To be perfectly honest, I have used search engines on here such as ask.com which happens to be my favrote. I have used it for searching information for the Buzzy Bee and some of the badgelets such as the one that asked for a specific quiz date. I did use the answer sheets that came up because I was allowed to use them. Those have been the only instances that I can recall which leads to my next point.

Memorization is a good thing and should be rewarded. The one game that I have had repeated success on is Who's the Expert. At the present time, I am in the high 50's as far as categories won. I know that number pales in comparison to many above me. I refuse to use any search engine on this game for the simple reason that I am there to prove that I am the expert in that particular subject. I have gotten lucky on some of my category wins on subjects dealing with Canadian History and Canadian Music. I would like to see this game as a search engine free game because after all the name of the game is Who's the Expert not Who's the Googler.

A few years back I was involved in a road safety campaign in my neighbourhood to get speed reduction humps installed on local roads to make illegal joyriding at breakneck speed more difficult.

After a long campaign the authorities agreed, but the ramps they proposed were pretty gentle 'bumps' that wouldn't actually slow down joyriders. All they did was slow down legal drivers concerned not to damage the suspension on their cars. When we protested to the authorities we were told that road safety measures weren't meant to be targeted at deliberate lawbreakers (joyriders) but at improving the safe driving of the majority of law-abiding drivers.

Where's this anecdote going? Well, so much of this thread seems to be about tackling 'speedy googlers' on the basis they're 'breaking the law' of good gaming. Actually, like joyriders, this is a very small minority of players overall - and like some others have said I really don't think most people are that bothered by whether they google or not (of course SOME are). Reading this thread I can see however that a lot of people ARE concerned about the structure of games being significantly changed to deal with this minority - at the possible expense to the enjoyment of a larger majority.

I'd agree therefore with the idea of making questions harder for upper divisions of KO - not primarily to deal with the 'speed demon' minority, but because it seems a sensible thing to do for the overall enjoyment of the game by more experienced players. And I wouldn't (personally!) impose harsher time penalties as I don't imagine most people google during KO (I wouldn't have time ) and it seems like a big change to make to deal with this very small group of people.

[quote=kyleisalive Sometimes it's just plain, ol', crippling indecisiveness. :p[/quote]

LOL, yes. Many is the time I have clicked on all four answers.

The people who regard themselves as slow players have to take into consideration that KO is a timed game. Whether it's arthritis, or a slow internet connection, or whatever, you have to realize that you will be at a disadvantage for any timed game. That's just the way it is. There are plenty of other things on this website to have fun with. I doubt I'll ever get any of the Monthly badges for hourly games - this shouldn't be changed so that I have a bigger chance of getting them! If you're slow, you expect that you can't waltz in and win every timed game. People are complaining about Knockout and then complaining at the solutions proposed - Terry can't please everyone. I think the proposed solutions are a good idea (though I don't mind the game as it is).

dsimpy? I think I like you lately (not that you/anyone should care what I think LOL)

dsimpy's example is interesting - it shows what happens when (big) government (or the webmaster) tries to essentially legislate behavior. Often, most of the pain is borne by those whom it was trying to help.

reeshy: how true. If I was paralysed, I wouldn't expect funtrivia to provide me with a trained monkey/caregiver to play the game for me so that I could win EVERY time.

Not sure what the gripe is about KO, other than perhaps the difficulty of the questions at the high end. I've gotten 20/20 on several occasions and have still lost because folks were faster than me. And that's fine, they're probably smarter than me as well. But do I want to see time penalties in ADDITION to higher difficulty re: the questions. Nope. Can we try one measure at a time?

Actually, I have seen very few complaints about KO as it stands, in fact I believe at least one poster called it "complaint free". I think that is why there were many more complaints about proposed changes.

Actually, his example shows what happens when dealing with speed bumps in his personal experience. Maybe there are some lessons to be learned from it, but it's a logical fallacy to jump from an anecdote about traffic enforcement to grandiose sweeping generalizations about "big government" or "webmasters trying to legislate behavior".

