KGS First Time User Experience

    Keywords: Online Go, Software

Welcome to the Kiseido Go Server! As a guest you will have all of the abilities of a full user, but your account and your games will not be saved. Please register this account to make it permanent! To register, select the "Register" option of the "User" menu. It is completely free of charge.

(English) new user message

The intention of this page is to collect the experiences of people who just joined KGS quickly and easily, while it's still fresh. Any other feedback should be entered in KGS Wishlist or KGS Bugs. Advice and help in KGS User's Guide. If you have some experience with KGS, then please don't spam this list with wishes - that's what the KGS Wishlist is for.

Please write your experiences under a headline containing your KGS name and the date you joined.

Bashan - Oct 11, 2003

(Sebastian:) I just tried out KGS (in spite of my reservation about the License Agreement).

It's a great server! And easy to use. Some observations (my client was about a week old and I ignored the warning to upgrade, so please excuse me if some of these are not up to date):

  • The client is much faster on my Win XP box than gGo, which saves my time and nerves especially at the beginning of a game.
  • I love the display of the scored stones at the end.
  • Password
    • I was confused because the password I entered when I logged on as guest was not the same that I had to use the second time.
    • I only had to log in a second time because I accidentally somehow logged me off (I think when I wanted to close a chat I must have closed the app.) If I had not done this, I'm afraid I might have lost my account because, as it states, it's only kept for 24 hours if you don't use it. This seems overly restrictive to me. (Issue moved to KGS Issue - Awkward Registration.)
  • I would like to
    • see open games (the bold lines) at the top of the games list on first use.
  • I thought I could not
    • enter a room (when I hit "Join" in the Room List dialog, I did not realize that it added it in the window in the background.
    • same with "Talk to ..."
    • easily get info about or chat with the players.

Please make this sort of information easier to find for first time users.

DBW913 - Nov 20, 2004

Quicksilvre--Joined just today, under the name DBW913. I must say, even though I'm a DGS veteran (two years), I never realized how much of a shock it would be to play a live game. The swings of emotion are much greater on KGS than on DGS, and more of an impulse to move quickly.

Tirian - April 23, 2005

I've been playing for about a week now after a month on IGS. The rumors of it's being a much friendlier place have been fulfilled greatly, to my great pleasure. I'm having some difficulty with CGoban2 not refreshing after a while (maybe an hour or two), and am not sure what causes it and can't seem to find a support page that might be illuminating.

Something specific that I find quite curious is The Beginner Room. I have no idea what it's there for. More than half of the games that I play there have my opponent leaving after the game without review. (I don't have reason to suspect that my play was sufficiently rude or drawn-out to not merit discussion.) Indeed, more than once I've played there against someone who doesn't seem to speak English! In general, I don't mind having a conversation where we speak just with the stones, but when I came to a room for the express purpose of getting feedback on my play, it's discouraging.

  • You could maybe write 'review after the game, please!' in the game info? Another thing is that if you set up a game, and don't untick the 'open list' box, the game will be in the open games window, and anyone from outside the beginner's room could easily join without even knowing what is a beginner's room. I cannot promise these help, though. -- JuhoP
  • Tirian Ah, thank you for pointing out the open list checkbox. I didn't understand what it was referring to. In my case, it still wasn't quite enough to avoid non-reviewing players. However, a little moaning in the chat window after the game brought forth a couple of wonderful SDK players who spent a surprisingly long time helping me parse the game. I'm not contributing this to complain about the unkindness of strangers or KGS, just a note to say that my first impression of KGS is that it is curious that EGR has more beginners and The Beginner Room has less political discussion between the two.

This is a copy of the living page "KGS First Time User Experience" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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