- Login Problems?
If you cannot login, please make sure that:
* you are using correct user name and password - correct caps/non-caps!
* your Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and Num Lock keys are OFF
* your browser allows frames, javascript & cookies -- this is a default setting and serves as a security measure
* you have access to a secure test site: https://secure2.gamecolony.com
Also see Required browsers and How to login as a new user
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- Recommended System & Browsers
To improve your experience with our site, our recommended 'ideal' system is: Windows 2000 or later with DSL or cable connection.
Please Note:
- Windows ME is just a repackaged same old Windows 98 system that is actually based on Windows 95 technology -- there have been hundreds of stability-related improvements by Microsoft AFTER these systems were released 4-7 years ago. These improvements were implemented in newer Microsoft systems, such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
- As opposed to a dial-up modem connection, which is slow & where phone noise, etc. interferes quite often with connection quality, DSL or cable connection is about 100 times faster & far more reliable.
Required Browsers
- If you cannot see or enter a play/chat room screen screen ...
You will only be able to enter playing rooms that are not marked as 'temporarily full'. ($Ticket players will always be able to enter any room.)
Also see Java Issues HERE.
If the pop-up window for the playing room does not come up at all, please make sure that this window is not minimized - as icon on the Task Bar below. If it is minimized - maximize it.
If you access the net from work or using corporate access or some other non-open Internet provider, this provider may be utilizing a special
network protection shield, called the firewall. This firewall has one unintended consequence: it disallows interactive games to be played between
you and other live opponents on the net.
GameColony.com now has a capability to bypass many (but not all) firewalls. Firewall bypassing, however, makes your access slower than the usual direct connection. Also see Required browsers
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- If you experience any problems while playing ...
- Please try to refresh the cache of your browser -- if you are using an open Internet provider, for your Microsoft
Internet Explorer please do this: while in your browser, but BEFORE entering the playing area, hold the Cntrl key
while pressing F5 key. For Netscape, please hold
the Shift key while clicking your browser's Reload button 2-3 times. (The above procedure
refreshes the browsers' cache) If the above doesn't help, please check that
-- you have at least 30MB of free disk space on C drive
-- that your browser has not turned Java or caching off
-- that your browser version is supported (see Required browsers)
- Your connection to GameColony.com servers may have been (at least temporarily) lost due to your ISP or Internet congestion or low available bandwidth (see Disconnection & Reconnection).
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- To log in as a new user, please select the 'New Users' link at
https://www.gamecolony.com
Fill in your User Name (same as Screen Name or nickname) and password. Please do not forget your password. You can check whether your selected User Name is already available by selecting the 'is name available' link.
After a few tries as a new user, you will be asked to register. Registration is free but required -- you will be able to select US or non-US registration -- both FREE.
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- What browsers are required?
New web browsers are required for GameColony
servers. Recommended browsers are: Netscape Navigator 4.06 or higher, Microsoft
Explorer 4.1 or higher or America Online 5 or later. Note: Web-TV currently
supports/utilizes VERY outdated browsers -- there are far better TV technologies like iTV already. For Macintosh-supported browsers click here.
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- How to start a game
To start a game, you must first log in and select and enter the playing room. In the playing room, you may want to create your own table. Use 'Create table' button and
choose from the various table options available. You will be in control of the table --
you can select all table options, choose time control options, etc. After the table has been
created, you will have either to wait for somebody to join your table or you might want to
invite others to join your table. Also, instead of creating your own table, you might want to join an existing table with a player who is waiting.
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- How to join a game
To join a game, you will have to select (click
and highlight) one of the available tables (from the top portion of the window) and
press the 'Join Table' button. If the highlighted table already has two players, you can
only select a 'Watch Table' button. You can also join a game just by double-clicking on a
table where one player is waiting for an opponent.
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- How to watch a game
To watch a game in progress, you will have to
select (click and highlight) one of the available tables (from the top portion of the
window) and press the 'Watch Table' button. You can also watch a game just by
double-clicking on a board where 2 players are present. If just one player is present,
double-clicking would result in joining this table as an opponent.
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- How to send messages
To send messages, select (highlight) the
person you want to send messages to. If you want to send message to everybody, select
'Everybody'. Type your message in the lower right corner of the window and press the
'Send' button. If you cannot see the 'Send' button, please be aware that the current board was optimized
for common resolutions of 800x600 pixels or higher. Please try increasing your resolution from Control Panel/Display. You will be able to do it only if your video card and monitor can support a higher resolution.
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- How to invite an opponent
To invite an opponent, first you have to create a board (table), then select an opponent from the list in the lower left corner and press the 'Invite' button. Your opponent will receive an invitation that he/she can agree to or decline or ignore. To invite any player, select 'Invite' button without selecting any particular player. Your invitation would just be displayed in the chat area.
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- How to ban an opponent
To ban an opponent, press the 'ban' button
next to your opponent. This button is available only if the board was created by you.
Banning the opponent results in ejecting your opponent from the board. You can only ban an
opponent if the game is not in progress. To make sure that the banned opponent does not return to your table , it is better to create a private table with the option 'on invitation only'. (Also see How to mute a player)
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- How to mute a player
If you find the conversations of any player unwanted or inappropriate, you can type the following command in your chat area:
/m PlayerName
The 'PlayerName' above is the User Name of the player in question. After this, when you press the 'Send' button, you will no longer see any chat messages form the above player.
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- Timing Issues
When the table is created by any player, that player will be in control of the table and will be able to select the time control or select a non-timed game. Non-timed game is listed with -T. T shown with -R denote invitation-only (restricted) games.
Default time control is 5 minutes with no time increment, but any other time/increment can be set. When the time expires, the player whose time expired, loses. (Exception in chess: if there is an insufficient mating material on the board for the opponent -- the game is drawn.
