Changes to being kicked for missing turns.

Hi everyone! We all hate it when somebody stops taking their turns in a game and just disappears. Often this is done on purpose as well out of frustration of how the game is going. Since the team is getting regular reports about this happening, we decided to make some changes to what happens when a player gets kicked from a game due to missing too many turns. When somebody is kicked from a game, they don't get tokens for finishing that game and their attendance score will decrease. Starting from today, when kicked from a [i]live[/i] game, we will also prevent that player from joining a different game straight away. If this is the first time the player is kicked for missing turns in the last 48 hours, the player cannot create or join any game for 10 minutes. The second time this increases to 30 minutes, and after that to a full hour. [img]http://i.imgur.com/WDMd0mN.png[/img] With this new system we hope that people are encouraged to finish the games they are playing - even if they are losing - and create a better playing environment for everybody. Feel free to leave any questions below, and the team will do its best to answer them. We will be keeping an eye on how this system influences attendance levels and may change the exact timings of the penalties if necessary. [b]Does this apply to premium players?[/b] Yes, premium players have to follow the same rules as everybody else. [b]Will you get a penalty timeout for being kicked from a long term game?[/b] No, we only consider live games. You will not be able to create or join long term games during a penalty timeout though. [b]What if I get kicked for genuine reasons (for example losing connection)[/b] We designed the penalties in such a way that the first time you get kicked the penalty is not too severe, so that you don't have to wait too long. If you tend to have a lot of connectivity problems, we recommend you take this in mind by playing only live games with longer term times (5 or 7 minutes).

This happened in a team game I am in. It is frustrating because it is almost a death sentence for the remaining partners (it is triads). If someone gets booted can their territories be assigned to the other teammates? It wouldn't be bad if it was everyone for themselves...

i'v experienced a penalty time out a few times recently due to connection problems. I think two live games at once caused for a lengthy timeout. i'm fine with that, I just don't know how long i have to wait when i try to join a game. i have figured out how long i have to wait to play again tho, when i try to create a game. could we have the same notification for when trying to join a game? eg You cannot [b]create [/b]games until 48 minutes from now due to a penalty timeout for missing too many turns. eg You cannot [b]join [/b]games until 48 minutes from now due to a penalty timeout for missing too many turns.

Done B)

thanks

This is a good change for the players who purposefully don't take their turns or are serial turn skippers. I have admittedly been missing turns, particularly of late. For some reason I do not get the alert noise for a turn or game start. I've been asking for a long time for some guidance on why I used to intermittently hear the noise for the start of a game or turn. Now I never get the game and turn noise alert. 99% of the time this is the only reason why I miss turns. Now I could stay glued to the game that I'm playing to avoid missed turns but I'm usually multi tasking with other things. I feel terrible about missing turns but usually the game is just an enjoyable distraction from other things I'm doing that are slightly or much more important. I wonder if there could be a way that "innocent" turn misses could appeal a missed turn lockout? The game is awesome though and I do get a lot of enjoyment out it. Thanks a bunch to those of you who created and maintain the game!

I think there is cuerently a bug around the turn changing that we are looking into, so hopefully we can get the notification sounds working again soon. I agree though, sometimes the reason for missing a turn is fairly innocent. There is just no way to distinguish that from malicious intent. If we added an appeal system, everybody could claim they missed their turn for a good reason and we would have no way to figure out if that is true. Instead we opted to make the first timeout penalty relatively short (10 minutes is shorter than an appeal would take). Repeat offenders are the ones we have tried to penalise most, and I think the current balance is working really well.

when can i start to play group games again?