Okay - in spite of Shag's PC problems (sorry!), I'll admit I'm going crazy trying to figure out if my score on Challenge 8 is a winner, or even a contender.

Without spoiling the results, raise your hand if you were within one percent of the target score...

I got mine in last Monday. I'm just hoping no one got it done quicker .

Jesus Christ!

pics are blocked here at work - did you hit 211,000.00000?

Yeah, he hit it dead on.

86,300

and

124,700

That's rather impressive.

How many tries did it take you, cartman?

Like I said earlier, I got sick and tired of playing the song after my third time. My total score was just over 214K.

I did guitar once, using a secret method to get the score I needed, which also led to a pathetic low score . Drums, I did 3 times. Twice on expert, the second time I got the score I needed, but about 10 seconds too early, so I failed out of the song. The third time, I dropped to hard hoping it'd be easier to hit the number and not fail. Honestly, it was pure luck that I got what I needed that go.

"Oz Rosenberg" ... nice.

So what is this "secret" method? :P

nice job, cartman!

Secret method here.

I know PhD candidates that don't put this much effort into their theses.

I took one look at that linked page just now and closed it immediately. The "secret" was to go halfway through the song on guitar, then when a lucky sustain ended in 00, I stopped playing them.

I have bad reading habits...I lost interest about half way through the first paragraph, lol. Why not just rip the best score you can get? Why would you want a lower score in the first place? If the target of Shag's contest was 211,000, why not blow it away if ya can? I know I would. I always looked at the games as trying to be the best that I can possibly be, and now...have the games come to the point of exact (lower) scoring? I'm confused.

Match scoring requires some skill and knowledge. It's like match scoring on a race track. Instead of placing your best time, you have to come closest to a designated time.

My example: I sang and played drums. I knew I needed at least 80-100K on vox (I chose expert). I didn't bother to go to scorehero to look up the highest scores possible on instrument and difficulty. So I got 106,818 and used that as a base score. I went to expert drums and knew I needed to meet around 103-105K. I went thru the first pass.. watched my score at the same time. Activated overdrive once and ended up in the 120K range.. 2nd pass, I did the same and stopped playing at about 105K but I failed out because I stopped playing too early. 3rd time I didn't bother to activate OD at all and ended up with 107,350.

Then I gave up and popped COD:WaW in.

Yikes! So which is worse...playing a single song in Rock Band long enough to hit a target score, WAAAAY overanalyzing concepts about target scoring (BTW - at "The Barfo Method"), or taking the time to read and try to understand the overanalysis of target scoring?

As far as my magic method of targeting...I misread the challenge and thought I had to play three different instruments (I missed the "up to" part of Shag's description), then decided to do vox, bass, and guitar on expert. I figured I had the most positive control of my destiny on guitar, so I started with my "base" score on vox (112,788). Then I tanked-but-passed bass (two stars w/ 13,443), partially because I wanted to see how much fun it might be to try a low score challenge. Finally, after calculating what I needed to hit the mark, I settled in for a few runs on the guitar. After the first run through I realized I was within 211 points, and called it done - partially because I realized I was within 1% of the target score, partially because I was sick of the song, but mostly because I thought it was cool to be 211 points away from a 211,000 target.

I actually thought this was a great challenge because it was an equalizer of sorts - I don't do most of the score based "Battle Of The Bands" challenges in-game because I'm a solo player and can't touch the multi-player scores. But I'll play each and every streak or "star count" challenge just because everyone appears to be on more equal footing.

Anyway - congrats to Cartman and anyone else who hit the mark. I'm now just hoping I was in the top 5!

Yeah, it's ridiculous, and I've never been curious enough to read it, but it is a useful skill to prove cutoffs i.e., determining the exact score you need to get 4 stars, 5 stars, etc.

Some of those Jane's songs are TOUGH on guitar (only instrument I've tried so far)! I wasn't expecting that. Even Jane Says was way more difficult than I was expecting, but some of the others were brutal. I normally play on expert, but I had to drop back to hard just to get through the pack.

Which ones were really tough? Just curious.

I felt the same way with the recent Nirvana pack on GH:WT. I got it and was surprised how damn hard and unfun they were to play.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Chinese Democracy has some of the best and most fun songs to play of any pack that RB has released in awhile. An excellent group of songs.

I know I'm a few days late with the latest Challenge results. Hardware issues suck! Anyways, here they are.

DVDTalk Challenge #8 - One Way or Another Results

Rankings (Scores are the absolute difference)
1. 0 cartman
2. 0 211,000 Rattlehead
3. 82 Imprint
4. 181 sandman642
5. 3,164 devilshalo

Fun Facts
- Two people hit the goal of 211,000 on the nose! Great job to cartman and Rattlehead!
- cartman hit his goal on two instruments (Hard Drums and Expert Guitar)
- Rattlehead hit his with three instruments (Easy Bass, Expert Guitar, and Expert Vocals)
- Sandman642 got the lowest score on an individual instrument with 13,443 on Expert Guitar. Impressive!

This Challenge seemed to go over pretty well and had a bit of talk surrounding it. I'll try to come up with others like this in the future.

I won't even bother knowing there are secret methods to get to the score you want. Seems nearly pointless in the grand scheme.

Granted I have just as much chance winning a regular one anyway with all you expert and multi-talented fools

Do you think there's a way to set up bands for 4-player challenges in a competitive manner? I think that would be extremely fun.

Time to rally the PS3 supergroup!

This was my initial idea (setting up some kind of bracketed tourney or something), but there wasn't enough interest to get it rolling.

One-off four person challenges might work though. I was part of a bracketed tourney online last year, and the problem with most groups was getting all four people online at once to practice/play. Our group didn't really have that issue, but we were probably more dedicated (and awesome) than the other bands.

An interesting multi-player challenge would be something streak-related. Maybe all try to get the same streak (minus vocalist) or get some specified combined-streak score.

I think that this last challenge (reach a certain score) was definitely more attainable for everyone than just a high-score challenge. Just my two cents.

I, for one, am willing.

Maybe just run a 2nd challenge for a longer period to allow bands to form.

The only question is to people form their own bands or should there be a skill-based seeding for bands? Like best guitarist, 2nd best singer, 3rd best drummer, worst bassist, etc?

Putting together groups for a multi-person Challenge would probably work best by Time Zone (or hours available) and go from there.

It seems that you feel the goal of the Challenges is to win. That's not my intention at all (unless that's the only thing you would be happy with). I do them to get people to play the game in perhaps a different way, (shown in this last challenge) or on a different instrument, or maybe a song they haven't played before (I know a couple people grabbed songs for the Geography Challenge).

Also, it gives us something else to talk about than just the weekly DLC stuff.

If I played just to win, I wouldn't have attempted to "sing" in the Free DLC challenge

I just don't think there's a reason for me to try to hit a target when I know people out there can bullseye it, even across multiple instruments. So those weeks I'll just skip.

If a band challenge ever shows up, I'm probably best suited for bass because I can't sing and there are far better drummer and guitarists than me. But I can hold my own well enough. Pretty open to playtimes too that work for the other members.