Weird Al Survivor IX - Chitchat Thread

[Mystik Tomato]

-Hosting style. Any significant issues anybody had? Namely, I want to make sure that everybody felt that the game was run smoothly and objectively. Any feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated.

• We can do it this day
  I can't do it that day, how about this day
  That day's no good, I like the original day
  Neither of those days works for me, do it this day
  repeat ad nauseum

That was probably the only major problem with the hosting, because it ground the game to an absolute halt, and essentially, the game lost focus after it went on for a while. I know I stopped really caring about the game simply because it was just going on way too long waiting for everyone to show up for that challenge. I think a pre chosen itinerary for every challenge before the game starts so everyone knows when everything will happen.

-Private forums for each tribe. Good idea? Bad idea? Did it enhance the game for you? Personally I like the format a lot because it gives us some more freedom in running challenges, but I know that some felt it may have made things less exciting.

That was probably the best part of the season. It made for some good discussions and challenge additions.

-Overall take on the season, taking everything into account (challenges, cast, boot order, etc.). One of the best? Worst of all time? I personally would say top 3 but I'm sure some will disagree.

It was pretty damn great, but it really seemed to drag after the merge. That was when all the self votes and the like happened, so I know I'm not alone in thinking that. I think with the absolute obviousness that Jon was controlling the game from behind the scenes also caused it to be not as great, but that's mainly because nobody else really had the balls to go against him.

MIXING OLD AND NEW PLAYERS: My guess is that this is a necessity in the future given the pool of available contestants, but ultimately it's probably something that should be left up to the host of a given season. Unlike the real show, having "veterans" and "newbies" playing together doesn't seem to impact the dynamic, and I think this was probably the best cast ever, at least since season 1. Works for me.

Honestly, the reboot made it better, simply because we all weren't waiting for the last two people to join because we need all new contestants and nobody will join. Personally, I think even if we have practically the same cast as last time it could turn out to be a different game.

RANDOMLY SELECTED TRIBES: Not a bad idea in theory, but didn't play out too well. Challenge-wise, I think the tribes were pretty balanced, at least on paper, but a lot of alliances were mapped out by luck of the draw. Plus, the nature of the first challenge almost guaranteed that the MIA FreakyGeeky's team would lose. Maybe a pick'em would've worked better.

I think the problem here is that the first challenge shouldn't have had an immediate loss if one of the members was MIA. Save that for something like the third, where everyone will know who's contributing and get rid of them beforehand.

REMOVING INACTIVES: This is the biggest question mark of the season for me, because I didn't have a plan for it in advance and I had to make a call on the fly pretty much. It's something we definitely need to come up with an accepted rule for...you don't want inactive players outlasting everyone else because they aren't threats, but you don't want to disrupt anyone's strategy either. My suggestion in the future: the first time a player neglects to vote, it's a warning. After that, self-votes become cumulative and add up every single round. So basically, players in the minority can use that to their advantage, but it doesn't disrupt the schedule either.

That's probably the best solution. I think email reminders or something that someone hasn't voted is probably a good thing because I logged on to vote to find out I had already been kicked. That might be a bit much to do, though.

[Killingsworth]

-Hosting style. Any significant issues anybody had? Namely, I want to make sure that everybody felt that the game was run smoothly and objectively. Any feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated.

No major complaints here, but Chris's suggestion of a set schedule/itinerary raises some interesting questions. How might tribal council voting be effected if the game isn't catered to fit EVERYONE's availability schedules? This would screw up the strategy of voting someone out for not contributing enough to challenges. An interesting game would obviously have to be scheduling challenges in advance AND making every single one of them live. Non-live challenges can lead to great collaborative efforts, but they also make the game less interesting. So, a game heavy on non-live challenges with most of them scheduled in advance would sound good in theory but ultimately be the most bland and boring game ever.

-Challenge mix. Overall, do you think there was an appropriate balance of creative vs. trivia vs. puzzles? Non-live vs. live?

