Future STGT Guidelines (STGT '08 Rule Changes?)

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:23 am

Davey wrote: 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.

Maybe it's just me who did this, but I played a lot on Sunday. The thought of playing the next day is sickening. Also, if polls are going to be continued, when would these take place? On the current playing week? Seems distracting.

5 weeks, 5 off weeks. (see, I'm on topic!)

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:39 am

Rob wrote:
Davey wrote: 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.
Maybe it's just me who did this, but I played a lot on Sunday. The thought of playing the next day is sickening. Also, if polls are going to be continued, when would these take place? On the current playing week? Seems distracting.

5 weeks, 5 off weeks. (see, I'm on topic!)

I think he means that we would vote for two games in one week, therefore shortening the overall length of the tournament. Still seems frusterating though, to play one game hard for a week and then go straight into another game for another week.

Any way you organize the tournament I'll be in it. I don't have enough to do with my life so the only thing I have to worry about regarding the number of play weeks is if I'll get frusterated and tired of playing. I think this should be decided after you have come up with some good ideas for play weeks. If less than 6 good ideas crop up, then just do 5 weeks. If a lot of cool ideas show up then limit it down to the best 6.

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:04 am

Thank you for the input. Our solution is:

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.

Moving to the subject of derailment:

QUESTION ^_-

Code: Select all

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

What to do with developer-themed weeks (Psikyo, Cave, Raizing).
I suggest:
A. Only have one of them each tourney and rotate each developer theme every year. '07 Cave, '08 Psikyo, '09 Raizing.
B. Rename the week* and have 1 Psikyo**, 2 Cave, and 2 Raizing games on a single future poll.

**one because it seemed most Psikyo games had a lot of similarities and the choice would mostly be the "simple gameplay" vote

*"Elitist Week?" "Developer Fanboy Week?" "Usual Suspects Week?" Etc.

This would not mean we couldn't have these games in other polls of different themes also!

What to do with Hidden Gem & Retro Weeks:
I say rotate each theme each year. '07 Hidden Gem, '08 Retro, '09 Hidden Gem, etc.
They are hit-or-miss type themes anyway. Both themes also thrust all players novice and veteran into a new environment. For 5 weeks, we can definatly do that once and explore more new themes.

Horizontal week we can keep up in the air and discuss it at the last minute when we'll officially discuss the themes when the '07 tourney really begins. Newcomers may want to have a say in deciding that one anyway.

Accepting this will leave us 2 familiar weeks and leave open 3 weeks for exploring new suggestions (To be decided in the future).

Agree with all this? Say so, then select A or B as listed above. Then we'll be on our way..

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:14 am

DJ Incompetent wrote: Quick review on current themes used. Keep some? Nix some? Rotate similar ones?

Seibu, Takumi, Taito, Konami, Irem, Capcom, doujin stuff, etc. There's little need to reuse any theme next year. There should be no Raizing, Psikyo or Cave game listed.

What to do with Hidden Gem & Retro Weeks:
I say rotate each theme each year.

Insert into trash.

While the structure of the tournament is great, the actual themes should not be reused.

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:20 am

I say nix one developer week and have two developer weeks a tournament. There are enough developers that we could get by without any cave, raizing or psikyo weeks next year. The other three weeks can be up for grabs.

Example:

Week1: Developer Week 1
Week2: Retro/Hidden Gem Week (or whatever)
Week3: Freeware/Doujin Week
Week4: MAME-Free Week (For those who didn't like the contest being MAME-centric)
Week5: Developer Week 2

If for some reason this is absolutely out of the question, then I choose option B because if we only have one developer a year then something like this would come up:

"I hate Psikyo/Cave/Raizing games they are too frusterating, I won't contribute."

With option B you at least have a choice for developers to keep (hopefully) a large majority happy.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:27 am

The only problem with...

B. Rename the week and have 1 Psikyo, 2 Cave, and 2 Raizing games on a single future poll.

... is that most people will vote Cave.

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:49 am

Even if the two were Ra.De and Dangun?

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:55 am

Was that red slash mark on your pic before, DJI? I don't remember it.

Anyway, distractions aside, sure, people might pick cave everytime, until there are only crap games left. Besides, who said they had to be psikyo, cave, and raizing? We could switch them out with other developers, and the developer that won last year would be excluded from the three the next year.

Here's a new idea straight off of my head. How about we have two developer weeks like I said before, only we have a vote (yeah, more voting, I know) before the tournament (like while registration is being taken care of) that nominates the two developers to use that year. Then for the next one or two years those developers would be excluded from the options to use as a week.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 5:16 am

DJ Incompetent wrote:Even if the two were Ra.De and Dangun?

