New Scaratings

*gathers everyone in a circle and holds a flashlight*

So tonight we went to a location outside of the two I normally go to for logistical reasons. All the same, not too far from where I live.

Typically it's just my father and me, but this time we brought my mom and sister along to show them our world. Boy did things go wrong.

I've seen posts on here talking about having to go through more than one play maker due to low battery... but honestly I've never really had a problem with it before. But tonight I went through as many as five playmakers (one lost the screen as the waiter was handing it to me). Three playmakers in I managed to get a solid one that held out from Six to the end of Pastimes. Had to switch again for Lex and then again before it started; it may have been a mistake needing to go to the fifth, but still. I even had to grab my family's playmakers in the process (my mom ending up playing the games in three accounts over the night due to one reason or another). I think the only one who didn't lose power was my dad. It's just weird because I got the first box and the battery said 99%. They would just fade and eventually become unresponsive.


The horror *shudders*


And yes it was BWW

I've learned to not trust the 99% when the box is turned on.

IMHO, the blue boxes are at the end of their useful life. Or, possibly, they are still functional, but Buzztime service is too crappy to support aging but sound technology.

Sounds like one of my experiences (not at a BWW) a few months back; we were preparing for the Smartest Bar competition and tested out signal strength and the quality of boxes. It was a total disaster; I went through five boxes that night, and became totally disgusted when I exchanged a battery-depleted box with one that was completely frozen/unresponsive.

The final week at Smartest Bar we had similar experiences with bad boxes. We wouldn't have won the competition anyway, but might have placed a notch or two higher with better equipment.

Since ranger posted while I was composing this, I do want to say that the two places where I usually play trivia generally have decent boxes. I hope to continue using the Playmakers or something very similar; I have no desire to use a tablet to play trivia.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

It's even more fun trying to do that at a place where the playmakers aren't self serve (like my local BWW, where only the staff has access to the playmakers. It can sometimes take over 20 minutes to get a new board there if the one you have goes belly up).