Never underestimate the efforts of a few idiots on Xbox Live to spoil things for others, I guess in search of easy achievement points or a phony score on the leaderboards.

I'm referring to the lamers who set up a multiplayer match as White and then never make the first move. They're banking on you running out of patience; quitting the game or disconnecting in frustration, thereby handing them a cheap win. Pathetic, I know.

What's needed is a patch ASAP to start White's clock if he doesn't move, 30-60 seconds should do it.

Yes, I agree. I don't know why anyone would want to cheat...

I would say to create a ticket with Ubisoft's Technical support online at http://support.ubi.com, but they don't even have a listing for Chessmaster LIVE on the Xbox 360...

You might want to call them on them on the phone, though...

Phone Numbers (Monday - Friday, 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM EST):

United States: (919) 460-9778
Quebec (French): (866) 824-6515

This is an ongoing issue and it's pathetic.

Zeak 117 and ChrisOhoy are two people that seem to think it's fun to watch you quit so they can get their stats up, whatever!

The most frustrating part is that I cannot avoid these people because you are not given the option to know their name when searching for a game. If you quick join you will be paired with them even though you have them marked as avoid with the player review, which is a joke in itself.

You guys have a fun arcade game on LIVE and didn't even test the fact that people can stall the start of a game and then you are slapped with a loss and loss of elo if you quit before a piece is even moved?

Either force white to move after 1minute or don't penalize a player for quitting after the first minute of waiting.

If you haven't called Ubisoft Technical Support, please do so.

As Ubisoft developers don't read this forum, contacting Techncial support is the only way to ensure they are notified of issues like this...

Thanks, Khollister. I'll do that.

quote:

Originally posted by cryoz:
This is an ongoing issue and it's pathetic.

Zeak 117 and ChrisOhoy are two people that seem to think it's fun to watch you quit so they can get their stats up, whatever!

The most frustrating part is that I cannot avoid these people because you are not given the option to know their name when searching for a game. If you quick join you will be paired with them even though you have them marked as avoid with the player review, which is a joke in itself.

Yes, it would be good if the avoid player function actually worked. I suppose the only way to avoid it for sure is do your own Create Match. Your choice of color, or random.

Another way might be to fight fire with fire and just outwait them. Only problem is someone devious enough to use such underhanded methods is liable to sneak in much later and start the clock.

It's sad that we're even talking about this.

Well, CM Live is now filled with 'boosters' who only want the achievement for getting an ELO of 1200. It's difficult to imagine this game going south because it's actually a fun game - just disappointing that because it's only an arcade title that I don't see them putting any more funding towards fixing this issue.

Can I have a refund?

Let them have what they want and play chess with people who actually want to play. Nevermind the number beside your name, because this is exactly what it is - a number. Whether it is 1000, 2000 or even 3000 it is completely meaningless. If anybody is interested in numbers then it should play in real tournaments. Thats the only number that actually has some meaning.

quote:

Originally posted by ebutaljib:
Let them have what they want and play chess with people who actually want to play. Nevermind the number beside your name, because this is exactly what it is - a number. Whether it is 1000, 2000 or even 3000 it is completely meaningless. If anybody is interested in numbers then it should play in real tournaments. Thats the only number that actually has some meaning.

Sorry, but that's not the point. The game has a flaw, being exploited by cheaters. Playing with people who want actually want to play ?That's exactly what we're asking for, not morons who refuse to make the first move.

The rankings on Xbox Live are meaningless, and anyone who care about the numbers should surrender the scoreboard to the cheaters and go play tournaments instead ? Nonsense. Chessmaster LIVE players deserve better. And not everyone has the inclination or resources to join the USCF, drive to an often distant city and devote the whole weekend to a five or six round tournament.

If the game gets a simple patch, the ratings and the scoreboard will have meaning.

Ebutaljib is technically correct. However, I can agree with your point of view, too.

It's like ordering (and paying for) a new car, and when it's delivered, discovering scratches in the paint job.

When you contacted Technical Support, did they tell you when an update might be released?

quote:

Originally posted by cpl_trim:
Sorry, but that's not the point. The game has a flaw,...

Agree. If the game has a feature, then it should work properly.

quote:

Playing with people who want actually want to play ?That's exactly what we're asking for, not morons who refuse to make the first move.

Then play. Resign and join the game where opponent actually wants to play chess.

quote:

The rankings on Xbox Live are meaningless, and anyone who care about the numbers should surrender the scoreboard to the cheaters and go play tournaments instead ?

