Signups for 3rd September

• Hagge: -bravado, -dm4
• Macisum: -dm4, -dm2
• Blood_Dog: -dm4, -bravado
• dev: -dm4, -bravado
• kip: -aerowalk -bravado
• nitemare: -aerowalk, -dm4
• Gloomy: -dm4; -dm2 (might be too early)

Group A
nitemare 2 - 0 kip
nitemare 2 - 1 hagge (end of dm4 cut short due to server failure)
kip 2 - 1 hagge

Group B
Blood_Dog 2 - 0 dev
Blood_Dog 1 - 2 macisum
dev 0 - 2 macisum

Knockout stage
Winner's bracket: nitemare 2 - 0 macisum
Loser's bracket: Blood_DoG 2 - 1 kip
Wooden spoon: dev 2 - 0 hagge

Loser's bracket final: macisum 2-1 Blood_DoG

Grand final: nitemare vs macisum (2nd bo3)

Final standings:

1. nitemare
2. macisum
3. Blood_DoG
4. kip
5. dev
6. hagge


Congratulations to nitemare, and a big thanks to everyone who played - some great games and some funny moments. I'll do another post tomorrow about how the timings went and feedback on the maps.

Original
I'd like to get some one-day tournaments on the go, to give me something to watch that isn't dreadful, and maybe get some non-standard maps tested out in tournament scenario (like the bravado one-day tournament).

Ideally these would be competed in 4 hours max, so we'd need somewhere between 8 & 16 people - more than that and it should probably be split into two divisions.

1) Tournament would either be single-map kenya or TBx, maybe alternating each week
2) In multi-map tournaments, maps would be tossed during signup, so you are guaranteed to not play your least favourite
2) A group stage (so 3 or 4 BO3 for everyone), then a knockout stage between winners and runners-up of each group
4) Could try out different formats (example - 1st round double elimination for winners of groups, single-elimination after that)

Try and have a regular time for these, say every Friday night? Could link this in with the ladder system (which I will get round to resetting) so you have a week to practice and then priority/seedings would be based on ladder position.

All thoughts/opinions welcome.

(Edited 2017-09-03, 22:42)

I'd ditch the group stage and go for a straight single elimination playoff instead. Less of a commitment for players (perhaps some people would sign up even if they realise they won't make it past the first game instead of the first three) and worst case there could be some slack between games. Each BO3 tend to take ~1 hour instead of 20-30 minutes.

Sounds great, I would happily participate!

Revenge will be sweet 8)

Would be love to see this! Probably not attending myself though.
I could help with:
* Wiki coverage (example)
* Logo/graphics for the tourney

Could also try a KOTH (king of the hill) type of event. Just a matter of getting the lesser tiered players to start in the beginning, and the top tier players towards the end. I'm sure Jehar can give you some pointers.

Haha I would love to see you try! We all know you will win on dm4, but what else?

Ake - I did a query on Thunderdome, and where the players didn't switch servers (finding a server with bravado, or alternating between UK and US), it was an average of 13 minutes/map - once they'd started playing, at least. So if people agree to not mess around for 10 minutes prewar (and map tossing is done at signup) then 45-50 minutes max for each round should be achievable. We'll keep the first one to 8 players though and see how long it takes.

m68k - I like Jehar's KOTH format (especially good for streaming) but it does mean the better players only get one or two games max, which I'm not sure about.

Is there a particular day that people would prefer to play on? I suggested Friday nights as the servers seem slightly more active earlier, but maybe the weekends would be better?

Maybe a test run of the format this weekend?

Sunday?

Spoke to some others about this and will delay for a week due to QuakeCon being on, so everyone can binge on Twitch.

Plan is to start this the weekend after, so Sunday 3rd September, at 19:00 CEST (18:00 BST, 17:00 UTC)
Map pool: current TB5 (dm2, dm4, aero, ztn, bravado)
Each match is BO3, signups toss two maps during signup, map pool for each BO3 will be decided by high-seed tossing first, then low-seed. If high-seed tosses same map as low-seed, the low-seed's second map is tossed. High-seed picks first map in the BO3.
Knockout stage will be standard double-elimination with runners-up from the group stage starting in the loser's bracket.

As we don't know how long things will take, for first weekend we'll have max of 4 players in group, so looking for 6-8 players max (if we have 12 or more I'll split up into two divisions and have different mini-tournaments, but it doesn't look like that will happen).

