blakebowling wrote:Night Strike wrote:agentcom wrote:Fastposted by NS:
NS, why are you opposed?
I'm opposed to automated tournaments because it's not CC's job to run tournaments for organizers.
I'm opposed to this suggestion for the reasons in the 3rd post of the thread: a lot of coding work to integrate such a feature that only a few people would try to use and even fewer people would be able to use correctly.
I will say we have no plans to automate all tournaments, nor do I have any desire to automate all tournaments.
I do believe that tournaments could benefit from a few automated features, mainly the upkeep of a signups list, however automating tournaments both removes the fun from tournaments and removes all room for creativity on the part of the organizer. I stand beside NS's opposition to a fully automated tournament system.
As far as this specific suggestion goes, I understand that it could be useful in certain circumstances. However, a large part of deciding which suggestions go and which ones don't is balancing developer time against community benefit. While this would have some benefit for a limited group of users (Tournament Organizers), this would require a substantial amount of time to develop, and I believe that time could be better used elsewhere within tournaments.
On that note, I Officially Reject this suggestion.
I fully understand and respect the fact that coding this suggestion might be quite difficult since the original code was not written with this in mind. Since BlakeB has been very proactive about implementing requested changes that are easy while also working hard on ones that are probably not, I have to concede that the cost/benefit analysis of my suggestion may be in the "not worthy" column.
That said, I would ask the following:
Do we find any value in running tournaments like the NCAAs? Night Strike played in it so I guess that means he likes this kind of thing though he might claim otherwise at this point. If we value this kind of a tournament, I strongly suggest we consider ways to make the lives of those running them less impacted by them. I disagree with GO's claim that game creation is less of a problem than results recording/all the other stuff for my particular tournament. Every set of 3 games has different settings (63 sets of three games released twice a week for 13-15 weeks before the 8-game March Madness elimination matches begin 78 teams to 64 to 32 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 to 1 -- all of those numbers divided by 2 * 8 for games needed to be created). How many man hours does it take presently to create? If you can create a set of three in one minute, that is roughly 1800 minutes of labor required (30 hours). And that is not mentioning the fact that game creating mistakes are basically eliminated (which costs a TO even more time to sort out). That is not to say that what he said is not in general true ... just not in my case (once I got the spreadsheets all set up).
Why is it you most often see tournaments created that are on one map (or move all the players from one map to another)? It is because game creation is *easy* when you are creating a bunch of games with the same settings.
So anyway ... Blake ... I thank you for the work you are doing. I think it is easy to think that this kind of change is not one the community is clamoring for because this is the kind of change that is not obvious. That it is only useful to a "limited number of users". It is not 12-man games. It is not "no fortification" game setting. But what it is is giving a TO a tool that will expand the kinds of tournaments that are possible. And how many users are affected by that? A limited number? Many people who participate in the NCAA tournament will tell you that it is their favorite event of the year (it was mine before I helped rescue it). There is something about the format that just works (for me ... and some others). So this is a change that has incredible and lasting effects on the community because it allows people to create more opportunities for people to have fun together en masse in a way that lasts over months or even years. It is so tangibly different than a one off tournament. I have played in my fair share of tournaments but could not for the life of me recall more than one or two of them. These leagues happen year in and year out, and they are the most taxing things a TO tries to do. I also think they are highlights for the people that participate in them. Community building is what keeps people playing this game rather than doing something else. Like clans, big tournaments build community because of the regular contact that people have with others in the tournament. For some, I think that is what keeps them playing this particular game rather than trying something new.
If this idea will not/cannot happen due to its complexity or because a project like this needs to happen in lieu of some other big projects you are planning, I get it. But I do feel your reply to this thread (and this is just my feeling) indicates that you are not fully understanding what it is that I have experienced as the lead TO of the NCAA tournament. I think it would be useful for you to understand what we go through fully just so you have some context to understand the suggestions that come your way from CC's TOs (and the people that run clan leagues and clan wars for that matter). If you agree with this and want any further back and forth with me to understand how TOs run this kind of tournament, I am more than happy to share my experience. If not, that's OK too. I continue to support your efforts to make this site even better.
Robes
P.S. to GO
"btw, this suggestion is not limited to existing TO's. if it was the op would be excluded as he hasn't completed a tourney yet."
What is it that you personally get out of behaving this way? I know you don't care about this, but your behavior has eliminated any respect I had for you, and therefore your opinions no longer hold any weight with me. I am just some random dude that you don't know and will never know, but if being respected by other members of this community means anything to you, I suggest you up the level of respect you offer others. I do realize I am pissing in the wind by even thinking to write this paragraph.