while it's not a perfect analogy, "booting" = coup d'état.

Duke, this was a multi-day game, so people aren't going to be asking for a few more minutes, and if you have a known multi-day absence, you can set vacation mode when you leave. If you still don't like the autoboot, use the voting boot. Since everyone has to agree to boot someone, you can make sure that the OP's situation never happens. The problems you're worried about can already be easily avoided using existing options.

In fact, even using the settings in the OP's game, all the OP has to do is boot the other guy himself, and there's no problems at all. What this seems to boil down to is that you want the direct boot option for yourself so that *you* have the discretion of when to boot people or not, but you also want to complain when other people in the game exercise that same discretion. I can't really sympathize with that position.

The coup d'état analogy is interesting. Certainly a legitimate strategy in a real war if you can pull it off.

Again, I disagree with what "Andrew" did, so I'm not blind to where you guys are coming from.

Each type of booting has it's pros and cons, and when you accept the boot settings in a game, you accept the pros and cons that come with those boot settings.

Vote-to-boot is fair in many situations, since everyone other than the player being booted must consent to the boot. On the downside, this can be used by many weak players to easily eliminate a strong player.

Direct boot has however much leniency the other players in the game have. Like Ben said, if someone needs to be away longer than the boot time, the other players can choose to respect that and hold off on booting. The downside is that it can be used by one player or team to gain an advantage over another, since quite often one or more players rely on the presence of the booted player in some way or another.

Auto boot is in truth the most fair, but since it has zero tolerance you get booted even if every other player in the game is willing to wait.

I would support the idea of adding a "Full Direct Boot" where, as you say, you can only boot all players at once or none at all, but I don't think the current Direct Boot should be changed or removed.

Once again, each player has an equal opportunity to take advantage of the booting methods, and each player has equal opportunity to simply take their turn and avoid being booted at all. "Billy" is no less at fault than "Andrew".

*If you can't stand the idea of booting the guy on your own team, then maybe you shouldn't be booting the guy on the other team?*

Never do to anyone else anything that you would not want someone to do to you. ... how biblical :-)

I agree that booting individual players should not be impossible. It should be either "boot everyone who is over the limit simultaneously and let the game advance" or "boot noone and wait". Furthermore, in games with banking boot time, booting should be impossible unless all players who have not yet exceeded the limit have submitted their turn (else booting would again not serve it's only valid purpose: to advance the game).
I would even go as far as prohibit booting as long as even a single player is in vacation mode (for the same reason: it wouldn't help keep the game moving forward). Of course players in "overtime" shouldn't be allowed to go on vacation themselves though, for obvious reasons.

ouch

... should not be **possible** ...

I still disagree. Auto-boot solves the issue of one player being booted and another not being booted.

As for banking boot time, if the goal is to speed up the game, that would only be giving greater leniency to the players who more regularly keep everyone waiting. The idea behind banking boot time is that you earn the right to take longer time between turns now and then.

Say the boot time is 1 day. Player **A** averages 4 hours per turn on Monday-Thursday, but is unavailable on Friday-Sunday. Player **B** averages 20 hours per turn on Monday-Thursday, and is also unavailable Friday-Sunday. **A** has accumulated 80 hours of banked boot time, which means that they can stay off all weekend and still have plenty of time to take their turn on Monday. **B**, who regularly takes their turn long after everyone else, has accumulated 16 hours of banked boot time, which means they are forced to either take turns over the weekend or be booted. By only allowing **B** to be booted when **A** can be booted, **B** gets the full benefit of **A**'s banked boot time over the weekend, and is still able to severely slow down the game the rest of the week, which would completely negate the point that booting is intended to speed up the game. (My numbers are unrealistic, but focus on the concept.)

You are assuming the absence of A over the weekend is a given fact. However, B always has to worry whether or not A might cancel his weekend trip and submit his turn BEFORE monday. In that case, if A were to play say already Sunday evening, yet B was relying on A not returning before Monday morning, A can easily submit his turn and then - when he realizes 1) B is the only one holding up the game and 2) B is well over the boot time - boot B and thus submit 2 turns in a row.

Booting B before A has submitted his turn serves no other purpose but to damage the game for everyone else. In multiplayer team games, for example, booting one player usually means indirectly booting an entire team, or at least severely limit their chances to win (and their motivation to continue to play). Therefore booting should only happen if - at the very least there is the benefit of bringing the game forward, and be it only by a few hours. Booting without speeding up the game a single second is utterly pointless.

That was an example, it's not meant to fit every situation.

However, the possibility that **A** can take his or her turn early causing **B** to be boot-able is nothing less than placing a direct boot button solely in **A**'s hands, which is even worse than what the current complaint on direct booting is, because *only* **A** has the power to boot **B**. If any other player feels **B** should be booted, they have significantly less opportunity to do so. If **A** benefits from **B**'s presence in the game and chooses to give them more time for their turn, it is no different than only booting the player on the other team as occurred in the OP.

