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Short version: Come play at the CoN World Cup App.

Most of you have probably heard me blathering about the World Cup application in the forums, chat, or on Facebook for weeks. It's finally done and finally ready to start taking predictions, so it's time to get started!

I know the majority of readers out there are Americans, and therefore, you probably think that the only correct response is to hate soccer and anyone who calls it "football." This is why the rest of the world hates us. The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, and you're going to see a lot of us going crazy for it in the next month, starting next Friday, June 11 (but especially June 12; be there). That said, it's worth playing our game here at CoN so you can experience soccer, even a little bit, and it's easy.

Here's how it works, in a nutshell: you sign up, choose who you think will win the whole tournament, and then for every game played in the Cup (there are 64 total), you pick the scores of both teams, who wins, and who will score first. You get points based on how many of your picks you get right. "But I don't know these teams, and I definitely don't know the players," you say, in a whiny voice. "That's okay," I reply, "because we're willing to help you!" For this tournament, we're providing a random pick generator, so even if you know nothing but still want to play, you can click a button and the system will make a guess for you. I'm not going to guarantee that it will be a great guess, but you can play without knowing the first thing about soccer if you want.

To play, all you have to do is come to the CoN World Cup App, pick the overall champion, and then start making picks for individual matches. You can pick all of the first 48 right now, if you want, or pick them all individually. The remaining sixteen will become available as the teams are determined. Once you do that, you can sit back and watch each match to see how you did.

There is at least one prize in the offing, to be determined, and the top three players at the end all get forum awards to show off too. There will also be a thread to discuss the matches and brag about correct predictions, so you can remember to get your predictions in on time. And if you're still not convinced, here are a bunch of links to help you make your picks!

The FIFA Homepage
BBC Sport's World Cup Homepage
Wikipedia's World Cup 2010 Page
ESPN's World Cup Homepage
The last FIFA World Rankings before the WC
Oddsmakers' Odds

Even though I've been here for years, this will be the first time I've ever participated in any sporting event like this. Can you give me a general explanation of how the scoring system works? Surely we don't have to get every aspect of a game right in order to get any points, right?

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Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles

No, not at all. There's a lot of explanation in the rules, but I'm happy to give a brief rundown here.

We give points for getting a variety of things right:

1 point for getting the correct winner of a game (or correctly guessing a draw),
1 point for getting the home team's score right,
1 point for getting the away team's score right.

1 bonus point if you get all of the above right.

1 point for getting the scorer of the first goal of the game right.

All of these double to two points apiece when we reach the "knockout rounds," after match 48.

So, you could score anywhere between 0 and 5 points for every early match, and 0 and 10 for every later match.

Additionally, you get points for picking a winner, based on how far in the tournament they go.

Don't worry if this doesn't make sense right away - this is only the second time we've done this kind of game, and the first was two years ago. Most of our players won't be super experienced in it.

Here are my tips of the day, by the way: Code d'Ivoire just lost their best player to a broken arm. While I might have considered them possibly good enough to win two games in their group with him, I personally think that one win and a couple draws might be more along their quality now. England just lost their captain to a knee ligament injury, too. That will hurt their defense a bit, but they still have lots of defensive quality. Finally, America's star striker has a sprained ankle and while he'll probably still play he might not be as dangerous.


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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 4th June 2010 13:19)

Additionally, you get points for picking a winner, based on how far in the tournament they go.

So if I pick an overall winner who ends up losing in the finals, I will still get a few points for that as well?

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Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles

Of course, it's all in the rules.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Bump for another good resource, ESPN's overall preview:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/col...?cc=5901&ver=us

Another bump - you now have only about 23 hours to get your champion's pick in, as well as your picks for the first match, South Africa and Mexico (followed soon after by France and Uruguay).

You'll note that picks that need to be in within the next 24 hours are outlined on the pages - red if you haven't predicted it yet, green if you have.

We have 23 players, let's go for 25 in the next day.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Will we be able to see everyone's picks for champion once the first match begins?

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Not as yet, Sweets, but if this week quits slaughtering me at work, I could stick that in the leaderboard. Or I could leave it a surprise for the end in case there are tight races.

Just over 12 hours to go! Don't forget at least the first few picks!

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Crap, it's 5 minutes till kick-off and I just remember to submit my predictions. Unfortunately I'm not able to predict for the first match--I call South Africa/Mexico: Mexico, 3-1. First goalscorer: Vela.

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SPEKKIO: "GRRR...That was most embarrassing!"

I picked my submissions at about 1 in the morning last night on a whim. I honestly know nothing about soccer, I might has well have picked my choices out of a hat.

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"We're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting... fighting was the only thing I was ever good at, but at least I always fought for what I believed in." - Frank Yeager (a.k.a. Grey Fox)

Quote (FallingHeart @ 11th June 2010 19:26)

I picked my submissions at about 1 in the morning last night on a whim. I honestly know nothing about soccer, I might has well have picked my choices out of a hat.

And after day one you're tied with both me and the champion of the last time we did this, so hey.


Make sure your picks for tomorrow are in, especially if you're an American. The games start alllllll of the early.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

We should've won yesterday! Grrr! USA we gifted you a point, what a howler.

Quote (mertinatron @ 13th June 2010 06:02)

We should've won yesterday! Grrr! USA we gifted you a point, what a howler.

Why didn't you get in the competition, mate? You still can, the points so far are so terrible that you have every chance to join now and still catch up.

With regards to the issue I thought I was seeing with scoring, I was not. I proved it by writing up some new features, one that will show you your predictions on the app homepage while games are going on, so you can check your progress, and then another that is more clear about what you predicted and what you got right and wrong after each match.

Make sure your next picks are in, as for Americans the matches continue to be quite early in the day throughout next week.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I'm going to close this topic and just use it for updates to the application if they're needed. Use http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/ipb/in...showtopic=14674 for general conversation. Will move some posts over too.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?