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#804610 - Tue Jun 26 2012 12:19 PM Crystal Ball Badges
salami_swami Offline
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There are currently 33 people with 100 wins on crystal ball, and a few who are close.

We have a badge for one win, and 25.

I believe 100 wins deserves a badge as well? smile It would definitely be one of the more difficult to win, but who said they all had to be easy? wink
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#804611 - Tue Jun 26 2012 12:20 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: salami_swami]
Terry Offline

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There will be no new badges for crystal ball. It was always intended to be a tiny side attraction, as it really has very little to do with trivia.

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#804613 - Tue Jun 26 2012 12:28 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: Terry]
salami_swami Offline
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Fair enough. Now that you word it that way, I recall you saying something such as that before.

And golly, thanks for such a speedy reply!
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#804615 - Tue Jun 26 2012 12:30 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: salami_swami]
AdamM7 Offline
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Not that my opinion matters much, but I agree. There are already enough badges for being lucky (although I do understand that there can be some skill in crystal ball) - 1 win, 25 wins, all the Fantasy KO ones and Lucky Ducky (and Perfect Score, although it is not completely based on luck).


Edit reason: Grammar error


Edited by AdamM7 (Tue Jun 26 2012 12:31 PM)
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#804977 - Thu Jun 28 2012 04:25 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
CheeryDog Offline
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Can wins for it be counted towards the Triple Win badgelet since Crystal Ball is also an hourly game. Or does that count as another badge for it and therefore not possible.

(actually I'm only asking because I would have just got the triple win badgelet for the 2nd time had crystal ball been included (both times it would have been ball, expert and cake))

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#805005 - Thu Jun 28 2012 07:36 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: CheeryDog]
satguru Offline
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Crystal ball isn't a trivia/memory/speed game but technically a game of chance so Terry explained it can't be compared with any of the others. Although using tactics a lot of chance is eliminated the winning answer is still down to luck in the end.
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#805022 - Thu Jun 28 2012 09:07 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: CheeryDog]
AdamM7 Offline
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Originally Posted By: CheeryDog
Can wins for it be counted towards the Triple Win badgelet since Crystal Ball is also an hourly game. Or does that count as another badge for it and therefore not possible.

(actually I'm only asking because I would have just got the triple win badgelet for the 2nd time had crystal ball been included (both times it would have been ball, expert and cake))


I agree with satguru - in the end, it comes down to chance. Besides, the Triple Win badgelet is hard to earn - we don't want it to be easier or getting it is less of an achievement.

(Then again, I have the mini-badge, so I might be slightly biased.)
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#805188 - Fri Jun 29 2012 01:01 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: Terry]
ITSOUNO11 Offline
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Originally Posted By: Terry
There will be no new badges for crystal ball. It was always intended to be a tiny side attraction, as it really has very little to do with trivia.


If this game was always intended to be a tiny side attraction, because it has very little (if anything) to do with trivia, why does it award 1,000 points per win?

The "Early Bird" and "Buzzy Bee" badges encourage quiz playing. Now if you play those games offered on "the buzz", even if you win there is no reward after getting the initial badge. (i.e. win the Buzzybee badge once and the thrill is you stop someone else from getting the badge if you win again, and early bird, you don't get the extra 500 points for winning after 10 wins) The thrill of earning extra points or more badges was taken away because people who participated frequently in the games 'won too much'. Yet a side attraction game with little to do with trivia gives the most points for a win on the entire site?

I'd still play crystal ball for no points or badges as a tiny side attraction, because it's fun. Shouldn't the site encourage quiz playing for the trivia site for playing quizes?

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#805189 - Fri Jun 29 2012 01:15 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: ITSOUNO11]
AdamM7 Offline
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Originally Posted By: ITSOUNO11
If this game was always intended to be a tiny side attraction, because it has very little (if anything) to do with trivia, why does it award 1,000 points per win?


