Spoiler question...

Tea-stain · Post by **Tea-stain** » Fri May 01, 2009 11:56 am

Could not beleive the spoiler question i got the other day...
Q:what is Kevin Keegan's star sign?

A: Sagitarius
B: Leo
C: Aquarius

Unfortunately i picked 'B' and googled later to find 'C' was in fact the answer.
I have a good general knowledge but questions like this cannot even be educatedly guessed.
Like my Murphy's....i'm slightly bitter...... :-(

Any one else fell at such a hurdle recently?

rogerthymes · Post by **rogerthymes** » Fri May 01, 2009 12:02 pm

I had 'What was Enid Blyton's star sign?' (Leo I think was the answer)

What's really been annoying me though are some of the music questions on Bullseye -
What month was This Year's Love a hit for David Gray?
or
What was Steps 8th top ten hit?
No-one's going to get stuff like that and joe normal will play one game and walk away.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Fri May 01, 2009 12:18 pm

Tea-stain - it was ever thus. SWPing is not just about having a good general knowledge but is also about trying to keep in mind unimportant rubbish of the kind you mention purely for the purposes of playing the machines.

Roger - totally agree with you on the Music edition of Bullseye. I gave up playing that a long whole back as it seemed so unreasonable.

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Fri May 01, 2009 12:36 pm

Star sign questions have been around for a long time. Dull, unimaginative questions that are difficult to memorize (though I have learnt a few). Still, at least they tend to take the right answer, unlike a few older collections of spoilers.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Fri May 01, 2009 1:21 pm

grecian wrote:trying to keep in mind unimportant rubbish of the kind you mention purely for the purposes of playing the machines.

The worst of all is when you realise a commonly repeating question is wrong so you have to learn the 'wrong' right answer, and then you realise that back in the real world you aren't sure any more of the 'right' right answer.

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Fri May 01, 2009 1:34 pm

It's better than being asked 'Who are the reigning Olympic football champions?' which came up the other day.

There have always been spoilers. It would be a bit pointless if the machines asked questions which you knew all the answers to, wouldn't it?

Plus, I'd never win then because you lot would get too good, apart from Istenem of course, who only really enjoys winning with nice sounding words like blabblewhap

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Fri May 01, 2009 1:44 pm

Nil Satis wrote:
grecian wrote:trying to keep in mind unimportant rubbish of the kind you mention purely for the purposes of playing the machines.
The worst of all is when you realise a commonly repeating question is wrong so you have to learn the 'wrong' right answer, and then you realise that back in the real world you aren't sure any more of the 'right' right answer.

To say nothing of the scenario where the answer is the 'wrong' right answer on one machine, but the 'right' right answer on another machine and you have to remember which machine takes which answer (oh yes, it has happened).

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Fri May 01, 2009 1:48 pm

QuizMaster wrote:
Plus, I'd never win then because you lot would get too good, apart from Istenem of course

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Fri May 01, 2009 11:42 pm

I re-post the Monopoly question I had about how many planks of 4x2 weigh the same as Moby Dick. Yeah!

PS,Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was a good one on 'Same Name Different Game' today, not that I'm deviating from the thread...

(I wish!!!)

sir ratholer · Post by **sir ratholer** » Sat May 02, 2009 9:22 am

I actually think spoiler questions are pretty immoral, yes I can hear the chuckling but hear me out.

The fact is that the vast majority of the UK population have limited general knowledge and probably wouldn't even come close to winning on a quiz machine so we can rule them out.

For the rest of the population, it's not particularly difficult to design questions which are designed to be harder without being 100% guesswork, as the star sign questions/pieces of 4x2 are obviously put in to be. What I'm trying to say is that you could ask very hard questions on the category, such as "what position did spurs finish in in the 2003/04 season" which people would get a chance of getting right if they were knowledgeable, but people could also have an educated guess at.

But the manufacturers are so scared of machines running slightly above percentage that they disregard all gameplay and long term playablility. If it was slightly easier to win on a machine if it wasn't done, and then the machine started asking slightly harder questions earlier when it had paid out, that would be a far better protection mechanism than easy questions and then a guesswork spoiler question when you're near to winning a prize.

I used to believe that the Eggheads (particularly Kevin and probably Chris too) would make excellent SWP pros but I'm not sure even they could get past the vast quantity of spoiler questions to make a viable living out of both games. Incidentally, Eggheads is a prime example of a quiz show where the talent tends to show in the end without the need for spoiler questions - I'm very sure the percentage of challenging teams winning is far less than the 30% payout of quiz machines.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Sat May 02, 2009 10:07 am

I had what is Ralph Laurens star sign the other day, it is quite a regular question on a particular unit, not a prayer of knowing that one.

alcozar · Post by **alcozar** » Sat May 02, 2009 10:29 am

Being new to the SWP side of things (a newbie at 3 months), I find the "when did xxxx die?" type questions the hardest as well as the ones along the lines of "Which town is furthest from London?" atm.

Seem to be able to remember most of the other "useless" info pretty well in general.

sir ratholer · Post by **sir ratholer** » Sat May 02, 2009 10:35 am

alcozar wrote:Being new to the SWP side of things (a newbie at 3 months), I find the "when did xxxx die?" type questions the hardest as well as the ones along the lines of "Which town is furthest from London?" atm.

Having been to almost every town in the UK, I love the furthest from London questions, always laugh when I get them as a spoiler

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Sat May 02, 2009 11:18 am

Spoiler questions are a necessary evil. If you have ever seen what a pro will do to a machine with insufficient spoilers and where the full value jackpot is always available, you would understand

It's brutal.
.

cool · Post by **cool** » Sat May 02, 2009 11:37 am

spoiler questions are better than hundreds of easy questions without a sniff of a prize.