Bring back classic Checkers, Backgammon and Chess in MSN Zone! We want it back ASAP.

For around two years, I have enjoyed my experience on the Zone, although it had its ups and downs, like abusive members sending me rude ZoneMessages or making new friends in lobbies. I loved the old zone - I had a whale of a time playing all of the different board games that I knew how to play (backgammon, checkers, chess, hearts, and spades). I could chat to other people, making friends in the process (and enemies, I guiltily add), I could advertise games, I could choose my opponents, I could use the ZoneFriends utility, and I could imagine myself playing in the tournament rooms one day. But that dream, my membership, and my trust for MSN was to be shattered when all of these games were ruined, wrecked, and therefore buggered up. I, probably like you if you loved the old setup of the zone, am absolutely furious about this, particularly in the fields of spades, chess, and backgammon (no mention of the changes to the spades game as this is in another petition). There are now no rated rooms or tournament rooms anywhere. The new graphics are hard to tolerate as they get in the way of the gameplaying. Warnings are sent to players who take more than 30 seconds to make a move in backgammon. Players can't choose their opponents anymore. Personally, I don't want a computer randomly choosing my opponents - they may be abusive, a quitter, a staller, or even a cheater. Because there aren't any lobbies now, players cannot warn others of bad players, start a conversation with others, request players to come to their tables, or let people know that they want a game. For backgammon, users were able to choose the number of points they were to play to, which is now not possible. Instead, players are presented with three choices - one point, three, or five (five being used as a rated game), and again, players must either play with a computer opponent, have their opponent chosen automatically, or unwillingly invite someone from their MSN Messenger Contact List! Who in their right mind wants to add that many contacts just so that they can play games over the net with them? Nobody, that's who. Anyway, getting to the setup of backgammon, the graphics are quite poor - the dice don't move smoothly when rolled and annoying clicking is heard when users move the poorly designed pieces. The user hears appalling and irritating sound effects when they do different things in the game, making the user wish they were deaf. The warning windows that appear when a player is thinking about which move to make are patronizing, and people whose vision isn't perfect find it difficult to tell the difference between the colours of the board, many of which are similar or identical to each other. I mean, what sort of a game do you call that if it has that for a setup? Well, as for chess, you'd think that the setup for backgammon is the only one that is disapproved of. Wrong! Chess with its new setup is just as bad as backgammon is at the moment. Even though it doesn't have the unbelieveably stupid option of playing a computer opponent, players again have to choose an opponent at absolute random! And surprise surprise, there are also no tournament rooms here - they and the rated rooms for chess (rated rooms worked best for this game in particular) have gone! (Comment on randomly selected opponents in previous paragraph.) There are again only three options, again only one of which is allowed to affect your rating. There is an option of playing a game without a timer, with a 30 minute timer, or a blitz game (the game is completed in 5 minutes). Players using the old setup could choose exactly what time limit they wanted to play with, and again they could invite players, communicate, etc. Now that the new setup displays it in three-dimensional graphics, the chess pieces are harder to keep track of unless you hit the 2-D graphics button. When a player gives check, mate, or stalemate, an irritating window appears and shows a stupid and frustrating sound too. Also, as well as showing what moves you can make when you press down a piece, the squares change colour when an opponent wants to move a piece, which distracts the other player's train of thought and allows them to plan too far ahead. Again, you can't warn others of abusive players. For checkers, this is the worst I have seen so far. The checkered squares of the board are two similar colours, making it hard for people without perfect vision. The feature of playing with a computer as an opponent is stupid too. Also, the thing that really disgusted me was when a player captured another checker was that once the piece was jumped over, it exploded. I think that this is simply childish and aimed at idiots like the rest of these 'games' are. Also, the signal given for when a checker 'kings' is just stupid too - a childish klaxon sound. Suicide checkers was available here, but out of these three games, this really takes the biscuit. The game is simply annoying and frustrating with its sounds and shoddy graphics, and is only aimed at vision perfect people! Notation is available as with chess, but it covers up the main window showing player details, and some of the notation is confusing. In all three of these games, resigning is even worse, with players having to put up with a window and a childish sound effect when the opponent accepts, which only increases the shame of losing the game. I don't call this a good setup at all for this website! In fact, I hate it! If you agree with me, sign my petition right here - make yourself heard! Thanks :-)