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Go Server Discussion
Dieter: I repeat that on the informative page, there should not be a statement on which servers seem to be the favourites of SL deshis. Go Server reviews and reports:DGSFrs: I prefer playing on turn-based Go Servers like Dragon. It prevents me from making too silly moves due to time limits that rule real-time Go Servers. -- That simultaneous games teach me to review whole board situations over and over again. Which is a skill I use at IGS and my local club afterwards. -- About 8 turn-based games on DGS enable similiar sessions as on real-time servers because some of my opponents are online, too. DaveSigaty: I have also started playing on DGS recently (Feb. 2003). It has almost replaced regular on-line servers for me. There are two main reasons:
TimBrent I also prefer DGS,and basically split between there and LittleGolem now. I prefer the pace to try to read out the positions a litle more. Little GolemTimBrent: I also play here as there is a wide selection of players, plus I like playing the occasional non-Go game. I find the time limit to be about right for me and have some fairly good encounters there. Frs: For playing turn-based Go, Little Golem is worth to look at. But DGS supports more Go features (e.g. proper handicap, nigiri, byo-yomi); and DGS's SGF have less bugs than LG's. On Little Golem one can play the game of Amazons, too, which is an interessting variant of Go, including many concepts and strategy found in Go. But Little Golem is not open source Fhayashi: What I like about Little Golem is the tournament setting. Though you can play non-tournament games, most games are part of an unhandicapped ranking tournament, a handicapped monthly tournament, or the long-term championship tournament. ... IGSI rather like the double click for a move feature in IGS, but I feel that the default client is pretty horrible. IGS does seem to have the bulk of the strongest Internet Go players though. -- exswoo No problem to find nice opponents within a few minutes (after checking their "stats" for equal strength, prefered time limits, and IGS expierence.) My convienence with IGS resulted in a "short help FAQ" for IGS beginners. -- Frs (Jan 2003) KGSThis is where I play the most often. The interface is really clean and there are actually some conversations going on in KGS, which is a lot more than I can say for the other two servers. I think this is the ideal server for teaching or experimental games. -- exswoo Plus: KGS deserves enormous credit for breaking the mold of the older servers (IGS and the NNGS-sourced family). By changing the basic operation of looking for a game, from challenging one person, to offering a game to anyone, it made a large improvement in the community feeling. -- JohnAspinall Minus: A closed-source client means you can't get rid of annoying features. My pet peeve: the constant stream of adolescent drivel in the "chat" pane, and I can't get rid of that pane. -- JohnAspinall
I like how the server and the client are continually tweaked by wms. Just recently (March 2003), some new functionality was added to KGS, including some mentioned by PatrickB: buddy lists, messages to those not online, different room structures, etc. -- Fhayashi Zook deleted anonymous and disrespectful comments and the answers to those. Poster not banned yet. Tristan: About the above mentioned and meanwhile deleted comments but still relevant as such --Zook: I agree too. It's all about respecting the rules: if Bill wants people playing on the server he created to use only his client, then that is his perogative. Trying to get around this is just not on. Making your own client for KGS when you have been told not to is just like going into a person's house and repainting the walls because you don't like that person's choice of colours. Hu: The KGS server is highly reliable. As I write this, it has been up 15 days. At one point it had been up for about 60 days without interruption. Long runs of uptime are most often interrupted only to update the software with new features. NNGSFewer users than on IGS, thus more problems to find nice opponents of equal strength. I prefer IGS. -- Frs (Jan 2003) NNGS has always had a very friendly, club-like atmosphere that makes it a very pleasant place to play. Rank-scumming, sandbagging, escaping, and other unpleasant behavior has generally been rare on NNGS. Unfortunately, attendance has gone down in attendance with the rise of KGS, but it's still a nice place. -- PatrickB Yahoo
Horrible. Many players are rude and will either: MSN Gaming ZoneCan play timed or untimed,and has a fair range of players. You do need to download their software and get a MSN .NET passport,but the games are fair and they do have some tournaments.--Tim Brent Dashn
Dashn ( Tristan I agree with Jan's comments about the style of play on dashn. Please see dashnstyle for more discussion of that.
MiscTimBrent: I myself prefer the slower pace of Turn Based Go Servers in that I like taking my time and not being on one game for a long period.
