pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
|
 Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 17:07 |
 
|
Okay, there are at least a couple of ongoing threads at the moment touching on the subject of perceived flaws* in Ranked tournaments.
(* Specifically, birthday teams spoiling the Majors and concessions and power-gamed teams disrupting Minors.)
Now, this is nothing new. My perspective on this is that it is fundamentally an issue of staff time compared with number of coaches. There are relatively few site staff (who also have many other duties aside from running tournaments) trying to meet the needs of huge numbers of participants. By contrast, most user-run [L] tournaments have a comparable number of staff members, whose only 'job' on the site is to ensure that those tournaments (which have fewer coaches) run well.
I don't think that many would disagree with the suggestion that the best user-run tournaments and groups handle coach issues better and more flexibly and are more responsive to coach opinion than those in Ranked. (This isn't to criticise - or to laud: it's just a reflection of the time available and the numbers concerned in each case.)
So, if elements of what is available in Ranked are considered flawed, isn't it up to League (by which I mean users, by which I mean: us) to create a viable alternatives?
Why is it a given that only in Ranked can a high-profile, large-scale tournament, with big teams and well-known coaches, take place? Is it beyond us to create similar structures in League, along with structures that would prevent (or minimise) the powergaming, cherrypicking and team-building which is inevitable in Ranked's open system?
I would note a couple of issues:
It may not be widely known, but it has been (and I assume still is) site policy that news submitted by user-run leagues is not accepted. This means that, although (as has happened) an individual SWL team could get news posted when it reaches a certain milestone (and throw in a few ads for the league at the same time), the SWL itself cannot submit news saying, for example, 'we have just completed our 20th successful season!'. This despite being one of the most successful leagues on FUMBBL and a vital support mechanism for our Blood Bowl-ing cousins on the other side of the world (who are in the wrong time zone for Smacks, etc, and have created their own alternatives).
Now, while some people never notice the news, it is more prominent and, I would argue, carries more authority than a thread or blog. (With a blog and a thread, JanMattys got 52 teams for his Gary Gygax Memorial Cup: how many more might he have got with a news item?) In addition to news, overview pages themselves are altered to mention the 'tour' and Ranked Majors: it is almost impossible to miss when one is starting or ongoing (and would be even if you'd never had a Ranked team). To find user-run tournaments, you have to go looking.
I can see why these restrictions are in place. I can see that it could be undesirable to allow news posts to become a free-for-all, with every two-bit league jostling for space. Having a system of leagues earning some kind of 'posting rights' would be yet another demand on staff time.
Yet in spite of this, the net result is the same: Ranked tournaments, which (unavoidably, due to the numbers involved and the time limitations of the organisers) offer poorer support, flexibility and responsiveness, have a monopoly (or at least a heavy in-built advantage) in terms of advertising. Meanwhile, user-run tournaments, which have at least the potential to address many of the flaws perceived in [R], can never hope to achieve the same level of recognition because the means are not available to appeal to the same breadth of audience.
Or can they? Maybe it is possible for us to produce something on a similar scale for ourselves, rather than calling on the overworked site staff to do more, to do better, to do something different. I am beginning to have the germ of an idea ... But what do you think? |
|
|
CircularLogic
Joined: Aug 22, 2003
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 17:18 |
|
Well.. I would be up to give my 'King of the Hill' Challenge another chance, in order to increase the number of available formats. |
|
|
PeteW
Joined: Aug 05, 2005
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 17:27 |
|
| CircularLogic wrote: | | Well.. I would be up to give my 'King of the Hill' Challenge another chance, in order to increase the number of available formats. |
Rawr! I was winning that until you disappeared!!!! Mutter mutter. |
_________________
"Jesus loves me this I know, 'cos my Bible tells me so." MrMojo - where did you go? |
|
JanMattys
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 17:28 |
|
I wrote a couple lines to Christer asking him to add a specific News for the Gary Gygax Memorial Cup, thinking that it would have been a one-off tournament remembering a person we all (more or less) owe a lot to, but I got no answer at all from BigC. Not even a "no, sorry". 
Of course, I would have completely understood a "no sorry" answer, as well as I can see why user-run leagues can't be advertised in the News section. We would have three dozens a day, and that would completely ruin the importance and "official look" the News section has now.
All in all, it hurts i couldn't get a 64-teams KO tournament for Gary, but I guess it was for a greater good. |
_________________
 |
|
mighty_scoop
Joined: Sep 22, 2005
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 17:45 |
|
Best solution (in my opinion) would be if we could subscribe different news ... so we could order the unofficial tourney news ... or the dbl news, etc ...
greetings
might_scoop |
|
|
pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 18:19 |
|
| mighty_scoop wrote: | | Best solution (in my opinion) would be if we could subscribe different news ... so we could order the unofficial tourney news ... or the dbl news, etc ... |
I'm afraid I don't think we can count on solutions which depend on something being changed by site staff. Not that this never happens (it occasionally does), but it makes us dependent when we already have lots of tools we can use.
BTW, I would appreciate it if people would note in this thread all the things about Ranked tournaments that irritate or disappoint them in some way, as well as all the things which are attractive about them. A lot of this will be stating the obvious, but don't let that stop you! (Imagine it's a stalling thread.  ) |
|
|
JanMattys
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 18:31 |
|
Ok
Things that disappoint me about the Majors:
they are (literally) reserved to dedicated coaches. If I were bitter I'd say either "powergamers" or "geeks with no life", but that's not what I mean. I mean that an average user who plays a decent number of games against a decently spread range of different races will NEVER ever be able to aim for the big target. Basically, for the vast majority of Fumbblers "a Major" is an event to spectate, not to take part in. And the *big names* are more or less always the same. They are, of course, the best coaches around... but there's a gut feeling this is not the only reason why they get there. They work to get there. All day. All week. All year. And in doing so they set the minimum requirements not to be swept away so ridiculously high that the whole event is not open to all comers any more.
