As to which badges do or don't count toward the five--I'm not at all sure. But since no one has answered yet, I'm pretty sure that Speed Demon does not count and Above Average might not count.

Is there any chance of including a Winners list similar to the one in GMM?
Thanks!

I have 8, which include two monthly wins from WTS and POC. I have not won the Mixed monthly. That means Speed Demon does count as well as Above Average.

Maybe the Hourly Mix Winner and Smartest of the Smart are the badges that don't count. Only Terry knows for sure.

If you figure that I have not won the Mixed monthly badge then it is the achievement badges, hourly winners and monthly badges that are the qualifiers. The most anyone shows is 9 and I have 8, so therefore I am missing the Mixed monthly badge.

Whew! It's a relief to know there are others sailing in the same boat as me on the badges that count....

Decided it's best to keep plugging away and hope you win whatever badge it is that will push you into the next category

When does the Iron Brain badge get awarded? We have me, kickaha, and Prison above 1000. Is it a daily award, or does it get awarded at the top of the hour?

Fixed a bug in iron brain awarding... should aware next hour!

p.s. I'll look at the badge #s tomorrow or monday. It's possible I missed one or two of them in there.

Okay. Just satisfied you know, Terry. I know you'll fix it. Cool beans here! Thanks, Ter!

Thanks a ton, Terry .... for everything

Got the badge at the top of last hour. Thank you, Terry for fixing this for us. Good man. Great man.

These are the badges that it SHOULD be caring about in "badge count":

I'm the Smartest
Achievement: Harder Hourly
Smartest of the Smart
Monthly Winner: Hard Game

Speed Demon
Achievement: Easier Hourly Game
Monthly Winner: Easy Game

Well Above Average!
Achievement: Mixed Game
Hourly Mix Winner
Monthly Winner: Mixed Game

I just fixed a bug that may have been caused by a single space in a list of badge IDs. That might have caused the mis-count. We'll know next hour when triathlon scores.

It's fixed, Terry. Thank you.

Hmm I'll have to readjust the divisions now since that fix pushes a ton of people into the upper division. Will make it 6 badges or more for the top div.

Thanks for clarifying on this, Terry...back to the games now

Looks like the cumulative was simple for a lot of you.

So I think we should put in place a more grueling triathlon for those who really want to earn something over many months...

What's a good point value for a 2nd cumulative badge?

Why not make it another 'Mastery' badge at 50,000 points?

50k may be too much considering participation will go down over time. 25k looks like a good one. "Legendary Triathlete" as a 125th level bonus badge?

As they are all team games, it doesn't seem like participation should go down all that much. I think 50,000 is reasonable considering how fast some people got to 1,000.

As I suggested in feedback, points are much easier to earn than expected. I suggested the next level - perhaps Silver Brain - leaving room above for Gold, etc - should require points that are harder to earn than finishing in the top 50% of the players.

Only those scoring above a certain level should earn any points at all toward this significantly harder badge. If 2750 is too high a baseline, pick a number that the top 10% have averaged to date in the game and set that as the lowest score to earn any of these harder points to accumulate ... or something similar to that.

WorldB -- I think I'd rather keep the current scoring, as adding another layer of scores on top of what we've got becomes pretty confusing. I like the idea though.

For consistency sake, I think we should use the current points. Let's let this run for a little bit and see if the points drop off or not. I will add a 2nd badge though, although it really should be for 6 months to 1 year of relatively regular participation.

While many of us like to play, not all can expect 40 or more points per session. Setting a really high number can make it a grind for some of us, who may lose interest over time. Since I've been cast back into the amateur division, it'll be a while before I get any more points anyway. :-/

There has been a lot of positive reaction to this game, it would be good to keep it that way.

Well, let's see here. The game started about noon last Wednesday, and I managed to get the badge late Saturday night. That also included two days at work where I currently have an on-the-clock internet ban. Three days to get 1000, so 150 days. or 5 months would be needed to get to 50,000 if the participation levels are close to where they are now. 50,000 should work if 6 months is what your aiming for.

Although I didn't work it out as precisely as Dave, my guesstimate was that 50,000 points would take 6 to 12 months for regular players. I reached 1000 points pretty quickly despite not being able to play every hour due to work and other commitments, or choosing not to if WTS was something I didn't like (Sports, for example). Sometimes I only scored a couple of points, and sometimes none. All the 50K badges are something of a grind, and are meant to be a reward for playing regularly over a long period of time.

Since 50K is the target in the other games, it seems to me that setting this as the 'mega target' would maintain consistency.

The question is just how many rounds per day should qualify as "regular participation". In the dailies, that was never an issue (the answer is always one), but only a handful of players wish to play these hourlies six, eight or ten times a day over a long time. I'd consider the standard closer to 3-4 rounds. Make it 15 points per round (a consistent 70th percentile) and you score about 50 per day at that level of play. For this "reference" player (who would still well be among the first 100 to earn the badge from what I see in the scores), it would take a year to get to 18,000 and almost three years to get to 50,000. A few truly dedicated players will get there much earlier, but having a grind badge that requires ten rounds per day at consistently very strong performance for a whole year seems excessive to me.

Another consideration is the number of questions in the pool - these games don't have as large a pool as some others, so once you have played every question a few times, the games consist of nothing but ticking off readily memorized answers without even needing to tax your memory. The maximum grind should clearly be obtained not too much after this point.

So my vote is still for 25,000.

Just a small moan, but it seems that those who (because of where they live) can only play in the “quiet hours” – when the US players are mostly tucked up in bed - are quite badly disadvantaged in gaining “tri points” for the Iron Brain. For example, in the latest round (scored at 04:00 AM), only 19 played in the Veterans Division, so the top player only scored 9 Tri Points. The same player, getting an equally high score later in the day, when more people are playing, could get up to 50.

The possible counter-argument - that with fewer players it is easier to get in the top half – doesn’t apply, since the top 50% score no matter how many people play.

The only possible advantage of playing during the “quiet hours” is that it could be easier to win the hourly badge, but a good player who can only play during this period and is aiming for the Iron Brain will be seriously disadvantaged.

Do others agree with me – or have I missed something?

A few statistics to illustrate my concern above.

Time 0400 – 19 players - Winner Rossian – 2726 points - +9 Tri points

Time 0500 – 65 players - Winner tee611 – 2834 points - +32 Tri points
[trans991 – 2717 points - +26 Tri points]
Time 0600 – 88 players – Winner dippo – 2816 points - +44 Tri points
[BarryA – 2712 points - +39 Tri points]
Time 0700 – 73 players – Winner meifeng – 2843 points - +36 Tri points
[ajthorp – 2715 points - +32 Tri points]
Time 0800 – 98 players – winner Humanist – 2803 points - +49 points
[ponycargirl – 2720 points - +48 points]

For each hour, the second line shows the player who scored nearest to Rossian’s score. So, to give the most blatant example, at 0800 ponycargirl (in a group of 98 players) scored slightly fewer points than Rossian (in a group of 19) did at 0400, but was awarded 48 Tri points, against Rossian’s 9.

My question to you - is Rossian’s score deserving of a similar number of Tri points to ponycargirl’s? Or is it ok to penalise her for having to play in the morning UK time?

It's dependent on the time of day. Since the 4am game ended at that time, the games would have ended at 3:30am, 3:45am, and 4am, when most people in the US are asleep.

It's not penalizing as there weren't as many players at 4am FT. It's based on how many players played, not how many points are scored.

Correct -- it is certainly more difficult for a good player playing at non-peak times to amass large amounts of tri points simply because there are a lot fewer awarded.