Future STGT Guidelines (STGT '08 Rule Changes?)

[DJ Incompetent]

STGT '06 is over, and looking over everything that has transpired, I'd say this event was successful. As we all know, drama did spring up occasionally. Rules were questioned. There were complaints and disagreements.
Edge and I have talked and the goal is to bring-up all the grey areas of this tournament, investigate compromising ways to add new players while keeping the current ones interested, and close up as many loose ends as we can. This is so when a thread is initiated for 2007, we can save ourselves 10-15 thread pages of rule-deciding on a time limit because we took care of most of it right here and now.

I understand the need to take a break from everything STGT. However, by having this discussion now, you guys have a better chance to remember what bothered you most and voice your frustrations accumulated during the tournament. We also finally do not have a time limit to sort all this out, which I feel we should take advantage of.


How this will work is simple. Below you is a shitload of questions:
1. I will go down the question list one at a time and fully address the issue and my proposed solution(s).
2. Everybody discusses what we need to on that single question until we can reach a reasonable conclusion. If we stalemate so bad we need to open an additional poll or use other measures, so be it.
3. Once a reasonable conclusion is reached, I edit this first post with our findings, edit the thread title to reflect the current question on-topic, and move on to exploring the next question...repeating step 1.


Please keep topic discussion to the current question!

Please keep topic discussion to the current question!!

Please keep topic discussion to the current question!!!


If you have a question of your own not on this list that should be talked about, let me know (I'd prefer by PM). It is most likely I have prepared to talk about your question on one already listed, but seriously, let me know if you have anything of importance and I'll add new subjects to the list if they need discussion.

Please familiarize yourself to the tournament question currently on-topic and read the initial thoughts on it.
Follow the link (when needed) to the section in the thread where discussion on the question started. Read what has taken place, then agree, disagree, or choose what can be done that you feel would also best satisfy 80+ people....all with different interests, preferences, and abilities.

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When to initiate talks of STGT '07?

Start talks/registration late July-ish Start actual weeks late August

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Should we have 6 weeks again or subtract the weeks of play down to 5?
Subquestion: To use 5 weeks as a team winning tiebreaker

5 week tournaments.
Any two teams that tie in final standings will have the winner decided by which team beat the other in team-points accumulation three or more weeks.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=09

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Quick review on current themes used.  Keep some?  Nix some? Rotate similar ones?

We concluded that none of the old weeks are good enough to fully guarantee a return. But all previously used will remain available as options TBD. The official discussion to determine all themed weeks will take place in the actual STGT 2007. Not here.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=32

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12-hour time extension in the scoring weeks.  Kill it?  Leave it?

Technically the time extension has been eliminated. However, now the voting week & the scoring week have been lengthened twelve hours (from originally planned 12am monday GMT deadline) so they both now end monday at noon GMT.
So if you played in '06, this means:
-Scoring weeks play and end the same as before
-Voting weeks end twelve hours later than they normally do
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=48

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Should old teams be allowed to “grandfather clause” themselves into next year?  (Later subjected to the rest of the regular rules TBD)

Yes.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=62

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Do you want to change the way we set up teams?  Using team captains?

-Player registry now involves filling out a small multi-line form (to gauge how, what, and when you can play)
-Make teams same way as '06 (by common sense)
-Make teams have captains (but only do common sense team management tasks and deal with arising '07 issues as they appear)
*Leave room to utilize captains in draft picking (to ONLY be used if we have a moderate number of newcomers or neutral veterans that also did not specify a team; meaning this section may never be used, but to remain optional and available.)


*-Detail: Players who fail to hint or specify what team they want to be on or what region they wish to represent will fall into a sort of "draft pool" (when needed). This will not be any sort of team, nor will it mean they are forcefully held for any sort of draft. At first, This will be available so tourney organizers can move players to uneven numbered teams when the "draft pool" is small, and this is so team captains can negotiate (read: not draft) with these players to have them want to join-up a team; but the player chillin' in the "draft pool" must post in-agreement to be added or the captain post a PM quote.

