1 vs. 100 Coming to Xbox Live..., ...from today's E3 coverage. Options

[jmenjes]

Congrats for getting into the Mob. I was in the Crowd all night.

That was quite a lot of fun tonight. The Beta ran quite smoothly even with 50,000 people playing.

You can send out invites to your friends if you wish, so you're not necessarily assigned to playing with random people. I was in early, so I sent out invites to some of the folks on the TiVo boards. Our group was together all night.

And it really wasn't a trick question, but it was something to see how many people missed the freezing point of water question towards the end of the show tonight.

[JerrysFeudinAgai...]

Alright, so I just got done playing in the first US beta. I'm kinda brain-dumping here, so bear with me.

It was fun! The questions were mostly pretty straight trivia, although there were one or two written in the swervy way the questions on the actual show were. (I expected the straight trivia, actually.) Buncha pop-culture, buncha RECENT pop-culture.

When you join, you are assigned one of three roles: the One, the Mob, or the Crowd. Likely, early on, you will get Crowd, as the former two are picked based on how people have done in the past. I made it into the Mob for the third game of the night, most likely based on the fact that I had answered all 20 questions or so to that point correctly. (And I flamed out about six questions into my game when a stumper finally came up.)

In all cases, you are assigned a few other people to play with...in my group was a dude from Michigan and a very nice 13-year-old, and a woman who didn't talk a lot.

Grand Prize for the One appears to be 10,000 Microsoft points, retail value $125. Mob members who were alive if the One lost won stuff depending on how long the One lasted; I think the biggest prize the Mob "won" (this was a beta and prizes weren't actually given out) was an Xbox LIVE arcade download, which would be worth around $10. One person did actually go the distance, but then I remind you there was nothing to play for and they might have dove earlier had their been. In another case, it got down to 1 vs. 1, and they BOTH flamed out on the last question. (Which I got right. Hah!)

Aside from the One/100 game, you are awarded game points (just score, NOT MS points) by:

* answering quickly (a maximum of 200 bonus points)
* being correct
* streaks
* Mob members knocked out on your correct answers, with the value going up based on how many have already fallen...starts at 10 points and went as high as 300, I believe.

(I don't remember how much right answers and streaks paid. Suffice to say that the speed bonuses make the numbers weird and you rarely have a score ending in 0.)

The One has three helps: I think I saw Trust The Mob, Trust The Crowd (both of those are exactly what you would expect), and Trust The Brain. (The "Brain" is the single player whose score is highest to that point.)

Stats and leaderboards are available, tracking many many stats (percentage of right answers for the session and the current game, number of mob members knocked out lifetime, lifetime score, game score, etc.), and at intervals they take time out for stat checks and commercials and host Chris Cashman will comment on how people are doing and such.

(That said, Cashman doesn't *really* host, he has more of the Dennis-Miller-on-Grand-Slam gig of talking in between rounds and games and such, and the actual game is run by "Jen", who is computerized.)

You can make your avatar cheer by drilling the Y button, and you can change cheering forms while cheering with the D-pad. I was jumping around between raising the roof and the Cabbage Patch.

Anyhow, totally fun, and while I don't know if I'd pass up actual human interaction to play it, I would definitely make a point of playing again if I happened to be home on a Saturday night.

Like I said, brain dump. If you want to know anything that I didn't cover, feel free to ask.

How the hell you got in? I gave up after 40 minutes. I read on the xbox boards that around 50,000 people were trying to play. Hopefully Mircosoft will fix this when the main game comes out.

[Sodboy13]

You know, between this and the new Create-A-School mode on NCAA Football 10, I may find myself suckered into acquiring a 360.

/comes with a convenient excuse to buy the Big Button Pads

[jmenjes]

Looks like there might have indeed been a "cap" on the number of players for tonight.

Apparently it'll be removed for Saturday night.

[Jumpondees]

Alright, so I just got done playing in the first US beta. I'm kinda brain-dumping here, so bear with me.

(Edited for Time)

I managed to get in tonight too....I was in for the entire session, and I too got into "The Mob" for a game. I think I bombed out thinking too much the question about what body part can be spelled with the letters on the XBOX Controller.

This game has potential, it's fun.

To add something to the brain dump referenced above, I think I read in the rules over on xbox.com , that a player can be "The One" only once during a 1 vs. 100 season, and a player can be in "The Mob" once per primetime episode.

I'm going to try again Saturday night @ 8pm Eastern.

Who knows, perhaps when this thing launches for real, maybe a bunch of us can put together a league of sorts, just to stack numbers and see who gets fourm bragging rights...Seems like a fun idea.

[clemon79]

And it really wasn't a trick question, but it was something to see how many people missed the freezing point of water question towards the end of the show tonight.

I got bitten by that one too. By that point in the evening, most everyone knew to buzz in on an answer the instant it appeared, or drill "B" if they've already eliminated the first two options, and everyone was on a hair-trigger because the race to get on the leaderboard was so tight. So everyone rang in the second they saw the "32". :)

How the hell you got in? I gave up after 40 minutes. I read on the xbox boards that around 50,000 people were trying to play. Hopefully Mircosoft will fix this when the main game comes out.

Um, I turned on my Xbox about ten minutes before, the reminder fired up about five minutes out and asked me if I wanted to run the client, and I played. Were there network issues outside? Worked great from my end.

(It probably doesn't hurt that I am...let's see, I clocked it one day...exactly 16.1 miles away from the Xbox Operations Center. :))

[clemon79]

I managed to get in tonight too....I was in for the entire session, and I too got into "The Mob" for a game. I think I bombed out thinking too much the question about what body part can be spelled with the letters on the XBOX Controller.

It didn't even ask that, it asked what body part was printed on the controller, period, no anagrams. I looked down. Not all that many words on an Xbox pad. :)

They didn't seem to have problems of scope, but then capping the audience at 50,000 probably had something to do with that. I did notice a few breaks where you expected Chris to talk and he didn't, so I wonder if they had some problems with him.

And it makes sense that you can be the One once and a Mob member once. My groupmates were calling for me to be Mob-ified again after my first outing, and I was like "Naw, I had my chance, let someone else have a turn." :)