Link to a table - invite a friend

[Jimmy V.]

Hi all,

Do you use the link that shows on your tables?

On your tables in the inn, there is a link. This link is very useful to invite friends that have never been on Happy Meeple.

Share the link with whoever you want to invite! When your friend follows the link, he is redirected to your table and you can start playing immediately. Use it to invite to your table on Skype, on Facebook or even by email!

The good thing is that it bypasses any restriction:
1) your friend does not need to have an account. A guest account is created automatically.
2) your friend does not need a white meeple to play online with you. He will join you without it. You will be the teacher.

Please note that if your friend already has an account, he will be asked to login first (so that a new guest account is not created). Other than that, the game will start immediately.

Have you used this feature? Did it work well? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Any question?

[Darryn B.]

I have used this feature. It works well.

[Wojtek K.]

It really works and it is nice

[Jamie A.]

2) your friend does not need a white meeple to play online with you. He will join you without it. You will be the teacher.

Have you used this feature? Did it work well? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

An old thread, however not sure if I ever saw it.

Yes, I did use this feature, and wrote rather a lengthy forum post back then about what a poor experience it was, and it relates exactly to your comment that I've quoted. 

Using the feature results in the games with the 2 minute time limit - very, very difficult to teach anybody anything, even for the new person to figure out how to take their first turn - especially when the timer is running before we've pressed the button to start the game! Certainly not time to teach them anything. Take your eye off the game to look at a message or read any screen text, instructions, anything at all, and suddenly time's up! 

So while I tried to use it as suggested, the time limit erased the benefit. My friend still won't come back here, in fact. 

I think it's great for you to offer the link feature though, and wish I could make more use of it.

[Jimmy V.]

Thanks for the feedback! You are right.

[Blhootz Y.]

Yes, I did use this feature, and wrote rather a lengthy forum post back then about what a poor experience it was, and it relates exactly to your comment that I've quoted. 

Using the feature results in the games with the 2 minute time limit - very, very difficult to teach anybody anything, even for the new person to figure out how to take their first turn - especially when the timer is running before we've pressed the button to start the game! Certainly not time to teach them anything. Take your eye off the game to look at a message or read any screen text, instructions, anything at all, and suddenly time's up! 

So while I tried to use it as suggested, the time limit erased the benefit. My friend still won't come back here, in fact. 

Hi there.  So was anything done to improve this experience and give the user teacher and their guest player students more time to learn and play games?

[User N.]

Hi! Yes, I've used this. I have to agree that it would help to have extra time for the first one of each game as I'm teaching--otherwise, I have to just tell them where to click and tell them to move fast before the time runs out and the game is over. Maybe do it for the first game or else just put a timer on/off switch on the page for sending a link?

The other difficulty is that the person I'm playing against sometimes has trouble going from one game to the other--sometimes the person will just get out of the site altogether to click on the next link. I think it worked for another friend if I just sent the link in a private chat, though.

Thanks for making this site available! Especially with the pandemic, it's great to be able to connect with people and play a game still.

[Jimmy V.]

You have been heard. Now we have so many other things to do.

Hopefully, we'll find the time some day. It's not an absolutely trivial thing to do that's why it has not been done yet.

[Jamie A.]

Although I tried using screenshots in advance to teach the game (due to my original poor experience inviting a friend noted above), I now have 3 friends who won't come back here after feeling flustered and overwhelmed by the time limit in their first experiences trying to play with me on the site.

Unfortunately my words are not enough to overcome those very poor initial experiences. Nobody enjoys feeling clumsy and embarrassed and that is what it does to some people who need a little more time to find their footing - more than 1 min 45 sec - after they land on a table for the first time. And it's embarrassing for me too, after extolling the site, to be in the position where I have to tell a flustered friend to hurry up, click there, just hurry! Explaining this constraint in advance doesn't make the experience any better for either party. I've learned my lesson and won't be inviting any more newbies.

I'm glad the site is here and appreciate the work that goes and has gone into it, however this slice of the experience has been nothing but depressing.


EDITED TO ADD: a link to the post I wrote 4 years ago right after the first time I tried playing via link with a friend. Had I found and re-read it earlier I wouldn't have led myself or my friends into the same experience twice more (memories do fade...). Linking for what it adds imo.
https://www.happymeeple.com/forum/index.php?topic=31.msg729#msg729