Curse

Billiard · Dec 18, 2007, 03:07 AM // 03:07

Any thoughts about doing a tiered tournament like the RAWR Cup Andrew?

Zuranthium · Dec 18, 2007, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I will ask about the scheduling issues, as well as the issue with forfeits. Keep in mind, though, that when hosting a global event, one has to find the one time that works for the most people. It will not be ideal for everyone, it may not even be ideal for anyone, but it needs to be a time that is reasonable for the bulk of those it is targeted at. Basing it on the ideal time for Americans can make it unworkable for Europeans and vice versa so a sort of "neutral time" needs to be found.

I blame whoever decided the world was round personally.

I think the idea was more about the DAILY Automated Tournaments. As in, there needs to be more of them. Is there a resource limitation that prevents something like 6 ATs per day from being possible?

~Z

TheOneMephisto · Dec 18, 2007, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I think the idea was more about the DAILY Automated Tournaments. As in, there needs to be more of them. Is there a resource limitation that prevents something like 6 ATs per day from being possible?

~Z

Well having too many ATs a day also creates problems, like the fact that there simply aren't enough active guilds in GW to populate all of those ATs and you'll still end up with guilds of huge skill disparities fighting each other.

Ensign · Dec 18, 2007, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I will ask about the scheduling issues, as well as the issue with forfeits. Keep in mind, though, that when hosting a global event, one has to find the one time that works for the most people.

For the monthly tournaments that is absolutely the case; I have no complaints about the scheduling of the monthly tournaments. I'm talking about the daily ATs, which don't synch up with the most active times worldwide. Our world is mighty convenient for this purpose actually; daily ATs start 8 hours apart, and our major population centers are also 8 hours apart; Europe at +0 to +2 GMT, the USA at -8 to -5 GMT, and the Pacific Rim at +8 to +10 GMT. Hence with proper placement, you can make a daily AT schedule that is symmetrical for all of your major population bases.

17eIvIoN · Dec 18, 2007, 12:40 PM // 12:40

that is definitely the main problem, i mean as a guild we GvG everynight around 9-12 GMT i think hte only AT we can get in is the Friday one at 11pm which requires 8 people to be able to hang around till 3am, c'mon anet pull finger out

Yawgmoth · Dec 18, 2007, 03:13 PM // 15:13

The Amazon cards as prizes are great, much better than those fixed prizes we had for the whole year. But I can't imagine how an in-game prize can replace them... just can't... even most awesome unique in-game items can in no way be compared to real world $100 or $500... Looks like a huge step back.
And all that starting as soon as May'08, soo early. I expected something similar to happen after GW2 release, when the big money will be there, but now?
That's for the 'exciting monday news' I've been waiting for. GG.

Ec]-[oMaN · Dec 18, 2007, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I think the idea was more about the DAILY Automated Tournaments. As in, there needs to be more of them. Is there a resource limitation that prevents something like 6 ATs per day from being possible?

~Z

This is what I want to know also.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Well having too many ATs a day also creates problems, like the fact that there simply aren't enough active guilds in GW to populate all of those ATs and you'll still end up with guilds of huge skill disparities fighting each other.

True but currently really from American playtime stand points if you do anything during the day, realistically the only time EST+PST can play are on Friday+Sat nights assuming you are back for those times and or aren't too heavily intoxicated

. Sunday+Monday and maybe Tuesday.
I still think more AT's need to be scheduled around the prime times for each relative zone. There's also the possibility of RAWR type tiered ATs.

Thom Bangalter · Dec 18, 2007, 06:51 PM // 18:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Well having too many ATs a day also creates problems, like the fact that there simply aren't enough active guilds in GW to populate all of those ATs and you'll still end up with guilds of huge skill disparities fighting each other.

I don't see how this is any different then the current AT system.

Unless you count the bonus of more convenient times.

Ensign · Dec 18, 2007, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

even most awesome unique in-game items can in no way be compared to real world $100 or $500... Looks like a huge step back.

Not that it's anything that people at A.Net would smile upon, but using the exchange rates from the goldhausen, the first everlasting beetle tonics sold for between $800 and $1000 worth of in-game gold. The first eternal blade to come out of the Underworld, and excuse me for forgetting who did the math on this, sold for somewhere around $6000 to $8000. Well done in game prizes have a much higher potential value than the physical prizes they've been giving out.

Kaon · Dec 18, 2007, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Not that it's anything that people at A.Net would smile upon, but using the exchange rates from the goldhausen, the first everlasting beetle tonics sold for between $800 and $1000 worth of in-game gold. The first eternal blade to come out of the Underworld, and excuse me for forgetting who did the math on this, sold for somewhere around $6000 to $8000. Well done in game prizes have a much higher potential value than the physical prizes they've been giving out.