Any comments on the above (especially on which day of the weekend is best) very welcome. I imagine the format might well change once we've had a chance to try it out.

Dm6?

I'll play!!

First off, great initiative!

However, TB5 does not contain bravado.
TB5 contains DM2, DM4, DM6, Aerowalk and ZTNDM3.
http://wiki.quakeworld.nu/TB5

I won't go deeper in the debate about bravado here, but just because the DM6/bravado discussion has come up in the last year doesn't give you (or anyone else for that matter) - the right to outright change the "TB5" acronym at will.

This can't be changed regardless of what side of the debate someone are standing, or whether "the scene" in generally supports the proposed map replace or not. You can call your tournament map pool whatever you want - "TB5v2", "TB4+bravado", "TBKenyas" or why not "meagpool" - but you can't call it TB5. Simple as that.
Why not, you might ask? Because "the scene" now contains only a handful of active players/writers/admins. Changing the TB5 phrase also impacts our very written history of QuakeWorld, for example when reading in wiki about the duel scene during the last ~10 years.

Best regards, and best of luck with your tournament!

Yes, the overwhelming importance of that distinction cannot be overstated!!! How dare you, Meag?!

B..but...
He clearly wrote:

Due to the fact that bravado was in the most recent big duel tournament.

I agree TB5 is TB5, and in this case with bravado instead of dm6, it should clearly be pointed out in some way:
Current TB5 is almost clear

On this topic; I thought the coming one-day tournaments were gonna be played on single maps (new/old-good), to find another candidate that players would vote into a TB7 for future tournaments. 3,5,7... can't have both bravado and dm6 there... but if we get one more good map, dm6 could do a comeback! All to make lordlame happy

Not to make me happy, I am quite weak on dm6 but I know other players ( nigve, rasta, greco etc ) like this map almost as much as I like dm4

Well it hasn't generated any games yet, but already some drama. I wasn't trying to re-write history, I thought "current TB5" was acceptable... "Thunderdome8 map-pool" if you prefer.

bps: yes, ideally we would be using this for one-map tournaments so we can eventually get to a 'TB7', but the first obvious candidate by popularity is travelert6, and it is currently being reworked to a version acceptable to VVD for Thunderdome. There are still some issues with the latest version though, so the first tournament is varied maps and we can do one-map competitions after that.

Bump

Okay, no feedback on preferring a different day etc, so the plan for this weekend is:

When: Sunday (3rd September) at 19:00 CEST (18:00 BST, 17:00 UTC)
Online: #quakeworld on IRC, events channel on discord.quake.world
Map pool: Thunderdome (dm2, dm4, aero, ztn, bravado)
Group stage: round-robin, BO3
Knockout stage: Double-elimination, BO3 matches. Group winners progress to winner's bracket, runners-up to the losers bracket.
Map picking: during signup, players nominate two maps to be tossed from the map-pool, this will be used to reduce the map-pool for each map to three maps (high-seed's #1 map tossed, then low-seed's #1, or low-seed's #2 if both players nominated same map for #1). Higher-seeded player picks first. Map-pool for each match will be announced in Discord/IRC when tournament starts.

I'll send out some .qw messages over the next few days. If you're interested in playing, reply below with the maps you'd like to toss, or message me on Discord or IRC. Keen to keep this first attempt at 6-8 players until we get a feeling for how long the stages take.

Examples of map-tossing:

Hagge signs up and tosses bravado, backup choice dm4
Macisum signs up and tosses dm4, backup choice dm2
I sign up and toss bravado and aerowalk

Macisum vs hagge: both players toss their first choice, so -bravado, -dm4, and the mappool would be [dm2, ztndm3, aerowalk]
Hagge vs meag: hagge tosses -bravado, meag also chose -bravado but it's already tossed, so -aerowalk is tossed instead. Mappool [dm2, dm4, ztndm3]

Just to be clear: the first map you nominate will always be tossed, and you won't play it in the tournament. The second choice will only be tossed if your opponent is higher-seeded than you and you both picked the same map as your first option.

(Edited 2017-09-01, 18:39)

Count me in! As for the tossing:

1. Bravado
2. DM4 (sorry lordlame :E)

Sounds like fun!

