I’d really like to play correspondence games with people in nearby timezones, so multiple moves can be played while both people are away.
Could we have a preference in the “Settings” for “Timezone” that lets you say +/- how close your opponent’s timezone should be.
Or even, quite simply, a “match timezone” option which does at least some hardcoded attempt at this. I don’t really care if it doesn’t quite get it “right” (IE someone is on a half hour timezone outside my spec), I would just love to be able to rule out playing with someone who is always asleep when I am awake.
I think we need to be careful about over-complicating things. If you want to ensure that multiple moves are played, I’d recommend using faster time-controls.
For example, with a fischer-style increment, if you add 8 hours per move, then you’re expecting an average of 3 moves per day.
In addition to @Farraway’s concern about adding complication, I have concerns about what such an option would do to players in less popular time zones getting games. If too many people end up using such a feature, people outside of the largely preferred time zones will have harder times getting a match.
Besides, how would you determine it? User option? Many people don’t even set their country. If you use geo-ip, what if someone’s IP-based location is misreported (somewhat common, depending on carrier), then they’re stuck in a wrong time zone.
There are dozens of niche preferences like this I could see people wanting, but from working with software that has been riddled with “features” like this added by request from different clients, it ends up turning into a terrible to use and impossible to maintain house of cards real fast.
I appreciate that any suggestion for a niche feature needs to be appraised for the tradeoff of bloat vs utility. Thanks for taking the time to critique.
This suggestion addresses the space of players who want games that progress at a more-than-one-stone-per-day pace, without being at risk of timeout due to thinking about moves.
This is actually quite a significant space.
I don’t think you can achieve this affect by time controls? I would love it if you can.
“Just use Fischer” seems no good because you are at the whim of the other person accepting having actually thought it through and checked your timezone. So you end up getting in games that have to be cancelled because they can’t actually be played out due to out of sync sleeping.
If there is an timezone based engagement mode, people would be encouraged to supply that information (and I did picture it being opt-in in this way) and rewarded for doing so by having this mode of engagement available.
“People in unpopular timezones unable to get a match” can be ruled out as an objection by making the thing not-too-fussy. It’s not like “Oh, you are 1 hour out, the system wont let you play with these people”. It only needs to be coarser than that - “with this setting on, you get to rule out people on the complete other side of the globe”.
Right now I’m frustrated that I can’t conveniently play at a good pace without playing live, which I am not yet ready for (having tried it and discovered that )
I don’t think your proposal would solve this problem. Some opponents reply quickly. I suspect this is because they check their boards more frequently and that timezone is fairly irrelevant.
Where timezone is relevant I am less likely to be matched - when these opponents are active on the site I am sleeping, rather than creating or accepting challenges. Or at least, I should be sleeping!
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