Leetest Link: Feedback

[Adrenaline]

Be warned, here comes a bit of a novel....

I thought it was terrible that the "Leetest link" was also the person who didn't know what the 7th layer of the OSI model was.... (GO HACKAJAR!)

If you've ever watched the show, you'll notice often times the 'leetest link' person in the end is the same person who on occasion got stupid shit wrong, like "what is 5 squared?" and sometimes it's not not knowing answers, it's the pressure of the game that blanks them out, or in this case, even the drinking.

as part of my post-defcon decompression i stepped over to my neighbor's house a little bit ago for a little mind fogging. this situation often ends up with some brain candy junk programming being watched on TV. my neighbor had a show on called "Street Smarts" which, while it's not something i look for in TV Guide, makes me fall out of my chair if i'm elevated.

for those not acquanted with the show, it's essentially a program where the producers ask rather basic questions to people out in public, then contestants attempt to determine which members of the populace would give right or wrong answers. (hillarity often ensues in the gloriously bad answers that uninformed citizens give) more info here... http://streetsmartstv.warnerbros.com

i thought, if only for a moment, that it would be pretty uproarious to have a game of "Leet Smarts" in which a small camera crew conducted 5 to 10 minute interviews with attendees at technology conferences* and compile the answers into short clips, then DefCon participants would guess who was right and who was wrong.

Interesting Idea, I'll be sure to bring it up with rest of the organizers.

Moving on, I tried to collect feedback from a lot of the attendees, and this is what I got back: about 50% of you liked team based games, like HJ. While the other 50% were glad to see a game with single players against each other. Also, another thing that I've seen is people complaining about the mix of types of trivia questions, there were a good 5-600 questions, 70-80% of them being tech questions. for good measure, we threw in a few varying questions, stuff from various bits of pop-culture, from tv shows that seemed to be popular with the crowd, to some music questions, etc. There werent THAT many FG or Simpsons questions in comaprison with tech questions, everyone just noticed them more because they were a lot different after you had heard 10 tech-ish type questions in a row.

Another piece of feedback was that the questions were too easy. In a way, yes, they were, but that was the point, the game was meant to be fast-paced, and as so, we tried to keep the questions easy. Obviously some werent THAT easy, because people were getting them wrong often, and part of the fun of that was, the drinking and pressure of the timed questions contributes to blanking out the mind of the players when it's their turn.

Also, another common piece of feedback was that the game seemed "unorganized" and doesnt compare to HJ. First off, we had all of about 6 weeks or so to get this thing organized when it came down to it. That's
just how it went. And none of you surely thought that HJ went off perfectly it's
first year did you? Any of the attendees that have been to Defcon since DC2
can vouch for that. HJ was a bit smooth, and why? They had 10 years to work out the kinks of it. And I think between Night 1 and Night 2 of LL, we worked out a half decent amount of them, yes, people were leaving the first night, but for those there the second night, they probably noticed that we started off with a very small crowd, and it got much bigger over the course of the game.

And with that, keep up the feedback, we appreciate it, and it helps contribute to creating a better game expereience for everyone next year, whatever the game situation may be.

[dedhed]

As someone involved in the execution of 'leetest link, I'll take a couple of things in turn.

First and foremost, Hacker Jeopardy was not sacrificed in any way to allow for leetest link. HJ had already been retired before the idea of leetest link had even been conceived. So don't blame the leetest link for the absence of boobies, it's really not our fault. Whether Hacker Jeopardy and/or leetest link make a comeback next year are completely independent events. There is no need to concentrate on one or the other, because completely different people are involved in the running of each.

Next, we did have some technical issues that I won't get into, and there are some changes that need to made the games structure. We have been, and continue to solicit feedback, and will be using this feedback to develop any further iterations of the game.

As the quality of questions is concerned, we had a short amount of time to generate a great number of questions (more than we actually used, since we anticipated the game moving a bit quicker). We had a very limited pool of people to generate questions as well. So our pool of expertise wasn't as broad as I would have liked. I believe there were 4 repeat questions, and one of them was actually not a repeat, but a similar question (For those interested, one asked who the main character in snow crash was, the other asked which character in snow crash was introducted as the deliverator). Those repeats were actually caused by my sun and beer-addled brain trying to remember which ones we had used. I apologize.
Another complaint has been the preponderance of cartoon trivia (FG, Simpsons, etc). Approximately 5% of our questions were cartoon-related, but our random selection algorithm really seemed to love the Family Guy. At least Humperdink knew all the answers.

Well, I've completely lost my train of thought now, so I'll address any further criticism as it comes up.

[TheCotMan]

Be warned, here comes a bit of a novel....

I copyrighted the look and feel of my posts and demand a licensing fee. ;-)

And with that, keep up the feedback, we appreciate it, and it helps contribute to creating a better game expereience for everyone next year, whatever the game situation may be.

If LL continues, drop the total time limit, but keep a per-person time limit to answer a question.

Replace time limits with total number of questions per round. (This will permit fielding of questions to the audience)

If each round gives everyone on stage 2 or 3 questions each, you have a nice metric for comparison.

