MG is at my place this weekend and we are discussing the VA changes recommendations. The things below are ideas that we are both putting forth:
KART STUFFLooking at the spreadsheet, there are 14 matches of Kart64 to play. If we estimate 1 hour matches, that leaves us with 14 hours of kart to play.
The recommended times as listed by NGamer right now are:
Wednesday the 8th: Play-in 1 (2PM), 2 (3PM), and 3 (4PM)
Pool Play - Round 1 matches 7-8, 8-9, 9-10, 10-11
Thursday the 9th: Round 2 matches 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6?
Evening - catch-up matches that need to be made up. Jones is mentioned.. Do we know for sure when he will be arriving?
Friday the 10th - Semi-finals 3-4 and 4-5
Finals 8-9
Now, this seems like a pretty decent schedule at face value. We estimated 1 hour for kart rounds, when in reality they should finish slightly faster, but then you have wiggle time for people to get setup for their rounds, etc. They could even go faster if we decided to cut Rainbow Road or do something similar :-p
There are only two issue I can think right off: The first is making sure we don’t interfere with supper. Supper generally, from what I can recall, starts around 6pm most days. I would almost propose we start rounds around 7:30 or 8 to make sure people have plenty of time to eat and then enjoy the last of the daylight before they start playing… or we could allow people in those matches who don’t care to volunteer to play around 7.
The next point leads us down into the talking points brought up by NG where MG and I will both weigh in...
Specific times for Kart matches - NS - I am *totally* in favor of scheduled rounds. There have been numerous complaints both from stream watchers and participants about getting rounds in in a timely manner or having any idea when they were going to play so that they can plan to watch (or play) accordingly. Our biggest problem, as has been pointed out numerous times, is getting anyone to hold to a schedule. There are a few considerations that come to mind when I think of this….
* MG mentioned forfeiture for not showing up for your matches.
* I would be in favor of flexible schedule of matches ahead of time. This in the sense of… if there are 4 people in a round, and none care to do outside activities, then allow them to play the rounds that will be during the time of days when certain guys (like JT, myself, Jimbo, etc) would be interested in going on the boat or playing volleyball or going to play basketball or any activity such as that. It gets to be a mess with all of this, but I wouldn’t mind working with 1`-2 others on the scheduling, as long as people are ok with being adults and agree to play their rounds when they are scheduled :-p
I would suggest this - Let’s not even schedule the rounds and semis and such until the play-ins are done. NG will spearhead the play-ins and after they are done, let’s go ahead and sit down for around 10-30 minutes with the participants and discuss with each group.. (“ok Round 1 - Match B, here is when you are set to play, is there a reason you know of that you cannot do this time?”)… i.e Is “Round 1 - Match A” ok with playing their match at 9PM on Wednesday?... “Round 2 - Match C” players know they can’t play at 4PM on Thursday because several of them know they want to go boating then… Or mayyyyybe “Round 1 - Match A” players are all early risers and say they want to play earlier (like 11am), we should go ahead and let them schedule it then, etc.
This would force us to be a little more purposeful with rounds *and* it would give each participant a little bit of investment and personal responsibility in their scheduling and agreement to play when they agree to play. After the schedule meeting, everyone will have agreed to play at a certain time that they said they would be okay with (no one can say they were forced to play a time they don’t like), That way we can have a posted schedule to post online for stream watchers and for participants. I would be ok with allowing changes after the fact if something comes up, but only if every player in the match agrees and they give x hours notice (I would say 2 hours notice). That way the posted schedule can be updated. Thoughts?
If we did this is… I know, I get it.. Sometimes things just come up without being scheduled ahead of time. I’m totally fine with that and I love spontaneous fun… but I do believe that if you agree to play in a tournament and especially if you have agreed to a set time before hand that you should be responsible enough to go ahead and play your rounds at the time you agreed. Thoughts?
MG - I agree with Stinson here. I think if we have a set schedule going in, we can remind everyone when their match is at the beginning of the day, and then they can do whatever fun stuff they want to do around that. That being said, we are notoriously bad at sticking to schedules, so we need to be super strict about enforcing it if we want to have any chance of making it work, as in “you need to be in the basement at X time or you forfeit the round” (except in extenuating circumstances). Basically, the more wiggle room we give people, the more they’re going to take, and the greater the chance that it ends up interfering with the rest of the schedule.
I think we can do the bulk of the tournament stuff after dinner so it minimizes potential interference with daytime outside fun-type stuff. Maybe that would help?
I also like Stinson’s idea of confirming timeslots with people before anything is set in stone.Display real time totals:NS - Totally in favor. Sounds like DK has a method for this. Let’s do it. I like NG’s idea of having a place for people to track their practice rounds also.
MG - Looks like DK has already figured this out. I like it!Non-shortcut Wario and RoyalNS - I am in favor. I don’t feel strongly about it though.
MG - I’m in favor, although I think it’s kind of arbitrary to allow *only* the Rainbow shortcut, so personally I’d prefer to just go fully non-shortcut, but that’s just my “not invested in Kart” opinion KappaProjector + 3 TVsNS - I generally prefer being able to watch rounds and/or watch streams of rounds. I wouldn’t be strongly opposed to the idea. I like playing more rounds… but if we can work out scheduling, I like doing the official stuff on the projector/stream
MG - I don’t think we need this. We have 14 total rounds of Kart spread over 3 days, so we should have plenty of time to get everything done on the projector (as long as we stick to a schedule *cough*). If we really want to save time that badly, though, maybe just have projector and 1 TV so that everyone gets to play on the projector at some point?Different cup/track orderNS - If we don’t randomize track order in any way, I am all for no Rainbow Road (duplicate a shorter level) or just for doing them in a different cup order. Get the more annoying and/or item based outcomes out of the way first (Mushroom/Special) and end in more intense skill based races (Flower Cup races… or I wouldn’t mind at all ending on Bowser’s Castle either). Heck, even if we randomize the cup order, I would still be for dropping Rainbow Road :-p but just not as strongly as if we were going to end on it.
