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At first blush, I like the idea of giving the remaining player the option to end the game with a Tie or with no result; upon reflection, however, I think this is likely to lead to even more rage quits/disconnects.

If there is some non-zero probability that an opponent will not choose "force resign" then some subset of users will disconnect rather than resign.

This possibility had also occurred to me, but I think (hope?) it would be a very minor increase.  As the remaining player I would choose "force resign" if I felt it was a game I was likely to win anyway and would choose "abandon" only if the game was still evenly balanced (or a likely loss for me), neither of which are positions that are likely to have led an opponent to quit.  The other factor that would influence my decision would be if I had any prior experience of playing against the opponent.  For example one game that I would have liked to abandon was the sixth game I'd played against that particular opponent.  I'd won all three games the previous day and had already won the first two games on this particular occasion when suddenly my opponent disappeared in the middle of a very even game. I really don't believe that he disappeared voluntarily.

[I looked at running games on 'Tables' and could see no table hosted by either myself or my opponent.]

Only one snag...

Something very similar has just happened again (game 5067903 against minhkngu).

This time the initial problem was not that my browser hung but that suddenly in the middle of my turn the 'reconnecting' screen appeared.  It just sat there offering the 'kick and resign' option, so after a few seconds I closed the browser, reopened it and logged in again.  Once again I found myself at the 'Matching' screen rather than back in the game.

I looked at running games on 'Tables' and could see no table hosted by either myself or my opponent.

Next I logged out again and tried kicking before logging back in.  Once again I found myself at the 'Matching' screen.

Finally, in the hope of saving my opponent from further delay, I logged out and did a 'kick and resign'.

All the above was completed well before my time to act would have timed out.

It's possible that my opponent was also having connection problems: while he was taking his first turn, I twiced received messages saying that he had disconnected and then reconnected.

Thanks for the explanation.

I've just had a game (5051932 against HK-ad3) during which my browser hung.  Having killed and restarted the browser I logged back in and found myself at the 'Matching' screen rather than back in the game that I had been playing.  My unfortunate opponent will have had to wait to force a resignation and will no doubt be under the false impression that I quit the game because I was losing.

I've had a browser hang in the past and have successfully reconnected to the game by killing the browser, restarting it and then logging in again, so I'm puzzled as to why it didn't work this time, though in his description of the latest release Stef referred to improvements when reconnecting.  Has one of those 'improvements' caused a problem?

By the way I'm dane-m when playing.

Some players dislike it when their opponent resigns in a lost position.  Against such players I do not want to resign.  Other players dislike being forced to play out a game that they are clearly going to win.  Against such players I am willing to resign, assuming of course that I'm of the opinion that they are clearly going to win, even though my natural inclination is to play the game out.

Given the above, when I'm in a clearly lost position I would like to be able to offer my resignation so that I don't have to guess which of the two categories my opponent is in.  Currently I can only do this via the chat, but this is only a viable option if I know I'm playing against someone who speaks English.  To get round this problem it would be nice if the UI were to include the ability to offer one's resignation.  Perhaps this could be done by extending the current 'Yes'/'No' choice after clicking on 'Resign' to 'Yes'/'Offer resignation'/'No'.

I've had a couple of games in which an opponent who I felt inclined to trust not to leave the game without warning has mysteriously disappeared from a game that was still evenly balanced.  In both cases I suspected that they were having a connection problem and waited quite a while (in one instance I had my dinner) before reluctantly resorting to forcing their resignation.  Adjourning those games would certainly have been a preferable course of action.  Failing that, I would have liked the opportunity to abandon the game rather than force the resignation.

The only oddity I can think of is that the game was the continuation of one (4941559) against a human opponent who had resigned very early on.  I wonder whether any of the other games where you've encountered the 'Internal error' message fall into the same category.

Joining game #4941678 on oregon.

Code Select Expand

Turn 17 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Squire
L plays a Replace
  L trashes an Overgrown Estate
  L draws a card
Waiting for Lord Rattington


Closing my browser, reopening it and then logging back in then hung at 'Connected to gameserver'.

Closing my browser, reopening it and then clicking on 'Kick' gave the message 'Nothing to kick'.  It's the first time I've tried using 'Kick' so maybe I didn't do it right, but I had filled in my username and password before clicking on it.

I was reduced to closing my browser, reopening it, logging back in and then clicking on 'Cancel & Resign' while hung at 'Connected to gameserver'.  It's a bit much when a bot slow rolls to force a resignation.  :)

So here's me, a subscription player, with all expansions (except empires). But havent played in months, so my rating is low. Matching gives me players who are scared **** when they see all the cards they dont know, and 1 out of 10 posts that in chat. So my response is always; tkae your time, no rush, just take a look at the cards first. And 9 out 10 just resigns after a few rounds, without even saying anything.

I had a similar experience when I started playing a few days ago.  The good news is that all those quick resignations soon (overnight in my case) boost one's rating enough that one gets to play against people who aren't terrified of the expansions.

Like you, however, I found it strange that the other players weren't happy to get experience of the cards they didn't know by playing someone who was willing to be patient.
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I've also had someone arrive at my table after I'd set it to block spectators, but I thought it was just a timing issue (the other person arrived almost immediately after I'd changed the table settings).  From what you say, it sounds as though that's not the case.

Whatever the correct way of creating a private table is, there does seem to me to be a problem with the current approach (namely create a table and then adjust its settings) as it provides a window during which anyone can arrive at the table.  What's really need is a 'Create private table' option.

I doubt that requiring email confirmation would solve the problem.  It's not difficult to create a new email account!

Unfortunately the only suggestion for a solution that I can think of might well be very unpopular.  It would involve changing the way players are charged to use online Dominion such that there were three categories of user:

• Able to play using base set against bots only.  Free.
• Able to play against human opposition (just like the current free subscription) for a small one-off payment, maybe one or two euros.
• Silver and gold subscription as at present, but perhaps with the first subscription bought being discounted by any one-off payment that has already been made.

That should discourage people signing up merely to ruin other people's games.

To avoid upsetting existing users it would probably be wise to have the above apply only to new users.  That would leave us with the existing morons, but once they'd been banned, they would have to spend money to get back in, so presumably wouldn't.

I think Stef has got to come up with a solution that can prevent a banned player from simply creating a new account.  I doubt that I am the only person holding back from buying a suscription because I don't want my experience of online Dominion ruined by these morons.

I'm hesitant to make this suggestion as my experience is so far limited to having been reading this forum for the last six months and having played a mere handful of games (base set only) against bots, but might not a simpler option be to identify the Urchin precisely in the text that asks if one wants to trash it?  For example "Trash Urchin that was played by Prince?"

Things would be a bit more complicated for Scheme.  If the player clicked on card pile X and all cards in the pile were not equivalent, e.g. if one was there because it had been played by Prince, there would have to be a subsequent prompt to identify the precise card to be Schemed.