Survivor: Expect the Unexpected - {BEGUN}

[CuddlyCaucasian]

Spencer (Narninian)

- 15th place

Derrick (Aeronaut)

- 14th place

is this because derrick cheated less obviously

[CuddlyCaucasian]

The only real thing that bothers me about it is that everyone was referring to RC's best move as her getting Zingbot voted out, even though that didn't actually happen and shouldn't have even happened because of the cheating (whether it was intentional or not). I just wish the decision to modkill those two would have been made sooner, because instead, a very important vote happened that we basically knew the results of, but the vote never should have happened in the first place.

[CuddlyCaucasian]

Perhaps games with more complex mechanics are actually more newbie-friendly. A fairly standard game like NAH has 5/6 newbies leave right at the beginning, but here, the real strategy started sooner, and so we have a bunch of good social players getting knocked off right from the start.

I think the beginning of the game was set up perfectly as far as making the game interesting and more difficult for more experienced players. The constant tribe swaps practically demanded shifts in power and the players couldn't just rely on being with the same players for most of the game. The ever shrinking tribes also made people consider eliminating their threats to increase their odds of surviving after the eviction ceremony.

While I liked the fake merge, I think it allowed too many of us to socialize and band together and form a pagonging, and I think that's what hurt the game the most. There weren't any real opportunities to break up a major alliance after that point aside from the Double PoV. But RC, Jessie, and I were so tight and we had so much information as far as the game was concerned, we knew we could just ignore it since it expired right before we would end up with fewer pawns or targets than we needed for our plan to follow through. I think the best way to prevent major alliances is to create as much uncertainty as possible. I think multiple one or two round twists would have provided more opportunities for players on the outside of a major alliance to break things up, and one of the things I did mention was a Double Elimination in my confessional (I don't know if there are any other worthwhile twists from the Big Brother universe). I can understand that the unexpected med evacs watered down the setup a bit, but having some more twists to keep a major alliance on their toes would probably have kept things more interesting and kept the players from getting complacent. I also think there should have been at least one or two points in the game where the HoH should have been won through a challenge. I know this rewards challenge performance, but we were seriously just playing hot potato with the HoH and that was a huge problem for some of the others.

It was still a fun game and I enjoyed the playerlist a lot. Thanks for modding the game Crazy and Monty.

This post sums it up pretty accurately, really! Jessie, Kat, and RC did a great job bonding with each other, and while the twist did make the pre-merge interesting, the mechanic made it a lot easier and more boring of a game post-merge. To the point where this really had no business being called Survivor after the merge, hahaha.

But I think even if the design left a bit to be desired, the mods both did a great job running things! As pessimistic and snarky as I've been, I at least have some good memories from this game, and no hard feelings towards anyone.

[CuddlyCaucasian]

I think the main problem is that here, unlike normal Big Brother, it's nearly impossible for a player in the minority to become HOH. Even if they get saved by the Power of Veto like you said, that just takes them off of the block, and still doesn't give them any power the next round.

Strangely enough, in my eyes the format combines the worst parts of forum Big Brother and Survivor games. Although both games are made more difficult in person because everyone can see who you're talking to, this is especially true in Big Brother, where having a solid 2 or 3 person alliance gives a lot more power to run the game from behind the scenes. It's the smartest way to coast by on the show, and here it's easier because no one can see you always talking to your small alliance. As far as Survivor goes, the perception of earlier tribal bonds brought out the worst part of Survivor, where people cling to the people they already know for the most part.

It's basically as if this game is a Game of Thrones/Star Wars crossover where the lead characters are Olly and Jar Jar Binks

EDIT: ninja'd

[CuddlyCaucasian]

While I agree with what you said about Big Brother, the alliances are still much more fluid there because there are no existing relationships going into the game. Here, once the game became basically Big Brother, everyone already had alliances set in stone, taking away the unpredictable nature of BB itself.

[CuddlyCaucasian]

With Survivor, everyone is in danger each round instead of just the two nominees, so there's much more incentive for people to make moves. If you're not nominated, you know you're safe that round and don't need to talk to anyone if you don't want to. I'm not sure whether that would have actually played a part in this game though.