DOND - tampered with?

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Mon May 12, 2008 12:06 pm

good description NS, that sounds like me.
on the monopoly point: lately this has been a decent payer from the itboxes i play. i suspect that the more serious players in London wouldn't touch it with a shitty stick (because it takes forever and is a little bit rigged) so i often get £4-£6 out from my fifty pee and the occasional cheeky cashpot. also, even if it gives the old kent road, it still makes me chuckle and that is a kind of prize too.

and yes, i do enjoy the gameplay on monopoly it is pwetty and has silly diversions. but, a salient point i think is that it cleverly cons you into thinking that you have somehow influenced landing on e.g. the red squares to make hotels, it is quite sophisticated in that way.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:31 pm

had to trawl back a bit to find this subject but i came across an interesting 'cap' on DOND a few days ago.
2 boxes left - £5 and £6
offer - £5!
deal -quelle surprise - £5
some sort of limit going on perchance?

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:46 pm

On the same subject, I got a 14k target the other day which I think, after all this time, is my lowest ever. Only got 70p mind you, but it gave me £10 the next game. So even now I think there's some playability left in this.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:12 pm

i only play DOND once in a blue moon but i heard some deadhead suits playing it over lunch so i had a go once they'd left.
it was very easy to get 30k and i dealt at £4. it showed me ten pee in my box. games which i prefer were not cooperating so i had a go at nuts which gave me a fiver off two covers then i bottled it. free money from japseye and that was that. there was nothing else on the ind:e menu which appealed to me more than reading the paper.

anyway, it seems that punters with no imagination are still playing some of the more boring games.

JG · Post by JG » Sat May 16, 2009 12:46 am

I'm quite interested in this DOND game. Now remember I am not a quiz professional in any shape or form, not by any stretch of the imagination. I am not even a keen amateur and yes, stringing together 'cat' or 'dog' on word up is as good as I get on that particular game.

I notice it is right in the headlights, slap bang on the front of Issue 64 on the Itboxes. Now I play a particular unit for entertainment only and I have noticed that the target is rigidly between 20,000 to 59,000. I have never ever seen a target outside these ranges.

A few endgame wins and there seems a bias toward the 59,000. Likewise a barren patch and you start to see 20s/30s more often.

Am I right in assuming that the changes in difficulty are quite subtle?

Some games like millionaire will show you BAM! straight away, the £1 is at £125,000 (I have seen this a few times) it is stone cold dead.

I believe this game is a little more subtle with the target being part of the picture, but not all of it. Maybe the key is mostly how soon the 'hard' or even 'spoiler' questions come out of the bag.

How frustrating to have two try agains and a blatant end game when the banker rings, three picks away and suddenly a bank of QQQ,QQQQ,QQQQ can wipe you out mercilessly.

So I am curious. What's the craic with pro SWPers and DOND? Just keep replaying until it's spoiler city?

Also, horribly generic, but you play a couple of games and the target is around the 25,000 to 35,000 mark, what's the expected/potential profit over the session?

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Sat May 16, 2009 1:32 am

Punters still playing DOND in their droves. No lessening of play in my opinion.

Top boys capable at anything sub 70,000 now. Which is why it sits shit so often.

Endgame not bent.

betchrider · Post by **betchrider** » Sat May 16, 2009 8:39 am

Im less than average joe on these but when i have a look,30-40k with no questions upto two in a box and ill slot it till i get an end.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Sat May 16, 2009 10:26 am

Not that I bother too much with this, but I've noticed that it does it's best to try and lure you into expunging at least £1 from your wallet. I've generally noticed that if it's not been played for a while, the first target will be low-ish. If you bomb out somehow on that and attempt another go - expecting a similar target - it rockets up to 40,000+.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon May 18, 2009 12:13 pm

The key to this game is that it controls how much it pays you not by the points target (unless it has been really hit, in which case you'll see targets of 80,000+) or by fully rigging the endgame but by the number of spoilers it gives you, and to a lesser extent by the frequency it reveals the 250,000 points square.