The tourney organizer may choose to distribute people in the "draft pool" as he thinks is fairest, or he may let the number of "draft pool" players accumulate in-expectation to trigger a Draft Round, provided the team captains don't convince most the "draft pool" players to decide to join a specific team...which easily may or may not happen.

Draft Round:
When it becomes about one week before the first voting week is launched, if the organizer feels there are enough "draft pool" players (meaning almost at least a player to choose for every non-maximum capacity team listed (under 7 players), he may launch a quick single-round draft (or even double-round if ever possible). How selection of the method for what team gets to pick a player from the "draft pool" first & every captain after is up to the organizer: Random Lottery, Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors, numbers out of a hat, old tourney individual ranking or team rankings, fight to the death, etc.. The method TBD in the actual future tourney thread if it ever comes to it. After the draft method is decided, all the team captains who still need players take their turn posting what remaining player they want from the "draft pool"....last teams picking may get multiple picks if there are slightly more "draft pool" players than teams...or the remainder may get distributed by organizer's choice. All up to the organizer to decide at the time.

A captain with a team already at the maximum 7 players should either not participate in the draft, or be included with the ability to exchange an existing player for another in the draft pool when his turn arrives. The exchanged player is put in the draft pool. The organizer may decide to apply this 'rule' as he sees fit.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=77

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Edge, this is the Player Register form we last agreed on.  Make sure the explanation on how to fill it out is typed at the end of your first post for STGT player registration, and just the blank form is made your second post.
Edit whatever you need to.

PLAYER ENTRY FORM EXPLAINED

Quote the 2nd post, fill the form out, then post it to the registration thread to enter Shooting Game Tournament.


Username: username of player entry (can register for other players)
Desired Team: team name
Team Captain Vote: username of somebody on your desired team
Desired Team Registration Status: Open / Private / ?
Region: country name
Game Participation Type: MAME & Console-PCB / Console-PCB Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks / 3-4 Weeks / 1-2 Weeks / ?


Username: username of player entry (can register for other players)
Put down your name. If you are using your ___-___ official initials team entry instead of username, indicate it here. You may register for other team members (language barrier reasons, convenience, etc.) but you should fill out another full form on that player's behalf.

Desired Team: team name
Enter the name of the team you wish to be in. If you want to be in a new team, write the new team name in here.

Team Captain Vote: username of somebody on your desired team
Nominate yourself or another username as captain of the team you selected. Be aware the captain will be doing extra work and organizing the other members for issues as they come up.

Desired Team Registration Status: Open / Private / ?
You have the option of speaking for your team in requesting that the team you are in can be Open and take in any member they want, or select Private and if most of your Desired Team voted the same way, only your team members may pick and choose who else to be in the team, yourself subjected to the same process upon requesting entry.
Open = You don't care who else joins your team.
Closed = You or your team members wish to select who joins or does not join your team when they request. (Remember if you yourself are joining a team later, if most members already voted Private, it is possible you may not be accepted)
? = Select this if you don't care or don't know what this question means.
(joke entries or ? will be taken as Open)

Region: country name/section
Even if you filled out Location in your profile, please tell us what country you represent. This is if you do not select a team or you need to be moved, you can at least be placed with people representing your area. (If you are in United States, please indicate if you represent East, Central, West, Alaska/Hawaii, etc.)

Game Participation Type: MAME & Console-PCB/ Console-PCB Only
Please only choose one of the three options. We want you to tell us if you can run MAME and/or have a wide variety of ports and PCB hardware available so other players on your team can preplan how much you may or may not be able to play.
MAME & Console-PCB = I can and will run MAME. Any shmups I own may also be used to participate. (or if you can only use MAME and don't own shmups, select this option)
Console-PCB Only = I CANNOT or WILL NOT run MAME. However I have a large selection of shmups on console or cabinet. I can assume I will own some of the games that will be nominated during a game-themed week.

