QuickSnooker News

Friday 4th July 2008

You can now choose who's messages you see, and who can challenge you.

To block messages from another player, simply post a message in the waiting room for example:-

block fred

where 'fred' is the player name you wish to block.
Make sure you DON'T start or end your message with a blank line - you will receive a message back explaining the block.
Blocks only last as long as you're 'in' the room - so you don't need to worry too much about 'unblocking'

Use this feature sensibly - and don't be offended if you are blocked - sometimes people may just want a quiet game, be part of a small group, or perhaps not want to take part in tournaments.

Please be considerate of new players - and give them some games - Quicksnooker can't survive without some new blood.

and .. don't try and block yourself - I don't know what would happen but it might be bad.

Tuesday 17th June 2008

Some fairly terminal problems with our server have rather forced our hand to move everything to a new machine.
We have now completed the move and you should be seeing much improved performance and better reliability.
Appologies for the disruption and lack of notice but the work is now complete.
We are working through the backlog of emails - please bear with us.

Saturday 19th April 2008

Anyone purchasing the current version will be entitled to an upgrade to the new version when its released.
I have been working on an old laptop - which has slowed me down a little, still waiting for a returns authorization from Sony to get my main machine fixed.
Managed to recover all the source from the old machine before it goes back.
Working on some of the finer points of spin, to finish off the new physics - then have to rebuild some of the on-line play, but there's light at the end of the tunnel now.

Tuesday 20th February 2008

Things were going pretty well until yesterday when my laptop died - unfortunately it had the source code on it - and when I went to my backup (which was three days old) - i've found a bunch of modules are missing. So I HAVE to get the laptop drive running again.
I've removed the drive and ordered an external caddy - moral of the story is *check* your backups.. I hope the drive is OK or it's several weeks work down the pan.
Hopefully there'll be some better news to report in a few days.

Friday 11th January 2008

I've (stupidly?) stepped onto the slippery slope of development and have made a number of further improvements, It's taking a little time to get them worked through but you can look forward to:-

Monday 26th November 2007

Recent work on the waiting room is now completed and stability has been restored - Thanks to everyone for their patience - special thaks to Paris for reassuring the room - and to Phil for helping users with firewall issues.
Now working on improvements to 'I am behind a firewall' and blocking certain methods of cheating the rankings.

Friday 16th November 2007

We've had reports of people 'hacking' the rankings - to improve security and knock this on the head - registered users *must* now have the email address to which their key was sent loaded under 'network play' my details.
The rankings will be reset in due course.

Wendesday 15th August 2007

Contrary to initial impressions - Quicksnooker *does* run under Windows Vista - but the stronger security causes problems for the installer click here for a workaround.

Tuesday 17th October 2006

With the Snooker coming up on the telly, The rankings algorithm has been changed slightly today to only show players active within the last 14 days. It should make for a slightly more dynamic leaderboard.

Tuesday 19th September 2006

We are aware that some players registered user accounts have been 'cloned' by people unwilling to pay for Quicksnooker.
We now understand how this has happened and have been working hard to find a solution that is as painless as possible for our customers.

To secure your genuine QuickSnooker account, please set your email address to the email address that your registration key was sent to.

The box for your email address is the bottom field on the 'About me' form that appears under the 'Internet Play','My Details' menu.
Your email is not displayed to other players.

We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you will work with us to revitalise QuickSnooker.

Monday 10th October 2005

A new snooker season
Autumn is upon us and Snooker is back on the telly - we've had a clear out of old and expired accounts - If you have problems logging in and think you should still have access, please contact Clare on the support email address.
The beta version, which was on ice for a long time now has a new physics engine, along with improved sound - it's being tested now.

Friday 08 October 2004

Beta Version - Graphics problems - some suggestions
Some users are seeing no balls,or jerky graphics. The beta version uses DirectX7 instead of 5 – it also use video memory for something called the ‘back buffer’ instead of system memory – this *should* make the game much faster and smoother (and does for most people) but some have reported problems (thank you).
If you are affected you may be able to 'work around' the problem by changing your desktop colour depth.
16, 24, or 32 bit colour depths *may* solve the problem.
Scaling the window down – may also help
For some reason (I’ve yet to fathom) some users have also reported that right clicking on the ‘dead’ green table when it appears solves the problem.
It’s may also worth checking windows update and/or your manufactures website for an updated graphics card driver
Upgrading to DirectX 9 http://www.microsoft.com/directX - may have a similar effect to updating your graphics driver.