In chess/checkers -- the increment is the number of seconds added per each move. Games without time control are shown as: -T(x) where x is the maximum time in minutes allowed per move.
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- Rating Issues
The rating system follows the
published official formulas of USCF (United States Chess Federation) ELO calculation. If
there is a significant difference in ratings, and the higher rated person wins, ratings
may not change at all. New players start with the rating of 1400. There is a special
formula for the first 20 games for provisional raiting calculation. Provisional players can ramp up their rating faster. If you win against a provisional player, you may not see any increase in rating.
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- Easy Basics for Staying Connected
The tips below will help stay connected especially if you experience problems with older Windows 95/Windows 98/ME systems
CHECK YOUR FREE DISK SPACE
You should have at least 20MB of free disk space on your C: drive. To check, right click Start, left click Explore, right click C: drive & select Properties.
CLOSE all other programs. Have as few as possible other programs running in the background. Close any instant messaging programs (e.g., ICQ, AOL, MSN). Close any email programs (e.g., Outlook, Incredimail).
LOAD COMPLETELY Make sure you allow your browser to FULLY load while on the Game Room page before you click into which room you wish to enter. Allow to fully load before creating tables or typing messages.
CLEAR CACHE
1) From your Desktop, right click on the My Computer icon, and select "Explore".
2) Open the "Windows" folder under your hard drive (should be the "c:" drive).
3) Open the "Temporary Internet Folder". On your menu bar click "Edit", then "Select All". Then click "File", and "Delete".
INTERNET CONNECTION
To test your internet connection to the game room:
1) Click "Start", "Programs", "Accessories", "MS DOS Prompt".
2) At C:\Windows>, type tracert www.gamecolony.com, then enter.
3) Any number that exceeds 200 along your connecting route is a poor connection. Consider upgrading to DSL or cable to optimize your connection.
OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
Users with ongoing connection based problems are encouraged to upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Although not required, it will enhance your experience -- Microsoft has introduced many stability-related fixes in these newer systems
VIDEO AND SCREEN RESOLUTION
At a minimum, it is recommended (no matter what operating system you are using) to set your video display to 16 bit color. This can be done via Control Panel/Settings/Display. Also here make sure that your screen resolution is set to at least 800x600 or higher.
- Disconnection & Reconnection
Disconnection
GameColony has fast & underutilized servers & a direct internet backbone
connection via an extremely fast 100 MB/S full duplex lines. Depending on your location, however, there can be up to 20-30
intermediate networks that connect you to GameColony - each of them is a
potential point of 'occasional' failure. Although it is quite rare, but GameColony.com Tier 1 network
has short term outages as well. To minimize the chance of a disconnection, when you are playing
avoid whenever possible to download files, receive mail, or use ICQ or other bandwidth-consuming applications. The fewer appl
ications you are running, the better.
If you keep experiencing connection problems, please run the following command in your DOS window:
tracert gamecolony.com
The output will show your REAL connection speed and various bottlenecks as
the information packets flow through MULTIPLE networks from your location to
GameColony.com. You can run this diagnostics multiple times for comparison,
especially at the time the problems appear.
Your speed may seem slower due to the slowness of the OVERALL connection
(i.e. net congestion) as seen from your location. Again, this may vary with
time....The rule of thumb: if at a
ny point it will be shown in the output of the above 'tracert' command that travelling from one 'hop' to the next one took more than 300 milliseconds -- you
might think of changing your ISP provider...
If you have a modem-based connection - it really belongs to the previous
millenium. Please inquire whether DSL or at least cable connection is available in
your area. Those are up to 100 times faster and far more reliable...
Reconnection
In the case of a temporary internet disconnection or browser-related problems [such as with old Windows 95, 98 systems and Windows 98-based Windows ME], GameColony provides you with the capability to reconnect without penalty to the same game. Reconnection without penalty has its limits -- your
opponent will only wait for up to 5 minutes for you to reconnect. To reconnect, re-establish your Internet connection (you may have to close/re-open your browser, re-dial your ISP, etc.).
Recommended way to reconnect:
-
Do not close your table at all!
Instead.. start closing ALL of the other browser windows. The table, then,
will close by itself.
- Now restart browser & proceed to the same room to continue your game.
* When the server detects that one of the players had lost connection, the
remaining player will see a dialog, explaining the situation and showing
the countdown (starting with 5 min). This time interval was introduced to
allow the opponent to reconnect while the countdown is in progress.
After the countdown reaches zero, the remaining player will have the
opportunity to Abort the game OR to Take a win OR to keep waiting for
opponent to reconnect.
* There is also now an additional capability to reconnect to the same game
in progress in case of problems other than loss of connection (e.g. local
browser-related
problems) - to accomplish that you can start closing the table (e.g. via the
standard 'x' control in the upper right) and when the warning dialog appears
select the 'reconnect' button. The above method can in most cases reload the
applet and re-establish connection to the game.
* While the game is continuing, it is even possible to fully reboot your
machine and reconnect to the game. By default, you will have 3 minutes to do
it unless your opponent allows you more time (by pressing 'Wait again'
button)
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- AOL & disconnection issue
For AOL connection, there is usually a timeout in place & AOL will try to disconnect you if you do not use their services for a certain period of time. To counteract this, you may download a publically available program: KillTimer . You can download it at zdnet.com.. Your AOL is almost useless without it!
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- Macintosh Issues
Browser support for Macs is a bit different -- only Microsoft for now supports Java 1.1 for Macs & only Internet Explorer version 4.5 or later will work.
Apple has made available a new java add-on (Macintosh Runtime for Java 2001-06-05 5.1 MB
HERE) which,
when installed on your computer, should save the day when surfing on a
java-powered site like GameColony
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