Happy New Year to Everyone. I would like to announce a new Go Server -- http://www.funnode.com/games/go

The server, although still in beta, has been online for several months now. We have accepted a lot of feedback over this time to improve the user experience and the site as a whole. We are at a point where the server is stable and ready to take on a substantial load. Thus, we would like to invite anyone and everyone to play a game or two on the server and let us know what you think about the site -- We appreciate all comments/criticism.

Here are a few things http://www.funnode.com/games/go has to offer:

- Ladder Tournament!
- Totally free (no premium / pay-to-play garbage)
- Easy signup (although you don't need an account to play!)
- Completely HTML5 / CSS3 / Javascript
--- i.e., nothing to install and works on most smartphones and tablets
--- i.e., "instant play" (no refreshing or opening new tabs/windows)
- Play Humans or Bots (fuego and GnuGo)
- 9x9, 13x13, and 19x19 Boards
- Chinese and Japanese scoring
- Handicaps from 0 to 9
- "Undo Move" and "Offer Draw" options available
- Personalized Player Pages to keep track of Ratings and Ranks
- Fully functioning Review System
- Private Games (useful for teaching)
- All games are Saved - Reviewable and Downloadable in SGF format
- Chatting allowed Globally, In-Game, while Spectating, and while Reviewing
--- offline and private chatting also available

Please feel free to leave comments/criticism either here, in the chat windows, or the forums (http://www.funnode.com/forums). Thank You!

It looks like the correct link is with lowercase "go"

_________________
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Oops .. sorry. Thanks for pointing it out msgreg - I fixed the link.

Ravi, thank you! Feature requests:

- Option to enlarge the board to full-screen (not the zoom-in feature in browser)
- Sound clicks for the stones (Firefox)
- Change chime sound to regular stone click sounds (on Chrome and IE8)
- Canadian Time control (example: 1 minute + 30 minutes/20 moves)
- Much longer time control for Byoyomi (much longer than 30 min + N*10 seconds; there should be no limit)
- Allow both upper- and lower-case letters in "your message" (currently, everything is forced to be lowercase)
- Option to toggle co-ordinates
- Remove the letter 'i' from the X co-ordinates (standard on IGS,KGS,MultiGo,SmartGo,L19,Kaya...
...but the Korean and Chinese servers keep 'i', and they also number 1..19 the opposite direction)
- After the final scoring result, there is no "OK" button to close the results window -- I had to refresh the tab to get out.
- After 'Start new game', there is also no way to close the window. No "Close" button to back out of the New Game window.

Thanks for the suggestions Edlee .. we've made substantial changes to the server since your last visit. As for your suggestions:

- (In Progress) Option to enlarge the board to full-screen (not the zoom-in feature in browser)
- (Done) Sound clicks for the stones (Firefox)
- (Done) Change chime sound to regular stone click sounds (on Chrome and IE8)
- (Considering) Canadian Time control (example: 1 minute + 30 minutes/20 moves)
- (Considering) Much longer time control for Byoyomi (much longer than 30 min + N*10 seconds; there should be no limit)
- (Done) Allow both upper- and lower-case letters in "your message" (currently, everything is forced to be lowercase)
- (Considering) Option to toggle co-ordinates

- We're going to leave the letter 'i' in the X co-ordinates for now -- we don't really see it being an issue atm.
- The popup divs can be closed by clicking anywhere outside of those divs -- this applies to the final scoring result and the 'Start new game' divs

It would be nice if the board didn't jump around after each move.

I didn't get a score at the end of the game (with a bot), and after passing I was disconnected and couldn't get back to the game.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Thank You for your feedback daal ..

- (Done) Option to enlarge the board to full-screen (not the zoom-in feature in browser)
- (In Progress) The board jumping is a bug that only seems to happen in Google Chrome - we are trying to resolve this ASAP.
- (Done) We have fixed the bug with the end-game score. The disconnect was because the server was restarted after your game for some updates - Sorry about that.

Some more updates ..

- (Done) longer time control (increased max from 30 min to 60 min)
- (Done) The board jumping bug that was occurring in Google Chrome is now fixed.

