[dave251164]

Just tried playing in another $Reward race with only about 10,000 people showing as online to see if there would be less issues with fewer people playing.
Still had lots of freezes in the bidding and play - some very long.
Logging out worked and got it going, but not for long!
I was so fed up and so far behind already that I left yet again.
If BBO tourneys can't even function properly without freezing and going slow when there are so few players using it, then it really is not fit for purpose.

[tobinator]

 mycroft, on 2021-January-13, 10:53, said:

Is the HTML5 version worse than the flash version? IME, yes. There certainly are major missing bits (that don't generally impact 4-human play), the interface is clunky (as you would expect when using a mobile interface on a 28" widescreen), and all the rest. But the time to find this out and complain about it was March when we all went online, not "oh I don't want to learn something new, I'll go out of my way to use the version I understand, *even though I know I'm going to have to do it eventually, and it's not BBO's fault*".

Sure I understand that but also in 18 months they've created something which is nowhere near as higher quality as the flash client. I don't think the problem was lack of feedback, the interface is unbelievably bad in comparison on widescreen it's clear to anyone. It just lacked the necessary resources put into it (which isn't even that much). The "oh I don't want to learn something new" argument I'm normally on board with but in this case I don't think it makes sense. You want people to switch to something that's clearly worse - people are clearly going to keep on using the better client as long as possible.

I'm extremely thankful to BBO for a great product they've developed and the incredible amount of enjoyment I've had over the years but I don't understand why there's all of a sudden such a massive drop off in standard. There are other low budget sites that are extremely slick e.g. Lichess.org You don't have to spend that much money to get a well functioning good looking website

[pilowsky]

It's worth remembering that over the last 12 months a few other things have cropped up that may have made things a little difficult for BBO in its constant quest for perfection.

[mycroft]

The point is, that people played once with the new client, went "oh, this is bad, I'm going back to my security blanket flash version", when BBO made it harder to find, hit the new one once, freaked out, and took pains to find their old comfort, were warned "this is going away", and said "I'll deal with it later".

As opposed to, say, trying things then, finding out what's new (and therefore bad) but I can get used to it, and what's new (and actually bad) and reporting it so that they had a year to deal with them (okay, something else happened that slowed this down too, but still). Which might have changed the priority trees back then when it could get fixed, or now because it's a "long-standing issue" rather than a new one people are just now complaining about.

And sure, it might be a new issue people are complaining about now because of something heavier in the HTML interface that now that 30 000 users are using it instead of 15 and 15 flash, it's worse. But again, if people hadn't stayed away in droves and instead tried to help make it better for the eventual, the load would have been more 25 and 5 flash back in September and these things might have been found then.

I see several people complaining about things in the new version, and that these things *have* *to be* *fixed* *NOW*. Oddly enough - different things from different people (all important, I'm not denying that). And I have mine, too, I will admit (on the other hand, I have commented on them as threads came up, for the last 18 months). So the question becomes, what priority do they pick? And the answer, I'm afraid, is, as always, "whichever priority the people paying me/paying us set", with caveats for "okay, we're going to do a rollout Friday, let's see if we can kill off a couple of 'simple' ones without further destabilizing the rollout while we're here" I'm sure.

I wonder if the people that are truly upset about this can get the rogue China version, and will it work? And how long until malware attacks on those pirate versions (or backdoors installed by the CCP into those pirate versions) cause worse problems than slow bridge?

[pilowsky]

 mycroft, on 2021-January-23, 13:06, said:

...

I wonder if the people that are truly upset about this can get the rogue China version, and will it work? And how long until malware attacks on those pirate versions (or backdoors installed by the CCP into those pirate versions) cause worse problems than slow bridge?

During the Cold War (Pre-climate change?) spies would insert devices into typewriters that would report every keystroke.
People complain constantly about the risk of software problems while using computers manufactured in countries that interested in knowing about what you are doing.

Secretary of State McNamara once famously observed that there is only one secret in the world - the location of the American nuclear submarines. I wonder if that is still true.

There seems to be a constant anxiety about privacy in a world where there really isn't any.

If there was an English language version of Qiaopai (tchowpay) available, would you be scared to play it?

[shyams]

I must point out that the Flash version is still accessible via the old URL. I don't play Robot Reward that dave251164 posted about in the OP. However, if I were interested in that game, I would surely use the flash version to obtain a significant advantage over any other player using the HTML version.

Given that Robot Reward has an actual BB$ reward associated with it and the outcome of such a tournament is affected by the speed of play (robot speed, the interface etc), perhaps those affected are right to complain about it.

[pilowsky]

So, if I play faster will my Bridge improve?
Most of my partners complain that I play to quickly - but only when I get a bad score. Strangely.

[johnu]

 tobinator, on 2021-January-22, 18:17, said:

Sure I understand that but also in 18 months they've created something which is nowhere near as higher quality as the flash client. I don't think the problem was lack of feedback, the interface is unbelievably bad in comparison on widescreen it's clear to anyone. It just lacked the necessary resources put into it (which isn't even that much). The "oh I don't want to learn something new" argument I'm normally on board with but in this case I don't think it makes sense. You want people to switch to something that's clearly worse - people are clearly going to keep on using the better client as long as possible.

It's been a lot more than 18 months since they started working on the current HTML5 version. Not surprisingly, the flash version was substantially less functional with a comparatively awful interface compared to the standalone Windows version. Some might think that functionality and the interface would get better in the later versions, and they would be wrong. I can't really think of a reason why the later versions haven't been big improvements over previous versions.

