2010 Survivor Rules

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SinisterMinisterX

SinisterMinisterX

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2010 Survivor Rules

Goal: to eliminate the worst songs by each band, until only the best song is left standing.

How to play: each round, vote for your LEAST favorite songs. Usually, you get 3 votes.

How it works: at the end of each round, up to 3 songs will be eliminated. When the number of songs left is 10 or less, the next group of songs enters the game.

New rules for 2010! The top two (longest surviving) songs from each album will be promoted to new rounds: the quarterfinals and semifinals. This means they get removed from the game and saved until later, which also opens up 2 spots in the top ten for other songs. So the early classics (which used to disappear too soon) get a second chance, and more songs get to survive for a while.

For bands we've done before (like Maiden and Bruce), the top ten songs from the previous time get a free pass to the finals. This will do two things:
1. Guarantee we have an all-new top ten going into the finals, and...
2. Make those finals insanely brutal.

In other words, the changes should make all the games better, with all the best songs coming up at the end.

Another new rule, effective Sept. 25: If a round has 3 or fewer voters, and they are in unanimous agreement, those 3 unanimous picks are eliminated. (This will help speed up the low-voter survivors.)

The above leaves out some details. Post here if you have any questions.

Here are the games...

Group A:
Iron Maiden Survivor 2010
Rainbow Survivor 2010
Rob Halford Survivor 2010
Aerosmith Survivor 2010

Group B:
Bruce Dickinson Survivor 2010
Ozzy Osbourne Survivor 2010
Pink Floyd Survivor 2010
Guns N Roses Survivor 2010
 
I keep track of all the vote counts on a spreadsheet, so I look at average votes per round. Higher number goes to Quarterfinals, lower to Semifinals.

In the Maiden Survivor, Prowler went to Quarters because its average was 4.4 - Remember Tomorrow had 3.3 and went to Semis.
 
Theoretically, if 3 songs from an album remained, 2 of them were eliminated, would you go by number of votes that round or total average to determine which of the 2 passed on?
 
Once the #3 song from an album is gone, the remaining two are promoted - even if one of them had enough votes that it would have been the next to go.

If the votes in the poll are tied and I need to do a tiebreaker, I always use the overall average.

I hope that answers your question? :bigsmile:
 
I like this idea of quarter finals. The songs will have different competitors (opponents) which makes it more unpredictable. I am curious how you will decide which songs will meet which songs. A random mix, or still a bit era-based?

Anyway, whatever that will be, sounds interesting.
 
Forostar said:
I am curious how you will decide which songs will meet which songs. A random mix, or still a bit era-based?
Click to expand...

The Quarters and Semis will be mostly like all the other rounds. All the Quarterfinal songs will join the top ten in the poll, as if it were a greatest hits album. Same thing for the Semis, only the new songs will be even better. The Finals will be the top ten from the Semis, plus last year's top ten.

Note that this guarantees: our ongoing top ten is guaranteed to be completely different from last year, until the Finals.

In other words, the final three rounds will be:
1. Brutal.
2. Insanely brutal.
3. Unspeakable, epic brutality.
 
Hasn't it happened that more than two songs from an album remained in the poll and seemed to never get voted out?
 
Yes, that is possible. Last year, 3 songs from Powerslave survived all the way to the end (and 2 from Brave New World).

However, those songs won't appear until the Finals this year, so even if it happens again, it will be different songs.
 
New rules!

In the never-ending quest to improve the games, some adjustments have been made. Here's the most important one, quoted from the full rules below:

There are a few (new!) rules to help speed up the low-voter Survivors.
1. Any unanimous songs are automatically removed.
2. In a 3-voter round, if there is no 3-vote song, then any song with 2 votes is removed.
Click to expand...

This means that rounds previously limited to just one song being killed can now get 2 or 3 sometimes. It should help games like Aerosmith and Hendrix move faster.

Here's the current version of the full rules...

Survivor Rules version 4 (September 26, 2010)

What is a Survivor game?

It's a song elimination game. Like the TV series from which the name is taken, the weakest are voted out and the strongest survive ... until a champion is crowned.

The rounds are two days long. Each round, you get 3 votes. Use them to vote for your LEAST favorite songs. (In the Finals, you'll only get 1 or 2 votes in a tiebreaker or the final rounds.)

How does the game progress?

We usually start with a band's first two albums (sometimes just the first, if it has a lot of songs). Over a few rounds, we reduce that to 10 songs. These 10 move on to the next series.

To start that next series, we add the next album, and again reduce to 10 songs ... which move on to face the next album, and so on.

When an album gets down to its last two songs, those songs are (temporarily) removed from the game and promoted to the Quarterfinals and Semifinals. The song with the lower Performance Rating (see below) goes the Quarters, and the higher-rated song to the Semis.

After all the albums, the Quarterfinals songs face the surviving ten. Then comes the Semifinals, and the top ten are the Finals. However, if we've done the band before, then the previous top ten is added to the Finals (and held out of the game until that point).