Perhaps you want me to go back to giving everyone identical questions in every game, and letting everyone have 10 accounts each. That way if people wanted to behave by playing a game, writing down the answers, and playing again, we could all get 100%. After all, what I'm doing is legislating against that behavior. Big evil webmaster hurting the poor masses!

Heaven forbid we have rules and enforce them!

I completely agree with Reeshy. I appreciate that he mentioned it shouldn't be changed to make it easier for HIM personally to get the monthlies. LIke he said, those with slower times go in EXPECTING they will not beat speed demons.

Either way, someone will not be pleased. Right now, slower players do not like things the way they are now. BUT, even if speed demons win more often, slow players still get their fair shot at many badges. They still win hourlies, especially in the more difficult categories, and I think it's all pretty even the way it is now (apart from the KO difficulty in higher levels, that is a good idea). But, if we implement ways to make it "fairer" for slower players, suddenly the speed demons get upset. You cannot please anybody, as Reeshy said.

In my opinion, change the difficulty in KO, and keep everything else as it is. If the slower players want to complain, let them complain. People usually stop complaining when they win the badge, and beating speed demons make them feel like they accomplished more. If they beat them because the speed demons are "penalized", it's not as thrilling of a win.

You'll notice throughout many years of threads that people no longer complain when they have won the badges. Most complaints are "petty" issues, and they're all about "me, myself, and I". Someone will say "but I can't win it, I have no chance". But when they win it, they stop complaining about it.

There are almost 200 badges on the site. Surely if people have a problem with ONE badge, they can go for any of the other 200?

Thanks, Salami and Jakeroo. I just don't understand - if you're slow, by all means have a go at hourly games and stuff, but don't expect to be able to win if speed is not your forte. Try other things. As Salami says there are plenty of badges to win, and in that, plenty of badges that some speed demons don't have a hope to achieve. Everyone has different weaknesses and strengths in different areas of the site.

When I said people complaining about the KO, obviously there are some people who are not happy that the KO is too easy for these speedy players, who just come in, see one word, click the answer, submit, and YAY, perfect score. But people are complaining yet when measures are put into place that would only impact the very very slowest of players (who shouldn't necessarily expect to do amazingly in timed games anyway).

It's not all about badges or winning anyway. I'll be lucky if I can get a 10 in Obscurity once every 6 months - this doesn't stop me from enjoying the game. As I've said, there are badges I don't see myself ever getting - and tough luck to me! :P

I hope whatever Terry chooses helps the KO become a better game for all.

Richard

I think you misunderstood my meaning - of course there should be rules, but trying to equalize everything or prevent ALL bad behavior is not without risks to the playability of the games. What might seem an "obvious" solution to some, may have unintended and severe consequences. I think you (Terry) have been more than accommodating and diligent in your "tweaks".

Absolutely -- there is a very careful balance. It's also a balance that shifts and changes based on a player's time and experience on the site.

You are very right, Reeshy. For instance, I have no shot in heck to win the easy game monthly, though I do consider myself a "speed demon" in that game. In that game, accuracy is better than speed. I tend to get a lot of 8 and 9s in under 20 seconds, but there is no way that is going to win my the monthly. Slower players can win this game by playing a lot of games for getting a high total points, and 10 in a minute still gives an average of 940! It's definitely not a site dominated by speed demons. In some instances, yes, it is. In others, no, the slower players dominate.

I think the site is perfect, and whatever Terry decides to do will be a good decision, and we should all be happy with whatever he does. I cannot stress this enough...

This is FUNtrivia. As reeshy said, he said he rarely gets 10 in obscurity, but it doesn't stop him from ENJOYING the game. If you have a problem with certain people winning hourlies, don't play them, or feel ultra-super proud when you beat them. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Terry's not perfect. He is doing is best to make everyone happy, but whatever he does, someone else complains. He has added many challenges designed for slower players to win, because they have talked about speed winning all the time in the past. We have the monster game, the "my daily quiz" game, we have the quick quiz, the international games, the quiz of the hour, and the non-timed mindmelt. He has done his best to please as many as he can, but alas, some people do not appreciate all his hard work.