If someone is interested in numbers then yes. Otherwise just play.

quote:

If the game gets a simple patch, the ratings and the scoreboard will have meaning.

No they wont.

People who wants to cheat will always cheat, one way or the other. If I was in charge I would abolish the ratings. Then people would go online just to play chess.

Some people will always be more concerned over rankings and will use any means to get a high rank, in the end, the only people they fool is themselves, as everyone else who plays them soon realises what kind of player they are.
Refusing to move is also used by "Points Whores" in turn based strategy games like HoMM V, hoping you'll get sick of waiting and let them have the win by default, the forums were always full of complaints about such players.

I joined this site specifically because of this issue. I've I've called and messaged Tech support. hopefully if enough of us do this the problem might get fixed.

I purchased this game hoping to have fun playing chess on Xbox Live. Instead, all I have encountered is bugs.

1. When joining a ranked match, the White player is not forced to move and can wait indefinately for the black player to quit or resign. In both cases, the black player LOSES Elo points.

2. There is no voice chat. All Xbox Live enabled games are required to support voice chat.

3. Video is turned off by default and the option to turn it on is buried in several menus. This means that nobody uses the Xbox Vision cameras and I wasted money on buying it. Why have video and no voice chat?

4. One cannot invite a friend to play a head to head match. And since we can't see the names of the game hosts, it makes it even more difficult to find friends let alone cheaters.

This game obviously had no testing. It's almost like they ran out of time because many parts of the game appear to be unfinished. I wish the trial version would have made these defects visible, otherwise I would not have purchased this very poorly developed game.

The problems with ratings and cheating have been mentioned before; unfortunately, there has been no information on when an update will be released.

I am rather confused by your demand for voice chat; this isn't some battlefield RPG where you trash-talk your opponent while going on a killing spree. While chess has tension and excitement, it's also a calm, introspective game. That's why chess tournaments are relatively quiet events (as compared to other sports).

Personally, I can't think of anything more distressing than someone incessantly talking while concentrating on my next move.

Including voice chat in a game doesnt mean everyone must use it but that everyone has the option. You cant expect us to believe that Ubi omitted voice chat because chess is "quiet and introspective". Anyone can mute another player or turn off voice chat entirely if they want to play a quiet game. But for most players on Xbox Live, voice chat is expected as a standard feature of game play.

I'm with KHollister on this one, voice chat is way down on the list of things I think this game is in need of. You can always do voice chat through the dashboard if you want to. I agree, it could be fun to chat with a friend during the game (assuming you could even get matched), but as for dealing with some rude punk talking smack into your headset during a random match ? No thanks.

To your other points, of course we need to no-move cheat patched; and not being able to invite a friend to Message Chess, that seems to negate the point of it.

The other random glitches people have reported such as allowing a castle after the king moves, en passant not working, illegal moves by the AI, getting tagged with a scoreboard loss/ELO reduction when you actually won the game, AI just forgetting to move and losing on time - all this would require way more debugging time than we'd ever get for fixing a released arcade game. One game in 50, I can live with it.

Never mind offering DLC chess sets on the Marketplace and take care of the one important thing, Ubisoft.

quote:

Originally posted by cpl_trim:
The other random glitches people have reported such as allowing a castle after the king moves, en passant not working, illegal moves by the AI,

Those report are probably due to improper interpretation of the rules or not knowing the rules at all.


I have never seen Chessmaster to ever produce something that was against the chess rules, but I saw many complaints which all turned out to be untrue. So I'm sceptical about those "reported glitches" untill proven (beyond doubt) otherwise.

I can get over many "Chessmaster bugs" but once it starts making illegal moves, I'm out of here.

The failure to execute en passant error was reported by one of the higher ranked players. As for the move-then-castle thing, it's been observed by several. It really falls into the realm of exploiting a cheat, eh ? Never would have occurred to me to even attempt it. Should be easy enough to test if it's an occasional glitch or 100% repeatable though.

The illegal move is not widely reported. But according to the poster on Xbox.com, Chessmaster got very confused about the game score after that (understandably so and subsequently just sat there until his clock run out.

As for the AI just not moving and losing on time, I have had this happen twice. Getting tagged with a multiplayer loss/ELO reduction for games my opponent actually resigned, this also has happened to me twice.

If all this is true, then Xbox version is really screwed up