Insane difficulty and Payout

[millionaire1999]

I remember the questions that were worth $1 Million and $2.5 Million, Todd Kim and Bob-O respectively. I'll admit, Kimmer's question stumped me, considering it's all about biology and it was pretty obscure. However, Bob-O's question, I actually knew that one. Jimmy Hoffa's last known sighting which was the Machas Red Fox restaurant. Knowing a fact like that could've won him $2.5 Million!
Another is Scott Hoff's million dollar question, which was actually pretty easy. Anyone who knows their history would've known that the Declaration of Independance was signed by the 50 delegates on August 2nd, which was a fact I learned in 7th grade.

Now we know that no one has ever reached the penultimate or final question of Super Millionaire. Something that I've always wondered after Super Millionaire ended was how obscure and difficult those final questions could be and who could possibly have known such. I wonder how much the writers had to go through to make sure a question's value is actually worth $5 Million or $10 Million.
I could only imagine the last two questions could've asked super obscure facts that would mostly pertain to biology and history, like Josina Reave's question about Nostradamus. What would you think the questions would've been?

Another question is how the payout what've been for Super Millionaire. I know in today's show, $500,000 and $1 Million are paid in annuities. You receive $250,000 around thirty days after your show airs and you receive equal payments from ten to twenty years respectively.
But if anyone won the $2.5, $5, or $10 Million prizes, does anyone know how the payout would've worked? I could imagine someone getting $325,000/year for thirty years should they win the top prize.. or $195,000/year for fifty! Let me know what you think how it could've worked.

[Prizes]

Or obscure topics. Seriously, I've written for SM on my own time, and model the questions entirely off of what I think the actual SM would put them at, no more, no less. Only one has gotten to $2.5M, he was right, then missed at $5M; most walk at around $30,000, with none hitting the new dimension last game.

I'd tell you them and their topics, but since it's a public forum, I can't let those go out too easily to anyone by my operator, since, just like the real show, if they're not reached, they're reused. There will be another episode of that coming soon though, keep your eyes out for that, if you think you're up for the challenge!

We had this one question, which somehow the guy got, for $2.5M: In 1782, which of the following animals was not a part of the inaugural hot air balloon ride? A) Dog B) Sheep C)Duck D) Rooster. Won't spoil, but you get the idea, and then add some further difficulty on for beyond that.

A lot of mine do skew history, in varying ways, as you say, but it's certainly beyond that, because, like the Oswald question, there's a notable figure in the question, but it's not exactly about the figure in question as it is something very unknown about the person. I also like to cover topics that people likely know little about, and as such likely have no shot of the obscurity within the obscurity. My little secret, though guess not now, is that the 1M-5M are their own deemed difficulty, with the 10M being given its own class.

I know some silly things about history and what have you, as is necessary to make for an authentic experience. I have to think, based upon my own style, it really would be anything really, but, as I do for these questions, a degree of exact specific knowledge needed. Either you know it or don't, and you might get a guess in, but it's probably as good as rolling a 4 sided die.

[kplewisvox]

I'd say the key to a good upper-level question, whether for six figures, seven figures or eight, is to have it be either a) a really obscure fact about a really well-known and interesting topic, or b) vice versa.

An example I wrote recently:
"In 1925, eleven-year-old Frank Neuhaser won the first ever National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling what word?
A: Gladiolus B: Albumen C: Promiscuous D: Brethren"

One I wrote a long time ago:
"Who was the only woman to win the Miss America pageant twice?
A: Mary Campbell B: Margaret Gorman C: Lee Meriwether D: Marian Bergeron"

In the case of the last one, 99.9% of players aren't going to know it, but at least they're gonna stop and say "Whoa, what? Someone won that twice? That's pretty cool!" And throwing in Lee Meriwether as an answer gives them something to grab on to, since they've possibly heard of her from Catwoman.


I think Prizes's hot air balloon question is a great example too.

[kplewisvox]

Apr 15, 2015 0:52:47 GMT -5 millionaire1999 said:

I remember the questions that were worth $1 Million and $2.5 Million, Todd Kim and Bob-O respectively. I'll admit, Kimmer's question stumped me, considering it's all about biology and it was pretty obscure. However, Bob-O's question, I actually knew that one. Jimmy Hoffa's last known sighting which was the Machas Red Fox restaurant. Knowing a fact like that could've won him $2.5 Million!
Another is Scott Hoff's million dollar question, which was actually pretty easy. Anyone who knows their history would've known that the Declaration of Independance was signed by the 50 delegates on August 2nd, which was a fact I learned in 7th grade.

The one I remember well was Pat Headley. When his show first aired, I was 14 years old. If I remember correctly, if I was playing his stack of questions, even at 14, I would have been looking at the $2.5 million question with at least three lifelines still in tow.

[Peachfanclub]

The key to writing these kinds of questions is trying to determine how many people would be able to answer them. Just because you know it doesn't mean the average contestant is going to know it. Look how much material FOX was able to get from grade school textbooks. Just like with Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, I knew the answer to Pat Headley's $1,000,000 question because I had read about it in my 5th grade history textbook. Of course, the question writers for Super Millionaire had to have figured many people would reach the next dimension because I noticed more of those textbook questions in Super Millionaire than all the episodes of regular Millionaire combined.

[the2thomasklu8]

Apr 15, 2015 1:22:57 GMT -5 Prizes said:

Only one has gotten to $2.5M, he was right, then missed at $5M; most walk at around $30,000, with none hitting the new dimension last game.

Wait... What? Was that on a real show, or one of the website's RPGs?

[futuregshost]

Mar 16, 2017 14:56:28 GMT -5 the2thomasklu8 said:

Apr 15, 2015 1:22:57 GMT -5 Prizes said:

Only one has gotten to $2.5M, he was right, then missed at $5M; most walk at around $30,000, with none hitting the new dimension last game.

Wait... What? Was that on a real show, or one of the website's RPGs?

A few years ago we had a live stream where we played Super Millionaire (I can't remember if it was part of the Game Show Extravaganza events or not). Prizes wrote the questions for the game, and one guy got to the $5,000,000 question and missed it.

[Peachfanclub]

Personally, for every question I've written for a Millionaire RPG, I've generally shied away from textbooks simply because I hardly have any left over from grade school and all that. Unfortunately, facts I pull from my college textbooks seem too overly obscure to the point where not enough people would understand it to justify me using it for a question.

A recent $500,000 on syndicated Millionaire asked that the most edited Wikipedia page ever is an article about who or what. Most people know how Wikipedia works, and most people are definitely familiar with Israel, Beyoncé, and George W. Bush. Not to mention, the most edited Wiki page ever is a simple fact, but one that not many people are going to look up. What I'm trying to say is, the best questions are those where a few ideas may pop into your head, but you're able to deduce one that makes the most sense, even if it's wrong. Maybe your inkling is strong enough to justify risking $400,000. That's how they get you. It's happened to me a lot.

[Deleted]

You know, I think the hardest part for writing questions for WWTBAM is the way to combine the question so it would be easy to understand, but also the level of difficulty would increase the further you're progressing. After all, the question has to be worth the amount shown for it on the money tree.

[FinalAnswer19]

@mario64play, please don't revive dead threads.

[Deleted]

😓 Sorry about that. I promise that I won't do it any longer. But thank you for notifying me.