Expected # Week Participation: please choose between: All Weeks / 3-4 Weeks / 1-2 Weeks / ?
Please only select from the listings given. And be honest! We wish to classify your selection in a listing so others can better manage your team and anticipate player habits.
? = honestly don't know how long you'll be able to play.
(Joke entries and "?" should be classified as 1-2 weeks, unless decided otherwise by organizer)

Username: username of player entry (can register for other players)
Desired Team: team name
Team Captain Vote: username of somebody on your desired team
Desired Team Registration Status: Open / Private / ?
Region: country name
Game Participation Type: MAME & Console-PCB / Console-PCB Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks / 3-4 Weeks / 1-2 Weeks / ?

SAMPLE:
Username: cavefanboi
Desired Team: Team Loser
Team Captain Vote: BulletMagnet
Desired Team Registration Status: Open
Region: (West) United States
Game Participation Type: MAME & Console-PCB
Expected # Week Participation: 3-4 Weeks

Username:
Desired Team:
Team Captain Vote:
Desired Team Registration Status:
Region:
Game Participation Type:
Expected # Week Participation:

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Initiate the 'Cautioning' highlighting methods and get some basic "MAME or console-only player" information on next year's participants and highlight them also?.

Mame and Console-PCB Only players will specify which they are on a short contest entry form, used by every player to register for the tournament. Also on the form is a question asking players how many scoring weeks they expect to participate.

Cautioning is used only to fairly gauge how often a player will participate in scoring weeks. The highlighted color a player receives is determined by how the player filled out his contest entry form or if a player rejoining a future year lied about his proclaimed high rate of participation the year before, misleading fellow team members.

Green or no highlight (white or quote-box blue)
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks or 4-3 Weeks (3 or more weeks) "?" also qualifies here.

Yellow
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 1-2 Weeks
or...
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB Only
Expected # Week Participation: Any #

Yellow players select teams and voice their opinions as they normally would.

Orange
Not used in '07. For STGT '08 (and after), Orange Cautioning is applied to Green/unhighlighted players who played 0-1 weeks in STGT '07 (or year before current) thus unfairly misleading their other team members.
Players who select "?" for expected week participation and also play 0-1 weeks will get an Orange Cautioning upon registering '08 (that current year)

For players cautioned orange, if there is a dispute between an orange cautioned player and a player in the green wanting to be the last player added to a specific team roster, the player in the green will be honored that choice (unless the captain said otherwise).

Orange players otherwise select teams and voice their opinions as they normally would.


Cautioning does not limit a player's rights to play. It is a heads-up to other team members about what timely expectations should come from that player for the purposes of coordinating other people's schedules and team planning. Cautioning is not to be used as a handicap or a negative social label. A Cautioned player may go above and beyond his scheduled expectations as he so pleases by playing and posting more weekly scores than expected. This is encouraged.

Unfilled non-hand-picked teams will be molded to the best of the organizer's ability to have the minimum roster of either:
4 Green Players + 1 Cautioned Player (any color)
3 Green Players + 3 Cautioned Players (any color)
2 Green Players + 5 Cautioned Players (any color)

To Organizers: Players entering their Expected Week Participation as "?" while are still highlighted as green, should be distributed as the variable (being "green" or "cautioned") when dealing with remainders of uneven total player numbers. It is preferred loose "?" players are distributed to teams last.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=129

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Team balance issues & multi-tiers (Supertier & Normal Tier)
Subquestion: Tier split a few weeks in?

No tiers. One listing of team ranks. Same as '06.
Because of returning team rosters, Team balancing will be adjusted based on how often people say they can play, aiming for a 100% team contributing rate (3 players on every team play every scoring week)
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=133

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Any kind of individual score sub-average compensation for players missing a week?

No.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=148

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Setup a committee for Shortlist deciding? (establishing roles, not needing to choose members yet)

Launch Two Threads:
Main Thread - Started by Edge
FIRST
- Serves as player registration and team roster arrangements
- Formally stays as the main hub thread by which all other STGT '07 threads are linked to.
LATER
- Thread used for all STGT '07 formal announcements, new scoring/voting/results thread notices, any other general stuff, etc.
- people submit and discuss STGT banners, team & player sigs, and other user-submitted art for thread headings

Second (Week Themes) Thread - Started by DJI
FIRST
- Discuss and decide what 5 game themes to use this year. (Edge decides what week themes are final)
LATER
- Instead of a concrete committee, all tourney participants may post their own 5-game shortlists for any themed week they choose.* I maintain a loose tally on what games are being suggested most. This is to help sway Edge's choices in more popular directions.
- For week themes with a very large scope of possible game choices, I open another big-list-short-list listing and encourage players to again pick-apart all possible games that would not work in tournament play.

