The Challenge Factory discussion

Please leave me some constructive feedback because I want to improve the challenge

iMovie the challenge? What do you mean?

My suggestion is pretty simple: don't give so much extra time to get reviews in on roll day. My vote is for no extra time, so for example for SS, this would mean that all reviews have to be in by 11:59 pm CST on Thursday, and so on for SSS rolls. If extra time must be given, I'd say no later than noon-2pm CST, that way us EST early birds aren't losing as much reading time because we're waiting until 6-11pm EST (5-10pm CST) on Friday/Sunday/Thursday for someone to post a review.

I'd also suggest putting a line in the sign ups like "Are you a casual player or a hardcore early bird player?" That way you can group the casuals together and the players that strive to get reviews in early together, and not have so many folks frustrated by having one player take until right up to deadline to post the review posts.

Also, I think there needs to be someone dedicated to answering questions as they come up, or at least watching the thread and notifying you so you can answer the questions. The delay about the ghost question in the discussion thread was a bit long, and it could have led to an unfair situation had Team 12 not won the game before the participant reviewed the book.

"Improve" was my intended word. Darn auto correct

I second all of Trea's suggestions!

Most importantly to me is about the extra time between the early Thursday roll and the technical deadline on Friday. In many situations throughout this round, almost an entire day of reading was lost in our group. I would suggest no extra time in SS, have the roll deadline be on Thursday; but for SSS, give some extra time - perhaps until noon the following day.

I would recommend "casual" or "hardcore" designations as well. However, I feel as if you were to make the changes to the deadline requirements, this would potentially negate the need for these separate designations.

Of course the argument could also be that the casual players are in SS and the hardcore players are in SSS. So I'm not sure how you could easily make this designation and keep the game on an even playing field (the hardcore group will almost inevitably win because they get their reviews in quicker). That's why I truly believe it all comes down to changing the deadline requirements. I feel like giving that extra buffer time between the early roll and the technical deadline is what makes or breaks people who are casual vs. hardcore. If you get rid of that, it changes the game completely.

Also, perhaps put it in the sign ups that dropping out at any time is not necessarily taboo. We all understand that life gets in the way. We had a team member drop out and it was handled with grace and no questions were asked. A lot of members might be afraid to step in and ask to be removed because they feel they would be looked down upon.

I understand that it is difficult to run any kind of group participation and not have problems somewhere.

Another great round, and thank you for running it so smoothly!

Thanks for the suggestions

Re Roll day. I think you and may be some others misunderstand Roll day.
For SS, Roll day is Friday. But I was allowing early roll at 12:01am for those who had their reviews in early BEFORE Friday. It's was meant to be an incentive to finish and turn in your reviews early.
I may remove the early incentive and just leave Friday as the Roll day.
But I will think of how to make that situation work better.

I appreciate the feedback Trea

ThatEzi wrote: ""Improve" was my intended word. Darn auto correct"

LOL! Ok, that makes more sense!

ThatEzi wrote: "Re Roll day. I think you and may be some others misunderstand Roll day.
For SS, Roll day is Friday. But I was allowing early roll at 12:01am for those who had their reviews in early BEFORE Friday. It's was meant to be an incentive to finish and turn in your reviews early.
I may remove the early incentive and just leave Friday as the Roll day.
But I will think of how to make that situation work better."

Thing of it is, I don't think you'll be able to remove the incentive unless you say something like "Rolls can not take place before... (say 9 am CST/12pm CST/3pm CST, etc)", because it's been that you can roll the second it becomes Friday in whatever time zone the game is being run out of (Round 3 in the archives specifically states "(anytime after midnight Central US time)" in the discussion thread). That's why I'm thinking a hard deadline of 11:59 pm CST on Thursday/Saturday/Tuesday to have reviews in by might be a better way to go.