I think Terry is doing great, and we (including myself at times) need to realize he is only human, and so are all of us on the site. We can't bother Terry with every little problem we have, otherwise this site would no longer be fun for the majority who don't have a problem with things as they are now.

Actually I don't mind if the difficulty is increased a bit in the upper levels of KO, maybe to the level of the Mixed Game? Sure, increasing the difficulty will encourage some people to google, but at least some of the speed only merchants would have to pause for thought a little. There doesn't seem much point in extra penalties in KO anyway, at least not in the higher levels which would be the ones affected, as the chances are still good that someone who takes a longish time will get beaten.

I just think it's ironic that this whole debate has been sparked by someone complaining that he is being cheated out of wins at WTS or Expert by people who are googling. It's not the first time that pot has been stirred and once again what happens is that unsupported allegations make people jump through hoops to rectify a problem that might not actually exist while the rest of us get aerated. And as is shown by the people who openly google AND get very fast times, the penalties are never going to catch them.

I think the time penalties in most of the games are about right and this site enforces its rules very well. It's just a question of tweaking this KO rule so that it can be enforced without alienating too large a proportion of the audience.

They didn't change the format and rules of golf or tennis when Tiger Woods and Roger Federer came along. Everyone else had to dig a little deeper to compete. These other players will have their day in the sun, or maybe they won't. Such is life. Likewise, top FT players will come and go. Good players who have been around for awhile and/or have better abilities should NOT be knocked down or have their hands tied because others can't keep up. They worked their way to the top over a period of time.
It took me three tries to finally get some monthly badges. I'm still trying for the Who Am I. Once I got up to 170 points in KO, the competition became tougher. I knew that would happen. So it's been slow going for quite a while, but I get my points every so often. These are GAMES. Not everyone can win. Some win more than others. Again, that's life.

I've always thought that the words FUN and GAMES belonged together.

Ssabreman, you're right. I'm at 125 KOs, and I knew going in it would be tougher. I haven't won any weeks for a long time, but I don't particularly care. I know it will be a long haul for me to reach 200, but those players who finally reach the divisions where it is tougher to win already have all the badges except the 200 points badge anyway, so it really doesn't even make SENSE to complain. The 50,000 points badges are LONG HAUL badges, so is the 200 points badges. It really doesn't need to be changed so a complaining player gets what they want.

Very drole, Terry. :smilee I didn't mention big government or big bad webmasters of course, but it was - as you know - meant to be illustrative of this topic and not in the slightest, at the moment, about speed bumps. The illustration was simply to make the point that, IMO, games should be tweaked to improve them for the playing experience of the majority, rather than focusing too much on the disputed googling of a small minority of speed demons.

You are of course the webmaster (big, bad or otherwise :)), and you do legislate, and I'll happily play the games quite frankly whatever changes are made to them.

With KO, why not make it tougher then use the GC penalties? Make it if you go over a certain allotted time (maybe two minutes or so - 2m30s at max), then every second over that threshold get penalized at a stiffer time penalty. Maybe hae three different thresholds on how many KOs a player has. If a player has over 250 (or whatever Terry decides), then they move to a tougher question group. Once a player hits double the first, then make it even tougher. I don't know how much that would take to write, and I don't want to make Terry do an exorbitant amount of work, but would that be feasible?

Liz, how much time do you take on KO? At 20 questions, 2½ minutes would be 7½ seconds per question.

Terry, thoughts?