Super Laydock and Danny stay on standby if you Edge choose to assign them particular things about games to search for, like scoring bugs, uneven game mechanics, etc. He may use them, he may not.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=160

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Change voting rules entirely to private or attempt to perfect our current public method.
Subquestion: approve revised "In-Case Shit"

we run public votes as we did in STGT '06 by posting in the thead. In-addition, users can choose to cast their vote via PM to username "STGT". Private and public votes will be revealed the way they always are at the end in the first post. I'll make a note to show proofs the private votes were actually cast.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=188

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MAME vs Ports/PCB in shortlisting (challenge MAME-centric)

All MAME games (w/ports possible), same as '06.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=219

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Reconsider doujins (Tap Postman for info & propose a doujin research project)

Start some research. Postman contacted. No Doujins for '07. Revisit for '08-
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=256

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Hold posting Individual Results and rankings until a few weeks in?

No.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=273

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Should we start a ‘late entry team’  (with restrictions)

No
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 481#243481

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Somehow arrange a private off-site team forum for every team?
Subquestion: Somebody setup an off-forum site for needed STGT roms and emus?

No. Every team must provide for themselves.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=288

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Try to utilize multi-language software to recruit Japanese, Korean, other Europe parts, other South America parts, etc.

Nothing official. People are encouraged to spread the word of STGT on their own
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=288

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Methods to keep the lower-placed people playing (Remixing the Red Lantern Prize)

- "Most improved" prize/award (for all week players)
- Recommendation that Red Lantern go to all week players. It should be hideously awful, so monumentally crap that no one in their right mind would want to screw themselves over just to "win" it.
- Give a prize for the best score that does not count for the team overall
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 721#246721

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Brainstorm any kind of options for team rewards

- Shirts? Beta Testing? Hard Drive? Really Cheap Game? Controllers? Memory Card? Custom-Avatar? Custom-____? Trophy?
- A framed, professionally designed certificate for all team members or something? When I say "professionally designed" I mean nicely designed, with some kind of stamp/watermark for the official look, in a nice frame. Something you'd be happy to have on the wall.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 721#246721


Thank you in advance for taking the time to help make the Shooting Game Tournament a better event for more to enjoy.

If you're discouraged, here's some funny stuff.

[DJ Incompetent]

QUESTION

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When to initiate talks of STGT '07?

- Wing-it again to whenever we feel like it?
- Initiate talks a month+ before general school/college summer breaks (May?) and arrange the weeks to start over that period (June?) to take advantage of players with summer vacations and 'new release game droughts'.

The goal here is to figure out when to begin talking of when to start sorting people into teams, how much time we need to keep main team registration open (over a month again), and what month should we begin the actual poll week and play week process.

I don't know what months are normally better for the rest of the world, but the only thing I could think of to adjust for is School summer vacations. In America, most students will be on some kind of long school break in mid june. And end near the last quarter of august.

Is there a better series of months to run a 12-week tournament that you feel would least likely conflict with people's long-term schedules? Now subtract more than a month from that to sort out member registration, creating the team banners, and sorting out the other little things. What month do you end up with? It is good enough for you and those in your country? Be as realistic as you can.

[The Coop]

When to initiate talks of STGT '07?

Waiting until sometime in 2007 would make sense. May as well let the shitstorms from this past tournament die down a bit before kicking up a whole new set of them.

[ill6]

Wow....

...

Are you in politics!

... Amazing stuff really...

Start in 2007.

[Rob]

- Initiate talks a month+ before general school/college summer breaks (May?) and arrange the weeks to start over that period (June?) to take advantage of players with summer vacations and 'new release game droughts'.

I'd rather not have summer contaminated with shooter competition... personally.* The fall sucks and ended before any sort of holidays, so I thought that was a good time. I would suggest that we use the same times as the '06 comp.