If you play the game a lot you will soon start to recognise the spoilers - Dukes of Hazzard episodes, number of episodes of American sitcoms, something called the Lewisohn top 20 UK and US comedy shows, films made between 1938 and 1955, and so on. These are classic spoilers in that they aren't the same every time, e.g. there are lots of different questions on Dukes of Hazzard episodes, and getting a list of the answers is tricky even if you wanted to try to learn them - I've never tracked down a definitive Lewisohn Top 20, for example (not that I'm sad enough to have looked or anything

).

As the endgame, it is surprisingly fair other than you will to all intents and purposes NEVER get the Jackpot - on the 50p version I've won the £20 JP once in maybe 1000 endgames and on the £1 version I have never won either the £40 JP or the £20 prize, but all the other prizes seem equally as likely.

It's a top game, it has shown real longevity, the punters like it and good players can be rewarded - why then does it seem so hard for the games companies to replicate it?!

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Mon May 18, 2009 1:27 pm

I'd say I now probably agree with that. That 250,000 points 'box' tends to get revealed pretty early if you seem to be making headway when it really doesn't want you to.

If you think about it, generally, most games there are only 3 boxes which are above the total you require (50,000 / 100,000 / 250,000 off the top of my head). As soon as those have gone - you're usually on a hiding to nowhere - or at least have to get through 3 or 4 'rounds' before a sniff of anything.

Also noticed it has a tedious habit of offering you, say, 20,500 when your target is 21,000. This is also usually a dead-end. 'No Deal' and the next three boxes are usually the biggies. 'Deal' and the next round conjures up boxes with QQQQ in, which are generally all lockout questions - a la the Dukes of Hazard, etc.

It is a very simple game really and therein lies it's longevity I'd speculate. Although I do enjoy the possibility of 'bonuses' and 'bonus games' etc. in most games - this is purely quizzing at it's well, purest!

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon May 18, 2009 1:58 pm

Yes, I tend to agree with Nils' analysis that this game is mainly about the spoilers. I'm interested in the prevailing view, among contributors whose opinions I respect, that the endgame is not rigged: I still feel doubtful of this and have a feeling I may have had too many endgames where the reds have nearly all vanished within the first couple of goes for that to be down to chance alone. I also feel that there is a bit too much correlation between ease of main game and generosity of end game for the endgame to be unrigged. But maybe I am wrong.

As others say, this has been one of the top titles about ever since it came out, and achieves the rare double of appealing to pros and punters alike. For that it must be commended.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:01 pm

In strict terms of course the end game IS rigged. Otherwise you'd get the JP once in every 16 games. However it is as fair as any game I've seen with a similar endgame - think of games like 1 vs 100, Goldenballs, 50p Monopoly Hot Property (the £1 version being a bit better I'd say) and so on. It's judged against those games that the DOND endgame has to be deemed fair.

One odd quirk is that from memory the very lowest targets always lead to really disappointing prizes - the few times I've seen things as low as 11,000 the endgame has always given one of the duff prizes. However I can't decide if that backs up my main argument or not...

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:12 pm

Certainly agree on the 'low-target = low-prize' phenomenon. I guess there's the possibility that the end game is 'weighted' in some way. Which means you 'could' snare a big win when the odds are against you - as the box contents cannot change once you've selected it - but the 'availability' of the high prizes during selection is less.

An example might be that when you select the box to keep at the start of the cash round - there is 1 box with the £20 in it but a lot of the other boxes have low values in it - maybe £1 is there 3 or 4 times, etc. Once you've selected your box - if it was the £20 one - that won't change - you'll get it if you go all the way. In fact, it won't change what ever one you selected - you just had more chance of selecting a lower prize at the start - 15/16 as opposed to 1/16. The boxes then 'change' to 1 of each of the remaining values and the game goes from there.

Sorry if that sounds absurd - writing the odd line every 5 minutes whilst playing 'avoid the boss' meant I kept losing the thread...

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:17 pm

[quote="Matt Vinyl"]Sorry if that sounds absurd - writing the odd line every 5 minutes whilst playing 'avoid the boss' meant I kept losing the thread... ]

No - I'm loving your work, and indeed I look forward to reading the English translation when that comes out later in the year.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:27 pm

Good man!