c4countdown

Gavin Chipper wrote:I was just looking at the best pickers in Goatdown - http://apterous.org/statland.php?sectio ... arrenicity - I notice that none of the bots always pick the selection with the best max (apparently Rex gets 98.1% of the metamax). I think Rex goes for Darrenic maximums over highest max, but maybe it would be nice to have a bot that always goes for the best max so that a human player playing this bot could go for the metamax score (even if it would be pretty much impossibly hard).

Edit - Obviously this might look like the bot would have to have Rex-like skill. Picking the best letter every time sort of implies knowing the best word as well. But to avoid having two Rexes, this one could be Apterous Psychic who has an uncanny knack of knowing the best pick without actually necessarily knowing what the longest word is.

That's exactly what Prune is supposed to do, but it seems to be broken in some way.

In the stats thing it's got most frequent 9s - what about most frequent 8s, 7s etc.? I suppose you might want to make it most frequent 8s that are the max.

I've seen that the French conundrums are now in French - is this using the dictionary without conjugated verbs that I sent you?

CBA to look through this topic to see fi its been suggested before, but i'd like to see some variation of the game based on choosing common prefixes and suffixes as part of your selection.
Heres one example of how it could work.

As well as having consonants and vowels, players would be able to choose from prefixes and suffixes. Each selection would always have a fixed amount of letters with a minimum and maximum number of vowels allowed (probably 6), and then each selection would have a fixed number of chains (I will refer to suffixes and prefixes as chains for the sake of convenience) (probably 4) that the player could chose.

With the letters and chains, the player creates the longest words they can with a chain counting as one letter. I'm sure your capable of basing something around this if you wish, so theres no need for me to think up any rules and stuff.

Heres an example of what a round might look like:

Letters:TBAETL
Chains: IEST, ING, TION, RE

Possible words: BATTING (5) BATTIEST (5) RELATION (4)
It would be a nice touch if it was possible to use more than one chain to create a word, as in the example with RELATION, and even better if you were not restricted to putting the chains at beginning and ends of words.

I don't think this would provide brilliant games on apterous, but i do think it would help people improve their game. I mean this in the sense that sometimes i will spot the TION or IEST to go at the end of a word, but i wont be able to find something to go infront of them in the 30 seconds, and then dictionary corner will have something like ABDUCTING or FILTHIEST, and i will sit there thinking i should have got them. I think this variation of the game would help me and many others improve on that part of their play.

Please note, i've generally referred to using prefixes and suffixes, but i suppose you could just use and regularly occuring chains of letters, i just cant be bothered to change this in the rest of the post.

Apologies if it's already been suggested, but it would be absolutely lovely if, when you click on a player's name, you could be told what they're up to. Even better would be if there was already some indication next to each name, e.g. P for Playing.

It's just because when there are a lot of players in the room and you're looking for someone to have a game with, it can be quite difficult comparing the list of players with Games in Progress to work out who's free or who's likely to become free soon.

Clare Sudbery wrote:Apologies if it's already been suggested, but it would be absolutely lovely if, when you click on a player's name, you could be told what they're up to.

Who's going to pay for the cameras following us around?

Clare Sudbery wrote:Apologies if it's already been suggested, but it would be absolutely lovely if, when you click on a player's name, you could be told what they're up to. Even better would be if there was already some indication next to each name, e.g. P for Playing.

It's just because when there are a lot of players in the room and you're looking for someone to have a game with, it can be quite difficult comparing the list of players with Games in Progress to work out who's free or who's likely to become free soon.

Would it be M for Masturbating, or W for Wanking?

Well obviously I want to catch you all wanking, so I can throw biscuits at you.

And... I would also be really happy if, when you click "End round now" in a numbers game, the clock didn't stop. So you could tell how much longer you have to wait. The time goes weirdly slowly when there's no clock to look at, and then suddenly it's asking you to do sums and you've drifted off into a daydream about biscuits.

Clare Sudbery wrote:And... I would also be really happy if, when you click "End round now" in a numbers game, the clock didn't stop. So you could tell how much longer you have to wait. The time goes weirdly slowly when there's no clock to look at, and then suddenly it's asking you to do sums and you've drifted off into a daydream about biscuits.

I'm not sure, but if you click 'end round early' can't you then put your answer into the notes box whilst you wait for your opponent to finish?

