Massive Game - Sat 19th (USA & Europe) / Sun 20th (Asia)

In the next few week I want a massive game. To facilitate this I've setup one of those scheduling apps - vote here. Check out the results here (Results in AEST - GMT+10hrs time zone).

There's 6 votes so far. The final date will be chosen and selections restricted to that date by the earliest of the 14th June to the 20th June when there's at least 5 players. However if there are sufficient numbers (say over 5) then feel free to schedule earlier on the wiki and forum.

Click on the date header (eg the title where it says 15 Jun) to select default availability on that date or shift-click to select the whole date. Remember you can change the dates/times at any time but after the 14th June it may be restricted as per above paragraph.

I've updated the current event page of the wiki and the main page to link to it. If you post here or there I'll also update based on the results but PLEASE VOTE ABOVE AS It's very easy to use.

* Reason:
I just had my first four player game in several weeks. I'm finding it hard to get games with people and the last two times I showed up to the regular scheduled game there was noone there. So I thought I'd put this up.

EDIT: Topic about subforum visibility moved to meta forum.

[watusimoto]

Is anyone at all playing in the scheduled games? If not, we should probably take down the notice.

[karamazovapy]

I think the "scheduled games" banner is an artifact. I believe the closest thing we have now is Friday evening, EST.

[watusimoto]

Right, but is anyone playing Friday nights?

Normally, even if they were, Friday would be a bad time for me; I'm normally booked for real-life events Friday night, as well as on Sunday and Wednesday.

As it happens, though, on the Fridays where I have dropped in lately, I haven't seen a lot of activity. A shame, considering how many people used to drop in at those times.

* Reason:
I just had my first four player game in several weeks. I'm finding it hard to get games with people and the last two times I showed up to the regular scheduled game there was noone there. So I thought I'd put this up.

It's good to see you joined the forums. You'll notice a status box at the top left of the forums, it's quite helpful. The weekly parties seem to have dried out a bit, but they used to be very enjoyable.

I like your poll but frankly I think there's a better way. I would first choose a date or date range and then worry about the time. It would need to be in advance so people could plan, and school's wrapping up for most people so it shouldn't be in the next few days anyway.

I'd say between June 14-20 would be good. It gives plenty of time for people to plan and contains every day of the week. The key is to have patience - if it turns out everybody can do it on June 19, then that's okay, even if it is 11 days away. It's more important to get as many people as possible than to rush it and have only a few people.

What if we asked people to list their time zones? Then we could eliminate a lot of time slots (ex. 4PM EST might be 4AM for a bunch of people, so we could remove that) and come up with a decent time range.

The problem, in my opinion, with the poll is that it's asking people to be too accurate. It could very well generate an odd time such as 11AM on a Tuesday. Sure, it would work for everybody who answered the poll, but that's a pretty random time and it might not work for others who want to come. Remember, even if we get ten people to vote on the poll and choose a time, we're unlikely to end up having the exact same ten people in the party. Also, I think that it can be difficult to put down exact hours.

I'm not saying kill your idea, however. I'm saying narrow the choices down to a few days and a few times so people can easily check their calendars and see which ones are okay.

What do you think?

@C. Bob: I've now added in your availability here. Please change if your availability changes.

@Sky_Lark: Thanks for your input. I've now changed the first post to reflect better wording.

Just because it's asking for an exact date/time doesn't mean you have to give exact time. You can give a rough range and change your mind later on (click on the date header to automatically choose all 24 hour timeslots - see above). So up till 7 days before you could choose dates you're available leaving the fine timeslot till fixed 5 days beforehand.

The original plan was patient - it said in the next few weeks - anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks away.

Not everyone knows their timezones and when you post your availability on the scheduling site it lists your timezone based on your web browser setting which should be correct.

Also I note wasimoto has the stats for logins for the past 6 months or so. If stats could be generated for each day of week for each hour for the past 2 months then we could add 2 dummy users. 1 dummy user says yes if there's on average more then 2 people in that hour and 2 dummy users says yes if there's on average more then 4 people in that hour.

What's up with the instructions?
It says paint all the times you can come, but when I did that, it called those the times I couldn't come. How did everyone else vote? As painted meaning I can go or I can't go?

What's up with the instructions?
It says paint all the times you can come, but when I did that, it called those the times I couldn't come. How did everyone else vote? As painted meaning I can go or I can't go?

Not sure what you mean? I checked your postings and it seems reasonable.

Painting (those highlighted in green) a cell means you can come and play in that timeslot.

Ah... forgot about timezones.

[ZoombeR]

im in PST, I hope it isnt a prob for me. when im on usually one or two people will join my games during the day

at night i can get up to 8 players tho!

Please let those 8 players know about this poll then. Apparently looking at the command line parameters there's a theoretical simultaneous maximum of 128 players.

What's the maximum so far? And does it require much system resources for clients?

