Party Poker Software Pet Peeves.

[CORed]

I'm going to start a bitch session thread, in the probably vain hope that somebody from Party A. Reads this and B. Gives a rat's ass. Paty poker's software sucks. I will list my pet peeves below. I will also give my proposed solutions.

1. Multi-table focus grabbing. This is the one that drive me nuts. As soon as a betting round starts, and the "Act in turn" checkboxes appear, the window grabs the focus. Even if it's actually my turn to act at the other table, the one at which the betting round just started pops up. It takes all of the self-discipline I can muster to keep from smashing my monitor when I am about to act at one table, and the other table pops up and it isn't even close to my turn to act.

Solution. Do it like Paradise does: Don't pop up the table window until it's my turn to act. Also, if it's my turn to act, and I haven't acted, no other table should grab the focus until I have acted.

2. "I keep clicking, but nothing happens." Just to be fair, I'm going to admit that I don't have the best hardware. I have an ancient computer (Pentium 166, Windows 95, dialup internet). However, Paradise's software never seemed to have any problem with this setup. The problem here is that, once you click a button or a checkbox, the client software doesn't do anything until it gets a response from the server. The check doesn't show up in the checkbox, the button doesn't move, nothing. In fact, when the software is in this waiting state, you can't even switch windows. So, if the connection is slow, or the server is slow, I am left wondering whether I moved my mouse and the click didn't register, or it did register and the connection or server is lagging. On a checkbox, this is particularly annoying. Often I will click the checkbox, see nothing, click it again, then see the check mark appear and disappear when the messages finally get back to the client.

Solutions:
Checkboxes: Okay, here the cut-rate Indian software developers just got it wrong. There is no reason the checkbox shouldn't get marked or unmarked as soon as you click it. The client should take care of the display, then send the message to the server. Actually, the best way to handle the checkboxes would be for the server query the client on the state of the checkboxes, when it is time for the player to act. There is really no need for the client to communicate with the server when they are checked or unchecked.

Buttons: Let me know what's happening. On Paradise. at least the buttons move (actually, the graphincs change so it looks like they move) when you click them. This helps. but it would be better if the window gave some indication--An animated graphic like web browsers, a text message, anything--that it is waiting for a response.

Hanging on wait: Find some programmers who actually know how to develop a multi-threaded client-server application. It appears that the fundamental problem is that the Party client software is just a terminal emulator with fancy graphics. It doesn't seem to do anything on it's own but display the data from the server.

3. The lobby is living in the past: Many people have complained about this. The lobby shows the table has two empty seats. You go to the table and it's full. This is especially bad with the low buy-in SNG's. By the time the lobby shows a new tournament is open, it is already full.

Solution: This one should be simple. Update every 10 seconds instead of every 10 minutes.

4. Sorcerer's Aprentice dialers. If I set my dialup to auto-connect, and I get a modem hangup while a game is in session, Party's client will keep spawning new dialers, which will all try to get the modem, preventing any of them from actually connecting. I have to quickly cancel them all, then reconnect manually.

Solution: I don't know enough about this API to give any specifics, but folks, obviously your developers screwed up here. Get it right. Maybe this is just a Windows 95 problem, in which case you can probably safely ignore it. I would be curious to see if people running newer versions of Windows have this problem.

General solution: Your marketing people have done a top notch job of capturing market share. You should be making lots of money now. Invest some of that money and hire some top notch developers who can write software that really works, instead of software that just kinda sorta words most of the time. If you don't you will see your customer base slowly dribble away to other sites, when they get tired of fighting with your crappy software. Maybe outsourcing your sofware development to India was all you could afford when you started up, but now it's time realize that getting good developers is one of the best investments you could make. This also applys to your costomer support.