Qub - A Multiplayer Quiz Bowl Reader

[whaatt]

Hi everyone! I've had this account for a while, but nothing meaningful to post. Anyways, I've been an avid user of the quizbowldb site, and in my lack of patience for the soon-to-come fancy multiplayer feature, I coded up something semi-crude to be used in the meantime. Bear in mind that what will eventually come on Sharad's site will be much more pleasant-looking and user-friendly, and I doubt I'll maintain this much longer once that is released.

In case you're interested in the technology used: It's basically HTML5, CSS, and Javascript on the front-end and PHP on the back-end. The connection to the server uses Websockets, so it's important that you use the newest versions of modern browsers.

Here you go: http://skalon.com/qub. Thanks, and enjoy!

EDIT: Use the help command in-game to have a mini-guide to the game. It really helps.

[Ivar the Boneless]

Thank you so much! Not that anyone else is online at 2:32 EST (so I'm not exactly, err, testing the multiplayer option yet), but I know I'll find this extremely useful until Sharad puts multiplayer on Quizbowldb.

[whaatt]

Recruit some others to come try it out! Looking at the server records, if people come on when nobody else is online, they seem to leave pretty quickly (d'oh). So I guess you just have to find that critical mass of three or four people to get some good games going.

Also, if this was glitching a bunch yesterday, the problems should be fixed.

[perlnerd666]

Doesn't seem to be working with Safari 5.1.7?

EDIT: Works in FF.

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

[Kwang the Ninja]

In Chrome it justs negs you every time you buzz in.

[perlnerd666]

That reminds me; I liked the old system of typing buzz and then typing the answer better—this is a typing speed contest too, which is hard under pressure.

[Boeing X-20, Please!]

In Chrome it justs negs you every time you buzz in.

As Jacob is referring to under your post, you have to type "buzz [the answer]" instead of "buzz" then type "[the answer]".

[whaatt]

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

For the synchronization between users to occur properly, I need this delay. However, it can be as long or short as I want. Would you rather a 3 or 5 second delay? That's something I can literally edit in two minutes and change.

That reminds me; I liked the old system of typing buzz and then typing the answer better—this is a typing speed contest too, which is hard under pressure.

This is the #1 feature request that has come up. I'll get around to fixing/reconfiguring it by the weekend (shouldn't be too hard to implement).

Thanks to everyone for their feedback!

[perlnerd666]

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

For the synchronization between users to occur properly, I need this delay. However, it can be as long or short as I want. Would you rather a 3 or 5 second delay? That's something I can literally edit in two minutes and change.

Personally, I like 3 seconds, but I'm sure there are some dissenting opinions.

[whaatt]

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

That reminds me; I liked the old system of typing buzz and then typing the answer better—this is a typing speed contest too, which is hard under pressure.

Done and done! Tell me if anything glitches up, and sorry for the downtime earlier today.

[cornfused]

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

That reminds me; I liked the old system of typing buzz and then typing the answer better—this is a typing speed contest too, which is hard under pressure.

Done and done! Tell me if anything glitches up, and sorry for the downtime earlier today.

It's not working for me right now (Firefox).

[whaatt]

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

That reminds me; I liked the old system of typing buzz and then typing the answer better—this is a typing speed contest too, which is hard under pressure.

Done and done! Tell me if anything glitches up, and sorry for the downtime earlier today.

It's not working for me right now (Firefox).

What version of Firefox are you using? And do you get the "Client disconnected" message or just the green text? The newest update of FF should work.

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

That reminds me; I liked the old system of typing buzz and then typing the answer better—this is a typing speed contest too, which is hard under pressure.

Done and done! Tell me if anything glitches up, and sorry for the downtime earlier today.

Thanks to perlnerd666 and others for helping me spot a bunch of bugs. They should all be fixed now, but PLEASE tell me if you find anything else. (BTW, perlnerd666, I fixed the new glitch that occurred this morning while you were playing.)

[cornfused]

"The server has not connected with you.
This may be due to a lack of browser support.
Please try the newest version of a modern browser (not IE).

Alternately, the server may be down temporarily.
Please wait a few minutes and then try again.

-and you're right, apparently I was a version behind in FF. Now it works - thanks!

[cornfused]

EDIT: I like it a lot, but it's a tiny bit clunky. In particular, the 15-second no-chat delay is a little irritating.

For the synchronization between users to occur properly, I need this delay. However, it can be as long or short as I want. Would you rather a 3 or 5 second delay? That's something I can literally edit in two minutes and change.

