Feature requests

Official forum of apterous.org, the website which allows you to play against other people over the Internet.
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Eoin Monaghan
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Eoin Monaghan »

Ben Wilson wrote:
Eoin Monaghan wrote:Can we have a link to the site which brings you to the home page please? I am always having to hit back if I want to read something on the home page and sometimes it backtracks on any comments I have made. That or I just open apterous up again.
You mean like the big 'apterous.org' link in the top-left corner of every page?
Wow, That was quick! :?
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Gavin Chipper wrote: How about something that mentions just the games you're involved in but on Apterous rather than by e-mail?
You can now find this on your user page. I'll consider adding a similar option for the front page.
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Ben Hunter
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Ben Hunter »

How about on the "today's game" list and the "latest games" lists there be a little column indicating how many comments the game has had? It'd be quite a good way of picking out what games are of particular interest.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by JackHurst »

List players who have not played a game in the last 30 days as inactive, maybe even make their names a different colour of font on the site. Then when users are looking at the relevant stats pages, let filter out inactive players if they wish. The main use of this would be look at the ratings list without the inactive players.

Another nice idea would be to introduce a "last 30 days" high score section next to the high score section. Or maybe make games more than 30 days old appear in the same colour/font as inactive players.
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

JackHurst wrote:List players who have not played a game in the last 30 days as inactive, maybe even make their names a different colour of font on the site. Then when users are looking at the relevant stats pages, let filter out inactive players if they wish. The main use of this would be look at the ratings list without the inactive players.

Another nice idea would be to introduce a "last 30 days" high score section next to the high score section. Or maybe make games more than 30 days old appear in the same colour/font as inactive players.
These are both good ideas ^
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Ben Hunter wrote:How about on the "today's game" list and the "latest games" lists there be a little column indicating how many comments the game has had? It'd be quite a good way of picking out what games are of particular interest.
That page is already hard work on the database, I really don't want to add more to it. I think following the Happenings is a better way to get what you want.
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Matt Morrison
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Matt Morrison »

An idea I had earlier, but again no idea how much load this would stick on the database, would be to make the item names in the Display Case links to score tables for the item in question.
There are tons of items though, I can't help but feel this is 100% suitable in terms of adding functionality but probably closer to 0% suitable in terms of likelihood. In which case I'll be content with the random table of the day on the homepage :)
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Re: Feature requests

Post by JackHurst »

If possible add a module on to lexplorer entitled "pencil", explaining if the word in question had has its pencil taken, and what type of pencil (i.e normal or bronze atm), and which person(s) own the pencil.
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Darren Carter
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Darren Carter »

Not so much of a feature request, more of a suggestion:

Is there any chance of not having so many chat logs on the chat log page as it takes ages to load if you want to read a chat log from today for example. Perhaps have the last months logs on at a time?
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Darren Carter wrote:Not so much of a feature request, more of a suggestion:

Is there any chance of not having so many chat logs on the chat log page as it takes ages to load if you want to read a chat log from today for example. Perhaps have the last months logs on at a time?
That whole feature is a shit. I really should do something about it.
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Lesley Hines
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Lesley Hines »

Charlie Reams wrote:
Darren Carter wrote:Not so much of a feature request, more of a suggestion:

Is there any chance of not having so many chat logs on the chat log page as it takes ages to load if you want to read a chat log from today for example. Perhaps have the last months logs on at a time?
That whole feature is a shit. I really should do something about it.
I like the feature - it's highly entertaining when someone loses it, etc. How about just putting the logs into a chronological hierarchy instead of having them all on one page, in a very similar format to the game logs?

I love the way these things are so easy for me to say... :lol:
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Lesley Hines wrote: I like the feature - it's highly entertaining when someone loses it, etc. How about just putting the logs into a chronological hierarchy instead of having them all on one page, in a very similar format to the game logs?

