Hello!

As we all know, the first edition of Hymn of Hope kicked off today, and it went pretty smooth, although with quite many dropouts (perhaps due to the early hour we started in? 12:00 CET on a Saturday might be too early for us quakers...), but altogether very smooth.

I make this thread so that you can all give feedback on what has been GOOD so far, and what needs IMPROVING.

As this is a monthly tournament, we will do everything in our power to improve as much as possible until next time, so we need your help in knowing which parts we need to improve the most!

Any constructive feedback is welcome!

Thank you,
the HoH crew.

Reporting to admins via priv msg on irc is kinda 1996. It's fast and simple, but does leave a lot to be desired in terms of archiving the matches like duelmania so you can see actual scores.

Admins did nice job pushing people to play - which is something we saw a lot of from Thunderdome tournament and VVD's relentless nagging to get players to play. It is the main reason that tournament is somewhat on track and so few walkovers.

It's always a problem getting losers bracket to keep up with winners bracket as there are twice as many rounds there. Perhaps a bit ambitious to put THAT many games in one day, when you insist on double elimination. Perhaps single elim would have been better. Then you don't have to wait for hours after being knocked down in losers bracket to get your next game.

Was great to hear bps doing some commentary, I actually enjoyed it. Put a decent co-host with him and that is another top dollar commentating experience for QW.

I like that you have constant stream also of games and rotating commentators like lethalwiz, adde and bps. Good idea to just get more ppl commentating on rotating basis. Will keep ppl from getting tired of sitting and commentating 8 games in a row, and spectators to listen to the same commentator. So keep that up for sure

IMO the tourney went smooth but for next edition plzz, do smth with the LB because it's ridiculous that You have to face the guy that You actually beat in once for a second time...

I've hated the tourney.cc website system in every tournament it has been used. Please use the phpTourney so it'll be easy to add scores and screenshots.

As a consumer, it was an excellent experience. I liked that there where constantly games being streamed (not like in certain other quakes, commentators did a good job too. The for me more interesting games I watched on qtv.

Went pretty smooth imo and the admins did a gr8 job! I'm not too sure about the LB thingy though, takes a little bit too much time (and w8) for some players.

The tourney could last one day instead, with single elemination. Would also be nice with some "final stats" not just place 1-3. Either way I enjoyd it very much, keep it up!

/Jon

(Edited 2012-04-15, 09:01)

Good feedback! I also agree that for these short tournaments, single-elim is preferable. This is already being discussed!

Keep the feedback coming! What did you think about the times? 12:00 CET might have been too early to start as some players didn't show up because they were sleeping...

@Paradoks: you mention all commentators but not meh

I ddin't know you were commentating , I didn't watch all the time =)

er> IMO the tourney went smooth but for next edition plzz, do smth with the LB because it's ridiculous that You have to face the guy that You actually beat in once for a second time...
mipa> I've hated the tourney.cc website system in every tournament it has been used. Please use the phpTourney so it'll be easy to add scores and screenshots.
Totally agree!!!
Losers bracket generated incorrectly.
And design is very dark - can't read text without "Ctrl+A" or "Super Bright Mode" on monitor.

About single/double elimination:
1. Top16 or 32 double, all rounds before this - single.
2. Or top16 go to DE32 directly and 16 go through single elimination qualification.

2nd variant is better - top players don't need to play 8 hours in a row.

(Edited 2012-04-15, 19:35)

For me as a consumer! Top notch! I really enjoyed sitting the whole Saturday in fron of my Computer and watching top Quakegames.
Thx for the commentary it was very informative in terms of gameplay, but couldve been a little more emotinal sometimes ( I know its hard if you cast the whole day

And yes, scores are interessting!

About double/single elimination:
I really like a double elimination bracket, since everyone gets a second chance. Also a good thing for the lesser good players, to get some even match ups after perhaps being knoked down quite fast by some div 0 player. It is time consuming, but as long as the tournament is ran on a quite strict schedule it shouldn't be a problem. If you go over to single elimination, I hope you will concider to make the matches BO5 instead of BO3 earlier than finals only. I also think VVD's suggestions are good. But was it really a problem to begin with to have double elim? I think it went quite smoothly, even though some extra games had to be played on sunday as well. Quite a few WO's, but I rather have that and good coverage, than poor coverage and dragging the tourney out forever while waiting for players to show up / get ready.

Although, this is an important point: If you stick to double elimination, you should also shuffle the sides of the brackets after one is knocked down to LB, so that two players who already faced each other don't have to face each other right away.

