New Scaratings

One idea that has been kicked around for quite some time is the ability for players to create trivia questions that can be featured in Buzztime games. We love the idea and have a rough concept of a user generated trivia question system working internally. I would love to hear what everyone's thoughts are on the idea and what you would like to see in that type of system!

How about a player submitting a question that is then featured in showdown with their name called out? Maybe even a leaderboard with the top player questions ranked by other players... the possibilities are endless.

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c0braje7 (aka CDUB)
Clint Worley- Executive Producer Buzztime

I think it sounds great! Yeah, the usual naysayers will find a dozen things to complain about, but all-in-all, I'm all for Buzztime engaging their most dedicated players in new and fun ways. Thanks for the innovative idea, I'll surely participate if it's offered.

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The questions I would rank the highest would be those that are the most Google-proof, and the writers I would rank the highest would be those with a talent for Google-proofing questions.

Back in the 90's there was a 15Q game called Viewer's Revue that consisted of player submitted questions and the blurb afterwards mentioned the author. It was popular but problems did arise at times with factual issues.

In my opinion, this is the only way to make player submissions work. Player submissions are often fraught with errors and if you know going in that's a possibility it's not a big deal. But if all of a sudden a question appears in Showdown that has issues or doesn't really fit the game, then you've got huge problems.

And the thread linked above contains total shit as far as good general trivia questions.

Not to be flippant, but Google-proofing trivia questions is, er, trivial. Don't ask "What type of creature is a hyrax?", ask "Which of the following creatures is a mammal?". (Okay, technically you could Google all 5 of the answers when they come up, but that's what the countdown timer is for.)

I'm not suggesting that all questions should be phrased like this -- that would be tedious. But it sure wouldn't hurt for certain critical questions, like the final questions in Showdown and Spotlight for example. Unfortunately, judging from a quick look at the recaps of the last few Showdown games, the Buzztime writers either haven't figured this out or just don't care.

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I assume that the question would be fact-checked before appearing in a game.

If the question is featured in Showdown, I would strongly recommend that it not appear among the last six questions. Because the points are so heavily backloaded in that game, the advantage of one team essentially knowing the answer of one of the questions in advance would give it a huge advantage. I suspect that the teams most likely to have members submitting questions would also be the teams that would least need such help.

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Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."

To Ampersand, yes I meant only the big-points questions the same as you do. But if there were to be, for example, just one guest-writer question in a Showdown, then regardless of its placement by round I would still rate it according to its Google resistance.

I am absolutely 100% in agreement with this, especially if it means using those questions to replace the repeat questions that appear in the premium games. Premium games should never have repeat questions.

Some years ago BT called me asking for help in writing questions that were borg resistant. It's not that difficult once you understand the concept, and for quite some time SD was effectively borg free. But eventually the old method crept back in and now if you have a clue about trivia and search strings, you can break 60k every week without breaking a sweat.

I've always thought it would be interesting to play one game of SD solo, with a laptop and 6 boxes, just to see if one lone person could turn the game on it's butt. And for those unaware, if you're good it's not just the last 6 questions. It's not a problem to rip every round, including the countdown, category and lightning rounds.

As many recall, this game aired following Showdown back in the day.
The guys from various teams at my bar would all throw in a buck and play cutthroat for the pot.
One time my buddy SHMEKL lost a game because he missed a question that he himself had submitted.
Perhaps the sweetest $15-20 I ever made.
But let's face it, you can't put a price on that kind of entertainment...

Of course, back in those days we didn't have an "Incorrect Questions" thread to go to after the game so we could gripe about other players' questions.
Luckily, I predict only a 99.99999% chance of hurt feelings from this process...

Have to admit, I've submitted questions to buzztime that I noticed got picked up many months later (like 10+ months), if not a couple years... and I've gotten them wrong when playing the game too