It may award 1000 points per win, but it is not a guaranteed win. If you see the Early Bird, you can get it if you are good enough and fast enough. If you play Quiz of the Hour, you are guaranteed to get 100 bonus points if you get 50% correct. With Crystal Ball, even the best players cannot win it more than 3/4 times a day. Winning Crystal Ball is very rare for most people; I have earned 5000 points from it. In that time, I have got 50% in QoTH more than 400 times - 40,000 points, a lot more.
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#805192 - Fri Jun 29 2012 01:42 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
ITSOUNO11 Offline
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You are missing my point. Play and win the early bird you win 500 points. BUT you don't get 500 bonus points if you have won more than 10 times. Less people are playing because they won't get credit for a win? Quiz of the hour encourages quiz playing and gives the points for playing.

Crystal ball gives 1,000 points for a game that has absolutely nothing to do with trivia. That's all I'm saying. And if someone wins that game 3/4 times a day, they should go on LINGO.

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#805195 - Fri Jun 29 2012 02:00 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: ITSOUNO11]
ozzz2002 Offline
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I am not sure that there is a point. You have said that you enjoy the game, (I do, too!), so perhaps we should just play it without trying to psychoanalyse/compare/justify it. It is a bit of fun, and should be treated that way.
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#805227 - Fri Jun 29 2012 09:07 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: ozzz2002]
salami_swami Offline
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I hate the new version of Lingo, though. frown


Believe me, ITSOUNO, (is that like "it's oh, you know") it wasn't fun back when only a few players won the Buzzy Bee and only a few won the Early Bird..... Over and over again. It was rare for anyone else to win. I admit, I miss getting scored for every early bird win, because I did it a lot with the brain teaser quizzes. However, I think it's for the best that it does not award past ten wins.


But Crystal ball, however, has new players winning all the time. Yes, a few players do dominate the top of the leaderboards, and several players win several times a day. Look at WHEN they win, though.... Usually not until :57 or later (sometimes right at :55, if there are less word options). There is plenty of time for everyone to win, and I see a dozen different people win every day; and quite a few have won a badge for it.


No, I don't think 1,000 is too high; I think it is just right. Most people win rarely enough that it is not a huge issue for daily points or anything. If you won once a day, that's still less points than if you played most of the hourlies 8-10 times a day. You might not win Crystal Ball at all, but you're guaranteed points in the other games.

Besides, no one would play it Crystal Ball gave them nothing!
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#805231 - Fri Jun 29 2012 09:16 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: salami_swami]
AdamM7 Offline
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Originally Posted By: salami_swami
Besides, no one would play it Crystal Ball gave them nothing!


Not necessarily. I remember a conversation about when you no longer scored points after 10 wins of the Early Bird, and someone said they kept on playing anyway, without any bonus points, because they had always been playing for the trivia, not the points.

These are all virtual points and virtual badges. They might be nice to win, but this site is about having fun and learning trivia. If you have fun and learn something while getting points/badges, then that's good. But it's not everything - people can and do still have fun without winning something.


Maybe after a certain number of wins the points should stop, like with the Early Bird. People who play for the experience would keep on playing, but people who just wanted points would stop. If this is implemented, if the person with over X number of wins won again, the game would still end for the rest of the hour (otherwise there could be some cheating going on).
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#805241 - Fri Jun 29 2012 10:20 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
salami_swami Offline
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People still play for the Early Bird because it's just a quiz; they'd play it anyway, so might as well play within the first 20 minutes. I do it too. If I'm gonna play anyway...


Crystal Ball is just...... different. But I don't think a max number of wins should be included. I like the challenge of beating Rossian and Hurricainebill to a word. :P
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#805243 - Fri Jun 29 2012 10:38 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: salami_swami]
flopsymopsy Offline
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If you really liked Crystal Ball that much you'd play it without all those points. But you say you wouldn't play without any points so why not do the same as Early Bird and say you can only get the 1,000 points ten times and after that it should go down to, say, 100. That would sort out those who are playing because they enjoy it and those who are just creaming the points off. 1,000 points is an awful lot, that's half what you get for writing a quiz and seems very skewed to me.
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#805245 - Fri Jun 29 2012 10:50 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: flopsymopsy]
AdamM7 Offline
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Originally Posted By: flopsymopsy
1,000 points is an awful lot, that's half what you get for writing a quiz and seems very skewed to me.