I love the way these things are so easy for me to say... :lol:
For historical reasons, the chatlogs are scattered in various files and not organised into any kind of database, so it's difficult to manipulate them usefully. I'll see what I can do about this.
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Ian Volante
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Ian Volante »

Charlie Reams wrote:
Ben Hunter wrote:How about on the "today's game" list and the "latest games" lists there be a little column indicating how many comments the game has had? It'd be quite a good way of picking out what games are of particular interest.
That page is already hard work on the database, I really don't want to add more to it. I think following the Happenings is a better way to get what you want.
Since the latest games are fixed events, can't they be automatically output to a static file on completion rather than (I assume) being generated on request?
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Ian Volante wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:
Ben Hunter wrote:How about on the "today's game" list and the "latest games" lists there be a little column indicating how many comments the game has had? It'd be quite a good way of picking out what games are of particular interest.
That page is already hard work on the database, I really don't want to add more to it. I think following the Happenings is a better way to get what you want.
Since the latest games are fixed events, can't they be automatically output to a static file on completion rather than (I assume) being generated on request?
That's not a bad idea, but there is some Magic going on in that page which makes caching rather tricky. I'll see what I can cook up.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Andrew Feist »

This seems like something that is too hard to change, but: if your "current settings" are to variant X, then maybe the challenge button should initiate a game of variant X?
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Andrew Feist wrote:This seems like something that is too hard to change, but: if your "current settings" are to variant X, then maybe the challenge button should initiate a game of variant X?
It would be pretty trivial to change but I wonder whether people would find it confusing. It should definitely change the dictionary though.
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

JackHurst wrote:If possible add a module on to lexplorer entitled "pencil", explaining if the word in question had has its pencil taken, and what type of pencil (i.e normal or bronze atm), and which person(s) own the pencil.
Done. (Not the bronze thing, because that disnae work yet.)
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Charlie Reams wrote:
Lesley Hines wrote: I like the feature - it's highly entertaining when someone loses it, etc. How about just putting the logs into a chronological hierarchy instead of having them all on one page, in a very similar format to the game logs?

I love the way these things are so easy for me to say... :lol:
For historical reasons, the chatlogs are scattered in various files and not organised into any kind of database, so it's difficult to manipulate them usefully. I'll see what I can do about this.
I might have mentioned it before (I certainly thought it anyway) but would it be possible to make it searchable as well? I've no idea what that really involves. Presumably you can't get Google to do it because you need to be logged in.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Andrew Feist »

The duel today reminded me: is it possible to make a better distinction between "only maximums score" (one point each) and "Only maximums score" (where they score whatever they would normally be)? Maybe call the first "Number of maximums" or something.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Liam Tiernan »

I don't know if this has been requested already, but is it possible to have a buzzer sound on the conundrum if the other player has buzzed in? For non touch-typists like myself it's frustrating sometimes to look up from the keyboard to find that your opponent has buzzed, mistyped and you've now hit an incorrect starting letter.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Andrew Hulme »

When playing a conundrum attack vs prune, could there be a way to just end the round if uve guessed incorrectly? Ive been trying some German ones and getting a lot wrong. Seeing as prune isnt ever going to buzz in anyway seems a waste of time to wait for the timer
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Kai Laddiman »

Andrew Hulme wrote:When playing a conundrum attack vs prune, could there be a way to just end the round if uve guessed incorrectly? Ive been trying some German ones and getting a lot wrong. Seeing as prune isnt ever going to buzz in anyway seems a waste of time to wait for the timer
There's a slight problem with that...
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D Eadie
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Re: Feature requests

Post by D Eadie »

I think some of the latest conundrum additions are way too hard. Certainly harder than anything we'd put out on the show, unless it was a big final with 2 top players taking part and even then most people wouldn't get near them.

Here's an example of what i've come across recently..........

Ohmically, campanile, heptarchy, vulturine, aspartate, softcover, heteronym, feudatory, arriviste, mainliner, fissioned, and so on etc etc. These are words most people would have a problem in defining, let alone unscrambling as conundrums. I appreciate there is a need for new words to be added, but the balance just doesn't seem to be right anymore.

Feature request would be to keep it real.
:roll:
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Marc Meakin »

D Eadie wrote:I think some of the latest conundrum additions are way too hard. Certainly harder than anything we'd put out on the show, unless it was a big final with 2 top players taking part and even then most people wouldn't get near them.

Here's an example of what i've come across recently..........

