Changes planned for 1 vs. 100 Season 2

By Ellie Gibson Published 30 October, 2009

It's all about improving things for the One.

Microsoft has revealed some of the changes we can expect to see in 1 vs. 100 Live when the second season begins.

As reported on the 1 vs 100 blog, there will be some adjustments to the role of the One. At the moment, explained Microsoft's "Adam Danger", "The One attains minor Xbox fame the moment they’re selected, and where it goes from there is all about how well they can fare against the competition. Some players in the beta received a torrent of friend requests, Party invites, and other assorted messages - perhaps more than they would’ve expected." So in Season 2, the status of the One will be set to "Busy" while they're on stage.

"There's a lot on the line, and it can be quite intense. We wanted to make sure that the One is able to focus on the game without distraction," said designer Brett Johnson.

In addition, the appearance of the One will be more dramatic in Season 2 - the lucky avatar will appear at the top of a staircase, strike a pose then stroll down to the stage.

1 vs. 100 launched in the UK last July. Back in August, Microsoft reported that 200,000 Europeans play the game every day.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Toothball #1 2 years ago

    I only remembered to try this once. It was a very hypnotic experience. I could see myself doing it for hours, but I managed to break away after not too long.

  • dither #2 2 years ago

    Hopefully they'll fix the way The One is chosen, as a priority.

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #3 2 years ago

    I really enjoyed season 1, but didn't have Gold at the time so could only play the free weekends. Really looking forward to S2.

  • darkmorgado #4 2 years ago

    The One attains a measure of popularity?

    So its not people just spamming them with messages and things to try to make them fail then...

  • Shinetop #5 2 years ago

    Another great feature would be actually releasing it, because it's still not out over here. I wish Xbox Live Europe got their act together for once and started expanding a lot of the UK Live features to other countries.
    Edited by 1 at 30/10/09 @ 11:22

  • Markusdragon #6 2 years ago

    How about making it less painfully boringly slow?

  • SliderNL #7 2 years ago

    what about making it available to the rest of Europe?

  • miiiguel #8 2 years ago

    MS is a weird company, in places where they are already quite well established and even beating old king PS they keep on bringing new stuff, on Southern Europe where video-games are anounced in every media like being Playstation games (I shit you not, every video-game commercial on tv or outdoors, or even internet - check EG.pt! - are linked to Playstation) they do nothing, or, very, very litle.

    I also have money, Mr. Microsoft!

  • etherfiend #9 2 years ago

    I agree with Markusdragon

    There were too few questions in each round or the breaks between rounds/questions were too long.

  • Apostle #10 2 years ago

    I hope that's not all they're doing.

  • DontLikeJelly #11 2 years ago

    Bring it to Belgium! And also bring the Indie games section! And also the movie store!

    Booo MS.

  • Monkey_Puncher #12 2 years ago

    How about making it more fun for the people in the crowd?

    The complete lack of involvement and tedium of sitting in the crowd for 2 hours hoping to get picked meant the numbers for the live shows dropped massively for the later shows in the series.

  • PoundHound #13 2 years ago

    I really liked this at first, and found it quite...exciting.

    Then, after around 10 shots, I realised I was never going to be picked as either the One or even the mob and it completely lost it's appeal. It became pointless. I don't know how they picked people, but it was messed up. The amount of "ones" that had zero gamerscore seriously led me to believe it was fixed.

    I really feel they have to make the selection process more transparent instead of some vague guff about answering questions quickly,but most of all, give everyone the same chance of being selected regardless of speed and accuracy. After all, there were seperate prizes for possessing those skills.
    Edited by 1 at 30/10/09 @ 12:16

  • Eraysor #14 2 years ago

    When was season 1? Or was that the beta?

  • AgentBalti #15 2 years ago

    @poundhound - If you did play regularly enough, you would have got in the Mob. After a few weeks of religiously turning up for the Friday Night Show, I was in the Mob after the 3 or 4th round, every time for about 4 weeks on the spin. For me at least, it wasn't quite as random as some would suggest. And I won Poker Smash too...go me.

  • KreyAtiv #16 2 years ago

    They need to overhaul it a lot more than that. Actually give members of the crowd some Microsoft points and also cut down on the rather boring after a few times videos of "The Host" on about how to play the game in three seperate videos. :S
    Surely you should have the option of turning that off if you've played it before.
    Also those who got disconnected should get another chance.

  • Collymilad #17 2 years ago

    Glad this is coming back. Excellent fun.

    "MS is a weird company, in places where they are already quite well established and even beating old king PS they keep on bringing new stuff, on Southern Europe where video-games are anounced in every media like being Playstation games"

    It's probably because the only place in EU that the 360 really does well (a "stronghold";) is the UK. Most game ads here are linked to Xbox 360, although recently there have been a lot of PS3 ads turning up (and pretty good ones I might add)

    The only thing I didn't like about 1vs100 was the fact that it seems to be the people who play the most and not the people who are the best (i.e. based on a percentage of correct answers) who are picked for the mob/theone.
    Edited by 2 at 30/10/09 @ 13:56

  • Harmonica #18 2 years ago

    Alternate rounds select Ones based on different criteria, so that's not true even if it seems like it.

    It never occured to me that the One might get spammed with invites in order to make him disconnect. Some people are tossers, I guess.

  • metalangel #19 2 years ago

    WHAT NEEDS FIXING:
    -The complete tedium of being in the crowd. Just once, I made it into the top ten crowd members for maybe two questions, before dropping way down as the psychopaths who instantly answer the question correctly (we're talking within 0.02 seconds) all take the top of the scoreboard and stay there. I've never been the One or even in the Mob.
    -Get rid of the stupid animations. A crowd of hateful avatars mindlessly pumping their fists (I actually hit Y to make mine stop), or the One doing the same 'nervous' animation (especially when the question is blimmin' obvious) really grates.
    -If you're going to have advert breaks, have more than two adverts. My missus was obsessed with this game for about two months, and in that time the ad break was Beethoven and Desperaux, or Desperaux and then Beethoven. Or possibly the guy from MS explaining that when you're out of the Mob, you're still not out, for the 15 millionth time.
    -the voice of the hostess. Nasal, grating, horrible. And she's not read the lines properly so they can be pieced together: "[upbeat] Wow, you eliminated[/upbeat] [deadpan]fourteen[/deadpan]"
    -the questions are either insultingly easy or ridiculously obscure (what did the seventh king of Hungary have for breakfast on June 5th 1075?) and are often riddled with typos or indeed factual inaccuracies.
    -basically, there's no point in playing unless you're in the Mob or the One. It's a million times worse than the itbox quiz games in the pub, and at least on the itbox you're guaranteed to be in with a chance of winning something.

    WHAT IS ACTUALLY BEING FIXED:
    -the One now does more irritating animations.
    -the One gets automatically set to 'busy' as if this will somehow stem the flow of messages from cheaters trying to slip them up.