# Online Scrabble for Urban?



## Meltingpot (Dec 27, 2011)

Can Urban's server support online gaming between members? If it can, I'd be interested in seeing an online Scrabble game here where Urbanites can join up and play each other. (There are open source variants available if you can't get hold of the official one).

What do others think?

Thanks in advance,

MP .


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## wayward bob (Dec 27, 2011)

i'm in


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## tar1984 (Dec 27, 2011)

I would be interested in this.  I suck at scrabble but it would be fun.


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## purves grundy (Dec 27, 2011)

Me four - urban + scrabble would be interheaven


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## ska invita (Dec 27, 2011)

I vote for Farmville - One where you have to raise hampsters
Its a nice idea definitely


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## Throbbing Angel (Dec 27, 2011)

me too, I like this idea
we have in the past played on isc.ro, I thought this thread was going to be about something similar

does this need posting up in feedback or whatever?


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## Meltingpot (Dec 27, 2011)

Thanks to everyone's replied, glad there's so much support for this.

Dunno about Farmville though - an aunt of mine plays it and it's a great game but apparently a bit compulsive if you want to get anything else that day


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## Meltingpot (Dec 27, 2011)

Throbbing Angel said:


> me too, I like this idea
> we have in the past played on isc.ro, I thought this thread was going to be about something similar
> 
> does this need posting up in feedback or whatever?



Yeah, good idea. I didn't think of that.


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## weepiper (Dec 27, 2011)

I already play it with a few urbs on fb but it makes my pc go v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.


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## Callie (Dec 27, 2011)

I lurve scrabble and have played urbanites online before - they usually just thrash me  but it is fun.

PS never play jazzzz  he cheats


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## discokermit (Dec 27, 2011)

i hate scrabble. it's anti working class. when it comes to cultural bias it's worse than any iq test.


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## Throbbing Angel (Dec 27, 2011)

Meltingpot said:


> Yeah, good idea. I didn't think of that.



which bit? Using isc or posting it up in feedback?


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## Meltingpot (Dec 27, 2011)

Throbbing Angel said:


> which bit? Using isc or posting it up in feedback?



Posting it up in feedback; I don't know what "isc" is .


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## Throbbing Angel (Dec 27, 2011)

Internet Scrabble Club   http://www.isc.ro/


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## sim667 (Dec 31, 2011)

Get wordfeud on iOS or android, it is wicked


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## grit (Jan 2, 2012)

discokermit said:


> i hate scrabble. it's anti working class. when it comes to cultural bias it's worse than any iq test.



I'm very very impressed someone managed to crowbar in a anti working class post into something as mundane as scrabble, you are a true urbanite.


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## dessiato (Jan 2, 2012)

discokermit said:


> i hate scrabble. it's anti working class. when it comes to cultural bias it's worse than any iq test.


Is the problem that people need to know how to spell, and how to use capital letters? Or is this a random pointless rant? If, however, you can explain, coherently, how Scrabble could be anti-anything, I, for one, would be interested.


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## marty21 (Jan 2, 2012)

discokermit said:


> i hate scrabble. it's anti working class. when it comes to cultural bias it's worse than any iq test.


i played it as a kid, my labourer Dad, and care home worker Mum did not seem to mind.


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## marty21 (Jan 2, 2012)

oh, and It's a good idea, i'm in.


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## purves grundy (Jan 2, 2012)

it's defo a good idea... so much so that I'm in twice.


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## discokermit (Jan 3, 2012)

dessiato said:


> Is the problem that people need to know how to spell, and how to use capital letters? Or is this a random pointless rant? If, however, you can explain, coherently, how Scrabble could be anti-anything, I, for one, would be interested.


the better your education, the larger your vocabulary, the better you do in scrabble. affluent people get better education than someone state educated in a run down area with poorer facilities.
scrabble, is a game reliant on education. education is a class issue.

chess is much better. almost classless and truly international.


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## Miss Caphat (Jan 3, 2012)

discokermit said:


> the better your education, the larger your vocabulary, the better you do in scrabble. affluent people get better education than someone state educated in a run down area with poorer facilities.
> scrabble, is a game reliant on education. education is a class issue.
> 
> chess is much better. almost classless and truly international.



oh, so we should not use our education and our big vocabularies and we should "dumb down" in order to level the playing field?  I've never heard that one before.


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## Miss Caphat (Jan 3, 2012)

.


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## maomao (Jan 3, 2012)

discokermit said:


> the better your education, the larger your vocabulary, the better you do in scrabble. affluent people get better education than someone state educated in a run down area with poorer facilities.
> scrabble, is a game reliant on education. education is a class issue.
> 
> chess is much better. almost classless and truly international.