Ohmically, campanile, heptarchy, vulturine, aspartate, softcover, heteronym, feudatory, arriviste, mainliner, fissioned, and so on etc etc. These are words most people would have a problem in defining, let alone unscrambling as conundrums. I appreciate there is a need for new words to be added, but the balance just doesn't seem to be right anymore.

Feature request would be to keep it real.
:roll:
A good example to be found here :arrow: http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=162849
Although I would have added SLEEPSUIT to that list albeit an excellent scramble for the final.
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D Eadie
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Re: Feature requests

Post by D Eadie »

Marc Meakin wrote:A good example to be found here :arrow: http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=162849
Although I would have added SLEEPSUIT to that list albeit an excellent scramble for the final.
Sleepsuit is an everyday word for anyone with young kids. Bear in mind that this was a series semifinal between two of the all-time greats, not an apterous knockabout that caters for all abilities.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Jon Corby »

D Eadie wrote:
Marc Meakin wrote:A good example to be found here :arrow: http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=162849
Although I would have added SLEEPSUIT to that list albeit an excellent scramble for the final.
Sleepsuit is an everyday word for anyone with young kids.
Agreed. I'm stunned at the debate I've seen over this.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Eoin Monaghan »

Maybe in the 'Happenings' section could it show who earned a pencil and for what word?

Also, a Spanish lexicon.
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Lesley Hines
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Lesley Hines »

Marc Meakin wrote:
D Eadie wrote:I think some of the latest conundrum additions are way too hard. Certainly harder than anything we'd put out on the show, unless it was a big final with 2 top players taking part and even then most people wouldn't get near them.

Here's an example of what i've come across recently..........

Ohmically, campanile, heptarchy, vulturine, aspartate, softcover, heteronym, feudatory, arriviste, mainliner, fissioned, and so on etc etc. These are words most people would have a problem in defining, let alone unscrambling as conundrums. I appreciate there is a need for new words to be added, but the balance just doesn't seem to be right anymore.

Feature request would be to keep it real.
:roll:
A good example to be found here :arrow: http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=162849
Although I would have added SLEEPSUIT to that list albeit an excellent scramble for the final.
I got the pencil for campanile, and I did get sleepsuit (as I do spend most of my time with small children). Rainswept, on the other hand, is listed as being very rare by Lexplorer :lol: :lol: :lol: (Please no-one examine my other conundrum history as it's a massive weakness of mine, beaten only by the letters and numbers rounds... ;) I think the conundrums are tough too but then I never expect them to be anything else!)

Just as well I'm really, honestly, truly not bitter :lol: :D
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

D Eadie wrote:I think some of the latest conundrum additions are way too hard. Certainly harder than anything we'd put out on the show, unless it was a big final with 2 top players taking part and even then most people wouldn't get near them.
It's more difficult for us at Apterous Towers to adapt the difficulty of the conundrum to the level of the players involved. For example it would be pretty annoying if a top-rated player was on 14 maxes and then the game decided "hey this guy looks good, let's give him a ridiculously hard conundrum", thus foiling any chance of a max game. The current system is just to assign them completely at random, so people occasionally get faced with very difficult ones. Nevertheless a lot of it depends on your vocabulary. You've used words on the show like CHARABANC and ESPLANADE which I just happened not to know, and the same could be said for stuff like OHMICALLY in your case. Likewise some words like VULTURINE or HEPTARCHY are probably not in your productive vocabulary but you can deduce roughly what they mean (just like ROADHOUSE, for me at least), or words like SWAPPABLE which are obscure but guessable due to their structure.

One thing I would consider is to retire any conundrum which went unsolved, say, the first 10 times it was used. Obviously there would still be some bastards left that only the top players would nail, but it might ameliorate the situation somewhat. I'd be interested in feedback from the player base on ideas like this.
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Ben Hunter
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Ben Hunter »

Charlie Reams wrote:
D Eadie wrote:I think some of the latest conundrum additions are way too hard. Certainly harder than anything we'd put out on the show, unless it was a big final with 2 top players taking part and even then most people wouldn't get near them.
One thing I would consider is to retire any conundrum which went unsolved, say, the first 10 times it was used. Obviously there would still be some bastards left that only the top players would nail, but it might ameliorate the situation somewhat. I'd be interested in feedback from the player base on ideas like this.
I have an idea but I can't describe it very well. You could create a range of difficulties for the conundrums using the method you described. This range is then squeezed so that they can be compared to the range of ratings of apterous users. It then looks at the range of conundrums and chooses at random a conundrum of a difficulty that is equal to or less than the value given by taking the middle number between player one's rating and player two's rating.

