World of Card Games

If you were affected by the problems at World of Card Games this evening, I apologize!

The server had stopped responding to many requests - people weren't able to get to tables, couldn't invite robots, etc - and I wasn't able to do anything to fix it. I've restarted the machine. I hope this reset will keep problems at bay for a while.

I just wanted to post here that if you've had problems connecting with World of Card Games, you are not alone! The site was down for a few minutes at several different times today. The only information I have is that it was a "Network error." I've contacted my host and am waiting for a response. Meantime, I appreciate your patience. Unfortunately there's not much I can do except wait and hope it gets fixed.

Edit: I just got a note from my host that they are "aware of the problem" and are getting someone to look into it. I hope it's easy to fix!

PS: The problem was fixed as of last night (Dec 23) around 9 pm EST. They told me "one of the distributions shut itself off and we had to fix it twice."

World of Card Games got some updates for minor bug fixes this morning. For example, a bug sometimes caused the table info to be displayed incorrectly; that was fixed. Also, if your turn times out when playing Spades, as you probably know, the computer will play a card for you. Previously, if you had bid nil, the computer's unwise choice could cause you to lose your bid. This has been corrected so that the first few times that you timeout, a better card is picked.

In addition, five new avatars have been added. Enjoy!

A few changes were applied to World of Card Games this morning. Seven new avatars have been added! There's a snowboarder, a skier, and more... Check them out by clicking on the "Avatar" link in the upper left corner.


In addition, the "Options" panel has been made a bit larger and is now contained within its own dialog. Previously, it was confined to the space reserved for each game panel. You can see the old "Options" panel in my post about the "no robots" option. Here's a screenshot of the new "Options" panel:
I hope this makes it easier to change options for those with small screen sizes. Please let me know if you have any trouble with the new dialog.

Finally, a bug fix was applied to Euchre. Several players noticed that robots never "go alone," and pointed that out to me. This has now been fixed.

Thanks to everyone who sends me feedback! I'll keep working to fine-tune the site so that it's easier to use for everyone.

Over the last couple days, a few players at World of Card Games told me that they were unable to play a game there. They'd get to the main page, and the game panels were not displayed. It was sporadic - in my case, it only happened a couple times. Turns out it was caused by a bug that was introduced in my previous update. I fixed it and the site should be working fine now! I'm sorry I had to shut down the site again - I hate to chase people away when they're playing a long game of Hearts or Spades!

Another player told me that starting last week, they were unable to play the game because their "Custom Cursor" (the green pointer) had disappeared. It turns out that there's a new version of the Windows browser out, Internet Explorer 11, and this version does not handle animated cursors like the site's "Custom Cursor." I've also solved this problem. I didn't actually fix it; I just set the cursor to the default (little white pointer) in all browsers except for Chrome, where it's working reliably.

A player at World of Card Games reported that some people were accidentally leaving tables. They would sit at a table, try to click the "chat log" link to see what had been going on, and then accidentally hit the nearby "leave table" link.


I've moved the links around in the lower left corner, so hopefully this will not happen anymore! As you can see in the screenshot above, the "chat log" link is now far away from the "leave table" link.

In addition, you can now view the chat log without it scrolling down constantly as more players chat. To do so, you will need to open the chat log, and hold onto the scrollbar with your mouse. As long as you've got your mouse down on the scrollbar, the chat log will stay where you've got it.

Finally, there was a bug which caused the screen to appear blank if the zoom level had been set low. It looked as though the site was gone! This has been fixed now.

The server was down for about 10 minutes this morning, during which time I applied some bug fixes. If you've been noticing a message about your browser "zoom" level not being set correctly, that was probably a bug. Zoom detection has been removed, since it's not working reliably in all browsers.

The site looks better if your browser zoom level is set to 100% (the default). If the zoom level is set too low (less than 75% zoom), the web page does not show up at all - you'll just see a blank page. I will look into developing a warning for such situations. Meantime, if you see a blank page when you hit the site, you should check your browser's zoom level. If you don't know how to do this, feel free to write me. My email address is marya@worldofcardgames.com.