Clare Sudbery wrote:
And... I would also be really happy if, when you click "End round now" in a numbers game, the clock didn't stop. So you could tell how much longer you have to wait. The time goes weirdly slowly when there's no clock to look at, and then suddenly it's asking you to do sums and you've drifted off into a daydream about biscuits.

Only really useful to end a round early when you're playing a bot or doing a duel anyway, isn't it? Then you start keying in your method straight away.
Rather awkward, as you say, if you're playing a person.

I'm sure this has been said before, but a rankings list showing all the players, not just the top few, would be nice.

Edited to say, I've found the 'players list' which does this. Don't know if it's new or if I've just noticed it.

Julie T wrote:Only really useful to end a round early when you're playing a bot or doing a duel anyway, isn't it?

When the target is 120 and the numbers include 4, 3, 10 (for instance) I guess I get impatient*. Mostly I know my opponents do too, cos I click End Round Early and hey presto, the round ends. But occasionally you're the only one who does it, leading to biscuit-related dreaming as detailed above. But Michael's suggestion is a good one - I hadn't thought of that (assuming it allows you to do it).

*I confess there's a bit of pride in the mix too; not wanting your opponent to think you needed the full 30 secs to solve something so simple.

I only ever end rounds early against computers.

Nigel Rees for me please. You could just type ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ for each comment.

Inspired by Mark Tournoff, how about a graph that monitors the number of maxes you score per game? It would be a cool way to monitor your progress

Jimmy Gough wrote:Inspired by Mark Tournoff, how about a graph that monitors the number of maxes you score per game? It would be a cool way to monitor your progress

This has been on my to-do for maybe 3 months now. It will happen eventually.

I'm not a fan of the change to darkened backgrounds on the rounds given on the reviews. Looking down a game of mine before, I could see instantly how many maxes I missed. With this new highlighted background system, it's so much harder to see at a glance. Pleaseeeeeee revert it! Thanks.

Kirk Bevins wrote:I'm not a fan of the change to darkened backgrounds on the rounds given on the reviews. Looking down a game of mine before, I could see instantly how many maxes I missed. With this new highlighted background system, it's so much harder to see at a glance. Pleaseeeeeee revert it! Thanks.

Don't. Knowing who picked the letters is much more important, especially in Goat! Thanks.

These have probably been suggested before, but a couple of duel variants I think would be cool. One is some sort of scattergories-esque thing, where you note down as many words as you can, and then you get points for all the ones you note down (maybe with some lower limit so you don't have to bother with all the 3 letter ones) that other people don't (one point per word, or the length of the word, you could work out something cool I imagine). This is presumably too much of a faff, since it would require a major change for the program to now read your noted words (and what if you note stuff that isn't words, etc.), so instead you could have to declare, and then your score is calculated after everyone has played, and so if the max in a round is, say, 8, then people who get 8s always get more than people who get 7s, but the people who get 8s which fewer other people get get more points than the other people who got 8s that were got by more people.

This makes perfect sense.

The other idea would be rounds where it tells you what the max is (but again, this would presumably reuqire a major reworking of the program?) - or perhaps tells you what the max is after 20 seconds or whatever, and then you get more points if you spot it before.

Basically these ideas are clearly awesome, but probably really hard to implement.

Jon O'Neill wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:I'm not a fan of the change to darkened backgrounds on the rounds given on the reviews. Looking down a game of mine before, I could see instantly how many maxes I missed. With this new highlighted background system, it's so much harder to see at a glance. Pleaseeeeeee revert it! Thanks.

Don't. Knowing who picked the letters is much more important, especially in Goat! Thanks.

I second the ginger one.

Ben Wilson wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:Don't. Knowing who picked the letters is much more important, especially in Goat! Thanks.

I second the ginger one.

So do I - I just looked at this new style and find it kinda surprising that anyone could find it hard to see maxes - I manage find and I am probably one of the most blind people on the forum.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Ben Wilson wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:Don't. Knowing who picked the letters is much more important, especially in Goat! Thanks.

I second the ginger one.

I manage find and I am probably one of the most blind people on the forum

Proven by you mistaking 'd' for 'e'.

Kai Laddiman wrote:Proven by you mistaking 'd' for 'e'.

I wish I could pretend that was an excuse. Well actually, no I don't, but still. D is right next to E, so that's my excuse, and not that I'm merely an idiot.

Oh, I didn't realise it signified who chose the round. Either way, I'm easily outvoted so I'll sit quiet but I still don't prefer it.

