It has become a Nintendo scene Friday night institution... it is NWR Trivia and it will bend your brain!
FAQs About Trivia Rules and Procedures
Nintendo World Report's regular trivia contests via online chat are one of the most popular, unique features this site has to offer. This FAQ details all the behind-the-scenes dirt and highlights of this cultural phenomenon that defined a generation; the origin, process, people, and general bug-eyed weirdness that goes on.
General FAQs About NWR Trivia
"What exactly is this NWR Trivia, anyways?"
Quite simply, it's a friendly competion that Nintendo World Report holds every Friday night in #nwr that tests the Nintendo knowledge of the people that show up every week. We ask you 30 or so Nintendo-related questions, and you answer them. Fun, eh?
"How long have you been doing NWR Trivia?"
The first official "Planet Trivia" was back in the PlanetN2000 days, on November 25, 1999.
"How did NWR Trivia get started?"
One day, PlanetN2000 saw that another website was doing a general videogame trivia competition, asking whatever about anything. Our founder and former director, Billy, got the idea to refine it into a chatroom environment, and only have Nintendo-related questions. After setting things up, the first Planet Trivia was played, almost in virtually the exact same way you play it today.
"What about these other trivia contests I see at other websites?"
What about them? They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. We've been running NWR Trivia for over seven years now, and other sites are trying to cash in on our success. The knock-offs are never as good as the originals, so if other sites claim they've got the better trivia, they're full of crap. At most, you should use their events to hone your skills for ours...or to show off all the insane Nintendo knowledge you've gained at NWR Trivia.
"How do you come up with all these questions?"
Over the years, the staff of NWR has collectively played thousands of Nintendo games, and we use that backlog of gaming knowledge to come up with the majority of our questions. To fill the gaps, we refer to gaming websites to help us think up more questions. That will usually make a good solid question list, which takes about three days to fill out each week.
"Do you guys give away prizes to winners?"
Sometimes, whenever we can get our grubby mitts onto something, we'll offer up a prize for a particular week. Sometimes it's as modest as a Poster or T-Shirt, and sometimes we might score a DS or Wii game to give away. Since this site isn't made of money, it would be impossible to give away prizes every week. However, we try to whenever we can.
FAQs About Trivia Rules and Procedures
"How does this Trivia game work?"
First and foremost, you're going to need to be in our chatroom. Then, one of us asks a question. The first person to answer it gets a point. Most points win. Simple.
"The answer shows up first in my screen, but someone else got the point! Why?"
Most people forget how a chat applet or IRC works. Anytime you type something and hit enter, your text will be immediately displayed in your window. However, the text you just typed needs to be sent to the chatserver, then re-sent back to everyone else's windows. Depending on what your ping is and how much is going on in the chatroom, it could take a full second (or more) for your text to show up in the Trivia host's window. Remember that the order the answers show up in the host's window is the only order the answers will be accepted in. It's called lag folks, learn to deal with it.
"I keep seeing the message #nwr Cannot send to channel and can't talk! What's going on?"
When the chatroom is set to "mode: +m" this means the chatroom is moderated, and only ops can talk. This will happen after the chat host sees a correct answer in the chatroom if it is a busy night. If you talk while this mode is set, you will see that message. This means that everyone else in the chatroom will not be able to talk either. This does not affect only you, it affects everyone. This keeps the chatroom under control for the host so that he can sift through a bunch of answers, and to double check what's going on without having to worry about someone acting stupid while not looking. There is nothing you can do to talk again until the host sets "mode: -m", so just be patient and wait.
"These questions are impossible! How could anyone know these off the top of their heads?"
For one, different people have played different games, so a question that's foreign to you might be second nature to someone else. Another big factor is that some of the young'uns might not be as familiar with the older Nintendo games and history as some of us old farts are. Of course, there are a few questions during trivia that nobody is going to know the answer to, and for that, they turn to other means.
"Is it okay to use search engines or websites to help us answer questions?"
It's not only okay, it's necessary. It's been accepted by the question-writing staff that it would be impossible to prohibit the use of websites to answer some of the tougher, more obscure questions, since we can't see what else you have open on your desktop. Because of that, we try to write questions keeping this in mind. You should be answering them in the same way.
"All I have is a dial-up modem, and I can't seem to score. Is it true that broadband users have a better chance of winning?"
Absolutely not. In fact, virtually all of our most dominate winners over the years have been on dial-up connections, including one on a 28.8K modem. It's a fact that winning is soley dependent on your knowledge and skills. Regardless of the type of connection you have, the chatserver can only push so much out through its pipeline, so it will come to modem users just as fast as broadbanders. The only advantage that high-speed users have over the rest is the ability to hunt for answers more quickly, which has never seemed to be an issue.
"What's this I hear about lag? Why is it bad and how can I prevent it?"
Lag is what happens when the chatserver has too much info to push through, and it processes the info in chunks instead of smoothly like it would normally would. What this means for you, the Trivia player, is that your answer won't get to the host's window very quickly. It's bad for everyone. The best way to prevent it is to only talk when you're attempting to answer a question. The less text the chatserver needs to process, the better your chances of scoring and winning are.
FAQs About Whatever Else
"Why do you guys say guessing is a bad idea?"
Because it is. All questions in NWR Trivia are designed to be unguessable. Since they usually are, the only thing guessing will do is to take away valuable time for you to go find the answer for yourself. Countless people don't even attempt to find the answer to a question, people that really don't have a place in the serious competitive arena that is NWR Trivia.
"Why do so many people get banned during trivia?"
They don't follow the rules. Because of the many people that participate in NWR Trivia, we don't have the time to babysit all of them. With that reasoning, anyone caught breaking a rule will be gone for the rest of the night. We don't have time to deal with those people that aren't focusing all their efforts on Trivia, so we're better off without them.
"What about the radio? What's the address for that?"
Feel free to listen to NWR's Nintendo Funhouse Radio while playing! However, during NWR Trivia it will only play good Nintendo music--it does not play a role in NWR Trivia. In fact, internet radio during NWR Trivia will only slow you down.
You're probably getting NWR Trivia mixed up with PGC's Radio Trivia, which alternates with NWR Trivia every other Friday at the same time.