Why not just leave KO as it is and all stop whining when you can't go fast enough to beat that week's opponent? It's taken me however long it's been since KO started to get within sight of the 200 badge, and I will get there eventually by plodding away - some weeks I win (maybe 1 in 4 or 5), some weeks (about 2/4) I go out on the first day, but I don't immediately assume that the person who beat me has googled/memorised every.single.question on the site/has a trained keyboard marmoset/has a voodoo Rowena dolly with a pin in it's typing hand/has a team of highly trained hackers to fix things/is an alien who can influence my answer choices with the power of their enormous brain. I just move on and wait for the next week.
I am certain I've said this before, and no doubt will again, and my opinion is worth just what you pay me for it but Terry could give everyone all the badges the day they register, and nobody would have anything to complain about... OR we can all go and do whatever it is that needs doing to WIN the badges, and accept that some of them take more time/effort/input/dedication than others. Some of them just need a bit of dumb luck.

Hear, hear, Rowena! I have been playing for a long time, too, and hope to get the 200 badge some time in the New Year. I would hate all my efforts so far to be 'diluted' because of the impatience of a few people.

I haven't contributed to this either, but I'm happy to agree with Rowena and oz. I've been stuck on 197 KO points for weeks because I'm now in the higher divisions. That's a product of past success, and now I don't win very often - last week I got 20/20 & still got knocked out in round one by a better player. It's not a problem to me - there's always another week. When I do eventually get the badge it will seem even sweeter.

I have been lurking round the forums for a while now enjoying the banter and camaraderie but never quite having the courage to inflict my opinions on the rest of the site. However, reading this thread has made me take a deep breath, grab courage in both hands and share a story with you for my first posting. Apologies in advance if I am not quite au-fait with the etiquette.

This week, I am one of those lucky/unlucky souls whose tournament has been chosen for the Fantasy K/O. In my little form guide, it says that the last time I won a K/O was against Traveler56. What it doesn't tell you is that we both ended up with the same score in the final and I won on tie-break, this despite Traveler not getting a single question wrong all week and me being, shall we say, less consistent. On Saturday morning I logged on to find not only had I won but to a lovely little note from Traveler congratulating me and wishing me luck for the next week. This note meant far more to me than the little gold cup and the points ever could. Surely this is the spirit in which FT should be played and which keeps us coming back day after day. I know who I felt was a true champion that Saturday morning. Please don't let us spoil what, after all, is supossed to be FUN, with bickering.

Good luck to everyone playing this week and I hope that you all enjoy your games.

That's not actually my beef. Oddly enough, I care little about badges and count any that I receive as a bonus for being around a long time. My beef is with it being assumed that because I'm slow I must be googling, and every time it comes up I sit back for awhile and then get annoyed again. It's a moot point for me this week in any case - I was both slow and dismal...

Aha! So you're not completely ruling these possibilities out then?

I have no problems with time penalties but PLEASE don't commence them after you go over 2 seconds a question.

I personally cant make 2 seconds a question if I just press start and randomly pick answers as fast as I can without reading questions - believe me I've tried to see what I need to do to get down to to make these times that win. Now I know I can't do it I just play the best I can to get the best score I can.

My absolute best time which I can only do on a subject that I know backwards and have immediate 'question recognition' on is 3 secs a question.

I have a reasonable PC, a good internet connection and no physical limitations - that is just my limit so I imagine a lot of others are much worse of.

Knowing that time penalties will click in after 2 seconds just makes it seem more impossible - it may only be a perception but perceptions are quite poweful!

I long ago realised that my team would be in bad shape if they had to use my score in the Easiest game - a time under 3 seconds per question is a triumph for me, 2.5 seconds per question if I get a set that I don't have to read past the first word. In games that require me to actually read the question and possibly also choose an answer rather than knowing what it is and finding it, 4 seconds a question is my personal target, and I give myself a pat on the back. I already find the time penalties pretty vicious, and any increase would make the chore of trying to play the games for the possible team points even less attractive.

Amid all the debate over the legitimacy of googling, I feel frustrated that there seems to be an assumption that anyone who takes any kind of time must be researching as they go. Some of us just aren't that fast!

Nothing at all would surprise me anymore regarding people I "meet" on the internet dsimpy I'd be obliged if said alien could let me know the lottery numbers for this week though