One thing is the grand final, where the one coming from LB has to win twice to take the title. I'm sure it can be demotivating for many. Speaking for myself, I would find it extremly motivating to try to do my best in a situation like that.

All in all, I like the double elimination concept better than single. But of course, if time is sparse, a single or partly single eliminaion procedure might be best. But I think a lot of players will miss out on some good games if LB is removed entirely. If LB is removed, maybe make a really long single bracket, where the the 16/8 best players are waiting at the end. Then the lesser good players would still get some good matches, and a chance for the underdogs to shine and make some upsets.

About the streams:
Unfortunately, I couldn't watch that many streams since Trygve was over at my place. So either I was playing myself, or Trygve was playing, and watching a stream would take all bandwidth so it would lag for him. The ones I watched was quite good tho. Overall it seemed like Adde, Andeh and Phil was a good team. I never got a chance to listen to para / bps, but I'm sure they did a good job. One thing: stating how much you hate a map as a commentator is never a good thing. Try to create enthusiasm instead of shitting on the map. If one player gets spawn fragged to shit on DM4, rather than stating how horrible you think the map is, complement on the spawn raping players spawn rape skills. If it was easy, everyone would be good on DM4, but to be fair, very few are actually good on that map. It is one of the safest maps for the players mastering it. Put two masters up against eachother, of course it will be tight. Like on every other map..

Also, make the visuals of the stream more clear. Fullbrightskins got mentioned, but also colored ammo boxes and weapons would be a good idea imo. Maybe even a brighter and clearer color on grenades and rockets as well? Things happen fast in QW, so a clear visual rather than the brownish defaut colors on the textures in Quake could be a good idea imo.

About reporting games:
As a principle, I think you did he right thing by forcing people to come to IRC and hang out in #hoh channel, and also reporting games from there. Things go fast, and the brackets can be updated right away without having to submit screenshots and an eventual confirmation to bring the brackets forward. But as pointed out, having screenshots and match score is a nice thing for documentation of the tournament. I'm a bit divided on this issue.

About the time:
Maybe a single day is better. Personally, I don't see a problem starting at 12. I mean, if you wanna play in a tournament, it shouldn't be a problem putting the alarm on at 11:45 and be able to wake up then (unless you're a vampire or the like). If you want to make it a single day, you pretty much HAVE to start early. I'm sure theres as many preferences on this subject as there are players playing, organizing and watching this tournament, but overall I feel the current schedule worked out quite fine.

Good feedback Rikoll!

Though I agree with your points about double-elimination, for a tournament this short it means that so many games needs to be played within such a short time. It's not like in Thunderdome or any other dueltournament where it's alright if a single game gets a little late, but with this format, even 1 single game in losers bracket that gets delayed could potentionally delay the entire tournament (ofcourse it's the same in winnersbracket, but there are way less games there).

I don't know of a very good solution. To me the best solution seems to be a single elimination. Of course people get second chances with double format, but this is a monthly tournament and if you have a bad day in one of the tournaments, you'll still get a new shot the next month.

Bleh, just wrote a big post but timed out when posting Condensed version below:

Double elim: Generally I like BUT can see problems with loser bracket delays in 1-2 day tournies. Tough one.

Giving top 8/16 byes - worries me a little in a cash tourney - maybe introduces risk of incorrect seedings e.g. player arbitrarily declared 9th best player has to play qualification round but '8th best' doesn't.

Start time - agree with Rikoll, it isn't too much to expect in a cash tourney for players to put in some commitment in terms of game times, especially considering there is no travel and you play from home. Also great for spectators IMO because you get official games in the early afternoon rather than traditional sunday night 19-23cet blitz.

I have a suggestion for a system.

Start signups for next season NOW - should last 2 weeks.
Seed players in seed groups, generate groups of 4-5 players.
Let them play those groupgames during the following 2 weeks.
When groupgames is over, you generate a single or double elim tournament to be held in 1 day.

This way you get lots of games for all players, AND you get a 1 day tourney with all the interesting games actually worth covering.

You will also eliminate all the signups that are no-shows etc. since it's only qualified players on the last day left. Should be minimum of walkovers, and less games mean less marathon sessions for players involved.

I did shit on DM4 a lot and I hope I mentioned right away its because I personally am horrible on the map so of course take it with a grain of salt Whenever I shit on something, I try to do it in good fun/good humor, maybe I failed that time.

The hardest part for commentary for me is to create excitement in the cast, when its a lopsided 3-0 rape with scores going to one side only, so stop raping so hard rikoll! JK I'm actually always finding things I do wrong in commentary, and I watch a lot of other commentary from a lot of different streamers during my free time as a form of entertainment, and I always pick up something that works here and there and some things that don't and some new things to try out.

