A thread for opinions/ideas/requests concerning future tournaments.
The February 2014 Big Team Tournament has been the greatest tournament on OpenRA so far and to no surprise. Following the exposure from TotalBiscuit came an avalanche of new players and gameplay footage on youtube. OpenRA is growing thanks to the persistent work of the developers and and I would think it obvious that we shall see further growth with every milestone that is future releases and more quality exposure on the web.
Because of the current tournament format (still ongoing), matches are scattered and quality streamers such as Sybert had to struggle a bit to keep the session going. People are naturally committed to work, family and private business so for the time being, this is what works for us. Nevertheless I believe everyone is having a great time with this tournament and that the experience will greatly contribute to future tournaments. At the request of Ripley I've started this thread to pull together all thoughts on how to make future tournaments better and more efficient, including on how to make the format easier to stream/cast. E.g. by making streaming/casting more predictable we can announce/promote them better ahead of time, making streaming more attractive and further grow interest for the game.
Please keep this thread clean of nonconstructive witty remarks. I'll compile all contributions here in the OP to ease the discussions.
Go!
OpenRA Tournament Think Tank - Casters/Streamers/Developers
A thread for ideas concerning future tournaments
The biggest issue I've run into is the organization of replays and results of matches. It's pretty difficult to step in halfway through and make sense of the score at that point, especially without spoiling the results.
For me I like it if I don't already know the result of the game I'm about to cast, it means I get to be actually excited during the game, and actually surprised as well, and express that in my performance. With the current system I have to know the score and 'count back' the results for each replay I haven't casted yet. And once I have an 'entry point' I'll be seeing the results of the matches as I grab the replays.
My suggestion would be to have some sort of a system where it makes it easier for casters to begin covering the event without getting spoiled themselves.
For me I like it if I don't already know the result of the game I'm about to cast, it means I get to be actually excited during the game, and actually surprised as well, and express that in my performance. With the current system I have to know the score and 'count back' the results for each replay I haven't casted yet. And once I have an 'entry point' I'll be seeing the results of the matches as I grab the replays.
My suggestion would be to have some sort of a system where it makes it easier for casters to begin covering the event without getting spoiled themselves.
Agreed. I think there's a simple solution to this point. Say we specify in the rules that the players involved in a match agree beforehand on which one will take care of the replay upload and demand it being tagged it with a specific time (e.g UTC time zone) and date to register as a valid tournament match. That way, regardless of the upload timing, the sequence and score will be available and easily verified by anyone. I think that would be reasonable. As for spoilers, we could make the designated uploader make a separate report to the tournament director with the match results.Rider wrote: ↑The biggest issue I've run into is the organization of replays and results of matches. It's pretty difficult to step in halfway through and make sense of the score at that point, especially without spoiling the results.
Last edited by SoScared on Thu Mar 06, 2014 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
hamb plans to implement replay saving on his dedicated servers (the Passworded PUB NA servers)
this will HOPEFULLY be in by next tournament but no promises.
As for the sequence of replays, i do like SoScareds 'Time Stamp' in replay title idea.
keep up the good work, and thanks for your feedback, Casters / Streamers
this will HOPEFULLY be in by next tournament but no promises.
As for the sequence of replays, i do like SoScareds 'Time Stamp' in replay title idea.
keep up the good work, and thanks for your feedback, Casters / Streamers
Also I want to mention that there's currently tons of stuff being worked on to improve spec. and replay viewing:
Improved statistics tab:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4716
More hotkeys:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4435
Pause/fast-forward:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4633
Chat text sync. (fixed!):
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4608
'view everyone'-option:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4607
This will certainly encourage more and better streams/casting. Kudos to the dev team!
Improved statistics tab:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4716
More hotkeys:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4435
Pause/fast-forward:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4633
Chat text sync. (fixed!):
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4608
'view everyone'-option:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4607
This will certainly encourage more and better streams/casting. Kudos to the dev team!
I get that I'm over a month late with this, so I apologize for my tardiness.
Please note, all of this feedback is from my position as a commentator and streamer, not an official of the tournament or a player. I have organized and run a multitude of successful tournaments, with the help of my staff, for RA 3. None of these tournaments were quite the same as the big team tournament though.
The big team tournament was an interesting format that I think can work, but it does rely on players actually caring. Getting people to actually care about something like a for fun tournament is a phenomenally difficult task to accomplish. You pretty much are just relying on people's enjoyment of the game and desire to play a competitive match. You can help make people care by offering prizes, which could be money, or some other sort of prize other than "bragging rights." Potentially, flair on the forum which denotes a champion, an OpenRA t-shirt, a video about them, or an interview/article. There are different things you can offer, but ultimately it's up to the participants to decide whether or not it's worth their time. They often don't think of the time put in behind the scenes or care about the hours of work it took to create the event.
