It's definitely a bug however if you can't play the second you get the challenge. If this is true, Terry will have to look at it.

I would also like to have verification of the issue - if any of the former beta testers or any other volunteer gets the expert challenge without yet having an opponent in the next days, please play one round as quickly as possible so we can be sure this is the reason for the error.

I had that happen a few weeks ago. I had played before I was assigned an opponent so that score didn't show on the screen. Too bad, because after I got an opponent, that score would have beat any of his.

I'll put this one on Terry's agenda if he doesn't see it here anyway.

No, the challenge does not begin until you are assigned an opponent.

That way, both people have exactly the same opportunity to play the same sets.

Otherwise, player A might be able to play in "For Children: Fruit that start with the letter B" and player B never gets that chance.

Aha, answer revealed! thanks Terry.

Right, it seems it doesn't matter to the link whether there is an opponent or not. That's the problem. A player expects that a link provided by the challenge is going to lead to a valid play. In this case, it seems not to have been a valid play through a (valid?) challenge link.
Spelled out a little more, the link should only be presented when that opponent's been assigned. Sure, a player could still just go to WtE? and play but that is without the validity that the link implied, then it's a matter of caveat emptor.

That sounds like a very complicated setup for a challenge. It would be a lot easier just to add a blurb to the challenge text laying out this new information.

Either way's fine (an activated link upon opponent declaration or just a blurb) but it seems misleading now if the case is that a link can be made while a challenge play is invalid due to no opponent assigned, or an opponent in the same hour's play not being a valid opponent for player A because of early play. I don't see the trouble to add the link in the challenge update that says "Your opponent is... and can be played here."

I don't think you have to click through the WtE link on the Daily Challenge page to get the game to count. I don't believe I have had to do that. It has worked for me getting to WtE from the home page.

That's correct; I did it this way.

All it needs to say (if it doesn't already) is - 'games played before an opponent is assigned will not count'.

Added the timing rules for Experts' Duel to the game FAQ, it would however still be helpful to have an obvious, bold warning message in your challenge if you can't start yet - it's easy to lose track of this restriction even if you know about it and it could lead to the first player locking himself out of an hour he really would have liked to play by making a jump start.

Something along the lines of "This challenge is not yet active. It will activate once you have been assigned an opponent - please check back in a few minutes!" should do.

Don't know how easy this would be to code as a dynamic display, however.

Another angle that seems wrong on this WtE? now is that if no opponent is assigned (which would only happen to the last sign-in, right?, but still...) a player is warned off playing any WtE?s when plays done without opponent won't count and might miss the opportunity to win it as the only player that competed (it was said above that a player wins against no shows, but it was not clear if a game needed to be registered as played or not or that the challenge may be awarded without play.)

This is all so overcomplicated.

Quite, I agree with rossian. A one liner is sufficient, no more pother and bother needed.

Are you asking:

If no opponent is assigned to me, do I win the challenge automatically?

(Even if my hourly plays haven't been credited to me on the challenge page?)

(&Even if I haven't played?)


The answer appears to be YES!
From FAQ: "In the rare case that you never get paired up with anyone, you will receive credit for the challenge at midnight."

rossian, that is exactly correct. I played at 7:13 a.m. and my opponent indicated that he played after me at 7:16 a.m. Obviously, he was assigned to the game in that 3 minute difference.
"Don't play until an opponent is assigned"

While we are on the subject of the Expert daily challenge, could someone confirm for me that a level-perk mulligan counts as a another one of the 4 plays allowed in the Daily Challenge, and does not replace the first attempt (even though it replaces your score in the main Who's the Expert game.) Thank you.

It definitely counts as an additional score in the Challenge Duel (so be careful when you use it) even though in regular play it totally erases your original score.

If you have never been assigned an opponent, you can't have any valid plays. You still win, however.

Thank you Wesley and Kaddarsgirl.

This is my hard challenge today:

Ready to take a tour of our categories? Score at least 10 questions correct in any quiz in 14 different categories (Animals, Brain Teasers, Geography, etc). You may replay quizzes not taken in the past 30 days.

* The number of questions in the quiz does not matter. You just need to have 10 correct out of however many questions are in the quiz.

My easy challenge was to play a quizbot mix quiz in play mode and score over a particular number.

I was surprised to find that the quizbot quiz counted toward my hard challenge, but when I took another quizbot quiz in HTML mode it did not count. Since the quizbot quizzes are not noted in the text of the challenge, I find it a bit shizophrenic that the two modes are not treated the same way in this challenge.

My current status in this challenge reads:

Plays today:

* Hobbies : Philadelphia's Food (10/10)
* Brain Teasers : Harder Mix of Everything (10/10)
* Humanities : "Evita" quiz (16/20)
* History : Tricky History Mix (8/10)
* World : Right next to... (10/10)
* Television : Harder Television Mix (10/10)
* Music : Music Mix (10/10)
* Movies : Movies Mix (9/10)
* Entertainment : Entertainment Mix (10/10)

Hobbies Brain Teasers Humanities World Television Music Entertainment Incomplete

I took an Animals mixed quiz in HTML mode getting 10 correct after the Brain Teasers one but it did not count (nor does it show up in the "Plays today").

Whoa... that's a strange one since "Harder Mix of Everything" shouldn't count for Brain Teasers in the first place. It should, if anything, count for General.

(This is probably however due to the icon choice - the "everything" mix uses the Brain Teaser lightbulb as an icon instead of General's question mark.)

I bought a challenge, which turned out to be an Easy one, and was given instant credit. The challenge was to 'play two player created quizzes, getting at least 8 right on both.' I'd played only one player quiz, plus one quizbot one (which was my original Easy challenge), so shouldn't really have been given the credit.

Done

The light-bulb type is a special designation to mean "all categories" for the quizbot quizzes. A side effect is that it's considered a brain teaser quiz while it exists.

Wait a second. Last time I got this challenge, my WtE games counted before I got my opponent assigned. The Daily Challenges page listed me as the leader, even though there was no opponent.

I remember because it was late in the day, and I was wondering if I would ever get an opponent.

Not sure how that's possible gracious... the system is set up to display your expert scores only if you currently have an opponent set up. I don't see how that's possible.

If it does happen again, let me know (copy and paste the output even).

My Easy Challenge for today was - Score 8 questions correctly in a quiz of the hour today.

Usually, not a major problem, but I copped http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/People/Modern-Greek-Kings-102300.html , which was an old 5-question quiz. Was hard to get eight correct.

^lol. I have actually wondered if things like that would happen. Apparently it does.

-Nam