Mixed signals and re-reading old threads

Sloach · Post by **Sloach** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 5:14 pm

Like others in here I am essentially an ex player nowadays. I get more enjoyment reading and re-reading threads on this forum than I do from playing. I find too many modern games take too long for too little reward. I'd prefer shorter quicker games with a higher percentage payout. Pints make prizes is the closest modern game I can think of with that kind of structure and it's easily the most enjoyable game still around in my view.

SoccerHQ · Post by **SoccerHQ** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 7:06 pm

Love PMP...can still make a decent amount on it if it's in a position to payout.

I do wonder about its long term future though as I'm not convinced Paragons will be around that much longer given their increasing unreliability. Why did the game get taken off Gamesnet a while back? Maybe it will find a new home on the I quest eventually.

Sloach · Post by **Sloach** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 5:48 am

SoccerHQ wrote:Why did the game get taken off Gamesnet a while back? Maybe it will find a new home on the I quest eventually.

Google gamestec and tatchell ...

SoccerHQ · Post by **SoccerHQ** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 12:08 pm

Ah never knew that! It's still on Paragons of course (the game).

Yes I remember that category and Diseases of the Scrotum that has also been taken off.Banned Categories still makes an appearance from time to time however.....

paragoon · Post by **paragoon** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 1:53 pm

Sloach wrote:Google gamestec and tatchell ...

lol what a ridiculous over-reaction

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 2:41 pm

That passed me by too,Sloach,thanks for the link.I suppose it is a bit insulting to Peter Tatchell though it was meant in jest.It doesn't sound like he was too bothered by it,unlike Victoria Thompson who appears to have saddled her high horse,and taken it upon herself to be offended.She obviously isn't bothered about people who are offended by the F word!
Another thing that has passed me by is the Pints Make Prizes game itself - every other pro or semi-pro seems to be good at it and despite it having a time pressure element to it that I want to see returned,I'm pretty hopeless at it.

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 3:29 pm

Nil Satis wrote:I don't disagree with much of what you say, but a couple of points:

- for that 'Boggle' game, if I am correct in assuming you mean '# Words', then you don't have to type in the letters in the words, you can scroll smoothly from letter to letter, which speeds things up considerably. Longer words also give higher scores so you wouldn't need to get as many words as you suggest, but your general point is fair. It certainly doesn't get anything like the same play as Word Soup, which was one of the few games you could always rely on seeing punters play on a reasonably regular basis and whose removal from many Paragons is simply mystifying

- I would class Pointless as skill-based, at least as much as the more conventional Q&A games. There are some really ropey subjects (e.g. Friends episodes), a few subjects where the scores all seem ridiculously high (they must have interviewed the world's leading vulcanologists if the answers to the Famous Volcanoes round are to be believed!) and the occasional answer within an otherwise fair category that just seems wrong, but overall I'd say the answers were pretty fair. The resetting to JPs that are under a couple of quid, on the other hand, is really poor and will ensure that even slightly savvy punters will just stop playing the game in that location

First of all,Nil,thanks for the tip on the Words game (I had to describe it as being like Boggle as I don't know how to get the hash symbol on my wife's laptop!).You're right it is much faster to slide between the letters,I don't know how I didn't notice that myself - yet another schoolboy error on my part.I suspect that has cost me a few quid in the past.
Secondly,I'm afraid I feel I must challenge your statement that Pointless is as skill-based as conventional Q&A games.Here's why:Imagine you knew every single trivia fact there is to know.You'd be unbeatable at the Q&A games around now but you wouldn't be particularly good at Pointless though.Say that Commander Data beamed down from the Enterprise to the Red Lion to play the quizzy.Frustrated at the machine's refusal to accept any money,he heads next door to the Wetherspoons but they have recently taken their machine out.He heads to the next pub but the machine is switched off for some reason.He goes to the other Wetherspoons in the town but some old bloke is sitting right in front of the machine etc etc.Anyway,he eventually he finds a machine and starts to play it.He starts with say,Million Pound Drop and no more than 32 questions later,he's won a tenner.He moves on to Beat the Landlord and again after answering 30ish questions he wins three quid.He then plays Deal or no Deal,answers a few questions and is rewarded with a derisory two quid (as happened to me yesterday).He then plays Pointless.He flounders.He can rule out the odd wrong answer but that's all.
And,in the odd category,like Wimbledon champions in the open era,that's how I feel.Ok,you might say that you could rule out selecting very famous ones like Federer,Sampras or Navratilova.But Stefan Edberg or Lleyton Hewitt? Petra Kvitova or Conchita Martinez? (For the record,Edberg is amazingly only worth 1 and so is Kvitova)
However,the large luck element involved in the game does mean lots of people are encouraged to play it.People who are quite good think there's enough skill in the game that they'll have an edge,and people who aren't good at all can possibly guess their way to a win.This was illustrated when I was playing a machine a few weeks ago and the barman came over to 'help' me when I was playing Pointless,telling me that he won quite often on it.He seemed quite intrigued that I was actually giving some thought to which answer I was selecting,he said that he normally just pressed anything.
So,in short,in my opinion,not purely a game of skill but certainly a welcome addition to the quiz machine world.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:16 am

muddle wrote:So,in short,in my opinion,not purely a game of skill but certainly a welcome addition to the quiz machine world.

