Please notice the information below has been copied from the Tale1 wiki. Sphinx was notorious for many bugs and problems, and it is quite possible the test no longer works as illustrated here. -- ShanVizen
I've edited sections of this. It should be more up-to-date now, but please alter it as you need. --Sedelyan
Overview
Design a stream of factual questions about our land, our people, our society, and our science. Questions are rated both directly by fellow scribes, and indirectly by achieving an appropriate difficulty level.To pass this test, you must create 7 "perfect" riddles. Riddles are submitted, rated, and answered at a Lesser Sphinx (see Sphinx Locations to find one near you).
The overarching goal of this test is to create a living history museum by recording the history of the land, the people, the guilds, the skills, and the technologies.
Submitting Riddles
A riddle has two parts: The question, and the answer. The answer field can contain multiple possible answers if necessary. The wildcards ? and * can be used to represent either zero-to-one characters or multiple characters. For example, "*stranger" will match "stranger", "the stranger", and "I am the Stranger". "chest?" will match "chest" or "chests". Finally, case does not count. "Chest" and "chest" are the same.You can have a maximum of 21 submitted riddles at a time. You can remove a riddle you submitted at any time.
Rating Riddles
Any initiate of Thought may rate a riddle by visiting a Sphinx (all sphinxes draw from the same set of riddles, so it doesn't matter which one).Once a riddle has been rated by seven people, its rating will become permanent and it will be moved to the set of answerable riddles.
Things To Consider When Rating
- Consider the accuracy of the riddle. Is the answer given correct? A "Rate Later" button is available if you need to do some research first.
- Consider the possible responses. When answering a riddle regarding clearcutting?, a person could type either "clearcutting" or "clear cutting". If the riddle is "I come in a bowl. What am I?", a person could type either "a tadpole" or "tadpoles". Has the author taken this into account? (See the section on wildcards above)
- Consider the relevance of the riddle. Does it involve the history, society, people, guilds, or culture of this tale? "I was the first master of Acrobatics. Who was I?" would relevant, while "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" would not be.
- The difficulty of the riddle should not necessarily be considered when rating in most cases. After a riddle has been rated, its difficulty will be tested by those who answer it. (See "Answering Riddles" below)
Noble Riddles and Practice Riddles
Riddles with a score equal to or greater than 401 are considered "Noble". All other riddles are known as practice riddles. Only Noble riddles count for passing the test and gaining focus points, so keep this in mind when rating. Higher ratings should be saved for riddles which you believe fit the above criteria.
Answering Riddles
All citizens may attempt to answer a riddle, regardless of their status in the discipline of Thought. You have only one attempt to answer a riddle. Focus points are awarded based on your longest streak of correct answers (You are, however, allowed to answer 3 questions incorrectly before a streak is ended). Practice / Common riddles are ignored, success or failure do not count for or against a streak.Your first focus point will be awarded after a streak of 7 correct riddles, and your second after a streak of 14(?).
Took me a streak of 7 to gain a focus point, bringing me up to 8. This has been confirmed repeatedly. There aren't quite enough 'good' noble riddles in the system for 14 or 21, yet. -Sedelyan
I had 8 focus, received one point after a streak of 8, and then, not long after, failed to receive a second point after a streak of 17. If the next point is at 14, is it possible that you can only receive a point once per day? Otherwise I would say the next point should be at 21. There are plenty of riddles for this to be possible now. - Solipsistos
I had 10 Focus before answering riddles. After a streak of 12 I gained a focus point bringing my Focus to 11. My streak ended at 17 with no further focus points being awarded. This would tend to contradict that the first focus point is always gained at 7 and certainly disproves that a second is gained at 14. - Zintwana
In addition I just got a streak of 28 correct nobles with no additional focus point. My focus remains at 12 (It's gone up 1 since above through other thought tests). - Zintwana
It is possible for you to have zero correct answers in your streak, and 2/3 wrong answers. Yes, this is as stupid as it sounds. It's basically because the word "streak" isn't the right word to describe the "session".
"Perfect" Riddles
Of the first 21 people who attempt to answer a noble riddle, between 7 and 14 must answer correctly for a riddle to be considered of appropriate difficulty (33-66% correct answers). Riddles will remain in the list after 21 people have answered them, but success or failure when answering them will no longer affect the "appropriate difficulty" flag.Once a noble riddle is determined to be of appropriate difficulty, you will be awarded credit for a "perfect" riddle.
Passing The Test
To pass this test you need to create 7 "perfect" riddles. This is a painful, iterative process. A riddle which is not noble will not allow you to pass. A riddle that is too easy or too hard will not allow you to pass. You will have to remove the weak riddles and replace them with new ones until you pass. I hope you have a Sphinx in your camp.You retain credit for perfect riddles even if you later choose to remove it from the pool.
[Sphinx Progress]? - To help track Egypt's progress towards getting an Oracle of Thought.
Technical Notes
This information may not be 100% accurate, but it summarizes what we know about the way a Sphinx selects questions based on the information provided so far by Teppy, et al.Two sets of pools exist. One set is for unrated riddles, the other for unanswered riddles. There are 32 pools in each set. Once a pool has floor(1000/32) (i.e. 31) riddles in it, it will be considered active. When you ask to either rate or answer a riddle, the sphinx randomly checks up to 10 pools until it finds an active one, then presents a random riddle from that pool to you. If it fails to find an active pool, you will recieve a message saying "The Sphinx was unable to provide you with a question."
When you create a riddle, it will be randomly placed into one of the 32 "unrated riddles" pools. Once a riddle has been rated seven times, it is set as either "Noble" if the score is >=401, or "Practice" if not. It is then moved to a random "unanswered riddles" pool.
That last bit can't be right, because "Pharaoh says we need about 200 questions for people to be able to start answering them." If rated questions truly were moved to a random pool after recieving 7 votes, wouldn't we need a lot more? More experimentation or developer revelations are required. --Brant
Bugs
- Sometimes the Sphinx gives the same riddle for rating twice. -- ShanVizen
This allows more than one vote to be counted for the same player. --Sedelyan
Lesser Sphinxes
Images
The Sphinx of Lower Nubia
Materials
As verified by building a Medium Construction Site, the materials to build a Lesser Sphinx are:Sculpting Material
- 141061 Straw
- 33331 Clay
- 31013 Silt
Sculpture Form
- 11117 Slate
Decorative Embellishments
- 7673 Black Paint
- 6529 Turquoise Paint
- 5851 Light Goldenrod Yellow Paint
- 4523 Sea Green Paint
- 3307 Indian Red Paint
- 2129 Saddle Brown Paint
Vocal Mechanics
- 73 Small Gear
- 59 Medium Gear
- 37 Large Gear
Strikers
- 23 Bastet Gem of Any Type
- 23 Bridge Gem of Any Type
- 23 Hexas Plate Gem of Any Type
- 23 Cat's Eye Gem of Any Type
- 1 Cut Amethyst: King's Tomb
- 1 Cut Amethyst: Khufu's Ship
- 1 Cut Amethyst: Unity
- 1 King's Tomb (Any)
- 1 Khufu's Ship (Any)
- 1 Unity (Any)
Resonators
7 sets of 28 chimes. The chimes are randomly selected when the project is selected on the construction site.
Sphinx Projects
The Village Located at (-2033, -346) in Fools Paradise(See also: Sphinx Locations)
