Mutant Dog

Thoughts on 1 vs 100 Live

2009-06-18T02:19:51Z

So if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may have noticed that I wouldn't shut up about 1 vs 100 for a while. I've tried to cut down on the tweets, but I needed to get my thoughts out about this game somewhere, so here I am posting more than 140 characters.

Brief introduction: 1 vs 100 Live is a video game adaptation of the short lived (at least in the US) trivia game show, 1 vs 100. It's the first "show" on Xbox Live Primetime and is a massively multiplayer online game show for Xbox Live gold members.

While it's based on the 1 vs 100 concept, there are some tweaks. There are a few live shows each week, in which there's an actual host in a studio in Seattle who has his audio streamed during breaks, and each episode is 2 hours long. Apparently 101 people wasn't "massive" enough, so you can be selected as the One, one of the 100 in the Mob, or play in the crowd, which is everyone else. Some episodes have had over 100,000 people connected at once, which is a very large crowd.

The alternate format which occurs most evenings is the Extended Play in which there's no live host, and there's 37 questions each episode. These scores help you qualify to be selected as the Mob or the One in that week's live episodes. But they're not too relevant to the story here.

The game is in its second beta phase right now. The first one was the Canadian beta in which I managed to play in for the last weekend, and it is now in the US/Canada beta phase which opens it up to the US.

Here's the thing: most people don't enjoy playing trivia with me. I'd arrange You Don't Know Jack tournaments while in university, and I'd have to stop playing so that others could have fun. When I'd play Trivial Pursuit with friends in high school, most people would turn out so that it just turned into two of us playing. So I figured that by playing online, I could enjoy playing trivia while not annoying those around me.

It started off pretty goofy on the last weekend of the Canadian beta. The host asked a question about the Super Mario Bros. movie, which I've never seen, but yet still knew the answer. So I while I was emailing the address given, jessicasays heard the other part of the question which I answered, and included my phone number as requested. So a few minutes pass, the phone rings, and Jess just hands it to me after answering and is like "it's the guys from Xbox" in a bemused tone. So I talked to the host and Major Nelson for a few minutes which was recorded and played back later in the show. Also during the show, I think I finished third, second, and first in score from the crowd/mob during various rounds. So that was odd, right? But once the American beta started, there'd be a lot more people, and I wouldn't be up at the top so frequently, or so I hoped.

A brief interlude of vanity surfing of Youtube which foreshadows the rest of this story:

So the first night of the US/Canada beta comes along, and I start to play again. The first round of the night, The One takes the money which is silly, because this is a beta and there's no actual prizes, but I see my goofy avatar on the screen as the top scorer overall. Ok, that's cool but unexpected...

I've played a lot since then, so I don't remember all of the details of the other rounds, but I know Jessica and I were selected for the mob, and we "won" 400 MS Points and an Xbox Live Arcade game, but of course, we didn't win anything. I think I finished another round as a top scorer, and then while a round was starting, I saw my face on the One screen before my avatar appeared on stage, which gave me time to yell for Jessica to come back.

So, here I am as the One. Short story, 12 questions, using two helps, and a prod from Jessica about How I Met Your Mother and spicy meatballs, and I had defeated the mob. In a real game, it would be worth 10,000 Microsoft Points (~$142 CAD), but in the beta, I knew all I won was the knowledge that I was the first to defeat the mob (in the US beta). However, what quickly became evident during all of this was when you're playing with tens of thousand people on Xbox Live at the same time, and you're the centre of attention, things quickly go crazy.

There seems to be a few different responses from people (although to be fair, with tens of thousands, the default response is to not do anything.)

Send a note of congratulations
Send a note asking whether I really won 10000 points
Send a friend request
Send a party invite, because clearly you're the only one who has the idea of asking the guy who wins to give you the answers and you're the only one he wants to talk to
Send a ridiculous number of messages or chat invites or whatever to cause the notifications to go crazy on my screen in an effort to annoy or distract while I'm the one
Send various forms of abusive messages, none of which are worth documenting here

I don't think the notifications finished until about a half hour after my turn as the One was done. I used the file complaint button where possible, and turned down pretty much all the friends requests. As I see it, they all feel like they played with me, but unfortunately, I have no idea who they are.