I've got a 2:1 from a leading university and am shit at scrabble. Unfortunately most of the extra vocabulary I gained was either in another language or in words of over 7 letters in length.


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## marty21 (Jan 3, 2012)

discokermit said:


> the better your education, the larger your vocabulary, the better you do in scrabble. affluent people get better education than someone state educated in a run down area with poorer facilities.
> scrabble, is a game reliant on education. education is a class issue.
> 
> chess is much better. almost classless and truly international.


it's a game of strategy and memory, not necessarily class based, remembering the annoying 2 letter words that aren't in every day use - ZA, QI , XI, etc -


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## discokermit (Jan 3, 2012)

maomao said:


> Unfortunately most of the extra vocabulary I gained was in another language.


hmm. with scrabble also such a massively racist and insular game, that wouldn't help at all.


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## discokermit (Jan 3, 2012)

Miss Caphat said:


> oh, so we should not use our education and our big vocabularies and we should "dumb down" in order to level the playing field?  I've never heard that one before.


better to use your vocabulary to prove your superiority?


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## discokermit (Jan 3, 2012)

marty21 said:


> remembering the annoying 2 letter words that aren't in every day use - ZA, QI , XI, etc -


at eton, they spend entire terms on those words.


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## BoatieBird (Jan 3, 2012)

I'm in - I love Scrabble


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## DotCommunist (Jan 3, 2012)

where does Discokermit stand on Trivial Pursuit?


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## pennimania (Jan 3, 2012)

Wouldn't Scrabble help enlarge your vocabulary?

or is that a bad thing?

I'm in btw


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## sim667 (Jan 3, 2012)

yeah it would..... just like reading would too!

Id be up for urban scrabble.


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## Miss Caphat (Jan 3, 2012)

discokermit said:


> better to use your vocabulary to prove your superiority?



better to use your vocabulary for a million reasons! (not including to prove superiority)
The ability to express one's self is vital. To assume that working class people would not understand that is pretty insulting.To hide or devalue one's intelligence/education is condescending and self-defeating. Everyone should be able to get a good education. There's no reason to hide it if you've been lucky enough to have had one.


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## discokermit (Jan 3, 2012)

Miss Caphat said:


> There's no reason to hide it if you've been lucky enough to have had one.


there's a difference between not hiding it and positively revelling in it, with the awarding of points.

scrabble reflects and reinforces the divisions in class society.


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## Miss Caphat (Jan 3, 2012)

discokermit said:


> there's a difference between not hiding it and positively revelling in it, with the awarding of points.
> 
> scrabble reflects and reinforces the divisions in class society.



Sorry, can't agree with that. Oh well, you don't have to play if you don't want to.


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## hammerntongues (Jan 4, 2012)

Working class get their own back with Mousetrap so it all works out even in the end , building things is very working class and catching mice is too , very unfair on the Spelling Class that . For that matter fucking Mastermind , that taxi bloke must have gone to Eton surely .


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## dweller (Jan 8, 2012)

this one is new,
you don't need to be on facebook to play
could be good
http://www.webfeud.com/


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## Stigmata (Jan 8, 2012)

For balance every game of scrabble should be followed by a round of darts, to even out any class-based imbalance


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## Clair De Lune (Jan 8, 2012)

I would play, I love scrabble


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## frogwoman (Jan 18, 2012)

i love scrabble but the problem with scrabble is that you can't learn different skills from it, a huge part of it is just about luck and knowing obscure words from the sowpods dictionaries which nobody has heard of or knows the definition of, which is fine, but it is annoying when you're playing online with someone and all their words are words you've never heard of.

you can't learn different strategies etc with Scrabble the same way you can with chess, backgammon, card games etc and i can't imagine watching a scrabble game is that thrilling as a spectator sport, whereas it's quite nice to watch people playing chess and see what moves you think should be made. or for that matter watch commentaries on youtube about it as if it is football or some other game, you can't do that with scrabble, it'd be nice if you could though.


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## frogwoman (Jan 18, 2012)

scrabble is a nice game to play with family, i can't imagine it being competitive in the way that chess is. does scrabble have league tables etc? don't get me wrong i love the game but i can't imagine that


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## frogwoman (Jan 18, 2012)

i find it very cool that chess has league tables even though we're (the third team) languishing near the bottom of the division at the mo


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## discokermit (Jan 18, 2012)

hammerntongues said:


> Working class get their own back with Mousetrap so it all works out even in the end , building things is very working class and catching mice is too , very unfair on the Spelling Class that .


you would think so, wouldn't you. but even with mousetrap, they win. they get gangs of blokes in, with all the right machinery. it's a nightmare.


