(Question) PvP Tournament Rethink

[EM Kincaid]

First, congratulations to Hey Arnold.

Now, what you're probably all thinking : That was the shortest event, and the shortest PvP contest, in history.

It will be several months before I hold another one, probably sometime in the new year, but I'd like as much input as possible, because, with no desire to rain on Arnold's parade, last night could have gone better.

It's hard to think how it could have gone worse. I suppose "worse" would have been me standing around in an empty arena, using GC to beg any two people to come and fight each other, and ending up with me vs a NPC that I spawned. Yeah, that would be worse. You obviously didn't want what I had to offer last night, and I'd like to do better next time.

Let's have your input. Here are some questions to get the ball rolling - please don't feel you have to restrict yourselves to just answering these.

1. Is it worth having PvP tournaments on Siege?
2. What day of the week do you think is best for PvP?
3. What time of day do you think is best for PvP?
4. Do we need any rules beyond "if you're in the audience, stay out of the fighting"?
5. What would you expect those rules to be?
6. Location. Immediate choices that come to mind are : The Black Watch Barracks. The Arena near Khaldun. The Ocllo Arena. The Jhelom fighting pits. An empty dungeon in the middle of nowhere. Where would you prefer the event to take place?
7. Stick to one-on-one, or have team events? Either? Both? Let me know!

Hopefully those will get the ball rolling, unless you all think the answer to number 1 is "no", in which case I'll go and write some more fiction for events.

 

[Max Blackoak]

1. sure, why not
2. I believe Saturday would be better than Friday - I might be wrong.
3. from a European perspective the last one was too late (3 am or 4 am depending on where you live if I remember correctly) - that being said I don't believe too many Euro PvPers would sign up in the first place because we are at a huge disadvantage playing with pings well over 100 (e.g.: 150-190 for me, sometimes worse). Ping really matters, especially in duels and even more so when you're fighting people who ping 10-40 ms. So it'll probably be best to go with the US players and determine a time they like...
4. not sure
5. --
6. from my experience houses aren't ideal, especially with summons allowed. there is a z-axis bug for example when summoning pixies while at a lower level of the house - they will spawn on the roof unable to attack. There might even be more bugs like that and I am not sure if fighting on the roof of the house will solve these. so the Occlo arena would probably offer a better surrounding for this. Of course the big advantage of using a house is the ability to ban people when they misbehave...
7. all are fine

 

[Bo Bo]

you sir just have bad timing. An Idoc fell right around the time you scheduled your event. That is where everyone was. And Friday nights are usually the slowest of the week.

 

[Tanager]

First EM event I have missed in months, but this has been a bad week for me IRL. And I was really looking forward to the pink pom poms and Cheer routines I was working on! Alas, this one just was not meant to be for me.

1) Probably. I personally think of Siege as a shard of free will where PvP happens, but most call it a PvP shard. I am not into competitions myself, but I have fun at them in other ways

2) I'd agree with Max that Saturday is better, but Friday night probably allows our EM to stay up later without being a zombie at work or whatever other RL things take his time on Sundays.

3) The Poll (Question) - Event Times : PvP poll was a nice idea in theory. Of the 21 people who voted, nearly half chose 9pm. I also agree with Max that this is a bad time for most Europeans... but I feel confident in saying that there are more than 21 active players on Siege.

4) Rules, yes. I think perhaps the lack of rules might have discouraged some from entering the contest with their template/gear.

5) I'm not a PvPer, and I don't know all the mechanics involved. In the old days, the audience was DEAD lol, and that prevented any interference. An EM tho might be able to put up some temporary deco barrier that blocks line of sight. Perhaps the combatants should be limited to similar gear, etc. I'm sure others have far more experience in that regard as to what rules there should be (if any) to make the competition sporting.

6) Every choice of venue has pros and cons, and PvP rules/bugs involved that I know very little about. Houses seem to have a lot of combat rules and bugs in particular. That said, the Khaldun Arena seems nice to me. It's guard zone so the audience feels more secure. No one but the EM can gate to it (unlike the other arenas), then keep a gate open to the GZ so that the tunnel does not get camped, and EM moves the combatants into the arena itself which seems to be otherwise inaccessible. Whatever feelings people have about events in Guard Zones being trammie, the simple fact of the matter is that they seem to have higher attendance.

7) Most tournaments I've seen in the past matched similar templates against each other, and I think maybe even matching ppl based on their ping is not a bad idea - tho I've no idea how that might be policed. Everything goes kind of thing sounds fun, but may not be practical. I suggest maybe a different competition every few months, pitting a certain style against each other. Mage tourny in May, Sampires in October, Warriors in January, mix in the bullfight tamer competition along the way, etc. One-on-one duels and team fights both sound interesting, but seems like they might need different sized arenas.

On a related note, I think an event where an EM made monster is dropped into the arena and pitted against players one a time until some one wins would be interesting too. Probably open a can of worms, tho.

In any case, this was just the first attempt, and I think has potential once some kinks get ironed out.