Personally, I'm not that big on puzzle challenges. Trivia ones are okay. I'd like to see more trivia challenges and less puzzles...but this game only had a few puzzles anyway. A little less creative challenges wouldn't hurt either .

-Private forums for each tribe. Good idea? Bad idea? Did it enhance the game for you? Personally I like the format a lot because it gives us some more freedom in running challenges, but I know that some felt it may have made things less exciting.

I personally liked them as they added an air of excitement and mystery to the game not knowing what the other teams up to and being left up to one's own devices to find out. I would also go out on a limb and say they are a necessity to the game that way, but the teams are eventually going to find out about each other's doings anyway.

-Overall take on the season, taking everything into account (challenges, cast, boot order, etc.). One of the best? Worst of all time? I personally would say top 3 but I'm sure some will disagree.

I pretty much regret everything...but there were still some reasonably fun times had with the team.

MIXING OLD AND NEW PLAYERS: My guess is that this is a necessity in the future given the pool of available contestants, but ultimately it's probably something that should be left up to the host of a given season. Unlike the real show, having "veterans" and "newbies" playing together doesn't seem to impact the dynamic, and I think this was probably the best cast ever, at least since season 1. Works for me.

RANDOMLY SELECTED TRIBES: Not a bad idea in theory, but didn't play out too well. Challenge-wise, I think the tribes were pretty balanced, at least on paper, but a lot of alliances were mapped out by luck of the draw. Plus, the nature of the first challenge almost guaranteed that the MIA FreakyGeeky's team would lose. Maybe a pick'em would've worked better.

I think letting people pick their own teams (especially when old players decide to return) would make the game pretty lame to watch and it would get pretty predictable and formulaic pretty quick. The whole point of this game is to see how well people work together, so throwing people together with no idea of how they will get along obviously makes the game much more entertaining.

KIDNAPPING: Short-term it made for some neat strategies and moments, definitely. I don't think it had much long-term impact. Could be repeated with some tweaks; I'd rather try out something else though.

I'd like to see a game without the kidnapping. I'd like to see what players resort to when each teams' inner working are less immediately accessible to each other.

MULTIPLE PEOPLE WINNING IMMUNITY: Three people won immunity at the first individual challenge. I'm sure that something similar was done in the past, but this one was significant because it spared the two most obvious targets. So I guess it was decent, albeit not a groundbreaking concept.

I would like to see a game that is big on this in the first few rounds and then doesn't do this later on (around when a "merge" would happen). I'd just like to see how this would mess up people's voting strategies.

IMMUNITY CAN BE TRADED FOR CHALLENGE ADVANTAGE: Never came up. Probably for the best because it would complicate things.

Anyone who wins immunity and then does this has gotta have "brass ones" on 'em. I think it really adds to the game and I wish I saw more people take advantage of it.

REMOVING INACTIVES: This is the biggest question mark of the season for me, because I didn't have a plan for it in advance and I had to make a call on the fly pretty much. It's something we definitely need to come up with an accepted rule for...you don't want inactive players outlasting everyone else because they aren't threats, but you don't want to disrupt anyone's strategy either. My suggestion in the future: the first time a player neglects to vote, it's a warning. After that, self-votes become cumulative and add up every single round. So basically, players in the minority can use that to their advantage, but it doesn't disrupt the schedule either.

Like I said, I'm sure some people might have very legitimate reasons or immediate real-life matters keeping them from the game so I think that suggestion would be the most fair thing to do.

[Mystik Tomato]

No major complaints here, but Chris's suggestion of a set schedule/itinerary raises some interesting questions. How might tribal council voting be affected if the game isn't catered to fit EVERYONE's availability schedules? This would screw up the strategy of voting someone out for not contributing enough to challenges.

Teams are a lot more lenient when someone says "I cannot make it on Wednesdays" instead of someone who just doesn't show up at all. That's what one of our topics were about, for crying out loud. Then after the merge, everything would have been sorted out as to when challenges can be, so except for sudden plan changes, there won't be any of that "can't do it then" crap that we had to deal with this year.

