For live games, I believe the countdown waits until the joining period.

For games that last a longer period, it kicks off once the seventh player joins.

Your options at this point are to cancel the game, pause it and kick it off when you're all ready, or just play on

Games that are not live (I don't know what the exact cut-off is) start as soon as there are 7 players.

If you'd like, you can all vote to Pause at the bottom of the screen and then UnPause in 3 days, so you get the full 8 days.

What would be interesting is when you join a game you can also "save" or "ready", just like you can for the moves. In other words, if at least one person had "save" to start up, the game would start at the specified deadline, whereas "ready" would start the game immediately if everybody would choose that.

Oh, and when you all click Ready, the orders will process immediately, no matter how much time is left on the clock. You can it Save without speeding up the clock.

abgemacht's post is a continuation of redhouses's post, with no change in voice. Therefore, abgemacht is a dirty, stinky multi. Where are the mods, dammit!

I AM THE LAW!

Yeah. But I have my alterego abgemacht make little errors like "You can it Save" so nobody would ever find out. Guess that didn't work out.

+1 abg. You should add that to your comment. Must make you feel good to have oligarchic authority.

Haha, ok, thanks for the clarification everyone.

"For games that last a longer period, it kicks off once the seventh player joins."

What is defined as a "longer period"? Is there an arbitrary cut off for this?

Yes, but I don't remember what it is.

Maybe 15 min? Maybe 1 hour? Maybe 12 hours?

I would guess a "live" game would be 1 hour turns or less. But you would have to look in the code to be sure. Or try it for each phase length necessary to pin it down.

Is there a way for me to look at the code? Is this project open source? I would hope the validation and logic is done server side, otherwise it would be very easy to cheat.

Turn processing is done server side, yes. And it doesn't matter if you fake some orders in, it just means you will have orders that fail. And hacking/faking another person's order is not only against site rules and will get you banned, but would be extremely difficult as the site uses server-side security which means you would have to get the person's password to do it.

@Curtor:
Welcome to WebDiplomacy!

Yes, it is open-source
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpdiplomacy/
(the site used to be called phpdiplomacy back in the day)

I haven't really looked that much at the code, but from what I understand, the site was well-designed and with security in mind.

If you look on the Help page you can find Developer info that include a link to the developer forum which also has the latest code drop.

I do find it odd and counter-intuitive that a game (especially a non-live one) will start immediately upon seven players joining, and it could be very frustrating. For instance, I can see it being very convenient to create a game on Friday with one day phases set to start Monday (3 days) and have a guaranteed start date. It has to be very frustrating to come back on Monday expecting the game to start only to see that you have resigned from the game for NMRing. People can simply argue to pause the game and that would certainly work...unless players aren't there to pause it (the game is set to start several days from the creation date for a reason, right?).

Knowing how the system works, what exactly is the point of selecting a start time? Effectively, the "start time" is simply a deadline for the game to to fill before being cancelled. In my opinion, that deadline should be a standard length which can and probably should be different based on phase length (or perhaps even give an option for this as well). However, I do strongly believe there should be an option to select a true start time. Redhouse's idea of having a ready button to start the game before the specified start time would also be a great compliment to to this proposed system.

In my eyes, this system would be common sense and should be relatively easy to code. Are there reasons against this system I am overlooking?

@Skittles - It would probably be best to have a flag that says start immediately or wait. The idea of fill time based on phase length is bogus for one simple reason. Some games may have variants that take longer to fill or cost more to buy in so fewer players are eligible, or sometimes a player wants a game to absolutely start no later than a certain date and the default may be to short or long.

As far as ease of coding: unless you are a professional developer like myself, I would suggest you probably don't have a realistic clue what effort would be required of the volunteers who code for this site.

Very valid points. I do see a use in offering selections on the length the game is posted and did give that option in my proposal.

Regarding the programming, you do also have a valid point. As a professional, you obviously have much more knowledge on that than I do. My logic in that assumption was that compared to all the things that are already programmed on this site, setting a time that the game began would be relatively elementary. However, I do realize that the time and effort required to implement it (even if it isn't "difficult", which it may or may not be) could easily be a limiting factor.

In any case, I am simply curious whether there is a specific reason having a true start time is not an option.