MG - Having 4th place choose the next track sounds time consuming and is unnecessary since you have to play all 16 tracks anyway. Random track order could work if we work out the order before each round to keep things going as smoothly as possible. As for changing the order of the cups, if that’s what people want, then go for it. I don’t feel strongly about it either way.Live commentaryNS - It seems too cumbersome to realistically look at setting up. I think that most people watching the tournament matches are going to know kart well enough to not need any input :-p Although I’d still like the idea if it were not tough to configure… it just looks like it will be.
MG - Doesn’t sound necessary to me - I think the player/room commentary is entertaining enough (especially when Jimbo starts getting salty Kappa). It also seems like it would be a kind of a pain to set up the logistics of this, so I can’t say that I support this one.NON-KART STUFFPing pongNS - I’d like to run this. I think we can get it done in fairly short order. I like the idea of pool play. 2-4 pools depending on if it is 4 or 3 player pools. I will try to confirm with each attendee ahead of time whether or not they want to participate and work it out from there and if they have a preference for best 2 of 3 to 11 or 21. We can have a pool go down to play at the same time and the 1-2 not playing can keep score/heckle. Doing this and getting a pools matches done with at once seems like it should be done in less than an hour. I’ll think on it more.
MG - Have at it, Stinson.GE tournamentNS - Eddie seems to have a good grasp on how he thinks things should be it sounds like. I’ll throw my hat into the rink to be fodder for someone
I’d be all in favor of a lagless tournament also, but I’m not a GE purist so I shouldn’t be the one to make decisions here… We need Boss/Clemens/etc. Input. 3P like 2012 sounds good though.
MG - I’m indifferent. I may or may not even play depending on who else is interested, so I’ll let the real GE players handle this.
Lagless PD NS - Make it happen, NG!
MG - If it happens, I’m up for it.Smash 64NS - Depending on the format, I’d be for playing. I don’t want to play a super long tournament though. If others do, then that’s great.
MG - Have at it, Alex.Exhibitions/casual stuff on streamNS - Let people schedule their own events. If someone wants to play a random game demo or competition (MG/Austin in TWINE, me/MG/Woll/Alex at F-Zero X, etc.) then just don’t overlap with officially scheduled events and it’ll work great. Like I mention in the Display ETAs part below, I think just have people set a time that is not grabbed by an official tournament match, and then schedule something for then and play it. Maybe if there was a schedule Spreadsheet somewhere where people could put their name and games down that would be available to view online for stream watchers?
MG - YES! I did a TWINE speedrun and some counter-op PD with wiff last year and it was a blast (and the handful of viewers we had seemed to respond well to it). I’m definitely up for more of it this year, and I think among the whole group, we can find plenty of things to stream/minimize dead air (GE, Smash, F-Zero X, speedruns of other games?)Display ETAs of next eventNS - If things are scheduled, then we can have the Kart round ETAs posted at least. As far as GE/Smash/Other official tourneys go, we can do the same. I was thinking that outside of official tourneys, it can just be first-come first-served if someone has a special event or demonstration they’d like to give. See above for more details.
MG - This kind of ties in to the whole schedule thing. It’s kind of pointless to have ETAs when you don’t have much of a schedule in the first place...Livestream/record werewolfNS - The biggest problem for this is sound. It would be possible to do a laptop with web-cam and mic, just run the mic to the center table like DK does for the projector downstairs. People would just have to speak up and whoever runs the camera would need to make sure people are seen. It’s just hard to imagine how things will work out very well. I’ll think about it a bit more… either a periscope stream-from-phone or maybe some Twitch/laptop stream concoction.
MG - If someone can figure out how to do it, then go for it. I don’t feel strongly about it either way, though.BasketballNS - I would play basketball again. I like disc golf. I like volleyball. I like soccer. I am all for any outdoor activity.
MG - SPORTSVirtual realityNS - I love my Oculus Rift DK2. Would like to try the Vive.
MG - I’ll try it as long as there are no potentially epilepsy-triggering things involved.Final thoughtsNS - NG asked me about bringing a gaming ready laptop. I was planning to bring my main gaming laptop for RL and other local co-op Steam games. I can bring my slightly older gaming laptop and we can hook it up to use on the emulator front if people want to. I also have a N64 and SNES USB controller adapter
On my gaming laptop, I will bring 4 wireless 360 controllers and USB adapter, and here are some of the local co-op games I have in steam that can be played:
Atom Zombie Smasher, Awesomenauts, The Baconing, BattleBlock Theater, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Brawlhalla, Capsized, Castle Crashers, Cortex Command, DeathSpank, Duck Game, Dungeon Defenders, Gang Beasts, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Guacamelee! Gold Edition, Hammerwatch, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, Jamestown, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, Joint Task Force, Knight Squad, Lara Croft and the Guardian of the Light, Magicka, Monaco, Nation Red, Never Alone, Painkiller Hell & Damnation, Planets Under Attack, Rampage Knights, RAW - Realms of Ancient War, Renegade Ops, Rocket League, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics, Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Sam Classics: The First Encounter, Serious Sam Classics: Revolution, Shank, Shattered Haven, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, SpeedRunner, Towerfall Ascension, Trine, Trine 2, A Virus Named TOM, Worms Armageddon, Worms Revolution, Worms Ultimate Mayhem.
MG - I guess I’ll bite the bullet and actually play Kart this year. In it to lose it!
