New Scaratings

I very seldom play trivia at lunchtime. In the past I would make a cameo appearance for the cards (or just use a pass). That being said, Lunchtime Trivia was one of the few games that I liked less than Buzztime Trivia! Because of this, NTN might consider experimenting with putting Buzztime Trivia on at lunchtime, perhaps toggling it with Lunchtime Trivia. See if one is preferred over the other, or if the variety enhances interest in trivia at that time of day. Just a thought.

Actually, I am looking forward to the changes. Since the questions on Countdown that I mess up on seem to be the entertainment trivia questions, I'm not sure I will find the games harder. (Although if the questions are anything like tonight's Nth Degree Below Zero ...) I won't miss Speed, Buzztime Trivia, or Nth Degree. It would be nice in the future to have Pastimes return to a Countdown format as it was before, but this is definitely an improvement.

I still think that the split schedule idea should be discarded in favor of having two sets of questions for some of the shorter "prime time" games, although it might be hard to sell that idea to NTN/BT.

-- 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...."

I and (I believe) my team mates are going to miss the "Speed" game. We all seemed to enjoy it.
I will not miss the 10 question, 15 minute BT Trivia game, but I know people who enjoyed it. "Nth Degree" will be missed by many.

I may start going out to play Coundown on Saturday afternoon again, as I did before 2008. We use to have a pretty good group of players back in the old days, but most have scattered for various reasons.

The time changes in the CT zone don't brother me, I am usually at the bar by 6:30 or 7:00 PM anyway. I agree that BrainBuster was a great lead into Showdown. I would recommend that Brainbuster be swapped with GloryDaze. Glorydaze would be nice lite followup to Showdown.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Could all of these changes just be Buzztime kissing BO's ass? There has never been more chatter in the non "Free for all" section of Scaratings! BO, you are a devious son of a bitch!

Also, couldn't any West Coast player that doesn't like the changes just move to the Midwest? We have plenty of vacant homes just waiting to be filled by trivia players.

Yeah, and as an added "bonus," tornado alley is more fun than earthquake valley anyway

They dropped Speed and kept Speed Freaks??? Makes no sense. Buzztime is in love
with Speed Freaks. Too bad no one else is.

Speed Freaks is pretty much the only game that can't be played as a team. It is a difficult game, but I kinda like it.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Actually, at Adams Mill they do. They just feed the answers to the same person. It has always struck me as a strange way to play the game, but whatever works.

I have to wonder if Speed Freaks should have a scoring bonus when there are more people present. The best way to a high score (other than to have everyone else at the bar feeding the answers) would be to be the only person playing trivia at the bar. If you have, say, five people playing, none of them get a particularly great score.

-- 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...."

No, your weather sucks. I'll take earthquakes anyday. OTOH, I have enjoyed my visits to the midwest, they are a lot of fun and I think that I'll keep it that way.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

Well, finally! Most all I read here is folks bitching about NTN. TOLLE comes along and offers a simple solution that would obviously work and doesn't require NTN do anything to implement. Brilliant!

You Westcoasters, just quit yer whining and start packing. And don't give us any of that crap about "families" or "jobs." Just get your priorities right and act accordinily.

Boo fucking hoo.

And we enjoyed having you here. Please let us know the next time you might be in the area, and we'd love to host you again.

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

My thoughts

What the hell are they going to do with Saskatchewan? Sure, there's only 7 sites there, but the province doesn't observe DST, so it's functionally on MDT most of the year, despite legally being in the Central Zone. My best guess is they'll always be on the east feed, and their premium block will run from 5:30 to 7:30 (plus Canada Eh? at 4:30) when it's not winter. Which will be 11 days after "B-Day"

I'm sure all the non-DST-area folks will love having their trivia times jump twice within two weeks

As I posted to the BT blog, the "National" block will run from 5:00 to 7:30 ET. Alaska will be excluded from the first hour, and Hawaii gets the short shaft -- only one national game, and only during the winter, thanks to DST
We Canadians appear to get one little bone here: Super Saturday Trivia remains staggered to run across the country at once
(There's also one hour of unified Late Shift, but I don't believe it should count as national. How many Eastern people are going to stay out until 1 AM for it to begin?)

An extra hour of Lunchtime Trivia would be better if LTT was a 10-Q, five answer game. Or maybe BT should have a slower pace 8-Q "Power Lunch" game for the weekdays, and the 10-Q "Weekend Brunch" game on Saturday and Sunday

Buzztime Trivia hasn't really gone away. They just call it Late Shift now. I bet LS will have clues, but still only 4 answer choices

I might play more on weekend afternoons, now that I can expect constant Countdown games during the afternoon

Brainbuster after Showdown is stupid, but not as stupid as when it was a full day after

I expect Showdown will play the same as a 60 minute game, but we will be seeing updated graphics and the screen font will match all the other games

I will miss Speed. I believe the reason BT is chopping it is because it's the only other "old text" game, and they didn't believe it was worth their while to renovate. Too bad. I would rather have it than Ask It Already or Immortal Words

Will we see a graphics update for QB1 too? The final local rankings still show up in the "ancient text" that was otherwise phased out in 2008

It's time to get to the bowling alley. I did do up a spreadsheet to graphically represent the new schedule. I can't attach an XLS file, but if anybody wants it, PM me an email address. I can't guarantee the information on it outside the "big four" time zones is fully accurate, though. Especially for Saskatchewan

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

PENGWN:

I would think TOLLE's suggestion that Leftcoaster repatriate to the East & Central zones might also work for Saskatchewanians. I don't know how difficult is is to get green cards here but I'm sure we have some places in the upper midwest that are about equally as uncomfortable to live in.