Also, to say that booting **B** doesn't speed up the game a single second is false. If you look at a single turn, this is true, but if you look at multiple turns, the game would speed up significantly. If the second slowest player, **A**, takes 2 turns every 4 hours, and you boot **B** who takes 2 turns every *20* hours, the game speed during the week suddenly jumps from 2.4 turns per day to 12 turns per day. Again, focus on the principle rather than the specifics.


Two simple facts: each player has equal opportunity to boot players who go over the timer, and each player has equal opportunity to take their turn before they go over the boot timer.

There will never be a boot setting that every single player will agree upon, and you guys are asking to alter a boot setting simply because you're on the side that doesn't like it. Again, I would support this being added as a boot setting in addition to the current 3, but not as a change to Direct Boot.

I'm okay with it being a new boot setting, actually. I think that team games should default to that kind of setting, though. I've seen it happen several times now, where someone from each team is late, and only one team gets booted. If no one from that team is around to boot the other person, then the teams become unbalanced.

I'm a big fan of reducing the ways in which the rules can be gamed. The rules are not the game, and no strategy should ever rely on the boot mechanics. I want to play against the people who signed up for the game, not the rules themselves.

@emoose:
Yes, in banking boot time games the player with the most banked boot time would have the ultimate say in whether or not to boot a slow player, at least if he chose to spend his banked time on delaying the current turn to wait for all other players to submit their turns before him. And why not? For the sake of argument, add another player C to that scenario above. C plays only slightly quicker than B and has banked 17 hours of boot time. Now on what grounds should he be able to boot B? Because, on average, he played 12 minutes quicker than B? Or shouldn't it be rather A's call, from whose perspective B and C are almost equally slow players? And what would stop C from playing quicker and banking more boot time than player A, if he so eagerly wants to boot others?

I think you're getting further and further away from the point of the thread, Diabolicus, as well as creating more and more "what if" situations, so this will be my last post on the example.

As of Friday morning at 12:00:01 AM, the game is waiting on Players A, B, and C to take their turns.

**A** has 104 hours time-to-boot, and is assumed to be offline for minimum 72 hours.

**B** has 40 hours time-to-boot, and it is unknown when they will be online.

**C** has 41 hours time-to-boot, and is also unknown.

**D** (being any other players in the game) all take their turn on average in less than **A**'s 4 hours, and are online throughout the weekend.

**D** is fed up with the lengthy waiting for **B** and **C** to take their turns, and his/her/their only opportunity to boot **B** and **C** is over the weekend.

Scenario 1 - With current boot methods, **D** can go to the game Saturday evening or anytime on Sunday, boot **B** and **C**, and live with the fact that **A** is using the banked boot times as intended, and does take his or her turns in a timely matter during the week. **D** being the most active group (or player) also has the potential to decide to only boot one of **B** or **C**, or neither, depending on the benefits of booting each one.

Scenario 2 - With your suggestion, **D**, the most active group, must in all cases wait for **A** to take his or her turn before being able to decide whether or not to boot **B** and/or **C**. This means that **A** can, in effect, maintain complete control over the booting fate of **B** and **C** with complete ignorance of **D**'s opinion, who has now been waiting on 3 players for 72 hours and counting.

In a game where "D" doesn't exist, that wouldn't matter. Except, if "D" doesn't exist, **A** has still earned the right to take longer over the weekend than **B** and **C**, and is in the position where he or she either logs on over the weekend to boot both players and win instantly, or chooses not to and either takes the turns with the slow-paced game, or surrenders and joins one with a different pace.

In a game where "D" *does* exist, **D** loses the ability to boot **B** and **C** even though **D** is the most active player, and should have the right to first decision on boots. Furthermore, **D** has absolutely no ability to regain control over the booting of **B** and **C**.

**D** can potentially gain more banked boot time than **A**, but no matter what, **A**'s time still prevents **D** from booting **B** or **C**. The only benefit **D** gets by having more banked boot time than **A** is that **D** can prevent **A** from selectively booting **B** or **C**.

Although that's a fair advantage, it's much *less* fair than **A** being able to freely boot or prevent the booting of **B** and **C**, given than **D** has the healthiest record in terms of average speed.

**B** and **C** get to leech off **A**'s banked boot time, and the player lacking enough interest in the game to log in for 3 days every weekend gains most of the booting power, while the committed **D** is left worrying about what tricks **A** will play with the booting. I really don't see any fairness at all there.

Apologies for the excessively long post, and for any errors I made, and I remind you that I won't continue discussing this example.

You've spent a lot of time talking about the "tricks" that A might pull with the booting, but that would be easily solved by the method suggested already. Allow no tricks at all, just boot everyone or boot no one.

I understand your point about people on vacation saving everyone else who might continue to slow down the game. I'd say that if they continue to go beyond the game settings, then they can be booted later. If they don't continue going over the game settings, then there is no problem anymore.