JG: Terri Schurter wrote some excellent articles about Go servers in 2000. You can find them on the BGA web-site at Discussion: Which Go server is suitable for whom?Frs: What is the focus or concept of the Go servers? What culture (e.g. of communication) "rules" that Go server? Are most of the other players interested to increase their rank? Or do they communicate hints to weaker opponents? Or do Go servers support features for special-interest groups? Thus my proposal is: Separating Go servers into "recommended and acknowledged" and "other". SAS: I don't follow this argument at all. By all means add some information to answer questions such as those you mention - but what has that got to do with separating into "recommended and acknowledged" and "other"? Dieter: I think it is OK for deshi to give their opinion as below but SL as such should remain unbiased. List alphabetically or according to average number of users. ... and, simultaneously ... Andrew Walkingshaw: I couldn't agree more. It's not SL's place, I feel, to have some kind of "official opinion" on what Go servers people should play on. I like KGS, I'm sure many other people like IGS, and I'd be surprised if NNGS and dashn didn't have advocates here, too. This isn't to say people shouldn't express their opinion - but I believe it should be clearly expressed as a personal opinion. I've hence returned GoServers to something nearer its former form, with a note to state the popularity of IGS, NNGS and KGS. (Dec 2002) amc: I have a question to put here. How many of you, and for what reasons, have an account in more than one server? (of the same style, one real-time and one turn-based does not count) I've seen people with accounts both in IGS and KGS, why? Stefan: Some days I like hanging out at the "Crazy Horse", other days I feel more like joining my friends in the "Blue Oyster Bar". Just mingling with a different crowd every now and then. Dieter: Yesss ! The Blue Oyster Bar, where White begins ! Kinky ... Andrew Walkingshaw, inspired by rec.games.go, 8th May 2003: I note that in UK primetime, the number of games going on at any given time on KGS and IGS is usually within 25 or so (125 to 150), and number of users somewhere around 500 vs 600; KGS seems to be mounting a serious challenge to IGS as far as largest "Western" server goes (No endorsement or criticism, express or implied, is intended by this comment - but it's an interesting statistic.) Blake: I would guess that KGS has more 'legitimacy' in the West. It is, after all, run by a Westerner, and IGS is a thoroughly Japanese company. On the same note, IGS has the status that being a 'pay' service earns it, at least in Japan, so I'm guessing that this makes it seem still more attractive to that audience. (This seems illogical, but there is a perception in many peoples' minds that something which is paid for is inherently better than something which is free. See open source arguments.) TimBrent- It also depends on your level. A weaker player like I still am has little chance of success at IGS or KGS. The extremely casual have Yahoo! or MSN Gaming Zone,and those of us who want to play have DGS,IYT,and Little Golem. So your strength should determine your server..i.e. a better player should play at IGS or KGS,a mid-to -low level player at one of the turn based servers,and a casual/hobbyist (i.e. someone who wants to play maybe once or twice a month) Yahoo! or MSN. Blake: I disagree. I had a 'false start' at go (I found cgoban on a linux install and tried IGS, but was too bad to get anywhere), but began playing at KGS when I was still ~28k. I'm 17k now, and play mainly at KGS (though I do visit IGS sometimes). Yahoo and the Zone are largely futile. BobMcGuigan: IGS has more really strong players than KGS, including a lot of pros. I'm not familiar with dashn but I imagine there are a lot of strong players there, too. Also, IGS broadcasts live many of the pro title matches. Tristan: I've really rather gone off KGS of late and have started playing on dashn and IGS more frequently. KGS has the best editing features and pleasantest-looking client, but the rating system is far too hard to fathom. I like to use ratings as a gauge for my progress, and yet I have never been able to understand the graph on KGS. It seems to go up and down with little concrete relation to one's results. I spent ages trying to get from 3k to 2k, then finally I got there (with a little help from one of KGS's all too frequent readjustments), and have lost all motivation to play there, since I know that even if I were to win a lot of games, that would not necessarily make much difference. In some ways, KGS ranks seem particularly severe in comparison with those on other servers, but this is not altogether true: it is still a relatively small server, and there are definitely pools of players of a particular rank or rank range who play more or less exclusively with each other and thereby keep each other at that level, regardless of that level's real strength. The ranks still lack the validity that would come from hundreds or thousands of people playing over many levels. In this sense they resemble club ranks more than genuine ranks. Dashn's rating system is very easy to understand, in contrast, but is less far sophisticated mathematically and conceptually. The best one, IMHO, is probably still IGS's, which can be apprehended with reference to the probability command ("pr"). Hu: "all too frequent readjustments"? KGS in June 2003 adjusted ranks about 0.6 upward. This was the first adjustment in a year, not what I'd call "frequent". One may contrast this with the adjustment IGS made a year ago of three (3) whole ranks. KGS ranks are quite responsive to fast-rising players. Kageyama identifies barriers, one at 1-2 kyu Jpn corresponding to 2-3 kyu KGS / AGA. Do we have here a case of severe rank-centric behavior blinding a player to features they admit are superior? I wish you much progress on your servers of choice and will always welcome you back to KGS. Regarding size, KGS usually has about 350 to 450 people on at a time (441 as I write, record is 591 as of 2003-06-18) and over 23000 registered accounts (many are duplicates). This is "small" compared to other servers, yes, but not "small" in absolute terms. IGS may at times have triple the number of users. KGS is doubling in size every 9 months or so, and has done that for at least three doublings. -- Hu. Tristan: The easiest way to get promoted on KGS is simply to play infrequently. That way games count for more. If you play a lot, then each result counts for very little, so in order to change your rank while playing there frequently you would need to win a majority of your games over a sizeable period of time. Once your rank is settled at any particular level, for whatever reason, be it actually being that strength or having lost games through being drunk or whatever, then it will stay there for as long as you continue to play often. One of my friends is a long-established UK 2 kyu, but ranks only 7k on KGS. It will take him a long time indeed to work back up to a rank there that reflects his real ability. By the way, Hu, I haven't actually stopped visiting KGS and I still do play there sometimes. To borrow somebody else's expression, sometimes I like to drink at the "Crazy Horse" and other days I like to haunt the "Blue Oyster Bar". But I don't want to get too involved in playing rated games at KGS for the reasons stated above and because I can simply do without getting on another treadmill; it's nice to go to a place where you can find free games quite easily, if that's what you're looking for. Hu: Ranks only rise (semi-automatically) when fast-rising players stop playing rated games, and only if your opponents are also fast rising. I am not a fast-rising player - more like steady at best. When I stop playing rated games (I almost always play free), my rank does not rise. The 2k who is rated 7k has an easy way to get rank quickly: play free games or not at all until his rank becomes provisional ("?") again. Then play rated even games against 2k, 3k, and 1k players. Do not play even games against 7k and do not play 5-handicap games against 2k. He will very quickly get ranked at 2k. Under such a situation it could even take as few as four games. The rule of thumb is that you have to win two and lose two rated games against players near your actual rank. It took me five games to get rated. This is a copy of the living page "Go Server Discussion" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |