Author Topic: WWTBAM doing their own "Million Dollar Mission"... (Read 22114 times)

TLEberle · « **Reply #15 on:** August 29, 2009, 03:24:39 AM »

[quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'224382\' date=\'Aug 28 2009, 11:46 PM\']I'm liking this....[/quote]If you were to do that, I would prefer something like the Last Man Standing episode on 1 vs. 100, and just allow everyone to play from their qualifying chair. No lifelines, just play questions until you have a Sole Survivor.

If you liked the Million Dollar Moment on Greed, you'll probably like it just as much on Millionaire. If you didn't then, the same is true here.

Craig Karlberg · « **Reply #16 on:** August 29, 2009, 04:41:00 AM »

This idea is nothing more than DoND's Million Dollar Mission only with questions instead of cases. I see problems with this even though the $1M will be won somehow:

1) What if there were 2 or more players getting that $1M question right, how do you break ties? Higest ranked? Fastest time?

2) A player that won $25K will most likely get a "freebie" while a player who won $500K may not go for risking $475K. $100K seems to be a borderline call here for an opt-in chance.

3) If NO ONE gets the question right, then we start over again with the first player that tried the $1M the first time. This might go on for months. To counter something like that, make the top prize not such a garuntee so that if no one wins, so be it & a new quallifying period begins for the next 45 episodes.

I prefer the ToC option where whoever answers the $1M question correctly endes it right then & there & the other players that didn't get a shot keep their winnings

Loogaroo · « **Reply #17 on:** August 29, 2009, 06:35:22 AM »

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'224384\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 02:24 AM\']If you liked the Million Dollar Moment on Greed, you'll probably like it just as much on Millionaire. If you didn't then, the same is true here.[/quote]

Oh, there were plenty of other things wrong with Greed before the MDM was even introduced.

Jeremy Nelson · « **Reply #18 on:** August 29, 2009, 08:33:10 AM »

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'224384\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 02:24 AM\'][quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'224382\' date=\'Aug 28 2009, 11:46 PM\']I'm liking this....[/quote]If you were to do that, I would prefer something like the Last Man Standing episode on 1 vs. 100, and just allow everyone to play from their qualifying chair. No lifelines, just play questions until you have a Sole Survivor.
[/quote]
But ....
1.How do you keep it interesting? Part of what makes Millionaire interesting is hearing the player's though process aloud. You can't do that with 10 people. It's just 15/30/45 seconds of dramatic music.
2. There's the fact that this can very easily take just one day, especially if the questions increase in difficulty at the rate of a 15 question stack.
3. I'm assuming the lifelines are totally out of play here.

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'224386\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 03:41 AM\']1) What if there were 2 or more players getting that $1M question right, how do you break ties? Higest ranked? Fastest time?[/quote]
I believe it said that the highest ranked player who answers correctly wins the dough...although I imagine if two players who previously won $250K got their questions right, it would come down to who did it quicker.

mcsittel · « **Reply #19 on:** August 29, 2009, 07:38:38 PM »

For once in my life I can supply some 'inside scoop' regarding this!

The official name is "Tournament of Ten". The top ten winners from the first 45 shows (ties broken by most time banked and a rule regarding which questions' times were used-depended on if you stopped versus lost and fell to a safe level), come back, one at a time from 10 to 1 on the last segment of the show, one every day for two weeks in November.

They are asked one question, sans lifelines, but do NOT have to answer, in which case they keep their original winnings. Answer wrong and you go down to the nearest safety level below you (e.g., you had $100,000 and miss, you leave with $25,000). Answer right and you are *eligible* to win the million provided you're the highest ranking player of those who got it right. If no one gets it right, no one wins the million.

If someone in the top 10 says no to coming back, they move down to 11th and so on to secure 10 spots. Presumably anyone at $25,000 gets a free shot, although I'm guessing they assumed everyone in the top 10 would be high enough such that everyone would have to risk something, but there's no way to know for sure.

I asked if this would negate the usual 'wait 30 days to award the prizes', and they said yes-and I got the impression they never thought about that since it wasn't explicitly stated in our contestant rules. This became a running joke for our group since we were picturing people getting awarded the cash, and then having to write a check back to the show if they lost. I also wondered if it could affect everyone since they couldn't be sure all of the top 10 would be able to come back, in which case they'd have to wait until the top 10 were secured. I suppose that also depends on taping dates.

There was *almost* another surprise-a new money tree (values in thousands):
1 2-3-4-5 6-8-12-16-25 50-100-250-500-1,000

1st, 5th and 10th questions were the three safe levels. We were told after the Wednesday episode about this then got called back Thursday afternoon and told they would not be making the change, as they didn't like how the run-throughs went. I was surprised (and disappointed) such a change got nixed so late, on the day before the season 8 tapings began.

Matt

chad1m · « **Reply #20 on:** August 29, 2009, 08:01:57 PM »

[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'224407\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 07:38 PM\']Answer right and you are *eligible* to win the million provided you're the highest ranking player of those who got it right.[/quote]That seems kind of anti-climactic and/or lacking to me. "Congratulations, you kinda-sorta won a million dollars!....as long as smarty-pants at #1 doesn't get it right." followed a couple of days later by "Aww, sorry #1, you didn't get it right... but #4 who got it right on Tuesday did and he wins a million! Let's bring him out!"

clemon79 · « **Reply #21 on:** August 29, 2009, 08:48:48 PM »

[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'224407\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 04:38 PM\']They are asked one question, sans lifelines, but do NOT have to answer, in which case they keep their original winnings.[/quote]
This leaves a much better taste in my mouth than the original description.
[quote name=\'chad1m\' post=\'224410\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 05:01 PM\']"Aww, sorry #1, you didn't get it right... but #4 who got it right on Tuesday did and he wins a million! Let's bring him out!"[/quote]
If it's mine to do, anyone who has qualified to win the million is kept on-set in a King-Of-The-Hill-style chair to avoid exactly this. If someone else along the way answers, you do the reveal with a tension-filled split-screen. The only anticlimactic situation is when someone's qualified and they get to #1, he's stumped, and says "I walk. #4 wins."

chad1m · « **Reply #22 on:** August 29, 2009, 08:55:57 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'224412\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 08:48 PM\']King-Of-The-Hill-style chair[/quote]I like it.

And here's a mock-up of what the graphic for the new money tree would have looked like.

tvwxman · « **Reply #23 on:** August 29, 2009, 09:04:51 PM »

[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'224407\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 07:38 PM\']There was *almost* another surprise-a new money tree (values in thousands):
1 2-3-4-5 6-8-12-16-25 50-100-250-500-1,000

1st, 5th and 10th questions were the three safe levels. We were told after the Wednesday episode about this then got called back Thursday afternoon and told they would not be making the change, as they didn't like how the run-throughs went. I was surprised (and disappointed) such a change got nixed so late, on the day before the season 8 tapings began.

Matt[/quote]
I'm glad this didn't happen. That just seems....silly and unneccesary. But then again, to me, so does the tourney of 10.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #24 on:** August 29, 2009, 09:42:28 PM »

[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'224407\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 07:38 PM\']Answer wrong and you go down to the nearest safety level below you (e.g., you had $100,000 and miss, you leave with $25,000).
......
Presumably anyone at $25,000 gets a free shot, although I'm guessing they assumed everyone in the top 10 would be high enough such that everyone would have to risk something, but there's no way to know for sure.[/quote]
This has "anticlimactic" written all over it, if I'm following everything. I think it would be extremely unlikely that over the course of the first 45 shows, you'd have ten players who each earned more than $25,000. So once the dust settles, we've got a bunch of people who've won $25K and now get a free shot at a million dollar question. And they go first. Your last guy, the one who [probably] won $250K or [maybe] $500K earlier, has serious money at risk, and therefore is a lot more likely to shrug and say "thanks for the extra night in NYC."