Provide a live view of present score when people "vote" (sure, it does not follow official LL, but it would add more to the discussion during voting.)

LL can be made team-based, and an extra "final" round (after two teams have to answer 5 questions each) can then separate the team members to battle each other to find the leetest link in the leetest team.

Add audience participation. Keep a strong, animated woman who is willing to freely express her opinion as the game show host.

Add plastic bags over the Mics.

Leave vomit buckets (one on each table) for contestants.

Give more time for questions to be created, and maybe have a theme or category for each round of questions which can be chosen by the person who is in the lead with most numbers of questions answered.

Save difficult questions for the final round where 2 people (or groups) answer 5 questions each.

I like the idea of more technical questions. Some of the FG, Simpsons, Candy Bar Q's were more like geek or nerd questions than leet questions, but I probably feel this way because I did not know most of the FG, Futurama, and Simpsons Q's ;-)

[Tierra]

In addition to what Adrenaline and Dedhed posted, I also wanted to say something.

You've already heard most of the issues we were dealing with pulling this off. For those of you that gave up on us the first night, you missed a damn good game the second night. Half the problems the first night were related to shit that happened that day. We got those solved by the second night.

Now, if Leetest Link is choosen to be run a second year (and someone gives us more than 6 weeks notice, preferably within the next few months), I can gaurantee a close to Jeopardy level game that no-one will forget. The DC801 crew has never dealt with this big of a competition before, and now knows what to expect, and what needs to be done. Now we're in the aftermath, I already have at least 20 ideas brewing in my head to make LL the next HJ. No, it won't match it next year, but nothing anyone could come up with would match HJ after it had been running for 10 years. Scrapping LL for yet another idea would only make next year another LL incident.

Going back to what Adrenaline said, the first year of Hacker Jeopardy was no better than what happened this year with Leetest Link, except we had a crowd at least 10 times bigger expecting a hell of a lot more out of us because of the reputation HJ left behind. No-one that organized HJ helped or even gave us tips on what needed to be done.

I've lost my train of thought as well, now I'm just listing factors that came into play with LL this year, and I know I had somewhere I was going with them, but I can never rememeber what it was by the time I finish typing the first part. So that marks the end of my rant.

[dedhed]

No-one that organized HJ helped or even gave us tips on what needed to be done.

Actually Stealth did help us with setup on the first night, and he has my thanks for that.

[Grifter]

Here comes my $0.02

We had a really short time to put this together. You try putting together a contest in 6 weeks that's good enough to replace Hacker Jeopardy. We had some technical difficulties. But let's be honest, everything else the 801 guys put together kicks you in the teeth and you ask for more. So this game was as good as we could make it in the time given. Had the scoring worked, we'd have been a lot better off, but it didn't and hundreds of people still had fun.

45 of the 1100 questions were Family Guy, Simpsons, or Futurama related. So we had a ton of questions but for some reason the Family Guy and Simpsons ones stand out the most.

There were 5 Candy Bar questions out of the 1100. Get over it.

I hear people complaining that the questions weren't technical enough yet we had games where players had 1 or 2 right and the audience would groan when they got them wrong. If the players were getting them wrong, they were good questions.

Get over the fucking boobies, seriously. You're in Las Vegas, if you're that hard up for tits, go to a strip club. Next year I'll make sure to sit a piece of street porn on every seat so when you start wanting to see tits, you can look at that. When tops come off people act like a bunch of fucking animals. It's time to get a girlfriend.

I think I'm done. I'll end with this...

We tried to do what we could with what we had and it wasn't a complete disaster, as a matter of fact by the end of the second night we were all laughing so hard and having such a good time that we weren't thinking about HJ at all. If you weren't there Saturday, you missed out.

[Chris]

45 of the 1100 questions were Family Guy, Simpsons, or Futurama related. So we had a ton of questions but for some reason the Family Guy and Simpsons ones stand out the most.

There were 5 Candy Bar questions out of the 1100. Get over it.

They fixate on those because those are the only ones they know the answer to. It is always funny to 'back quiz' the hats o' ass that bitch about how the questions should be more technical.....amazing how few truly technical questions THEY know the answer to.

As a contest organizer who did something similar (first WD contest was organized in about the same time frame) and had less than perfect success, I feel for you. I wouldn't worry too much about the nay-sayers. If the participants had a good time, and some of the onlookers did, fuck the rest of them. Don't forget, after last year 90% of the HJ posts were bitching about it too. Some fucks are never happy unless they are bitching. I think you guys did a better job than could be expected with LL, and you certainly did a better job at the awards ceremony than I did.

[TheCotMan]

45 of the 1100 questions were Family Guy, Simpsons, or Futurama related. So we had a ton of questions but for some reason the Family Guy and Simpsons ones stand out the most.

There were 5 Candy Bar questions out of the 1100. Get over it.

If it helps at all, of the 4 people in my room, I was in the minority over these Q's. Others in my group liked them since they could answer them too. I didn't know most of those Q's.