[karamazovapy]

I've played with about 32 people, but most of the maps we generally play start getting crazy with around 10-12. As far as the client is concerned, it only ever pays attention to what's on your screen at the moment. Resources shouldn't be an issue. Honestly though, massively huge games are more of an annoyance than a good time. There are very few maps that can reasonably support even 18 people.

Ta kara. Any reason why you haven't posted your availability - you've posted twice in this thread?

What's stopping people from responding if people have played games of around 8+ to 15+?

There's 6 people who've voted now - watisu - what's stopping you? And would it be possible to get a sample line of the master log so that someone (I perhaps) could knock up a script to see the day/hour when the most players are on?

Ta
Chumpchange.

[watusimoto]

I don't actually play Bitfighter (or any computer games, for that matter) very much, so it doesn't really make sense for me to post my availablity!

I'll provide a sample of the logfile later -- I'm heading out the door now.

[karamazovapy]

My availability is irregular and with so many other things I can and should be doing, I can't justify scheduling time to play a video game. I post here because when we switched to phpbb3, I made bitfighter.org/forums my homepage. It takes two minutes to stay up with everything, as little gets posted, and I can feel connected even though I don't have much time to play.

@ChumpChangeOz: I'm gonna back off. This is your event, so I shouldn't try to plan it for you. Sorry!

However, I would like to put in one more thought: I think that if you set a time, even if it's not perfect for people, if there's enough advance notice they'll find a workaround. For example, I usually sleep in a bit but I'd get up early if it meant playing a large game. My point is, if you don't have a time that fits every single person, don't worry too much.

It's not my event as much as bitfighter's event. I'm just trying to set up self-organizing system (see the bit about if there was more then 6 players rsvped feel free to setup your own game).

I re-edited the last post as there was a bit of conflicting information. I welcome positive suggestions that aren't redundant.

So looking at the availability I'll set the game date for Sun 20th June GMT+10 or Sat 19th June GMT and earlier (USA & Europe). Game time will probably be either 10am GMT or 11am GMT. That'll be fixed roughly 2 days from now.

[watusimoto]

Log sample:

[Mon 14-06-2010 19:42:57] Server connected with protocol 2, build 810, from IP:72.8.72.56:28000, using <None>
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:43:17] Client connected [ChumpChange]
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:43:17] Client connected with protocol 2, build 605, from IP:95.168.114.112:49166, using Apple Optical USB Mouse
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:43:20] IP:72.8.72.56:28000 disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:43:20] Server disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:43:37] Server connected [Bitfighter host]
->
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:43:37] Server connected with protocol 2, build 605, from IP:95.168.114.112:28000, using Apple Optical USB Mouse
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:44:38] Server connected [Bitfighter host]
->
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:44:38] Server connected with protocol 2, build 810, from IP:72.8.72.56:28000, using <None>
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:44:41] IP:72.8.72.56:28000 disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:44:41] Server disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:47:18] Server connected [Bitfighter host]
->
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:47:18] Server connected with protocol 2, build 810, from IP:72.8.72.56:28000, using <None>
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:47:20] IP:72.8.72.56:28000 disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:47:20] Server disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:47:26] IP:95.168.114.112:28000 disconnected
[Mon 14-06-2010 19:47:26] Server disconnected

[karamazovapy]

Game time will probably be either 10am GMT or 11am GMT.

So you're looking at 6 or 7 am Eastern US, 3 or 4 am Western US.

It's not my event as much as bitfighter's event. I'm just trying to set up self-organizing system (see the bit about if there was more then 6 players rsvped feel free to setup your own game).

Perhaps, but you're organizing it, you're using your own tools, and your own basic ideas.

Game time will probably be either 10am GMT or 11am GMT.

So you're looking at 6 or 7 am Eastern US, 3 or 4 am Western US.

So looking at the availability I'll set the game date for Sun 20th June GMT+10 or Sat 19th June GMT and earlier (USA & Europe). Game time will probably be either 10am GMT or 11am GMT. That'll be fixed roughly 2 days from now.

I think he means 10AM GMT+10... if that made any sense. This would work out to:

Friday, June 18th or Saturday, June 19th 8/9PM EST
Friday, June 18th or Saturday, June 19th 5/6PM PST

Those times would be great for me. I'm fine with either (fri/sat).

Sorry - I don't think I can make it. I don't think I will return from a campout I'm going to in time.

We could set one of these calenders up where people could record when they are playing at the time.

For example if Sky_Lark and I decided to play at 10PM on Sunday, we could mark that two people played at that time and then see if patterns come from it.

[karamazovapy]

We could set one of these calenders up where people could record when they are playing at the time.

The master server logs already compile this data for everybody, all the time. I'm not sure how easily digestible it is in the default format, though.

I may or may not have forgotten.

Did anybody show?

[ZoombeR]

i went on every night just to check if there were players. Nobody each night....

[karamazovapy]

I'm gonna be on tonight from 8:00 EDT for a few hours