c4countdown

Is anyone else having trouble playing todays duel?

I started the duel and got the selection for round 1. I typed in my word and entered the round early, but it's now stuck waiting for the opponent.

EDIT: I refreshed the game before and it appeared in the list of games being played, so I tried to resume it and it logged me out and now it's disappeared.

Yes, I got to round 3 and it froze after I put the numbers in. Seems to have disappeared now!!!!!!!

Yeah, I had two duel challenges when I signed in this morning, started the massive speed conundrum one (which I assume was yesterday's?) and it froze after the first round (which I didn't get if you want to reset it to start from there Charlie). Scared to try the other one now as it broke the first time I did it, but seems to have reappeared...

Somehow I don't believe I have 429 points for January. Slight mistake there perhaps?

Anyone who lost their Duel today or yesterday due to connection problems at my end should now be able to replay them. Please don't abuse this privilege or in future I'll just not bother.

Charlie Reams wrote:Anyone who lost their Duel today or yesterday due to connection problems at my end should now be able to replay them. Please don't abuse this privilege or in future I'll just not bother.

Cheers. I'd only got as far the first round of the speed conundrum marathon thingy when it locked on me. I didn't solve it first time around and several hours later when I retook it I had come up with an answer (which I wasn't 100% on). I didn't enter it though, and it turned out to be correct, so my conscience is clear

I didn't manage to get on yesterday, and found two today. Didn't know which was which so played both. Should give me a score of 2 now.

Thanks Charlie, managed to do it now ok.

Charlie Reams wrote:Anyone who lost their Duel today or yesterday due to connection problems at my end should now be able to replay them. Please don't abuse this privilege or in future I'll just not bother.

Thank you Charlie

Top after 2 days! If I play for another 1000 duels, men will still say, "this was his finest hour." Probably.

Charlie Reams wrote: Please don't abuse this privilege or in future I'll just not bother.

Charlie Reams wrote:Top after 2 days!

Were the repeated Conundrums in Thursday's Duel (PUBLICISE and another one that I can't remember now and the site's down so I can't check) deliberate?

Charlie Reams wrote:Top after 2 days! If I play for another 1000 duels, men will still say, "this was his finest hour." Probably.

Excellent, Charlie! If course it's within your powers to win January now. All you need to do is pull the plug on your server until beginning of February.

As for my performance on the New Year's Day game, I was absolutely delighted to get eight conundrums. Probably my best ever conundrum performance. I realise the system only gave me seven of them, but I know I got eight. Just happened to misspell one of them. And I don't recall ever hearing a contestant having to spell the result of a conundrum.

Not so happy with my 2nd Jan game, though. Although I'm getting a little better with numbers games, I'm still only able to get about half of the solutions entered correctly. Main problem seems to be clicking a wrong arithmetic symbol by mistake, and then not being able to correct it. I now find that I'm spending a lot of the 30 secs writing down exactly what to type for a solution that is only near, rather than spend the full 30 secs looking for the 10 point solution. I did get the conundrum though.

Lee Simmonds wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote: Please don't abuse this privilege or in future I'll just not bother.

Charlie Reams wrote:Top after 2 days!

Heehee.

Phil Reynolds wrote:Were the repeated Conundrums in Thursday's Duel (PUBLICISE and another one that I can't remember now and the site's down so I can't check) deliberate?

The round in the Duel are never really "deliberate", they're just random, otherwise I couldn't really play in it myself. The code that prevents duplicate conundrums in the same game doesn't apply to the Duel, for reasons historical. I think it was just an example of the birthday paradox.

Charlie Reams wrote:I think it was just an example of the birthday paradox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox

Calculating using the given formula, assuming 7500 total conundrums (a figure a bit higher than that is given on apterous.org before Charlie announced removing a few) and an n of 50 rounds, I get a 15% probability that some conundrum will be repeated twice on a 50 round all-conundrum duel.

The actual number is 7531, so I imagine 15% a pretty good estimate.

Charlie Reams wrote:The actual number is 7531, so I imagine 15% a pretty good estimate.

I'll definitely go along with that. Certainly close enough to 15.04%

To preempt the complaints: yes, I did fuck up, and people later in the day got different conundrums to those who played just after midnight. Luckily there were no real stinkers so it shouldn't affect scores too much.

Before I plunge into today's Duel, can someone explain what 'Hypercountdown' is please?

Phil Reynolds wrote:Before I plunge into today's Duel, can someone explain what 'Hypercountdown' is please?

Simply Countdown with twelve letters instead of nine.

Phil Reynolds wrote:Before I plunge into today's Duel, can someone explain what 'Hypercountdown' is please?

The letters rounds and the conundrum have 12 letters and the numbers game has a 4 figure target.

Frank Rodolf has retired from apterous, at least for the time being. He might post something here himself, so I won't say too much more, but to cut a long story short: he admitted to cheating for almost the entire time he's been here, and sends his sincere apologies to anyone who's played against him. I'd appreciate it if people could keep the vitriol to a minimum, because at least he did the decent thing in the end. This quote is, I think, particularly relevant:

Frank Rodolf wrote:I don't even know why I went on with it, cause to be completely honest, it quickly made me way less interested in playing the game.