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## frogwoman (Jan 24, 2012)

if anyone feels like learning chess with me i've uploaded some videos (but to be honest they're not really good for teaching anyone anything )


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## stuff_it (Jan 24, 2012)

afaik it would need to be named summat else, but I'm up for it.


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## Metal Malcolm (Jan 24, 2012)

discokermit said:


> chess is much better. almost classless and truly international.



What? A game where the working class pawns are invariably sacrificed purely to save royalty? Running to their inevitable death while the king sits on his arse barely moving, supported by the clergy and the cavalry? In what possible way is that classless?


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## frogwoman (Jan 24, 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CiJreSuoas&feature=youtu.be  if anyone wants to see that ...


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## Badgers (Jan 24, 2012)

I am getting hooked on Word Feud which is the best mobile app I have played. Got a few urban games going on now and getting resoundingly beaten in most of them


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## discokermit (Jan 24, 2012)

Metal Malcolm said:


> What? A game where the working class pawns are invariably sacrificed purely to save royalty? Running to their inevitable death while the king sits on his arse barely moving, supported by the clergy and the cavalry? In what possible way is that classless?


i'm afraid you only understand chess on a very superficial level, if at all. the pawns aren't the working class, they're abstract representations of imaginary forces that act according to certain fixed laws. one and a half thousand years ago, they were supposed to represent infantry but that was only a way of making sense of the laws of the game and was just a metaphor. the game arose as a divination tool, became a game and later became useful as a metaphorical tool.
even on your superfical level though, you're wrong. the pawns, to a non player, are the weakest pieces on the board. a strong player however, realises that they are the most important pieces on the board. whole games can revolve around the first pawn move. openings are classified according to pawn structure.
even if you were right about that though, you would still be wrong. the classless status of chess has nothing to do with what happens on the board. the reason i claimed it was classless* is because it doesn't matter what your background is, how much money or education you have, you can still be good at chess. bobby fischer was born and raised in poverty yet became one of the giantsa of chess.
also, the equipment costs are negligible. pieces can be made from shells or pebbles, a board can be marked on a beach or in the dust. in fact, there doesn't need to be any equipment at all as it can be played in the head.

*it isn't completely classless. tutors can be paid for, latest books and computer programmes bought,small improvements can be made. but _essentially_, if you've got an aptitude for it, and you play enough games, you can still be world champion no matter what your background.


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## Metal Malcolm (Jan 24, 2012)

Firstly, well done for taking a tongue in cheek joke post far too seriously.

Secondly.



discokermit said:


> *it isn't completely classless. tutors can be paid for, latest books and computer programmes bought,small improvements can be made. but _essentially_, if you've got an aptitude for it, and you play enough games, you can still be world champion no matter what your background.



What part of that doesn't apply to Scrabble?


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## discokermit (Jan 24, 2012)

Metal Malcolm said:


> Firstly, well done for taking a tongue in cheek joke post far too seriously.
> 
> Secondly.
> 
> What part of that doesn't apply to Scrabble?


firstly, my entire contribution to this thread has been tongue in cheek.

secondly, you're educational background is intrinsic to your ability at scrabble. for chess, your education (unless it's specifically chess based, ie the polgar sisters) is irrelevant.


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## Metal Malcolm (Jan 24, 2012)

discokermit said:


> firstly, my entire contribution to this thread has been tongue in cheek.
> 
> secondly, you're educational background is intrinsic to your ability at scrabble. for chess, your education (unless it's specifically chess based, ie the polgar sisters) is irrelevant.



I really must disagree. Your educational background is no more important for scrabble than it is for chess. You don't need to understand what a word means to be able to use it in a scrabble game, and i'd argue that as chess is undoubtedly a harder game, it takes far more tuition and practice to learn a decent vocabulary of chess moves than it does to play a decent scrabble game.


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## discokermit (Jan 24, 2012)

Metal Malcolm said:


> I really must disagree. Your educational background is no more important for scrabble than it is for chess. You don't need to understand what a word means to be able to use it in a scrabble game, and i'd argue that as chess is undoubtedly a harder game, it takes far more tuition and practice to learn a decent vocabulary of chess moves than it does to play a decent scrabble game.


you don't need to understand what a word is, but you have to know that word. a better education will give you a bigger vocabulary.
a good education won't help you at all with chess.


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## Throbbing Angel (Jan 7, 2014)

does anyone want a game NOW?


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