So hooray, I won at 1 vs 100, I took some grief over Xbox Live, and lived to tell the story, the end, right? Nope. The next episode goes from ~50,000 people to ~100,000 people. Surely I wont be the centre of attention again, right? Nope. While I can't be the One again for the rest of the season, during the two hours, I finished #1 in three separate rounds, and was #2 in the final round of the night. Now I'm starting to get some notoriety. The message flood starts each time after my avatar appears on the screen, and it's more of the same.

To move on with the story, there have been two more live episodes, and two more nights of frequent top 3 finishes, and too many messages via Xbox. At times the number of messages exceeds the 100 message inbox cap before I can go through them and file complaints on those messages that deserve it. At the end of Saturday's episode, the host starts to give a completely unsolicited shout out about me, although if you listen, it sounds like he forgets that I beat the mob, and then it's as if someone's waving to get his attention in the studio as he just kind of whispers "he's already taken the mob as well".

So that's enough bragging about how I'm great at 1 vs 100, blah blah blah, shut up Ryan, you're so boring. But now I can talk about what I've found interesting during all of this, which is this "nanocelebrity" as I referred to it in a tweet. Most of my Xbox Live use before this was to play the occasional game with datasquid or the odd game of Rock Band or GTA IV online out of curiosity. Now I've received enough friend requests to fill my friends list, a wide variety of abuse which has been interesting to scope and actually added a few friends to my list.

The other weird thing that I can't stop doing is searching for what people are saying about "me" (or my avatar? If I were more of a sociologist, I might be able to express the seperation a bit better). The links to Youtube above have a couple of funny moments amongst the videos. There's the one where I defeat the mob, and you hear them shout in anguish as they see my answer for the last question thinking I got it wrong. There's one where after showing up as #1, you hear the people discussing how they're going to add me as a friend and then insult me, before finding my list was full.

It's also been weird to see what people post about me on the net. There's an official forum hosted by Microsoft, and then there's Google and trolling various video game forums. I will abuse the HTML list formatting again to provide a summary of some of the comments:

That guy needs a life
He's a robot
He's Ken Jennings
He lives in the Microsoft data centre
He's 8 or 9 smart people in a room (nope, just jessicasays and we rarely have to help each other)
Umm, let's just say rude comparisons to Gary Glitter
He's Kevin Jennings (I replied that they were correct, but that I wasn't related to Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings. I don't think everyone got that joke)
He should go to sleep and never wake up (this person sent me a friend request after saying this. Unsurprisingly, he's not one of the few I accepted)
He cheats
He works for Microsoft and has all the questions and answers in advance as an internal tester
He's ruining the game for us and should be shunted off to his own game or stop playing
He can suck it
He can totally suck it
He's a nerdy Canadian asshole

There were some other funny ones, like one talking about how they expected that the balding guy would be out after 2 questions, and I took that as validation for my avatar design. There's also a thread proposing a drinking game that doles out one shot for each time I finish in the top three. Ahh, the irony of me being involved in a drinking game. There was also a thread about me that ran well over a hundred posts, but that's because it was derailed by a horrible troll, and was thankfully deleted by moderators.

So that's about it. I think I broke the team's expectations for the game. There's a limit of 3 prizes per season, and I've won 3 or more on multiple episodes. The issues that come from playing with 100k people at once seem to have the awareness of the developers, but who knows what's going to come from it.

I've always tried to stay relatively invisible, or at least that's what my head believes. This has been fairly interesting, even if it's just becoming well known to a bunch of video game playing trivia players. I've been mostly successful at not jumping in like some Kibo of the web showing up at every mention of my name and making snarky responses to their insults. (To those who told me to suck it hard, I discussed posing for a photo where I'm struggling to drink a thick milkshake and thank them for their advice.) And at the end of this all, most people will just know "Mutant Dog 123" and not who I am, and I can go off and enjoy my preferred anonymity, maybe after changing my gamer tag. It's a fun game either way, and I recommend checking it out. I hope you ignored all of the above, and I was able to get the above out of my brain without any of you reading it :)

Well, I'm glad I haven't bought this yet

2009-03-17T20:35:33Z

There is no reason an adult should have [Animal Crossing: ~~Wild World~~ City Folk]

But it comes from a well informed source:

The equipment is real expensive and we cannot afford to buy all of the systems and do not have the resources either to examine all of the possibilities.