Good advice for anyone else thinking of trying it.

Interesting to see that 7 people got different conundrums to everyone else yesterday.

Kai Laddiman wrote:Interesting to see that 7 people got different conundrums to everyone else yesterday.

Next time try reading my posts before attempting some smart-ass comment.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:Interesting to see that 7 people got different conundrums to everyone else yesterday.

Next time try reading my posts before attempting some smart-ass comment.

If only I could read.

Well done to Dan on his first conundrum win for a while, and to Kirk and Kai for getting all 3 hypernundrums. Can't stand Hyper myself tbh, but managed to get a few points on the board.

Charlie Reams wrote:Well done to Dan on his first conundrum win for a while, and to Kirk and Kai for getting all 3 hypernundrums. Can't stand Hyper myself tbh, but managed to get a few points on the board.

Do you mean duel win?

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Well done to Dan on his first conundrum win for a while, and to Kirk and Kai for getting all 3 hypernundrums. Can't stand Hyper myself tbh, but managed to get a few points on the board.

Do you mean duel win?

What do you reckon?

Charlie Reams wrote:
What do you reckon?

Yes but it's not like you to make mistakes.

Kirk Bevins wrote:Yes but it's not like you to make mistakes.

I think you must have me confused with someone else...

Charlie Reams wrote:Well done to Dan on his first conundrum win for a while, and to Kirk and Kai for getting all 3 hypernundrums. Can't stand Hyper myself tbh, but managed to get a few points on the board.

Lol I missed INTERLAPPING.

Is there no duel today? Or has my account or my PC got screwed?

Howard Somerset wrote:Is there no duel today? Or has my account or my PC got screwed?

Hopefully not, because it will mean my fucking awful attempt at it was all just a bad dream.

Jon Corby wrote:

Howard Somerset wrote:Is there no duel today? Or has my account or my PC got screwed?

Hopefully not, because it will mean my fucking awful attempt at it was all just a bad dream.

Thanks Jon. Just reloaded and gone in again, and it's there this time. Guess my PC got screwed.

So your fucking awful attempt will get counted, and will almost certainly be way above mine.

I think I did really well on the duel today. Hope so anyway.

On the 6th Jan, I got 44 points in the whole duel. I had a string of 7 disallowed words and numbers and altogether I had 9 disallowed solutions! Could it possibly get any worse? You have to look at this! http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=18923

Phil Reynolds wrote:Before I plunge into today's Duel, can someone explain what 'Hypercountdown' is please?

Question already answered, but thought I'd mention a tip that I thought was obvious:

When the duel is in a format that I haven't played or rarely played before, I play a custom game or 2 of it beforehand.
Beware of playing a rated game on a tricky format though. I once managed (just) to lose to Prune, which fecked up my rating somewhat.

Julie T wrote:[T]hought I'd mention a tip that I thought was obvious: When the duel is in a format that I haven't played or rarely played before, I play a custom game or 2 of it beforehand.

I frequently need the obvious pointing out to me, so thanks Julie for the tip.

I was going to play yesterday's duel later on tonight (as in Thursday night) but from 21:20 onwards (or around that time at least), the site was down. Now normally in this situation, I thought the duel was carried over, for people who didn't get to play it, but I've just been on the Apterous site and the scores have been posted for yesterday's duel.

Joseph Bolas wrote:I was going to play yesterday's duel later on tonight (as in Thursday night) but from 21:20 onwards (or around that time at least), the site was down. Now normally in this situation, I thought the duel was carried over, for people who didn't get to play it, but I've just been on the Apterous site and the scores have been posted for yesterday's duel.

I didn't realise it was down until the scores had already been processed, apologies to anyone who missed out. In future I recommend you get with the cool kids by playing every duel at 00:01.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:I was going to play yesterday's duel later on tonight (as in Thursday night) but from 21:20 onwards (or around that time at least), the site was down. Now normally in this situation, I thought the duel was carried over, for people who didn't get to play it, but I've just been on the Apterous site and the scores have been posted for yesterday's duel.

I didn't realise it was down until the scores had already been processed, apologies to anyone who missed out. In future I recommend you get with the cool kids by playing every duel at 00:01.

Thank you for the advice.

Sometimes it's better though to play a bit first, to warm up your brain before tackling the duel

The latest results page still seems to be showing the scores from Saturday's duel.

Phil Reynolds wrote:The latest results page still seems to be showing the scores from Saturday's duel.

I'm guessing that Sunday's duel has carried over for those who haven't done it yet, as apparently apterous was down for a few hours yesterday.

Julie T wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:The latest results page still seems to be showing the scores from Saturday's duel.

I'm guessing that Sunday's duel has carried over for those who haven't done it yet, as apparently apterous was down for a few hours yesterday.

It shouldn't have done as it was back up and running last night from 11:00 pm onwards, which was plenty of time to play the duel before the day was out.

Joseph Bolas wrote:It shouldn't have done as it was back up and running last night from 11:00 pm onwards, which was plenty of time to play the duel before the day was out.