I think most people would choose Esprade and Feveron over Garegga and Gunbird 2.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:25 am

Let's face it, a lot of people on here have bad taste. No poll please.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 9:01 am

No Cave, Psikyo and Raizing weeks, please. I'm not too keen on Seibu and Takumi weeks either. Konami, Taito and Irem would be fine, although I wouldn't be sad if we had no developer weeks at all.

Keep retro an hidden gems!

Other possibilities:

1. A doujin week.
2. Another retro week with more recent games. Maybe you could replace the old one with it. (I wouldn't mind having both, though.)
3. Era weeks (8, 16 and 32-bit).
4. A system-centric week (for example Genesis/MD or SNES).
5. How about more than one horizontal week?
6. What about style-themed weeks (space, military, flying characters, mythology)?

Honestly, there's a million possible themes for playing weeks. Developer weeks are probably the ones that create the most uneven competition and we have done a lot of them in this year's tournament, so why not get rid of them completely?

DEL · Post by **DEL** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:05 am

I propose 2 weeks per game.
I ran into all kinds of time problems on several weeks of this past Tournament. One week I was out of the Country on vacation, one week I was out of town at a trade exhibition. Both resulting in 28th and 38th placings

.

I don't know if anyone else ran into similar problems? But I guess some did...

& reduce the number of games to be competed on, to fit them into the total time-scale.

maybe

ill6 · Post by **ill6** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:13 am

I think we should play games that are in the annual poll of best games.

It seemed rubbish to me that the games *had* to be in Mame too. I prefer the recent Cave games and most people have the port. It was said many times but it seems to me that having all the games (if practical in the poll size) is a good idea.

Personally I would like to see
Cave Week
Psikyo Week
Raizing Week
Contenders Week (Alga, Skonec, Takumi) and so on... (Hidden gems caused far too many problems).
Medium School Week (defining old school as so old was not such a good idea) - This would open up all those Irem, Capcom, Konami etc classics.

Thats my 5.

Edge · Post by **Edge** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:20 am

I think the theme selection should not follow a strict rule.

I think if the themes will be decided every time in the registration phase, we could keep the selection more flexible. Similiar the way we did it this year. And I think the themes shouldn't be decided on a pure poll, but from the turney organizers. To guarantee some diversion and not only the most favorite game types.

I think next year, we'll hear a lot of different ideas and opinions about the themes. Esspecially since more people, probably almost everyone who joins the next STGT, will take part in the theme discussion. And I think each year's players would like to take part in this discussion.

And again if we have a rule like keep 2 old themes add 3 new, we'd limit ourselves. If we have no certain rule on this, we can easily decide which themes are interesting to play at that time.

About 2 Weeks playing time
I think after 2 weeks some games would become pretty stressful and also I guess some players get exhausted playing one game excessively for 2 weeks. And if you are implying they don't need to play the game for 2 weeks, they can simply just play one. Then I say that's not true you have to use that time frame in order to keep up with the competition as others will bother to use all days of the two weeks.
And offcourse we had to cut down on playing weeks and lose a bit of the diversion of the STGT. That's my opinion at least.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:07 pm

Make the tourney PS2 only.

Everyone here should own a PS2, and if they don't they have a whole year to save up for one.

Also, we should only play my favourite games:

DOJ
Shiki 2
Dragon Blaze (yes, again)
Ibara

Write that lot down in your note to Santa and next year we'll have a takumi, seibu and retro free STG. Hurrah!

*warning - not a serious post*

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:22 am

DJ Incompetent wrote:Agree with all this? Say so, then select A or B as listed above. Then we'll be on our way..

Nice to see DJI's simple rules are largely ignored.

Icarus wrote:I think most people would choose Esprade and Feveron over Garegga and Gunbird 2.

ESPrade maybe, but no way Feveron. A lot of people simply don't like it.

Herr Schatten wrote:What about style-themed weeks (space, military, flying characters, mythology)?

Those are just graphical effects, though. I think the themes should be more gameplay oriented, but maybe that's just me.

DEL wrote:I propose 2 weeks per game.

Lots of people will shoot this down for burnout reasons. That wouldn't bother me (probably because I'm a slacker), but the thought of getting stuck with something like Star Force for two weeks and having it count for 33% of the overall score makes me ill.

ill6 wrote:It seemed rubbish to me that the games *had* to be in Mame too. I prefer the recent Cave games and most people have the port.

I doubt most people have them. Ideally we should play stuff that's in MAME and has an arcade perfect port (or 99% accurate, you know what I mean), but I think MAME-only games are much more accessible than unemulated games with console ports.

As for doujin games, I'm obviously for them, but I thought that idea was shot down a while back.

In any case, are we getting too specific for right now?

Pirate1019 wrote:I think he means that we would vote for two games in one week, therefore shortening the overall length of the tournament.

