It's my personal suspicion, that the main reason people are not flocking to kaya.gs is that they don't like the way games are started. Since Gabriel has lowered his stake in the server, I thought he might now be willing to make a change if popular opinion demands it. What do you think, is this the deal breaker, just another meh factor, or perhaps one of the reasons you're still there?

Vote for any of the first three to refute my suspicion, and for any of the last three to confirm it.

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Patience, grasshopper.

The main problem with Kaya is the UI. The game creation is only a small part of that.

The thing I dislike the most is that kaya is browser based and not client based. I just like client based games that much more.

When you say Gabriel has lowered his stake in the server, what does that refer to?

I think Daal means Gabriel’s last blog post.

See also the discussion of this here.

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

The way to start games makes a huge difference. Whenever I login to Flyordie (which I do rarely though), it takes about 30 seconds to get the first challenge. One click and the game is running. Otherwise the activation energy that is needed to start a game seems to high (at least for me these days). I am not sure whether I am challenged on flyordie by the player himself or whether the software chooses the opponents and creates the game automatically, but the way they are doing this seems to be efficient enough to get such a small group of players alive (their main rooms is usually populated by around 100 players). Some kind of automatch with standard game settings (board size, time settings, max difference of handi stones) would probably a good way for Kaya to get more games played.

I think opening a new window is not the best. I start a game than start doing something different while waiting, and I'm not aware when the game is realy started. I would prefer to open up a window with a game only when the opponent click on a game offer. Or maybe change it to something similiar to playok.com approach - you open a table (not an invitation or waiting screen) and just wait for an opponent to come to play/chat. Probably it's the best, better than KGS idea of open invitations and better than manual sending invitations as on other go servers like tygem, wbaduk, igs, etc.

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Tsumego/Tesuji apps for iPad, iPhone & Android devices:http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7511

The lack of automatch is a big dealbreaker for me, in combination with the small number of players and the lack of notification when a game has started.

Of course, automatch won't make a huge difference at first with a small population. It does change the dynamic though. As it is, I can start a game and go do other things while I wait for an opponent to notice my game. This means at least one player has to be actively engaging in finding a match. With automatch, both parties can fire and forget. Similarly, I'm never sure if I see an open match whether or no it's intended to be open to anyone. Automatch is a way of clearly flagging that you're just looking for a match with someone else, but no one in particular.