A few people here are helpful but the main site just isn’t noob friendly you guys don’t add any bots to help new players other than the sight supported <8k bots. so that leaves us to get annihilated by humans most of witch don’t speak English. your concerned about your DAN count well guess what with no incentive for new players to stick around you wont have anyone new ranking up to the Dan level other than the people that rank up off bots.
after about around 200 games I really don’t see anyting here that would keep a true new player around.
Bots on OGS are ran by individual users, not by server. I agree that there isn’t any ddk-level bots here, because no-one has put up the effort to run one here.
If you want to use your time and resources for running a weak bot on OGS, you’re free to do so! ^___^
Well, I was a realy new player here two years ago and I had no problem finding players in my range. Actually most of them spoke english. I’m pretty sure there is no server with a larger english speaking community.
I found some “friends” in my 20k+ days, that I play semi-regularly, that got better alongside with me. So, out matches are allways fun.
The site is run by only a few people and as @_KoBa said:
The coders here have their hands full and can use any help that you could offer. My suspicion is that you have nothing to offer besides criticisms presented in an unfriendly manner.
Otherwise, feel free to go to another site that you think is more “noob friendly” — no one is stopping you. And also let us know about this site, because I doubt anyone here knows of a more “noob friendly” site than this one.
Hello, sorry to hear you are disappointed, and undeniably, there are still many areas to improve.
Having a weaker bot is one of them, and although we are focused on human play and always have been (after all you can play a bot locally or on your phone, no need for a website for that) I too would like to see one one day but the todo list is long and as said, humans have always been a priority for us, so it keeps getting adjourned.
As far as the English speaking goes, it certainly differs depending on which timezone you are playing from, but other than that, we really do have a lot of English speaking players. Not everyone is extra chatty, and pardon my little “stalking trip”, but from what I have seen in your games, usually when you start chatting, you also seem to be getting a response, if neither of you tries chatting, well then you are both playing silently, but that can also be very nice
And that sort of takes me to my last point - help rarely comes to those who do not ask for it. Be it fear of bothering someone, or human nature not to interfere too much, we cannot spam every new player with offers… I am always happy to play a teaching game - lately - given busier schedule, I prefer correspondence (just send me a challenge if you would like),if you would appreciate live game, then just add me as a friend and try asking for one when you see me online.
Bottom line, we are happy to help, just let us know, what you would like
And thanks everyone for the kind words, it is very appreciated.
I recommend against playing bots for learning/improving. Weaker bots might even be counterproductive, giving the illusion of progression, while possibly just reinforcing bad habits/intuition. A human teacher is far superior than any bot simply for the fact that they can communicate with you and explain things.
I think this community actually has a pretty nice teaching culture. Check out this sub-forum for finding a teacher that would be willing to help you: https://forums.online-go.com/c/teaching/teaching-games
Also, almost everyone posting there seems to be speaking English, so I think English might be the most convenient language for finding a teacher.
Even when someone posts criticisms in not the most friendly manner, I don’t think it is justified to reply dismissively in an unfriendly manner.
I would rather see us make efforts to keep new players engaged rather than suggest that they go away. We should care about growing interest in this game, and pushing away a frustrated novice is terribly detrimental.
This site is far from perfect. as is mentioned several times, but in all honesty its the first server that I’ve actively wanted to participate in being part o a community. Not only does it have a large player base but a lot of them are friendly. I’ve made many friends on this site and I came on to this site as a 17kyu player. I’m now an 8kyu on OGS.
Yes the ranking system could be better. yes there could be more incentives, and yes there can be more done to grow its user-base too.
But at the end of the day, its a small project, and one that has come a long way since the time i have been on here.
honestly its because of this server that i have been able to get as far as i have in my learning to play go. Its always a good idea to try out other servers, but different servers do different things very well. OGS may not be the strongest, or have the best ranking or anything but what it does well is create a welcoming environment for everyone regardless of how strong you are. I for one have always felt a certain sense of welcoming from OGS.
But OGS is also user friendly in the way that its easy to access and use, unlike many other servers which end up putting you in to a system that you have to work out, like KGS and Tygem.
If however you have ideas for the development of OGS then post them up in development or suggestions.
This surprises me. You don’t have to download software to play games here. The site has a modern interface that’s playable from mobile and pc, both in browser. There’s navigation buttons on each page, and you can customize the confirming moves, sounds, visuals, etc. If there’s something you’d like to see changed, you should post it to our github: Issues · online-go/online-go.com · GitHub
I’d like to see this too. What I find strange is, despite being a frequently requested feature, nobody seems interested in hosting one. Anyone with a spare computer can host a bot.
There’s an option to restrict opponents’ rank to 25k in the match settings. I would stay away from most ladders and tournaments until you’re ready to face a wider range of players.
This also surprises me. About half of new signups come from English speaking countries. The United States contributes one third of signups just by itself.
I imagine the thing about not hosting weak bots is that it probably isn’t obvious how to go about doing it. If someone commits to doing it I’m sure they could find out.
I imagine a checklist of things you might go through before committing to doing it.
Do I need to make an ai myself or can I just find a weak open source ai somewhere
If I have the ai, what kind of software does it need to run if for example I wanted to play it myself on the computer vs if it needs to play on ogs with other people
How do I get it to communicate with ogs
Do I need to leave that computer on all the time
How do I set up the ai’s account on ogs
…
I think if you’re unsure about some of these it might seem like a very difficult task to set up an ai account. It can seem simple to some people but impossible to others.
If there isn’t one already, maybe it would be a good idea to have a tutorial and faq for hosting ai accounts on ogs, maybe written by a mod or someone who currently administers some of the bots already on ogs?
I’ve seen some comments on this post here: Steps to connect with a bot
that are useful, but not sure if there is a tutorial?
If there is a tutorial made up, then you could have it as a kind of request to current users, put up a pinned post on the forum or maybe one of those small banners on the site for a day or so, asking for interest in hosting some weaker bots.
Just some ideas, if it does happen to be a frequently requested feature.
@Kblox: I wandered a little through your finished games.
It seems that your bad experience comes from fighting bots and noobs.
I noticed many games won or lost by resignation after few moves.
I don’t think you need a more friendly site: you already have one that’s precious.
You should simply learn how to play. I’m not trolling you. We all passed through it.
Go isn’t a simple game. Actually it’s the opposite. And there’e a big step to do right at the beginning.
It isn’t just about learning rules, as you must have seen.
I walked this step playing on my smartphone against an app (Go free) that allows you to choose a difficulty level. Also it allows you to undo a sequence of moves and try another one, which helps a lot understanding the huge difference that can lay between two adjacent intersections: one keeps your stones alive, the other one let them die hopelessly.
Don’t mind bots on OGS, they aren’t for you.
Ask for advice on the forum.
Ask for reviews.
Ask for teaching games.
You’ll find a lot, you’ll learn fast and you’ll change your mind about “noob friendliness”.
And also, as you can see, the whole forum is in english language. I’m talking to you and I’m not native english speaker. Actually I don’t really know how many mistakes I’ve spread in this post. But I can testify that english language is widely used by players from far east, europe, south america and asia, as I played with them and talked with them in english in the game chat.
Somehow, all this bot hunger reminds me a lot of the Magnus Carlsen documentary where he meets “Vishy” Anand.
Carlsen, completely intuitive and prodigious against the man who solely relies om computers…
but the todo list is long and as said, humans have always been a priority for us, so it keeps getting adjourned.