Sure, BBO has improved a few backend things like increasing the server capacity to host more players, but that shouldn't have been related to the unfunctionality of later versions.

[smerriman]

 shyams, on 2021-January-23, 13:58, said:

I must point out that the Flash version is still accessible via the old URL. I don't play Robot Reward that dave251164 posted about in the OP. However, if I were interested in that game, I would surely use the flash version to obtain a significant advantage over any other player using the HTML version.

It may still be at that URL, but good luck finding a browser that is capable of loading it. Adobe built in the kill switch many months ago.

[shyams]

 smerriman, on 2021-January-23, 17:46, said:

It may still be at that URL, but good luck finding a browser that is capable of loading it. Adobe built in the kill switch many months ago.

I am logged in right now! Chromebook, Google Chrome browser. All I had to do was to reject the option to "update" my Adobe flash (the option conveniently popped up on 1st Jan). I suspect that the Jan 1st update was the one with the kill switch.

[smerriman]

 shyams, on 2021-January-23, 23:21, said:

I am logged in right now! Chromebook, Google Chrome browser. All I had to do was to reject the option to "update" my Adobe flash (the option conveniently popped up on 1st Jan). I suspect that the Jan 1st update was the one with the kill switch.

It was in update 32.0.0.371 which was released last August. But perhaps you're well out of date. To be honest, despite how slow the new version is, I'd rather lose money in the Robot Race than keep old versions of Flash like that installed.

[popleta]

Dear secretary bird,
I must read here many but empty big words as usual from BBO to players in the past 18 month period again. Let them politicians at state level. We don't need them here.
The new interface doesn't work with at least similar quality and user comfort in comparison with old Adobe FP version - big dot.
I do not want to score its aesthetic qualities. I speak only about comfort now. I could make here a long list of serious defects of new interface and other users could only extend it.
The worst matter is that here are lost or unavailable user data built by many users for ten and more years - categories. Users created them itself they could be a bit oriented in players community if any serious objective skill rating has been working, is working and will be working never. Although this is the main lifetime issue of BBO. Where are these data? Why they are unavailable or lost and their projection to user interface were replaced with rarely occurring meaningless weird purple badge? Why can't users continue to improve their private categories? Where are compatibility item values with its poor narrative value but still any value? There remains only empty item in profiles. Really sad.
Working rating system could solve and primarily prevent 80% of all social indecencies that they happen in BBO environment. Another 18% these issues could be solved THEN (it means the rating already successfully works) with implementing serious restrictions for such conducts as leaving tournaments and matches, making kind subs regular partners and participants of events they wouldn't apply for ever, which improprieties we cannot meet at live bridge club rooms almost at all, etc.
Only then in the last 2% of issues comes such ridiculous bridge problems as cheating which one became witch-hunt with deep inauspicious social side effects to bridge community veiling Big Serious Untreated Disease of recent BBO.
Sincerely yours
Petr Kurzweil

[mycroft]

You know what, I agree with you. Especially about categories. Search my history if you don't believe me. And you know I don't work for BBO, right?

I'm somewhat of a socialist, but what I see here is Capitalism At Work. You're playing - for free, mostly - bridge with people all over the world whenever you want, wherever you want. The site isn't perfect, but it's arguably the best one out there. There was one that worked better - for many people, but you know, not on phones or tablets - but the company that made the underlying software (again, for free) decided it wasn't worth maintaining it in the face of all the security bugs it had any longer, and nobody felt concerned enough to buy the IP and fix it and keep it going (I guess besides China. And what "security bugs" are now in that version is an interesting question).

At least for the duration of this pandemic, BBO had some more important things to work on - basically "what paying clients wanted" and "keep the site from being overloaded". Perhaps now there will be time for the "nice to haves". Because if the competitors - of which there are several now - get their bugs fixed and their awful UI cleaned up, they'll soon be "arguably the best one out there", and will take players - and money - away from them. And then they might go out of business, because they didn't listen to (the right part of) their customers early enough. And if nobody cares enough to buy *their* IP and fix it - well too bad.

You don't like how BBO looks/works? Go somewhere else. Or get together with a bunch of other people and make your own site. You'll have to put in a lot of work, and a lot of money, and have to put up with a bunch of entitled rich peoplebridge players who think your priorities are bad because they aren't theirs, but that's okay, right? It'll work for you.

Do I like this state of events? No. I think capitalism sucks, and that it causes pain for way too many people. But I'm not blinkered enough to say "but it won't happen to me", or complain (much) when it does.

As for cheating - look at what happened when Poker went online. Don't try to tell me this is a new thing; there are just different ways to do it, we notice it more, and there's more evidence, so it's easier to actually prosecute. As I've said a number of times here, if you didn't notice all the cheating going on before, that's not because it wasn't there...

[pilowsky]

The cheating used to be really simple in the previous (2 weeks ago) version because you could add a chrome extension called "instant data scraper" to Chrome.
This nifty gadget would allow you to discover everyone's holding during the bidding and play.
Making it much easier to decide what to bid and what to lead.
This problem was the reason I stopped all Casual table play and left Prime.
I checked yesterday and with the new version - or some other update perhaps - the gadget no longer has access to the site.
This is in addition to people chatting on the phone or using zoom/Teamviewer/skype etc.
Or worse, live broadcasting challenge formats (eg $0.29 robot IMP tournaments) on "twitchTV" so that some players can watch another player play the hand before they get to it.
And these are just the really obvious problems.