Existing users, 
 Goban - 3.2.12Clone of Go, an ancient board game |
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Feedback Summary:
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| Overall Rating: | Not rated (0.0) | Features: | Not rated (0.0) | Support: | Not rated (0.0) |
| Ease of Use: | Not rated (0.0) | Quality / Stability: | Not rated (0.0) | Price: | Not rated (0.0) |
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Featured Reviews
Rendezvous problems 
- Version: 3.2.2 (v65.2), 12/5/2004 11:40AM PST
(7 of 7 users found this comment useful)
muon
Goban's a very nice program with some unique features, including Rendezvous play and TeX interoperation for printing beautiful Go diagrams. The UI is serviceable, but somewhat less than intuitive, especially with respect to SGF editing.
The main problems we've encountered with Goban, however, are related to local games over Rendezvous. Goban launches a local NNGS server. It seems to be quite difficult at times to get NNGS to "give up" on completed games, and the Goban application has quit unexpectedly several times in the normal course of playing games over Rendezvous, often leaving an orphaned NNGS process which must be terminated by hand before a new one can be spawned.
Even though KGS's CGoban is far from perfect, especially with respect to Macness, there are a few things Goban's developers might be able to learn from CGoban, particularly in terms of editing SGF.
Recommend with reservations. It's the only thing of its kind that is a real Mac application, and does offer a lot of functionality for free. It would just be nice to see Goban be a bit more robust.
The main problems we've encountered with Goban, however, are related to local games over Rendezvous. Goban launches a local NNGS server. It seems to be quite difficult at times to get NNGS to "give up" on completed games, and the Goban application has quit unexpectedly several times in the normal course of playing games over Rendezvous, often leaving an orphaned NNGS process which must be terminated by hand before a new one can be spawned.
Even though KGS's CGoban is far from perfect, especially with respect to Macness, there are a few things Goban's developers might be able to learn from CGoban, particularly in terms of editing SGF.
Recommend with reservations. It's the only thing of its kind that is a real Mac application, and does offer a lot of functionality for free. It would just be nice to see Goban be a bit more robust.
Goban is beautiful - Version: 3.2.2 (v65.2), 12/2/2004 07:31AM PST
(8 of 8 users found this comment useful)
grikdog
"Goban" is Japanese for the Go board itself, a fitting name for this program. These days you can pay up to a quarter million dollars for a classic-style Japanese (or Korean, or Chinese) Go board with legs, carved from a huge butcher's block of kaya wood. Goban is carved from the ethereal stuff of pure mind, plus a few zillion whizzing electrons, and I am hard pressed to say which is the better value. For one thing, Goban is a self-teaching tool. You can play against GNU Go 3.4, which is built in, or GNU Go 3.6, which you download from the official GNU Go site. You can even watch as GNU Go 3.4 plays against GNU Go 3.6. You can download one of hundreds of "sgf" files from the net, and replay the games one stone at a time (sometimes with comments!) or as a movie. You can set the board size to 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 13x13, up to the full 19x19. You can play against beginners on the major internet go servers, you can watch pros and talented amateurs play against each other on the same servers -- and Goban is pre-configured to work as a client with two of the best, IGS Pandanet and No Name Go Server -- all you have to do is apply for a username and password. And you can simply bask in the aesthetic pleasure of seeing the games drawn so beautifully. Speaking of which, look at the About box. The graphic is "Sparrows nesting in a Go bowl", taken (with permission) from the IGS Pandanet collection of Japanese art featuring Go themes. The only thing Goban won't allow you to do is pick up the board and hurl it, kabuki-like, at an attacker (or Go opponent), with Go-ishi scattered to the winds. Maybe with a laptop...? Brilliant, brilliant work. If I could wish for anything, I'd ask for a way to turn the board around and see it from the opponent's point of view. That, and an up front explanation that 30 kyo is as low a Go ranking as you can possibly get. I hate this game. I love Goban.
It seems this listing was premature. (Not that there is anything wrong with 3.2.9, which works very well.)