I'll be tossing #1 DM4 and #2 DM2

Still out of action, but looking forward to spec some good games. Good job Meag

As much as I am a complete rustbucket in QW, I'm in.

Toss dm2/dm4

hmm... to early If i can return home in time - i'm in.

tossing dm4; dm2

Sign me up. Tossing dm4 and bravado.

sorry, as i expected, i'm just got home

How it went

• Group stage: 2 groups of 3 players each, round-robin - 2 hours. 4 progressed to knockout stage which went to 4 bo3 matches (2-1,2-1,2-1,2-0) - just under 3 hours (this was pretty much worst case, and included 15 minute break before grand final).
• nitemare won out, after a very close final with macisum. Their bravado games are especially worth a watch/download.
• Many thanks to bps for creating tournament page with all results (and logo, and name) on the wiki
• All matches available on YouTube, and demos available here... apart from the DM4 hagge-nitemare game where the server crashed.

What went well

• Big thanks to the players for being on time, good-natured, forgiving of delays the other players needed and generally organising themselves to a large degree.
• 6 players was probably the best size to start with. The two groups kind of stuck together on the same server, one game playing while the other player specced, keeping transition times between matches to a minimum. They were also of a relatively similar skill level, so every match-up seemed was pretty competitive.
• Everyone was on Discord on time, keeping track of games & results was relatively easy (splitting time over discord & IRC would be more difficult).

What didn't go so well

• Publicising this event was terrible - this was my fault, I had assumed that generally everyone read the forums etc, and this proved very naive. Whilst I didn't want to have a high number of entrants for the first attempt, a good chunk of community wasn't even aware it was happening.
• The blind map-tossing idea was marmite, with some relieved they didn't have to play a particular map, others resenting that their favourite map could be tossed by the opposing player (even by accident) and others just being utterly confused by the whole thing. Repeat matchups had the same map-pool which was a bit samey (feedback below).
• The seeding was a bit random - literally. Because I didn't know which maps people would be playing until the groups were decided (and some players are stronger on some maps than others), I just put people in a rough pattern, ran the script, switched people around a bit and repeated until it looked reasonable. Should improve this for next time. Also remember to take pings into account...
• Rule clarifications: need rules for breaking ties in the group stages, and also for simpler stuff like pinging up.

General feedback

• Common complaint was that if it had been an hour later, more people could have played. Picked an early-ish time as I wasn't sure how long it would take, now we know it takes around 5 hours for 6-8 people, are we happy starting at 8pm CEST? Makes it a very late night for those on EEST, or further east, but maybe avoids family commitments for europeans and gives more chance of involvement from NA/SA? If we are going to make it later, maybe better to have it on a Friday or Saturday rather than Sunday?
• Map-picking - although this went okay in the end, the 2nd map-toss not really being a map-toss but just a backup option seemed confusing, and gave no room for choice. So, we could change this a bit for the next time round: players toss a single map when signing up. If both players have chosen the same map, the map is dropped (reducing map-pool to 4) then the high-ranked player picks, then the low-ranked picks, and the decider is chosen by /cmd rnd. That gives a bit more variation in rematches while blocking the "i'll-drop-whatever the opponent is best at" tactic.
• Ping rules: well, there weren't any. It's a fun tournament, so I think everyone should be prepared to play at least on London servers (lon.duelmania.net or quakeworld.co.uk), and a simple ping rule of "half your opponents ping or 51, whichever is lower". Everyone was easy-going and this wasn't ever a big deal, but having some kind of rule in place would be good.

Would welcome any feedback on the above. Failing consensus on a different day, the next tournament will be this Sunday @ 8pm CEST (7pm UK/Ireland/Portugal). Don't want it to last over 5 hours, so probably two divisions if more than 8, and a normal double-elimination if any division has fewer than 4 - we'll see what numbers are like and if the later starting time makes a difference.

The week after, I'd like to have a similar competition but one-map, to test a new map that might be included in Thunderdome 9 (similar to one-day tournament for bravado) - more on that to come.

General availability for me in ranked order:
1) Sundays, 20cest
2) Saturdays, 21cest
3) Fridays, 22cest

We would want a nice stream for next event!
(Ping Andeh)

I sign up this sunday. If the same map rules apply - i toss bravado and aerowalk

doublepost, so I guess I just have to use this one to say I´ll see you in hell lordlame