Really? Emp only got 400euros for his everlasting on Ebay... QQ for him i guess :P.

Ensign · Dec 18, 2007, 11:18 PM // 23:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Really? Emp only got 400euros for his everlasting on Ebay... QQ for him i guess :P.

I guess. Those numbers are buy prices from goldhausen, not sell. Either way in game rewards can easily be on par with physical prizes.

Thom Bangalter · Dec 19, 2007, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The first eternal blade to come out of the Underworld, and excuse me for forgetting who did the math on this, sold for somewhere around $6000 to $8000.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10230515

Basically, as long as anet looks the other way, this is the most cost-effective way to hand out prizes, as they dont actually have to spend money to give people a fairly large prize.

Andrew Patrick · Dec 19, 2007, 09:41 PM // 21:41

What sort of changes would you like to see to the daily times? I am writing up my Community Summary and would like to include some specific suggestions.

Thanks!

Guillaume De Sonoma · Dec 20, 2007, 03:18 AM // 03:18

If you give a mouse a cookie...
I like the gift card ideas, I wish the AT times were more consitent though.

Elrodien · Dec 20, 2007, 09:29 AM // 09:29

ATs starting between 20.00 and 22.00 GMT pls?

lucky k · Dec 20, 2007, 09:37 AM // 09:37

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10234568

Mabey some of you in this thread could /agree or /disagree on this it has to do with a new idea for a Quarterly or Annual GvG Tourney. Much like the pro bowl or NBA allstars.

smrandom · Dec 20, 2007, 05:06 PM // 17:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

What sort of changes would you like to see to the daily times? I am writing up my Community Summary and would like to include some specific suggestions.

Thanks!

It'd be nice if there were more Daily ATs that start during weekday evenings/nights--I'm thinking between 7pm and 11pm EST. Speaking solely for North American start times (using EST as a base), the current schedule offers only 2 ATs during the week that have a starting time between those times: Monday (9 pm) and Tuesday (7 pm). Other than those two times, there are not any other reasonably convenient start times during the week. I can't speak for anyone else but the members of my guild and Alliance, but the vast majority generally play during the week in the evenings (usually at the times I mentioned).

Winstar · Dec 20, 2007, 10:57 PM // 22:57

This will likely fail but a shot,

For example for each day and 3 tournaments

(A) 3:00am GMT (10:00pm est) (B) 11:00am GMT (7pm at +8 so for the East) (C) 9:00pm GMT (Europe)

Then maybe toggle it an hour or so either way to be fair each day.

Oink The Pig · Dec 20, 2007, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Something like 4PM-9PM Pacific/7PM-12AM Eastern on weeknights (M-F) would cover the American time zones fairly well. Similar times can be worked out for Europe and Asia. Ensign already suggested synching up the times to coincide with primetime Asia, Europe, and America. It seems logical to have Daily A, B, and C each cater to primetime of a different region. Perhaps increasing the number of AT's daily or at least on weekends might help as well. Activity level data should allow for additional tweaks to the schedule to get the most participants in each.

Perhaps test new times for 2-4 weeks and compare the participation levels (e.g. number of participants, number of first-round forfeits) to see if they're an improvement.

Also, the Amazon gift certificates are a great idea, since the prize is easier to split internally if a guild needs to use more than just a core 8.

Ensign · Dec 21, 2007, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

What sort of changes would you like to see to the daily times? I am writing up my Community Summary and would like to include some specific suggestions.

Thanks!

As many weekday ATs should fall between 5 PM GMT and 8 PM GMT as possible, as well as 8 hours before and after that. The current schedule for daily ATs has the 'evening' ATs beginning at 6 PM, 4 PM, 3 PM, 2 PM, and 1 PM (and a late 9 PM on Friday) PST; Europe gets a slightly better schedule with 7 PM, 6 PM, 4 PM, 3 PM, and 2 PM GMT, which gives then an extra 'good' tournament early in the week, but the general map is the same, towards the middle and end of the work week the daily AT schedule is completely dead.

I'll give you four schedules I like, depending on how much change you're comfortable with.