I could explain that better by talking about spread but my maths knowledge has all but faded away since school.
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Ben Hunter wrote: I have an idea but I can't describe it very well. You could create a range of difficulties for the conundrums using the method you described. This range is then squeezed so that they can be compared to the range of ratings of apterous users. It then looks at the range of conundrums and chooses at random a conundrum of a difficulty that is equal to or less than the value given by taking the middle number between player one's rating and player two's rating.

I could explain that better by talking about spread but my maths knowledge has all but faded away since school.
That has exactly the problem I mentioned before, which is that it basically punishes players for being good.
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Ben Hunter
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Ben Hunter »

Charlie Reams wrote:
Ben Hunter wrote: I have an idea but I can't describe it very well. You could create a range of difficulties for the conundrums using the method you described. This range is then squeezed so that they can be compared to the range of ratings of apterous users. It then looks at the range of conundrums and chooses at random a conundrum of a difficulty that is equal to or less than the value given by taking the middle number between player one's rating and player two's rating.

I could explain that better by talking about spread but my maths knowledge has all but faded away since school.
That has exactly the problem I mentioned before, which is that it basically punishes players for being good.
Basically it's the same as things are now, except it caps the more difficult end of the spectrum of conundrums depending on your rating, so things stay the same for the highest rated players but things are a bit easier for lower rated players.

It chooses a conundrum based on the average rating of the two players, and it chooses a conundrum that is either considered the most difficult that the average of the players is likely to get, or less difficult, meaning that it's more likely to throw up a conundrum that the lesser rated player is likely to know. So if it's a game between a top player and low rated player, it will only pick conundrums of moderate to low difficulty, which you'd expect in the show. If two top players are playing, then the system might pick a stinker but only because it now picks any conundrum from the list of conundrums, again sort of like on the show.
Last edited by Ben Hunter on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Charlie Reams
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Ben Hunter wrote: Basically it's the same as things are now, except it caps the more difficult end of the spectrum of conundrums depending on your rating, so things stay the same for the highest rated players but things are a bit easier for lower rated players.

It chooses a conundrum based on the average rating of the two players, and it chooses a conundrum that is either considered the most difficult that the average of the players is likely to get, or less difficult, meaning that it's more likely to throw up a conundrum that the lesser rated player is likely to know. So if it's a game between a top player and low rated player, it will only pick conundrums of moderate to low difficulty, which you'd expect in the show. If two top players are playing, then the system might pick a stinker but only because it now picks any conundrum from the list of conundrums, again sort of like on the show.
Okay, I get you now. Nice idea. The implementation is tricky because it depends so delicately on how you do the mapping between difficulty and rating, but I'll mull it over a little over Christmas.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by D Eadie »

Charlie Reams wrote:One thing I would consider is to retire any conundrum which went unsolved, say, the first 10 times it was used. Obviously there would still be some bastards left that only the top players would nail, but it might ameliorate the situation somewhat. I'd be interested in feedback from the player base on ideas like this.


One suggestion i have, which is probably too hard to implement, would be that Apterous chooses a conundrum that neither player has attempted before. That would eliminate the chances of someone winning a game purely because they had the word earlier in the day and keeps it a test of skill. Buy hey, its only a game and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

D Eadie wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:One thing I would consider is to retire any conundrum which went unsolved, say, the first 10 times it was used. Obviously there would still be some bastards left that only the top players would nail, but it might ameliorate the situation somewhat. I'd be interested in feedback from the player base on ideas like this.