Speaking of quiz points, maybe you should get more points for writing more questions, and less for less. It doesn't have to be too many more, but I think there should be some difference. Maybe:

5 questions - 750
10 questions - 2000
15 questions - 2500
20 questions - 3000
25 questions - 3500

That way you would still be encouraged to write 10 questions quizzes - 2 5q quizzes would only get you 1500 (500 less) and 2 10q quizzes would get you 4000 points (1000 more), but you would still get more of a reward for an A-Z quiz.
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#805246 - Fri Jun 29 2012 10:56 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
salami_swami Offline
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Loc: Colorado USA
5 question quizzes are not allowed anymore, so that issue is solved. :P



I think all the point systems for Early Bird, Crystal Ball, and Quiz Writing are fine as they are. I will leave my statement at that.
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#805247 - Fri Jun 29 2012 11:00 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
rossian Offline
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Registered: Sat Jun 10 2006
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Flopsy, the main difference that I see is that writing a quiz which goes on line gets you a guaranteed 2000 points, whereas playing Crystal Ball has no guarantees at all. You could play all day and get nothing, so I don't think the reward is skewed that much. I know it's been said before, but there are far easier ways of earning 1000 points than playing CB. The last 10 games have been won by 10 different players - it may seem that some people dominate but that's more to do with how often they play.

And Salami, keep trying!

Edit to add - we all used to write quizzes for no reward. The points are a relatively new addition.


Edited by rossian (Fri Jun 29 2012 11:01 AM)

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#805248 - Fri Jun 29 2012 11:03 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: salami_swami]
AdamM7 Offline
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Originally Posted By: salami_swami
5 question quizzes are not allowed anymore, so that issue is solved. :P


Really? I guess I still see so many in QoTH that I just assumed they were.

I still think the quiz writing point system could be made better. It might not be too high a priority, but I think that it would do justice to the people who write 25 question quizzes and don't get enough out of it.

A 25 question quiz gets you 2000 points. You can get double the points (4000) from the same amount of questions split into a 10 and a 15 question quiz. You can even get 2500 points from taking those questions and submitting them individually to Question Quest (although some could get rejected for being too hard).
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#805251 - Fri Jun 29 2012 11:20 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
spanishliz Offline
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Registered: Thu Dec 13 2001
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One reason that it is not a great idea to give more points for longer quizzes, is that we don't actively encourage the writing of 20 and 25 questions quizzes, especially in some categories. Movies, where I edit, is one of those categories.

The longer quizzes suit themselves to some topics better than others.

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#805256 - Fri Jun 29 2012 12:02 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: spanishliz]
salami_swami Offline
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Also, too, Adam, quiz authors don't generally write quizzes for the points... It's just a wonderful cherry atop the delicious ice cream. If we wrote quizzes for the points, we wouldn't be thinking clearly.... With how long it takes to write one quiz for 2,000 points, we could have earned 10,000 playing other quizzes. wink
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#805257 - Fri Jun 29 2012 12:04 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: spanishliz]
AdamM7 Offline
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Originally Posted By: spanishliz
One reason that it is not a great idea to give more points for longer quizzes, is that we don't actively encourage the writing of 20 and 25 questions quizzes, especially in some categories.


This is why I suggested that less points (comparatively) are given - you are best off going with 10 question quizzes, but if you were going to write a 25 question quiz anyway then you get a bit more of a reward.