 

[Ol'Rac Nnod]

Easy, ante up a prize. Offer 10 mil to the champ, you'll see all sorts come out to try. If conjuring up a pot o' gold ain't doable than make it a 100k or 500k entry fee, grand champ o' the night walks with the gold and bragging rights
Might even cut off the entrants time to participate and have the fee in a week ahead, then be a nice sport and release the names a week before to generate some gambling on the night lol

 

[Ol'Rac Nnod]

Even in Rome the Coliseum was about riches and Glory... people made money. Prizes for the fighters and gambling for the spectators.

 

[Ol'Rac Nnod]

Some rules alright... have the fighter spot be contained, they enter a ghost, basic npc level gear is in the chests, basic components like regs. They get resurrected in the fighting arena, they must then hand over a single item they siege blessed in with them proving no other item of value is on them...they gear up, and hello we begin. Make the fighting area able for a ghost to walk in and out of, so they can walk in at the start and out at the end. No one else is getting in or out. Just a rough idea

 

[Ol'Rac Nnod]

To add the other idea, sure, make the spectator area ghosts too then no fear of interference from the spectators lol

 

[Ol'Rac Nnod]

My thought was sincere, but this EM has no desire to discuss it...**moves on**

Being that we posted over 10 hours after his op it's very possible he's doing other RL things and hasn't read our comments yet... just a wee bit o' patience.

I mean honestly I thing he's doing an excellent job so far, the soulless event was very fun, hell I remember playing years ago where nothing happened or changed for ever...someone would find some common worthless item in a new color and everyone would go nuts over it being something new.

 

[EM Kincaid]

Quite correct. I would love to spend my entire life dreaming up events for your folks, and that certainly does take up a substantial part of my week, but, unless someone wants to set up a "pay our EM's bills" kickstarter, I have to eat as well. I got back home from the office about an hour ago.

As far as replacing VvV with Hero/Evil goes, I wasn't around for those GC discussions, but it seems to me that you don't need me for that.
On a simple level, have one side wear white, and have the other side wear black. You can't get much simpler than that.

Guilds / alliances could quite easily do the job, and there's the old guild war system in there as well.

If that's not good enough, then I am more than happy to expand the two-sided royal guard system that I've been slowly building. But, beyond a few dedicated players, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of interest in playing the bad guys.

Or, just use the existing VvV system differently. Nobody is forcing you to stand on altars. Go for all-out war if you prefer. If you see someone in the opposing group, kill them, regardless of whether a town is in VvV or not.

If THAT isn't good enough, then I'm afraid my gun's out of bullets. I can't change game dynamics. You need a dev for that. I can spawn monsters, I can do limited, temporary, deco arrangements, and I can do game fiction with the best of them, but I can't change game dynamics. I can't set up a new reward system to go along with a new hero/evil system. I do have the programming skills, but I'm not a Broadsword dev.

If you're wanting that sort of thing, I would suggest that you draw up a VERY detailed design, and submit it to Mesanna. Then, maybe chat to some of the devs at the Anniversary party, if you're going. Follow up with regular emails, and try to keep the conversation going.

This thread's for something much simpler. See the initial post. If you want to start a thread about Hero/Evil, there's nothing stopping you. Nothing at all.

 

[DarkLotus[FL]]

the problem here EM Kincaid is you're not talking to any pvpers here you are talking to the care bear portion of siege that cant handle PVP with out tons of rules. if the pvp event didn't have people its because there were a few real pvpers there and unless you were going to give them a drop the rest of the care bear community said its not worth it to go die non stop to a real pvper without a reward OR they couldn't collect enough poor pvpers to try and win through numbers. they are just to afraid to lose their stuff to the people that are better then them

try making it to where all drop days are somewhere where it brings the point of being on siege out for all players.
no drop day should be within a town where guards can be called or even close to a town where guards can be called

 

[Forsaken]

I would have been there, but Arnold didn't think to mention it to me until after he won...For obvious reasons!

 

[-Hey Arnold-]

outcome would have been the same

 

[Forsaken]

That is some bbbbbbbbbbbbsssssssssssss =D

 

[SpyderBite]

With the exception of the house bugs; why can't we take note of the very successful duel tournaments we had in the past? There were some really good house designs that did quite a good job of preventing outside interference, allowed more than 20+ players to watch the tournaments and restricted cheating. Not sure why we're reinventing the wheel when a simple search through the Stratics archives would provide more than enough inspiration.

CWS Fight Night 2004 - Siege Perilous player-run Tournament PT 1

 

[SpyderBite]

That link was a poor example.. trying to dig up old photobucket pics of some of the good tournaments..

 

[Forsaken]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I see Crunch when he was a lil' itty' baby in Vmp!!! So cute! I see my girl Brook on Chelin! Rest of you gtfo!!!!

 

[Forsaken]

p.s. I don't think BlacK RaiN/Draxous had fully convinced me to come over yet from Atlantic in 04'...