So I've finished my first two games here at tengaged, placing third in game #1 and fifth in game #2.
In the first game, I missed the challenge on Day 1 and was put up for nomination. It wasn't until about halfway day through Day 2 that I realized the game started, and began frantically trying to save myself. I received 10 votes against me and nearly went home. After that, I made sure to never miss a challenge again. Staying off the block was relatively easy, as this game had a number of inactives and others who were generally weak in the challenges. Meanwhile, there seemed to be a lot of drama going on that I wasn't involved in. People accusing others of backstabbing, calling each other names, saying how they were about to "turn the game around," claiming someone was "playing both sides" when I didn't even know what sides existed. As the cast shrunk though, the drama began to die down. Around final 9, a nominee came pleeing to me, asking me for help with the vote. Through the information she provided me, I deduced who she was with and who she was against, and from that, I made the moves to construct a final four alliance. The fours of us began coordinating all our votes. When I faced the nomination block for the second time at final 6, my alliance came through for me and got my opponent evicted. But in the end, our last non ally, who had only been nominated once about midway through the game, performed successfully to ensure himself a spot in the final four, forcing our alliance to vote out one of our own. The four of us ended up placing second through fifth, while our opponent took first. Despite being less socially involved, his skill in the challenges helped him take home the win.
In the second game, I made an effort to be social and get to know people right off the bat. Unlike the first game, there were hardly any inactives. I had close bonds with four other people that I had hoped to go to the final five with. Unfortunately in this game, I found I was one of the weaker competitors in the challenges, and I had a fair amount of bad luck in them as well. Throughout the game I was nominated 6 times. Though I lost some people I liked along the way, I managed to get my ideal final 5 group to the final 6. More often than not their votes were saving me, but at times my vote also helped some of them stay in. However, like my first game, there was one person, whom I viewed as outside of my personal group, that had gotten far by doing well in challenges. In this game, the outsider had NEVER been nominated. I was desperately hoping he'd slip up at final 6, but alas, he did not. I faced the block with one of my allies and, being that she was detached from the rest and had mainly stuck around because I fought for her, she lost to me in the vote. At final 5, a poor performance in Deal or No Deal put on the block again, next to another one of my allies. Technically, I WAS in a 3-person alliance with the other two from my group that could have carried me into the final four. Was I confident they wouldn't vote me out? No, for as the game progressed we'd basically talked in PMs as if we'd added my opponent into our alliance for a final four, and truth be told he was more socially active. I pretty much knew that my block opponent had a closer bond with the player who had never been nominated to ensure his vote, so my only hope was for the three person alliance to come through for me. Were they planning to turn on me? The truth is I will never know. One of them never showed up to vote that day, so it could've been unanimous, or it could've been a tie and my opponent was kept by the tengaged system for out performing me. Either way, I was very disappointed, I wanted to hold on to the distinction of "never being voted out" as long as possible. Oh well. :-\ My allies placed fourth through second, and the winner was of course, the guy who I wasn't that close to, who hd gone the whole game without being nominated.
So I ask you, tengaged community, what does it take to win? Do you just need to be a bad ass in the challenges and not even necessarily need to be social? That's what my first two games have led me to believe. Although to be fair, I can think of one case in particular in my second game where a not-so-social competitor had gone through the first five rounds without being nominated, then slipped up in the sixth challenge, and despite his pleas to stay in we all pounced on the opportunity to get rid of him. So relying on the challenges alone is a dangerous way to play as it can leave you very vulnerable if you have one unlucky competition. I know there's a lot of winners out there, and I saw a lot of you actually won your very first game! How did you do it? What does it take to win a game at tengaged?
Comments
idk i've played 26 games and still haven't won. don't be so hard on yourself :)
I think its mostly how you do in your comps. I've finished in the top 4 six times now and have gotten every place within. The times I got first I did really well in the comps. Being active and getting a lot of plusses has to help too though.
BTW, I am curious to see if you would have been voted out if AmyDube would have voted. Curds was voting for me to stay for sure. It came down to uifower. He originally was going to vote me out, but I after talking to him and saying that he should stick with me since he aligned with me before you, he wrote me this:
"aaah...now i feel the guilt trip :P and who knows. there are still 2 hours for me to change my vote ;)"
