OGS - Main FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
[Main FAQ]
[Rules and Scoring]
[OGS Rating System]
[Title Tournaments]
[Minitournaments]
[Ladders]
[User Styling]
1. What is "Go", and how do I play?
2. What is www.online-go.com (OGS) all about?
3. Why can't I log in?
4. I don't understand the mini-tournament crosstables!
5. What are holiday days?
6. What are subscriptions for?
7. Any other questions?
1. What is "Go", and how do I play?
Please take the time to read through our full introduction and tutorial as this will cover
those points and give some very handy pointers for getting to grips with the game.
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2. What is www.online-go.com (OGS) all about?
Firstly, and very importantly, OGS is a turn based /
correspondence server. This means that the expectation is of making
anywhere between one move every few days to a few moves a day -- games almost
never get completed in one sitting. If you wish to play Go in real time,
then your best bet is to try out KGS or IGS.
What we are trying to do with OGS is to create a site with a heavy focus on
organised tournament and competitive play, with a fully integrated coaching and
game reviewing system coming in the next few months to help players improve
their ability. We also have some features that are unique to our Go server such
as "conditional moves" (the ability to set up pre-programmed responses to your
opponent's moves, thus speeding up the flow of the game).
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4. Why can't I log in?
OGS uses cookies to record whether or not you are logged in, so you will need
to have cookies enabled to use this site. If you have cookies enables and you
still cannot login, try removing all your OGS cookies and logging in again. If
this still does not work, then please report the problem from here and we will do our best to help.
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5. What are gamepoints?
Gamepoints are representative of the number of simultaneous games you can
have running at any one time. A 9x9 board is 1 point, a 13x13 board is 2 points,
and a 19x19 board is 4 points. These points are returned upon completion of a
game and can then be used on more games.
This limitation is designed to help limit the load that boards put on our
server, thus not going over our bandwidth limitations or stressing out the
processor on our shared server.
If you wish to increase this limit, and increase the number of minitournaments
you can participate in, you can support OGS by becoming a Site Subscriber. This will increase your
gamepoint limit to 160 and your minitournament limit to 10.
As we wish to encourage competitive play on this site, all tournament and
minitournament games do not count towards your gamepoint limit.
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6. What are holiday days?
To allow people to take real-life holidays with such long term games, we have
set up a holiday system.
You can cancel holiday days at any time during the holiday. You will not gain
back unused days at the moment, though we intend on implementing this at some
point in the future. You can continue to play in these games, and the original
holiday time taken off will be added to your time remaining, each time you play
a move (non-cumulatively). You start with 20 days, and this goes up by 1 every
8 days to a maximum of 30 days.
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7. What are subscriptions for?
We have some big plans for the future of this site, both in growing into a
larger community and having a number of features that will make it both useful
and unique. However, at the moment, running OGS is costing us a lot of money. At
our current rate of expansion we are likely to be looking at having to spend
in the region of £1000 (GBP) per year to host the site. While we have both
happily put enormous amounts of time and effort into developing this site, we
cannot afford to run this purely out of our own pockets.
Therefore, we have brought in an optional yearly subscription of £15
(GBP). Subscribing is OPTIONAL. You can continue to play for
free, just as you currently are, and there is no obligation to join.
However, for those that choose to subscribe, we will be offering extended
gamepoints (160 instead of 32), and you will be allowed to join up to 10
mini-tournaments (instead of 3) and start up to 3 (instead of 1). Your holiday
day max increases to 50 (from 30), and they restore at a rate of 1 every 5 days
(from 8). You will also have an icon in your profile and on the player list
highlighting that you are a supporting OGS in this way.
Of course, you also can have the satisfaction of helping to support this Go
community :)
If you wish to support us by subscribing, click here.
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8. Any other questions?
If you have any other suggestions, comments or other feedback, please feel
free to post in the forums. If you
wish to report a bug, or you are having difficulties with some part of the site
(including understanding rules, scoring, or why something is happening), please
raise a support ticket.
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