How can we make the most of Woogles?
Last week, we held the seventh of our monthly-ish virtual tournaments. It was a fairly modest affair - just 12 players playing seven games each, culminating in a King of the Hill round to determine a champion. The event went pretty smoothly, and the whole thing was over and done with in just under four hours.
The tournament went fine - no complaints. But when we took a step back and looked at the big picture of the Scrabble world in the fall of 2020, the whole event felt rather small and insignificant.
There was an elephant in the room. Our event, like every virtual tournament we've held so far this year, was played on the Internet Scrabble Club, a decades-old interface that's waning in popularity. Meanwhile Woogles.io, one of the most exciting things to happen to Scrabble in years, was booming. The obvious question, therefore, was why we haven't switched.
It's not because of any anti-Woogles position here at the CoCo, believe you me. I personally have played something like 2,000 games on the platform already (most of them have been speed games against the bot, but still). I love it, and I'm hopelessly addicted. Most of the other members of the CoCo board of directors and our other internal teams are enthusiastic about the new site as well. We're pro-Woogles here, by and large. We view it as an exciting new platform that presents a real opportunity to help grow the game.
No - for this particular tournament, the reason was short notice, plain and simple. The players who originally registered for the event weeks ago were signing up for an ISC tourney at the time, and we didn't think it was fair to make them switch over. Some players may not have Woogles accounts yet, or they may not be comfortable yet with how the interface works, etc. It seemed unreasonable to change things up late in the game.
That's our short-term stance, anyway. Long-term? We're super excited about Woogles, and we want to explore ways to make the most of this new platform that we possibly can. And to do that, we'd love to gather some feedback from all of you.
So - how can we make the most of Woogles? The obvious answer is to move the December CURE event over, and that's definitely something we're considering. But beyond that, we want to do bigger and better things that will really tap into the site's functionality, offering both some serious Scrabble competition and a way to bring people together during these socially distant times. The site has so much potential! How do we maximize it?
I was keeping a close eye on the Wisconsin Dells tournament this weekend. It was really cool to watch - the Woogles tournament functionality, while it still has a long way to go, is already a major breakthrough for the virtual tournament world. The simple act of creating a tournament lobby, where players can congregate and chat and meet up for their games, is a game-changer. It's got my mind racing about other ways we can make the most of it. For instance:
What about a weekly club night? Players could get together in a Woogles tournament room, hang out, chat, grab a drink if they're so inclined, and play a couple games of Scrabble.
Regular 1-days seem easy enough. Now that we've got an automated way to pair them, and Woogles offers a user-friendly place for people to get together, the whole process should be smooth and easy.
What about another big team tournament? The Virtual World Cup was great, but the next one doesn't have to be national team-based. There are plenty of other possibilities.
Big individual tournaments are an option, too. We could either do a bracket-style event, with matches once a week, or we could do a weekend-long tournament with Swiss pairings. Everything's on the table!
When it comes to virtual Scrabble, we're digging in for the long haul here. At this point, it's still not clear how long it's going to be before it's possible to play in-person tournaments again. We did get some encouraging news this week when Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States, said that he expects most Americans to have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April. But that's only an educated guess, and there are a still a lot of questions that need to be answered in the months ahead. We're definitely optimistic about playing live Scrabble again in 2021, but for the time being, virtual is what we've got.
So - what virtual events do you want to see? The CoCo is your organization, and we want to move forward with whatever form of online Scrabble you will appreciate most. We'd love your feedback! Please feel free to sound off in the comments on any of the social media channels where this article is posted - or you can simply contact us by following the link below. Thanks as always for your input.