A smart motivational technique used for CCC BPO agents is to compete on the machines in the game room.
One way in which a telemarketer's confidence could be made stronger or broken down is through an arcade experience during their work day. Costa Ricans have courage and can back up their swagger on the phone after dominating the video games during their scheduled breaks.
In the competitive offshore outsourcing call center arena, CCC has an advantage over the rest in Costa Rica by creating a strategic play environment.
High end arcade video games will reinforce a call center agent's focus, mind set to win and motor skills while off of the phones during their free time. The most important virtue is to show a solid habit of good sportsmanship regardless of the outcome of the games in the arcade.
More new friendships have blossomed in the game room at CCC call center Costa Rica.
This is a glossary of the shots that will be referred to during the discussion
of the game. In SFII, most shots correspond to one or two of the opponents
that you must defeat through the course of the game. There are only 8 shots
for 12 opponents, as the lower right sink hole and the spiral each have two
opponents, and the left and right ramps can be raised and lowered, with one
opponent for each ramp position.
- Lower Left sink hole. This is the opponent E.Honda. When the opponent is
not lit, this hole spots a letter in TORPEDO. Completing TORPEDO
starts TORPEDO Multiball.
- Lower Right sink hole. This hole has two opponents: M. Bison and Balrog.
When neither of the opponents are lit, then the hole spots 1 letter in
TORPEDO until the first TORPEDO multiball is achieved, and scores
1M + 1M to ??, and resets on each ball.
- Left lane, just past top flipper: This hole is the opponent Blanka. When
the opponent is not lit, it advances the Car Crunch value. On our
machine you need 3 hits to get the Car Crunch, but this is probably
either a self-adjusting value or operator settable.
- Left ramp. This is the opponent Zangief. The left ramp can be raised,
in which case refer to the "left underpass" described below. When the
opponent is not lit, and the ramp is in the lowered position, this shot
scores 3M. Any ball shot up this ramp is kicked out of the E.Honda hole.
You can also get Zangief by shooting Sagat just as multiball ends if
Zangief is lit (bug or feature?). Shooting an unlit Zangief raises the
ramp for a shot at an unlit Sagat.
- Left underpass: This is the opponent Sagat. This shot is only active
when the left ramp is in the raised position. When the opponent is not lit,
this shot is worth 4M, and kicks 1 barrel. Kick 4 barrels to start
Multiball. Any ball shot through this underpass is kicked out of the
E.Honda hole.
- Left sinkhole, just to right of left ramp. This is the opponent Dhalsim.
When the opponent is not lit, then this shot scores the flame, which is
2M. Any ball shot into this sinkhole is kicked out of the E.Honda hole.
- Vertical loopback, just to right of pop bumper. This is the opponent
Guile, one of the toughest shots in the game because it has a very small
sweet spot. This shot loops the ball up vertically onto a habitrail which
drops the ball into the right inlane. When this opponent is not lit, it
spots a letter in GUILE. Spelling GUILE the first time gives and extra
ball (or 50M if extra-balls are disabled), and scores 50M for each
completion of the GUILE. Although the shot is obviously made for the left
flipper, it is possible to hit this shot backhanded from the right
flipper. I have done the backhand several times while the ball was
heading towards the right flipper from the left side of the playfield,
but only once when the ball was at rest on the right flipper.
- Spiral in upper right corner: This shot has 2 opponents: Ken and Ryu.
It is designed to be hit from the upper left flipper only, although a ball
from the right flipper which hits a post just above E.Honda may ricochet
into the spiral. I've done this a few times, but never intentionally.
Although both opponents light up together, each shot when it is lit scores
only one of the two opponents. When not lit, this scores 1M+1M per loop.
A good shot might give you 3 or 4 loops, but usually you'll only get 1 or 2
loops. The value continues to increase across balls. Any ball shot in the
spiral is kicked out of the M.Bison hole.
