nope, the games don't end automatically at 11 p.m., someone is ending them.
In an earlier post, you asked if there are different rules for the regular & expert boards: well, not really rules, but different ways to play.
Tom (the site owner) doesn't have rules, but has instructions for the regular boards, and he set it up so 6 different players have to vote in a row to end a game, i.e. if 3 different players vote to end and a 4th player then plays a word, the voting to end starts all over again. And 2 players from the same server (like webtv) count as the same player, since the system can't distinguish them as different players.
I wasn't around when the expert games were set up, but it seems there were some really good players that wanted to play a certain way to get really high scores. Tom set up 2 expert games needing only 2 votes to end, and Mike (a/k/a Anonymike) wrote an expert guide - which, if followed, gets some pretty hefty scores.
The expert games were set up so people would play by the expert guide, and trolls are not allowed. If a non-expert plays in an expert game & screws up the board, we usually vote to end, because once that play is made it lessens the chances of a high score. And by high scores I do not mean 800 or 900 points -- we're talking 1300+, usually higher depending on who plays. (Have you checked out the high scoring games section in the expert guide?
About a year, year & a half ago, the site was inundated with trolls - not just people playing as they wish, but deliberately blocking good plays, wasting premium letters and spoiling the fun. I ased Tom for another expert game so we'd have 3 to the 14 regular games to play with no trolls. Sometimes the trolls find the expert games, but the chat can be kind of nasty when they do or we vote to end.
That's the difference: fewer votes to end, no trolls allowed, and a specific way to play.
Sorry this is so long. |