The beautiful game

[dannyb]

Lets just say, like a rose in June, the boards sometimes just unfold in front of you and it is beautiful.

[leabhar]

Guess your boards differ from mine then…. I have to click 10 to 15 times before I can find a playable board. The only boards I see are the ones that have been played multiple times and/or have 9 to 20 letter words found. It’s the reason .i did not renew my paid subscription. I really don’t care much about the game anymore.

[DonGuy47]

I love all my boards equally.

[John13verse34]

I try to find different kinds of fun in different kinds of boards :-) If there aren't records available to shoot for, then I try to find words that no one else has found. Or all the Z or J or Q or X words, if those letters are present :-)

[lalatan]

Since the dictionary update last year my experience has been similar to leabhar's. It takes way longer to find a game where I may be able to set a long word record. Recently I adpoted a personal policy of quitting gameplay for the day if I have to click through 50+ games. I have occasionally counted the number of games I've had to click through to find one and hit 80+ a few times and over 100 once. While the upgrade seems to be a boon for speed players it seems to be the inverse for long word players. Exacerbating the problem is speed players increasingly playing long words because of their higher point values, which of course is their right to do so. I'm going to e-mail Stephen to relate my experience since the upgrade and see if anything can be done to change the situation. (However, the game actually is designed for speed players. I don't expect him to cater to my personal whims.) So if it doesn't change I will mostly bow out of gameplay and move onto other pursuits. I've had a good run so can't complain.

[Naboka]

Since the dictionary update last year my experience has been similar to leabhar's. It takes way longer to find a game where I may be able to set a long word record. Recently I adpoted a personal policy of quitting gameplay for the day if I have to click through 50+ games. I have occasionally counted the number of games I've had to click through to find one and hit 80+ a few times and over 100 once. While the upgrade seems to be a boon for speed players it seems to be the inverse for long word players. Exacerbating the problem is speed players increasingly playing long words because of their higher point values, which of course is their right to do so. I'm going to e-mail Stephen to relate my experience since the upgrade and see if anything can be done to change the situation. (However, the game actually is designed for speed players. I don't expect him to cater to my personal whims.) So if it doesn't change I will mostly bow out of gameplay and move onto other pursuits. I've had a good run so can't complain.

It looks like the problem is anchored in opportunities.

For speed players, every board has it's own gradient opportunities. You can play it again and again, raising your score until the magic 701/1001 sends the board back into recycling. You always have the opportunity to beat whatever high score or word count has been attained.

But, for longword players, once the long word is found, the board sits useless until it reaches 41 plays or 701/1001. No further opportunity.

And because that word is often discovered within 6 plays, some boards can sit for months and months and months without affording a new opportunity. It's effectively cancelled/nullified for long word players.

I wonder if the solution may be as simple as producing duplicates or triplicates of the same board. This would double or triple the number of opportunities for play without (I would guess) creating the problem of creating entirely new ones. Each copy would have it's distinct records.

Apparently, each board is numbered. So...

Some of the players are probably pushing several games a day into the recycle bin. Forgot how many Steven said were recycled each day, but it was more than I expected.

But, by pushing duplicates into the system--say a few hundred a day--you wouldn't have that sudden glut of new games. And more opportunities would be available with a more even distribution.

The question might be which boards are worth duplicating. Does anyone really want triplicates of a board with the longest word 7 letters worth 12 points? Probably not. Or games with no strategic value to various types of competitive players?

It would probably make sense to only copy and numerate the boards with opportunity value to strategic players.

And the average player would be completely unaffected.

The problem with adding too many useless duplicate boards is increasing the click-time required to find a playable game.

Just a thought.

(fer example: just played a game with the longest word being longshoreman. Didn't want to play it because I knew it wasn't worth much, but recognized it as longer than anything previously played, so... That would be a game completely worthless to highest APPW players and not worth duplicating.)

[lalatan]

Yes, naboka, all very true. I'd like to spend most of time playing boards and not clicking through them. Before the last upgrade I'd usually find an appropriate board within 10-20 tries. Occasionally got to 30, which was unusual.

[Naboka]

Yes, naboka, all very true. I'd like to spend most of time playing boards and not clicking through them. Before the last upgrade I'd usually find an appropriate board within 10-20 tries. Occasionally got to 30, which was unusual.

wonder what changed with the upgrade.

seems like more would be available.

don't think I've clicked through more than 10 boards lately looking for something. But, we're looking for different things, so...

[bwt1213]

wonder what changed with the upgrade.

seems like more would be available.

don't think I've clicked through more than 10 boards lately looking for something. But, we're looking for different things, so...

When I was being really picky and trying to set my own all-time highest average score per game for a month, I would reject all boards on which I didn't think I had a reasonable chance of scoring at least 700 (this is 5x5). I won't go into all my criteria, but suffice it to say that I DID count how many boards I would have to reject before I found one I wanted to play. That number was almost always more than 50, and sometimes went over 300. I would guess a good average might have been about 125 or so, which took me about two minutes.