- Right ramp: This shot is the opponent Chun Li. Like the left ramp, this
shot is only active when the ramp is in the lower position. A shot up this
ramp sends the ball to a raised playfield, which has a single flipper that
is rotating at constant speed (you have no control of this flipper). If
the flipper does not hit the ball, then your ball goes straight to a
habitrail on the left, which drops the ball into the left inlane, and you
score either Chun Li when it is lit, or 5M+5M to 25M if not lit, which
resets on each ball. Note that after you get an unlit Chun-li, you have
one shot from the left flipper to get the next ramp. If you hit any other
switch, the ramp raises, and gives you a shot at an unlit Vega. If the
rotating flipper does hit the ball, then it either sends it back down the
ramp, or onto the right habitrail, which drops the ball into the right
inlane. In this case, no points, touch bananas, zilch, and the machine
laughs at you! Hidden discovery: you can also get Chun Li by shooting Vega
just as Multiball ends when Chun Li is lit (bug or feature?).
- Right underpass: This is the opponent Vega. This shot is only active when
the right ramp is raised. When the opponent is not lit, this shot scores a
random award. Some of the possibilities include points (5-25M), light
extra ball, start regular multiball, and spot letters in 1 to all letters
in GUILE, TORPEDO, or FIGHTER. There may be other awards too. If you hit
the unlit Vega when the DOUBLE light is on, then it gives you TWO separate
random awards. This shot sends the ball to an eject hole which feeds the
top pop bumper. During normal play, the ramp can be raised for a random
unlit vega award in two ways: 1) Hit an unlit Chun-Li, or 2) have the ball
land into the Vega eject hold by going through the green targets (usually a
lucky bounce off the Jet Bumpers). If the right ramp is stuck in the up
position, then the right underpass will give you credit for Chun-Li when
lit, otherwise it will give you a random award every time.
The remaining shots do not have any opponents associated with them.
- Skill Shot, step 1, the timed plunger shot: The dot matrix display,
accompanied by Chun Li's voice, says "Ready, Set, Shoot". After it says
shoot, you let go of the plunger, which sends the ball up a habitrail. At
the end of the rails is a sensor, which sets your starting bracelet value.
After you hit the sensor, the ball dribbles down into the Blanka eject
hole, and the display goes into a shoot the bullseye animation, and tells
you if you were early or late for a bullseye. If you timed the shot just
right, you get the bullseye, and you set the initial bracelet to 20M. If
you are off, the initial value is 5M, 10M, or 15M, depending on how close
you are. To score any skill shot points, you must get the skill shot step
2. If Blanka is lit, then you also defeat Blanka [but if it is not lit, do
you advance the car crush count?]
- Skill Shot, step 2, hitting the Bracelet. The bracelet is a target just
above the entrance of Ken&Ryu. It is a plastic target with a metal pin in
the center. To get the skill shot points, you must hit this target from
the upper left flipper as the ball is fed out of Blanka. If you hit the
center of the target, which is detected by hitting the you get double the
points. If you miss the target, then the bracelet becomes a "Hurry Up"
target, counting down from the original value to 0.
- Extra Ball (EB) target: this target is near the back center of the
playfield. The EB target is the white one, which is between two red
targets. Hitting this target while the purple light is flashing awards an
extra ball. There are various ways to light this target, but the target
only stays lit for about 10-15 seconds. Note that you must hit the white
center target, and not the side red targets to get the EB. Also, there
is no grace period on hitting the target after the light stops flashing.
The target is pretty much worthless if hit when not lit.
- Green Targets: In back of the EB target, there is a single pop bumper, and
three plastic targets, which are called the "Green Targets" because of the
green lights in front of them on the playfield. By hitting all three
targets a certain number of times, you light the EB target for 10-15
seconds. It is not clear how often you have to complete the 3 hits, or
whether they must be hit in waves, but it seems like 2 or 3 times, and
could very well be self-adjustable or operator settable. You can light the
EB many times in a game in this way.
- Fighter Targets: These are two targets just to the left of the right ramp,
facing sideways. Every time you complete both targets, you spot a
letter in FIGHTER, which is shown by red LED's to the left of the plunger.
Spelling FIGHTER lights special, which is flipper selectable among
the inlanes and outlanes.
Other things to know about the playfield:
- Slingshots: SFII has the traditional slingshots above the lower flippers.
They don't score anything significant (except for affecting the last
2 digits of the score), except during TORPEDO Multiball when they
are worth 3M a pop (along with everything else!)
