Maybe this suggested list could list subjects over a certain percentage, so then categories like Authors T-Z wouldn't have so many with 1% or whatever? Perhaps it could list subjects that account for over 20% of the database, for example.

I personally don't think any addition is necessary, and like things the way they are. I actually got 15 Eurovision questions today, but I doubt I'd have known anything about the other Music awards that exist anyway, haha! And please keep Stephen King!

I think that a link to the category is a good idea, Meathead - because if it stops one more Brit having a fit of apopletic rage over the heading "Civil War" it will have been a service to mankind. And who knows, that Brit might just be me!

Eggzeckly.

One that can be done, Terry - and you may have already done this, can't remember if I already asked you - is to remove "Star Wars" from "Science Fiction" in Lit. We've put on a serious effort, and there are enough non-SW quizzes in there to make it a reasonably sized category. If you then wanted to allow Star Wars books as a heroes category all on its own once in a great while, you could , and it would be properly labeled so those who wanted to could avoid it.

That would be the top candidate; I agree with agony. Players might actually like "Science Fiction" with that change.

How about listing the quizzes the Questions have come from and lock out those quizzes for the day? Such as:
Topic: Transportation
Source Quizzes:
"Sports Cars I've Driven" 2Qea
"Semi-trucks Hog the Road" 2Qea
"Famous Hobo Train Bridges" 2Qea
"Trains of Britain in Motion" 4Qea
"Stations to Get Off On" 5Qea
(These Names are ficticious. Any resemblence to real titles is unintentional. Do not search for these quizzes in the database. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, depending on your POV.)
There have been requests by authors to know when their product is being used. This would help in that regard.
Doesn't it always seem to come back to those British train questions? I saw a comment on another thread that it was actually the Austalians who enjoy writing and taking those quizzes. There's just no accounting for some tastes.

As has been said, I often groan, and when I groan, I do poorly, but I wouldn't change a thing. The idea of 'Heroes' should be to showcase the team 'heroes' for the day. If it's Stephen King, or Music Awards, I won't be on the list, but there *will* be team members who shine, and won't that be a wonderful thing?

I want to echo the voices who say leave it as it is. What is "narrow" or "arcane" to some is "inclusive" and "interesting" to others. Some days you will do well, and some days you will do poorly. And if you wish not to play, that is your privilege. But don't deprive others from the pleasure of that particular topic simply because it doesn't appeal to you.

Furthermore, when the topics are "easy" or "common" then the speed mavens have all the advantage. It's more fun when the are is more specialized, because then mere mortals have a chance.

I hope Terry will leave things as they are.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the old country saying.

I completely agree that keeping somewhat specialized topics (like Stephen King) in the Heroes game is fine. However, I think there does need to be some modification in the way categories like "Music Industry Awards" appear. First of all, from my (admittedly limited) understanding of Eurovision, it's not any more of an award from the music industry than X-Factor or American Idol is an award. It's a competition, and the winners aren't selected by any entity of the commercial music industry, but determined by the votes of the participating countries.

When a subtopic like this is so dominated by quizzes on one topic, I think it would be appropriate to give that topic its own heading. 69 quizzes would be more than enough to justify this reorganization. I wouldn't say it's necessary to remove that topic from the Heroes game, but it's more logical to have "Eurovision" as a topic heading than "Music Industry Awards". Likewise, I think agony's right: giving quizzes on Star Wars books their own heading makes sense in the same manner. Another similar issue is with the "TV Stars Mixed" category, where the great majority of quizzes in that category deal with the trivia of "Survivor" participants. I think many players wouldn't really consider "Survivor" players TV Stars, so the "TV Stars Mixed" topic heading would be somewhat misleading as to the sort of questions a player will get.

There are clearly more effective ways to create Heroes/Expert categories so that they have a more representative set of questions. The current system works pretty well for most categories, but clearly there are a handful where it's a little weird (the music one for example).

I actually have a system half-built that redoes the question pools completely. However it's a long term project and likely won't be ready soon.

For now, think of it this way: Team Heroes is not a fill-in-the-blank game. You have a 25% chance of getting a question right if you don't know the answer at all. It's not like you automatically get a 0 if you don't know it for sure, so have a go, and you might be pleasantly surprised by a high score (or, at least, higher than you expected!). And if you don't get a high score, well, you spent two minutes on something that didn't bring your team score any lower - no biggie.

Another misleading category is "Card Games", where the picture shows 'standard' playing cards, but the majority of quizzes are about Magic/Yu-gi-oh type of games. Perhaps the quizzes about games with traditional playing cards should get split off into their own category.

I like the Heroes game as it is and will keep playing it as is, but if we're being asked for input then I think the following need to be put in their OWN category:

Twilight
Star Wars (see sci-fi category message above)
Eurovision
Harry Potter
Aussie Rules Football (please don't pretend it's a general sports category by giving me 8 obscure questions like jersey numbers in one quiz lol)
Card Games (I agree with Dom)
British Railroads or Busses or whatever (2 q's are fine in "transportation", but 10 are not)
Any SPECIFIC author (Christie, King, Rice etc where the bulk of the literature q's end up to be about them)
Disney (honestly folks, not all the good animated movies on the planet came from that company, as much as I love them)
Any specific RPG or related

Yes, I fully "get" that we could all write more quizzes for the things we'd LIKE to see in certain categories, but I'm afraid some of them are beyond help (because there are SO many!) no matter how many we write lol. So perhaps the best solution is, indeed, to simply do a better job of grouping things.

Am sure your personal mileage may vary lol


Edited because I can't type today (not unusual)

Can't find the thread where these have been posted. Here is a list of the topics of the Heroes Quiz from October 2102. Many thanks to salami_swami, who filled in the blanks this month. It would be embarrassing to present what I would have had without his help.

Oct/31/12 Old Testament/Tanakh (Religion)
Oct/30/12 Quotes (People)
Oct/29/12 1990s Music (Music)
Oct/28/12 Horror Mixture (Movies)
Oct/27/12 Authors H-K (Literature)
Oct/26/12 Mythology Mixture (Humanities)
Oct/25/12 Fruits and Vegetables (Hobbies)
Oct/24/12 Roman History (History)
Oct/23/12 United Kingdom (Geography)
Oct/22/12 Mixed 5 Questions (General)
Oct/21/12 TV Stars Mixed (Celebrities)
Oct/20/12 Miscellaneous Animal Trivia (Animals)
Oct/19/12 U.S. Law (World)
Oct/18/12 Math (Sci/Tech)
Oct/17/12 Christianity (Religion)
Oct/16/12 U.S.A. People (People)
Oct/15/12 Music Industry Awards (Music)
Oct/14/12 Degrees of Separation (Movies)
Oct/13/12 Stephen King (Literature)
Oct/12/12 Unusual and Obscure Words (Humanities)
Oct/11/12 Food & Drink (Hobbies)
Oct/10/12 German (History)
Oct/09/12 Cities of the World (Geography)
Oct/08/12 Mixed UK (General)
Oct/07/12 Music Celebs Mixed (Celebrities)
Oct/06/12 Invertebrates (Animals)
Oct/05/12 Organizations (World)
Oct/04/12 Computers (Sci/Tech)
Oct/03/12 Bible People (Religion)
Oct/02/12 Mixed People (People)
Oct/01/12 Music H-K (Music)