Overall great feedback, keep it coming.

(Edited 2012-04-16, 14:30)

first off, i just wanna say great tourney. it was really a good watch! ill make sure to either apply myself or spectate for the next one even more!! |-]]]

however, i do have a suggestion for the stream. with the level of eyecandy turned on, the stream would get very pixelated at high-speed and in fights. something so easy as removing dynamic lights and adding some picmip could probably help a lot.

oh and btw, great casting by andeh! natural =PP!!

phil, I liked your (and the others) commentary. For me there's nothing worse then artificial excitement when there isn't anything to be excited about. No need to go down the road of silly TV.

Thanks PALAtkA ^^

I think andeh has good english for somebody who thinks that "sitting in the bed" is a valid excuse for not playing.

-_-

Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying the games so far. Well organized event and straight-forward commentary on Mumble (thanks for that). Especially I really liked to see that some points of criticism from the first event were accepted and changed (Single Elimination for example). The quality of games was also top-notch.

Hopefully HoH can keep up with the very high quality of the way this tournament is run. Looking forward for more :-)

Yeah, I have to agree with dabridalgowns on this one.

Andy makes a good point aswell.

Bump! Thanks for all the feedback so far and please continue to contribute with your thoughts!

I think the may edition was great and professionally executed. And awesome job with the vods and commentaries! It was very interesting to get views from Milton and Carapace during the games, and they seemed to bring some depths into the analyzis of the situation not many others have accomplished (apart from Paradoks perhaps). Combined with Phils, Andehs and Addes excellent flow during their commentaries, I think you got a pretty perfect match there. I guess the only thing missing, is something more humoristic like Pektos commentaries, but I gues that could also turn out quite disastrous if not executed right .

Some drop outs as usual, and also a couple of names that signed up for both april and may, but didn't show up for either of them. I think it is inevitable, but perhaps it could be a good idea to follow up those you notice who sign up but doesn't show up by an additional mail, irc query or even sms/phonecall when possible to give them a reminder a few days before the tournaments.

As pointed out various places, a single elimination works great for a single day tournament, and perhaps gives the final at least some more nerves than in double. On the other hand, I think you will get less sign ups if sticking to single elim.

It depends on your goals, but if one of your goals is to bring attention to QW from other gaming communities, I think you're on the right track now and shouldn't change much. Then it would be up to the rest of the community to try to snatch up those potential new or old, returning players who stumble upon us. I think you should continue your focus on what you do now, and continue to run these tournaments in quite a similar manner as the May edition. It will perhaps give us fewer games and fewer sign ups, but on the other hand, the games that are played will have a higher quality and hopefully increase the chance your viewers (which I think is what should be most important to you) will stay and increase in number over time.

I don't think it should be you guys job to include more players or be more "noob" friendly, but perhaps a lottery where everyone signed up and actually played their matches, have a chance to win the lottery and get a symbolic sum to their paypal account.

"could be a good idea to follow up those you notice who sign up but doesn't show up by an additional mail"
Yea, would be great coz I've completely forgot that it's that Sunday and thought that it will be next one or something like that. Email just day before tourney would be nice
Vods are great, good job with the commentary

Thanks for the feedback and yeah that could be a good idea to send e-mails and contact players the days before... on the other hand, if a player wants to be in it for the money etc, he should really take care of even attending on his own. Naturally though, quakeworld players are pretty lazy.

Good feedback on everything else! Was only hoping for some comments about 2on2 tournament etc...

Our feeling is that we have such a huge amount of opportunities to try new things that we probably will. Perhaps in the future even a well-organized FFA tournament could happen, who knows? We have 1 tournament every month, which means that we have many months to try to see what's successful and what's not. I guess spectatornumbers are what defines success, but we're very interested in what the players think!

Once again, thanks for the feedback and keep it coming whenever you think of something new!

I´m very happy you enjoyed the commentating, motivates me alot to do it if asked in the future.

I need a teammate.. I'm quite crappy so a good mate would be nice!

Feedback - 1on1 please

I realy enjoyed getting raped and then watching commented matches.

Having commentary on mumble while watching a game on qtv is great ( half of french qw players have a shitty isp on which you can't watch twitch.tv ).

I'd really like these tournaments to keep on double elimination, if it was single i'm not sure i'd signup; I don't see the point of signing up if it is to play only one map ( or two with the lb ).

A real website where brackets are not .png and with match scores would be great too


Anyway, thanks for the cup, waiting for next sunday and for next tournament !