I'm not saying it's perfect by any means (and I did give a few reasons why not in my original message) but I'd say 90% or so of the answers on subjects I know about have a reasonable points total assigned to them, and that's good enough for me. I wouldn't have the faintest idea which are real episodes of The Big Bang Theory, for example, but on something like the example you quote of Wimbledon champions, I have a decent idea of how well known the various players are. One tip - the older the answer, the more likely it is to be a low scorer, even if the subject's actual level of fame or achievement at the time was greater - e.g. "everyone" will have heard of Andy Murray as he's (a) British and (b) playing currently, but lots of people under say 30 won't have heard of Bjorn Borg, despite his winning 5 Wimbledons in a row. Whether the game's creators used a genuine set of surveys or simply assigned all the points based on what they felt was correct, I'd still say that overall the points given to answers are pretty well judged.

SoccerHQ wrote:Nah went a couple of weeks back and both 'Spoons still have Paragons although one of them has been moved upstairs so that probably tricked you Nil.

You are right - my apologies. However what were they thinking of asking a man of my advanced years to walk up all those stairs? - I've a good mind to write to Mr JD Wetherspoon and complain... ;-)

paragoon · Post by **paragoon** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:30 am

The funniest category is Danny Dyer movies - most of which score above 80 lol. Obvious piss-taking going on there.

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 2:17 pm

I wonder what the chances are of Pointless 2.0 appearing with some/all new categories (and the chance of jackpots regularly rising back above 60 pence)? Probably slim, as I think we've all observed that plenty of good games would be even more successful if the databases were refreshed at least occasionally, if not frequently, but it hardly ever happens. I always thought that the fact it's become easier to update games on networked cabinets would lead to this happening all the time, but apparently not.

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:43 pm

paragoon wrote:The funniest category is Danny Dyer movies - most of which score above 80 lol. Obvious piss-taking going on there.

Yes,that made me chuckle too.

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:53 pm

Topical2009 wrote:I wonder what the chances are of Pointless 2.0 appearing with some/all new categories (and the chance of jackpots regularly rising back above 60 pence)? Probably slim, as I think we've all observed that plenty of good games would be even more successful if the databases were refreshed at least occasionally, if not frequently, but it hardly ever happens. I always thought that the fact it's become easier to update games on networked cabinets would lead to this happening all the time, but apparently not.

I was thinking the same thing recently,Topical.The Pointless app which my mate was showing me the other day (my phone is too 20th century for stuff like that lol) has loads of different categories - surely it wouldn't be difficult to import them? But as you say,I find it mystifying that the question databases aren't updated from time to time.Were I involved in the industry,the minute I got a whiff of someone being able to hit a game,I'd have at least the spoilers refreshed,and also it might encourage the punters if the games were updated more frequently.

mendez · Post by **mendez** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 9:57 am

muddle wrote:Secondly,I'm afraid I feel I must challenge your statement that Pointless is as skill-based as conventional Q&A games.Here's why...

I'd agree with this. I don't find it enjoyable to play and I'm thankful for whoever it was posted the tip that the jackpot was on the help screen without spending a speculative 50p.

SoccerHQ · Post by **SoccerHQ** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 7:14 pm

Today summed up my modern day frustrations....

Found a delightful pub in the North west that not only had a Pub Connect but always on my visit to the bog before leaving I also found a Paragon tucked in the corner.

Now the situation is I won 20 + quid on one machine and 11 quid on another. Have a guess which machine didn't pay out and had the Call engineer message up?!

I honestly think quiz machines will still be around in 5 years time although in more limited numbers. I'd be pretty surprised if there's still many Paragons knocking around as they're starting to look their age now and are liabilities for Pros or even casual players who get a lucky run.

cool · Post by **cool** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:22 am

No they are not starting to look their age , theyve always been shit. The content in general hasnt been too bad but there must have been a geek in Games Warehouse HQ whose job it was to solely invent 'error messages' .
The later editions came complete with an inbuilt smoke detector. Imagine my shock when my non payment on one occasion generated 'call landlord pub on fire'