Hi,
We have the feeling that you prefer the dates of this contest, but we want to be sure, so here is a small poll:
http://www.strawpoll.me/12779333
Thx!
Thibaud
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I hope democracy will win. But in my own opinion:
- Start on friday evening is good. Very good. No more saturday waiting the contest to start
- End on monday morning is better for US and Canada. But very worse for Europe
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I would have liked an end on saturday. Being in New Zealand, I am rarely there for the end of the contest.
Please reconsider ending contests on Monday, it’s a bad time for everyone involved - people in US are still asleep and it’s workday for people in EU. Also Sunday is what majority (granted, not overwhelming) voted on in the pool…
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Imho, most of the people in the EU will not be able to participate during the last - and most important - 10+ hours of the contest. We are working/going to school etc. on Monday, and have to sleep before that. 
It was just a reasoning, ofc. I’ve sent my vote.
Codingame respond that it is better for them to end a contest Monday morning. I suppose this is because they works at this hour. When a contest end in the Sunday evening, they have to pick someone to do the job. But well, the contest could end the Sunday and the final rerun can be on the monday morning.
I see 2 others arguments:
- CodinGame doesn’t care because they are developping tech.io at the moment. Monday morning is better for them so they won’t change it.
- CodinGame want to be international and want to target the US. So they don’t care anymore about europeans.
Honestly I get the point, but the whine on tech.io is getting a bit old and tiring (especially for those on general_fr). Let’s all take a minute to remember that Codingame is a free website belonging to a real-life company. That means we can ask them features and voice our opinions, that doesn’t mean we’re entitled to anything, and especially not to ask them to prioritise anything in their devs.
Especially if the argument is part fallacious since I have trouble seeing the link between tech.io and the end of the contests. I am more sensible to inoryy’s argument about the working times in EU and sleeping times in the US. But let’s be honest, if CG were to stop the contests on sundays and do the final reruns on mondays, there would still be someone complaining that the end results are not coming fast enough.
In the meantime, by asking the end of contests on sundays, we’re asking people to do extra time on sundays evenings. And I’m not really for that either.
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There’s no whine here. I don’t think i will be affected by the end of a contest soon.
We’re starting to get really off-topic here, but re:
I’d gladly pay a reasonable premium account fee if it would ensure more support for the competitive features. Many of regular competitors are professionals with developed careers, so I’m sure I’m not alone in this…
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I’d pay too. More servers for submits, more servers for everything.
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Hey, I hear you, we’ll discuss about it for Wondev Woman.
As of today, the poll shows 60 votes for Sunday and 56 votes for Monday, so, for sure, there is no perfect timing. We wanted to allow players anywhere in the world to have 2 complete weekends. Maybe we could end the contest earlier (like 8pm EST?) and still do the final reruns a bit later (in the morning in France)?
Hum, I find you a bit harsh here. I hardly consider these as arguments. We value a lot your opinion Magus, but trust me, we do care.
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I agree with that but i think many people won’t. In the world of “everything must be instant”, i think some people will dislike it
EDIT: Wait, 8pm EST is not Sunday 20pm for France, you little devil I do not agree with that.
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As someone living outside the euro time zones, I greatly appreciate the last 2 contests for not having my Sunday cut off from making improvements anymore. Deadline at 2pm EST meant I typically have to submit my best AI at 2-3am and hope for the best, or risk making breaking changes 3-4 hours before the deadline which is ridiculous.
And unlike what was previously predicted, the new schedule did not prevent France from taking 5 of the 6 top3 positions in the last two contests.
Of course there’s no perfect timing for everyone, but I would be disappointed if it returns back to normal. 8pm EST sounds like an acceptable compromise to me, though I obviously prefer 4am EST as it is right now.
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Anything that spills into a Monday is not a good solution in my opinion.
Currently it takes away last ~ 15 hours if you can’t afford to pull all-nighters / come in late to work/school in EU.
As i always said, there’s no perfect timing for all the planet. And i’m not saying that Sunday 20pm (france timezone) is better for everyone. It is not. It is not better for US/Canada. But Codingame was the only website with “france timings”. Now we have nothing.
I don’t know why you’re bringing other websites in the discussion (“we have nothing else”), as to me there’s no other website doing it quite like CG, so I don’t understand how this is of any relevance.
In any case, 2am France time sounds like quite the reasonable compromise to me, in fact it sounds like a win for everyone, so why are you against it?
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2am is far better than 10am. We can agree on that. I still prefer something like 23pm at maximum.
Oh my god, like a few hours will change anything after 10 days of contest ?
If the contest ends during the night/morning in my area, someone might push something and steal my rank at the last minute
If someone sniped you and wants to surprise you, he will push in the last 1 or 2 hours. I don’t think that you can analyze/counter an AI in a such short notice anyway.
Also, I’ve done 13 multiplayers contests, and never have I wrote some useful code in the last 24 hours of a contest. And I’m pretty confident it’s the case for most of the top contestants.
The only thing that matters to me is that I have between 1 and 3 hours of free-time after the end of the contest to watch the full rerun, if possible.
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For the record, my best results (FB, CotC) come from improvements that I coded in their last 24 hours, so I disagree with that. For me, the concern is not about sniping but about having as much of the last week-end available for improvements and polishing, which represents to me the majority of the time that can be spent on a contest.
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We did reconsider the dates. I explained the proposal of ending at 8pm EST (2am in France) which seemed like a nice compromise but it is actually worse for R&D. We indeed prefer to be there at the end if anything bad happens.
So the time of end of the contest will stay at 4am EST (10 am in France). Sorry, but there is no best timing for everyone.
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