Failing all of the above – you can of course 'roll back' to the production version – a link and instructions are available at http://www.quicksnooker.com/beta/extra.htm

Thanks for your patience and for trying the beta version
We hope to release another update next week.

Monday 26th July 2004

New beta version on its way

Quicksnooker 7 beta version will be available shortly - check out the features planned here.
If you'd like to help beta test - please drop me a mail to beta(at sign)quicksnooker.com - but please understand its far from perfect . . yet.

Tuesday 9th December 2003

Pay by call option fixed

The pay by call option was broken by a recent security clampdown - It's now been re-instated so if you've tried to use it and failed - or if you want extended play without registering - please give it another go (see the 'register' page for details)

Friday 31st October 2003

Cheats banned
Some players have been using stolen identities of registered players - corrupting scores and getting the game for free. We have taken actions to BAN all such players - however the 'victims' have also been (temporarily) banned. We appologise to those genuine players who have been affected - please provide your 'nickname' and time of last attempted login by email to admin@quicksnooker.com and we will get you unlocked straight away - if you can provide your proof of purchase (a copy of your key email) it would help to speed the process.
Those affected will be given an extension to their registration.

Saturday 4th October 2003

Persistent offenders banned
Just a reminder that obscene language, offensive behaviour, racism etc - are NOT permitted in the waiting room - which is a public forum.
We have several mechanisms to permanently ban people - and a few of the worst offenders have been recently removed.
Please keep it clean - Thank you.

Sunday 1st June 2003

Fresh start for a fairer competition
Additional measures to stop cheaters and quitters benefiting from their unsporting behaviour have been taken.
The rankings are being reset.
See notes below for exaclty how the rankings work.

Saturday 22nd March 2003

Ranking reset causes confusion
Your position in the ranking is determined by the number of points you have.
The lists of all players - is sorted by the number of points each player has (at any given point in time) . . your position in this list is your ranking.

Everyone starts with 1000 points - if a game is played between a high ranked player and a low ranked player - the 'stakes' are high(up to a maximum of 30 points) - the winner will gain 30 points and the loser will loose 30 poinst.
if both players are very closely ranked (say one above the other) then the points gained/lost will be less (15 is the Lowest possible number).
You don't really need to worry about the detail of this - just know that its good to beat a player who has a lot more points than you - of course if you loose - you loose big time too!.
You should also bear in mind LOTS of games are going on all the time - not just the one you're playing - so it is possible that you can report a win - and still go down in the rankings.
The rankings are particularly volatile just after they have been reset - after few days (hours even) they settle - and your rank should be quite a good reflection of your relative ability.
This kind of scoring system is used in chess and other leauges and leaderboards and is generally acknowleged to be a good way of doing it.

Bear in mind that 'Wins' 'losses', and 'highest breaks' have NOT been reset - so these figures still give you an indication of the experience of the players involved.

nick

Sunday 16 March 2003

'Cracks' for QuickSnooker
A crack for an older version of Quicksnooker has been found - anyone using it will be banned.
Several cracks just plain don't work - NONE will give you Internet play, and any that do work remove the integrity check from the program allowing it to host a 'trojan' (such as 'back orrifice') or become infected by an executable virus.
One crack found is also itself virus infected.
DON'T RISK IT - Blowing away your own machine is one thing - but infecting everyone in your address book is worse.

Saturday 11 December 2002

Behaviour in the waiting room
Lots of complaints because of abuse/racism/foul language in the waiting room . . it will not be tolerated, players who do it will find themselves blackballed (banned from play) - extreme cases will get a permanent ban. - and don't think that if you're registered this doesn't apply to you !
Say what you like 'In game' but the waitingroom is a 'public space' and should remain 'family friendly'.
Please keep it clean, polite and friendly - the few, are spoiling the enjoyment of the many.