*which is not to say I don't like logging in serious hours, but I'd prefer to focus on whatever 1 or 2 games I want and relax.

[BulletMagnet]

Yeah, the last tourney just ended, give yourselves a break, there's plenty of time between now and the next one to work out all the minutiae.

[Davey]

Timewise, I think whatever we did this year was fine. Exams and holidays come up towards the end of the year, then exams again in the spring.

Yeah, the last tourney just ended, give yourselves a break, there's plenty of time between now and the next one to work out all the minutiae.

This has been addressed:

I understand the need to take a break from everything STGT. However, by having this discussion now, you guys have a better chance to remember what bothered you most and voice your frustrations accumulated during the tournament. We also finally do not have a time limit to sort all this out, which I feel we should take advantage of.

I agree with DJI. We have ideas and complaints fresh in our minds, and if we act now we'll have plenty of time to get our shit together well before we start up again.

Besides, the tournament is done. That frees up more time to bicker back and forth about rules and procedures. And if debating online video game tournament rules is as labor intensive as feverishly trying get a decent score in a game you've never played in the span of a week, we need to seek professional help.

[Icarus]

QUESTION

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When to initiate talks of STGT '07?

ANSWER
Discussing the rules and sorting out complaints for the next tournament is fine any time of the year I reckon, but the actual organisation for the start of the next tournament (team and player registration, discussion between organisers for weekly themes and so on) should only commence closer to a planned start date.

I agree with Rob that the time the last tournament started is a good time to start organising the next one, as its the tail-end of summer, people are coming back from holidays and so on.

Politely requesting mod/admin sticky this thing so it doesn't get lost in the rest of the forum.

[Pirate1019]

If Rob and Icarus are right about the start time of the tournament last year then I have to agree with them. I like to spend my summers relaxing and hanging out with friends.

Doing the tournament around end of summer break and ending it before the winter holiday season (thanksgiving onward) would be a good choice. Sure school is in, but at least where I live the first quarter of school or so is just busy work. I say start preperations in mid July and start the Tournament mid August so if it's a 12 week event like this last one it will be over before Thanksgiving. If it ends up being shorter (10 weeks for example) then you could simply move everything farther down the calandar a couple weeks.

[DJ Incompetent]

Thank you for your input. We shall:

Start talks/registration late July-ish, Start actual weeks late August

next:


QUESTION

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Should we have 6 weeks again or subtract the weeks of play down to 5?

We sorta noticed the last third of the tourney participation was dropping slightly. Twelve weeks was somewhat of a stretch anyway...but that's just me. People even said score entries were weak for a Cave week.

What do you guys think?

Are you in politics!

The good kind or the bad kind? ...trick question...

[The Coop]

There's a good kind?



Anyway, keep it at six weeks. It'll lead to more options in terms of company choices, era/subgenre choices, and whatnot. If you cut it down to five weeks, then that means something'll have to go, and it'll reduce possibility getting people to try a game they would have otherwise ignored. In other words, the "same old same old" becomes more likely. While it is a competition, we shouldn't lessen the chances of getting people to try something different along the way as well.

[Twiddle]

Whatever you do don't schedule the tournament so that it contains weeks well into a school semester

[Icarus]

QUESTION

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Should we have 6 weeks again or subtract the weeks of play down to 5?

We sorta noticed the last third of the tourney participation was dropping slightly. Twelve weeks was somewhat of a stretch anyway...but that's just me. People even said score entries were weak for a Cave week.

What do you guys think?

ANSWER (LOL)
Five weeks. I enjoyed 12 weeks worth of competition, but I am now very burned out and haven't touched a game for days, and I'm normally used to prolonged gaming sessions. Less playing weeks mean less fatigue for all participants.

Also gives you a chance to work a tiebreaker in the highly unlikely event that there's a tie for the top team position.

[Rob]

We sorta noticed the last third of the tourney participation was dropping slightly. Twelve weeks was somewhat of a stretch anyway...but that's just me. People even said score entries were weak for a Cave week.

