Guide to Technical and Audio Issues
Contents
Introduction
Although technical and audio issues while playing Buzzword are rare, you may experience them occasionally. This page will help you identify common technical and audio issues, tell you the best ways to handle issues during gameplay, and give some tips on the best ways to avoid issues in the first place. We’ve also included information about how we identify issues, what kinds of remedies we apply, and how those remedies will show up on your results pages.
Audio Stalls
The most common audio issue is the audio stall. This is usually experienced as the audio “cutting out,” usually about 1–3 seconds before the end of the question.
Audio stalls usually occur due to instability in your internet connection, which interrupts the question while your device is downloading it from our server. Less commonly, it can result from issues with our server or from connection issues somewhere between your device and our server.
If you experience an audio stall…
- Wait to see if the audio resumes playing. Connection issues often resolve themselves quickly, upon which the audio may start playing again. Try to wait as long as you reasonably can. Questions are scored based on how much audio has actually played, not elapsed time since the audio began playing, so if the audio resumes, your score will be accurate regardless of how long you waited.
- If the audio doesn’t resume, move on with the game. You can provide a guess, an arbitrary response (possibly “audio stall” or “question cut out”), or leave the response field blank. We will remedy the issue as well as we can.
- Around the end of the play period, we will identify and remedy audio stalls. You don’t need to do anything further—we detect stalls and remedy them promptly.
- If we miss it, write to us. If you think you experienced a stall that we didn’t remedy or if you have any questions, write to buzzword@naqt.com as soon as possible. We’re happy to address any issues you have.
If you experience audio stalls frequently…
- Check your connection. The vast majority of audio stalls happen because of instability in the player’s internet connection. If you’re on an unstable or weak wireless connection, for example, you will almost certainly have better results with a wired connection or by moving closer to the access point. You may want to test your connection with a free sample game.
- Consider playing on a full-featured computer. Most audio stalls occur on mobile devices (phones, tablets). There is a good chance that switching to a regular computer (laptop, desktop) will help.
Other Issues
Besides audio stalls, there are a few other issues that can affect Buzzword gameplay:
Issues that prevent responding
Players may occasionally experience issues that result in the game not allowing them to provide an answer. This generally causes a question to simply be missing from the game’s results page or be listed as “Technical Issue or Misplay.” These issues will automatically be identified and remedied.
These issues usually stem from the same issues that cause frequent stalls and can be addressed the same way.
Issues with NAQT’s server
Very rarely, NAQT’s server may have technical issues while Buzzword games are being played. If this happens, we’ll identify and remedy all affected questions. If NAQT’s website appears to go down while you’re playing Buzzword and you’re confident it’s not an issue with your own internet connection, write to buzzword@naqt.com.
Issues stemming from physical playback controls
Some devices (such as keyboards and headphones) have buttons used to control audio playback, such as pause buttons and playback sliders. These should not be used while playing Buzzword—because the scoring is based on audio playback, manipulating the playback is not appropriate. We detect the use of such controls and will warn players if we think they’re attempting to play dishonestly. Although Buzzword usually prevents using these controls to manipulate question playback, in certain cases they may cause a question to be treated as misplayed.
Other
Write to us at buzzword@naqt.com if you experience an issue that we haven’t covered. This will ensure we remedy your issues and can help us improve the Buzzword experience for you and other players.
How We Identify and Remedy Issues
NAQT detects technical and audio issues during Buzzword gameplay. We can usually address issues ourselves, but we may occasionally request further details from players, and we appreciate your help in resolving problems fairly and improving Buzzword.
If you experienced a stall or error and gave a correct response
We’ll treat your response as correct and give you the correct number of points based on when you buzzed. Questions are scored based on how much audio has actually played, not elapsed time since the audio began playing, so if the audio resumes, your score will be accurate regardless of how long you waited.
However, we reserve the right to handle cases of suspected dishonest gameplay differently.
If you experienced a stall or error and did not give a correct response
We will award you your average correct celerity for that question. Average correct celerity is your average score on questions that you answered correctly in that game (rounded to the nearest integer). This is essentially equivalent to “throwing out the question” in a way that neither penalizes nor benefits you. Your results page will say “Technical Own ACC.”
This includes blank responses, responses like “audio stall” and “question cut out,” and the lack of any response.
However, we reserve the right to handle cases of suspected dishonest gameplay differently.
If you manipulated the playback of the audio
Depending on the circumstances, we may treat such cases as inadvertent audio errors and remedy them as described above, we may decide to let the question stand as played, or we may warn players about potential dishonest gameplay.
If you’re playing Practice Buzzword
Because Practice Buzzword is a non-competitive activity and does not have public leaderboards, we usually do not address audio or technical issues that occur in Practice Buzzword games.