Details about song elimination

Up to 3 songs can be removed per round, depending on a few things. First is number of voters: minimum 4 to remove 2 songs, and min 9 to kill 3 songs. Second is number of songs left in the poll; we can't remove any more songs if there are 10 or fewer left. However, songs CAN be promoted with 10 left. If the removal of that 11th song causes a promotion, we wind up moving forward with just 8 songs surviving. (9 is also possible.)

There are a few (new!) rules to help speed up the low-voter Survivors.
1. Any unanimous songs are automatically removed.
2. In a 3-voter round, if there is no 3-vote song, then any song with 2 votes is removed.

The songs to be eliminated are ranked, and killed in order. If a removal causes the promotion of 2 other songs, that promotion is done right away. (This has sometimes saved the next song marked for death!)

In the top ten, only one song is eliminated per round no matter how many voters there were. If the Finals begin with more than 10 songs, normal rules apply until we're down to the top ten.

Tiebreaker polls are only run in the Finals. All tiebreakers before that point are decided by Performance Rating, which ranks all songs on a 0 (worst) to 100 (best) scale. PR is the percentage of voters who don't vote for that song, averaged across all rounds. It correlates directly to the old tiebreaker (average votes per round) but puts low-voter and high-voter rounds on an even scale.

If PR is also tied, then the tied song which is listed last in the poll is removed. If it's a tiebreaker to determine Quarters vs Semis in song promotion, the first song listed goes Quarters and the second goes Semis.

Songs included in a Survivor

Basically, this is my call as the guy running the games. But here's the principle I usually follow: Studio albums only. Perhaps select non-album songs if they're notable.

Not included: live albums or covers albums or B-sides or items like Japan-only tracks. I will try to get non-album singles most of the time. EPs are case by case, but if it's notable I'll usually include it.

If there's a non-album song you want added, post about it in the game thread. I do not guarantee to add the song, but I will consider it.
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
New rules!

In the never-ending quest to improve the games, some adjustments have been made. Here's the most important one, quoted from the full rules below:

This means that rounds previously limited to just one song being killed can now get 2 or 3 sometimes. It should help games like Aerosmith and Hendrix move faster.
Click to expand...

We used to have at least 5 voters in the Aerosmith Survivor.  What happened?  Maybe Wasted will come back after PV comes in?
 
Re: Survivor rules and updates

Survivor Season 2010 is drawing to a close. All remaining games will finish, and a few will run into the summer.

Projected finish dates:
Metallica - April 2
Savatage - June 27
Led Zeppelin - March 29
Queensryche - May 8
Tournament of Champions - May 12
Motorhead - August 29
Helloween - March 26
The Police - April 3
Megadeth - June 8
Rush - July 12
Black Sabbath - June 30

Here's the current standings in the contest to pick a Survivor band:
186 - NightProwler666
85 - Mosh
54 - Prowler_108
44 - Unknown One
43 - Forostar
38 - maidenhead1996
28 - Jupz
26 - Genghis Khan
18 - national acrobat
17 - Invader
15 - Eddie's Wingman
13 - mckindog
9 - Albie
5 - Habberdasher, Kauha-Apina
4 - bearfan, wizard
3 - Vap
1 - Fugazi
Black Thunder's and Jeffmetal's votes are not counted because they won the last two contests, so can't win this one.

Partially because no one is likely to catch him - and partially because counting the votes is a bit of a pain in the neck - I declare NightProwler666 the winner! NP666, you can post your choice here.

Survivor Season 2011 will begin in mid-August (just like this past season did). We'll start when Motorhead gets into the top ten, which is currently projected for August 9.

2011 bands...

Metal Giants Survivor: Iron Maiden, Judas Priest
European Metal Survivor: Dokken*
70s Survivor: Queen
90s Survivor: Dokken*
Contest winner 1: Thin Lizzy, chosen by Jeffmetal
Contest winner 2: chosen by NightProwler666
Hard Rock Survivor: Van Halen, Kiss
Tournament of Champions II: IE, BG, Blaze, Aerosmith, Slayer, AC/DC, A7X, Helloween, Zep, Metallica

British Steel Survivor: Motorhead (top ten), Bruce Dickinson
American Metal Survivor: Dokken*
60s Survivor: Beatles
80s Survivor: Dokken*
Poll winner 1: TBA
Poll winner 2: TBA
Prog Rock Survivor: Dokken*
SMX's Choice: TBA

* Dokken just means a band has not been selected yet, and suggestions are welcome. Some bands we've done will be eligible for a rerun (all the bands in the current Champions game: GnR, Bruce, Rainbow, Halford, Jimi, Ozzy, UFO, Floyd, Dio and DT).

Once more, thanks to everyone for taking part in the games!
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
Partially because no one is likely to catch him - and partially because counting the votes is a bit of a pain in the neck - I declare NightProwler666 the winner! NP666, you can post your choice here.
Click to expand...
Thanks! :) I'll post my choice here when I make a decision...
 
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