Unless you have a job/kids to get up for and go to bed before 11pm.

Jon Corby wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:It shouldn't have done as it was back up and running last night from 11:00 pm onwards, which was plenty of time to play the duel before the day was out.

Unless you have a job/kids to get up for and go to bed before 11pm.

Well, there was plenty of time earlier on in the day to play it.

I see it doesn't matter anway, as some people got to play yesterdays duel today, which was wrong, but that's the way it is.

Maybe is there a clique after all

Joseph Bolas wrote: I see it doesn't matter anway, as some people got to play yesterdays duel today, which was wrong, but that's the way it is.

Maybe is there a clique after all

The Duel always rolls over if there's a significant amount of down-time, except for one occasion when I was busy and forgot. I guess you're just bitter because you didn't play it on that one occasion. But I didn't dock you any points for all the duels you cheated in, which I should've done, so maybe you should STFU about cliques.

Charlie Reams wrote:But I didn't dock you any points for all the duels you cheated in, which I should've done, so maybe you should STFU about cliques.

Lols.

Hi

Todays duel froze on me after entering the first set of letters. I see in the announcements that duels can't be resumed. Does that mean I've lost this one ?

Thank you
Gareth

Gareth Mitchell wrote:Hi

Todays duel froze on me after entering the first set of letters. I see in the announcements that duels can't be resumed. Does that mean I've lost this one ?

Thank you
Gareth

Nope, come back later and try again.

OK, so I logged in this morning expecting to see two Duel challenges - yesterday's rollover and today's. In fact, there is none. Can you give us an update Charlie?

Phil Reynolds wrote:OK, so I logged in this morning expecting to see two Duel challenges - yesterday's rollover and today's. In fact, there is none. Can you give us an update Charlie?

I saw two when I logged on at about 8am this morning. Didn't play them though and haven't been back since.

It's because you're not in THE CLIQUE.

Phil Reynolds wrote:OK, so I logged in this morning expecting to see two Duel challenges - yesterday's rollover and today's. In fact, there is none. Can you give us an update Charlie?

Sometimes you have to log in a few times before the Duellist remembers to challenge you. I have no idea why.

I'm not surprised at my position on yesterday's dual. First time I've ever tried a 5 second game. Even though I had answers to many of the rounds within 5 secs, it was getting them typed in that beat me. Even took more than 5 secs to move the cursor to the right place to type the numbers result in, cos I had my fingers on the keys rather than on the mouse. However, one bright spot was getting one of the two conundrums - not only getting it right, but getting it typed in without making a mistake!

I thought ENRAPTURE was a tough conundrum so very well done to Kai, Paul and Nick for getting that.

Howard Somerset wrote:I'm not surprised at my position on yesterday's dual. First time I've ever tried a 5 second game. Even though I had answers to many of the rounds within 5 secs, it was getting them typed in that beat me. Even took more than 5 secs to move the cursor to the right place to type the numbers result in, cos I had my fingers on the keys rather than on the mouse. However, one bright spot was getting one of the two conundrums - not only getting it right, but getting it typed in without making a mistake!

Thanks, Howard, for keeping me off the bottom spot, anyway!

I hate speed duels too, but connection problems meant I'd missed 2 duels already, so I gave it a go.

Surely with the letters rounds, it lets you finish keying in a word as long as you've started?

Re numbers rounds, while the numbers are still coming up I move the cursor to the 'declaration' box and click, so I can key my declaration straight in when I've worked it out. I then move the cursor over to the 'set declaration' box, still before the round has properly started, so I can click it when I'm ready to declare. Gives you a vital few extra seconds, especially in speed rounds. Also, if there really isn't time to do the calculations, I sometimes guess that I can do it and declare the target, and wing it when asked to show my method.

Congratulations on getting a conundrum, it's my weak point.

Julie T wrote:Thanks, Howard, for keeping me off the bottom spot, anyway!

Always happy to be underneath you, Julie

Surely with the letters rounds, it lets you finish keying in a word as long as you've started?

Doesn't seem to let you correct typing errors. Or maybe when I saw I'd made a typing error I assumed it wouldn't so gave up.

Re numbers rounds, while the numbers are still coming up I move the cursor to the 'declaration' box and click, so I can key my declaration straight in when I've worked it out.

Must remember to do that in future. Thanks.

Howard Somerset wrote:

Julie T wrote:Thanks, Howard, for keeping me off the bottom spot, anyway!

Always happy to be underneath you, Julie

Ooooh, errrr!

Surely with the letters rounds, it lets you finish keying in a word as long as you've started?

Doesn't seem to let you correct typing errors. Or maybe when I saw I'd made a typing error I assumed it wouldn't so gave up.

True, that is a problem.

Re numbers rounds, while the numbers are still coming up I move the cursor to the 'declaration' box and click, so I can key my declaration straight in when I've worked it out.

Must remember to do that in future. Thanks.

Hope it helps.

Hmmm...how come the daily duel score hasn't been added to mine today? I should be well clear of Ben after that duel attempt.