My staff at Word Have Meanings would also like to talk to them about the definition of a "Tournament". These are ten isolated incidents, and, it would appear, ten different questions, which is something else I have a problem with. They could ask the first guy to name the 73rd digit of pi, and ask the last guy to identify what position on a baseball team wears a catcher's mask. Again, it's their game and their "integrity" to do with what they will, but the more specifics I'm hearing about this, the less sense it makes.

The woulda-been Money Tree just seems like a weird Mo' Money thing, as if they decided that $1000 was too small a consolation prize. Unless the idea was to have meaningful questions all the way along, in which case it would be even less likely that players would reach the upper levels.

chad1m · « **Reply #25 on:** August 29, 2009, 10:07:53 PM »

Matt, if there is a $1,000,000 winner in those 45 shows, do you know what happens? I mean, isn't the $1,000,000 considered a "safe haven" just like the $1,000 or $25,000 values? It's highlighted in gold (and pre-2008, white) just like those other amounts. I would guess there are three potential situations if we get a $1M winner:

A) There's a clause in the rules saying $1,000,000 winners cannot participate.
B) If they don't consider $1,000,000 a safe haven, no contestant is going to give up their money just to try to win it back.
C) If a $1,000,000 winner plays and answers incorrectly he loses no money because they consider $1M a "safety level." If he answers correctly, he wins $2,000,000.

Some ideas are clearly more inane than others, but they're all possible.

clemon79 · « **Reply #26 on:** August 29, 2009, 10:29:33 PM »

[quote name=\'chad1m\' post=\'224419\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 07:07 PM\']1) There's a clause in the rules saying $1,000,000 winners cannot participate.[/quote]
Occam's Razor leads me to stop right here and not even bother with more inane what-ifs.

chad1m · « **Reply #27 on:** August 29, 2009, 10:32:55 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'224422\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 10:29 PM\']Occam's Razor leads me to stop right here and not even bother with more inane what-ifs.[/quote]Understandable, but option C could allow them to build up and promote the idea that someone could win two million dollars. If they're infected with Mo' Money Syndrome, why not go all-out? I'm not saying it's the best choice, but clearly they're hellbent on giving someone a lot of money.

clemon79 · « **Reply #28 on:** August 29, 2009, 10:37:05 PM »

[quote name=\'chad1m\' post=\'224423\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 07:32 PM\']Understandable, but option C could allow them to build up and promote the idea that someone could win two million dollars.[/quote]
I repeat:
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'224422\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 10:29 PM\']Occam's Razor leads me to stop right here and not even bother with more inane what-ifs.[/quote]

Jeremy Nelson · « **Reply #29 on:** August 30, 2009, 12:51:38 AM »

[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'224407\' date=\'Aug 29 2009, 06:38 PM\']They are asked one question, sans lifelines, but do NOT have to answer, in which case they keep their original winnings. Answer wrong and you go down to the nearest safety level below you (e.g., you had $100,000 and miss, you leave with $25,000). Answer right and you are *eligible* to win the million provided you're the highest ranking player of those who got it right. If no one gets it right, no one wins the million.[/quote]
So basically, because there's no risk in seeing the question, it's now a "warp zone" of sorts to the Million Dollar Question (insert Super Mario pipe SFX here) for people who weren't good enough players to do it the first time.. That is lame. Really lame.

Like Matt, I've got two huge problems with this, and it has to do with the fact that this is supposed to be a tournament. Tournaments, for the most part have some sort of head to head competition, as well as provide a challenge to win a top prize. There's no "competition", and as Matt said, these are ten isolated incidents. Even if they all played a set number of questions using the same category set, it would be a little less broken.

My verdict? This isn't a tournament. It's a "Second Chance Special". They were the 10 best players in a 45 day period, none of which could go the whole way. A game show of Millionaire's caliber shouldn't be giving away the lot like this....it cheapens the moment.