Not sure what's happened as yet but just for info we had Transport yesterday only two and a half weeks after last seeing it (28th December). The day before that we saw Astronomy for the second time in a month (13th December and 12th January).

Wonder what the minimum gap between selections is going to be.

The number of repeats may have to do with the change of year. As far as I noticed, all those repeats have been across New Year, with the first play of the category in December and the second in January.

It may have been that either the ratings reset or the team history merge has reset the "last played" history so that duplications can't look back properly right now.

(Not an official answer - just a guess from what I saw)

Keep in mind we have also had at least one new category to my knowledge (Country Music -> Something in Common), which could indicate that something is up. Weirdly, it's not an Expert subcategory, but HEY!

"Don't Fence Me In" - Cole Porter and sung famously by Roy Rogers while riding his dancing palomino, Trigger.

Assume sport is still being filtered out?

This is an interesting thread - did anything result of it? I haven't noticed any new topics in recent weeks. I would love to see some more topics from the Expert game show up in Heroes from time to time.

Has anyone else noticed the same sorts of topics tend to appear every 2 weeks? A few examples I saw:

4/5 & 3/22 - Christianity & Bible People
4/3 & 3/20 - Name the Artist & Music Industry Awards
3/25 & 3/11 - Carnivores & Animals by Region
3/23 & 3/9 - Computers & Computers

Would be awesome to expand the subject pool in this game!

If I recall, Terry did significantly expand the list of subjects that Heroes can draw from. I think he also said repeats will become less likely over time (though I don't recall the explanation offhand). Late last year, before the issue was raised, we were having Hero topics that sometimes played three times within a 1-3 month window, so I can attest that things have already improved.

Are you insinuating that the founding religious scriptures of over two billion people on earth, over three billion if you count Islam, is obscure?

It's due purely to chance. I can attest to having witnessed an expansion of categories. In truth, the first three you listed aren't the same categories, but obviously experience significant overlap. I noticed Christianity has a lot of questions pertaining to Catholicism when clearly Bible People is a more specific range of content. Look at today's Chemistry. When is the last time you saw that come up? I haven't seen it in a long while.

Triviafan -- Kyle will correct me, please, if I'm misspeaking, but I believe what he meant at the time about "too niche" is twofold -- (1) the content of many of the questions and (2) the number of people who play.

What I mean on point #1 is, there ARE many Religion quizzes here, and many are very good, but there are also a great many quizzes whose questions are very "niche", i.e., a lot of questions/answers are quite obscure and deal with info that one would consider minutiae. And on point #2, Kyle has said before that the problem with topics like "Religion" and "Video Games" is largely that they're among the least-played topics, and so tend to attract a comparatively smaller "base" of interested players.

All of which to say, it's a subjective decision (especially when it comes to excluding categories/topics from play), because you're dealing both with the content and also the level of interest. "Video Games," say, has some really, really well-written quizzes, but it just doesn't get most people's interest, at least among FT players.

Part of "too niche" is that this stuff might not be out in the general culture. The answers would only be available to those who had actually played the game.

Now, if Video Game questions could be more general - "Which video game involves two plumbers and a gorilla?" even those of us who have never played Donkey Kong have some chance of getting it, in the same way that those of us who have never read nor seen "Gone with the Wind" would know the name of the main character.

However, if you stopped ten people on the street, possibly none of them, certainly no more than two, would know in-game details of even a quite popular game, just as they wouldn't know details from GWTW.

The very nature of Video Games means that most of the questions are of the latter sort. It's a lot like Lit in that way - any GC player can tell you that once the Lit questions move out of the more general "Name the author" type subcats, it becomes an almost impossible category. Since VG doesn't have as many of those general subcats, it's impossible almost right from the start .

This is pretty much it right here. This category has a third the amount of quizzes that Religion does. My argument in the past is that for an increasingly-online society, with player bases of video games increasing dramatically over the past twenty years, VG should have more coverage in our daily games (especially in Team Heroes).

My subjectivity aside, VG is not in our daily/hourly games (excluding very, very rare WTE games) because it's been deemed too niche. More niche than knowledge of the Old Testament. More niche than lyrics of American Country Music. More niche than characters in the TV show 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. More niche than the ICC World Cup. (Yeah-- all of those are in Team Heroes.)


I think that as Religion changes in our culture, especially in new generations, and Video Gaming expands there should be a bit of a sway in our approach to category inclusion in our games, but that has not happened in Team Heroes since it began a decade and a half ago. And I don't expect it to. I've advocated for these changes for a long time. I have a list of subcategories that would work perfectly for Team Heroes. But I've resigned to it, and that's fine. I just don't play TH that much anymore.




I'm not insinuating for the sake of starting an argument, but I would argue that in the current cultural climate, there is a lower percentage of people practicing religions-- even if only certain religions-- as ardently as in the past than before. And this plays into a generational thing.

For those who don't have an inclination towards religion (the-- what?-- four or five billion other people), almost the whole category is inaccessible in the same way that you likely wouldn't answer quizzes about 'Ender's Game' without having read the book. At least people who haven't played video games have likely heard the name Pikachu; people who haven't read the Bible likely don't know what book Samson appeared in.