- Double Light: Every shot has a red 'double' light on it, which is normally
not lit, but does light up on various occasions:
- unlit opponent: Whenever 'double' is lit for an unlit-opponent, you score
double the value of that shot. For example, E.Honda spots 2 letters in
TORPEDO instead of 1, Guile spots 2 letters in GUILE, Sagat kicks 2
barrels, Zangief scores 6M (although the display still only shows 3M),
Vega gives you 2 random awards. Every time you hit the slingshot or
pop bumper, which unlit opponent has the 'double' lit changes. You
start the game with only one unlit opponent having 'double' lit, but at
some point in the game I did end up with 2 at a time; I'm not sure how
I got that second one.
- double round: During the double round, the 'double' light for each shot
that must be completed to double your score is lit. As you hit them,
the light goes out, so that when you hit the last one that is lit,
you double your score (if time didn't run out first!)
- Inlanes & Outlanes: there are no significant value to the inlanes and
outlanes in SFII, except after completing FIGHTER, in which one of the
lanes is lit for SPECIAL. You can use the flipper to alternate which of
the four lanes is lit.
- Second Chance: if you drain within the first 10 or so seconds of play
and before you defeat any opponent, the game gives you the ball back, and
says "Shoot Again" as though you had an extra ball. You do not get to do
the skill shot again, but the bracelet does remain lit and counting down
from your previous skill shot (at most 10 seconds earlier!).
GAME PLAY
=========
The object of the game is to defeat each of the 12 opponents. You defeat an
opponent by making the appropriate shot when the white light with the
opponent's name is on. In normal settings before the first Champion Challenge,
there are always 3 opponents lit at a time, starting with E.Honda, M.Bison,
and Sagat. Every time you defeat an opponent, you get a choice of prizes,
which is selectable by the flippers. The choices are the following:
opponent defeated left flipper selects right flipper selects
1st 5M Car Crunch
2nd 5M Multiball
3rd 5M Roaming Ninjas
4th 10M Multiball
5th Hurry Up EB/10M Count Up
6th Add 3 to TORPEDO Multiball
7th 10M 1-2 Punch
8th Add 2 to GUILE Multiball
9th 10M Double Score round
10th Complete FIGHTER Multiball
11th no prize; display message only
12th CHAMPION CHALLENGE
The points are obvious, but for the big prize money always select the
choice that is not points, and when available, always select Multiball.
If you don't select any within 5 seconds, the game picks one for you,
which is always the left flipper choice.
Each of the above choices are described in detail below.
CAR CRUNCH: The car crunch is a mini-playfield under the main playfield,
which has a single full-sized flipper, a ball, and a car which crunches up
as you hit it. The object of the car crunch is to completely crunch up the
car by hitting it multiple times, before running out of time. It takes
anywhere from 2 to 5 hits to crunch the car, depending on how strong you
hit the car. The amount of time you have depends on which round of the car
crunch you are on. I'm not sure exactly, but you get about 1M per car
hit. If you succeed in crunching the car, a white light in the
mini-playfield which says "winner" lights up, and you also get the Car
Crunch bonus. The bonus for the first round is 5M (3M on tournament
settings), and you have about 8 seconds, which is about 3 times longer than
you need. The bonus on the second round is 10M, and you have about 5-6
seconds. The bonus on the third and subsequent rounds is 30M, and you only
have about 2-3 seconds. Note that you only advance to the next bonus level
when you successfully complete the car crunch. In addition to obtaining
the car crunch as an award for defeating the first opponent, it can also be
obtained by making several shots to the unlit Blanka.
ROAMING NINJAS: During the roaming ninjas round, the 8 shots (with ramps
in raised position) are randomly lit, 2 shots at a time (one on the left
half of the playfield, and the other on the right half), for 5 seconds each
pair. During this round, aim for any lit shots. The first lit shot scores
5M, the second scores 20M, the third 50M, and the fourth 100M. Sorry, even
if you are fast, there is no fifth shot. When you get a lit shot, that
shot still stays lit for the remainder of its 5 seconds, so it is possible
to get the same shot twice (which I've often done with E.Honda and M.Bison,
where you can send a kicked out ball right back into the hole.)
HURRY UP EB: The first time through (i.e. before getting the Champion
Challenge once), the extra ball target lights up for about 10-15 seconds.
The second time through (i.e. after a Champion Challenge) or if
extra balls are disabled, your choice is 10M, not the Hurry Up EB.
COUNT-UP: In this round, the lower right hole (M.Bison) lights up, with
the inverse of a "Hurry-Up" feature. The value of the hole starts at 3M
and increases by 100K up to 10M, pauses, then increments quickly by 1M to
48M. No grace period; if you miss the highest value by a millisecond you
get nothing.