Some ISC-style 'no match modes' and a star next your your name if you already playing a game. People keep requesting games with me when I'm already playing.

A simple list of the hosts, arithmeticians, lexicographers and DC guests?

When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

Ian Volante wrote:

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

That exact scramble has actually been used on the show as well (http://www.countdownwiki.com/Episode_no2746)

Jon Corby wrote:

Ian Volante wrote:

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

That exact scramble has actually been used on the show as well (http://www.countdownwiki.com/Episode_no2746)

I hope one day they'll use WOODNCUNT as a conundrum.

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

Was it GINGERVAN? Jono will be offended.

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

Are you actually serious by the way, or were you just drawing attention to the humorous scramble?

Jon Corby wrote:

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

Are you actually serious by the way, or were you just drawing attention to the humorous scramble?

I think he's serious, but no I don't think it would be easy to implement, secondly I think it's pretty rare that you're gonna get offensive words like that, and thirdly, they're words found by a bot so there's no context. You can't claim that the bot's trying to be hurtful or insulting.

Martin Gardner wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:

Stuart Arnot wrote:When the conundrum-manufacturing thing is doing it's business, it would be nice if the shorter words weren't racial epithets. I don't know whether this is easily achievable, and obviously it's a small gripe. But if you search for ENGRAVING in past conundra, you'll see my point.

Thanks!

Are you actually serious by the way, or were you just drawing attention to the humorous scramble?

I think he's serious, but no I don't think it would be easy to implement, secondly I think it's pretty rare that you're gonna get offensive words like that, and thirdly, they're words found by a bot so there's no context. You can't claim that the bot's trying to be hurtful or insulting.

Well it would be fairly easy to implement, in that you could just have a list of words that MUSTN'T be used in the conundrum scramble. Maybe the difficulty would be in compiling this list of offensive words though, as people seem to get offended by different things

If you're gonna do that, you should probably also stop the bots or DC declaring such words (which would stop perfect-game-Rex in his tracks). Or, like Martin rightly says, you could just have a little chuckle over a randomly generated occurrence, because it isn't done with any context or intent. If you were playing Scrabble and happened to draw the tiles out in an order that spelled a rude word, would you complain to the manufacturers?

Martin Gardner wrote:You can't claim that the bot's trying to be hurtful or insulting.

Naturally. I just thought that if it was simple, it'd be a little thing to make life a little nicer.

Jon Corby wrote: If you were playing Scrabble and happened to draw the tiles out in an order that spelled a rude word, would you complain to the manufacturers?

Obviously not. And I've gotten into trouble with the missus for the same reason while playing Scrabble .

Stuart Arnot wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:You can't claim that the bot's trying to be hurtful or insulting.

Naturally. I just thought that if it was simple, it'd be a little thing to make life a little nicer.

I do take your point (I wrote a Countdown game and wondered if I should do similar tbh, although I can't help but smile when stuff like PENISWART or CUNTSCLUE comes up as a conundrum scramble). My game was never intended for mass consumption though really, and I'm spectacularly lazy, so I didn't bother.

Toning down Father Christmas & Jesus Christ's language would probably be a better starting place if you wanted to make the game more granny-friendly. On the grounds of good taste, you're unlikely to get accidental rude words removed before deliberate ones!

Jon Corby wrote: Toning down Father Christmas & Jesus Christ's language would probably be a better starting place if you wanted to make the game more granny-friendly. On the grounds of good taste, you're unlikely to get accidental rude words removed before deliberate ones!

I'm gonna add some kind of filter for those, because I'm sure not everyone finds the phrase "Ho Ho Fucking Ho" as funny as I do.

Can you please keep Ozzy intact though?

The filter is optional.

Josef Fritzl ain't too granny-friendly either.

Although friendlier to grannies than daughters.

Charlie Reams wrote:The filter is optional.

Great idea, Charlie.
As different people are offended by different things, being able to block any of the characters you wanted to, would be great.

Stuart Arnot wrote:Josef Fritzl ain't too granny-friendly either.

Although friendlier to grannies than daughters.

I thought he was very friendly to his daughters.

I haven't played the game for a while, but it was suggested that you could pick your own guests which might help a bit here, maybe, even though people don't know in advance which the rude ones are, so never mind.

Gavin Chipper wrote:I haven't played the game for a while, but it was suggested that you could pick your own guests which might help a bit here, maybe, even though people don't know in advance which the rude ones are, so never mind.

