Welcome to Theme Park Insider! Join the community or log in
Theme Park Insider
Facebook Twitter Pinterest YouTube

Working on the next "Epic" Trivia Challenge

Need some help here.....

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 25, 2011 at 7:19 AM
I have been working on a bunch of questions for a new "Epic" Trivia Challenge. I am expecting to have at least a hundred questions for the new trivia challenge by the time I get done with this.

My question for you is: What format do you want this trivia challenge to be in?

Tim W and TH Creative have an extremely good Jeopardy method going, but I don’t have that kind of time to play a "live" style game, nor do I want to encroach on their idea........and their categories and questions were so much more clever than mine......all I have is questions.....

I realize that the free for all method of the Harry Potter trivia challenge I did probably wasn’t the best method......

Therefore....

I am open for ideas here......

Let’s post any ideas that you have no matter how good or bad you might think they are, because it might be a perfect counterbalance to someone else’s idea. Let’s also see if we can get a discussion going on the different ideas and hopefully come up with a game that everyone wants to participate in....


Comments in chronological order. Most recent at the bottom. Scroll down to respond.

From Tim W
Posted August 25, 2011 at 8:10 AM
Well I also had the Disney Trivia game on this site, sort of a precursor to Disney Jeopardy. It was a chain game, and didn't have alot of order. It is something to consider, but I'm not sure it is the absolute best method to use in your case, since it is a bit "live".

Here is my first idea. This is a more simplistic aproach to the game that I came up with. Perhaps you could do like 5 questions a day. The first one that chimes in first would get the points. But the person couldn't answer more than one question a day. Players would try to rack up the most points, and the person with the most wins. A problem with this is that there is a possiblity of a question not being answered.

My second proposal is more structured. In this plan you would have somewhere between like 10 and 15 contestants competing for the most points. You would give them the same bunch of about 10 questions per week on Sunday. They would have to email their answers to you by Saturday. You would then award 10 points for each right answer, 10 extra points for getting all questions correct, and 10 extra points to the person who emailed you first and got all the right answers. On saturday, you would then reveal the points everyone received with the correct answers. It could go on for about 10 weeks or so, and then the one with the most points would win.

Another option to consider for the above proposals is varying degrees of difficulty. You could have easier questions worth less points than harder questions. An easy question could be worth 10, medium 20, while hard questions would be worth 30.

Good Luck with the new competition!

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 25, 2011 at 8:12 AM
Thanks Tim!

My original thought was something unstructured.....but the more I think about your structure idea, the more potential I see in it....the questions would need to be fairly tough for a structured game....since everyone would cheat and use the internet....

From Alan Hiscutt
Posted August 25, 2011 at 8:27 AM
unless you asked them to clarify their answers, much like some of the potter questions you had. But maybe that would take too much work...

From Mike Gallagher
Posted August 25, 2011 at 8:56 AM
I'd be somewhat interested in being a contestant, but I'm without a working home comp right now..low priority due to worse-than-usual finances. So I'd have to do it here at work, and we're soon to hit our busy time. Also it appears this trivia challenge will NOT be specific to a given topic like Potter or Defunct Amusement Parks Of The Midwest, although those could be categories. It appears it would be more varied and well-rounded... and from Jeff, I would expect no less.

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 25, 2011 at 9:10 AM
Actually I was planning on having it on a specific topic.....I have 35 questions already for defunct Amusement Parks, but was planning on adding to that rides that are no longer with us and rides that have moved.....but I am completely open to ideas at this point....

.....if we can fine tune this machine....I have no problems doing trivia challenges on a fairly regular schedule....possibly utilizing different topics each time.....but these are just ideas on the table at this point....

wow! Expectations already.....now the pressure is on!

From Tim W
Posted August 25, 2011 at 9:58 AM
You could possibly have each round themed to a different cattegory. Like week 1 could be defunct ammusement parks. Week 2 could be all about disneyland. And so forth...
If time permits me to, I might partake in the competition as well.

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 25, 2011 at 11:30 AM
So let me sum up where we are at.....

1. It sounds like everyone is up for regular trivia challenges. Once a week sounds a little extreme, unless it is 15-20 questions and no more....but we can take a look at that later....it would probably depend on participation....
2. If the trivia challenges are regular then it is reasonable to have themes. If they are not regular, then a diversity of questions is desired

Maybe if I scheduled a time to post questions and then posted 5 at the same time….the first person to answer each question correctly gets the points individually for each question. So it starts at a set time and then becomes a free for all. With 5 questions of various difficulties, there would then be a strategy to figure out if you put the effort on the easy question and get into the scrum for the easy points or if you take on the hard questions first in order to beat people to high point value questions....maybe we could pick a day…..and then post questions on the hour every hour from 7am to 5pm....by having everyone on equal footing with the start time, it will keep people from being able to answer all 5 questions.....unless they are the only ones to show up.....it would be a bad strategy to wait to post all 5 at the same time, you would want to answer each question as you figured it out.....

This seems to take the best bits of Jeopardy, levels the playing field a bit, and allows for some strategy.....without forcing everyone to camp on the website all day....

If questions roll to the next hour, then the value on the question would start going up...

How am I doing here?

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 25, 2011 at 3:30 PM
Does anyone want to give these rules a whirl tomorrow?

Tentative schedule - 7am to 2pm website time...Friday

From Zackiel Marsh
Posted August 25, 2011 at 5:29 PM
I want to participate but unfortunately it isn't in my time. I don't get back from school till 4:30.

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 26, 2011 at 6:40 AM
hmmm.....did not receive a resounding bunch of responses.....

Is anyone ready to do this?
Or should I pick a better day?
Or should I pick a better time?
Or should I just crawl back into my cave and make with the funny stuff?

From Jeff Elliott
Posted August 26, 2011 at 4:36 PM
Saturday?

Hello?

HELLO? Hello....hello....llo....llo

From Robert Niles
Posted August 30, 2011 at 11:23 AM
Site traffic is larger on weekdays than weekends. Traffic tends to peak in late afternoons Orlando time/early afternoons SoCal time.

I found running the March tournaments that we get most participation when we leave things open for input for 24 hours, so everyone around the world gets a chance to participate.

For what it's worth....

This discussion has been archived, and is not accepting additional responses.