I want OGS to switch to the next active game after I played a move.
I do play some simultaneous games and need to switch on my own.
I have activated the auto-advance option but it doesn’t seem to work.
I’m using firefox on windows.
Is there anything I can check or change?
Hmm, the auto-advance only works for correspondence games I am afraid.
I must say the thought of auto-advancing live games never even occured to me until now, simultaneous games probably being the only time it could be useful. It would require more thought though, as most users would probably not want to have their live game suddenly switch from live into correspondence games that can wait, so there would have to be some further distinction?
2 Likes
Ah ok.
I thought this was the way OGS handles simulgames.
Maybe some games could be tagged for auto advance option.
The option to auto switch live games would be a nice feature.
So far, all simul teaching games are played on KGS because of that reason.
The thread can be closed and the developers can add a todo on their list 
@skiz7ik, the reason live games don’t auto advance is that it leads to disconnections. We’ve done this in my club, and each time the “lead player” switches games, the disconnect notification pops up.
If you have a large screen, try opening a new browser window for each game. This seems to work well for simuls, and you can remember which game is which 
1 Like
It’s not a bad idea though to enable auto advance between correspondence games and auto advance between live games as two separate pools, right?
The disconnection thing could be triggered only if you have no live games open at all. So if you have two live games at once and auto advance between both then you should be considered connected to both.
1 Like
In (my) ideal world, you could leave a game and not be disconnected as long as you’re still on OGS.
Maybe someone will make a picture-in-picture extension that can make this dream a reality… but that’s a bigger project I suppose.
Do I sense a new form of trolling in that feature?
Setting up multiple live games and not getting a disconnection timer because you can tab between them 
I’m guessing the disconnection timer is mainly there as a courtesy right?
Your opponent has left, that’s not really on, you shouldn’t have to wait out the rest of their clock.
I guess its a good and a bad thing if one can get around the timers by opening multiple windows.
I wonder do some of these people think of accepting many games at once.
As long as the user is playing, I don’t think this is trolling!
At any rate, a determined troll can do this by leaving browser tabs/windows open.
I imagine a lot of these players click automatch or create a game, forget they have done it, and just leave. I’ve done it once or twice in the past on accident (sorry!!!)
I’ve suggested it before, but I think the timeout on the first move should be much smaller (maybe 1 or 2 minutes). That way, the other player doesn’t have to think about when is a good time to cancel.
1 Like
There are already trolls that just start a new game instead of resigning their old one, forcing their opponent to wait.
At the moment, we act swiftly on such reports, but it would complicate matters greatly if they could say “you have a site feature that supports this”
2 Likes
Does the addition of live auto-advance really “support this” behavior? I would think it makes abandoning games more difficult because the user will be continually auto-advanced to the old game.
If anything, the feature that enables this is the ability to create more than one live game. I’m not advocating that we get rid of it, just saying I don’t think auto-advance plays a big role in troll behavior!
2 Likes
Actually you may be onto something there…
2 Likes
I don’t know any case in which that has happened. I have done spot checks for that in some cases and come up empty. Of course, accepting all at once or in rapid succession is a minor difference in the end.
The purpose of the disconnection clock is to minimize the damage done by garden variety escapers, who typically move on to another game. When it didn’t exist, several years ago, many players had to wait 10 or 20 minutes for their game to end.
Yes, some people retaliate by deliberately timing out by leaving the tab open rather than escaping, because it usually lengthens the wait beyond the 5-minute disconnection clock of a normal escape. This is regarded as particularly malicious and is treated as such.
My forgoing discussion of cancellation trolls refers to people who accept challenges, not people who create games. Game creators are given wide latitude to cancel because they do not have a chance to vet their opponent. Cancelling after waiting a minute or two is also different and taken into account. Trolls typically cancel large numbers of games.
I agree with this. However, there have been problems with the notification system in the past, which might make this problematic. I defer to the experts like anoek and Eugene in this regard.
1 Like
I didn’t realize this. I had assumed the clock was put in place to gracefully handle issues where the power goes out or something.
At any rate, keep in my mind that my pipe dream of keeping connected while on OGS is coupled with a somewhat conspicuous indicator that you have an ongoing live game. (See the PIP suggestion in the same post)
As it stands, there really isn’t a whole lot telling people that they disconnected. My sense is that these “garden-variety” trolls are not so malicious, but they just rage quit and don’t realize what jerks they are being. I wonder if an un-closable pop-up that says “It looks like you have an ongoing live game. Abandoning games is against the rules, please finish up!”, it might actually cut down on this behavior without having to use up human mod time.
1 Like
Because if there’s on thing people in a bad mood love, it’s uncloseable pop-ups 
3 Likes
Hey escaping isn’t supposed to be fun! Just think it would be good to give them every opportunity to do the right thing before y’all have to get involved.
EDIT: I should clarify, I’m not talking popup like the info modals. More like the needs translation notification or the automatch timer.
I said “garden variety escapers,” not trolls. Some of those are people with connection problems, some involve innocent accidents. Those things are taken into account.
If I recall correctly, that has been discussed among the mod team.