One suggestion i have, which is probably too hard to implement, would be that Apterous chooses a conundrum that neither player has attempted before. That would eliminate the chances of someone winning a game purely because they had the word earlier in the day and keeps it a test of skill. Buy hey, its only a game and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter.
Also an interesting idea. Would require some tweaking or the top players would soon find themselves with no conundrums left, but a 2-month repetition block would do the trick.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I would prefer Apterous to be "objective" (as it is now) in that it does not consider the quality players when picking a conundrum. Also there are many conundrums that I think are really obscure and sometimes I think it's somewhat arbitrary that some words have been excluded from the database for being obscure, when I don't see much of a difference between them and others that are there. So to make Apterous less arbitrary, I'd include all 9-letter words (apart from maybe plurals and obviously those with anagrams etc). But then to compensate for having too many obscure words, conundrums can be assigned different weightings which relate to their probability of coming up.

Then maybe if two really good players are up against each other, then can select the "equal conundrum weighting" option when customising a game, or reverse weightings.

I also disagreee with eliminating conundrums that players have had before, apart from maybe as a customisable option. The hours of practice are supposed to have benefits!
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Gavin Chipper wrote:I would prefer Apterous to be "objective" (as it is now) in that it does not consider the quality players when picking a conundrum. Also there are many conundrums that I think are really obscure and sometimes I think it's somewhat arbitrary that some words have been excluded from the database for being obscure, when I don't see much of a difference between them and others that are there. So to make Apterous less arbitrary, I'd include all 9-letter words (apart from maybe plurals and obviously those with anagrams etc). But then to compensate for having too many obscure words, conundrums can be assigned different weightings which relate to their probability of coming up.
It's hard for me to take your objections seriously when I know that you approach everything from the perspective of trying to find fault with it. Obviously the line between what's in and what's out is fairly arbitrary but given that I've now deleted almost half of the possible conundrums and I still get complaints about them being too hard, I think its fair to say that no one's interests would be served by allowing all of them. Introducing weights would only be another level of arbitrariness, and a much harder one to balance.
Then maybe if two really good players are up against each other, then can select the "equal conundrum weighting" option when customising a game, or reverse weightings.

I also disagreee with eliminating conundrums that players have had before, apart from maybe as a customisable option. The hours of practice are supposed to have benefits!
I'm generally averse to adding more options because it complicates the interface and further multiplies the existing complexities of high scores etc. The problem I think stems from the dual purpose of apterous as a training tool and a contest per se. In training terms seeing new conundrums every time is probably preferable, but in a tournament you of course want to get the benefit of your own practice. Maybe the solution is to make that distinction more profoundly within the game. Not really sure.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Charlie Reams wrote:It's hard for me to take your objections seriously when I know that you approach everything from the perspective of trying to find fault with it.
I'm a peaceful soul, bothering nobody and leading a gentle herbivorous life. And my thoughts merely drift among the oddities and quirks of how things are (as I see them). I, humble observer of phenomena, plod along and puff my silly words into the air rather unspectacularly, I am afraid.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by JackHurst »

A statland section similar to this one, which lists the top x players in order of average score/average maxes in a particular format (especially in standard 15 rounder) would be very interesting to view.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

JackHurst wrote:A statland section similar to this one, which lists the top x players in order of average score/average maxes in a particular format (especially in standard 15 rounder) would be very interesting to view.
Yeah, definitely. Perhaps this would be going too far, but instead of just looking at 15-round games, it could look at all 30-second letters, numbers and conundrums (from any game - numbers attacks, 9-rounders etc.) and then weight the rounds accordingly to fit the 15-rounder, to include more data.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Matt Bayfield »

New suggestion:

I've just noticed that if a player finds a 9-letter word using an alternative dictionary (i.e. not ODE), it appears in that player's list of Nines (under their User Profile or Superstats) without any distinction that it's a non-ODE word. There is a small chance that this could lead to confusion in remembering which words are good in ODE play (e.g. if, like me, you're the kind of person who looks at other players' profiles to learn some of their Nines, unique words, etc.).

