While we’re on software and this is fresh on your minds, are there any feature requests for PAPA19 or bug reports? There were some strange issues with single game tickets being opened without correct player associations which I think I have a grasp on [multiple button presses is my best guess]
As for new features already on my list, I’ll be adding pending entries to the division standings list and maybe a ticket viability estimator if @Adam is up for sharing.
Timestamps. On basically everything, but especially game scores.
Also, is there a way to get the data out of the system? I’d love to goof around with it, see if I can find interesting stuff.
During my time as a scorekeeper, everything went really smoothly. The software was great and easy to use.
The only thing that was a little off was the refresh link. It would attempt to redo the last thing I did.
Example:
It’s slow in the A bank. I put Keefer in on CFTBL and my listing refreshes. A few more players sign up and start games with other scorekeepers. I want to update the game table which is still showing those other games as empty since I haven’t done anything. When I hit the refresh link, it attempts to put Keefer back into Creature before redrawing the game table list. Instead, it should just redraw the game table. While I understand what was happening, someone less familiar with the software may not.
I saw the same thing with the refresh link. To work around, I hit the “view ticket” link and then “cancel” to get back to a refreshed listing.
A lot of players were too impatient to wait for confirmation to start their games, as it took just a little too long for the system to confirm a player on a machine. This only bit me once, when a player plunged ball one on a game he’d already played on a ticket. I had to interrupt him and plunge the remaining balls.
All said, I agree with @phendricks — everything went very smoothly scorekeeping.
I’m interested in data export as well. One thing I think would be really interesting is to have a permanent archive of tournament qualifying/scores/etc. Since database development/web front end is my day job, this is kind of an interesting project for me that I’d love to play around with if time permitted.
I’m into this idea too. I think there’s a lot of super-interesting trends and information to be had in there. I’d love to see a central area where this data is stored for download.
Thanks, wasn’t aware of the refresh issue, and I assume you’re talking about my custom refresh link and not the browser refresh button.
Queueing was taking extra time on the last day. I think I’ll be clearing out that table data instead of storing it, perhaps that will speed things up. Shouldn’t really matter though as it’s not that much information.
Sharing the database is a bit trickier. Apart from knowing if the PAPA crew is OK with sharing that information there are also player concerns. A lot of players don’t want others to know how many tickets they voided.
Correct — the refresh link, not the browser’s refresh button.
Speaking of voids, I’d like this to be shown in the admin interface. A lot of people do want to know how many tickets they’ve voided, because they want to know how much money they’ve spent.
The software is getting to be pretty awesome. A few minor things.
(1) It would be great to be able to order the machines in the list to correspond to the order of the banks. I’m high spatial and was always having to check and recheck the game/player to make sure I had the right ones. A backglass picture in the background could help confirm too. I know… MHS and DUG can just order the machines in the banks alphabetically.
(2) When scorekeeping in Louisville (Herb format), there were lots of voids. The screen that follows the void, should let you queue the next player. Occasionally, you walk to a machine (hitting the blue score button) only to learn a player is queueing. It would be useful to be able to queue a player from the score capture screen instead of having to cancel out and going via the Red button. At PAPA this didn’t seem to be an issue as button color corresponded to the queue status.
(3) Button press feedback is pretty sucky. I’m regularly not sure if the system is lagging a bit, or if I (or the player) didn’t really hit the button. Players are all doing these exaggerated presses when submit.
It make sense seeing what Sean did, now that we have all the information. When it was broadcast I was with the announcers thinking he was making a horrible mistake. Zeroing out a ticket is a good idea. The other half of this is more interesting to me. The changes on TWD seemed bigger than a placard on the backglass. Maybe add an updates link on papa’s homepage during the tourney to allow Devs to highlight new codes changes? I don’t know.
Looked like this sort of thing happened during the A Finals rounds, too. I was watching on PAPATV where the game was Star Trek. One of the commentators pointed out how BEK seemed to know the new code while others didn’t. It was then mentioned that BEK was probably a new code beta-tester for Stern since he owned the game.
I have absolutely no problem with BEK beta testing anything nor do I think any players did anything wrong. However, if there is KNOWN new code, especially during the Finals Rounds, what is the harm in briefing the group and then giving the group a set amount of time to read and study the rule sheet?
That seems fair. Right?
I’m not interested in the voided tickets. I just want the information you have publicly available (plus timestamps) in some useful format.
The game I played on Star Trek in the semifinals was literally my first ever game on the new code. So… yeah, they were wrong.
I watched an earlier game in finals where Zach Sharpe picked modes in a specific order, so I used the same order and tried to do the same things he did.
They never sent it to me so I tested nothing lol
I stand corrected. I was so blown away by the play it could have been Michael Jordan and I wouldn’t have noticed. Lol.
Thanks @bkerins and @sk8ball. That clears that up nicely.
So what do ya’ll think about allowing some kind of clarification on rule sheets when they’re shiny and new?
I may be the minority here, but I am fine with how Star Trek was handled. There was plenty of talk that some Stern games had updated code, including Star Trek. There were two for the players to try out, including one close to the A Bank.
When the second one “disappeared”, I made sure to get some games on the other so that I would have some ideas for finals - whether playing or commentating.
I saw many of the A players trying the practice one out before finals.
And with the TVs, it is easy for a player unfamiliar with a game to watch how the other players are attacking the machine and create strategies based off of it.
Adaptability is a very important skill for top level play.
Thank you Pete for explaining, In a much better way than I could, the only “problem” I was having with the software. Having never used it before, every time I refreshed to see the new player additions to the bank, I became anxious as I carefully canceled out of the screen that popped up, hoping to God I didn’t foul something up.
Having said that, the software was extremely easy to use and everything went smoothly. Well, that is until Misters Lefkoff and Elwin stepped up for their split flipper entry and I fumbled around for a bit, trying to figure out how to put them on a game. A definite Degree moment, for sure. Luckily a very helpful fellow volunteer guided me down the right path.