I really think it worked well in one of its goals (at least in my view) of getting a large number of people involved in a relatively short period of time and allowing all of them to participate for the whole time.
One huge drawback to a ladder style tournament is the short period of time actually spent playing vs. the time spent waiting and the time expended by the staff running it. This definitely succeeded in getting 40+ people to all participate at once.
I didn't play in the tournament so some of this is conjecture on my part. I think the game format of capture the flag was only so so. Being able to run right back in to the tournament defeated some of the drawback of dying. I don't think coins are necessarily the right way to limit how many times or how quickly you come back in to play.
I think a similar setup but with a slightly different game would be more interesting: King of the Hill.
Make each round 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Let each team get a point for every second or 10 second period that they hold the "Hill" uncontested. Once you die in a round, you are out of the round until the next one begins. The winner of each round is the team that has the highest number of points -- not the team that is alive at the end. Your team gets no points while the hill is contested.
The differences I like about the king of the hill setup is that there is a discrete winning event, and there is only a very limited benefit to waiting and not fighting. It makes your one death per round somewhat meaningful -- you don't want to die -- but doesn't remove you from playing in the game for that long.
But i like the idea of King of the Hill better
and it was also nice that it was Clan teams. not same fun when u competing against ur own,
and that the clan benefits from it was also good. makes all clans show up and really wants to win it.
I had a good time in the tournament. I liked that there were a lot of people participating, not only from my camp but from most of the Arctic population. A huge plus that made the experience a hit in my mind was the incorporation of gear and spells into the tournament format. This could be taken to the opposite extreme for those who did not have good gear or spells, but hey, that's the game. People with more experience will have better characters. It adds a draw to playing the MUD - harder zones, better gear, more powerful spells.
Balance may be an issue, as well as the goals of the competing groups. I had a priority in the tournament; battle other groups. This wasn't the case for some of the teams shown by the results of the first two rounds. Although capturing flags is fun, PK is even more fun - and it was impossible to win without capturing the flags.
I think that a few things could happen in future tournaments. One, there could be a king of the hill type game that Suf was talking about. Another idea could be a heads up battle of defense vs offense. The defensive team would have the objective of defending their 'castle' from an opposing group of marauders. The offensive team would have a larger group size, intent on killing the all the defending players, the king (a powerful npc) or destroying/stealing a powerful magical artifact (possibly booby trapped or guarded) located in the castle. The defensive team would have to either kill the opposing attackers, survive the assault (time limit) or kill the opposing general (player leader or npc).
Another idea would be to have a permanent ladder tournament system of 10 v 10 group battles, arena style, with winners facing winners, losers facing losers. With an entry fee of 1000, winner's collect the opponent's cash plus arena rank points which can be used to purchase cool items that don't exist in the normal game. One of the biggest things I miss from the old school tournaments/quests are the cool unique items that would often times be awarded. Who cares if they are powerful... if you earn them you deserve them!
Making the tournaments a regular thing should be a priority. I don't know what coding issues might exist or are required, but to run a tournament or arena with minimal assistance would need to be a must. Possibly implementing a 'challenge' system where a clan/group may challenge another clan/group (normal pk rules disengaged) to a player vs player battle. The two groups would be transfered into an arena with a quest mob that recites the rules, where the players are then prompted to push a button (which would remove x amount of coins from the inventory and transfer them to a pre-battle staging area where teams can prep and plan strategies. When the planning was done (or a 10 minute limit was reached) the doors would open and the groups would have at it. Last player(s) alive wins, and once that happens all competing players are transfered into post-battle room, awarded their prizes, and allowed to stage a rematch if they so choose. If the fun is over, the teams may part ways and the challenge is lifted.
"Balance may be an issue, as well as the goals of the competing groups. I had a priority in the tournament; battle other groups. This wasn't the case for some of the teams shown by the results of the first two rounds. Although capturing flags is fun, PK is even more fun - and it was impossible to win without capturing the flags. "
It's not an issue of balance so much as CTF, being less focused on killing as the means of winning--you simply picked your priorities wrong when it came to winning, and sometimes picking that tactic that's most fun or most familiar will put you at a disadvantage. I think varied tournaments of this style are still great to have, though I agree that they should keep in mind the bloodthirsty mentality of a lot of Arctic players, and keep a healthy level of killinng-intensive tournaments in the mix. Killing (and/or surviving) is pretty central to Arctic, so most tournaments should feature killing (and/or surviving) as the central strategy.
If there were simply a longer timer for killed players to become useful again, killing would become more useful in the current CTF style game, without having to resort to artificially small round sizes.