I know we're done with that topic, but just for clarification, Rob had it right. I have no problem playing two games back-to-back and voting during a game week. But as I already stated, I'm a slacker, so I'm not experiencing the burnout that some other people are. I was thinking out loud, idea was shot down. C'est la Vie.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:54 am

I say no to A and B.

Davey wrote: As for doujin games, I'm obviously for them, but I thought that idea was shot down a while back.

By 1-2 people. I'd bet more people want them than not. Simply because more people will have not played the best of what doujin shooters have to offer than MAME-able stuff.

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:08 am

Rob wrote:I say no to A and B.

Davey wrote: As for doujin games, I'm obviously for them, but I thought that idea was shot down a while back.
By 1-2 people. I'd bet more people want them than not. Simply because more people will have not played the best of what doujin shooters have to offer than MAME-able stuff.

Plus if it's a freeware game, then there is no reason to worry about ROMZ if you don't own the actual game or a port.

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:18 am

Fair enough.
We'll be talkin' doujins much, much later.

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.

move-ing on:

QUESTION

Code: Select all

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

To Europeans: believe it or not, Americans can be lazy. We like/tend to practice and submit on the last day...at night. We also don't like to think a dey ahead as a GMT deadline default. If this rule is killed, anytime you guys say "it ends on Sunday" a lot of us will have to think "Oh, it ends on Saturday."

Does it really inconvenience anybody in terms of fairness? I also think snipering huge scores 12-or-less hours to deadline is pretty much just as effective as wanting to be awake to do it at the very last second. Besides, nobody sleeps for twelve hours on a sunday night...unless it involves me, a fifth of Yager, and a case of PBR.

Discuss.
...the rule...not...my...drunkenness-ness

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:21 am

Most of the best doujin games are not freeware and are sometimes illegally obtained

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:27 am

DJ Incompetent wrote:
Code: Select all
12-hour time extension in the scoring weeks.  Kill it?  Leave it?

Kill.

Everyone got to play Sunday night. What exactly isn't fair, that our Sunday nights came later? Nonsense. 12 hours would let them play on Monday night as well.

edit: wow, learning to spell

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:32 am

You're like, one of the farthest people over on the time zone thing. Bold statement.

Fascinating

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:55 am

If this rule is killed, anytime you guys say "it ends on Sunday" a lot of us will have to think "Oh, it ends on Saturday."

I'm really not sure what this part means. Makes it sound like 12 hours less, which would be one way to make it so that people on both continents can play until the end. Of course this sacrifices weekend playing time for American players.

Just so... we can't have the last scores submitted. lol? Call it karma for holding out scores all week.

Next question!

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:06 am

If the week starts at 11:59 PM GMT on Sunday and goes for exactly one week, that means people west of Greenwich get extra time on the Sunday night "before" the week starts, and everybody to the east gets extra time on the Sunday (early Monday morning, really) when the week ends. So why do we need the 12 hours?

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:19 am

Have to go with Rob on this one. I can't imagine myself playing heavy on a Sunday night and making a highscore. I don't even have the entire rule that we are discussing straight. I just think that we set the Forum clock to GMT and when it hits 0:00 sunday night (Monday morning) the week is over.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:44 am

Pirate1019 wrote:Have to go with Rob on this one. I can't imagine myself playing heavy on a Sunday night and making a highscore. I don't even have the entire rule that we are discussing straight. I just think that we set the Forum clock to GMT and when it hits 0:00 sunday night (Monday morning) the week is over.

I think nearly every one of my best scores came at the wire on Sunday night/Monday morning. A few were within 30 minutes of the deadline.

Honestly, it would kind of suck having the scoring window end at 7/8pm my local time. Especially with the start times being so...squishy.

It seemed to work just fine this time around. I don't really see any advantage to changing it, and it's not like it really hurt anything having it that way.

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:48 am

As my final answer I have to reply:

Whatever is easier for the organizers.

ill6 · Post by **ill6** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 8:50 am

I don't care... But as an idea, maybe if each week ran midweek to midweek rather than Monday to Sunday that would help people that couldn't play that week (because of holidays or work for example)...

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:30 pm

Sounds like it's only me and zakk who want it.

Alright Edge, when is it easier for you to close a scoring week? The way we had it? Or the way the voting weeks were closed out?

And would you want to push all weeks a day forward and start and end a week (voting & scoring) on like...a monday night / tuesday morning or something..

Edge · Post by **Edge** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:41 am

I think the way we had it this yeat was pretty good.
We changed from 0.00 pm / am (in the middle of the night 11:59pm) to 11:59 am so that the player who live in the US can play their full sunday. But no matter where on the world you arem, everyone has the same timeframe so I think it is fair. And everyone gets their full weekend to play.

Starting date was 11:59 pm on sunday GMT, right after the poll closed. But I am thinking if we should close the poll on monday 11:59 am, because this way we'd have exactly one week as time frame for the competition. Other opinions?