1-2 PUNCH: For the 1-2 punch you must complete Blanka then Ken&Ryu in that
order, within about 20 seconds. The first time you get the 1-2 punch,
you get an Extra Ball for completing the two shots. On subsequent times,
or if the EB is disabled, then you get 25M for Blanka, then 50M for
Ken&Ryu. [or is it 10M for Blanka and 25M for Ken&Ryu??]
DOUBLE SCORE: In this round, you must hit the four lit shots within 20
seconds to double your score. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd shots score 5M, 10M,
and 15M respectively. The 4th shot doubles your score. This is not easy to
do, because the machine picks the hardest shots to hit: among the four
shots, you usually have to hit Guile, Ken&Ryu, or both.
MULTIBALL
=========
The regular multiball is a progressive jackpot multiball, where each jackpot
you score increases the value of the next jackpot.
For every second opponent you defeat (excluding the 12th opponent) one of your
choices is to start multiball (which is usually the recommended choice!). You
can also get multiball by kicking all barrels via an unlit Sagat or as a random
award via unlit Vega. During multiball, you want to shoot a flashing opponent
to score a jackpot. There are 8 possible jackpots, one for each shot (the
ramps are always in the raised position during multiball, so you always shoot
the underpass). Two jackpot shots are flashing at a time. When you hit a
jackpot, that shot stays lit (but not flashing) and another one lights up, so
that you always have two shots to shoot for, except for when you only have the
last jackpot left.
The jackpot values are worth 5M, 10M, 15M, 20M, 25M, 30M, and 35M for the first
seven jackpots respectively. The eighth jackpot (or Super Jackpot) is worth
300M. In normal settings, once you get the super jackpot during multiball, you
can keep shooting it for 300M a pop, until you lose that Multiball. In hard
(tournament??) settings, after you hit the super jackpot once, you must restart
with the first 5M jackpot.
You do not have to get all jackpots in the same multiball, as the jackpots
already obtained and the jackpot value are carried from multiball to multiball.
The jackpot shots always light up in the same order, starting with E.Honda and
M.Bison/Balrog. The next one is Sagat if you hit E.Honda first, or Vega if you
hit M.Bison/Balrog first. The fourth is Sagat or Vega, whichever wasn't lit
third. The next four are always, in order, Dhalsim, Blanka, Guile, and
Ken&Ryu.
STRATEGY: Since the 8th jackpot is worth the most, and it is the only one
that you hit more than once, it is wise to stay away from shooting an easy
jackpot (e.g. Vega, Sagat, or Dhalsim) and concentrate on always going
for the more difficult shots (e.g. Blanka, Guile, and Ken&Ryu). If the
shot you have remaining for the super jackpot is something like Sagat,
then you can reshoot that target numerous times for 300M a shot. Whereas
if you have Guile or Ken&Ryu, it may be difficult to get more than one
super jackpot.
If you start a multiball when the Blanka jackpot is lit, you will get that
jackpot automatically, as the plunger shot deposits the ball into the Blanka
eject hole.
Once you've gotten the super jackpot, and that multiball ends, the next
multiball starts from the beginning again, as though it was your first
multiball.
TORPEDO MULTIBALL
=================
The torpedo multiball is a 3-ball Frenzy Multiball, where every switch is worth
3M. You get the TORPEDO Multiball by completing the word TORPEDO. One letter
is spotted in TORPEDO each time you hit E.Honda when not lit or M.Bison when
not lit and before the first TORPEDO Multiball; two letters if the 'double'
light is on when you hit E.Honda or M.Bison, or 3 letters if you select "add 3
to TORPEDO" after defeating the 6th opponent.
When there is only one letter remaining in TORPEDO to start the Multiball, the
E.Honda hole will be flashing, and the M.Bison hole also if it is the first
TORPEDO multiball. If you get this, you get the TORPEDO multiball. You can
also get TORPEDO multiball by hitting E.Honda or M.Bison when the "double"
light is on and only 2 letters remaining, or by adding 3 letters after
defeating the 6th opponent.
An average TORPEDO multiball should score you 100M. With a good multiball,
you can really rack up multi-millions of points.
The TORPEDO multiball score is the only End-of-ball bonus in the game. So once
you get this, DON'T TILT!
