Organizing the cup - please comment

[tomreyn]

Organizing MegaGlest Cup #1

Dadadu66 and I worked out an organizational process and rules for the cup today. These are not final, I post them here as a request for comments - so please tell us what you think! We will finalize them during the next few days, taking your comments into account.

We were a bit undecided about how many players to allow to enroll, how long the cup should span in general and how many rounds we should play per week. We seemed to agree that it should not span longer than a month altogether, and that we should not have too many players, (surely less than 100) during this first cup. If 16 players or less will enroll then we want to play one round per week, if there are more players, we may need to do more rounds per week.

I've added some more details which dadadu66 and I did not actually discuss, based on what I realized was imprecise and what I think makes most sense. None of this is final today.

General overview

We will play a classic elimination style cup. That is, as soon as the enrollment period is over, the cup organizers will form groups of two players (either randomly, or paired by players' timezones, or supposed player strengths, or a mix of these - this is yet unclear and will be decided by the organizers when the enrollment period ends). These players will compete in the first round. The winner of the round will advance to the next round. In case there will be an uneven number of players in a round, the leftover player will automatically win this round and advance.

Organizers

The cup is organized by dadadu66, tomreyn and titi_linux. Organizers cannot take part in the cup as players. ( titi: organizers  are allowed to play too!)

Cup rounds

Since we are in different time zones we need to be flexible about the time of day to play at. We will use Doodle.com to suggest several times on Saturdays and Sundays to each of these groups. For each of the groups, the players will have to vote on these suggested times no later than 2 days before the round will take place. At this time (cup day - 2 days) the cup organizers will review the group votes and will announce when each of these groups will play - based on a time slot both players can make. If the players have not found a time slot which they can both make, it's a draw, and neither player advances to the next round. If either player does not vote in time, he looses and the other player advances to the next round. If both players do not vote in time, it's a draw and neither player advances to the next round.

Example match time vote which the two members of a rounds group will be invited to vote on:
http://doodle.com/rgbc36s6cti52fxd

By default, the times given on Doodle refer to Berlin, Germany, which matches the times listed on Play.MG. Players can use the options provided on Doodle (or a service such as timeanddate.com) to convert the times to their local time zone.

If players would prefer to play at a different time or on a different day, they are welcome to do so by arranging an alternative match time (and date) on the forums in advance. To do so, both players must post the same Berlin, Germany time and date they have agreed to play at to the same forum topic, providing the round number this refers to. Alternative dates and time and only be during or before the designated dates, never later. Only when both players participating in a round have agreed to the same Berlin, Germany, match time, this will overrule any votes for their groups' game in this round only. Other than that, the game will take place at the times voted for on Doodle (or not at all, if players forget to vote there, causing both of them to loose).

Matches, winning conditions

How are matches carried out?

• Players must use their forum user name as a player name. The player name can be set in options. If a player does not show up within five minutes after the designated match time, the other player wins.
• At match start time, one of the players will setup a headless server (first come, first serve). Games are played on any of the "MG-Team" headless servers. If they are busy, players can choose to use a different headless server or host a game themselves.
• Games are played on the Conflict map, with the Desert2 tileset. One player will play in player slot #1, the other player on player slot #4 (first come, first serve).
• Each player is free to choose their faction
• The game must not be started before both players have signalled 'ready'. If a player has not signalled ready 5 minutes after the game host was setup (but no earlier than 5 minutes after the match start time), he looses. If the game host / controlling admin fails to start the game 5 minutes after the other player signalled ready, the game host / controllig admin looses
• If a player gets disconnected during the first 5 minutes of a game, the game will be restarted. If a player gets disconnected more than once, or later than 5 minutes into the game, the other player wins.
• Play.MG is the authoritative source for information on whether a game took place, whether it was finished, who won and who exited a game prematurely.  A game is won if the winner shows up as the games winner on Play.MG. Only once this is the case, and the players received the in-game notification message on whether or not they have won the match, they can safely disconnect. If a player exits a game prematurely, he looses.
• When the game ends, the winner must post to the forums that he won a game, providing the game round, the start time of the game (as listed on play.mg) and the designated participants. Unless the winner is listed as a winner of this game on Play.MG he must also post why he claims to be the winner of this game. The other player has the ability to challenge this by posting to the same forum, either on the same forum post, or on another one where he claims to be the winner in the same way.
• The final decision on who, if anyone, wins a round is made by the organizers.