I could comment on a few things here, but what's the point? 5 is good.

Subtract one retro week!

[ill6]

I didn't participate at the end because the games were a bit shit nearer the end (Guwange aside which I did not have time for).

The legnth is fine but we need a better way of selecting games... Question coming up I am sure in another debating session.

[Edge]

I agree with Rob and Icarus that end of summer / autumn is probably the best time to start the tournament. Much like this one was. We also had one year break and until that time everyone would be hot again for a new STGT.

I think 5 weeks might be better, for the reasons I already stated in the other thread. So the last week where starting to exhaust players (I have the feeling and noticed it by myself)
Plus with 5 weeks, when 2 teams or players have the same points in the end of the tournament. The comparission who of those two have won more weeks can be used as a tiebreaker.

I didn't participate at the end because the games were a bit shit nearer the end (Guwange aside which I did not have time for).

The legnth is fine but we need a better way of selecting games... Question coming up I am sure in another debating session.

Well, I am interested to hear any other recomendations. Despite from the poll discussion think the method we used was pretty good. Offcourse I intended to change some of the themese each year to have more diversion. As it is not possible to cover the whole range of shmups in 6 themes. But I like the idea of having well known and "mainstream" themes and also some which have a minority following their kind, like for example retro. This way we'll have a nice variety of shmups.

Well that's how I see things, everything can and should be discussed anyway.

[Rob]

But I like the idea of having well known and "mainstream" themes and also some which have a minority following their kind, like for example retro. This way we'll have a nice variety of shmups.

Star Force 2% [ 1 ]

[Edge]

I also would like to suggest that we play games only once*. So that on the next STGTs no Blazing Star, Batrider etc... appear on the poll. This way we won't end up playing the same games in developer weeks and offcourse helping in covering most shmups.

*in a certain time frame like for example 5 or 10 years, but that's something far away in the future.

@Rob:
Well those one vote was regarding the question "what was your favourite game". Not if you liked it. I think there are some poeple who liked it and retro games in general. BTW in the beginning you also liked the idea of a retro week and wanted to play Juno First in the STGT which actually appeared on the poll.

[Icarus]

I also would like to suggest that we play games only once*. So that on the next STGTs no Blazing Star, Batrider etc... appear on the poll. This way we won't end up playing the same games in developer weeks and offcourse helping in covering most shmups.

I think (and this is jumping the gun a bit) that no popular developers should have theme weeks. That means no Cave, no Raizing, no Psikyo. This is because those particular theme weeks don't allow for a balanced competition, something that the completely random weeks had plenty of. It was something people were moaning about towards the end of the tournament too, that Cave, Raizing and Psikyo pretty much hand the week to specialists.

Perhaps if there are theme weeks dedicated to other developers such as Seibu, Taito, Capcom, Konami etc then it would help to promote a more balanced competition.

And if you absolutely, positively must have a popular developer in the developer theme weeks, then go for one and one only.

</offtopic>

[Galdur]

I agree with not playing games from previous competitions. One of the best aspects of this whole thing is the diversity it potentially allows. For this same reason I agree that maybe developer weeks are not the best idea.

Anyway, what about abolishing the rest-period after each playing week? Did anyone feel like it was helpful? For me, all it did was push the tournament late into my school term, forcing me forfeit a week. The lack of downtime could also help maintain enthusiasm in the event, which arguably began to wane as time went on. This wouldn't really change the contents of the event, just the duration. But maybe some people think the breaks are necessary. Again, just an idea.

[Edge]

I think the break help to prevent burning out. And in my opinion they help a lot. In Ramus' shmeets we were playing a game every week, which could get quite stressful. You don't want to play a shmup excessively every day. Well, not everyone at least.

On the downside the breaks will make the whole tournament last for a longer time frame. But I think it is worth it.


But please keep your suggestions and thoughts coming.

[Twiddle]

i mean seriously 2 weeks in three classes were like

"hey first exam, fuck you guys"

please do not let the tournament run into even mid september

[Twiddle]

Can we bar Raiden I from a hypothetical Seibu week for the sake of the humanity of the players of that week

Also if we ditch Retro Week (we should) can we allow autofire 1 again

[Rob]

I thought the mixed developer weeks were the three worst. I much prefer a developer style as a theme than, say, shooter with the best cloud week.