Daily Tweets

2009-03-07T14:00:39Z

09:33 Ooh, these headphones do a good job of blocking the background chatter on the bus. One step towards my anti-social isolation bubble! #
13:14 Boy someone's cranky about the neighborhood they live in: www.flickr.com/photos/34846864@N02/3333327070/ #
18:48 <Obligatory about to see Watchmen tweet, now with added Rear Window captioning> #
21:54 So there's this book out there called "Watchmen" and it should really have a big "SPOILER WARNING" printed on the front #

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2009-03-06T14:00:53Z

13:59 I'm trying to achieve at least $5 more in donations for Big Brothers Big Sisters K-W by 5pm. Care to help? tinyurl.com/canvtp #
21:32 Hooray! Helped raise over $3900 for Big Brothers Big Sisters K-W tonight #

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2009-03-05T14:00:13Z

15:59 @jfpoole Thanks for ruining my plans to buy a new Mac! Way to use "data" and "measurement" to spoil my fun! #
16:49 @jfpoole Well I'm not crazy! For a Mac Pro, I could buy a new mini, and two more for media centers! #

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2009-03-04T14:00:37Z

10:10 I feel so weird about the fact that I pre-ordered the new Neko Case but haven't purchased the new U2 today. #
11:22 Apparently I bought 31+ minutes of frogs and crickets today? There should have been a notice, so I wouldn't be so confused. #
14:38 @firda I can add a 22nd song (iTMS link) tinyurl.com/b8ju7n #
19:24 @monkeyspoon5 I'll take one! #
21:11 @megier I've played with it for Windows but oddly not Mac. On Windows it's an experiment, on the Mac it would be replacing my default #
22:12 @monkeyspoon5 Go ahead and enjoy, don't know what theatre we're going to anyways. #

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2009-03-03T14:00:41Z

09:14 Huh, while both routes get me to work within a few minutes of each other, only one features 15+ mins of standing outside #
11:13 I'm pretty sure I need one of these boxes of Trix tinyurl.com/ao232j #
19:44 @onion74 Indeed. What's weirder is that InterTAN used to operate Rogers Plus. I hope Bell doesn't mess with it too much #
21:54 @squideye You're welcome. I found it by chance and figured you were the most likely person to a) want to and b) be able to attend #
22:54 @tvot It wasn't too bad in the morning, but @jessicasays picked me up in between buses on the way home. #

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Daily Tweets

2009-03-02T14:00:52Z

12:18 @firda Im interested in your pay the mortgage by doing nothing ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter :) #
15:34 @firda Ahh, if only I had some sites on which to place ads. Oh well, back to work on Monday #

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Daily Tweets

2009-02-28T14:00:19Z

10:29 @firda Every so often I see Crazy Bottle Guy from our old neighbourhood wandering near work. Just try to be unlike him, and you'll be fine #
11:08 @firda Oh yeah. @jessicasays and I saw her one day by the fence of the B&B demonstrating a lack of discretion in bodily functions #
11:40 @jennw While not a typical strip, this is still one of my favourite Achewood strips: tinyurl.com/2yhks6 #

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2009-02-27T14:00:55Z

12:05 @jennw I assume you're looking for Windows? #
21:40 Dear BellTV/ExpressVu tech support: Telling me "oh, your PVR may erase everything once or twice a year" isn't building confidence #
21:57 At this point, I'm just working on the right amount of anger to call back in order to get retention pricing, since Rogers isn't an option! #
23:29 @megier Rogers costs even more, is less transparent in billing, I don't like their UI, and I'm not going to switch ISPs to bundle #

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2009-02-26T14:00:29Z

10:22 @forestpirate Yeah, they added People Got a Lotta Nerve to the store this week. @jessicasays isn't a big Neko Case fan, but I had to buy it #
23:13 Very annoyed that my Bell PVR that has served me well for 3+ years decided to delete everything on it, including the Price is Right I was at #
23:29 @jessicasays Useless. He tried to escalate my call, but the escalation people had gone home for the night. So now I have to call back tom. #

