to draw.

I would say no more then one extension per year, and I think this would be horribly abused if only a majority is needed.

And pauses would stay the same as always. I'm with Draug's last point. Once per game per player.

Eliminating live games isn't about to happen or SD would kill us all.

I didn't mean eliminating live games. I meant eliminating the extend option from live games. Extends should be unnecessary in live games, IMHO.

2/3rds is what is needed on VDip and it seems to work well over there.

Why not just have an end date on all pause requests? The game auto-unpauses on that date.

Because that complicates things. Right now the VDip Extend button logic is very simple.

For example, I request a pause from now until June 22nd. But then you indicate you'll be very busy that weekend and want to extend that to June 25th. Does your voting to pause for a later date undo the other pause votes? You wouldn't want the last person to vote to be able to complete the voting but with an even later end date than everyone else voted for.

So either voting for a different end date needs to clear all the other pause votes, or you need to keep track of the end date that each player has agreed to. And then only pause if everyone has agreed to one end date, or only pause until the soonest end date.

For the former, some people may not realize that while everyone has voted to pause, they aren't all the same length so the pause isn't happening.

For the later, you wouldn't want the last person to vote for only a one day pause after everyone else has voted for a 3 day pause and people not being careful go away for the weekend not realizing the game only has a one day pause. So you have to not allow a vote for a shorter pause time if someone else has already requested a pause.

It would help to have pause vote information go to global chat. But for gunboat that global chat isn't visible, at least without my code changes to make it visible for gamemaster and moderator messages which would be good to have anyway. (Also opens up global chat for gunboat games after the game has finished so people can bitch at each other there rather than in the forum. :)

It is all doable, you just have to work out the kinks as much ahead of time as possible. And no matter what you do there will be people that don't agree with some of the decisions, but tough for them. I'm very interested in coding this, but am not doing any more webdip coding until Kestas has his current project done and some of my other stuff gets integrated.

What's currently in the Kestas shop of juicy delights?

I think he's working on some big infrastructure changes to improve localization. Something like that.

The "extend" has some advantages and disadvantages. The "extend" can allow for people who are busy for a weekend to be able to extend their game to they can play when they're no longer busy. However, the 2/3 majority allows the game to be postponed for too long if a few people manage to get a majority in the game. Like others, I think that it should not be available for a live game or any game with a phase shorter than 1 day.

Thank you for all of your responses. I think this is a good idea and if implemented in some form could make games here better managed.

If enough people want it, a formal request could be made.

Draug...i cant take your posts seriously with the 1 point

WhiteSammy - So I chose to play keep all my points in game. You can't see all my points when most of them are in anon games, so you don't have a clue how many points I have. Seriously, you don't have a clue. Couldn't have a clue. Just as you have 235 when I add your available plus your in play points together.

So take me seriously or don't. I honestly don't give a fuck. Points don't mean fucking shit. My win/draw percentage is nearly twice what your is. You are defeated (and a survive is a defeat) twice as often as you win or draw. I'm nearly at a 50/50 ratio. I can't take you seriously when your win/draw percentage is so fucking low.

So fuck you, asshole.

The extend Feature does not pause the game. If all players set their orders to "Ready" the Phase will continoue as usuall.
So far we had no issues with players abusing this feature.