New Scaratings

Would you rather play a premium game at 8m/7p against only the west feed or at 6m/5p against the entire country simultaneously?

Furthermore, would you rather play the specialty games starting at 7m/6p against only the west feed or starting at 5m/4p against the entire country simultaneously?

How many west feeders would even be able to play those specialty games nationally given the very early start?

BO

6m/5p would be the only option. I think the 4p is way to early, I mean I could make it if I wanted to, but I doubt many others would be able. I think you know my feelings about West only, it is crap, and I think it is stupid-so, it makes no nevermind about the times for a West only.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

If Buzztime holds to its definition of Eastern Prime Time as 7:30 to 9:30 eastern, and if there's no getting them off of this, then I would rather see the entire west align to this and have the two-hour premium block at 4:30 to 6:30 pacific.

BUT

The premium block ought to be four hours in the first place if Buzztime wants to define two prime times. So the next premium games that get created and added should go into western prime time, for the east to play too if they stick around. And if Buzztime can't tell us they have new stuff coming along in the pipeline, then what are any of us doing sticking around anyway.

I will not play repeat games no matter what time they are on. Contests lacking validity hold no interest for me.

Back when Showdown was legit and played at 5:30 in California, I arranged to come in half an hour early to work, and leave half an hour early, so I could play it. Some players were able to get there as early as 4:30. But 5:30 or 6:00 always got the best turnout, especially from the casual players.

TFM

Well, the way I see the numbers shaking out, BT eventually will not have specialty games after the premiums. So the block in the pacific time zone would be from 4-6.

Regardless, I'm nearly certain premium games would draw more overall players with a start time of 8e/5p. But I'm not sure at all that GD would draw more players in the west at 4p compared to 630p.

BO

West-only is stupid. I find myself having zero interest in playing any game except Showdown, and I want to be there for that only because of the people who are there with me.

Like BO, I could make 5pm, but 4pm is a no-way. Even 5 is pretty early, but I could manage it a couple times a week.

Edit: My title is -BO- Derek. What?

Definitely 6p/5p against the entire nation.

Your title changes to reflect your number of posts. The change also occurs on your past posts. At your ninth post, you were "Revolution." I won't spoil what comes next for you, and am curious to see how my title changes with this post.

TFM

Assbucket Gingrich on a Pogo Stick, but I hate getting logged off after only an hour and having a thoughtfully-composed post vanish into the Æther

Anyway, here's the gist of what I had . . .

ANYTHING all-national is better than the FSPLIT

Some Pacific players can flex-time or simply up-and-leave work beforehand, but others (like me) are usually stuck until 5, so I wouldn't schedule prime time any earlier than that. Therefore, the two-hour specialty block would end at 10 Eastern, and since I would avoid going any later than that, 5-7 P/8-10 E yields the optimal time slots, IMO

My conventional scheduling proposal:
• Two 15 minute games starting at 5:00 P/8:00 E. This way if a West player (or non-banker's hours worker elsewhere) gets to their site a little late, they're not twiddling their thumbs for 25 minutes waiting for the next fresh game
• 30 minute Lead-in game at 5:30/8:30
• 60 minute Premium at 6:00/9:00

My Radical Alternative(TM):
• One 15 minute game at 5:30 P/8:30 E
• 30 minute Lead-in at 5:45/8:45
• 60 minute Premium at 6:15/9:15
• Other 15 minute game at 7:15/10:15, a la Speed after Showdown
Reasoning: Countdown dictates Prime Time starts and ends on the hour or half, otherwise I would begin the block at 5:15/8:15 (The Premium would line up with 6:00/9:00, like we were used to). Starting right at 5 pushes the two "meaty" games a tad too early for the west coast, but finishing by 10:15 with the option of "staying for dessert" is not criminally late for the east coast. Tryin' to think outside the box here

Finally, I don't give a metric shit about when Canada Eh? shows up

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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?

Well done Sir!
+1

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Much, much rather play with an early start against the east coast feed. Here in the Mountain Zone, 6pm for Showdown is easily doable.

5-6pm MST against the entire field is probably the best time frame for this sorry sot as I don't always get off work earlier & any later cuts into my beauty sleep.

Judging by the jump in eastern players so far with the 8e premium game start time, if the west feed wants national competition it would have to adapt to that starting time.

BO

5:30 PST is the earliest that I can play on any game.

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

And since half of the all players are in the Eastern zone . . . *sigh*

It's not so bad for me because I'm also Mountain, and a 6 PM premium start would be great! It's just sadly ironic that Buzztime's home time zone gets the raw end of such a scheduling setup

_________________
/°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?

Last night when I was kicking a similar idea around, I was thinking more of additional specialty games, but a new premium or two would be even better. COOGS suggested that if BT wants new people playing, especially from their target demographics, they should be putting games up with more visuals, such as the photos they used in the last round of Passport and currently use in the Pro Files round of Sports IQ. Perhaps they could even incorporate live-action sequences. These would be much more likely to get the attention of folks than screen after screen of just questions.

Brooke/AARDVK

That was the plan from the very beginning. BT only cares about Central/Eastern the rest of us are targets of their mocking.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

You know, if Buzztime isn't averse to repeating a premium game a couple of hours later - and the split shows that they are not - why not keep the earlier start for the East and have 5:00 PM Premium Games for the West, followed by the split-feed Premium at 8:00 PM for PST and Alaska/Hawaii only? That restores national competition, keeps the earlier Eastern Time starts, and allows casual players to catch Premium Games again at 8:00 PM. Yes, there might be cheating...but the HOF score would be the 5:00 PM game, with bragging rights (but not HOF listing) still available for the established teams we all trust who choose to play three hours later.

Not a bad idea, but I would suggest one modification. Repeating the same game 3 hours later in the West is simply too much a temptation to cheat, period, even if HOF score aren't recorded. I would run a repeat game from a different week, perhaps from the week before in this slot instead.

BT was presented with a similar proposal a couple of weeks before the split was executed in hopes of maintaining a national network.

There have been plenty of discussions with BT (that 99% are unaware of) regarding anything and everything you can think of, unfortunately it hasn't altered their course of action much.

BO

Fascinating. Could you reproduce that cited submission here, given that you've just referenced it and commented that 99% of us are unaware of it?

No.

There has been direct discussion between a few players and the decision makers at BT. Those involved have also put a lot of work into this on behalf of the player base.

BO

The discussions were between BO and BT.

_________________
"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

Many thanks to "those involved" for fighting the good fight, regardless of the eventual outcome.

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

Certainly the privilege rests with the individuals who received each piece of correspondence.

I'm just kinda wondering why you'd cite a document but not reveal what you'd written. Normally one doesn't reference a document and then refuse to release it...it makes one wonder what exactly was in the documents that couldn't be made public.

But it remains within the rights of those who received the correspondence whether or not to release it, and I wouldn't want it public if you wouldn't want it released, BO.