Place Your Bets

Scott Hardie | May 26, 2007
One of the numerous conversations about the site that Steve and I enjoyed in Charlotte was how the scoring system of the goo game could be improved. Steve is of the opinion that 100 goos is too long for a round, with too long of a break between rounds. (For the record: The current break between rounds is only this long because of my trip to Charlotte. I'd have started Round XXX last weekend otherwise.) I'm willing to try shorter rounds, no problem.

While I'm willing to throw out some of my prerequisites for a scoring system, such as that it needs to feel welcoming to beginners (let 'em sink or swim), I still think there are two rock-solid truths that box us in when we try to change to other systems. Namely, you can't have a "random" system that more conveniently or fairly decides a winner, because players justifiably complain when a winner is determined by chance, and you can't have a "strategic" system that allows players to bank on correct guesses and lose stature on incorrect guesses, because there are a handful of players that are so good they get 99 out of 100 goos correctly (and don't guess that rare stumper, instead of guessing wrong). Steve is a fan of the tower system and grid system we used to have, and I am too, but if you have, say, four players who never ever guess wrong from start to finish in a round, those systems don't work.

We focused on randomization: Was there a way to get the benefit of randomization, which is that some players get ahead of others even though they guessed the same goos correctly, without actually randomizing anything? After some ideas went back and forth, the one that stuck with me was asking players to predict how many people would eventually guess each goo correctly, for the first 48 hours each goo was online. At the end of that goo's seven days, whoever predicted the right amount of correct guesses would earn a point, and most points at the end (or first player to earn X points) would win. Steve was skeptical that some players might try to influence the outcome such as by getting their friends to guess, but I don't see this happening between longtime players who are in direct competition with each other, and it would be too hard to pull off frequently for the aberrant loner who managed to talk a few friends into signing up just for one goo.

Other ideas along the same lines involved bets: You could bet points on whether your guess was right when you placed it (seems to me the 99ers mentioned above would always bet the house), and you could bet on whether other people would get it right who hadn't guessed yet, which allows for a wide degree of "randomization" if you allow a separate bet for every active player. I fear the latter would favor the players who guess just after midnight each night, since they would have more players to bet on than the poor schmoes who don't play until the next evening after ten people already have it right, but there's potential.

So, let's hear what you think. I have a three-day weekend to program a new scoring system before the new round starts on Friday June 1. Is it possible to improve on the system we currently have? Do you have further ideas beyond what else I just described? Your input is appreciated. (And Steve, thanks so much for brainstorming with me.)

Russ Wilhelm | May 26, 2007
How about handicapping it. You could place hidden bombs in the grid (aka Minesweeper) and have the number of bombs determined by the score of the previous round. Maybe the top ten percent has four bombs to contend with, 80-89 has three, 70-79 has two, and all others have one. You might warn them the first time they guess a goo placed in a grid next to a bomb, but only that one warning per bomb. Of course you would also have to give them an equal number of diffusing attempts. If they use them all on one bomb, then they have to suffer the consequences of the remaining bombs.

Just a thought. I too am a fan of the grid, and have been trying to figure out a way to even things out. This is the best I have come up with.

Jackie Mason | May 27, 2007
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Aaron Shurtleff | May 28, 2007
I also liked the grid, but I liked it as a random placement of each GOO when you got it. If you got to choose your placement, then it became too much of a strategery (as the Prez might say). Of course, I have no head for strategy, so that's just me! :)

I like the "betting" on guesses, but I don't know how to make that work. If you get the option of who to bet on, everyone would bet on one of the elites to guess correctly (I won't mention names, but you all know who you are!) Maybe if it was modified (sorry, Scott) to not show who guessed it correctly until maybe 24 hours later, then you could allow people to make their guesses based on guesses that already happened (assuming the rest of the players (and I think they do) feel the same way about cheating that I do). Or it could be totally random as to who you bet on for each GOO! Of course, then we'd have to find a way to prevent it from coming up with players who don't guess at a lot of GOOs. ("Do I think Joe Ball will guess this GOO correctly?! What?!)

