Re: [Rails-devel] Bug reports

[Erik V. <eri...@hc...>]

Re: bug #2898839 - 1830:  dropouts remain, in privates-auction. 

I have reverted this fix, as it apparently was against the rules.

However, I sympathize with Jim's remarks below, and I'm thinking
about ways to address it (possibly in a next release).

One possibility is to add a game option to all games with an
1830-style auction: to disallow rejoining bidding after a pass.

Another possibility is to add a facility for a player to withdraw
from an auction. However, I haven't found yet a satisfactory way
to include such an action in the current UI. Options:
- Add an extra Autopass button (but there isn't really room for);
- Add a menu item to set Autopass for the current auction 
(but menu items tend to be overlooked);
- Add a checkbox with text below the button row that says something
like "Autopass for this auction". Not very pretty.

Any better ideas?

In addition, it might be a good idea to skip player turns automatically
if really nothing else can be done than just passing. 
To some extent this already occurs in Operating Round turn steps. 
In hot-seat play such turn skipping might be easily overlooked,
so I guess a warning about skipping a player turn should be 
popped up (and added to the Report window) as well.

Erik.

> In terms of your first question (bid again or drop out), I've 
> verified  
> this with a number of players, but also- there's a popular FAQ for  
> 1830, that acknowledges that this is played differently across  
> different groups, and that this is a popular 'house rule' (an 
> odd way  
> of putting it, that just increases the ambiguity).
> 
> I think, the moral is- that there is no definite answer agreed among  
> experts.
> 
> The one deciding factor for me in filing this bug for rails 
> is this:   
> whenever this comes up in pbem play- players always WANT to keep  
> passing, and it typically up slowing everything down significantly  
> that rails keeps returning to that player.
> 
> Other than that, I have no opinion or real preference, and I'd just  
> try to make sure players in any game I hosted understood how Rails  
> plays this, ahead of time, so that there's no unfortunate surprises.