You'd know for next time, though.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote: Toning down Father Christmas & Jesus Christ's language would probably be a better starting place if you wanted to make the game more granny-friendly. On the grounds of good taste, you're unlikely to get accidental rude words removed before deliberate ones!

I'm gonna add some kind of filter for those, because I'm sure not everyone finds the phrase "Ho Ho Fucking Ho" as funny as I do.

I find that quite funny because it's a totally fictional character (sorry Kai). The Josef one I don't like, I haven't had Jesus yet either. Just don't do Muhammed, you know what I mean.

Yes, even if you do bring in a feature where you can choose to delete certain characters from appearing in your games, Josef Fritzl should go completely.
I've now had this character in DC in one of my games - very disturbing.
Even given the quirky sense of humour that often produces some hilarious stuff, this is sick.

Julie T wrote:Yes, even if you do bring in a feature where you can choose to delete certain characters from appearing in your games, Josef Fritzl should go completely.
I've now had this character in DC in one of my games - very disturbing.
Even given the quirky sense of humour that often produces some hilarious stuff, this is sick.

I'm quite disappointed I've not had him for a game now - quite looking forward to it

What about awards at the end of each month for most improved, best newcomer etc..
The prize could be a rating bonus of maybe 50 or 100.

Ian Volante wrote:

Julie T wrote:Yes, even if you do bring in a feature where you can choose to delete certain characters from appearing in your games, Josef Fritzl should go completely.
I've now had this character in DC in one of my games - very disturbing.
Even given the quirky sense of humour that often produces some hilarious stuff, this is sick.

I'm quite disappointed I've not had him for a game now - quite looking forward to it

I've not played for a while so I hope he doesn't go before I can be arsed to start playing again. Oh and do Mohammed.

Eoin Monaghan wrote:What about awards at the end of each month for most improved, best newcomer etc..
The prize could be a rating bonus of maybe 50 or 100.

The most improved has already got a big rating improvement. Improving is its own reward.

Martin Gardner wrote:

Eoin Monaghan wrote:What about awards at the end of each month for most improved, best newcomer etc..
The prize could be a rating bonus of maybe 50 or 100.

The most improved has already got a big rating improvement. Improving is its own reward.

That was just an example

On the website, when someone's achieved the record game more than once, can they be represented only once on the 'high scores' page (maybe with a 'x5' after their name) and for each format? I've nothing against Craig in particular but he does seem to be taking over that page a bit.

I'm tried out the French option. The conundrums are fine, if really hard, but the letters and the conundrums don't actually use the same dictionary! The letters games allow conjugated verbs, and the conundrums don't!

I would like the conundrums to be picked from commoner words. And to be able to customise the amount of rounds, and whether you want it rated or not. Thanks.

Daniel Dodgson wrote:I would like the conundrums to be picked from commoner words. And to be able to customise the amount of rounds, and whether you want it rated or not. Thanks.

"Full custom" from the "Custom Game" button does all this (except the conundrum filtering bit)

Has anyone suggested 3-player games yet?

Also, for the conundrum and letter attacks etc., rather than having a load of people stuck on 200 points sharing 1st place why not have it that if you get to 200 then you just keep on going until you go wrong?

You could have a conundrum attack where your score is based on how quick you find the conundrum
Ie, in a 30 second game a less than 1 second conundrum scores you 30 points, less than two seconds scores you 29 points and so on down to 0 if you fail to find it.

When setting up your own custom game, a "coefficient" button would be nice. By that, I mean if you want 100 conundrums, instead of clicking conundrum 100 times (boring, and tough to count) you could just enter conundrum x 100. So a normal 15 rounder would become

Letters x 4
Numbers
Letters x 4
Numbers
Letters x 3
Numbers
Conundrum

Which is a lot more efficient, especially if you want to do a massive letters/numbers/conundrum attack.

The conundrum-buzzing method is a pretty good way of stopping Hansfording, but I still think it goes on to a certain degree - that is, once you've seen the nine letters, you can make a reasonable stab at what the first letter is going to be, and you can gain yourself plenty of extra time to solve it (providing you've guessed the first letter correctly of course!)

As an additional safe-guard, how about making the conundrum disappear while you are entering your answer? I suggested this as a possibility to be used on the show (you'd have to put the physical conundrum board out of view of the players, and then just make the monitor shut out on buzzer press) and I reckon it would work pretty well to help stamp out what is essentially cheating.

Thoughts?