forums.marpirc.net

For who (like me) don't find interesting the tourneys at all, I have a proposal: change the system completely. I mean, building a tournament roster (yes, like e.g. in Virtua Striker) where two players each battle to reach the highest score in a game chosen randomly (obviously every game is different for each couple of MARPers), and then the winner advances to the next turn, until the finals...
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How do the players battle? They simply upload their scores within a short period of time (3 days, for example), adding a prefix as used in the actual tournaments. The player with the highest score wins and advances to the next turn. Fairly simple.

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I think this is more fun and addictive, anyway I'm waiting for you guys to express your impressions... first of all Gameboy9 (if you like this idea, shall we change the old tournament with this one or just add it?)!

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Thanks for your attention....

--
mrvaz@inwind.it

I think I tried this once - and failed dismally - although this idea
seems slightly different than mine. Let's see what others think
first - cause I'm game to go with the flow

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GB9

--
goldengameboy@yahoo.com

Full credit to those still putting an effort into the tournaments, I
keep getting bored part way through. T4 has certainly been better
than the last two, but why do I keep feeling like I'm playing the
same game over again? Rally X and Solar Fox aren't even as exciting
as the T1 flops, Lock n' Chase and Us vs. Them. Arkanoid 2 doesn't
have the same immediacy as Pang!3 (panic), Green Beret is so easy it
makes Combat School look like Navy Seal Training. One Galaga for
another is a trade-off. That leaves SF2, Bubble Bobble, and Pnickies
stacked up against games like Mr. DO's Wild Ride, Discs of Tron, and
2020 Baseball, games where you could continually make new progress
and which showed continual back-and-forth improvements by players. In
the past 3 tournaments, that kind of play seems to have been absent.
One player takes over a game and dominates it for the tourney; the
others fight over 2-3-4.

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Gawd, I know this sounds whiny, but I'm not having fun with the
tourneys any more. They seem more like work I should be doing to
prove that I can keep up with the other players. I know getting
smacked around for 5 minutes by a rail car could be awfully damn
frustrating, but it was really fun to see who was going to finally
break level 11, or if you could make the next step up in zzyzzyxx.

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Still don't agree with me. Consider two of the most popular games
from each tourney, Pnickies (T4) and Money Puzzle Idol Exchanger
(T1). Now look at the play on each. In T1, we had about 6-7 players
trying for that Perfect 64. In T4, we have one player trying to make
Level 100 on Pnickies.

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Feel free to disagree with me, I'm certainly not trying to sell this
idea to anyone, and I'll probably still participate in future
tournaments. But I think we should consider doing a completely random
selection of games (and then have players vote to narrow down the
list (and by vote, I mean choose good trounament games, not
tournament games that they are good at)) for the next tourney (as
specified in a much, much earlier post by me), just so everyone is on
a completely level footing, and up the number of games to 10 or 12
again, so that players don't burn out on games so fast. Failing that,
do something like what Vaz is saying, and make it head-to-head.

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It just seems like we've lost a lot of tournament interest since we
first started. We haven't even managed to up the numbers of people
playing them.

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Something to consider. Best of luck to those of you playing in T4.

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QCN

--
qan@home.com

I think that is an excellent idea Vaz. It would be a knockout
competition and those wishing to participate would have to sign up at
the beginning. Then the players would be paired randomly and each
pair given a randomly chosen game, some players would have a bye of
course in the first round. I love it!

--
garyjlee@hotmail.com

I like the idea too. To avoid the byes of the first round and to
improve the competition, we could imagine groups of 3 or 4 fighting on
one game chosen randomly. Then only the first two would qualify for
the next round. The two last ( or the last one if it's a group of 3
players ) woudl qualify for a special round where they could gain
another chance to continue the competition with the 1st round winners.
I hope I'm clear :-)It's a system often used in some sport
competitions.

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Lagavulin.

--
darre@cybercable.fr

OK - more from the tournament coordinator
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I think this idea can easily work - again - I'll mention that I'll go
with the flow - but this has a very good base.

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Lagavulin's idea to place 3 or 4 people at one time in the early
rounds instead of byes is a very good idea indeed. This would
probably be how I would do it without objection.

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I would probably go one week for a round with either (3 to 4) or 7
days break in between rounds. Also - probably keep everyone playing
for at least 2 rounds to keep everyone playing.(I mean who would want
to play risking only playing 1 week?) So that would mean a
consolation bracket and what have you.

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I would probably seed the first instance of this tournament type by
either current MARP regulation leaders(in other words, BBH would be
seeded 1st), or by 4th MARP Tournament rankings.(in other words,
Renzo Vignola would be seeded 1st if the tournament ended now) New
players who sign up would be ranked at the bottom when they signed
up. The quicker the new players come in, the higher the seed.