Then again, even a Zen Buddhist will probably guess correctly who made sure Samson's hair was cut.

I'm quite in favour of all categories showing up once in a while in Team Heroes, even if I won't ever score 10 out of 15 questions correct on the most diverse topics. But it's great to have some variety.

"At least people who haven't played video games have likely heard the name Pikachu"

Ha ha. I love this quote - it illustrates how people who have an in-depth knowledge of a subject have difficulty conceiving that other people know absolutely nothing about it. Why on earth would somebody who hasn't played video games have likely heard the name Pikachu?

It sounds like an invitation at a smorgasbord.

It all points to the idea that any particular category's nichiness (it's a word now) is largely in the eye of the beholder and fighting over which of these is nichier than the other(s) is a bit pointless. By quiz count alone and at a quick glance it appears we have a substantial enough audience for both of these topics broadly speaking.

The crux of the argument to exclude a topic if you really boil it down is really far to often "it isn't my cup of tea so I don't want it" in which case it is possible the layout is driven by a vocal minority rather than the true will of the crowd (not necessarily saying that is the case here just noting the possibility) In fairness that applies in my experience more to duel whiners. With quizzes for the most part it has been a plea for inclusion of missing categories or simply for greater variety in general, more than for removal of topics...

I wouldnt see the harm in trying to rotate in a few video game subcategories at least..particularly if kyle has taken the time to thoughtfully flesh out a list of some which might have broader appeal

Because it's been in the news, because comics make jokes about it, because kids walk by in the street wearing backpacks saying it, with pictures?

Certain aspects of video games, like certain aspects of religion, literature, etc, become part of the common cultural stew that we all eat from. This is especially true of those who regularly visit a trivia site, as we are self-selected to be a little more curious about, and interested in, odd bits and pieces of that stew.

This seems like a sensible suggestion. VG couldn't be worse than Reality TV stars mixed or Survivor.

"Because it's been in the news, because comics make jokes about it, because kids walk by in the street wearing backpacks saying it, with pictures?"

That's interesting, obviously it's a big thing over there. Not everywhere though.

As has already been noted, I chose Pikachu because the name has been more frequently used over the year. The 650 million (plus) users of 'Pokemon Go' since last June would likely be able to attest to it. On top of whoever else has probably heard the word 'Pokemon' before.

If I asked a question about Super Mario's brother, the user-base expands. Since Mario was introduced in the 1980s, he's become even more of a cultural icon-- think sales in the billions of units.

If I asked about the Nintendo Wii-- more people bought one of those in ten years than have seen certain blockbuster movies.



The point is the part of the quote where you say...



People who have an indepth knowledge about a subject are here-- on a trivia site-- playing these topics. No one is a master of everything.

My argument is that people are getting rewarded for being masters of Tanakh instead of Nintendo Games; the former appears in more daily/hourly games than the latter. I can assure you, in the past thirteen years seeing the flow of players on this site-- and I'm not saying it to sound like a know-it-all or anything-- there are people who have a general foundation with pop culture trivia. Pikachu is not an outlandish name for people who look into cultural goings-on. Heck-- Pikachu has appeared on Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, etc. since the late 1990s.

But this goes back into the argument of 'what is trivia?'...with a side of 'can we avoid this category in our games because I don't like it?' Both of these are topics we've beaten to death around here. I already made my case in the posts above and said that I wasn't really looking for an argument about it-- I'd just like to play on topics I'd like in the same way I'm sure everyone else does.




Where's 'over there'? :s
We're an international site. Games like 'Pokemon Go' are available anywhere you get a cell phone signal, and Pikachu has been on t-shirts since 1997.

I'll have a got at anything. I don't know much about the vast majority of video games but that's just one of the many topics I can't claim to know about. For example, I don't watch much American TV, have never read G R R Martin and American sports are a closed book to me. The list could fill several pages. Playing some of these topics in games like Duel has widened my knowledge a bit, though and you're never too old to learn. We're all different and have varying interests and seeing different topics come up in Team Heroes wouldn't bother me at all.

I'd be very happy to see a few general knowledge Video Game categories in Heroes - not the ones about specific aspects of specific games, but the equivalent to "Authors and their Works" or "Literary Characters" from Lit. I'd wager that more people have a vague idea who Pikachu is then those who have a similar notion about Hester Prynne.

I haven't read "The Scarlet Letter" and I haven't played Pokemon, but I could manage to answer a simple question about either, just because I live in the world.

Yep, this is my feeling as well, though I have read "The Scarlett Letter" so I would change that one to "Twilight", which also has tons of quizzes and appears as a subject in the Heroes Game. I would love to see more topics used instead of fewer, and I think it is great to learn about new stuff. That's what trivia is!

Sue

I for one would happily give up any go at video games. In return, the rest of you give up all television, music, and movies that supposedly existed before the 90s. Deal?

You do realize that Kyle probably wrote all those quizzes on Reality TV Stars and Survivor don't you?
Really, we love those quizzes, Kyle!

Uh-oh..