I think the other problem is not penalizing people who just don't get the opportunity to guess at every GOO. Myself, my ability to check GOO's is spotty (don't get me wrong, I flub GOOs and don't guess at GOOs I don't know all the time), so I sometimes never know what the GOO was until it is too late to guess. The current system didn't punish me for that, and I appreciate that!

I'd say a fun GOO game would be a timed version, where you had like 1 hour from when you first look at the GOO to guess the answer (which would also eliminate the people who are just ungodly with Google!). Of course, that's probably a logistical nightmare. Plus, if you miss a few, then you have three GOOs to try to guess in one hour! It would be fun, but I think hard to do...

Sorry I didn't get in until the end of the three day weekend, but I didn't really have much to contribute, so it works out in the end, eh?

Kerry Odell | May 28, 2007
Don't know what the grid is (newer user) so I don't really have an opinion. I do find that by the time I reach 50, I'm getting bored with the round and by the time I hit 70+ I've lost interest enough that even if I do qualify, I don't feel like putting much effort into trying to guess the final. I would like shorter rounds w/less easier ones in the mix.

As far as a new scoring system...I don't know what would level the playing field if anything. I don't like betting points, cause frankly I wouldn't want to end up with 0 esp. after guessing 40 or 50. Bottom line is there are players that are frequent finalists, there are folks who only do a few and quit and there are people like me ....who can make it to the finals but don't have enough experience to ferret out the final round goos.

The only way I see to even things out a little is to maybe pit the "star" players against each other in their own final rounds and leave the newbies to compete against each other?

k.

Scott Hardie | May 28, 2007
What do you think of timed eliminations at the end of a round? That is, once the elimination phase starts, the first X players to guess the goo correctly would advance to the next day, until only one player remained. That way, the final goos wouldn't have to be so insanely off-the-scale difficult, just normal difficult. At least one player has told me he doesn't like this kind of system because it requires him to be online at midnight if he wants a shot at it, but I wonder what the rest of you think. (I could publish the goos at a different time of day, but I don't think we could find one single time that is fair for everybody.)

I admit, I'm surprised at the support for the old grid system. For Kerry and other new players who missed it, in that system each player had a grid of 10x10 empty spaces, and each guess was assigned to a space. If it was right, it filled the space, but if it was wrong, it wiped out all adjacent spaces, setting the player back. The first player with a full grid would win. By default, the game would randomly place your guesses for you so you didn't have to think about it, but players taking the competition seriously (that is to say, virtually all of them) could overrule this and declare where to put their guesses.

To me, the grid system was not just overcomplicated, but ineffective at its supposed purpose, which was allowing players the risk of falling behind. Players rarely guess wrong in the goo game, and that's especially true for the handful of expert players who dominate. Instead of providing more drama due to the risk of one of them falling behind, the system provided less, because all it took was for one of the experts to pull ahead by 1 goo early in the round and you knew they had victory sewn up from then on, and nobody could stop them or catch up. There are possibly ways to get around these, like the mines the Russ suggested.

Scott Hardie | May 28, 2007
I have this schedule in mind for Round XXX. Whattya think?

Accumulation Phase: 50 goos. Every player who gets at least 35 correct will "qualify" for victory. Expect 25-30 players to qualify.
Elimination Phase, Day One: Of the qualified players, the first 12 who correctly guess today's goo remain qualified. Others are eliminated. (As always, eliminated and non-qualified players can keep guessing goos for fun; they just can't win.)
Elimination Phase, Day Two: Of the qualified players, the first 6 who correctly guess today's goo remain qualified.
Elimination Phase, Day Three: Same thing, first 3 move on.
Elimination Phase, Day Four: Same thing, first 2 move on.
Elimination Phase, Day Five: The winner is the first of the two qualified players who guesses correctly, and gets a big prize. The other player gets a small consolation prize.

These elimination goos would be hard, yes, but not the insane difficulty we're used to at the end of each round.

Tony Peters | May 28, 2007
that sounds cool....more like speed goo which would hurt the folks in he east who go to bed early, like me, but then I'm not really a winner yet with my googling anyway

Scott Hardie | May 29, 2007
What about combining the schedule I mentioned with a tournament bracket? The top two players on the list face each other, then the next two, then the next two, and so on. First person in each pair to get the goo moves on to the next day and faces the winner from the next pair down the list. As in the schedule above, we'd halve the number of qualified players each day until only one remained. I think this would grant Kerry's wish to see the experts face other experts and the newbies face other newbies.

