Goo 1133

Aaron Shurtleff | November 11, 2007
If I don't do this now, I'll never get to...

WOO HOO!! I'm working on my first Imelda! Yay!!!

OK, you all can bust my bubble now. :(

Scott Hardie | November 11, 2007
This is as good of a place as any to announce a rule change.

In addition to this being a round with an unusually high number of incorrect guesses – what's up with that? nothing wrong with that, just unusual to see so many – we are also lucky to have a round with an unusually high number of players. Other rounds have seen brief spurts of many visitors who guess a couple of goos and don't return, but I think this round has more regular players playing daily than we've ever had. That means that we may have 25 or more real competitors vying for only 24 spaces in the tournament. Whereas ties for 24th place were previously settled by userrank (longer players had earned the higher placement), that was unfair because there's nothing a new player can do to raise their userrank that much within the round and overcome it. As of now, ties are settled on the scoreboard by who reached that score first on the clock. This doesn't mean you have to stay up until midnight to guess quickly; only the players trying to get 24th place would benefit from doing so, and only once at the end. It's rule change that will have major impact for 2-3 players and none at all for everybody else, but I thought I should mention it.

And as long as I'm mentioning changes around the site, you can now send private messages to other users, something that's been missing for far too long. Click on any user's name or photo around the site, and (if you're logged in), you'll see a "send a message" link at the top of the page. This doesn't send an email, just saves the message and alerts them with a notice at the top of the site the next time they visit. I have also connected the public Feedback page to this system, because the best way to keep hackers from hijacking your feedback form to generate their spam emails is to keep it from sending out any emails at all.

Russ Wilhelm | November 11, 2007
"In addition to this being a round with an unusually high number of incorrect guesses – what's up with that?"

I can't speak for others, but I know what my issue is. I'm staying up too late which leaves me mentally weak, while at the same time trying to improve my speed for the timed events. The two combined make me sloppy and inattentive in my gameplay.

For each once I saw the "Sorry" statement, I knew exactly what I did, or didn't do. It's likely it will still happen, but that's all a part of the experiment that I will continue with whenever possible, until the elimination round begins. If I do well when exhausted, then I should do better when rested, right? We'll see.

Aaron Shurtleff | November 11, 2007
Man! That was short-lived! :)

I don't think I'm guessing more incorrectly than usual, personally. But I have been "guessing" more than I used to when I first started out. It used to be I wouldn't guess because you were penalized for wrong guesses, so I would only put in the answer if I was really really sure. Now I just guess, and let the cards fall where they will, so to speak.

Scott Hardie | November 11, 2007
It also stands to reason that with more people playing, we'll see more incorrect guesses. But I've also seen quite a few incorrect guesses from people who rarely guess wrong, like Russ. I'm glad to know it's not just my imagination. I'm glad to have more people guessing and more guesses from people already guessing... I guess.