by gdeangel on Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:40 pm
Alrighty, I'm going to make a modification to the freestyle policy. If you pick freestyle as your map setting, the attacking (meaning other team) will have the opportunity to choose the time at which the first shot is fired.
Let me give an example. Team A has freestyle as its home setting. Team A & Team B (a non-freestyle map team) draw each other and Team A's home settings are chosen at random. What we don't want to have happen is for 3 people on each team to join, and then the fourth person tries to join at the same time as when their three teammates are standing by waiting... that would make it logistically a nightmare and provide a HUGE disadvantage to anyone actually ever joining the game. The fixed 24 hour "no-attack" rule was designed to address this issue, as it is perfectly neutral as to most things OTHER THAN TIME ZONE of a team. Instead, however, I'm going to give an even slight advantage to the team that is thrown into freestyle based on the other teams map... Going back to my example, once the email goes out that a freestyle game is on, all 8 players are free to join in any order. Once the last player has joined, Team B (the team that did not pick the map settings) must announce in the visible game chat a time at which operations will commence, as in "Battle begins in 3 hours from my mark". From the time of that post, to the stated time, no player on either side can make the first move. Once the clock strikes, the first move is fair game for anybody. So if Team B can figure out amongst itself what time they can all be available to play the first move, they set things up to start then, and the burden falls to Team A (the team that picked freestyle) to either have people ready at that time or suffer the consequences of being ganged in the first move.
THIS IS INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED TO DISCOURAGE OPPORTUNISTIC USE OF FREESTYLE SETTING, as well as level the playing field in the first round.
I'm thinking that Team B must set a time to commence operations that is between 8 and 24 hours from the time the last player joins. That should give everyone at least an opportunity for time zone issues, etc. to realize the fight is on. If Team A's schedules aren't able to accomodate getting to the field at any hour on 8 hours notice, then they shouldn't pick freestyle as a home map setting.
Spanish Warriors, maybe you'll reconsider I hope your decision.
Any if anyone disagrees with the tactical idea here, let me know (I'm not really interested in hearing that freestyle is just too stressful... war is hell!)