No post today (but then what is this?)

I have a few lined up, but I didn't feel any were appropriate for the time. I've been struggling to decide on a direction to go, if any. There's a long post about this ready, but to save you the time it boils down to choosing between that which would quickly bring in readers and that which would retain the readers who I value so much. In all likelihood my choice will be to carry on as I have, but I must admit that the temptation is there.

Fear not, this fit of conflict and emo will end soon enough. Coming up will be Alterac Valley, Loken, and a few ideas for mages, so keep your eyes peeled, my favorite gnomes.

Before you go, I leave you with this wordy collection of nonsense regarding a game of words.

I want to talk about the letter E.

It's a common letter, the most commonly used in the English language. It is an essential letter. So you'd think this might be a letter which is given out in some amount of scarcity. You know, make it something you want and might not have so you'll trade letters for it. But no, Scrabble is beset by welfare Es and it is dying from them.

Any player can just pull out a set of tiles and the odds are that they'll have an E. First pull! No need for them to trade with the bag or with other players. Why the easy Es? Or not just easy. These Es are welfare. And they are killing Scrabble.

Oh sure, E is only worth one point, but that's a very narrow-minded way of valuing it. Think of the words in can produce. Query. Equal. Axe! We're no longer talking about a one-point tile, we're talking about a tile that enables much higher value tiles. That one point is just icing in the cake which is a Q on a triple-letter, or even triple-word score space. The Q is hard to get, as it should be. The E is handed out to anyone. The fact that it is used in some many words means that it should be scarce, since it would be so easy to use.

In its current form, E is overpowered and welfare for noobish Scrabble players.


I guess that counts as a post and now I look like a liar. Oops?