Multiwinia & Logitech G15 Tournament 27/11/08 Ext 3-9pm

[Xocrates]

Alothough it is kind of ironic that I live in GMT zone, yet I wouldn't have been able to make it without the extention.

Same. The original schedule wasn't very friendly for the working class

[Cooper42]

w00t and jolly good. Now I should be able to get a few games in after work.

Thanks for the extension.

[bert_the_turtle]

I've compiled the information available so far here.

[Phelanpt]

One cpu player is allowed? Won't that make those games easier (or at least different)?
Two players can fight for the CPU's position, and the other player does not have that option.

It's probably to allow games to start faster, but still...

[bert_the_turtle]

It's to allow games to happen at all, especially during the end when most people have played their share of games already. Yes, it makes those games different, but really, there's no other solution. Thinkable would be:
- switch to two or three player maps if need be. But how do you score them?
- just don't allow a CPU. If you can't get your game going, that's your problem. This solution is just cruel.
- have impartial players stand by to take empty places.

I'm actually thinking about allowing the last option, specifically with me as that player But I'd prefer a CPU, it shows more consistent performance.

Oh, the server has a forced waiting period. It's not that as soon as three players are together, they can start a game with a CPU. They'll have to wait a bit for a potential fourth player first. I'll adapt the length of that period to the number of players registering.

[Phelanpt]

Hmm, didn't think of that. You're right, as time goes by, less people will want to play another game to avoid ruining their score.
Using 2/3 player maps and using those scores as equivalent would not be right as well.
The other alternatives seem to be unfair too.

As for the forced wait, it seems like a good idea to avoid it 3 player games happening a lot.

Tournament seems to be in good hands.

[MikeTheWookiee]

Have signed up for this now the time is extended I may have to do away with my Thursday post-[size=0]and pre-[/size]lecture beers to make it in time.
Playing 4 games and 4 games only is most likely the route to success, since even if you win all your extra games, they won't count for anything (and if you lose, your score only goes down). I shall be playing towards the end of the timeframe anyway, so I hope some other people will be too!

[martinmir]

Shall we extend it to best of 5 games?

[Xocrates]

Shall we extend it to best of 5 games?

I think the only real advantage of doing that is that folk playing near the end of the timeframe are more likely to get opponents.

Ideally it should allow for people to keep playing but not being likely to get any major benefit or loss from it. Maybe something along the lines that the best game played after the first 4/5 will replace what would be your previous best.
I'm not sure how well that would work though.

EDIT: By the way, are we supposed to play on all maps?

[Phelanpt]

I like the "worst X game(s), discarding the worst Y game(s)" idea, and think it avoids giving an advantage to people with better schedules.
Replacing the best game of those X with the new personal best would favor the above people greatly.

I think allowing more games will keep people playing longer, without without favoring that much. I just don't know what would be best, increasing X or Y?

[ynbniar]

Oops I thought it was today...

...oh well afternoon off work...

[Cooper42]

It would be nice if people could have a reason to hang around for those of us who can only play later... But I would like it done in such a way that it doesn't give too much of an advantage to those who can play more games.

Hopefully enough people will hang around, regardless. But this would be another reason why a lobby chat would be good (or even just an in-game IRC client for the IV room) to get people hanging around and being all community like...

[bert_the_turtle]

Yeah, depending on the number of players, it may be a good idea to increase X or Y. If there are only a handful of players, it would be good to increase the flexibility by discarding the worst two games and keeping the next worst three; if there are really a lot of players, it would be good to discard the worst game and keep the next worst four, this would make the tie breaking rules affect the leaderboard less often. Let's reserve the right to do a change like that.

Regarding your screen names: In the expected case of more than 12 players, your names will be locked, you won't be able to change it during the tournament. If possible (that is, if you gave your keyID during registration), your name will be locked to the name you registered with. Rationale: players should be allowed to avoid playing against the same opponents repeatedly.

If you're unhappy with your registration name (say, you're afraid people will avoid you from the start) and don't want to re-register, just drop me a PM, I'll change it for the tournament.

If there are 12 or less players, names will be anonymised instead. They'll just be set to your client ID each game, which is just a number. Rationale here: if someone wins all games and all players he met in the tournament avoid him for further games, it may get difficult for him to get enough games together.

During the tournament, the leaderboard will not contain any ID information, just the scores. It won't be easy to avoid the top players.

[Phelanpt]

Currently the servers are announcing the ladder rankings, that would have to be shutdown for anonymity to work.

[bert_the_turtle]

Yeah, obviously Also, the games won't be uploaded to the ladder server right away.