So, a game heavy on non-live challenges with most of them scheduled in advance would sound good in theory but ultimately be the most bland and boring game ever.

Actually we had a game that was purely creative challenges. For some reason, people seemed to like it. If the host wasn't such a dumbass that had to be replaced halfway through, it might actually be considered a decent game.

[anthontherun]

I totally agree about the schedules--I was much more lenient about this than I had ever intended. We lost a lot of momentum with that, and I'll admit my enthusiasm waned as well. I'm not sure if it's practical to map out a schedule for every challenge ahead of time, but I think if we decide there's gonna be an average of, say, two challenges a week and stick to it, we'll have a better chance of keeping it exciting.

I think the problem here is that the first challenge shouldn't have had an immediate loss if one of the members was MIA. Save that for something like the third, where everyone will know who's contributing and get rid of them beforehand.

That's a great point. My theory in setting up that first challenge was that it was very dependent on teamwork, but in retrospect it was too dependent. Not that teamwork is a bad thing to emphasize in the first challenge, but it actually sort of goes against the whole purpose if one MIA person has the power to decide the challenge.

The whole point of this game is to see how well people work together, so throwing people together with no idea of how they will get along obviously makes the game much more entertaining.

The main reason I went with the random tribe division was because I knew that certain players were friends with one another and I didn't want to stack them (consciously or not) in anyone's favor...which totally backfired because fate decided that these allies would be together anyway. I think it's cool to switch up how the teams are determined from time to time, but I'll probably select them myself next time I host.

Actually we had a game that was purely creative challenges. For some reason, people seemed to like it. If the host wasn't such a dumbass that had to be replaced halfway through, it might actually be considered a decent game.

Hey, don't call Sarley a dumbass!

[Wizzerkat]

-Hosting style. Any significant issues anybody had? Namely, I want to make sure that everybody felt that the game was run smoothly and objectively. Any feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated.

I thought you and Kev did a great job. Obviously the scheduling thing was at times a clusterfxck. I think there were people who signed up who in reality did not have the time to play. I am not sure if a strict schedule beforehand would work. However, I might suggest something like:

Tell everyone before they sign up not only stuff like how long the game might last and perhaps how much overall time they might expect to spend each week, but also include general days and times challenges might take place based of course on the schedule of the host(s). Then tell people that if they don't think they can do that DO NOT SIGN UP. I would also require people to post(via PM or in a forum) their general availability for live challenges when they sign up. Having this info, if I were hosting I would then perhaps choose which challenges go where(live vs. non-live) based on what I got from the players. While people's situations and schedules change, at least there would be some general info to work from.


Oh, one more thing. It was probably just me being stupid, but when you asked about making a video, I was just thinking of putting my ugly mug in front of a camera for a minute or whatever. For some reason I did not think about having to actually *make a music video.* It sucked that the pro/semi-pro video making/editing abilities were on ONE side. My suggestion would be to list what abilities a player might need to be able to play. You could even throw in some abilities NOT to be included just to make things interesting and not tip your hand as to types of challenges.

-Challenge mix. Overall, do you think there was an appropriate balance of creative vs. trivia vs. puzzles? Non-live vs. live?
-Private forums for each tribe. Good idea? Bad idea? Did it enhance the game for you? Personally I like the format a lot because it gives us some more freedom in running challenges, but I know that some felt it may have made things less exciting.

Liked both of these. Of course I would get rid of most puzzle challenges(I suck at them )

RANDOMLY SELECTED TRIBES: Not a bad idea in theory, but didn't play out too well. Challenge-wise, I think the tribes were pretty balanced, at least on paper, but a lot of alliances were mapped out by luck of the draw. Plus, the nature of the first challenge almost guaranteed that the MIA FreakyGeeky's team would lose. Maybe a pick'em would've worked better.

