Both Cipher and I again looked at #124 situation today and I need to defer to the master to solve the problem with a battle in 124 between the DA and WI as was ironically mentioned in the forum elsewhere.
Trying to coordinate that fix, along with my not finding how to set initial allies in a Titan game, means it has so far been an unproductive though time consuming Saturday. Lil' Grasshopper girl in town picking out wedding dresses. Sign up for more games! Baby needs new shoes!
Happy to learn Seeking New Heroes finally filled up. Gosh. Hopefully the Titans and Seeking setups go out Sunday, and Cipher finds solution to #124 issue. In full disclosure, we also reprinted turns for turn 4 in Master & Apprentice as a recent change seemed to reinsert unplayed kingdom capitals into the mix.
Today (Sunday) we sent up a new Titans game between The Sten and Jumpingfist about 8:30am. We set up Seeking New Heroes about midday and re-mailed turn 0 with all personas correctly identified. We corrected the chaotic situation in Game #124 and just completed processing and emailing that Turn 15 here at 6:25pm.
Today we ran 128, 129 and 130 at the usual time. There was a problem with 121 we asked Cipher to look into and that ran in the evening. We also setup the new Primeval Alamaze special five kingdom, five player game and mailed setups and turn 0's. Done now for the day and its not even 11pm.
Warlords Wednesday: all Warlords and Titan games were processed and mailed today.
There were six games to run today:
121, 128, 129, 130, 132, and 133.
Both 132 and 133 were on turn 1 and I wanted to get them done first to give more attention to turn 1 issues but both were missing one or more players at the deadline, which is noon, Eastern USA. Ideally, players submit their turns about 2 hours before the deadline, as that is when I start to input orders in hopes turn processing, rather than order entry, can occur at the deadline. Consider the last two hours (10am - noon) the grace period.
5 of the 6 games have now gone out by 6pm Eastern, but this was about double the time it should take. So if company costs including staff payments are $50 an hour, this is about an extra $200 in expense. That's like 10 Scouts playing free for a month. Ry Vor will need to make the decision on whether to leave these games delayed from running on time for a late player and pay for my time anyway, or to run the game when it is due and the player misses the turn. Waiting keeps the one player late happy, but disappoints everyone else and has my time wasted and sometimes have players who have been accustomed to two hour processing mumbling about how service has dropped off when it takes six hours. You wouldn't have your doctor or lawyer wait for an hour, would you? Some new players are just getting adjusted to the idea that yes, processing occurs at the deadline, instead of later in the week (whenever) as in most PBEM games that cost 3x to 6x as much per turn.
Game #121 had a problem that we have asked Cipher to look into. That game has not gone out as of now.
We strive to get our turns out to all players within a couple hours of the deadline. Please don't be late, even 10 minutes late as several players were today - you will likely miss your turn going forward. Would anyone like to wait 10 minutes doing nothing because someone else is holding you up, in anything, from traffic, waiting for a meeting to start, standing in line, etc?
Please be sure to submit all turns to activegames@alamaze.co, and label your email only with: Game#_Kingdom AB_Turn #, so for example: 100_AN_T1. Don't add "game" or "Alamaze" or any words other than "REVISED" at the end of the subject if you are resubmitting orders for the same game already submitted.
Be sure not to sort, move or make other manipulations to the input sheet, as that wrecks the imbedded code in the ingest tab (second sheet in the Excel folder), which is the one I read to process your turn. Use Excel if you have it available - much fewer opportunity for mistakes.
We still hope the web based order entry form will come someday, but Ry Vor feels we cannot promise this as it has been so long in coming. Meanwhile, we have to get the existing process working as, well, a scheduled process.
It was supposed to be a light processing day, games #118, #123, and #124 went out, here by 6pm Eastern. Both #118 and #123 had victory checks (neither successful) and #124 had to be re-run as I seem to have missed one player's turn.
A reminder when submitting orders. Always send to Active Games, and always label your email with no words unless you want to add "REVISED" at the end. So an email label would be 100_AN_T1. Don't add "game", "alamaze", "RE" or anything else, please. If you must add a word, add it at the end of the subject line, after the game #.
Also remember, even if you get a message from Active Games, only send email with orders to activegames@alamaze.co. Send all requests for support to support@alamaze.co. We only look at activegames@alamaze.co to process new orders. A request for support sent to activegames@alamze.co probably won't be seen until your next turn in that game is scheduled to be run.
Today we processed #128, #129, and #130, and #132.
Not to nag, well, yes, to nag, we again had at least one late player in every game. Ultimately, only one player who we didn't hear from missed the turn, but I am fearful I am setting a bad precedent where players think if they are late the gears of the machine will stop until their turn is in.
New players in Seeking New Heroes maybe have an excuse as they are not accustomed to a PBEM company running turns by the clock and deadline, but yes, we actually do.
Meanwhile, please understand, we don't want you to miss a turn, but we are not set up to stop what we are doing, find out who is missing, get their email address, draft an email to them telling them we don't have orders, and wait indefinitely for a reply, while charging about $2 a turn.
Get those turns in on time, ideally two hours or more before the deadline.
IMPORTANT: do not manipulate your turn input sheet when you are entering your orders. You cannot sort, move, resize columns, un-merge cells. All these things wreck the imbedded code in the form and you may miss your turn. Do not mislabel either the spreadsheet (which the code uses to select your orders) or your email subject line, which the game master uses to transmutate your orders into the magic of Alamaze commands that will be executed. No, the game master does not know you are really in game 132 when you label your turn 123.
Players generally get used to the routine after a few turns.
Monday as of 8pm Eastern, games #121 (concluded), #128, #129, #130, #132, and #133 were scheduled for processing. All but #128 have gone out with #128 having a hang up that Cipher will explore.
128 has been processed and mailed, following a roll back of the new brigade elimination changes. If you find odd/unexpected loss applications from today (aside from 128) please send the details to support@alamaze.co
Yesterday we set up a new Warlords Anonymous (#135) and a new Steel Anonymous (#136) 12 player game, and processed game #124.
Today (Wednesday) we have run and emailed games 125, 126, 131, 133 and 220. Game 127 which is on T10 ESO turn, will be run this evening.
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