Personally, I like 3 seconds, but I'm sure there are some dissenting opinions.

Agreed that 3 would be better.

[cornfused]

Some kind of /who function would be great, too.

[whaatt]

Some kind of /who function would be great, too.

Try headers. In game rooms it'll display who's there; in the lobby it'll display the number of users.

[whaatt]

Also, many people have been asking for a variety of features, and I'll eventually get around to implementing some of them. However, I doubt I'll do any more work on this for at least two weeks, because I have a bunch of other things going on in the coming week and then ACE QB Camp the week after that.

Of course, if you find any glitches, just let me know; I will respond to bugfix requests. There is, to my knowledge, only one unresolved bug at the moment, and it randomly causes the program to run out of memory and crash. I'm working to fix it, but in the meantime I've placed a script on my server that will auto-restart the application in a few seconds, so simply refresh the page and carry on.

Thanks!

[perlnerd666]

I love this interface but I'm noticing that it's very easy and common to get "locked out" when trying to join.

[jabekens]

A few teammates told me about this just a minute ago, so I opened the link to try it out. I am using Chrome, and I made sure it was up-to-date. Upon clicking the link, the interface tells me that the Client Disconnected. Refreshing did not help. My friend said that he is currently on, so the server is clearly not down. I opened Opera and made sure it was up-to-date. This time, upon opening the page, the interface told me there was an error, and the same thing showed up each time I refreshed. I then tried Firefox. After updating it because I have not used it in months, I tried opening the page. It gave the me same message as when I tried with Chrome. Is something just wrong with my computer or the internet connection I have? I honestly have no clue what is wrong. Thanks.

[whaatt]

I love this interface but I'm noticing that it's very easy and common to get "locked out" when trying to join.

You should never be permanently locked out of a game. The join command will do different things based on what stage the game is in. If players haven't typed next yet, it'll give them 120 seconds to do so. That's when you'll see the message about the join command being used as a "pinging tool".

After the time it specifies, if you type join again, it'll tell you the time left in reading the question. Sometimes, if there's a glitch and you aren't automatically sucked into the game, you can type join again and it will move the game along to the end of a question, at which point you will always get into the game.

TLDR Info: Keep typing join after the times specified if you feel like the game is locked up.

A few teammates told me about this just a minute ago, so I opened the link to try it out. I am using Chrome, and I made sure it was up-to-date. Upon clicking the link, the interface tells me that the Client Disconnected. Refreshing did not help. My friend said that he is currently on, so the server is clearly not down. I opened Opera and made sure it was up-to-date. This time, upon opening the page, the interface told me there was an error, and the same thing showed up each time I refreshed. I then tried Firefox. After updating it because I have not used it in months, I tried opening the page. It gave the me same message as when I tried with Chrome. Is something just wrong with my computer or the internet connection I have? I honestly have no clue what is wrong. Thanks.

This is definitely odd. If you are using Firefox 13 or higher, it should definitely work. Chrome 20 (?) and higher should also work. It's possible that you tried to connect at the exact moment of a server refresh, or that I was updating the client code and accidentally broke something.

If you get the orange "client disconnected" message, it most likely means that the server is down temporarily, unless your browser is old-ish. If you just get the green text and/or an error message, that means that your browser is really archaic by the standards of the past few months.

Try it again on a different computer, and tell me how it goes. Thanks for the feedback!

[merv1618]

Is there a way to start a private bowl room?

[whaatt]

Is there a way to start a private bowl room?

Not yet, but if I'm feeling particularly motivated, I might add it tonight. Otherwise it shouldn't be too long before I do.

[whaatt]

Is there a way to start a private bowl room?

Not yet, but if I'm feeling particularly motivated, I might add it tonight. Otherwise it shouldn't be too long before I do.

Done! BTW, right now there's a server limit of 10 games total, and 5 private games. This is because I don't yet know how my server will do under extreme stress. But I've never seen more than 4 rooms being used at a time, so not a problem.

Also, try to make your games public as much as you can. People new to Qub often try to find a game with a few others in progress, just to get a feel for how it works; with everyone playing private games all the time, a lot of new users tend to be discouraged from trying. But don't worry too much -- have fun! I know I am coding this thing, which is almost at 2000 lines now. Also, thanks to everyone for their patience with me.

[blizzard]

I have the newest version of Chrome,and whenever I get on, it says offline. I have tried this for the past week or so and every time it says it is offline. i am not sure what (if anything) I can do to try and fix it.