Anyway, what about abolishing the rest-period after each playing week? Did anyone feel like it was helpful?

No. Yes.

Topic spiralling uncontrollably off current question.

[BulletMagnet]

I wouldn't even say that we should totally ditch retro week, but change the definition of 'retro" that we used last time, to allow us to choose from games at least a little farther down the evolutionary timeline.

[Icarus]

I wouldn't even say that we should totally ditch retro week, but change the definition of 'retro" that we used last time, to allow us to choose from games at least a little farther down the evolutionary timeline.

Farther down in which direction though? ^_-
I'd hate the thought of Space War for a playing week. ^_-

[Davey]

Anyway, what about abolishing the rest-period after each playing week? Did anyone feel like it was helpful?

No. Yes.

Topic spiralling uncontrollably off current question.

Spiralling indeed, but Galdur's question actually pertains to the current question I think. The length (or absence) of breaks might have some influence as to whether you'd rather have 5 or 6 weeks.

Personally, I thought the breaks stretched out the tournament too long. OTOH, I certainly wouldn't want to play for 6 weeks straight.

Maybe 2 weeks of gaming back-to-back, then a 1 week break? That would shorten the overall time from 11 to 8 weeks. Maybe that would suck, I don't know, just figured I'd throw it out there.

I hate to be a wanker, but yeah, we should try to keep this as on-topic as possible, or it will turn into a giant clusterfuck. I don't know about everybody else, but when I see a thread grow by multiple pages per day, I lose all inclination to read any of it.

[Galdur]

What about sorting by eras -- 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, etc -- then further subdividing each era into either vertical or horizontal? This could afford quite a few unique configurations while offering a good crossection on the genre. If needed, we could even branch further out.

Example: 32-bit -> Vertical -> Manic

And if eras are no good, simply swap them out with platforms (ex. SNES, Genesis...).

I think that establishing some kind of organized categorization method will work in all our favours. Opinions?

(Also, didn't see the edit about keeping discussion centered on a single topic. Sorry about that; I'll leave this alone for now)

[BulletMagnet]

Farther down in which direction though? ^_-
I'd hate the thought of Space War for a playing week. ^_-

Don't make me come over there.

[DJ Incompetent]

Derailed already. Awesome..


Ok. Flat-out. Yes, easily no reusing games for tourney choices for a long long long time.

When the '07 thread is posted a year from now, the list of six games that we already played should be displayed on page one. 'Save us some complaint posts ahead of time.

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I think the vote week play week vote week play week style works fine. It left enough flexibility to take care of any short-term problems, drama, and voting issues. (which came in handy hidden gem week with the big list to short list system). The pace kept is pretty good and best of all, it didn't really get derailed. Might I remind you we hed slight difficulty keeping enough time available to let people vote for their games. It does take most the week just to get the short list together, and the rest to run the vote. We're able to maintain it, so I think we should stick with it.

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Rerailing the topic:

It looks like 5 weeks makes the most sense.

@Twiddle
While '06 technically started in the very beginning of august, knocking a week or two back into July along with eliminating weeks 11 and 12 will shave 3-4 weeks from the school year (I fully rally behind your arguement as well by the way. I'm in the same problem).

Answering these first two main-thread questions how they are should be an acceptable compromise, given we got two polar opposite but very reasonable arguements.

Code: Select all

SUBQUESTION: To use 5 weeks as a team winning tiebreaker

Using Icarus & Edge's idea, I propose the rule goes that in the event ANY two teams tie in score, the team that has placed higher than the other in team point accumulation for three or more of the weeks is decided as the winner.

I was thinking of a way to add a stat to the team rankings that could keep track of this every week, but I couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't create more questions than answers...along with more unnecessary work...and bad ESPN statistics.


I will wait for objections to these solutions for this main question.

Please hold the Theme week discussion till we resolve this current question. I have made the subject of "reviewing our currently used themes" our next topic...so please be a few hours patient.