Trea wrote: "ThatEzi wrote: "Re Roll day. I think you and may be some others misunderstand Roll day.
For SS, Roll day is Friday. But I was allowing early roll at 12:01am for those who had their reviews in early..."

Trea wrote: "ThatEzi wrote: "Re Roll day. I think you and may be some others misunderstand Roll day.
For SS, Roll day is Friday. But I was allowing early roll at 12:01am for those who had their reviews in early..."

I want to jump in here too as I agree with Trea and with Tara that we need to do SOMETHING to make the roll time more limited so that teams are getting their stuff together in a much more timely fashion. It was REALLY frustrating to be on a more 'casual play' team that seemed to think that getting the reviews in under the wire on Friday at 11:59 pm was just dandy while some of us turned in our reviews as soon as we read the books, like on Monday or Tuesday... I played both SS and SSS this time, and found the SSS team MUCH more enjoyable than the SS team in that we were all better and faster readers who really were up for the 'challenge' of seeing who fast we could get the books read and the reviews done so that our team was ready to go by the early deadline.

Maybe there should be a caveat in the game rules that spell out for folks that this challenge is about reading within a certain timeframe, and speed is of the essence, therefore it might not be the right challenge for those who want to read at a more leisurely pace? Of course, this is just my perspective, and I may be wrong in my interpretation of the rules?

How about having reviews due 24 hours prior to the roll deadline for SS? That way, folks still have 6 days to read a book in, and everyone is done and ready by the time rolling is allowed?

Thanks Kay. I like these suggestions

Ezi, I like Wayne's idea of a team being able to earn bonus points or extra credit. Would it be possible to add points like that onto the final roll?

Example for team points:
1 point for not using the free pass

Examples for individual points: (these could add up quick)
1 point for reading three or more books in a series
1 point for reading a 400+ book (Wayne's idea)
1 point for starting and finishing a series
1 point for never picking a book from the alternate lists

Maybe introducing a way to earn points would give those teams with lower rolls a way to have a chance to win the game.

Thank you Ezi for the work you put into this challenge. I appreciate being asked for feedback.

I was on a team that turned in reviews by Thursday every time. However, I do agree with the suggestion that the roll time and the reviews due time should be the same time.

I haven't played the game many times, so the end of this round confused me. I still don't really understand what happened and how it ended, mostly because I never needed to read the part about what to do if a review isn't in on time. My suggestion is a notice is the Q & A thread, or maybe the post your spot thread -- in tennis, "Match Point" is announced -- something like that to notify us that a team is in a position to win.

I was given a vacation pass during the challenge. I would not have been able to play otherwise. I would like to see the pre-arranged passes continue to be available.

I really appreciate the feedback. Thanks guys

I want to work out a way to randomize rolls
I will set a definite cut off for reviews
I do LOVE the extra credit idea.

What did you think of the listopia lists?

I didn't have to use any of the listopia lists to find books, but I did look as a couple of them during the challenge, just to see what was on offer. Those lists seem pretty comprehensive, and I think just about everyone would be able to find at least one book they could read for a challenge by using them. I say keep them! I did have to use the alternate selections a couple of times this time around... and I found the alternates interesting and thought provoking, and maybe not something I would normally read, so they do help me stretch my reading muscles (and I will read pretty near anything)...

ThatEzi wrote: "What did you think of thelistopia lists?"

Personally, I don't care for them at all. The reason? They're never completely up to date and can be restrictive. For example: the listopia list "I Saw the Movie & Read the Book" didn't have The Force Awakens on it, but as I had seen the movie, if I had been allowed to read the book, it could have counted, if we were looking at it as fitting the spirit of the list, not just restricting the players' selections to the list. The same could go for many movie tie ins: Warcraft Official Movie Novelization, Star Trek: Generations, The Last Starfighter, and yet because it is not a book to movie scenario, those books were excluded, even though a person could (in theory) watch the movie, then read the tie in or read the tie in then watch the movie.