I blame Lewis and Clark, those nosy bastards...

Except I suspect that bathroom breaks might be a bit shorter. Pace yourselves, everyone...

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

Despite the "low play" excuse, fewer people have played Immortal Words, Lexitopia, Pastimes, Speed, SIQ (an hour long game!), And TunedIn than Nth Degree over the last 6 months. My guess for real reason is they got too many complaints that it was "too hard" for its time-slot amid the pre-weekend fun-focused games.

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Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.

Other than the unacceptable split, I like the night schedule better.

If Lunchtime will be easier, I'm most likely done with it.

It is easy to get a Gold Medal if you are the only one in the bar playing.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Thanks, I will do that.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

This is what I posted on Facebook and someone suggested that I post it here. What's is the opinion of others?

Why not leave the main premium games at 6 PM west coast time? That would also change Showdown's time slot to 6 PM as well, but according to BT that can be done without changing the game. If the other Tuesday premium games are changed so be it. It would be a minor consolation, but the split wouldn't be necessary.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

As someone from the opposite coast, I like this plan too. To have the hour-long games at 6:00pm PT would mean 9:00pm our time, which is what it always has been. We certainly wouldn't want prime-time games any later than that (except maybe on a Friday or Saturday), but I think 6:00 PT / 9:00 ET for the hour-long games should be fine.

What do people on the West Coast think about 5:30pm games? Brainbuster has always been the lead-in for Showdown, and the only reason why a 5:30pm PT / 8:30pm ET Brainbuster would be problematic would be concerns by West Coasters about getting to the bar in time.

Although I don't live on the West Coast, I do work until 5:00pm in an area that has heavy rush-hour traffic (although not as bad as NYC or LA.) If I had to play a trivia game at 5:30, I think I would usually be able to get to the nearest Buzztime bar on time, but barely. And there would be days where I would be late due to traffic.

-- 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...."

Even though I like Glory Daze and Brainbuster, there is no way that I can play a complete game because of the time element. Anything before 5:30 is out. On a good day I arrive on question 6 of Brainbuster.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

Well, I definitely think Glory Daze would have to be "split", but if 5:30pm is not too early for most West Coast gamers, then Brainbuster should not need to be. Since Brainbuster is on at 5:00 PT now, and you only miss part of that game, it sounds to me that if it were a 5:30 game - half an hour later - that you would usually be able to play the whole game.

-- 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...."

For me, making the 4:30 Tuesday Glory Daze start generally wasn't a problem, but I'm self-employed... I used to have a 9-5 job, and when they moved the times earlier a number of years ago Glory Days was impossible... I usually made it to the bar during the first round of Brainbuster. Wasn't that big a deal to me, the main game for me is Showdown... And the bar I play at is easy to get to, so I rarely was late for that game.

Anyway... I'm sure the new times are easier for most, but the games will be tainted by lots of cheating. Network scoreboards will be ludicrous. I'd rather...

PLAY ON SATURDAY in the afternoon, live games network-wide! This brings me to a proposal...

We premium-game players COULD just "take our ball and go home", but the result would eventually be NO Buzztime at all!

How about if some of us try to get teams together on Saturday for SIX consecutive Countdown games with their alleged "a bit harder, with less pop-culture" content, live vs. the whole country's network? From 2-5 Pacific (or 5-8 Eastern).

I realize there would be conflicts in some bars come college football season, but maybe if BT saw that a large number of players had migrated to the new time, maybe if they were to be told WHY this was happening, they'd see the light and get the premium games back to one-feed schedules... Or at least the sites wouldn't see a huge overall drop in play and unsubscribe... Even if BT doesn't fix the premium games' schedules, maybe they'd come up with some way of scoring this Saturday block of games as a special group or series... Or Dr. Denton, or Scaratings, or Badbart, or somebody...

Anyone think this has any possible merit?

Saturdays my bar is a meat rack. I once played there and finally had to go to the head. When I returned, my money had been cleared from the bar, my half-filled glass had been swept away, and there was a 20ish bimbo sitting on my stool. Unfortunately, she was interested in the 20ish gorilla sitting next to her, even though he couldn't beat me at trivia in a million years.
XT

5:30 Brainbuster would work for me and is a good idea. Some of the other players in the area have said if this goes through, they won't play the premium games period. This decision could make this area a site-free NTN / Buzztime's backyard.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.