Possibility to limit new games to your timezone.

by **ClabaG** on Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:46 am

Most people doesn't have the luxury I have - to be able to sit in front of my computer all day, checking CC every 5 minutes or so. So if the average user checks CC two to three times a day (just guessing) there can be a substantial amount of time between your rounds in games with many players involved, especially if the order of player locations are anti clockwise timezone wise.

This suggestion isn't at all fully thought through, but I hope to get a ball rolling...

What I suggest is really one or two new options when creating a new game:

An option to limit joining players by timezone
An option that if selected, when a game is full and starts, sorts the order of players by timezone, clockwise.

Some things to think about/consider:

The timezone of a player could be set automatically from the Geolocation used in the profile, or by allowing the player to set a timezone, that suits him/her, manually in the profile.
The limit option could be set to a predetermined +/- range (e.g. -2 to +2 hours) or a selectable range...

This would give players creating games the option to speed up games considerably (I think

). Those games with 8 players+ can take a (too) long time sometimes, and playing freestyle is really a whole other game (strategically wise).

Hope you like the idea, and it's doable. Regards,
ClabaG

by **clangfield** on Thu Feb 26, 2015 7:06 am

ClabaG wrote:Most people doesn't have the luxury I have - to be able to sit in front of my computer all day, checking CC every 5 minutes or so. So if the average user checks CC two to three times a day (just guessing) there can be a substantial amount of time between your rounds in games with many players involved, especially if the order of player locations are anti clockwise timezone wise.

This suggestion isn't at all fully thought through, but I hope to get a ball rolling...

What I suggest is really one or two new options when creating a new game:

An option to limit joining players by timezone
An option that if selected, when a game is full and starts, sorts the order of players by timezone, clockwise.

Some things to think about/consider:
The timezone of a player could be set automatically from the Geolocation used in the profile, or by allowing the player to set a timezone, that suits him/her, manually in the profile.
The limit option could be set to a predetermined +/- range (e.g. -2 to +2 hours) or a selectable range...

This would give players creating games the option to speed up games considerably (I think ). Those games with 8 players+ can take a (too) long time sometimes, and playing freestyle is really a whole other game (strategically wise).

Hope you like the idea, and it's doable. Regards,
ClabaG

I applaud the thought but there are some drawbacks:
Sorting in timezone order would potentially give an unfair advantage looking eastward. Unless Europeans went first, they would always be following Asians; and Americans would always be following Europeans (and Africans). That might bias the scoreboard. (NB I'm talking about location, not ethnicity, before anyone gets carried away - *stares at Owen*....)
How do you sort players on the same time zone? Again you're likely to introduce an artificial bias if it's always the same way, eg alphabetical.
Limiting by timezone has the issue of proxy IP addresses - you can't always identify where someone is. If I access from home, I'm in the UK, but from work I appear to be in the US.

by **Yynatago** on Sun May 03, 2015 8:16 pm

I like this idea, especially if we can nominate a preferred time to play in since even in the same location people would have different times available to them.

Cheers,
Yynatago

by **waauw** on Mon May 04, 2015 6:26 am

clangfield wrote:How do you sort players on the same time zone? Again you're likely to introduce an artificial bias if it's always the same way, eg alphabetical.
Limiting by timezone has the issue of proxy IP addresses - you can't always identify where someone is. If I access from home, I'm in the UK, but from work I appear to be in the US.

Yes you can: Control panel ==> Board preferences ==> My timezone

Yynatago wrote:I like this idea, especially if we can nominate a preferred time to play in since even in the same location people would have different times available to them.

This guy's got a point. I'm in the GMT +1 and most people in my timezone get behind their computer between 18:00 and 22:00. However me by day I often leave my turns around those hours as those are the hours with the highest risk of lag and I take my turns around midday or past midnight.
Being in the same timezone doesn't mean you play CC at the same hours.

by **Metsfanmax** on Sun May 10, 2015 1:19 am

clangfield wrote:Sorting in timezone order would potentially give an unfair advantage looking eastward. Unless Europeans went first, they would always be following Asians; and Americans would always be following Europeans (and Africans). That might bias the scoreboard.

Maybe, but I am having a hard time figuring out exactly how the bias would manifest itself. The starting player will still always be random, it's only the relative order that is consistent. As long as everything else is random, it shouldn't much matter that I'm always going to be playing after someone in Europe. Even if we had the same group players playing a bunch of games together, it's hard to envision any significant bias that would result from me always playing after the same friend (since their position on the map relative to me will always be different).