Other suggestions are still welcome. It won't be decided until Thursday night.

I have all of the goos ready for new round, which looks like it will run conveniently from June 1 to July 31 with two themed weeks. I just need to enter them into the site at this point. Any predictions for who will be the 1000th goo? If you think you know who it will be, don't say it here, just send me an email and I'll reveal on Friday if anybody was right.

Scott Hardie | May 30, 2007
Added advantage of the brackets: You don't feel like you have to beat thirty other people. You just feel like you have to beat one person today, then one person tomorrow, then again three more times until you win.

Lori Lancaster | May 30, 2007
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Jackie Mason | May 30, 2007
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Scott Hardie | May 30, 2007
Lori: Well, the game doesn't have to be updated at midnight. It wouldn't take much recoding from me to make goos publish at a specific time during the day. What's a fair time when almost everybody can be online? 8pm?

Jackie: Two players both guess it right, and whichever one bests the other at RPS advances?

Steve Dunn | May 30, 2007
I guess I'm late to the discussion, but here are my two cents, for what they're worth (about two cents, I guess...)

As a general observation, I think there's quite a lot of randomness in the game in its present form, so I don't think a different type of randomness should be objectionable. In order to win the current game, you have to figure out 70 goos of varying difficulty, and then a few insanely difficult goos. I realize the superstar players seem to get even the insanely difficult ones, but for mere mortals like me, it seems awfully random whether I'm going to happen upon the correct answer. Randomness is a factor throughout the game - some goos are instantly recognizable to certain people, but nearly impossible for others. For these reasons, I am not anti-randomness.

I don't like betting on how many other people will guess the goo. I can't quite place my finger on why. It just doesn't seem interesting.

I don't like anything involving races to see who can answer first. I cannot plan my daily schedule around the goo game. Sometimes I can't visit the site for days at a time. The current game is quite friendly to my schedule, and I like that. I will not sit around at midnight every night, or at any other time of day, waiting for a goo. My life simply will not permit it. I may be a casualty of the game, I realize.

I like the minesweeper idea, though I think it could easily be TOO much of a handicap on the best players.

I also would favor experimentation with a game in which guessing goos earned a player points, clues, or rewards used in completing a meta-game. I'm thinking along the lines of the old tower system, or the grid system, in which the goos were essentially building blocks and the ultimate goal was to fill a pattern with those blocks.

You could go a hundred different directions with this, for example each successful goo could entitle the player to take one shot in a Battleship-style game against the admin (a common opponent of all players). We would not know how the other players were doing in the game, so we would not know when the end was near. The win would come as a surprise. I think this could make for intense play.

Or, each successful goo could entitle the player to receive chips that could be applied toward the ultimate goal (building a tower or whatever) or wagered in little minigames against the admin in the hope of acquiring more.

Or, each successful goo could entitle the player to ask the admin a question in a game of 20 Questions.

Or, each successful goo could entitle the player to receive a random playing card, and whoever was able to make the best poker hand each week could be entitled to some little bonus.

Anyway, you see what I'm saying. I'm drawn to a system in which anyone can win, but that still rewards consistent play. I think the current game is almost antithetical to Scott's stated goal of making it for "fun" and not a highly competitive enterprise. A touch of randomness would, in my view, serve that goal more directly.

I need to go to sleep, but I'll close by saying I favor much, much shorter rounds.

Scott, thanks for taking everyone's input. It's tough to be the guy in charge, and I know from running some fantasy leagues that people will be unhappy no matter what you do. I trust you understand I'm just throwing out ideas, and whatever the game is, I'll play it and be grateful that you're putting it out there.

Scott Hardie | May 30, 2007
Maybe Aaron's suggestion is a way to do what I want and satisfy you both, Lori and Steve. That is, it wouldn't be the player who guessed first who advanced, but the player who guessed in less time. Say you two are competing against each other in a bracket that day. The goo is published at midnight, and all qualified players have the usual 24 hours to guess. Lori arrives at the site at 7:05am and "activates" the goo for herself, and guesses it at 7:32am. Hours go by until Steve arrives at the site after work, and "activates" the same goo for himself at 9:10pm, but he guesses it at 9:23pm. Steve's 13 minutes beat Lori's 27 minutes, so Steve advances. Is this satisfactory for a timed race?