I can see from your replies that this isn't going to go down well, not that it was a very high priority idea anyway - maybe I should just drop it.
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#805306 - Fri Jun 29 2012 04:21 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
satguru Offline
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I've played crystal ball since they became blind guesses, and don't think I knew it awarded points for a win till I saw my brains count and worked back from there. They are very useful to get the brains badges as a couple of wins in a day and you can get 10 brains playing a couple of hours of quizzes on top. But the points are like a donation, they are not required for me to do it personally.
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#805310 - Fri Jun 29 2012 05:46 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: satguru]
postcards2go Offline
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I play because of friendly competion for cummulative wins between me and a few others. It's a fun, surprisingly addicting game, and I wouldn't change a thing smile
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#805311 - Fri Jun 29 2012 06:09 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: AdamM7]
shuehorn Offline
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Registered: Tue Jul 04 2006
Posts: 2923
Loc: Lawrenceville Georgia USA     
As a quiz author, the number of points I get for writing a quiz has nothing to do with how long I make it. I wouldn't care if I got any points at all, frankly. It is just one more way to participate on this site and get to know others who have that interest as well.
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#805343 - Fri Jun 29 2012 10:43 PM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: shuehorn]
salami_swami Offline
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After reading that, postcards, I discovered I'm only three wins behind. Beware of the salami. You have been warned. ;-)
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#807378 - Sun Jul 08 2012 12:15 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: salami_swami]
ITSOUNO11 Offline
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Registered: Wed Dec 28 2011
Posts: 13
Loc: Virgin Islands USA
Originally Posted By: salami_swami
I hate the new version of Lingo, though. frown


Believe me, ITSOUNO, (is that like "it's oh, you know") it wasn't fun back when only a few players won the Buzzy Bee and only a few won the Early Bird..... Over and over again. It was rare for anyone else to win. I admit, I miss getting scored for every early bird win, because I did it a lot with the brain teaser quizzes. However, I think it's for the best that it does not award past ten wins.


But Crystal ball, however, has new players winning all the time. Yes, a few players do dominate the top of the leaderboards, and several players win several times a day. Look at WHEN they win, though.... Usually not until :57 or later (sometimes right at :55, if there are less word options). There is plenty of time for everyone to win, and I see a dozen different people win every day; and quite a few have won a badge for it.


No, I don't think 1,000 is too high; I think it is just right. Most people win rarely enough that it is not a huge issue for daily points or anything. If you won once a day, that's still less points than if you played most of the hourlies 8-10 times a day. You might not win Crystal Ball at all, but you're guaranteed points in the other games.

Besides, no one would play it Crystal Ball gave them nothing!


SALAMI:

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#807379 - Sun Jul 08 2012 12:40 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: ITSOUNO11]
shuehorn Offline
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Registered: Tue Jul 04 2006
Posts: 2923
Loc: Lawrenceville Georgia USA     
ITSOUNO11:

Huh?

If you meant to write a message after citing the long quote, nothing additional came through.
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#807380 - Sun Jul 08 2012 01:07 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: shuehorn]
ITSOUNO11 Offline
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Registered: Wed Dec 28 2011
Posts: 13
Loc: Virgin Islands USA
Yeah, sorry.

Lost my post. Just wanted to say that Crystal Ball game is fun. I play it for no other reason than that. It's fun. It has nothing to do with trivia. Yet each win offers 1,000 points. They keep a tally of wins.

Buzzy Bee game and Early Bird, which are based on trivia, offer no incentive to play after a certain amount of wins. Those games should encourage quiz playing. Maybe a request for more badges and points should be considered for those games that deal with trivia.

Salami says that the points awarded for one win in the Crystal Ball game is easily attainable by playing 8 - 10 hours of hourly games. That if points weren't awarded for Crystal Ball, no one would play. If I get one Crystal Ball game win once a month, regardless of points, it still makes me cheer out loud.

As far as playing 8-10 hours of hourly games every day, I'm glad I don't have the time for that.





Edited by ITSOUNO11 (Sun Jul 08 2012 01:10 AM)

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#807696 - Mon Jul 09 2012 09:02 AM Re: Crystal Ball Badges [Re: ITSOUNO11]
kaddarsgirl Offline
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Registered: Wed Jun 27 2012
Posts: 1003
Loc: Ohio USA
I have twice guessed the correct word for the Crystal Ball. The first time I was a "runner up", and the second time, someone guessed the word as I was typing it and it said I was too late. Such a bummer. I am very very impressed by people who win it over and over again. I must have the strategy wrong or something. I guess more obscure words and the actual word is simple, or I guess simple words and the actual word is more obscure. It's so very frustrating. I've given it a break recently, maybe I should get back to trying it again, and hope for better luck.
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