So is it worth marking in the User Profile/Superstats "Nines" section, the nine-letter words that were achieved using alternative dictionaries? It's a similar sort of argument to marking non-ODE nines in chat. Possible options would be:
(a) putting "(CSW)" or "(Dutch)" etc, next to them
(b) putting them under a separate heading, as e.g. Goatdown or Blind have different headings to Normal
(c) omitting them - not allowing them to appear in the list

Not sure how easy any of those would be to code.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Gavin Chipper wrote:
JackHurst wrote:A statland section similar to this one, which lists the top x players in order of average score/average maxes in a particular format (especially in standard 15 rounder) would be very interesting to view.
Yeah, definitely. Perhaps this would be going too far, but instead of just looking at 15-round games, it could look at all 30-second letters, numbers and conundrums (from any game - numbers attacks, 9-rounders etc.) and then weight the rounds accordingly to fit the 15-rounder, to include more data.
The more I think about your idea Jack, the better I think it is. And as well as having a ranking list for the last 30 days (or however long it normally is), there could be something saying how long the current top player has been at the top and then a list of the previous number ones and how long they were there for (this could be for all ranking lists, I suppose).

So to clarify, instead of just looking at 15-rounders, look at all 30-second rounds and do %rounds with max score on letters * 11/15 + %max of numbers * 3/15 + %max of conundrums * 1/15. Perhaps you could do a 9-round version of this too! I know you're really busy Charlie, but I think this one would be a really good addition.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:
JackHurst wrote:A statland section similar to this one, which lists the top x players in order of average score/average maxes in a particular format (especially in standard 15 rounder) would be very interesting to view.
Yeah, definitely. Perhaps this would be going too far, but instead of just looking at 15-round games, it could look at all 30-second letters, numbers and conundrums (from any game - numbers attacks, 9-rounders etc.) and then weight the rounds accordingly to fit the 15-rounder, to include more data.
The more I think about your idea Jack, the better I think it is. And as well as having a ranking list for the last 30 days (or however long it normally is), there could be something saying how long the current top player has been at the top and then a list of the previous number ones and how long they were there for (this could be for all ranking lists, I suppose).

So to clarify, instead of just looking at 15-rounders, look at all 30-second rounds and do %rounds with max score on letters * 11/15 + %max of numbers * 3/15 + %max of conundrums * 1/15. Perhaps you could do a 9-round version of this too! I know you're really busy Charlie, but I think this one would be a really good addition.
http://apterous.org/statland.php?sectio ... layers_15r
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Re: Feature requests

Post by JackHurst »

Nice. Any chance of modifying it to give average score on the same page, a bit like how this one shows metamax picks and darrenicity picks together.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

That's brilliant. And I'm not being deliberately picky, but 60 conundrums seems a lot to me for a minimum to be included.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Someone might have mentioned it before (can't remember) but I think customisable numbers of each letter in the pack would be a useful training aid.

Also is there a way to get rid of discarded games you can't be bothered to finish against Prune (or anyone)? They clutter up the thing.
Last edited by Gavin Chipper on Fri Jan 01, 2010 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Jason Larsen »

I notice that games do not save on the disk for as long as they used to.

Is that because we have more memory now?

Charlie, could you please change that?
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Jason Larsen wrote:I notice that games do not save on the disk for as long as they used to.

Is that because we have more memory now?

Charlie, could you please change that?
I have no idea what you're talking about, sorry.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Jason Larsen »

When incomplete games save after you quit, they don't stay on the disks for very long.

I had to leave an incomplete game alone once and when I came back to check and see if it was still on the disks it was gone.

This was the next day.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Simon Myers »

I've been scouring the many pages of this thread hunting down the better overlooked ideas from the past, and have some new ideas of my own. I thought collecting them all here would make things easier than having them spread over 13 pages.

