Maintenance Update

[lackattack]

Today we went live with a bunch of basic improvements to Conquer Club:

Playing spoils
This part of the game was very confusing for new receruits and we sometimes got support requests from users who can't figure out how to play a set. Now the in-game instructions have been clarified and error messages are much more instructive. Thanks to ender516 for providing this suggestion!


Live Chat bugfix
The Live Chat session is now completely separated from the main website session. What this means is that while you must still be logged into Conquer Club to get into Live Chat, you will not get kicked out of Live Chat if you log out of Conquer Club (nor if your session times-out). Also, keeping a Live Chat session active will no longer keep your Conquer Club session active. This is something that had to be done because the sessions were not properly synchronized, leading to bugs with chat bans, people getting kicked out of chat, and people getting logged out unexpectedly from the forum.


Website ban bugfix
Fixed a bug where games would sometimes get corrupted when one of the players gets kicked out for violating the rules. Thanks to perchorin for reporting this!


Terminator bugfix
Fixed a bug where a player would sometimes get no point and be demoted to New Recruit when terminating another player. Thanks to Arama86n for reporting this!


Self-invite bugfix
Fixed a bug where you could invite yourself to your game (well, at least you would get notified as such).


Email deliverability
We made some changes to the server to improve the way we send emails such as turn notifications. This will reduce the chance of them getting incorrectly filtered as spam by your ISP or email provider. As always you can control which types of email you receive from the Game Settings page and the Control Panel -> Board preferences.


Code refactoring
I spent a lot of time cleaning up the game engine source code (and testing that I didn't break anything ). This will make it easier to program more updates in the future and also make it easier for new programmers to understand the code, which is important because we are soon going to hire a bunch of programmers to churn out updates (more on that later...)

[ender516]

This is all welcome news!

And I was glad to help with the wordings regarding spoils.

[Robespierre__]

I have been reading people complaining about a host of things about this site. I for one would like to thank you for building it and continuing to make it a fun diversion. I have met and continue to meet people I have fun playing with and against. I am beyond impressed by the maps that get made (Cairnswk that's for you wherever you are), the time someone spent designing them, and the collective teamwork that goes into bringing them to the rest of us.

I personally am more than happy when my annual renewal comes up to pitch in my fair share to support this enterprise.

Robes(pierre__)

[Leehar]

Congrats to Arama, Perchorin and ender for their efforts in making these bugs and suggs known

[rdsrds2120]

Good stuff! Thanks for those that have reported bugs, the squeaking gear gets the oil, after all

-rd

[Dako]

Awesome news! Well done!

[Bruceswar]

Thanks for the updates and fixes. I look forward to your last part the most.

[FoxMists]

Thank you!! Always happy to hear my CC has been improved.

[Victor Sullivan]

Yay! I'm especially glad about the Live Chat bug fix

Rah! Rah!

-Sully

[DJPatrick]

Don't understand a lot of which you speak (I'm 102 yo after all) but happy that you guys are making it even safer for me to go out and kill crazy pps on regular badsis...thanx

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

which is important because we are soon going to hire a bunch of programmers to churn out updates (more on that later...)

I have to say that I'm really glad to hear that the decision to hire some programmers has been made and is coming along soon. I think even one or two solid programmers would make immense differences to CC. I had planned on letting my membership run out as RL has gotten more hectic lately, but if this does go through and the improvements start showing up more frequently, I'd be happy to pitch in my share again even if my time on the site is limited.

Thank for the updates including the recent round limit update, which I think will go a long way to stopping stalemates. I look forward to seeing what new updates you have in store for us over the upcoming months

[perchorin]

Congrats to Arama, Perchorin and ender for their efforts in making these bugs and suggs known

Im always glad to make whatever small contributions to the site that I can but it was awesome getting the hat tip from lack, Leehar, rds and others. Thanks guys and keep up the great work lack, looking forward to those next updates!