This time, the random thing kinda sucked because a lot of people who usually are friends both on the forum and outside it got put together. It was easier for Jon to win because of this. I like the random thing overall since I am not sure I would want to re-experience my elementary school days

REMOVING INACTIVES: This is the biggest question mark of the season for me, because I didn't have a plan for it in advance and I had to make a call on the fly pretty much. It's something we definitely need to come up with an accepted rule for...you don't want inactive players outlasting everyone else because they aren't threats, but you don't want to disrupt anyone's strategy either. My suggestion in the future: the first time a player neglects to vote, it's a warning. After that, self-votes become cumulative and add up every single round. So basically, players in the minority can use that to their advantage, but it doesn't disrupt the schedule either.

That would work for me if I understand what you mean here. This was the other thing that I did not like. Why sign up for a game you barely plan on playing?

[Wizzerkat]

Two final thoughts:

1. I should totally win Ms. Congeniality! I nominate Joe for Mr. Congeniality. I thought of nominating Casey, but he was in the final two so he got enough

2. Geez, change the colors back already! Yellow hurts!

[Mystik Tomato]

Why sign up for a game you barely plan on playing?

At the end there, part of my strategy was to no compete in the challenge but vote in the councils to take the heat off of me while bending the eliminations in my favour. Playing the part of the Illuminati, sort of thing. It might've worked, had I voted that one time.

So there is a reason for it, at least partially.

[Big Spoon]

I nominate Joe for Mr. Congeniality.

Thanks.

[Big Spoon]

-Hosting style. Any significant issues anybody had? Namely, I want to make sure that everybody felt that the game was run smoothly and objectively. Any feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated.

I liked the hosting style a lot. I felt both hosts were very accessible if needed. However, as others have said, something should have been built in to help keep the challenges on more of a schedule, so we don't have to wait for people.

-Challenge mix. Overall, do you think there was an appropriate balance of creative vs. trivia vs. puzzles? Non-live vs. live?

I thought this was excellent. When I was at college earlier on in the game, I couldn't always make it to live challenges, so I might have to sit out for my tribe. But I felt I had a strength in the non-live challenges. The one thing I would change however, is have at least one non-live challenge closer to the end of the game. The last handful of challenges were all live, and may have slowed things down a little in terms of scheduling. However, I agree with everyone else that the first challenge should not have required everybody as FreakyGeeky totally screwed us over.

Private forums for each tribe. Good idea? Bad idea? Did it enhance the game for you? Personally I like the format a lot because it gives us some more freedom in running challenges, but I know that some felt it may have made things less exciting.

Excellent idea! I found it much easier to check up on my tribe and participate. Especially sometimes I would go back and forth between the game thread and my tribe forum, which was easier than it would have been if the Minor Celebrities had to set it up off forum.

-Overall take on the season, taking everything into account (challenges, cast, boot order, etc.). One of the best? Worst of all time? I personally would say top 3 but I'm sure some will disagree.

It was an excellent season! Definitely my favorite of the two that I've participated in.

So now the big twists. I'll give my personal take on each one and I hope to hear from you guys too:
MIXING OLD AND NEW PLAYERS: My guess is that this is a necessity in the future given the pool of available contestants, but ultimately it's probably something that should be left up to the host of a given season. Unlike the real show, having "veterans" and "newbies" playing together doesn't seem to impact the dynamic, and I think this was probably the best cast ever, at least since season 1. Works for me.

I was fine with mixing old and new players. I was glad to get to play again, as I had a death in the family soon after the last one began, and thus didn't get to participate that much, so I was voted out early. I found that having everyone in on the game really added something to it.

RANDOMLY SELECTED TRIBES: Not a bad idea in theory, but didn't play out too well. Challenge-wise, I think the tribes were pretty balanced, at least on paper, but a lot of alliances were mapped out by luck of the draw. Plus, the nature of the first challenge almost guaranteed that the MIA FreakyGeeky's team would lose. Maybe a pick'em would've worked better.

I didn't mind this that much, other than FreakyGeeky's MIA-ness. I liked the randomly selected tribes, and even though they worked out with a lot of friends on the same tribes, I enjoyed it. The problem with FreakyGeeky was how he didn't show up at all. Change the nature of the first challenge, and things may have worked out better.

