World of Card Games

Hi all - just a note that the site is down at the moment (7:07 PM EST). There appears to be a rather severe problem at my host. I can't even contact them, since they're offline. I'll let you know asap what's up.

Edit: the site's back up as of 7:22 PM EST. I hope it stays that way! My host said they had an issue with an "edge router."

It has been almost a month since the "replace robots" feature was introduced to World of Card Games, only to be removed when a bug was uncovered. Today this feature was reintroduced. I think the bug has been fixed... Give it a try! And please let me know if you experience any issues with this new feature. For more info about how it works, visit the "replace robots" blog post.

[Edit Feb 14 2014: another bug occurred on the same day which caused serious problems, so the replace robots feature has been removed once again. I'll be working to fix it, and it should return in the future.]

There are three new avatars at World of Card Games. Wishing you an early Happy Valentine's Day!

Some players at World of Card Games get frustrated with new users of the site. What do I mean by a "new user"? That's a person who has never visited the site before, or someone who has only played a game or two at the site. They are probably still learning the ropes. They might play poorly, or leave a game quickly because they don't understand what they should do. That can annoy more experienced users, who just want to get on with their game.

Up until now there was not much you could do about this. There's always been an option to play with "Registered Players Only". However, this excludes a lot of unregistered players (Guests) who have been playing card games at the site for a long time, and who just haven't bothered to register. And it includes very new registered users who may have the same issues as an unregistered new user.

Today, I added a new feature which should help with this problem. Experienced users may now choose to exclude new users from their tables. You will find this new setting under the Options panel (screenshot below).

exclude new users option

The option is not checked, by default - to use it, you will have to edit your options.

In addition, newer users are now indicated by the color of their name - it's shown in yellow (the default color for names is white):

new users have yellow name tags

If you see someone with a yellow nametag, the person hasn't been playing at the site for very long. They might be fine players, but they might also act a little confused. It's just a little warning that you might see unexpected behavior.

There's nothing wrong with being a new user; everyone was a new user at one point! But if you're not the patient sort, you probably will want to choose the "Exclude New Users" option. It might save you some frustration.

Finally, remember that you can always exclude specific players in a more fine-tuned way by using the "dislike players" icon. Disliking a player means you won't be seated with them again.

Hi everyone! This is a public service announcement :)

Please let me know about bugs or issues. I love to get bug reports! (This may seem strange - but how else will I know what's wrong?)

I do know that there are some problems with the site, in particular the fact that it "freezes" sometimes. I've been trying to get a handle on that, without success so far. But if it happens to you, it's useful if you notify me - it will give me an idea how often it occurs. And if you can give me any details about the computer or device that you use to play with, all the better.

If you've reported an issue, and it hasn't been fixed yet - my apologies! I have to prioritize bug fixes, and can't always fix something very quickly.

If you report something more than once, don't worry! I don't consider this nagging. It's nice to know that people care enough about World of Card Games to really want the bug fixed.

You can contact me at marya@worldofcardgames.com

After I applied the changes for the "replace robots" feature this morning, the server ran smoothly for about 8 hours. But then something went wrong, and the site started to behave poorly. A big thank you to everyone who alerted me to the problem.

I wasn't able to figure out what went wrong immediately, so I just pulled back the changes and reverted to the previous version of the site. Sorry to have to do that, but it's the safest thing! I'll work on the new feature some more to see if I can figure out what went wrong.

Most of the responses I've had about the feature were positive. So I hope to get it back online soon.

World of Card Games got an update this morning. A new, experimental feature was added: the ability to replace robots with humans. Please let me know what you think, or if you notice any problems due to this new feature. Below, I give you some details about how it works.

Suppose you come to the site and you're sitting around waiting for some people to play with. You'd like to start playing right away, and you could do that by inviting robots. But, let's face it, the robots don't play very well, so you can't have a normal game with them (sometimes humans don't play very well either, but let's not go there...). And once you invite bots, you are stuck with them for the entirety of the game!

That changes, as of today!

click on message box to use the new replace robots feature

When you sit at a table, you will now see an extra message in the lower right corner: "Click here to start game with robots. Humans may replace them later." When you click on that message box, robots will fill all empty seats at the table. Then when any people want to be seated at a table for that game, they will bump a robot. This way, you can start playing right away, and people will eventually replace the bots.

If you sit at a table and don't see the new "replace robots" message box, that would be because you've set your table options to disallow robots.

There's one other, new change that applies if you have specifically set your table options to "Private Table" with the table name "none" - as shown in the screenshot here:
When you choose your private table to be named "none" (this is the default), then no people will ever come to your table. It's intended to be used if you only want to play with robots - no one else will be seated at such a table.

Previously, if you had set up your options this way, it was up to you to invite three robots to the table. Now, your game will start automatically with robots once you sit down at the table. It's just a little more convenient.

Enjoy the new features! As always, feedback is welcome!