We have also added a Requests Page that will allow players to request features/games and report bugs -- http://www.funnode.com/requests

- make it possible to delete a game with a wrong (i.e. unwished) timesetting before the first move (has been played).

- "Too many active connections already" is the message I do see since 24 hours.

- "Players Waiting: 1" BUT I cannot join the game, probably because the other player is long gone already (24h). Hence, I suggest to cancel such 'open games' after a deliberate time.

- "Players Online: 5" - can I see them ? Who are they ? Make it click- or hoover-able.

- the screen with the automatic score (i.e. computer opponent resigned) cannot be clicked away. How to go back to the game? How to review it? By opening a new tab (?) and searching for the website funnode... again? [firefox under windows]

- how to view and evaluate other people's play? The only clickable item is the red game number. Clicking results in a frozen tab.



- a day hereafter, the "Too many active connections already"-message has gone, but a "Could not find username .. try refreshing the page?." persists (despite being already logged-in persists.

_________________
Greetings,
Tommie

3dan EGF (AGA no 13477) || Tommie on KGS: 'June'|| DGS: 'Zhi Laohu' 纸老虎 = 'paper tiger' || Senseis : http://senseis.xmp.net/?tderz ||
ENFP (MBTI) - 'Find your own style within the Fundamentals of Go! '

Thanks for the suggestions Tommie ..

- The "Too many active connections already" is a message you receive if you have more than 3 active connections (tabs) for the same game. We've also noticed that older versions of Internet Explorer lose connection to the server when the tab/window isn't active.

- If you click on "Players Online" beside the Leaderboard, you can view the list of online players.

- All popups can be closed by simply clicking outside of the popup. This applies to the end-game popup with the score.

- You can watch and review games by click on the appropriate buttons.

Thanks for the suggestions Tommie ..

- The "Too many active connections already" is a message you receive if you have more than 3 active connections (tabs) for the same game. We've also noticed that older versions of Internet Explorer lose connection to the server when the tab/window isn't active.

- If you click on "Players Online" beside the Leaderboard, you can view the list of online players.

- All popups can be closed by simply clicking outside of the popup. This applies to the end-game popup with the score.

- You can watch and review games by click on the appropriate buttons.

- (Considering) make it possible to cancel a game before the first move has been played.

We have just finished redoing the entire Go Board from scratch! It is crisper-looking, faster-to-load, and an overall improvement from the previous board .. Enjoy

Hey Tommie ..

- (Done) Games that end with less than 3 moves played are cancelled, and do not affect either player's rating.

We have invested in a bigger and better server to host FunNode. Come check us out now! http://www.funnode.com/games/go

Three things caught my attention because they suggest that funnode programmers are not very familiar with the game:

* Letter 'i' on the board
* Lack of proper Go ranks
* Chess-like format of the "Review Game" record, although I'm assuming that's just a placeholder.

There is only one thing that caught my attention:

Whenever I make a move, it takes about half a second to redraw the board again. The flickering from that caused a headache and disturbs the reading process. My browser is Opera (I haven't tried another browser yet).

Edit: just checked with Chrome and the problem doesn't exist there, so it must be an Opera specific problem.

Thanks for the suggestions palapiku ..

- we have had a few people suggest taking out the 'I' from the board .. we just can't figure out why it's an issue
- we wanted to have a universal rating system for all the games. This is why we went with elo ratings .. I'm sure it'll be easy to get use to
- you can review any of the Go games played on funnode. Simply write in the game id, click review, and a way you go

Thanks karaklis .. we actually only test the site on Chrome, Firefox, and IE. We will try to pay some attention to Opera too

Western representations of go boards have been leaving out the "i" for some time now, particularly in written material, and thus go players have gotten used to the placement of the letters further to the right. We all immediately think of the last line as "T", and the important 4th line as "Q." Changing this feels disorienting, and makes discussing board positions somewhat clumsy.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Regarding tHe letter i, I'm not fully sure, but doesn't tygem use it too?

Yes and wbaduk.