Hi guys.
Here is a link on my game https://online-go.com/game/6929940 while I was waiting for opponents move I surfing internet in another tab and when I back I saw that I lose the game by resignation.
How is it possible?
The system will automatically resign if it detects you’ve closed the game for a certain period of time. Depending on your browser, switching to another tab could cut the connection with the site. That’s the case for me on Safari. I find the automatic resignation system to be unpredictable though. I’m never sure how it decides when someone is disconnected.
I used Chrome
The system will automatically resign if it detects you’ve closed the game for a certain period of time.
Why do you need to do anything like that? During a real game I can simply stand up and go for a walk while I’m thinking. I wouldn’t lose because of that until I have time. Right?
If someone has a lot of time left and is losing, they might just leave the game and hope the other person resigns out of boredom. It’s happened to me several times. Waiting 20 minutes for someone to lose on timeout is very annoying.
Well right now I loose the game where I clearly have an advantage with the same reason.
Me opponent left and I just messing around while waiting for him, because I’ll see JS alert after his move. But instead of that I loose the game.
What, based on OGS rules, I should do? Sitting and watching on the board?? That doesn’t make any sense.
PS: I saw much stronger 12k than one I payed with in this game. Maybe this is how he gets this rating?
I would definitely review this rule, because this is very annoying rule.
I wouldn’t mind If my opponent left. While I’m waiting for him I can do other things. I’ll get an alert any way. Instead of this I lose and simply “waiting” strategy win. So what you aim to fix doesn’t work.
You can call a moderator after a few minutes. I think the time limit to be disconnected is supposed to be two minutes before it resigns you, but like I said, it doesn’t always work.
After a few minutes of what? Of waiting?
Yes.
If game has 45 minutes of main time why should a call moderator after a few minutes of waiting?
Sometimes I’m thinking even longer especially when I counting territory and see that I don’t have enough of it and I need to plan invasion. In total it can take up to 15-20 minutes. I believed that my opponent was in the same situation.
2 Likes
Hello!
The rule was implemented when the situation with escapers was unbearable. Users want to play, not wait and wait and wait to win by timeout. That’s annoying.
I was told that it was softened some time ago so that if the connection is interrupted, the game continues. It now auto-resigns only when you navigate away or close the tab. For example, my friend suffered auto-resign when an extension automatically suspended the tab after some time of not using it.
To address your analogy with real game. Of course you can do whatever you want with your time. Just don’t close the tab. It would be like destroying the game state and walking away without a word, coming back and be surprised that the game was forfeit, even though there was still time on your clock.
It is a complicated matter to address the escaper issue in the right way. For me, some false positives are much more acceptable than waiting 20-45 minutes for an idiot who can not bear defeat and must have revenge in one of the most childish ways.
However, I agree that it can be improved. For example, to clear out any confusion, it should be easily recognizable that the game was auto-resigned. Forfeited or something like that. It could be a statistic on player’s profile how many games were forfeit (timed-out &c.). The time buffer could be proportionate to the main time and so on…
Ok.
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Tab wasn’t closed. I opened another tab for other things. (I’ve said it already)
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I’m curious. Does this “improvement” fix the problem? How do you know that it was fixed? Because if I was a child who simply want to escape the game as the last chance to win it I would simply don’t close the tap where it goes and do something else. Especially after I would figure out this auto-resign rule.
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How other go-server are dealing with “escaping” from long games?
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About the “improvement” and “escaping”. If I start a game or I join a game where main time is 1 hour - that means I’m ok with waiting for my opponent for one hour. And I don’t care what my opponent is doing during this hour - thinking or watching porn. If someone don’t want to wait for one hour - then simply don’t start and don’t join games with 1 hour main time. I don’t see the problem here.
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“To address your analogy with real game. Of course you can do whatever you want with your time. Just don’t close the tab.” Where is the analogy? Real world doesn’t have tabs.
PS: I love playing Go on this server (This is why I’m sitting here right now and explaining all of this). This is the first server where I start playing game that I love. But how can I continue playing the game where I can lose without any reason, because suddenly it was “improved” and I will lose just like that, lose against Go-game rules. I had time to think and I lose because of new auto-resign rule - this annoys me much more than child who quit the game because he don’t know how to win.
Thank you for your support for creating this server
- Alex
There is an online indicator next to their user name. I mean wait for a few minutes after it says they’ve left the game.
It’s not without reason, though. Sure, it sucks that you lost a game you could’ve won because the server thought you had disconnected. The mechanism isn’t perfect. But in my experience, it errs on the side of keeping people in games rather than resigning them.
There’s a difference between waiting an hour for a move and waiting an hour for a move you know will never come. The latter is just wasted time.
If this is a problem you want to fix than you probably not going to fix it until time-machine is invented.
Ad 1. I haven’t experienced what you have experienced. I simply don’t know. I think that it may be a result of an automatic suspension of tabs to conserve resources. There are extensions for Chrome that do that, Vivaldi and Firefox have this feature implemented. I don’t know your whole situation.
Ad 2. There are no more complaints about escapers in the forum. 
I’ve also risen in rank a bit so I don’t encounter sore losers, escapers, rude individuals that much anymore. The possibility of what you are describing is lower since it needs more activity from the malevolent user.
Ad 3. I know only about KGS (see https://www.gokgs.com/help/faq/escapers.html), I don’t know about other servers. The ostracism and soft bans wouldn’t work on OGS, in my opinion, because it is quite easy to make a new account.
Ad 4. Well again, most people are uncomfortable with waiting needlessly for win by a time-out. Even real-life tournaments may have a rule that if the game does not commence in say 15 minutes, it is forfeit, because there’s no point for one player to wait if the other one didn’t arrive. (This is implemented on the OGS — and it gets complaints as well!) I know it’s not the same problem, but the intention is.
Ad 5. The important part of the analogy is the next sentence, I apologize if it wasn’t clear: “It would be like destroying the game state and walking away without a word, coming back and be surprised that the game was forfeit, even though there was still time on your clock.”
Ad PS: I don’t doubt that. This is my favorite server as well, even though there are some nasty bugs.
How would you suggest to solve escapers problem? (Remember that you do not encounter escapers that much anymore, because there is this rule implemented. Remember that there must be some solution to this problem.)
you doesn’t count mine?
No. You are not complaining about escapers, but about a measure to prevent escaping.
I was playing quite a bit in LoL. It is not a 1vs1 game it is 5vs5. When one players left the game it ruins the game for 9 other players. LoL simply bans escapers for some time. If you quit a game you are not allowed to join any other game for some time.
Thank you for your suggestion. It is, however, an incomplete one:
- How would you differentiate between an “honest” escaper and one who just lost his connection?
- Should it be an IP ban or a username ban?
- For how long should the offending player be banned?
There may be more things to consider.
My point is that this is a complicated measure to implement with quite tricky attributes. You can target wrong users, ban whole bunch of people sharing IP, or your ban can be ineffective, and any answer to the third bullet will generate complaints about unfairness of any amount of time.
of course No 
you just change kind of complains.
When fixing problem causes another problem - it is not “fixing” in software world. “Changing” is a better word.
Even with changing. It is not the best way to compare the change by amount of forum complains. Because implementation looks like a bug and not everybody complain about bugs, most of the people just close the game with bug and go play another game.