Quitting games

[Arkcon]

During two of my recent games, my DSL connention conked out on me, causeing me to withdraw. I don't really know the cause, but sometimes the PBW server is slow, just for me. I've switched to play by email with some close friends nowadays, I never know when the DSL is gonna die again.

[Alneyan]

I am guilty of quitting games without looking for a replacing player before myself. Well, I did so once (NGC5), in a slightly too rash manner to say the least; the game had to stop to look for another player though, so the end result was almost the same, but not quite. (I believe I have spent enough time looking for a new player in all my other games, and given advance warning)

I am rather tolerant of players leaving in the course of the game, so long as they state that they are leaving (it is better at least than having a player send a turn once every five turns), and turn off their AI when their position is good enough to warrant searching for a replacing player. AIs can perfectly mess up a game, while going AI would probably not be needed for a few turns; of course, a human player could also wipe out an AI even if fully enabled, so.

But I am digressing. Be warned Turin that even if the player in question does not quit the game, a missed turn or two can result in serious damage if the AI is enabled (which is usually a tad bit annoying when you are on the receiving side of it). Likewise, some players might decide to break treaties and attack you in the same turn, without warning, so you should have some defences in place, if only because of this eventuality. It hurts a lot when it happens and you aren't ready, even more so when an actual player is doing it.

Arkcon, the same happened to me some time ago, but I failed to pinpoint the exact reason for this problem (either a misconfigured firewall or a Trojan of some sort). You should still be able to send in turns through mail however; it worked for me at least. Administrating a game on PBW while being unable to access the site or the game forum is *quite* annoying though.

[TurinTurambar]

I've been in situations where a player misses 2 turns or so, and it sucks, but at least when he came back there were apologies and reparations. I also would have no problem with someone breaking a treaty and attacking me the same turn; that's gaming. My "intuition" has so far served me well and I haven't been caught with my pants down yet.

I guess it's just the principal of the matter. You don't join a game with your AI turned on, make friendly treaties with other players and then just leave. Like I said, it was early and defenses weren't in place yet.

I guess I'll "cover my @$$" better from now on... chalk it up to "learning".

Turin

[Slynky]

I agree with your first post whole-heartedly.

Seems, sometimes, like people are just carefree about quitting (moreso, I suspect) because of the "distance" of the Internet. I suspect a lot of these people would NOT get up and walk away from the other players in a Monopoly game at someone's house if they were losing. And then there are the sore losers who just quit whether in person or over the Internet. I have no use for either type.

And what makes it worse is their repeated failure to "turn the AI off" .

To sumarize, I empathize with you.