[whaatt]

I have the newest version of Chrome,and whenever I get on, it says offline. I have tried this for the past week or so and every time it says it is offline. i am not sure what (if anything) I can do to try and fix it.

Try Firefox, or a different computer if you can. Alternately, the problem may be that you are behind a firewall that blocks the special connection; from what I've read, though, this is very improbable.

[msbg360]

Thanks Sanjay the program seems to be working really well.

[whaatt]

Thanks Sanjay the program seems to be working really well.

Cool! Seems like I've gotten it at least semi-stable

[haddiman]

Thank you so much for this. It works very well.

I was curious if this only uses high school questions or if some college packets are incorporated as well.

Thanks.
User was reminded to add a signature.

[whaatt]

I was curious if this only uses high school questions or if some college packets are incorporated as well.

Right now there are only high school questions on there, but if you or anyone would like, I can definitely make it use college sets; just let me know. Ideally, I'll eventually have options for difficulty levels and subject areas. Thanks for the feedback!

[haddiman]

Well, honestly I'm not quite up to the level of the harder college canon so a lot of the questions are similar enough.

But, if it's not too much of a pain in the ass, it'd be nice to have rooms with different difficulties.

Thanks.

[whaatt]

But, if it's not too much of a pain in the ass, it'd be nice to have rooms with different difficulties.

Certainly not; in fact, I just coded up and uploaded this feature in the last 45 minutes. If anyone tries this out and finds a bug, please let me know. BTW, I changed all of the quoted commands in the program to italics, so command descriptions should hopefully be a little easier on the eyes. Thanks!

[Mr. Scogan]

I used this earlier this evening, and it worked fine. But when I got on now I got through the prompts up until I had to type in "next", in which this appeared in blue text:

Code: Select all

Question Category:
Question Source:
Tournament Year:

I can't type in the text box, hit enter or anything. Any ideas?

[whaatt]

I used this earlier this evening, and it worked fine. But when I got on now I got through the prompts up until I had to type in "next", in which this appeared in blue text:

Code: Select all

Question Category:
Question Source:
Tournament Year:

I can't type in the text box, hit enter or anything. Any ideas?

I apologize a ton about this; I checked my server logs and found out that quizbowldb.com is down. I get all of my questions from there, so I can't do much until that site is back up and running. But I have a feeling <speculation> that maybe Sharad Vikram is launching his own multiplayer there soon, and has taken the site down for maintenance <end speculation>. That would be pretty cool.

I'll figure out something until QBDB is back online; probably temporarily stopping the server will be the best option.

Edit: My server will remain running. I've modified the code so that it gives you a clean error message -- upon typing next -- should this ever happen again. Right now it appears that QBDB is still down, however, so hopefully things get better on that front by tomorrow. Thanks for all your patience!

Edit 2: QBDB is up! Sweet.

[niccalis]

Whenever I try to join a game it says I need a nickname?

User was reminded to enable a signature.

[cornfused]

Whenever I try to join a game it says I need a nickname?

User was reminded to enable a signature.

Yep, just type "nick niccalis".

[whaatt]

If you tried to use Qub earlier today, it was down because QBDB changed their API. I've got it running again, and if you haven't tried it recently, it's super stable now and rarely if ever glitches. Of course, there's also Protobowl and QBDB Multiplayer, but I think mine is the most colorful .

[Mr. Scogan]

Some of my team mates were curious if there was a way for Qub to have an alternative source of questions, for when Sharad's program doesn't work. Is this possible?

[whaatt]

Some of my team mates were curious if there was a way for Qub to have an alternative source of questions, for when Sharad's program doesn't work. Is this possible?

Not until ... approximately five minutes ago. As it happens, I had a personal database of about 700 questions, which I was able to connect with Qub. If you try Qub now, it should work, but I make no claims about whether there's anything weird with the questions.

So what this means is that if you see a blank screen when the question is supposed to come up, just buzz, neg out, note down the question details, and PM me or post here, please. Also, the answer checking, for obvious reasons, cannot use QBDB for the time being, so I coded up something crude in like five minutes. It seems to work decently, from what I've tested, and uses Levenshtein Distances (if you're interested).

And of course, my DB is only 700 questions compared to QBDB's 30,000-odd questions, so I apologize for repeats showing up too often. Maybe if I get really bored on a weekend, I might upload some more. Enjoy!

Edit: Just wanted to note that MS/College questions are not in my database, so if you try to select different difficulties, you'll end up getting HS questions in the end. Sorry about that; I might add these kinds of things at some point if I have time.