Just the FAQs: Chaos

This is Chaos where the team with the fastest fingers and the most verbosity wins! This short document will introduce you to the basics of Chaos, especially on StarLink and DALnet, where your local games administrator is Eingang.

A Brief Description of the Game

Chaos is a multi-player game, played in teams of two. Play starts with a category being displayed, such as Famous Risky Business Players, and the two teams then have 1.5 minutes to guess as many of the answers that appear on the answer card. Sample answers might be Mach, Eingang, WittLess, etc. For each new correct answer, a team scores one point. The game ends when one team scores 30 or more points. The name "chaos" derives from the actions of the players who shout out answers during the course of game play. As might be obvious, this game is loosely based on the real-life board game Outburst.

The scoring and categories are controlled by a 'bot, which is an independent C program designed to work on the IRC. The 'bot, named ChaosBot, normally sits on the channel #Chaos, and answers to the nickname "Cha".

Answers will not be recognized from a player until a player joins one of the two teams. This can be done at any time by typing <Cha>, join team 2. When ChaosBot displays a category, players can try to register answers for their teams by typing <Cha>, <answer>. The 'bot does not acknowledge answers until the 1.5 minutes are up. At that point in time, correct answers are displayed and points are awarded.

It is important to note that at the start of a new game, all players must join a team. Teams are not carried over from game to game! Also, most categories have more than 10 possible answers. The bot just picks 10 answers at random from his list of possible answers each time the category is played.

Where Can I Play?

Eingang runs the games on StarLink and on DALnet. The following table gives you the channel names and server names for the various chaos games.

  Network     Server                       Game                 Channel
  DALnet      viking.dal.net               Chaos                Not running
                                           Chaos Tournament     #chaosrules

  EFnet                                    Chaos                #chaos

  StarLink    denver.co.us.starlink.org    Chaos                Not running

  Undernet    us.undernet.org              Chaos                #chaos

ChaosBot Commands/Game Commands

A number of commands can be issued by players to ChaosBot. The only real commands which should be issued on the channel to ChaosBot is <Cha>, join team <x> or <Cha>, name team <name>.

The following list of commands should be sent via a private message to Chaosbot. This can be done by typing /msg ChaosBot cmd, where cmd is one of the following:

* show category Displays the current category.

* show comment Messages you the comment for the current category. Comments are intended to provide some information about the content of the category and sometimes will also indicate the category author.

* show scores Displays the current points accumulated by the teams for the current game.

* show teams This causes Chaosbot to show the current team compositions.

* show standings Displays the current individual player scores in the game.

* name team [name] Will change the name of the current team you're on to the specified name. Please be curteous with the use of colour in team names. Not everybody has colour and some colour combinations look terrible.

* note [comment] This can be used to inform the game administrator of bugs in the categories. Please be sure to include the category name in your comment. These comments are saved to a file. This command can only be used by messaging the 'bot whereas the previous commands will also work on the channel.

Channel Operators

Channel operators are users entrusted to maintain order on the channel as well as correct errors and notify the administration in the event of errors or mishaps. If you are not on the bot op list and think that you qualify, contact the appropriate game administrator.

We cannot stress the importance of operators behaving appropriately. With so many games running, it is impossible for the game administrators to monitor all the channels all the time. As such, we rely on the operators to enforce the rules, particularly the rules regarding language and conduct on the channel. The games are designed to be family-friendly. If you are an operator or would like to be an operator, please be sure that you are also committed to this.

If you think someone is abusing their operator privileges or perhaps using them to cheat, please feel free to contact the appropriate game administrator with details of the problem.

For more information on becoming an operator, consult the How To Become a Channel Operator guide or the full version of this FAQ

Channel Rules (For Everyone)

Thousands of people have played our games, from countries all around the world, at many different times of the day and the night. In order to make sure that everyone has a good time, we have formulated the following rules which lay out guidelines for proper behaviour from all the users of our game channels. With so many games running, it is impossible to monitor all the channels all the time. Therefore, we rely on the operators to enforce the rules, particularly the rules regarding language and conduct on the channel. The games are designed to be family-friendly, which means we do have restrictions on language and content, for the comfort and enjoyment of all.

Channel operators are users entrusted to maintain order on the channel as well as to correct errors and notify the administration in the event of errors or mishaps. If you think someone is abusing their operator privileges or perhaps using them to cheat, please feel free to contact Eingang with details of the problem.

Treat everyone, including the bot, with respect. Be polite, obey the rules and contribute in a positive way to the atmosphere of the channel.
No profanity/no vulgarity. We recognize that, at times, the game can be extremely frustrating. We would like to suggest that you make use of the following fun and clean expletives to express your displeasure: Krunk! Aaaargh! Ack! Wok?! Eep! Krunkola!
The official language of all the game channels is English. Unless the game category calls for something in a foreign language (in trivia or Chaos), all conversation on the channel and answers submitted to the bot should be English.
Don't bother to complain about all the American categories. Most of the categories were written by Americans at the beginning. Try writing your own category instead.
The game bots are programs, albeit programs with some degree of sophistication. The game bots have no idea of what is really right and what is really wrong. All they can go by is what was programmed into them by the category writer. Therefore, when the bot claims that the answer is "Aplpe" instead of "Apple," there is not much point in abusing the bot about it. Use the /note command to report the error instead of complaining.
Do not idle for more than a half hour or so on the game channels.
Use of scripts with answers in them and/or using multiple logons or accounts to play the games is considered cheating. Players caught cheating will be permently banned from the games.
Nuking, spamming, or auto-dccing files to players upon join is strictly prohibited. Users engaging in these activities will be banned.

For a complete list of rules, please check our Acceptable Use Policy

About the Authors

Chaos was developed developed by the team of Mach and Eingang in the summer of 1994. Mach was a Ph.D. student in computer science at the University of California at Davis. He is now working for Intel in Portland, Oregon. Eingang is a Ph.D. student in computer science at the University of Sussex in England. She works with her husband at their Web design firm.

Mach's e-mail address is kenrick@acm.org. Eingang's e-mail address is eingang@eingang.org. The mailing address for categories is categories@eingang.org or you can use the online form at http://games.eingang.org/Games/Information/chaossub.html

Michelle A. Hoyle
Just the FAQs: Chaos, Last modified: November 25, 2002