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For a release without any new games, this is about as big as they get. Tournament play has been added in this release, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Tourneys Added
This release sees the addition of two types of tournaments: a straight round robin, and what I'm calling a hexathlon. The hexathlon is, um, like a triathlon but, uh, twice as much fun! Each player competes in a round robin featuring 6 different games.
There's a link to the tourneys in the footer, and you'll find a new "My Tourneys" section in your inbox.
Sign-up for a tourney and then just sit back and wait for the games to start. The games will appear as any other game with a few exceptions. For starters, anywhere the tourney games are listed (such as "My Games"), they'll be labeled with a tourney link back to the tourney page. On the tourney page you can see the current standings and the results of other tourney games.
Secondly, tourney games will have time limits. You'll be given a certain amount of time to make each move, if you fail to move in that amount of time the game will end in a loss for you. More on this in a minute.
For now, I'll be manually creating the tourneys. Once I have a better idea of how much interest there is in various tourneys, I'll start automating a regular tourney schedule. In the meantime, please be patient if tourneys for your favorite game are not posted frequently enough.
Time Limits
As I alluded to earlier, I'm starting to introduce timed games. Since we're not real-time yet, the time limit will be measured in days per move. We're going to start out with timed tourney games, in order to keep the tourneys moving forward at a reasonable pace. Then, later, I'll set a time limit on really old games with the expectation that they've been abandoned and need to be "finished" by timing them out. Eventually, I'll add a large default time limit to all games. Lastly, I'll add user configurable time limits.
None of this is going to happen over night, but I hope to move forward with this at a reasonable pace.
Series
Back when rematches were introduced, I started keeping track of series of games. Where each series is defined as a chain of rematches. With this release I've improved the user interface for series and rematches. The most noticeable difference is that your record in a series is now displayed as you play. The records are up-to-date and go back all the way to the first game in any series you may have going right now.
Move Confirmation
Move confirmation has also been improved with this release. You can now make any number of moves on your turn and submit (or cancel) them all at once. Connect6 and Phutball players, in particular, should be happy with this update.
Hoshi
Hoshi, or Star Points, have been added to our Go board. This change is simply cosmetic and effects Connect6, Pente, and Keryo-Pente.
Phutball Updates
The Phutball board has been changed cosmetically too. I hope it looks a little better than it used to. But that's not the important change. The Phutball board is now rotated such that you'll always be moving the ball towards the top goal. I hope this will cut down on mis-plays.
Play More Than One Game at a Time
The way Vying Games was structured prior to this release, prevented players from opening multiple games in multiple windows or tabs and playing them simultaneously. I've restructured in such a way that it's now possible. I don't know that this is a big deal for anyone, but the changes, IMHO, make the site more "correct".
Internet Explorer 6 Fix?
I made changes in response to this forum thread, that will, I hope, fix some IE6 layout bugs. I'd appreciate it if someone with IE6 could post whether or not the games are working now.
Offer Draw Bug Fix
There were serveral minor bugs associated with offering another player a draw. I'm hopeful they didn't effect anyone, but if you've been having any trouble offering or accepting a draw, please let me know.
And Much, Much More
There are other minor changes and bug fixes in this release, as well, but nothing worthy of much discussion...
Anyway, as you can see, this is a very large update. As such, it is much more likely that new bugs have been introduced. If you run into any problems at all, please let me know. Probably the best thing to do is to post on the forums, but you can also contact me via email (or private message, or in chat over a game).
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