www.brainking.com - OUTSTANDING game site!!
Posted:
Mar 10, 2003, 9:14 AM
To all players -
Below is something that I have posted on several message boards at IYT tonight. It is a new and EXCELLENT turn-based game site. Unfortunately, I was stopped from posting it in more than 4 places because I am a non-member, so I will post it some more places tomorrow. I was also limited by the 4000-char limit, so it is divided up into 2 posts. Those are 2 more irritations to me about IYT. As you can see, it is intended for IYT players, but you'll get the drift. Here it is:
I have long thought that IYT left a lot to be desired, but now a fairly new but rapidly growing site has confirmed my thoughts. After what I have found, I am quite certain that IYT's days are numbered. By that, I mean that they will be very fortunate to be around 5 years from now. Let me explain the problems with IYT currently: 1. Their response to complaints is VERY slow. 2. Suggestions fall on deaf ears. 3. Time outs occur in matches when you are away on vacation. 4. There are FAR too many tournaments so that each is watered down so much that winning one means little. 5. The allowable # of daily moves for non-members is limited MORE AND MORE every year. 6. There are no ratings so that you can see where you rate in your favorite game compared to others. 7. Beginners and intermediates are constantly BLOWN OUT by top champions in their favorite game tournaments.
If I could tell you a site that had NONE of these problems, would anyone be interested? Well, that site exists and it is at www.brainking.com!! Dmitri King found this site about a week ago and let me know about it and I personally checked it out. I have found it to be an OUTSTANDING game site that is still in the building stages but is growing RAPIDLY! I have now become a 1-year 'Brain Rook' member at the site. I am now recommending it to EVERYONE that I can think of, especially IYT people who are tired of the above problems. Please know that I have nothing to gain from this and I will explain the MANY reasons for recommending the site to everyone, as follows: 1. For their tournaments, they have a vacation policy. For non-members, you can state 5 days throughout the year that you will be on vacation and you will NOT time out in your tourney or non-tourney games during that time (20 max for Brain Rook members). IYT has said that they don't allow vacations because it will delay the tournaments more. I disagree about that being a factor. For a tournament that lasts a year, who really cares about 5-20 more days? But it can make a BIG difference to people who go on vacation in the middle of an important match. 2. They allow flexibility in picking your weekend days. I find it irritating to have to move on the days that I am the busiest and not on the ones that I am the least busy. I have chosen Tuesday and Wednesday there. 3. There is no limit on the # of moves for non-tourney players. 4. They keep a rating list of all players for all games so that you can see where you stand, but it is NOT in plain view. If you don't want to know your rating or anyone else's, that's not a problem. IYT says that ratings will promote cheating. This is a VERY poor excuse. The VAST majority of players do NOT cheat and for the ones who do, it becomes quickly obvious. 5. They have sectioned tournaments for players rated above or below a certain level. Now, top-level, intermediate, and novice-level players can enjoy playing players closer to their own abilities in tournaments. IYT has adamantly refused to try to have sectional tourneys for the same poor excuse about promoting cheating.
www.brainking.com post #2 - OUTSTANDING game site!!
Posted:
Mar 10, 2003, 9:24 AM
To all game players -
This is a continuation of my post #1 about www.brainking.com. If you have not read the first one yet, please do so before reading this one. Keep in mind that this was originally posted at www.itsyourturn.com so it is oriented towards players there. Here it is:
The reasons stated in the first post are just some of the reasons that the site is excellent, but here is the BEST one of all. They listen to you!! Dmitri King and I are Pente fanatics. Let me share with you our experience with them: 1. Less than one week ago, Dmitri King noticed that they did not have Pente and so enlisted my support in suggesting that they put that great game on their site. The owner of the site personally responded to us 3-4 times in the first day alone. I would be lucky to get ONE response from ANYONE in a day at IYT. 2. In that first day, the owner said the game sounded interesting and to show him where he could see the correct board, stones, and rules for the game so that he could get it set up correctly. 3. The next day, we sent him the information about Pente. 4. 1-2 days later, he sent a note back that he was about done with Pente and that he expected to have it on the site fairly quickly. We immediately responded that we were impressed with the turnaround time on our request and asked if he could do the same thing for Keryo Pente and did a quick synopsis of the rule differences from Pente. I thought that might be asking a bit much, but I figured it was worth a shot. 5. 2 days later, he sent a note back to us that he was DONE with the programming for BOTH Pente and Keryo Pente and that the games would be on the site on Monday (TODAY!!)
For me, it has been a LONG time since anyone has provided this kind of customer service in ANY industry.
In my short time as director and my longer experience in playing Pente, I have seen a LOT of excuses made from players, sites, directors, customer-support people, you name it as to why something went wrong, why they couldn’t be somewhere, why something couldn’t be fixed, why something couldn't be done, etc. After hearing SO many excuses, I was amazed to find a site where someone just got right in there and DID IT!!
One last thing, it doesn't cost anything to join and play. But if you do decide to become a member, please mention the Dmitri King or Gary Barnes I.D. as a referral. We might get a buck or two off of a future membership for our promotion efforts. Better yet, refer some of your friends and have them list YOU as a referral. :-]
Gary Barnes
P.S. Editors note: Dweebo has always been very fast with fixing things and taking our suggestions here.
Re: www.brainking.com post #2 - OUTSTANDING game site!!
Posted:
Mar 10, 2003, 6:24 PM
Hi all-- I would like to comfirm everything that Gary said about Brain King and IYT. IYT has irritated me more times than I can count (you may insert your own joke here about how easy it is to irritate me), and Brain King's response time to input was outstanding, especially since Gary and I are non-members at their site. IYT's attitude is 1) if you are not a member, we don't give a s__t about you. 2) Iff you are a member, we have your money already so we don't give a s__t about you.
Once, when I suggested they improve pente at their site to make it more desirable for players to play the turn based tournaments there (insteda of at PBeM), their response was "Because other sites have pente, we do not care to improve our pente." I am not making this up, someone actually said that, and stood by it after I pointed out how ludicrous the statement is.
Evething Gary said regarding the progression of events is accurate, they really did get the pente games up and running that quickly. I am going to sign up for a membership today and I will encourage everyone who is an IYT member to take a good look at Brain King to see what they have to offer.
-Dmitri King
If I do not accept a game invite right away, it means I will once I have fewer games in progress.
Re: www.brainking.com - OUTSTANDING game site!!
Posted:
Mar 13, 2003, 6:22 AM
thats weird because I to emaled them 2-3 days ago. some one I was playing with @ IYT told me about brainking.com I went there and was kinda bumb'd that pente was not there and told them it would be a great thing to put on there turn'd base site. but i did not get a reponce from them but If they put up the game very cool.
Please take this as constructive and not critical. In order to get a response from someone, you have to articulate yourself in an appropriate manner. By that I mean if you sent Brain King a message requesting that Pente be added to their site using the manner of writing that you did in your post here, you weren't likely to get ANY response!
I had to read your message at least twice to understand what you were saying. You left out periods, commas, and apostrophies, spelled several words incorrectly, left some words out, and let your thoughts all run together in a single paragraph. I wouldn't think this was the possible problem except that I've seen you do it in several messages on this forum.
In other words, if you want a business operation to do something for you, you must present your case in a business-like manner.