The main problem that I foresee with this system is the ability for friends to help each other out if they desired – one friend claims their bracket in the morning, and emails the answer to several friends in other brackets so they can guess in under 1 minute when they "activate" the goo for themselves. I would have to have a separate goo for each bracket, which isn't unfair, just a lot more work for me. :-)

Jackie Mason | May 31, 2007
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Scott Hardie | June 1, 2007
Number of people who predicted the identity of the 1000th goo in advance: Zero. (Note that I didn't use the word "correctly" in that sentence.) Anyway, the day has come, and I'm excited as hell about the new round. I have lots of great goos coming up.

Lori Lancaster | June 1, 2007
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Scott Hardie | June 1, 2007
Please let me know if you subscribe to the GOO Announcements list and did not receive your email this morning. I think the email problems with my host have been worked out, but I'm not completely convinced yet.

Tony Peters | June 1, 2007
got it...haven't read it yet but I got it

Scott Horowitz | June 1, 2007
Hey, can we also bet on the brackets before the elimination phase? It can be more exciting than March Madness. Also, what do you do if there are an odd # of players in the final round?

Scott Hardie | June 2, 2007
Hey, good idea. Maybe a special prize for the person whose advance predictions wind up most accurate in the end?

I figured that the odd player out at the bottom of the list would get a "bye" – they would still have to guess the goo in order to advance, but they would be alone in their bracket, so they'd essentially have all 24 hours to do it. The alternative would be to put three people in a bracket, but whether I allowed one person or two people out of the three to advance, they would have different odds than everyone else (33% or 66% instead of 50%), and that just didn't seem fair. The player with the bye would still have to get goos and could not eventually win without facing another person in a bracket at least once.

Joy Dunn | June 2, 2007
First time posting "quick wave of hello"... I had to endure dial up internet for 8 months before finally getting to cable internet. So now can do more online - never had the patience before to wait for the pages to load, though have read discussion threads with interest.

That said, all these different suggestions are interesting and I'm still processing what the changes would mean. Personally the betting and predictions thing both sound complicated. Not crazy about the race aspect, unless it works in the way of you activate it and then the guess times are ranked. Tournament idea could work.

Whatever spin you put on it though I will continue playing along, it is a fun and addictive game. Though am in agreement with Kerry about the length of the game above, so am definitely in favor of the 50 goo accumulation phase vs. 100.

So anyway my 2 cents :)

Scott Hardie | June 3, 2007
Glad to have you here, Joy. During your silence, you were briefly subject to speculation of being related to Steve. :)

I'm glad you enjoy the game. Just as I feel drained at the end of a round, I feel very recharged now after the break, and I'm excited that the game is underway again – and it's hard waiting 24 hours to see another new goo publish. June 3rd's Television goo is a new favorite of mine, as is June 9th's Comedy goo for reasons that will become clear later on.

Good luck in the round. Thanks for the input on the rule changes up for discussion; I think you'll find all of the changes for the better.

Joy Dunn | June 3, 2007
Funny, reminds me of a college English Lit class where there were like 6 Dunn's in the room during roll call. Teacher finally had to ask if any of us were related.... nope.

Feels good to have goo back, can get back to starting the day with that morning cup of goo :)

Amy Austin | June 6, 2007
Scott, I did not get an e-mail for the start of the new round... (and for the record, I think I've also stated that I'm a fan of the grid system, and favor Russ's creative suggestions for evening the playing field on that format).

Scott Hardie | June 6, 2007
Damn this email problem. The new host I've found is great in every other way, but they just don't send some messages, and without failure notices so I could re-send. I've done everything I can to solve the problem using code, so I'm going to have to find some other solution for my announcement emails, be it sending from Outlook or using a distribution service. I kind of wish I didn't have an announcement list anyway, because I'm so wary of any risk of being flagged a spammer, but I know that game attendance tends to falter without one. Anyway, thanks for the input.