Those of us playing with crappy, corroded-copper-wire ADSL (hello, the rest of you Aussies) can experience frequent, second-long dropouts that boot us from the server. The trouble is, during MP play with a slow opponent, we can think that we're still connected while they ponder a strategy. It's only after a minute or so that we check our connection (via chat) and find out that it's our fault instead. Is there some way of adding a button to the in-game MP screen that remains 'lit' or 'on' while we're connected to the server? The second we see that blink off, we can refresh the browser, rejoin the game, and keep everyone happy.
Good idea! I suggest you change the thread title to incorporate "online status indicator" or some such wording to better reflect the core of your idea. This will help e.g. future users looking for the thread later and also gives the devs a better idea at a glance of what the thread is asking for.
This is something I've talked to Jon and Farbs about. In short, it's not feasible at this time given our server set up and how the rest of our game is engineered (it'd produce too many requests or something). Don't know all the details but it's something we want to do if and when we can—which isn't now.
Cheers, Flax, and I totally understand. I've solved a lot of problems by ordering a modem-router that works better with my ADSL line attenuation - it holds onto the connection well now.
This sounds like a good compromise. You could add a small indicator light/button somewhere that changes state when it's expecting a response from the server (for example, you've just played a move vs. the AI). To help the stated issue though, you could also make it ping the server when clicked, triggering the expecting state. Here's a small example (it's not the only option of course; there are many ways to do this). Spoiler The light is green by default. When you click it, it turns yellow and becomes unclickable for some threshold (say 2-5 seconds). If it receives a response from the server in that time, it becomes green again; otherwise it turns red until it receives some sort of server response or is clicked again. It's simple, doesn't flood the server with requests, and removes the need to send awkward connection-test messages in multiplayer.
I thought I had a bad connection at one time too, but then I bought a new router and all my problems went away. What a relief as I don't have to keep typing "." into the chat window anymore
