MMOScrabble
October 15, 2010 2:21 AM Subscribe
Scrabb.ly: Massively multiplayer online Scrabble.
who doesn't cheat at internet scrabble?
i don't
posted by jeremy b at 3:04 AM on October 15, 2010 [8 favorites]
i don't
posted by jeremy b at 3:04 AM on October 15, 2010 [8 favorites]
Who will be first to shut them down:
1) The owners of the scrabble trademark (who shut down scrabulous)
2) The owners of the .ly ccTLD (Libya) for allowing 'naughty' words in the game (who shut down vb.ly)
posted by delmoi at 3:04 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
1) The owners of the scrabble trademark (who shut down scrabulous)
2) The owners of the .ly ccTLD (Libya) for allowing 'naughty' words in the game (who shut down vb.ly)
posted by delmoi at 3:04 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
Has anyone expanded the minimap in the upper left corner? I played a few words before discovering that, and as soon as I saw just how massive the board was, and how many words had been played... wow. It actually fills me with an existential dread I haven't felt since I was a teenager. I mean, when you figure out that "noir" and "irate" are only the tiniest part of a little branch in a mediocre patch of a ginormous scrabble board the likes of which your scrabble playing aunt could never even fathom, suddenly spelling words out is the last thing on your mind.
posted by malapropist at 3:15 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by malapropist at 3:15 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
Whoa, the full map is incredible, like a surface covered in moss. See if you can spot the epicentre, as well. It reminds me of the little random walk toys I made as my first ever programs in QBasic.
I always suspected that the word layout in Scrabble has a slight bottom-left to top-right bias, because our games seem to turn out that way more often than not. I want it to be something to do with certain letters being more common at the start and end of words, but I imagine it's more likely we just happen to spot words that fit there more easily. I would be curious to see some statistics on the, uh... average word chain vector distribution?
posted by lucidium at 3:46 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I always suspected that the word layout in Scrabble has a slight bottom-left to top-right bias, because our games seem to turn out that way more often than not. I want it to be something to do with certain letters being more common at the start and end of words, but I imagine it's more likely we just happen to spot words that fit there more easily. I would be curious to see some statistics on the, uh... average word chain vector distribution?
posted by lucidium at 3:46 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Has anyone expanded the minimap in the upper left corner?
"Hmm, that doesn't seem that big. Oh you can drag it around. Still doesn't seem that large, let me expand this and... oh you can still drag it... oh..."
posted by delmoi at 3:49 AM on October 15, 2010
"Hmm, that doesn't seem that big. Oh you can drag it around. Still doesn't seem that large, let me expand this and... oh you can still drag it... oh..."
posted by delmoi at 3:49 AM on October 15, 2010
I wonder if it limits the number of blanks you can get. I got two pretty quickly, but I've been avoiding using them to see if I could get a third. No luck so far.
Fortunately, it does seem to save your status if you close the window. So I might actually get something done today.
posted by lucidium at 4:18 AM on October 15, 2010
Fortunately, it does seem to save your status if you close the window. So I might actually get something done today.
posted by lucidium at 4:18 AM on October 15, 2010
Fortunately, it does seem to save your status if you close the window.
It looks like you can only place tiles that adjoin your previous words. So others can block you into a wall of others' words, Tron-style. Makes for interesting strategy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:35 AM on October 15, 2010
It looks like you can only place tiles that adjoin your previous words. So others can block you into a wall of others' words, Tron-style. Makes for interesting strategy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:35 AM on October 15, 2010
A "Zoom to last play" button would be handy. I took a look at the big map, then closed the big map, and now I've lost my place.
posted by ardgedee at 4:45 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by ardgedee at 4:45 AM on October 15, 2010
ardgedee, I had that same problem. Turns out you can click on your last created words in the right side of the screen to zoom to them.
posted by sveskemus at 4:50 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by sveskemus at 4:50 AM on October 15, 2010
You're only allowed to use words that appear in the Qur’an.
posted by crunchland at 5:14 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by crunchland at 5:14 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
It's fun, but lag when you submit your word is too frustrating. Maybe the server is getting hammered at the moment or something, but it's too slow for me.
posted by afx237vi at 5:52 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by afx237vi at 5:52 AM on October 15, 2010
Very laggy now. I spent the wait time wondering what the fractal dimension of the set of placed tiles would be in the limit.
posted by escabeche at 6:14 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by escabeche at 6:14 AM on October 15, 2010
auuugh! i used all my tiles to make BAYESIAN and it says it's not a valid word. WTF?
posted by liza at 6:29 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by liza at 6:29 AM on October 15, 2010
ETA to shutdown: Monday Noon eastern time.
The minimap makes me feel very, very small. Wow.
posted by andreaazure at 6:37 AM on October 15, 2010
The minimap makes me feel very, very small. Wow.
posted by andreaazure at 6:37 AM on October 15, 2010
The huge board is neat to look at, but the actual gaming aspect isn't much fun. There seems to be two parts to the strategy of staying alive: 1) leave yourself some easily usable letters on every turn so you never have to swap (very easy to do) and 2) don't get surrounded by someone else's letters so you run out of space (pretty much impossible, since there could be hundreds of people encircling one of you).