STRATEGY: One strategy that I have found works quite well is to pick two shots,
one on the right and one on the left, and just keep hitting those same shots
repeatedly. I usually aim for Sagat and Vega. The Sagat shot is a fairly easy
shot which takes a ball off the playfield for a few seconds so that you only
have to deal with one or two balls at a time, and it passes by 3 switches for
9M a shot (as opposed to E.Honda or Dhalsim, which only register 1 or 2
switches per hit). The Vega shot feeds the top pop bumper, which in
cooperation with the green targets, will often give you at least five target
hits (i.e. 15M) per shot. You also might light extra ball by continuously
shooting it there.
CHAMPION CHALLENGE
==================
Street Fighter II is a goal-oriented pin, and the goal is to become the new
master. You do that by first defeating all 12 opponents, which puts you into
the champion challenge, then defeating all 12 opponents a second time on the
same ball. If you successfully complete the challenge, you get 500M, Special,
and you become the new MASTER (the machine asks you to enter your initials).
During the Champion Challenge, all 8 shots are lit simultaneously. As you
defeat an opponent, that light goes out. Shooting the lower right hole once
defeats both M.Bison and Balrog; shooting the spiral once defeats both Ken and
Ryu. Shooting Zangdief raises the ramp and exposes Sagat. Shooting Chun-Li
raises the ramp and exposes Vega. Therefore to defeat 12 opponents, you
need 10 shots.
Once you complete the Champion Challenge, you start over having to defeat
opponent 1, and you get the choices for each opponent defeated. The second
time around, though, only two opponents are lit at a time, and not three as the
first time around. I haven't gotten to a 2nd Champion Challenge, so I don't
know if the third time around you only have one opponent lit at a time.
If you lose the ball during Champion Challenge, then you lose out on that
500M, and you must start all over on the next ball.
REPLAYS AND HIGH SCORES
=======================
REPLAY SCORE: As with all modern machines, the replay score is self-adjusting.
The following algorithm seems to be used in SFII (these are the default
settings on our machine, I presume some of the parameters are operator
adjustable): You can beat the replay score 3 times on your credits without
the replay score changing. After that, it increases by 50M per game,
regardless of whether or not you get credits, until your credits run down
to 0. It's sort of like the machine deciding that you've played long
enough, and it wants to kick you off. After the credits go down to zero,
the base replay score is reset. On the machine I played, it seemed like
Gottlieb/Premier finally got their algorithm working properly, after those
screw ups in Cue Ball Wizard where the replay score was boosted to the
Billions! However, some people have seen the bug on their SF2's, so maybe
it is a matter of different ROMs. On our local machine the base replay
value fluctuated between about 100M and 250M.
HIGH SCORES: The high scores on our machine ranged are all around 1B,
and one Usenet post said that Rick Stetta got 4.6B on it. Our machine does
not give you any credits for getting a high score, and only gives you 1
credit for achieving the grand champion score. I'm not sure if this is
standard or just a local operator setting.
THE MASTER: The game keeps track of the "Master", which is the last person
to have completed the Champion Challenge. See CHAMPION CHALLENGE
description above. You get one credit for completing the challenge and
becoming the new master.
www.costaricascallcenter.com
COSTA RICA'S CALL CENTER FREE PLAY EMPLOYEE GAME ROOM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYE04hh6BwM
https://youtu.be/zox77WYc7bM
https://youtu.be/_1ebfQiD-fs
https://youtu.be/nublj-mEkZ4
FACEBOOK FAN PAGE COSTA RICA'S CALL CENTER:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/23284906585/
BARRIO ARANJUEZ, 23RD STREET AND 11TH AVENUE. San Jose, Costa Rica
https://goo.gl/maps/4TXSs8zFeuo
CCC WEBSITE
http://www.outsourcingtocostarica.com
COMPANY LIMOUSINE FOR CALL CENTER CLIENTS
http://www.costaricalimousines.com
COSTA RICA PINBALL MACHINE COLLECTION BY RICHARD BLANK
A smart motivational technique used for CCC BPO agents is to compete on the machines in the game room.
One way in which a telemarketer's confidence could be made stronger or broken down is through an arcade experience during their work day. Costa Ricans have courage and can back up their swagger on the phone after dominating the video games during their scheduled breaks.
In the competitive offshore outsourcing call center arena, CCC has an advantage over the rest in Costa Rica by creating a strategic play environment.