To keep the current scheduling model without changing much, two things should happen; first, rotate the daily schedule by a couple of days; keeping the current schedule, start the chart on Friday instead of Wednesday. That would move several appealing evening AT times off of the weekends and into the week, and move afternoon ATs out of the week and into the weekend where they could play. The other is to adjust the dead hours. There are 21 ATs per week, covering 21 of the 24 hours. Two of the three 'dead' hours are 17:00 GMT, which at 18:00 CET and 19:00 EET is perhaps the best possible European AT time; and 01:00 GMT, which at 17:00 PST and 20:00 EST is one of the best possible American AT times. Moving the 'hole' up a couple of hours into the least popular AT slots would give you more good starting times to work with.

A good version of that schudule looks something like this:

Sunday: 6:00, 14:00, 22:00
Monday: 5:00, 13:00, 21:00
Tuesday: 4:00, 12:00, 20:00
Wednesday: 3:00, 11:00, 19:00
Thursday: 2:00, 10:00, 18:00
Friday: 1:00, 9:00, 17:00
Saturday: 0:00, 8:00, 16:00, (23:00)
(All times GMT)

The D Tourney on Saturday being a filler, Saturday night tourney to deal with the 14 hour gap created by an ascending schedule. That gap is currently Wednesday night. You can't push the gap into a meaningless night without putting a dead hour in prime time (as current).

If you wanted to shake the schedule up a bit more, there are a couple even better options to explore. One is to make the ATs start a bit later each day instead of a bit earlier each day (and instead of having a 15 hour gap with no AT, you drop one AT from the schedule). That lets you maximize the overlap of prime time slots with a late night Friday AT, which is the one day that particular tourney will see a pretty good turnout.

Good version looks something like:

Monday: 0:00, 9:00, 17:00
Tuesday: 1:00, 10:00, 18:00
Wednesday: 2:00, 11:00, 19:00
Thursday: 3:00, 12:00, 20:00
Friday: 4:00, 13:00, 21:00
Saturday: 5:00, 14:00, 22:00
Sunday: 6:00, 15:00
(All times GMT)

Another really good version of the schedule you can use starts ATs every 7 hours instead of every 8, starting at midnight Sunday GMT. This gives prime time ATs on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and is perhaps better than the other schedules because it leaves room for prime time Hero Battle ATs on Tuesday and Thursday.

Again, all times GMT:

Sunday: 0:00, 7:00, 14:00, 21:00
Monday: 4:00, 11:00, 18:00
Tuesday: 1:00, 8:00, 15:00, 22:00
Wednesday: 5:00, 12:00, 19:00
Thursday: 2:00, 9:00, 16:00, 23:00
Friday: 6:00, 13:00, 20:00
Saturday: 3:00, 10:00, 19:00

If you're stuck with exactly 3 ATs per GMT day and don't mind the schedule being a bit kludgy, you can make much, much better schedules. For instance, if you replace the 14 hour gap with 3 10 hour gaps, and have some time overlaps, you can get this, GMT of course:

Sunday: 2:00, 12:00, 20:00
Monday: 3:00, 13:00, 21:00
Tuesday: 4:00, 12:00, 20:00
Wednesday: 3:00, 11:00, 19:00
Thursday: 2:00, 10:00, 18:00
Friday: 1:00, 9:00, 17:00
Saturday: 0:00, 10:00, 18:00

The principal issue with this schedule is maintaining the same principle for the Hero Battle schedule. You'd have to base the hero battle schedule on a different timezone to avoid getting overlap or more than 3 tournaments per day.

One more as a bonus - similar principle to the last one, but with ascending times. ATs start one hour later each day on weekdays, creating 4 gaps of 9 hours. You make this up by putting the prime weekend ATs closer together. This has a double benefit of a great weekday AT schedule, and a downright awesome weekend one:

Sunday: 3:00, 11:00, 18:00
Monday: 1:00, 9:00, 17:00
Tuesday: 1:00, 10:00, 18:00
Wednesday: 2:00, 11:00, 19:00
Thursday: 3:00, 12:00, 20:00
Friday: 4:00, 13:00, 21:00
Saturday: 5:00, 13:00, 20:00
(All times GMT)

In more practical terminology, for North Americans: 8 PM EST on Monday, 9 PM on Tuesday, 10 PM on Wednesday, 11 on Thursday, and midnight Friday. Then on Saturday, there's an afternoon AT at 3 PM and one later that night at 10; on Sunday, one at 1 PM and one last tourney at 8 PM.

For Europeans on CET: 7 PM on Monday to 11 PM on Friday, one hour later each day. Then an afternoon tournament at 2 PM and an evening one at 9 Saturday; noon and 7 PM on Sunday.

This last schedule does a better job than any of the previous ones at really taking advantage of peak hours to maximize participation.

I hope this is enough concrete ideas to work with?