Sunday 3rd Novemebr

Ranking/Leaderboard Problems
After much investigation it has become apparent that certain players are deliberately using older versions of the program to challenge with - because they cannot be identified as losing a match.
This has been both distorting the rankings AND causing more 'ghosts' than before.
The loophole has been plugged, and win reports that do not feature both a correctly formatted 'winner' AND 'loser' will not be counted.Furthemore - anyone found to be deliberately using this (or other) techniques to cheat will be banned.

The rankings will soon be reset, so that a fair competition can be restarted.

nick

Thursday 31st October (halow'een)

Just a note . . If you ever can't get into the waiting room (play.quicksnooker.co.uk) it's worth trying the IP address 65.19.137.85 make a note for your records!

Monday 28th October

The new server is now on-line
QuickSnooker now has a dedicated server, which will improve availability and respone times of the waiting room. It also eases the administration freeing time for development and troubleshooting.

Sunday 4th August

Here is Folks (updated!)
The main difference in here is the new 'fiendish' computer opponent - Give him a try, I hesitate to say 'unbeatable' but . . he's pretty darned good.
On the 'unknown' front - from the information i've read - I think it's fixed in 6.1.60 (and above) - the result of any game is allways reported by the WINNER so if they're not on .60+ the win won't be recorded.
The reporting of the win has new been moved to before the clapping is played - just in case that did have anything to do with it.
Ghosts - well I'm not certain they're all dead - but I have a feeling it's to do with when you've been playing the computer (and he's been player 2) - also possibly caused by setting the computer off against itself, before entering the waiting room. I think I may have fixed them - but if you want to further decrease your chance of seeing them, restart the game after playing against the computer in any form - and go into the waiting room ' clean' (of course it helps if your opponent has done the same)
Blackballing has been temporarily disabled - I plan to impliment something along the lines discussed herin - ie. your own personal blacklist - but it could take a while. Registered features - by popular demand (or advice) - I've removed the extra features from the un-registered game again - of course the genie can never go back in the bottle in terms of those fully featured versions out there, but hopefully future versions will be so much better that people will want to upgrade - eventually I will barr 6.1.59/60 from the waiting room. Please give me your feedback on this new version Nick

Wednesday 26th July

Another more radical attempt to sort out the problems some people are having with keys, and 'crossed' identities - this is a Beta version, but if you're unable to play 'registered' give this one a try - it should put you in the new waiting room/rankings.Download version 6.1.56 beta now You might need to mail me your (new) serial number and proof of purchase for one final new key - but that should then be it. This IS a beta version, and if you don't have problem, it's not recommended (yet) - but there was a lot of pressure to get it up - so here it is.

Saturday June 25th

A number of players have been experiencing problems with 'mistaken identities' - resulting in keys getting confused or withdrawn.

The following is the recommended procedure to sort this out:-

Saturday June 25th

Nicks going on holiday tomorrow - A hard earned week in Tenerife - emails will be looked after by Sam whilst i'm away.

Monday 11th March

QuickSnooker now Accepts 'PayPal' - Another secure, Fast and painless way to pay!

If you already have a 'Paypal' Account, this is THE fastest way to buy, If not, why not sign-up 12 million users can't be wrong.

Click here for the purchasing information page

Saturday 2nd March

Looks like I've cracked the 'Ghost players' - It turned out to be to do with the computer opponent not 'letting go' and you ended up with two humans and a computer all playing together !!

Also - I hope to have finally put the 'missing reds' problem to bed - This one was to do with the decimal separator (,) used by our international friends - causing the pack of reds to be 'exploded' by the code that was only supposed to move them a fraction of a pixel (to stop the killer breaks). - it's been fixed in the program now - so there is no need to adjust your settings.
Please note:- You may still see the reds dissappear if your opponent is in a country that uses a comma (,) instead of a decimal point (.) and has not yet upgraded.

This seems like it is the best version since the last full release - Please give me the feedback I need before I make it a full release.

Nick

Click here to DOWNLOAD Version 6.1.50 now
Special thanks this time to James, Herbert, Octavio, Joost and Jeoron for help with testing.

Saturday 23rd February

Another beta release - this could be a good one, check the noticeboard for feedback - and feel free to post your own comments, or to E-Mail Nick

Special thanks once again to Jamie for his help with testing.