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I'm planning to keep the 2 month break in between tournaments - this
will give everybody plenty of time to sign up.

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We might think about bigger and better things. Yeah - prizes. If
we're lucky to get people who are willing to donate them. A neat
thought though

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Thanks for your attention GB9

--
goldengameboy@yahoo.com

Ah, a double elimination type competition. That would definitely
heat things up. You've got another vote for it here with the Llama
(The Llama? Boy, where yo mind at, fool?). Although I like the
thought of it being only a couple of days, thus making the players
rush even more for games. Besides, if we kept all rounds lasting for
a week, it might run for longer than expected; that could be a plus
or a minus, depending on the player.

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Sincerely,

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J.D. Lowe

--
jedidrunkenllama@hotmail.com

D'oh! I forgot about the prizes. Count me in for getting prizes
*joking*. If Chris Parsley can back me up, he mentioned once in mIRC
about a possibility with a money prize; however, I'll wait for him to
verify

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Sincerely,

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J.D. Lowe

--
jedidrunkenllama@hotmail.com

So, does this mean that the tournaments will be stopped? That would be a shame I think. Maybe because T4 is my first tour, and I'm not sick of it yet
I really like the tournament idea with 2 months running time. This gives not so good players like me the chance to improve in the games, while a knockout tournament would be a quick exit for me.
How about this:

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August/September - Knockout tournament Round 1 & 2
October/November - T5
December/January - Knockout tournament Round 3 & 4
Februar/March - T6
April/May - Knockout tournament Round 5 & Final
June/July - T7

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and so on.

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How's that? Please, don't stop the Tournaments. Please.

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Bye.

--
frankie@image.dk

The week would be flexible depending on how many participants there
would be. Second - I think we can do a combination like Michael
said - do 2 months doing knockout, then 2 months of the tournament
we're used to - and probably establish the 2 months in between each.
Or maybe we should go back to the 1 month break. GB9

--
goldengameboy@yahoo.com

The CMP Network (the same group that host the MARP tourney roms atm)
will host the first MARP grand tourney (in conjuction with MARP), to
start September 1, 2000. All players will be paired into either a 2
or 3 player group (depending on players in the competition), and will
play against their group only for advancement into the next round,
where winning players will be paired up again. Each round of this
competition will have it's own game, and all players of the round
will be playing the same game. Signups are currently being taken at
cparsley3@yahoo.com until someone else can be arranged. If you want
to play, join today!!!
Note: ALL BANNER CLICKS FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF THIS TOURNAMENT
WILL BE POOLED AND PAID TO THE WINNER (SO, THERE IS A PRIZE TO BE WON
ON THIS TOURNAMENT). The site receives ten cents per click, so if you
want to build up the prize, keep clicking. There will be updates on
the CMP Network tourney page as to the current size of the prize pool.

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Chris

--
cparsley1@hotmail.com

OK. I'm going to try to keep this brief, which, for me, in itself is
quite an accomplishment.

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I am vehemently opposed to this idea. Here's a sketch of my thoughts:

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(1) Tournaments are more fun the more people participate.
(2) Tournaments yield higher scores the more people participate on
more than one game.
(3) Are we interested in who wins or are we interested in seeing great
performances? Under the current rules, we are MUCH more likely to see
great performances.
(4) Aren't the tournaments supposed to measure overall skill? Wouldn't
someone who beats everyone else on 9 games be the best, regardless of
what he'd do on the 10th? Combined with (1): A tournament using only
Pac variants is not nearly as interesting as a tournament with a wide
variety of types/styles of games.

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Examples:
(1) BBH is the easiest example since he holds the most number one
scores on MARP. Take Jr. PacMan as the first game of the knockout
system, then take nine games BBH easily beats everyone else at.
Result: BBH is out in the first round and so won't win the tournament,
even though he easily is the best overal on the 10 games in this
tournament.

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(2) More concrete: Renzo Vignola will beat me in T4. Of that I have no
doubt. Yet, his current Pnickies score is something I can beat while
drunk, and while using only one hand, so to speak. So... make Pnickies
the first game of the tournament, and Renzo will be eliminated. Is
that fair? I don't think so.

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People want to see great performances. Eliminating people who could
have given us great scores and great new tricks and world standard
skills in later rounds, but never got there because they were
eliminated early on severely brings down the overall quality of the
scores.

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Some people learn games quite fast. Others take longer. But those
others could well surpass the scores of the fast ones. I'd rather see
a world class performance than a bunch of mediocre scores.

