Babble: Archived Puzzle for Thursday, October 9, 2003

12:00 am

poopster

la la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaa laaaa la la la la whoo!

8:40 am

flaunted

brat isnt a word?

8:44 am

barcalounger

flaunted, not in the puzzle. look again.

no MORAN allowed! morans...

I'm getting a big "meh" from this puzzle... only 650 so far.

8:54 am

flaunted

ack your right...im only at 87 :x

maybe i should try and get my vocabulary above and beyond 1 word sylables

9:23 am

Dr_God

Alright, Babblers. In an effort to level the playing field between those who have way too much time on their hands and the rest of us, I will be instituting a trial-and-error limit for all puzzles starting tomorrow.

I like to guess a few random words as much as the next Babbler, but a few players have reached insane totals like 835 and 739 in one game!

My thought is to put a cap at 100 guesses. That should allow players to experiment a little, but also keep players from going crazy with the guessing.

Thoughts?

9:33 am

barcalounger

uh... how much guessing did I do, like, yesterday? was I in the reasonable range?

9:34 am

barcalounger

and what would you do if somebody takes more than 100 guesses? end their game?

9:38 am

barcalounger

one potential issue: "morate" is valid in chemistry, but apparently not in this puzzle... (dammit!) so that would count as a "random guess" even though it's a word.

9:39 am

barcalounger

also, the "insane guessers" may just open a window for dictionary.com

9:42 am

barcalounger

"dorn" = a fish, also not in your reference list and thus a "random guess"

9:47 am

Dr_God

barcalounger-

A limit of 100 would confortably allow players to guess a few words like that and not be in trouble.

10:59 am

poopster

dig the guess limit. I think clocking the # of guesses people make and posting them as a stat as well is a fun idea. But what happens when they go over 100? Game over? Maybe you could deduct 200 points for hitting 100, and another 200 for every 10 guesses beyond 100.

12:14 pm

squant

Could you slap a guess count display on today so we can see where we rank BEFORE it actually counts?

12:40 pm

defenestrate99

Not sure about a max guess limit. What about penalizing consecutive bad guesses? If you hit 5 duds in a row, you're being random. Deduct 20 points. Do it again in the same puzzle? Minus 50. Etc.

P.S. "Pretar" is SO a word. It's what one does when one tars in preparation for, well, laying more tar.

1:24 pm

flaunted

i like defenses idea...5 in a row and you get the big NEGATIVE 20!

2:11 pm

Dr_God

Keep those ideas comin'.

I'm currently working on the Player Ranking system. It should be ready by tomorrow....hopefully.

3:23 pm

Antwon

I dig the max-at-n-random-guesses idea. It deters wild-ass guessing but gives enough lash for words that should've been there ('amped', 'modded', 'monera', etc.) but weren't.

As for five duds in a row: what's to stop me from writing down words I *know* are valid, making four screwball attempts, then entering a known good word to reset my count? Er, not that I'd ever consider doing something like that.... :)

3:55 pm

defenestrate99

Fair point, Antwon. People could work around it, but as with any security measure, you win by making it more of a hassle to guess blindly. And eventually, the random guessers will run out of words....

Either way the good Dr. decides. Maybe he'll elect to have both penalties...

4:15 pm

barcalounger

>Keep those ideas comin'.

Alternate Word List view--multiple columns, so they all fit on screen and you don't have to scroll

Ability to go back and play archived games

e-mail alert of final score

ability to see, during the game, how many points other players have

4:54 pm

modofo

I like the 5 in a row = -20 (or whatever)
Maybe the duds should be kept on screen, below the word list as well? Then we can point and laugh at people's guesses, which might be fun.

5:04 pm

mythrl

i think having a invalid word list is a great idea

5:14 pm

poopster

how about 10 dud words in a 30-word span get the negative points? And I say more than -20, let's make it interesting . . . -100?

5:55 pm

tommyslax

found the 27 letter word!

6:18 pm

Toe Master

ahhh my first 8 letter word...

7:34 pm

barcalounger

.... was it 55 points?

8:26 pm

Antwon

defenestrate99: Whatever Dr_God decides on is cool with me, of course. I just figured that as an egregious abuser of the random guessing, I should at least offer what would and would not be sufficient to deter *me*. :)

"25% of all your guesses have to be valid words or [penalty here]" would also work, come to think of it.

9:05 pm

Toe Master

yes, it was 55pts

10:18 pm

Dr_God

Attention, Babblers!

The new Player Rankings page is up. Check it out!

10:18 pm

mythrl

are the rankings based on the previous 3 puzzles?

has a limit been set yet for incorrect words?

11:20 pm

Dr_God

Rankings are based on the past 30 puzzles, and there will be no limit on guessing yet.

View Word List Thursday, October 9, 2003

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