If the game is 2 days boot, and they don't go over 2 days, then there isn't a problem. Even if they take it up to 1 day and 23 hours each and every time, that's what the settings are at. It's annoying, but that's the settings you agreed to. If they are playing banking boot, then those players simply won't have much/any to cover when they go beyond two days.

If they consistently get close to 2 days, then chances are they will eventually go over and someone can boot them.

My only objection is when both teams have players who are doing that, but only one gets booted.

Some players apparently believe the ability to boot other players from the game was implemented just to help them with their personal vendettas. Personally, I believe booting should only be possible when it gets an otherwise stuck game going again.
Booting only one player when 2 or more are hold up the game is a cheap way of getting an advantage and the cause of 90% of the spam posts on these forums. Having the boot command kick ALL overdue players at once like a manually triggered auto-boot, as the topic starter suggested, would be a very elegant solution to the problem. I fail to see any downside to this.
Special case Vacation mode: it prevents any game from advancing. So logically booting during a vacation will NEVER speed up the game and should therefore be disabled during that time. Players who already are in overtime in any of their games must consequentially not be allowed to switch to vacation mode before they submit a turn in all games they are overdue. This would stop all potential abuse coming from there.
As for banking boot times: booting as long as all others who are still within their boot times haven't even submitted their turn might be good for sore egoes, but otherwise does nothing but unnecessarily imbalance the game. You want faster games, join lower boot times, don't expect players on a 2 day boot game meet your 4 hrs average response time. Some of us have to sleep, others have to work. Some even have a life beyond Warlight :-)

Diabolicus, your proposed reforms are already possible under the current settings. If you personally don't like the direct boot, you are entirely free to create games that do not have it, and to only join games that do not use it. After all, boot times and methods are the one setting that's actually displayed on the open games page *before* you click on the game, for this very reason.

Duke, you're making an artificial distinction between the rules that you like and the rules that you don't. The rules about boot times are fundamentally no different than the rules about getting bonuses or the rules about luck percentage or any other rule. They're all rules which define how the game is played. In fact, the **only** difference is that boot times and methods can be changed by whoever is setting up the game, negating any objection to them. You are *always* free to set up your own game with whatever boot time rules you prefer. If you don't like particular boot time rules, don't join games that use those rules.

I think you've also missed the point of emoose's example. These "tricks" that A might pull are entirely legitimate within the game structure, and I think emoose rather convincingly argued why that should be the case. It's fine if you disagree, but again, that's why you have the option to change the boot time rules when you create a game.

reading this discussion, I see people point out points, then I see counter points to those points, and then the original people say something different which agrees with the counter point, making it seem like that was their original point..

Perrin, good to know I'm not the only one thinking that...

reddleman: Andrew Jackson and I were not complaining about getting booted, he even specifically mentioned that in his first sentence. We were merely pointing out that the current booting system under certain circumstances can be abused, and that it would be very simple to fix this.

I think we can all agree that the purpose of booting is to give players the ability to get a stuck game going again. The purpose of booting is NOT to punish individual players/teams and give others a cheap advantage.

Auto-boot is a fair setting, as it treats all offenders equally, everyone who exceeds the time limit gets booted. It's only downside is that it always boots, regardless of whether or not all other players are willing to wait a bit longer or not. It is not flexible.

Direct boot on the other hand is flexible as it allows the time limit to be extended if all players agree to that, but it is also a biased setting, as the person who decides to boot gets to chose whether or not to boot ALL overdue players or just SOME.

A new boot option as described above would solve both those issues and combine the fairness of auto-boot with the flexibility of direct boot. That is what we were advocating, and ,contrary to what you wrote, it is not yet possible under the current settings.

It is highly possible..
use direct boot.. and play with people with souls.. /waits

There is still no reason to change the current Direct Boot.

When you join a game with Direct Boot, you do so with the knowledge that Direct Boot can be abused for personal gains. When you join a game with Auto Boot, you do so with the knowledge that there is no forgiveness to the boot times regardless of what the players in the game think.

If you are so intent on changing Direct Boot so that it can't be abused, why not instead change Auto Boot so that a player can request "forgiveness" time which the other players in the game can vote to approve? This essentially achieves the same result, and is a less major change than the one proposed for Direct Boot. Except, this function already exists in the form of Vacation Mode and the decision for each game as to whether or not Vacation Mode is honored.

Direct Boot is not perfect. Auto Boot is not perfect. However, neither one is actually flawed, because no one is forcing you to use either of them.

You are saying Direct Boot is unfair and doesn't accomplish what booting is meant to achieve, yet you refuse to use the method of booting designed to eliminate that. Once again, I would support this as an addition to the current booting options (though I'm unlikely to ever use it myself), but not as a replacement for an existing boot option.

You bring a lot of defensive arguments here ("Don't use it if you don't like it" etc.), yet you haven't given a single valid explanation as to why booting only SOME overdue players is in any way better for the collective gaming experience than booting ALL overdue players?
Except of course, that booting only the opposing team might give you an easy advantage.