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Bottom line: In my opinion, a knock-out system is even worse than a
percentage system.

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Cheers,
Ben Jos.

--
walbeehm@walbeehm.com

Personally, I am against the alternate tourney idea. Mainly because I
think this whole "random game" thing is not a fair way to determine
who wins.

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Giving each pair of players a different random game to play could lead
to disaterous results. Think about it - how would you feel in the 1st
round, having to play against Steve Krogman on Galaga? or Mark
Longridge on Joust? Bubble on Bubble Bobble? QT on Discs of Tron? Me
on Shock Troopers? etc, etc... I know, these are probably unlikely
scenarios, what with MAME supporting over 2000 romsets. But there's
always the chance that you're going to have to play against somebody
that knows the game a lot better than you, and chances are you're not
going to have enough time to learn the game in a few days or a week.

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Which brings me to my next objection - the time limit. Yeah, keeping
it within a week may "speed things up". But what if a player just
doesn't have enough time to get on the computer that week? Maybe he's
going on vacation with no access to a computer with MAME, maybe
"real-life" things like spouses or working overtime keep him from
getting much time on the game, maybe his hard drive crashes. In either
case, things beyond the person's control can wreck your chances of
doing well in the tournament whether you like it or not. The current
tourney format gives two months of play, which is sufficient time for
a player to get a chance to play the games... they can work on the
games slowly throughout the two months, they can upload everything in
the first couple of weeks and then suffer from burnout (like me), etc.

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The current tournament system is not perfect. But they utilize a
variety of games so it's a better way of determining player skill.
The knockout tourney might "seem" more exciting, but when it comes
down to it it'll just be luck of the draw. Also, with
double-elimination a player can end up only playing two different
games before they're eliminated (I'll assume we're not using
single-elimination, because that would be extremely retarded, one game
you suck at and you're out). With the current tournies, everyone has
to play 8 games to qualify no matter what. When you're playing more
games, you're more likely to discover a new game that you like (like
Ben Jos has with Rastan and now Pnickies apparently, heh)

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finally, I'm most opposed to this because it would really wreck my
chances of consistently placing 6th heh.

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-BBH

--
lordbbh@aol.com

I have proposed this alternate tournament because I think the offical
one it's s**t.

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It's useless.

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I don't understand why play it.

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So I NEVER participate.

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If you don't like this new one, simply DON'T JOIN.

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I don't want to force anyone to drop the actual tourney; I think it's
not a bad idea to let both of them to exist, so Ben Jos, BBH and all
the others who have the same idea can play all the times they want. I
don't want to, so I'll sign up the other one.

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I still think my idea is a good idea (even if I had it in a toilet
room ) and I still think the tournament as it is now it's just a
smaller version of normal MARP, so why participate? I prefer to keep
my score and upload it in the regular site, at least I'll have more
chances to beat off A.D. Sakuragi from his place
About the prizes: they're not necessary after all, but money is always
welcome!

--
mrvaz@inwind.it

BBH and BenJos both have valid points (that is, when they're not
correcting each other ), but if I may make one (or) more point(s).

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The suggested new way for tournies is a great way to socialize with
other players. Think about when you first got into MARP, and how you
barely knew anyone, but after time went by, you started challenging
other players, and formed a rivalry/friendship (WARNING! WARNING!
The preceding sentence was far too cheesy! ack!). So what if you go
up against Steve Krogman in Galaga, or if you go up against Mark
Longridge in Joust; in fact, that's how I got started in games in
general, by challenging Krogman at Tetris DX (hint hint,
Krogman ). Having the chance to go face to face against a master
at a game is the perfect opportunity to meet new humans (sure, you
can do the same in mIRC, but talk is cheap ). There's nothing
wrong with losing to them; I have lost many times to anything thrown
at me *cough* gng *cough*

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If you want to go on with the normal tournies, that's just perfect.
Since this is my second tourny, I'm still not tired with it (just the
games ), so I've got no beef with it. All I'm saying is this:
WE'RE PLAYING GAMES. We're expected not to be social. With the new
format for a side tourny, it gives us a chance to have some contact
with the 300+ other players in MARP (that is, if they haven't retired
yet *cough*Fossil*cough* ).

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As for money, all I can say is wow! 10 cents! Man, if I win the
next 400,000 tournies, I could pay for DeVry! *joking, of course;
yes, I know that 10 cents a click can and will pay up, but explaining
that would ruin the joke*

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Sincerely,

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J.D. "That's why I can't wait until my vasectomy" Lowe

--
jedidrunkenllama@hotmail.com