This could actually be a fun game with a fixed number of players, all with evenly spaced starting points on a moderately (but not infinitely) large board. Scrabble meets Tron.
posted by scottreynen at 6:48 AM on October 15, 2010
This could actually be a fun game with a fixed number of players, all with evenly spaced starting points on a moderately (but not infinitely) large board. Scrabble meets Tron.
posted by scottreynen at 6:48 AM on October 15, 2010
You say Libya
I say Labia
Let's shut the whole thing down
posted by Kabanos at 8:50 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I say Labia
Let's shut the whole thing down
posted by Kabanos at 8:50 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
not only are RA and BAYESIAN not acceptable words but neither is ARAB. WTF?!?!
posted by liza at 8:58 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by liza at 8:58 AM on October 15, 2010
I always suspected that the word layout in Scrabble has a slight bottom-left to top-right bias, because our games seem to turn out that way more often than not. I want it to be something to do with certain letters being more common at the start and end of words, but I imagine it's more likely we just happen to spot words that fit there more easily. I would be curious to see some statistics on the, uh... average word chain vector distribution?
In tournament play, bottom-left to top-right vector of play becomes rarer as the ratings of the players increases. I don't have any stats to prove this, but I doubt that any competitive player would disagree with that statement. Partially this is because better players tend to open the board more to make it easier to bring their better word knowledge into play, and this usually involves perpendicular plays rather than parallel plays, the latter of which tend to stair-step down and to the right. If you look at games between lower-rated players, I would guess that 7 out of 10 times the top left quadrant of the board is the last one left open, but among the top-rated players, I would estimate (based purely on the random assortment of games I've personally seen or analyzed) this number drops to 3 out of 10.
While I've been writing this comment, I've been having the Quackle program play itself quickly just to see how those games end up. After 200 games, only 35 have had a relative deficiency in the top-left corner. It may be lower than I expected because more boards than I thought seem to expand relatively uniformly.
And for what it's worth, much of the copyright battle that often occurs with Scrabble is based on assigned point values, tile distribution, and above all else board layout. There are also issues where the international copyright is separate from the U.S. ownership, so the aggressiveness of prosecuting copyright infringement tends to be lessened if you're outside of the U.S.
posted by zeugitai_guy at 9:19 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
In tournament play, bottom-left to top-right vector of play becomes rarer as the ratings of the players increases. I don't have any stats to prove this, but I doubt that any competitive player would disagree with that statement. Partially this is because better players tend to open the board more to make it easier to bring their better word knowledge into play, and this usually involves perpendicular plays rather than parallel plays, the latter of which tend to stair-step down and to the right. If you look at games between lower-rated players, I would guess that 7 out of 10 times the top left quadrant of the board is the last one left open, but among the top-rated players, I would estimate (based purely on the random assortment of games I've personally seen or analyzed) this number drops to 3 out of 10.
While I've been writing this comment, I've been having the Quackle program play itself quickly just to see how those games end up. After 200 games, only 35 have had a relative deficiency in the top-left corner. It may be lower than I expected because more boards than I thought seem to expand relatively uniformly.
And for what it's worth, much of the copyright battle that often occurs with Scrabble is based on assigned point values, tile distribution, and above all else board layout. There are also issues where the international copyright is separate from the U.S. ownership, so the aggressiveness of prosecuting copyright infringement tends to be lessened if you're outside of the U.S.
posted by zeugitai_guy at 9:19 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
Lag in general is a problem. I played a bit late last night and am playing right now, and it's just as bad now as it was earlier. At one point I refreshed the page when a word didn't seem to register, and it was still in place but seemingly attributed to another player when the board reloaded. I refreshed again, and the word was now mine and properly scored. Very frustrating.
posted by me3dia at 10:00 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by me3dia at 10:00 AM on October 15, 2010
You appear to have played a tile that wasn't in your rack. Please refresh the page and try again.
What? I played a D that was in my rack. This is buggy.
posted by lalochezia at 10:26 AM on October 15, 2010
What? I played a D that was in my rack. This is buggy.
posted by lalochezia at 10:26 AM on October 15, 2010
Here is some info about how it was built: http://mozillalabs.com/gaming/2010/10/14/massive-fun-building-scrabb-ly/
posted by thefool at 11:26 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by thefool at 11:26 AM on October 15, 2010
not only are RA and BAYESIAN not acceptable words but neither is ARAB. WTF?!?!
All of these words are capitalized.
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 2:25 PM on October 15, 2010
All of these words are capitalized.
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 2:25 PM on October 15, 2010
I thought you guys and gals might enjoy this.
Cleaned it up as best I could short of taking another 2049032932 screenshots.
posted by cthuljew at 11:15 PM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
Cleaned it up as best I could short of taking another 2049032932 screenshots.
posted by cthuljew at 11:15 PM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
That's really interesting zeugitai_guy, we almost always end up with the top left still clear. It's nice to know I'm not just imagining things.
I thought you guys and gals might enjoy this.
Hey, that's awesome. It looks even cooler when you can zoom out and see the whole thing.
posted by lucidium at 9:21 AM on October 16, 2010
I thought you guys and gals might enjoy this.
Hey, that's awesome. It looks even cooler when you can zoom out and see the whole thing.
posted by lucidium at 9:21 AM on October 16, 2010
I thought about trying to draw the MetaFilter logo for a while, but it took so long to do just the M, and it's so easily broken by a new player coming along, that I gave up after finishing that.
posted by lucidium at 6:44 PM on October 16, 2010
posted by lucidium at 6:44 PM on October 16, 2010
Well, I got as far as "MET", but then someone started putting words where the A was going to go. So now I'm definitely actually giving up.
posted by lucidium at 8:14 AM on October 17, 2010
posted by lucidium at 8:14 AM on October 17, 2010
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(oh come on, who doesn't cheat at internet scrabble?)
posted by yeoz at 2:35 AM on October 15, 2010