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2009-02-25T14:00:19Z

12:32 @jfpoole I was going to come up with a snappy response, but then I had too much fun with the Safari 4 Web Inspector. I still use Lynx though #
13:54 Can someone explain why violence on public transit requires different penalties than violence not on public transit? #
00:10 Who put Neko Case in Rock Band and can they add some more? #

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2009-02-24T14:00:17Z

22:18 @megier Lynx is the hardest browser to make your design look like you intended #

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2009-02-23T14:00:16Z

15:58 Can't say I expected Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story to be a key song in GTAIV: The Lost and Damned... #
21:44 Dear Payless Shoes: You are using a terrible Depeche Mode cover: tinyurl.com/aqm62q #
21:56 @jfpoole Sorry. It was just one part of the Oscars that I can't unwatch. I'm not sure why I hate myself like this. #
21:58 No seriously, is this whole musical medley here because of Mama Mia? Because that seemed like a huge waste of time, and I like Abba! #
22:13 @mutantlog I'm not opposed to good covers,and I know we disagree on Cat Power's Space Oddity, but that one was just lame. The Gap was better #
22:30 @onion74 tinyurl.com/dxfskg #
22:30 @megier Hmm, do I retweet with @onion74 in there or just leave it? #
22:35 @megier Answer: Leave it. She's already replied. #
22:45 Lessons that sound obvious when you say them: Don't leave your can of pop next to the fan vent of your laptop. #
22:49 @onion74 It was nearly empty, and not there for super long so it wasn't a horrible experience. #
22:49 @firda I know @jessicasays gave up and went upstairs. I played some GTAIV for a bit, so I think I'm watching more than caring #
22:55 Also, why have I not been interested in Slumdog Millionaire when it's a Danny Boyle movie with a game show framing? This confuses me. #

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2009-02-20T14:00:15Z

20:45 @ian_in_seattle Google Reader these days. Bloglines reliability has gone way downhill. GR Mobile isn't as good, but I read from many places #

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2009-02-19T14:00:15Z

15:32 OH from my coworker re The Pixies : "They kind of sound like Counting Crows". Workplace rules prevent hitting him. #
16:37 @ian_in_seattle I thought you meant metaphorically, like wow, Windows Live is so successful it's on fire. Then I saw your picture. #
16:43 This sounds potentially awesome. Or stupid. Can't tell. tinyurl.com/ddd8uv #

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2009-02-18T14:00:16Z

16:29 @jessicasays Oh boy oh boy! What's in the box? Oh wait, I placed the order. #
23:10 @onion74 What show? #

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February 16th, 2009

2009-02-17T17:09:32Z

February 16th, 2009
Originally uploaded by Edgar Wright.

It's a good thing I don't live in Toronto anymore, because I'd be totally stalking this movie production...

Daily Tweets

2009-02-17T14:00:44Z

00:39 @onion74 That there's stuff in the oven? #

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Seriously, what the hell was this, and why did they air it at 11pm on Fridays?

2009-02-16T15:49:26Z

Daily Tweets

2009-02-16T14:00:36Z

21:03 I don't think it's spoilerly to say that production of The Amazing Race has really changed this season. Shinier graphics and split screens! #
21:18 I'd love to see a team be eliminated and be all "Thank goodness! This is too hard! Sequesterville here we come!" #

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2009-02-15T14:00:44Z

13:26 Finally gave up on finding a better copy of Sasuke (Ninja Warrior) 21 and started watching. 2 out of 80 have passed stage 1 so far... #
20:38 @jennw That gala looks familiar #

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2009-02-14T14:01:19Z

16:33 @glark I'd consider your DVD offer, but I can't think of how a magnet from Kitchener-Waterloo could possibly be cool. #

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2009-02-13T16:38:39Z

13:04 @firda Hooray for tinyurl previews, and then copying and pasting the link into Lynx. #

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2009-02-12T23:36:56Z

18:59 @jessicasays You should have seen the look on his face. That was awesome! #
19:11 @jessicasays I kind of would have liked to go over it though, so far Rogers is $10 less than today, but oh, I don't have any internet access #
22:30 Found a live version of Tom Tom Club doing Take Me to The River. Music is excellent, vocals are a cruel trick. #
23:07 @onion74 tinyurl.com/acaxaa #
13:04 @firda Hooray for tinyurl previews, and then copying and pasting the link into Lynx. #

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