Variants and similar
  • Lockdown - players type in the best word they can find and decide to either keep looking for a better word or hit End Round Early and "lock" in their word. Best (longest, if standard) word wins like usual, but if both players have the same length word then the first player to "lock" in wins the round.
  • Variant where the max available score is given at the start of the round so players can End Round Early and not waste 20 seconds on flat rounds (practice variant really)
  • Pregenerated numbers games that cater towards numbers "rules" (rule of 9, 937.5, etc) for practice purposes.
  • Fixed-time games [Jono]
  • Separate chat pane with constant quickfire TTTs goodness! (or similar)
  • Variant populated entirely with 9 letter words (not like a CA as you can declare <9 letter words and get plurals and words with multi-anags)
  • Variant where you get points for your longest 2/3/5 words (flat scoring probably easiest) [DC]
Interface
  • (Short) patience bar on numbers declaration box
  • "Looking for game" status [many]
  • Ability to retract "play next round" if your opponent hasn't yet pressed it (if the phone rings or whatever)
  • A column in the "games in progress" tab that tells you how many rounds out of the full amount have been played [Jack]
  • What I said here about focus switching to the chat box on non-Enter keypresses in-game.
Website
  • In game recaps, include the rating of players when they played a particular game [Shaun]
  • List inactive (30 days) players as a different colour on stats pages, with "last 30 days" high score pages and the like [Jack]
  • Add pencils gained to happenings
  • Search facility for chat logs [many]
  • On-demand generated "play along" recap of games - when out and about (on the bus/train, whatever) both Kirk and I like to look at (phone browser) recaps of recent games and play along, but the normal formatting of games isn't really conducive to this. I'm thinking stripped down and text only.
  • Statland: Top letters players list for 3/4/5 vowels (like the ones for different numbers formats)
  • Statland: Top goatdown players on own / others pick (%max)
  • Statland: Top players ever lists - like the top players lists but records only the very top % each player has ever attained
  • Statland: Never spotted words (not including anagrams of words that have been spotted.)
  • Superstats: Graphs for picking (max/darrenicity) quality
  • Superstats: Most common words never spotted (upto anagrams)
Other
  • Titles that need defending [Jono] (CA title, 15R title, Goatmaster, etc) - like this I suppose, with expiration of titles due to inactivity.
  • Tighten up the robots numbers ability slightly? It just feels a bit wrong that Prime and Velvet are 2nd/3rd and 8th/5th on statland's top letters/conundrums list but neither feature at all in the top 25 1-large players
  • "Demo" mode for playing bots for non-contrib players, locked at 3 rounds or always the same 15r selections [Gevin]
  • Limiting conundrum difficulty based on rating [Ben H]
  • Players don't see the same conundrum more than once in two months [Damo]
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Kirk Bevins »

Simon Myers wrote: [*]Separate chat pane with constant quickfire TTTs goodness! (or similar)
Now this excites me.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Jason Larsen »

Very nice, Simon!
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

Simon Myers wrote:...some stuff...
Cheers for this Sid, it's good motivation to see everything collated. I'll see what I can do.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Jason Larsen »

Thank you, Charlie!
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Ian Volante »

Removal of bots from the "best players" lists - does anyone care?
meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles meles
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Re: Feature requests

Post by JimBentley »

Not sure whether this is a good idea or not (maybe "interesting" is a better word, and that might be stretching the definition somewhat) but I've often wondered about some sort of William Tungsten-Paedo style "difficulty" rating for numbers games? Although I'm unsure of the logistical ramifications (possibly it could only be calcuable after the round finishes?) but it could also double as a method of beefing up the bots' numbers performances, as suggested by Simon above? Say, Prime would rarely (but not never) miss anything with difficulty below 75%, Velvet rarely anything below 50% and so on? Of course, there may already be something like this going on behind the scenes, I don't know.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Charlie Reams »

JimBentley wrote:Not sure whether this is a good idea or not (maybe "interesting" is a better word, and that might be stretching the definition somewhat) but I've often wondered about some sort of William Tungsten-Paedo style "difficulty" rating for numbers games? Although I'm unsure of the logistical ramifications (possibly it could only be calcuable after the round finishes?) but it could also double as a method of beefing up the bots' numbers performances, as suggested by Simon above? Say, Prime would rarely (but not never) miss anything with difficulty below 75%, Velvet rarely anything below 50% and so on? Of course, there may already be something like this going on behind the scenes, I don't know.
There is, but it's a bit shit, which is why it's not exposed publicly :( But if I improved it a bit, that would be a fine addition.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Apterous Prune »

Ian Volante wrote:Removal of bots from the "best players" lists - does anyone care?
:(
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Re: Feature requests

Post by JimBentley »

Apterous Prune wrote:
Ian Volante wrote:Removal of bots from the "best players" lists - does anyone care?
:(
Come on Prune, be realistic. As if you'd ever get into the best player lists!

Oh god I'm talking to a robot now.
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Re: Feature requests

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Maybe it would mean too many stats pages but I'll suggest it anyway - how about best players for shorter lengths rounds (bullet, speed, lightning) as well as the current 30-second lists.
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