Now we're moving away from abstract, unhelpful feedback into more realistic feedback.
If you have team captains consider having the captains, in private, select the players on their teams. Take the roster of signed up players and have the captains alternate picking members of their team. Or form a small panel of people to determine the teams and help with balancing.
If you continue with the big team tournament, which I think you should give at least one more shot, then take a community poll of what days of the week and times work best for people. Set 3-4 specific play dates and times where people should meet up to play games. Make sure that the admin is also able to make those times. Ensure that the captains of the teams are in contact with the top 3-5 players on their team that they can count on to show up at those times. You want to lock people into times as much as possible. Set a structure that's got some rigidity to it, but is still flexible.
Do as much prep before hand in terms of organizing matches. Get together the players who are more serious and have the team captains choose players to play in set match-ups, such as four 1v1s, four 2v2s, and two 3v3s (10 points available to win). Ex: April 1st at 18:00 GMT is a play date. The team captains meet before and find out what players are available and then seed players into the available 1v1s, 2v2s, and 3v3s. If this example doesn't make sense let me know.
Creating a structure and a pre-set series of match-ups will give some structure for us to follow if something happens with the tournament admin. If some people don't show up we can skip their matches and go straight to the next match. Problems can arise when you try to be too flexible and everything has to be arranged spur of the moment.
I had some more feedback, but I can't remember it now. I'll post it later if I remember.
Please note, all of this feedback is from my position as a commentator and streamer, not an official of the tournament or a player. I have organized and run a multitude of successful tournaments, with the help of my staff, for RA 3. None of these tournaments were quite the same as the big team tournament though.
The big team tournament was an interesting format that I think can work, but it does rely on players actually caring. Getting people to actually care about something like a for fun tournament is a phenomenally difficult task to accomplish. You pretty much are just relying on people's enjoyment of the game and desire to play a competitive match. You can help make people care by offering prizes, which could be money, or some other sort of prize other than "bragging rights." Potentially, flair on the forum which denotes a champion, an OpenRA t-shirt, a video about them, or an interview/article. There are different things you can offer, but ultimately it's up to the participants to decide whether or not it's worth their time. They often don't think of the time put in behind the scenes or care about the hours of work it took to create the event.
Now we're moving away from abstract, unhelpful feedback into more realistic feedback.
If you have team captains consider having the captains, in private, select the players on their teams. Take the roster of signed up players and have the captains alternate picking members of their team. Or form a small panel of people to determine the teams and help with balancing.
If you continue with the big team tournament, which I think you should give at least one more shot, then take a community poll of what days of the week and times work best for people. Set 3-4 specific play dates and times where people should meet up to play games. Make sure that the admin is also able to make those times. Ensure that the captains of the teams are in contact with the top 3-5 players on their team that they can count on to show up at those times. You want to lock people into times as much as possible. Set a structure that's got some rigidity to it, but is still flexible.
Do as much prep before hand in terms of organizing matches. Get together the players who are more serious and have the team captains choose players to play in set match-ups, such as four 1v1s, four 2v2s, and two 3v3s (10 points available to win). Ex: April 1st at 18:00 GMT is a play date. The team captains meet before and find out what players are available and then seed players into the available 1v1s, 2v2s, and 3v3s. If this example doesn't make sense let me know.
Creating a structure and a pre-set series of match-ups will give some structure for us to follow if something happens with the tournament admin. If some people don't show up we can skip their matches and go straight to the next match. Problems can arise when you try to be too flexible and everything has to be arranged spur of the moment.
I had some more feedback, but I can't remember it now. I'll post it later if I remember.
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PersianImmortal
- Posts: 157
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:04 am
This. Bragging rights are great when you're playing with your irl friends, but online you need some more incentive to play.Sybert wrote: ↑I get that I'm over a month late with this, so I apologize for my tardiness.
You can help make people care by offering prizes, which could be money, or some other sort of prize other than "bragging rights." Potentially, flair on the forum which denotes a champion, an OpenRA t-shirt, a video about them, or an interview/article.
I personally like the cash idea, everybody throws in 5 U.S. dollars and winner takes all.
The prize pool idea would be sweet. I think another thing which could help with that would be having smaller teams. With a team of 20 when the call goes out for a battle it's tempting to have the "let someone else do it" mentality, but to keep a tournament going we need people to step up and fight. If there were teams of 4-8 or so then people might feel more inclined to take it upon themselves? It would also make it more possible for team captains to organise their players, and it would make the prize pool more relevant as it would be split among fewer people. 