This month I'm not being nearly as picky and I set an all-time record for most points on a single word.

[rosedraws]

I'm someone who loves the long-word search, and I click through a lot of games to get to them, but it hasn't been onerous for me... since I'm a mediocre player. :-) Perhaps a simple solution is to separate the long-word games into their own category, like 4x4 is separate from 5x5. That way more unique long-word boards can be produced and not get buried amidst the new hundreds-of-words boards. Also, I love to compete in other ways with long-word players... because I like to also go for points or number of words, along with longest... but I don't stand a chance against the speed demons who are not looking for long words!

[bwt1213]

I just want to be clear that the all-time record was a PERSONAL all-time record. It is only 47 points.

[folkslinger]

Lets just say, like a rose in June, the boards sometimes just unfold in front of you and it is beautiful.

Thank You for the name of this thread.

[folkslinger]

Since the dictionary update last year my experience has been similar to leabhar's. It takes way longer to find a game where I may be able to set a long word record. Recently I adpoted a personal policy of quitting gameplay for the day if I have to click through 50+ games. I have occasionally counted the number of games I've had to click through to find one and hit 80+ a few times and over 100 once. While the upgrade seems to be a boon for speed players it seems to be the inverse for long word players. Exacerbating the problem is speed players increasingly playing long words because of their higher point values, which of course is their right to do so. I'm going to e-mail Stephen to relate my experience since the upgrade and see if anything can be done to change the situation. (However, the game actually is designed for speed players. I don't expect him to cater to my personal whims.) So if it doesn't change I will mostly bow out of gameplay and move onto other pursuits. I've had a good run so can't complain.

The thought of you not playing this game really makes me sad. Please consider hanging around until the game changes complexion again? Maybe it will change in a way that will give you an opportunity to to amass an even more staggering total of records that will have your many fans in even greater awe of your skill. This game would be less beautiful without your inspiration.

I have said before that I love the really big words. They make me smile. They make me laugh. It's what really floats my boat. But.....

While I don't often take words that do not maintain or advance my APPW I do play a fair number of games where I find a word that would be a record If I submitted the game.

I tell you this because while I set 12 records (and submitted the games because those words were big enough keep my average up) this month (which is a goodly number for me) I dumped a lot of games where I would have set a record and each time I found a record setting word I smiled and laughed thinking that it wouldn't be long before Lalatan would play that game, find that word (or a better one) and add to your string.

Stephen should start a hall of fame category just for you.

Either way you decide please know it is an honor and a pleasure to play this game with you. Thank you.

[leabhar]

I'm someone who loves the long-word search, and I click through a lot of games to get to them, but it hasn't been onerous for me... since I'm a mediocre player. :-) Perhaps a simple solution is to separate the long-word games into their own category, like 4x4 is separate from 5x5. That way more unique long-word boards can be produced and not get buried amidst the new hundreds-of-words boards. Also, I love to compete in other ways with long-word players... because I like to also go for points or number of words, along with longest... but I don't stand a chance against the speed demons who are not looking for long words!

Exactly my problem as .i am not a native English speaker and don’t know (and don’t want to remember) 20 letter words. I like your idea of separating the baords.

[lalatan]

The thought of you not playing this game really makes me sad. Please consider hanging around until the game changes complexion again? Maybe it will change in a way that will give you an opportunity to to amass an even more staggering total of records that will have your many fans in even greater awe of your skill. This game would be less beautiful without your inspiration.

I have said before that I love the really big words. They make me smile. They make me laugh. It's what really floats my boat. But.....

While I don't often take words that do not maintain or advance my APPW I do play a fair number of games where I find a word that would be a record If I submitted the game.

I tell you this because while I set 12 records (and submitted the games because those words were big enough keep my average up) this month (which is a goodly number for me) I dumped a lot of games where I would have set a record and each time I found a record setting word I smiled and laughed thinking that it wouldn't be long before Lalatan would play that game, find that word (or a better one) and add to your string.

Stephen should start a hall of fame category just for you.

Either way you decide please know it is an honor and a pleasure to play this game with you. Thank you.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write such a heartfelt and moving tribute.

In my first post in this thread I did say I would mostly bow out of gameplay if there were no changes. (Having played almost every day for 9 years I realize it could very well be a hard habit to break.) My moving onto other pursuits actually began about 4 months ago. I used to collect about 30-40 records/day but now it's an average of 10-15/day. There are times that I'm routed roughly the same amount of promising games as in the past but it doesn't last. Your words have made me reconsider my stance. I still enjoy the game, the people on the forum and learning new words. So for now I think I'll continue as I have been, i.e. quitting for the day if I have to click through 30-50 games to find 1 to play. Last month I toted up my APPW trophies spread across my 4 usernames and I was surprised to find I was at 93 total: 65 gold, 15 silver and 13 bronze. I'd like to get that up to a 100 so there's a project. Thanks again for your words; you are what I call an HQHB (high quality human being.) And not just because of this post either.

p.s. How was your birthday flight on the B-25? (I think that's the aircraft you mentioned.)