October 16, 2011

No weird features?

It's only after you visit a number of trivia rooms that you realize that some of them have some really weird features. No doubt whoever coded these features did so for a very good reason, but for the average triv player who just wants to play a game with the least amount of hassle it can be annoying to discover :-


1. questions are presented in 'rounds' with a lengthy break in between - e.g. #trivia at OperaNet. We all know that trivia can be addictive and a built-in break is a health and safety measure, but most of us prefer to take our breaks when we need them, not when we are ordered to!

2. double questions! This is a brilliant innovation for players who prefer to play alone and dislike waiting for a question they can't answer to resolve before another question appears, but when you are playing in a group setting like most of us prefer to do then the double question feature just becomes horribly confusing - e.g. #triviaclub at IrCQ-Net and #triviacity at Undernet.

3. the correct answer is not given if you get it wrong or don't know it - e.g. #gabriel at FDFnet.net and #knowitall at Europ.net. Maybe the reason was to get you curious enough to go find out on your own, but more likely it was to make it difficult for question-stealers to operate.

4. the player ahead of you is NOT mentioned when you score - e.g. #trivia at Efnet. The TrivBot obviously knows who is ahead of you when it says you need "9,344 points to get to the next rank" so why not put us out of our misery and tell us who it is?

5. the Bot is not coded to STOP spewing out hints when a correct answer is given - e.g. #trivia at OperaNet. This dreadful feature makes the game exceedingly slow and, for new players, it leads you to believe your first answer was wrong, so you try again and then you discover that ....

6. only one answer is allowed per player - e.g. #trivia at OperaNet! This feature is obviously to discourage spammers, but it gives genuine players NO opportunity to correct a typo or have a better guess at the right answer. Your first answer is the only answer the Bot will accept.

7. you need to perform a prompt for hints (and there's no instruction in the welcome message) - e.g. #gabriel at FDFnet. This is a brilliant feature for regular players who probably know the answer-file backwards and don't need hints, but it is not conducive to encouraging new players to stick around. Sure,the welcome message points newbies to a website where, presumably, there are instructions, but is it so hard to include the basic "type !hint" stuff in the blurb?

8. points are expressed as "hugs" or "smiles" - e.g. #triviacity at Undernet. Okay, it is cute and was probably initiated to make everyone feel welcome, but c'mon guys!

9. variable score questions that do not reflect the difficulty of the question - e.g. #trivia at Efnet has some really simple questions assigned massive points up to 500, while something really difficult is assigned a miserable 10 points! But wait,there's something worse than this ....

10. excessive points - e.g. #triviacity at Undernet. No question is worth 41097 points plus a bonus of 40000 for getting 6 correct answers in a row! This feature was probably introduced to make the channel look busy - and players to feel important - but no new player expects to receive a year's worth of points in one easy session and it cheapens your effort when this happens.

11. repeating the question with every hint - e.g. #chat-trivia at dalnet. The less "Bot noise" there is in channel the less cluttered the interface is. A !repeat command is all that is really necessary on the rare occasions when so may people are playing that someone may forget what the question was.

12. #londontrivia @ undernet physically prevents players from scoring after a 10 question streak. A message appears: “don't you ever get enough? Be a good Christian, let others play too!” It’s a good place for beginners – and a warning is fair enough, in fact it’s a good idea – but stopping players from scoring any more is a bit heavy handed.

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