Disconnection Problems

Hey, this guy just dropped out of our game suspiciously! I want to finish it!

This is a common problem on FUMBBL. A lot of coaches grow attached to their players and, in a fit of rage, disconnect when their favourite star gets killed or injured. However, a lot of FUMBBL coaches have bad Internet connections, so it is also common for a coach's connection to drop out suddenly without it being anyone's fault. There is no way of knowing for certain whether a coach has disconnected on purpose or by accident. Luckily, the procedure you follow is the same no matter what the cause of the disconnection.

Try to contact your opponent

If your opponent remained connected to the IRC chat, try to contact them via PM. If he got disconnected from IRC, wait for 15 minutes to see if he reconnects. According to the FUMBBL rules, you now have a choice. You may choose to abandon the game, in which case you send the opposing coach a PM (by visiting his coach page at http://fumbbl.com/~Opponent where Opponent is the name of the coach you were playing and clicking on the Send PM link under his coach name) stating your decision, and forget about the game. If you want to finish it, you may not play another game with that team. Contact the Admins stating both your team name and your opponents team name, they will then schedule the teams to play. You must then send your opponent a PM asking to continue the game - include what times you will be available. If your opponent does not respond within 24 hours, or retires his team, or plays with his team another match then submit a support ticket by filling out this form, making sure to include the URL to the opponent's team (not yours). Please remain civil during all of these communications. You can not prove that your opponent disconnected deliberately, unless he told you so to your face - but even then, insulting him will only get you in trouble. Just follow the procedure and don't get personal.

Reload the save that is closest to where you were before the disconnection

The JavaBB client creates two kinds of save files: DAT files, which are saved at the beginning of a turn, and INC files which are saved multiple times during the middle of each turn. When you load a game and look in your saves folder, you will only see DAT files to start with, which have .dat at the end of the file name. If you want to see the INC files, which have the .inc suffix, go down to the bottom of the dialog box to where it says Files of type: and change the item in the drop-down menu from DAT Files to INC Files. Usually, the INC file is the one you want to load... however, if you are playing using the fumbbl.com proxy, there is often a lot of trouble caused by trying to use the INC file, so it's best to use the DAT. More information about save games and how to load them can be found here.

Recreate what happened both before and after the disconnection

The FUMBBL rules state that if you get disconnected in the middle of a turn, you have to do your best to make it fair - if a play has already been made, you have to try to replicate it as closely as possible. This holds for everything that happened both before and after the disconnection - especially if it includes an injury. If you have loaded the save file and you try to recreate what happened but something goes wrong.. you make the wrong move, or a dice roll fails that didn't fail the first time - then you reload the DAT file and keep making the same moves until it works the way it did before.
As for evidence of what happened, screenshots and logs of in-game text should be sufficient proof. If there is disagreement over the validity of the claims, you can take it up with the admins. Be warned, if you are reading this and think you'll get away with concocting fake events - when your opponent disagrees and makes a complaint, it will go on your record, and repeat offenders will be punished.

Make sure that injuries are recreated too

If a player was injured just as the disconnection occurred, then the effects of that injury stand. DO NOT play on as if the injury did not occur - that is against the rules. Usually when this happens, the saved game does not include the injury - the last save was made just before the Block, Blitz or Foul action which caused the injury. Make that same action as normal, reloading if the player is not at least knocked over or the injury is worse than the original. You do not have to reload until the exact same injury occurs, since you could be waiting a long time for that to happen! If the injured player's coach is able to use the apothecary and wanted to use it, use the BowlBot to simulate attempting to heal the player by typing bb d6 in #fumbbl (note that this does not apply to Regenerate - the Regenerate roll which happened before the disconnection also stands). If the apoth fails on a 1, or there was no apoth to use, you MUST assume that the player was injured in the same way he was before the disconnection. The injured player must not stand up for the rest of the drive, and must not be fielded for the rest of the game. The opposing coach should not take this as license to foul the player in question... no one touches him. The only exception to this is if he is needed in order to field 11 at the next, or any subsequent, kick off. In that case he must be placed in the endzone and moved at the opponents discretion any time asked (never entering the field of play) in order to clear a path for the opponent to score if wanted. If the player was killed, he must be retired at the end of the game (not to an assistant coach). Any breaching of this procedure will lead to the whole team being retired, not just the player.