A new ICC

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 1:01 pm

I've been somewhat disappointed at the breadth of options available for playing quality chess online. It seems that ICC and chess.com are way ahead of the others. Despite having what I believe are poor user experiences. It seems like a bit of a monopoly at present.

So what I'd like to ask you all is hypothetically, if there was another player in the market if you could ask the following questions:

* What could this new player offer that ICC currently doesn't?
* What do ICC / Chess.com do wrong?
* What do you think of the UI app for ICC / Chess.com?
* Does it offer good value for money? What do you expect to pay?

Anything more that you can offer would be good.

I've always wondered why ICC calls itself a club but it doesn't seem to offer team play and team leagues although I haven't subscribed for a while.

I was wondering, what if you had something similar to ICC but you could join up via your own local club online, track your performance, store all of your games online, pay on a month by month basis (rather than quarterly or monthly) via a subscription to your own club (so finances would be managed too).

Would this be an attractive proposition if so, what would you want from it?

Paul Cooksey · Post by **Paul Cooksey** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 1:38 pm

JamesMurphy wrote:I've been somewhat disappointed at the breadth of options available for playing quality chess online

I'm too astonished to respond.

Steve Lloyd · Post by **Steve Lloyd** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:22 pm

FICS is a reasonable Free alternative to ICC. I used to have a paid account on ICC but I decided that apart from the chess fm videos, I didn't feel I was getting much more for my money that I was already getting at FICS.

There are team leagues on both ICC and FICS, known as the Team League or 45 45 league. A long while ago the FICS and ICC versions were virtually identical and were ran together. The winners from each server would play off at the end for a so called "world title." 2 members of the FICS team would play on ICC using special accounts. However ICC later stopped allowing this. Since then the two leagues have slowly grown apart. There was also the Online Chess League which spanned both servers, the time control being 60 15.

I'm not a paid member of chess.com. One of my issues with it is that if you are a paid member and your time runs out, you're automatically switched to "on vacation" meaning you won't lose on time.

John Upham · Post by **John Upham** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:50 pm

James,

If you can improve on ICC, PlayChess.com, ChessWorld.net and ChessCube.com then I will be impressed.

Go for it!

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:19 pm

The one great thing about ICC was the iPhone app... that was the most positive move I saw them make, on the whole though the User Interfaces look like they were made 10 years ago... We have modern technologies these days - rich flash applications, very nice intuitive javascript / css wep applications (look at facebook and twitter...)

BlitzIn / Chess.com UIs are not written to be useable, anyone who claims otherwise is quite simply wrong and that's coming from someone who has 5 years+ experience in the industry.

I have some great ideas of a potential rival to them but the development required is a LOT more than just a 1 man job. I'm not taking anything away from what ICC and chess.com have accomplished I'm just saying that it could have been done a lot better and is way behind the times of what it should be. The only reason we thinks it's great is because there are virtually no other decent alternatives out there.

Also, Chessbase... have a total monopoly on that market - why? I mean the chessbase UI is also very shocking. In my eyes the hardest thing around a chess application is writing a chess engine (hence why Rybka was caught ripping code off crafty - i've tried to write a chess engine - it's VERY hard (lot's of AI and advanced statistical maths involved as you can imagine)) storing and retrieving chess games with annotation and even indexing them is really not that hard.

Carl Hibbard · Post by **Carl Hibbard** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:22 pm

JamesMurphy wrote:BlitzIn / Chess.com UIs are not written to be useable, anyone who claims otherwise is quite simply wrong and that's coming from someone who has 5 years+ experience in the industry.

Something like BlitzIn is ideal for online, you really don't need anything more snazzy

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:23 pm

Steve Lloyd wrote:FICS is a reasonable Free alternative to ICC. I used to have a paid account on ICC but I decided that apart from the chess fm videos, I didn't feel I was getting much more for my money that I was already getting at FICS.

There are team leagues on both ICC and FICS, known as the Team League or 45 45 league. A long while ago the FICS and ICC versions were virtually identical and were ran together. The winners from each server would play off at the end for a so called "world title." 2 members of the FICS team would play on ICC using special accounts. However ICC later stopped allowing this. Since then the two leagues have slowly grown apart. There was also the Online Chess League which spanned both servers, the time control being 60 15.

I'm not a paid member of chess.com. One of my issues with it is that if you are a paid member and your time runs out, you're automatically switched to "on vacation" meaning you won't lose on time.

Do you think it would be value for money if you could sign up with your local club and talk online with global and local members? What if you paid on a month-by-month basis so for this additional service it would cost you Â£2-3/per month on top of your local club subscription ? Of course proper league matches would still be played week on week but it would mean that you could make it more of a social affair. It's about time online chess became a bit more sociable anyway!

Carl Hibbard · Post by **Carl Hibbard** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:29 pm

JamesMurphy wrote:It's about time online chess became a bit more sociable anyway!

No, I wan't to play chess online with software that is nice, fast and as slim as possible and I don't want to chat after I beat you but just play again...

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:35 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:
JamesMurphy wrote:BlitzIn / Chess.com UIs are not written to be useable, anyone who claims otherwise is quite simply wrong and that's coming from someone who has 5 years+ experience in the industry.
Something like BlitzIn is ideal for online, you really don't need anything more snazzy

I'm not talking about snazzy, I'm talking about useable. I'll give you a quick example. Navigate to their shop link on the ICC website. You'll see you can't now click any of the other links on the top navigation bar.

Modern day software is written using a concept called Test Driven Development. Basic issues like this wouldn't exist if this methodology was followed. I currently work for Autotrader and if you check their site out you'll find that they don't suffer these issues because we run our code in continuous integration pipelines where our tests run against the latest version of the site.

In my eyes the ICC are not following these principles at least they aren't with that website so that suggests to me, yes things could very much be approved upon.

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:36 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:
JamesMurphy wrote:It's about time online chess became a bit more sociable anyway!
No, I wan't to play chess online with software that is nice, fast and as slim as possible and I don't want to chat after I beat you but just play again...

Even if it was against people you knew in real life? For example what if you wanted to try out an opening with a friend in a game then discuss it with him afterwards? I disagree...

Carl Hibbard · Post by **Carl Hibbard** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:38 pm

I have been known to dabble in software before

John Upham · Post by **John Upham** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:44 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:I have been known to dabble in software before

Before what?

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:46 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:I have been known to dabble in software before

I know you run the site Carl

I'm just saying it's a little disappointing at the lack of choice in the market of online chess and it does seem like there is a monopoly forming.

JamesMurphy · Post by **JamesMurphy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:48 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:
JamesMurphy wrote:I've been somewhat disappointed at the breadth of options available for playing quality chess online
I'm too astonished to respond.

Insert 'decent' before options

Carl Hibbard · Post by **Carl Hibbard** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:51 pm

JamesMurphy wrote:
Carl Hibbard wrote:I have been known to dabble in software before
I know you run the site Carl I'm just saying it's a little disappointing at the lack of choice in the market of online chess and it does seem like there is a monopoly forming.

I find ChessCube is sufficient for my needs at this time and that is a little more relevant to what you are suggesting look and feel wise

But it's a number of users game nothing more and not the quality of your software I am afraid

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