Fumbbl Cup, with its pure random seeding and the huge number of applicants, somewhat mitigated this. But still I find it THE flaw in the coolest events on Fumbbl.
We have FIVE majors, and all of them are dedicated to the highest TRs. It would be awesome to have TR-capped Majors. Or even Major, without the "s". Just to see ANYONE have a chance.
Or a non-progression TR100 Major, for example.
Things I like:
The grandeur. All Majors are a blast to spec, a blast to talk about, and a blast to take part into (when you manage to do that, difficult if RL has forced you to turn into an occasional gamer). The Hellfishes run in the FC VI was a total blast, I managed to get to round 5, but that wasn't important... every game was tense, every game had 50+ specs with lots of cheers, and boos, and all of them were totally funny. |
_________________
|
|
Joul_Ironhand
Joined: Jan 23, 2008
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 18:35 |
|
Jan, that is the very reason I focus on minors, because I know that i'll struggle to even get near the TR needed to qualify for a major ^^ |
|
|
Ansalon
Joined: Jun 18, 2006
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 18:45 |
|
I agree 100% with what Jan just said above about the Majors. |
|
|
Purplegoo
Joined: Mar 23, 2006
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 18:59 |
|
There have been a number of knocks to user run events in my time on site. The [U]-[L] split, the removal of [L] wins from coach bios. The loss of division transfer. The heavy plugging of [R] tournaments. But we still thrive over in [L] if you know where to look. Main issue is, many don't.
Some quickfire ideas;
Bring back [R]->[L] transfer. In this age of 1001 [R] events, team pimping is all the rage. Can't hurt to allow pimping to move.
Sera has come up with a great system to replace the outdated groups page, stickied in the [L] forum. I propose that a newsletter from this group (called [L] monthly or whatever) be accepted as front page news. This way there aren't millions of user adverts on the front page, just one newsletter encompassing the whole [L] scene. And yes, I guess I'm putting my hand up to edit.
Finally, the adverts that now appear on coach overviews, why not spread those to other divisions. 4/5 can still be Tour recruitment ads, or FUMBBL Cup trails or whatever, but let's have the 5th become 'Why not try a league?' with a link to the LOG page, or 'Stunty RR recruiting now!' and a link to that page.
FUMBBL is rich and diverse away from [R]. The argument here isn't which is better (I'll save my rants for another time), more that newbies to the site sometimes don't even learn other divisions exist. |
|
|
SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 19:02 |
|
I'm not disenchanted with [R] at all. However all of the changes that Purplegoo proposed sound very good to me. |
_________________
Putting the "eh?" back into Sexeh.
"There are those to whom knowledge is a shield. There are those to whom it is a weapon. Neither view is balanced." |
|
Chewie
Joined: Dec 13, 2006
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 19:09 |
|
| Ansalon wrote: | | I agree 100% with what Jan just said above about the Majors. |
As do i.
The only time i have applied for a "Major", i worked my backside off to get there, and was still the lowest TR team in the tourney...
For coaches that don't have the inclination to focus purely on one team for a period of time and powergame (to a certain extent) to get them up to the required entry criteria the Majors are, and will remain unfeasable to enter.
However, i'm not sure what we, as advocates of player run leagues and tourneys can do to address this issue. For example, even if we were to create a low TR [L] major or somesuch, the same old issues (and Orc/Dorf  ) will appear to the minors circuit in [R]. We also know that we can't reward the winners of these tournies with anything more than a new snippet of code for the team bio.
I'm very interested in seeing what this germ of an idea will grow into Pac, but i'm mindful of the fact that there is only so much we can do. |
|
|
pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 19:22 |
|
| Chewie wrote: | | We also know that we can't reward the winners of these tournies with anything more than a new snippet of code for the team bio. |
That said, the very power of the prizes that [R] is able to award may be becoming a negative issue (judging by comments in other threads).
The real prize, in the end, has to be kudos. The question is whether it's possible to create an [L] tournament that has enough to really register. |
|
|
Arktoris
Joined: Feb 16, 2004
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 19:43 |
|
Personally I have no problem with the majors being only for super-teams and people who play all day. I don't get to play 5 games a day because I have a job and family....I'd rather have the job and family then a 400TR orc team. No jealously here.
everytime I've entered a major, I got smacked out on the first game. No hard feelings. I'm a big believer in the "every dog has his day" philosophy. One day I'll get somewhere! 
and lastly, I have no problem with the birthday teams. they are the reason why my wardancer was cured of his niggle and -ag gimp. their dedication and hard work gave us all a healing potion...in return, their efforts reaped them a couple majors titles...sounds like a good trade off. thanks again guys! |
_________________
Hail to Manowar! The latest charioteer to DIE for bloodbowl! - Slain, by Ghor Oggaz |
|
koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
|
| Posted:
Mar 11, 2008 - 19:50 |
|
I am definitely NOT disenchanted with [R]. The new tournaments are terrific!
I think that the Fumbbl Cup is awesome. Other than that I will be sticking to Minors.
I don't see why we need five Majors. Four and a TR225 or TR100 no progression would be great IMO.
Also, please, please, please let's have the [R] -> [L] transfers back again. Might as well merge [L]and [U] while you're at it 
Some advertising space for user run leagues would be great!!!!!!!!
Some way to advertise Scheduled Smacks would be good too. And be able to see how many teams have applied and remove your team from the waiting list.
No new ideas just the same old favourites again |
_________________
O[L]C 2016 Swiss! - April ---- All Star Bowl - Teams of Stars - 2 more teams needed |
|
|
|
| |
Gnomes are trash
Search
