How complex is to implement Pair Go on OGS?

The question is simple. I don’t know how simple is the answer.
It would be really nice to implement Pair Go on OGS.
It is out of the question or there is some chance to deal with this?

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Since its possible to share an account and play moves on same game from 2 or more separate devices, the “only” thing that needs to be implemented is option for 2 accounts to play moves on same game, or some more convenient way of using shared accounts.
The current way of creating a new account and pm’ing the password to your rengo partner feels like a backdoor-hack, not like a feature.

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If something made, I would even suggest team go (including pair go) with support for n players. And tournament management.

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Considering that I’ve heard of multiple threads that basically requested the implementation of Pair Go on OGS in the past, maybe we should take it step-by-step :wink:

Edit: This was supposed to be a reply to @Groin 's post.

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Yes, I see now.

Considering that this post is Jul 2016, and that there it is said more or less “coming soon”, I guess implementing it is not so easy. Maybe there are other priority-1 improvements in the list not yet completed.

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While working on my app, I actually figured out a workaround to implement pair go feature for it, with the help of two bot accounts.

The idea is quite simple, the game will be created between the two bots, and moves played in the app will be forwarded to the bot to play. This way the app can enforce the correct player each turn.

I have even done some testing and it is technically possible. The biggest roadblock is that I have to finish the app first :sweat_smile:; and I’m still not sure if it is a good idea to implement this feature, it feels a bit too gimmicky and weird.

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Nice idea, may help the time OGS integrate pairgo.

Now there will be one more roadblock for me, buy an iPhone…

As you guessed, the answer is not that simple, but there certainly is some chance.

Anoek took the questionaire (that basically demanded the feature :smiley:) quite seriously, and explained it to me some time ago, but being me I forgot the specifics, so I will be be paraphrasing heavily. Basically, while it is seemingly a simple addition, the actual change is quite complex. The whole current system is build around connecting two players, syncing two player’s clocks, checking both players presence, syncing two players history, and so on, and so forth - everything is built around connecting precisely 2 people, not less, not more, and throwing X new players into the mix is not easy, as it has to be changed in every underlying structure of the code + the database + some new logic and frontend + probably something else I have forgotten… It is a lot of changes and a lot can go wrong.

All that said, some of the “recent” server updates have been with this eventuality in mind and towards its later implementation. It is likely to happen one day, but as to when, it is probably too soon to say. Sorry.

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That’s awesome! And we can continue using shared accounts in the meantime without too much hiccup. (If players want they could just remember whether they’re player 0, 1, 2, or 3, and move whenever the next move mod 4 is equal to their player number.)

I feel like while the the big part is not that difficult, there are a lot of little things to consider:

How to save 4 players in the game info, two for each color. How to show that in Game history. How to notify on your turn (but not your partners turn). Not difficult problems to solve, but certainly easy to miss!

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