I really think it worked
I really think it worked well in one of its goals (at least in my view) of getting a large number of people involved in a relatively short period of time and allowing all of them to participate for the whole time.
One huge drawback to a ladder style tournament is the short period of time actually spent playing vs. the time spent waiting and the time expended by the staff running it. This definitely succeeded in getting 40+ people to all participate at once.
I didn't play in the tournament so some of this is conjecture on my part. I think the game format of capture the flag was only so so. Being able to run right back in to the tournament defeated some of the drawback of dying. I don't think coins are necessarily the right way to limit how many times or how quickly you come back in to play.
I think a similar setup but with a slightly different game would be more interesting: King of the Hill.
Make each round 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Let each team get a point for every second or 10 second period that they hold the "Hill" uncontested. Once you die in a round, you are out of the round until the next one begins. The winner of each round is the team that has the highest number of points -- not the team that is alive at the end. Your team gets no points while the hill is contested.
The differences I like about the king of the hill setup is that there is a discrete winning event, and there is only a very limited benefit to waiting and not fighting. It makes your one death per round somewhat meaningful -- you don't want to die -- but doesn't remove you from playing in the game for that long.
It was super fun. But i like
It was super fun.
But i like the idea of King of the Hill better
and it was also nice that it was Clan teams. not same fun when u competing against ur own,
and that the clan benefits from it was also good. makes all clans show up and really wants to win it.
I had a good time in the
I had a good time in the tournament. I liked that there were a lot of people participating, not only from my camp but from most of the Arctic population. A huge plus that made the experience a hit in my mind was the incorporation of gear and spells into the tournament format. This could be taken to the opposite extreme for those who did not have good gear or spells, but hey, that's the game. People with more experience will have better characters. It adds a draw to playing the MUD - harder zones, better gear, more powerful spells.
Balance may be an issue, as well as the goals of the competing groups. I had a priority in the tournament; battle other groups. This wasn't the case for some of the teams shown by the results of the first two rounds. Although capturing flags is fun, PK is even more fun - and it was impossible to win without capturing the flags.
I think that a few things could happen in future tournaments. One, there could be a king of the hill type game that Suf was talking about. Another idea could be a heads up battle of defense vs offense. The defensive team would have the objective of defending their 'castle' from an opposing group of marauders. The offensive team would have a larger group size, intent on killing the all the defending players, the king (a powerful npc) or destroying/stealing a powerful magical artifact (possibly booby trapped or guarded) located in the castle. The defensive team would have to either kill the opposing attackers, survive the assault (time limit) or kill the opposing general (player leader or npc).
Another idea would be to have a permanent ladder tournament system of 10 v 10 group battles, arena style, with winners facing winners, losers facing losers. With an entry fee of 1000, winner's collect the opponent's cash plus arena rank points which can be used to purchase cool items that don't exist in the normal game. One of the biggest things I miss from the old school tournaments/quests are the cool unique items that would often times be awarded. Who cares if they are powerful... if you earn them you deserve them!
Making the tournaments a regular thing should be a priority. I don't know what coding issues might exist or are required, but to run a tournament or arena with minimal assistance would need to be a must. Possibly implementing a 'challenge' system where a clan/group may challenge another clan/group (normal pk rules disengaged) to a player vs player battle. The two groups would be transfered into an arena with a quest mob that recites the rules, where the players are then prompted to push a button (which would remove x amount of coins from the inventory and transfer them to a pre-battle staging area where teams can prep and plan strategies. When the planning was done (or a 10 minute limit was reached) the doors would open and the groups would have at it. Last player(s) alive wins, and once that happens all competing players are transfered into post-battle room, awarded their prizes, and allowed to stage a rematch if they so choose. If the fun is over, the teams may part ways and the challenge is lifted.
Some food for thought.
"Balance may be an issue, as
"Balance may be an issue, as well as the goals of the competing groups. I had a priority in the tournament; battle other groups. This wasn't the case for some of the teams shown by the results of the first two rounds. Although capturing flags is fun, PK is even more fun - and it was impossible to win without capturing the flags. "
It's not an issue of balance so much as CTF, being less focused on killing as the means of winning--you simply picked your priorities wrong when it came to winning, and sometimes picking that tactic that's most fun or most familiar will put you at a disadvantage. I think varied tournaments of this style are still great to have, though I agree that they should keep in mind the bloodthirsty mentality of a lot of Arctic players, and keep a healthy level of killinng-intensive tournaments in the mix. Killing (and/or surviving) is pretty central to Arctic, so most tournaments should feature killing (and/or surviving) as the central strategy.
If there were simply a longer timer for killed players to become useful again, killing would become more useful in the current CTF style game, without having to resort to artificially small round sizes.