c4countdown

Recently I've found a healthy outlet for my masochism by playing speedgoat with Apterous Rex, a surprisingly fun experience if you don't mind losing all the time. I've noticed Rex always picks the final letter to ensure a darrenic maximum (that's a round with a unique maximum if you're not up with the lingo), which has the cool effect of making every round into a mini conundrum. Anyway, the challenge is to create a goatdown game against Rex in which every letters round is darrenic.

How close have you got?

Charlie Reams wrote:How close have you got?

Maybe this is the sort of thing I ought to check before posting because it turns out I've already done it (albeit slightly flukily in the last round)

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=12283

I've mailed myself a mars bar, and I hope people aren't discouraged from having a go by the lack of a chocolaty reward.

Kevin Birks (whoever he is) got close here:

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=15887

No "others" words if that was the task? However, SUBEDIT and STUBBED were available one round and so were not darrens.

Kirk Bevins wrote:Kevin Birks (whoever he is)

Could Kevin Birks please step forward and announce your humanity and existence?

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:Kevin Birks (whoever he is)

Could Kevin Birks please step forward and announce your humanity and existence?

shuffle the letters in kirk bevins and you get= kevin birks!!
(WHAT A SURPRISE(NOT!!))

I think I read somewhere that Kirk cares about his rating so probably created the other name so he won't cry when he loses to Rex.

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:Kevin Birks (whoever he is)

Could Kevin Birks please step forward and announce your humanity and existence?

Come on Kai - I'm amazed you didn't twig this. Gevin is right - I created this new name to play against Prime and Rex and I do care about my rating (but not the rating of Kevin). Paul Howe said he got uber-awesome by playing 10 second goatdowns against the top two bots and I intend to do the same thing. That's the plan anyway...

Kirk Bevins wrote:Come on Kai - I'm amazed you didn't twig this. Gevin is right - I created this new name to play against Prime and Rex and I do care about my rating (but not the rating of Kevin). Paul Howe said he got uber-awesome by playing 10 second goatdowns against the top two bots and I intend to do the same thing. That's the plan anyway...

Yes! Me and Kirk on the same wavelength!

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:Kevin Birks (whoever he is)

Could Kevin Birks please step forward and announce your humanity and existence?

Come on Kai - I'm amazed you didn't twig this. Gevin is right - I created this new name to play against Prime and Rex and I do care about my rating (but not the rating of Kevin). Paul Howe said he got uber-awesome by playing 10 second goatdowns against the top two bots and I intend to do the same thing. That's the plan anyway...

<Laughs at Kirk for not detecting the HUGE hint of sarcasm, especially as I was online when you admitted it>

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:Kevin Birks (whoever he is)

Could Kevin Birks please step forward and announce your humanity and existence?

Come on Kai - I'm amazed you didn't twig this. Gevin is right - I created this new name to play against Prime and Rex and I do care about my rating (but not the rating of Kevin). Paul Howe said he got uber-awesome by playing 10 second goatdowns against the top two bots and I intend to do the same thing. That's the plan anyway...

Can't you play practice games under your real name? You won't lose rating points then. Call me old-fashioned, but if you use a ringer alias to hone your skills against Rex and Prime, then take those skills and log in as Kirk Bevins to whoop everyone for ratings points, then doesn't this make your Kirk rating artificially high and almost meaningless?

Not that it matters to me of course - the higher you go, the better for everyone else if we pull of a rare victory over you, but it does seem slightly odd. My rating isn't something that matters really, i want competitive games so play those of a higher standard, win or lose.

I don't really see why anyone would care particularly about their rating - the scoring algorithm is fairly iffy at best (obviously it does work to an extent, in that you do get a correlation with 'ability' and rating), but there are plenty of people with ratings that don't really match up because they either only play rubbish people (or Prune), or only play good people.

Or does having a good apterous rating actually help you get laid? If so, I take it back (my comment, not the sex).

Michael Wallace wrote:I don't really see why anyone would care particularly about their rating - the scoring algorithm is fairly iffy at best (obviously it does work to an extent, in that you do get a correlation with 'ability' and rating), but there are plenty of people with ratings that don't really match up because they either only play rubbish people (or Prune), or only play good people.

Or does having a good apterous rating actually help you get laid? If so, I take it back (my comment, not the sex).

I'd say having a good rating puts people off playing you, so I like to take a few poundings from Rex every now and again to take it back down again. That said, I haven't found it increases the number of people wanting to play me, so maybe it's my personality and not my rating that repels them.

Yeah I don't know why I get arsy about my rating and it's annoying. It's something that says I don't want to have a shit rating even though it means absolutely nothing. I don't play with Kevin Birks any more but then again I don't play against Prime and Rex any more. I was trying to follow Paul Howe playing Prime and Rex at goatdown to learn awesome (and possibly darrenical) words but didn't want to harm my rating.

I'm gonna have to start ignoring the damn ratings I think.

I think the ratings should be made more meaningful by adding a couple of extra parameters, such as average opponent rating and game variant.

Rating changes are in the pipeline.