Sudden Death

[Tsukiyumi]

But if there is no time limit on answering the question, what's to stop them from looking up the corrasponding data on the site, and getting the right answer?

I think there's a feature to prevent people from accessing the site while running sudden death.

[IanKennedy]

If you look at any other page on the site while in the middle of a game it will reset your score to zero.

[Mark]

Even if your playing on say your desktop, and looking up answers on your laptop?

[Tsukiyumi]

If you look at any other page on the site while in the middle of a game it will reset your score to zero.

Still, people could save images, and name them, then look them up while they play. Seems a bit complicated just to get an absurdly high score, though.

[Mark]

I never suggested the motive made sense, only that it was possible.

[Captain Seafort]

Actually, there is no bank of questions at all, as such.

The site is stored as a set of databases. So for people there is a database entry for each person with a field for name, one for picture, and one for their bio. All the sudden death does is randomly choose a person, put their picture up, put their name as an answer, then take names from other people at random for the other possible answers. There's a question format like that for each database - one for battles, planets, nebulae, etc. The system just picks randomly between databases, then chooses a random entry in the database.

The entire thing is totally automated; any time I add a person, the sudden death is just as likely to pick them as anybody else. The high score tables are also generated automatically; the entire thing is completely maintenance free.

That Ian is a clever bugger

The only slight problem with that is when it comes up with an image of the Akritiri prison from "The Chute" and among the list of possible answers is "Akritiri prison interior #1", "Akritiri prison interior #2", "Akritiri prison interior #3", etc. Which one's which?

[stitch626]

I've had something similar with DS9 Promenade 1 and DS9 Promenade 2.
I guessed wrong that time.

[Tsukiyumi]

Eventually, you'll remember which one's which.

[Mark]

I'm going to start taking notes............................ 8)

[Graham Kennedy]

If you look at any other page on the site while in the middle of a game it will reset your score to zero.

Still, people could save images, and name them, then look them up while they play. Seems a bit complicated just to get an absurdly high score, though.

There's something like ten thousand images on DITL. Good luck downloading and naming them all.

The only slight problem with that is when it comes up with an image of the Akritiri prison from "The Chute" and among the list of possible answers is "Akritiri prison interior #1", "Akritiri prison interior #2", "Akritiri prison interior #3", etc. Which one's which?

We considered that. In the end, we figured that there are some questions that verge on impossible like that, whilst there are those that are "Who is this?" and it's Captain Kirk. At the end of the day it's the luck of the draw.

[Mark]

Hey Graham, how long did it take you guys to compile all of this data?

[Tsukiyumi]

If you look at any other page on the site while in the middle of a game it will reset your score to zero.

Still, people could save images, and name them, then look them up while they play. Seems a bit complicated just to get an absurdly high score, though.

There's something like ten thousand images on DITL. Good luck downloading and naming them all.

That would be a serious effort, there.

[stitch626]

ARRGGGG!
Three times in a row I got a planet for the first question!
I think it hates me.


And Ian/Graham, don't know if it is a glitch but I had both the forum open and the SD open and no problems. Not trying to cheat... just double tasking.
Which doesn't seem to help.

[Tsukiyumi]

ARRGGGG!
Three times in a row I got a planet for the first question!
I think it hates me.

I had to play about thirty times to get my current high score.

[stitch626]

Tried again, this time got a nebula, which I knew. Got a planet for the second question.
I think the TOS planets are the worst, they all look like cloudy marbles.