Favorite question: (paraphrased) "Name the Goon from DefCon whose mom is Hot"

[Manic Velocity]

I dug it. I'm sure HJ wasn't as bitchin' in its first year as it was in its tenth. Without all of the things that went wrong with LL this year, we wouldn't know what to improve on for next year. Even so, I had a great time.

[Voltage Spike]

I just want to clarify that I (and most of the others) are not "bitching" about the competition. Of course there are going to be comparisons to HJ, but the responses are generally constructive criticisim. We liked Hacker Jeopardy, and we would still like it if it were to return, but it is unreasonable to expect these posts to praise LL as the greatest thing since Sliced Bread (and its sequel, Sliced Bread 2: Electric Boogaloo).

It isn't really about the game, anyway; it is about the contestants, the host, and the audience having a good time.

There have already been some suggestions that I would like to see: fixing the number of questions (rather than using time), a team-based that becomes individual competitions being among them (thanks TheCotMan), and bringing the audience back into the game. This doesn't mean I am personally attacking Grifter or the dc801 crew. I simply think that future appearances of the game (any game) could be better.

Just for good measure, I'll add a point of praise: the fact that a contestant's performance in the game is not strictly related to their knowledge adds an interesting twist to the game. Boring, hostile, or otherwise undersirable people can be removed far earlier in an entertaining manner. Of course, the logical decision each round is to remove the strongest player, but these events don't feature logic as a strong point. :)

for some reason the Family Guy and Simpsons ones stand out the most

The entertainment-based questions make a strong impression because there is more to build on.

The "What does Cleveland receive in reperations" question stirs memories of an entire episode of Family Guy as well as a strong emotional response. For those who don't know Family Guy, the question invokes anger at being "punished" for not wasting time with a TV show.

The "What is the seventh layer of the OSI networking model" question allows me to take pride in knowing the answer, but it doesn't go much deeper than that. For those who don't know the answer, the question may invoke a sense of shame, but "you can't know everything".

[nulltone]

Favorite question: (paraphrased) "Name the Goon from DefCon whose mom is Hot"

...my mom?

[Chris]

...my mom?

Yep...the future Mrs. Vendor Goon. Then we can watch our dear sweet Nullty-Bubble grow up together. We'll be so proud when he takes over the family business (Vendor Area) from me...sniff. It really does bring a tear to the eye.

[billygoto]

I am not tired of Hacker Jeopardy, I miss it, maybe it is good that it left before we got tired of it. We need games which have survived the test of time.

The 25,000 Byte Pyramid (The $25,000 Pyramid)
Hack Game (Match Game)
...and others.

re: Pyramid, powers of two are funnier... e.g. 32768kB pyramid.
I don't know why, but they are.

[billygoto]

i award points to the organizers for style, cleverness, and general ability to pull this off with very little planning time. however, my vote is in accordance with everyone else's so far... Hacker Jeopardy was always much more enjoyable.

perahps most of all, and i realize that not everyone is 100% on this, i like games and events that are team-based and not a bunch of individuals slagging it out by themselves. (altho i do enjoy participating in the lockpick)

Lockpick is an individual sport, and you get eliminated on your merits (btw the lockpicking
contest has REALLY picked up, and is one of the best-run contests). LL's problem
is the stupid vote after everyround. It's just not very sporting, IMO. The "weakest link" has
a teamwork aspect where the contestants are trying to get MO' MONEY by working together
and building a chain of correct answers (remember?)

Simpsons I can sort-of understand, but Family Guy? Family Guy SUCKS!

--Billy Goto (Pink Shirt guy, if you were watching)...

[Zhym]

I dig the idea of 'Leetest Link, and suspect that a lot of the problems could be solved with properly working technology and the right MC. The person running a timed game (especially at Defcon) has to be a combination of dominatrix, drill sergeant, and Wink Martindale. That's probably hard to muster after several beers, though.

But maybe a timed game just isn't the thing for Defcon. Even with the right MC, you're going to have pauses to get someone to drink, argue about answers, or argue about who's getting (or been) voted off. It's simpler just to modify the game format so that time's not a factor. Dropping the timed format would also allow some form of audience participation.

I don't miss Hacker Jeopardy's stripper angle, though. The AP is a couple of blocks away from a strip joint (and I'm not talking Vegas blocks)--if I want to see boobs, I know where to go. I'm nerd enough that I'm more interested in the questions and answers than the beer or boobs--but that's just me, and I know lots of others are there to see the spectacle of a public drinking game, and that's cool.

Speaking of the questions, I thought they were fine for a timed game where you were supposed to have just a few seconds to answer. They were too easy for an untimed game, but I don't think the question designers anticipated that the timed game aspect wouldn't really work.

I thought LL was a little out of control this year (the fracas over voting Humperdink out was funny, at least for a while), but with a few tweaks here and there I think it could be great.

Hack Game (Match Game)

You, sir, are a genius. I'd stand in line for that. Your panelists:

• DT
• Mudge
• Highwizard (in the Charles Nelson Reilly Memorial Seat)
• Dan Kaminsky
• Wynn (in the Richard Dawson Game Show Host Seat)
• Octalpus (in the Fanny Flagg/Betty White Sassy Woman Seat)

Wacky hijinks ensue.