My suggestion is to put a line in the How Tos that says something like "All Listopia lists in the alternates list are a guideline. I'm wanting you to find a book that fits the spirit of that list, which may or may not be found on the list specifically. Books are subject to approval by your Team Captain and/or the Mod in Charge."

I'm keeping the listopia lists as I need them for challenges this extensive. The lists aren't exhaustive but they add some variety for the players.

The readers playing are too varied so I need something with flexibility. I want "better" listopia lists or suggestions of listopia lists that will allow people to find some reading material.

I honestly can't commit to hunting for stuff on other websites. Not for page numbers, not for the number in the series when Amazon and Goodreads don't match etc.

I'll look for other alternatives to lessen how many listopia lists I have.

Thanks Wayne, Trea and Kay!!! I really appreciate your honesty.

Trea, thanks for pinch hitting on 2 teams on top of everything you have going on at home

ThatEzi wrote: "Trea, thanks for pinch hitting on 2 teams on top of everything you have going on at home"

You're welcome, Ezi! Homeschooling traditionally when you've been doing two years of online school is a very radical shift! I'm still trying to get my feet under me with this, and have given my son entirely too many "mental health days" this past month, because I needed to get something done, and didn't have enough time to do it. I'm hoping this month with a lighter load for my reading will let me establish a routine for myself and I can get back to normal on GR next month.

Girl, I'm proud of you. I'm barely surviving with 3 kids in school and their various homework, I'm barely reading my own stuff. I'm reading Red Pyramid with my 9yr old, Harry Potter with my 7 year old and Biscuit books with my 5yr old. After that, I just prefer to watch tv, lol.

ThatEzi wrote: "Girl, I'm proud of you. I'm barely surviving with 3 kids in school and their various homework, I'm barely reading my own stuff. I'm reading Red Pyramid with my 9yr old, Harry Potter with my 7 year old and Biscuit books with my 5yr old. After that, I just prefer to watch tv, lol."

I haven't read Red Pyramid in forever! I hope you both enjoy it, I did, but I haven't went back to read it for review!

We don't have cable or a TV antenna to pull in HD broadcast TV, so makes for lots of reading time for me!

I like Trea's suggestion: Trea said: My suggestion is to put a line in the How Tos that says something like "All Listopia lists in the alternates list are a guideline. I'm wanting you to find a book that fits the spirit of that list, which may or may not be found on the list specifically. Books are subject to approval by your Team Captain and/or the Mod in Charge."


I'm going to disagree with the statements that there is something for everyone on the large listopia lists. There is something for everyone if you read mainstream stuff I guess. I haven't found anything I want to read on them, but I accept that it is because my reading material is not mainstream. In addition, I am completely not willing to spend the time to look through them anymore. Too many times in the past I have spent 1/2 hour scrolling through a large list only to find nothing I want to read. It is extremely frustrating.

Mostly, if I don't think I have enough series books to get through the challenge, I don't sign up. Adding Trea's suggestion would mean I could sign up every time.


How about being able to combine to meet the higher series numbers? I usually have trouble with 5-9. So let's say my team roles 59. My choice would be 5 or 9. Or if I am willing to read more than 1 book, I could read #2 and #3 because 2+3 = 5, or I could read #7 and #1 and #1 because 7 + 1 + 1 = 9

Another option -- for any series book over 9, you have to roll the exact number, which is not all that likely. How about allowing book #24 in a series to count for 2, 4 or 24?

Hmmmm, Susan.
That's interesting.
I think I'm actually going to create a whole new challenge based off that suggestion. Like "The Sum of..."

Yes, yes, I like that. Thanks but I will agree. Once we exceed 67, things got real dicey for me. I like your idea

ThatEzi wrote: "Hmmmm, Susan.
That's interesting.
I think I'm actually going to create a whole new challenge based off that suggestion. Like "The Sum of..."

Yes, yes, I like that. Thanks but I will agree. Once we..."

Can't wait to see it!