While it is technically possible to cheat, but please do not do it. It just spoils the fun for everyone, including you.
If someone tries to cheat and the organizers learn about it (and can be convinced that it took place), this player will be excluded from this and any future cups.
Building paths through shallow water is not cheating.


For reference, here's a (slightly edited, to remove unrelated content and fix spelling mistakes) log of the chat which, for the most part, lead to this post:
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=EZUPxmEt

[titi_son]

About the organizers:
I think there are only minimal advantages over the other players. So i dont think its bad for the other players.
The only advantages that i recognize is that the organizers could choose weak players to play against. This can be avoided by letting another organizer plan the battle for the him.

One thing to think about:
Dadadu66 added 2 players who are not registered at the forum. What about them? do we let them play? Because they can obviously not post that they won.

[titi]

My suggestion for the cup:

We play in several rounds depending on how many player we get. Every group playing in these preliminary rounds should have 4 players. The 2 winners qualify for the next round.  In the following round place 1 and 2 should be in different groups.
Place 3 and 4 play for the best place which is reachable for them with the same system.

This system ensures that everyone has enough games to play and all have fun .

Should the groups we start with be set by random, or should the organizers set the groups to get a maximum of fun because we know the players a bit?
Random might end with things like this: titi_son, derek, jammy, and tomreyn beeing one group in first round which is really bad. 
I personally strongly recommend that the organizers do the setup.

[titi_son]

I personally strongly recommend that the organizers do the setup.

Me Too!

[tomreyn]

About the organizers:
I think there are only minimal advantages over the other players. So i dont think its bad for the other players.

• The final decision on who, if anyone, wins a round is made by the organizers.

This would seem like a relevant advantage to me. Should they also do the pairings in the first round, they definitely have effective means to put themselves into an easy position, and their perceived opponents into a bad one. Also, do you know any relevant competition which allows its organizers to take part in it, especially if they're also the ones who came up with the rules?

Maybe we can allow the organizers to take part this first time. But in general, we should not.

, I'm not too keen to do the organization really.

This said, aside from dadadu66, none of the organizers team is fixed from my perspective. I would also prefer to play. And I will happily step down from the organizer role any time and would really prefer to do so if there will be someone else helping Dadadu66 organize. The reason I help out now is that it seemed necessary to drive this initiative further to actually make the cup happen (which is an old idea and it is really about time there is a cup / tournament / competition).

One thing to think about:
Dadadu66 added 2 players who are not registered at the forum. What about them? do we let them play? Because they can obviously not post that they won.

That's a good question. Based on the rules I came up with (this part is not something Dadadu66 and I discussed) they will not be able to participate unless they register on the forums and will post their cup results here. Not registering on the forums also means we have no means to contact them through the forum (nor by e-mail) to make them aware of the next cup round. Even if we were, if they do not speak English they may not understand these e-mails.

What do you say, Dadadu66?

My suggestion for the cup:

We play in several rounds depending on how many player we get. Every group playing in these preliminary rounds should have 4 players. The 2 winners qualify for the next round.  In the following round place 1 and 2 should be in different groups.
Place 3 and 4 play for the best place which is reachable for them with the same system.

This system ensures that everyone has enough games to play and all have fun .

If I'm getting this right you're suggesting to have 2vs2 games in the first round, then 1vs1 all along. Having more than just 1vs1 games in the first round (only) seems like a good idea if we'll have more than 16 participants for sure since this reduces the amount of total games in this round. However, playing in teams may cause good players to loose in the first round because their team members are new. So it's not ideal and I don't think we should do it unless we have > 16 players (since with 16, the organizational effort is still manageable).