KIDNAPPING: Short-term it made for some neat strategies and moments, definitely. I don't think it had much long-term impact. Could be repeated with some tweaks; I'd rather try out something else though.

I didn't mind it so much. Granted, most people just went back to their tribes afterwards, so it didn't do a whole lot.

MULTIPLE PEOPLE WINNING IMMUNITY: Three people won immunity at the first individual challenge. I'm sure that something similar was done in the past, but this one was significant because it spared the two most obvious targets. So I guess it was decent, albeit not a groundbreaking concept.

Considering I got to be one of the three to win immunity, I didn't mind it so much.
But yeah, I have to admit, I wasn't crazy about this idea, especially as the first immunity challenge after the merge.

IMMUNITY CAN BE TRADED FOR CHALLENGE ADVANTAGE: Never came up. Probably for the best because it would complicate things.

I was temped to go for it when I won immunity in the first challenge, but have to admit that I was a little nervous. Probably should have as I made it to the final three anyways.

REMOVING INACTIVES: This is the biggest question mark of the season for me, because I didn't have a plan for it in advance and I had to make a call on the fly pretty much. It's something we definitely need to come up with an accepted rule for...you don't want inactive players outlasting everyone else because they aren't threats, but you don't want to disrupt anyone's strategy either. My suggestion in the future: the first time a player neglects to vote, it's a warning. After that, self-votes become cumulative and add up every single round. So basically, players in the minority can use that to their advantage, but it doesn't disrupt the schedule either.

Yeah, something should have been done about this. I like your idea that you presented.

[anthontherun]

Weeding out inactives is definitely something I wish we could do before the game, but it sort of inevitably happens every season. One or two newbies sign up and don't show up at all, and at least one person just randomly disappears halfway through. The hope is that people use discretion before signing up, knowing if they'll be able to commit to the game or not, but schedules change and situations arise so I understand why it happens. I think that, since there hasn't been a Survivor game in a while, not everyone knew what to expect. I probably should've posted more of a refresher of what it entailed than just suggesting that people look in the Archive.

My suggestion would be to list what abilities a player might need to be able to play. You could even throw in some abilities NOT to be included just to make things interesting and not tip your hand as to types of challenges.

I like this idea, although the video challenge was an unusual case in that I think it was the only one (this season at least) that required anything beyond the forum. FWIW, Kevbo and I truly expected the videos would be basic webcam-style--the challenge was more about the creativity and enthusiasm rather than editing skills or anything like that. I can't deny that the Minor Celebrities had a number of people familiar with video editing, but what made their video so special was that they had a pretty simple concept that they executed perfectly. There were no elaborate effects; they just had fun with it and it came across.

Geez, change the colors back already! Yellow hurts!

Does it now? Everything's restored, except Dave is gonna have to restore himself to Admin being his default group because I'm just a meager moderator.

At the end there, part of my strategy was to no compete in the challenge but vote in the councils to take the heat off of me while bending the eliminations in my favour.

Aw man, I wish you'd told me that! When you announced that you wouldn't be able to participate in any live challenges for a while, that's when I started to reorder everything and moved up all the non-live challenges. If I'd known that was your strategy I would've just posted something like, "Well tough luck, ya crazy Australian! What's keeping you so busy, is it koala hunting season?" to sell the ruse.

The one thing I would change however, is have at least one non-live challenge closer to the end of the game. The last handful of challenges were all live, and may have slowed things down a little in terms of scheduling.

Definitely. I know the last two challenges stayed in their intended positions but otherwise I think I originally had a live/non-live/live/non-live... pattern for almost the entire post-merge. It's hard to come up with variations on non-live individual challenges and I think bunching them all together made it even more evident (to me at least) how similar they were at least in terms of scoring.

Big thanks for all the feedback--all the constructive criticism seems to be pretty consistent so I definitely know what to work on for next time.