Should the groups we start with be set by random, or should the organizers set the groups to get a maximum of fun because we know the players a bit?
Random might end with things like this: titi_son, derek, jammy, and tomreyn beeing one group in first round which is really bad. 
I personally strongly recommend that the organizers do the setup.

While randomness would be fair, with artificial pairings the organizers will take all the blame. However, it won't be possible to prove randomly generated pairings with an acceptable effort, in which case the organizers can be blamed as well.

A possible cup participant came up with the question about a prize. I don't think we will be able to organize any sponsors or prizes in this short term.
Something we can organize is fame, though. That is, I suggest to announce the 3 top positions on the website, and the top 1 position on social media, too. That's not nearly as great as, say, a (sponsored) new video card (incl. world-wide shipping), but it is what we can realistically do at this time.

[titi]

This would seem like a relevant advantage to me. Should they also do the pairings in the first round, they definitely have effective means to put themselves into an easy position, and their perceived opponents into a bad one. Also, do you know any relevant competition which allows its organizers to take part in it, especially if they're also the ones who came up with the rules?

Maybe we can allow the organizers to take part this first time. But in general, we should not.

, I'm not too keen to do the organization really.

I think this is a one time tourney only, so there will be only this ONE cup. 
For the fairness, I think there should be at least 2 organizers so no one needs to judge himself ( or both play 1on1 which doesn't really matter ;-)  )

If I'm getting this right you're suggesting to have 2vs2 games in the first round, then 1vs1 all along. Having more than just 1vs1 games in the first round (only) seems like a good idea if we'll have more than 16 participants for sure since this reduces the amount of total games in this round. However, playing in teams may cause good players to loose in the first round because their team members are new. So it's not ideal and I don't think we should do it unless we have > 16 players (since with 16, the organizational effort is still manageable).

No, all games are 1on1 I just talked about preliminary rounds with 4 people in one group. The result will be a ranking from first to 4th place.

A possible cup participant came up with the question about a prize. I don't think we will be able to organize any sponsors or prizes in this short term.
Something we can organize is fame, though. That is, I suggest to announce the 3 top positions on the website, and the top 1 position on social media, too. That's not nearly as great as, say, a (sponsored) new video card (incl. world-wide shipping), but it is what we can realistically do at this time.

I want no price, this is just a fun cup for friends, nothing serious. Thats why I say we should really make the setup of the groups manually to ensure that everyone has fun.

[dadadu66]

One thing to think about:
Dadadu66 added 2 players who are not registered at the forum. What about them? do we let them play? Because they can obviously not post that they won.

That's a good question. Based on the rules I came up with (this part is not something Dadadu66 and I discussed) they will not be able to participate unless they register on the forums and will post their cup results here. Not registering on the forums also means we have no means to contact them through the forum (nor by e-mail) to make them aware of the next cup round. Even if we were, if they do not speak English they may not understand these e-mails.

What do you say, Dadadu66?

I think they could be a problem... Before to delete their enrrolling, i think we could ask to alket if he could contact them to they come to the forum(with google translate, they could understand i think...)

Otherwise I think the idea of game 4 is not a good idea, because in 2vs2 could lose good players.
And there could be 1vs1vs1vs1 unofficial pacts.

About a prize, i don't know, what we could give like a prize except congrulations  and the enjoying to play. ^^

Otherwise, why don't we based on the london hour ? why on the berlin hour ?

(Sorry i haven't answer at all, but there are much of thing to think, but i think the tomreyn organisation idea is globaly good.)

Concerning the organizers, i think they(we) could participate, but it there will be a minimum of 2participants to avoid cheats, it's the case here(me, tomr and titi), so i think there won't be a problem. Even more, i think i won't participate at the cup(like a player ).

[kagu]

ok, I will talk with them.

[dadadu66]

Okay thanks you