Suggestion regarding larger tourneys

[Garou]

Hello everyone. I'd like to start by thanking everyone involved for taking the time out to schedule, run, and cast TSR every week. It's an awesome experience and I know for us in Wolfpack, it's become something we look forward to each week. Urz, Papa, Brick, Imagine, you guys are awesome.

That said, I wanted to post a thought I had regarding tourney length. This week we saw a great turnout for the tourney, with 7 clans vying for the win. It's great to see, but at the same time I saw a number of comments regarding how long the tourney ran.

I was thinking that instead of streaming every match, perhaps matches could be run simultaneously. In the case of two matches running at the same time, one could be live streamed while the other could have a referee watching the action and breaking into the live broadcast with score reports, when a team wins a match or series. This referee could perhaps also be recording the match, and afterward a highlight reel or the match in full could be posted on the twitch site.

This would allow everyone to view their performances while also having less wait time, without having to change the format to a "one-and-done" like the COGs etc. I personally feel the "best of 3" approach is a great one, especially for clans new to competitive play, as it gives them an opportunity for a comeback. I also feel the victories are more decisive with a "best of 3" format.

Anyhow, just a thought, and thanks again for all the work you guys put in. Can't wait for next week!

[-Mad Maverick-]

I agree with all of this whole heartily

[Skrimskraw]

I think we, corvus, waited 1.5 hours to play yesterday, and rhinos waited longer.

I know it's fun to watch the streams but an event that takes up to 3-4 hours every week is hard on you especially when it could potentially end at 2am CET. People have school and work etc.

so yea agreed on either a best of 1 way or run several games at the same time.

[Wundsalz]

I strongly support the idea of parallel matches - even if that implies some of them don't get streamed. Waiting for two hours before the action starts sucks - especially if you don't know that you've to wait that long prior to the event. Also the event lasted way too long for Eu-centered clans like ours. Two of our members actually had to leave us before our first match started, because they had to get to work early. If you need to get up at 5-7am on Monday you simply can't play beyond midnight on Sunday.

[Mr. Ace Rimmer]

Overwatch would have no problem participating in dark matches for the sake of streamlining the tournament. We too enjoy the best of 3 format of the Sunday Rumble and feel that once you get 5 or more teams a week, this might be the best way to approach things.

[Gryphos]

There's no need to not stream certain matches. All you need to do is have multiple streams covering games simultaneously. They did it on the last day of Flotsam and it worked fine.

[Wundsalz]

There's no need to not stream certain matches. All you need to do is have multiple streams covering games simultaneously. They did it on the last day of Flotsam and it worked fine.

If we've got the manpower to stream simultaneously this would certainly be the best solution.

[Mr. Ace Rimmer]

Thing is, at the moment I think we are using Urz stream (CESports) with just Brick and Papa commentating (<3 you guys)

I think it's up to them if they want to expand their team or run with the dark match option also on the table.

[Imagine]

Thing is, at the moment I think we are using Urz stream (CESports) with just Brick and Papa commentating (<3 you guys)

I think it's up to them if they want to expand their team or run with the dark match option also on the table.

I'm casting it too (sometimes)!

Anyways, I can't/don't want to speak for TSR too much as it is Urz's thing, but generally having multiple streams running at once is not ideal as splitting audience is generally bad. That having been said, I do agree that there was too much wait time for those participating, but it's not as simple as just let's get all the games going at once in this case. The amount of teams for this last TSR came as kindof a surprise, frankly, as so far there have really been only 3-4 teams wanting in, so to suddenly jump to 7 made it a lot more difficult time wise. But I'll leave it to Urz of how he'll want to deal with something like it for upcoming tournaments since, as I said, this is his thing.

Oh, also, as a quick note, the time it takes to cast these games also depends on you, the participants, specifically the time it takes you guys to get games going. I know you want to discuss strategy and loadouts between matches, but there were several times yesterday when the lobby was full for a good 10 minutes before any ready was thrown up, on top of which there was one specific instance in which one team would unready as the start timer was about to wind down and then ready back up again to reset the counter. Personally I'd impose a time limit between games for teams to figure out what they want to do, but for now, you guys have really gotta stop taking these extended breaks if you want the matches to progress faster.

[Skrimskraw]

when it comes down to waiting 1.5 hours and getting your game streamed. vs not getting streamed and getting to play imidiately. I think you'd find most backup for the latter.

[Mr. Ace Rimmer]

Agreed Skrim.

[Imagine]

when it comes down to waiting 1.5 hours and getting your game streamed. vs not getting streamed and getting to play imidiately. I think you'd find most backup for the latter.

Which I completely understand from a player perspective (because, hell, I've experienced it myself), but that differs from a production/tournament organizing perspective.

As I said, the large amount of team increase (I mean, it was basically double for this last rumble than it has been previously) led to most of these problems, we'll see if it's something that will come up next weekend as well.

[-Mad Maverick-]

  i understand you guys wanting to keep the production level where you want it, but the reality is if you actually want the rumble to grow you need to get more creative.  i assume your first thought is to make the matches best of one instead of three(brinck mentioned this in the stream) which isnt a bad idea for 7-10 teams but what if you actually get 15 teams that sign up one day?   Be a forward thinking person instead of reactionary.  By simply having some matches played without stream and have the results reported via scoreboard a la EVERY OTHER SPORTS CAST ON THE PLANET, you would be able to host an infinitely large tourney and lose nothing production wise.  In fact I would argue that by having a scoreboard-ticker-like-thing at the bottom of the screen would actually add to the feeling of grand-scale and importance of the rumble  and ADD to what you guys are doing each week.   

Not to mention your production level on the tourney will inevitably falter when less and less teams sign up for it because they dont have 4 hours to give every week.   

Do what you do I just want to see the rumble continue to grow.

[shadowsteel]

I agree with Maverick. Not all the matches have to be streamed. And I really like the idea of a scoreboard that could be updated and maybe overlayed on the live stream.

It would be great if they could all be recorded though.

I think the best way to decide which ones to stream, is to have signups end at 300/330 and then put all the matches to a vote with the most popular match(s) getting streamed.

[Imagine]

  i understand you guys wanting to keep the production level where you want it, but the reality is if you actually want the rumble to grow you need to get more creative.  i assume your first thought is to make the matches best of one instead of three(brinck mentioned this in the stream) which isnt a bad idea for 7-10 teams but what if you actually get 15 teams that sign up one day?   Be a forward thinking person instead of reactionary.  By simply having some matches played without stream and have the results reported via scoreboard a la EVERY OTHER SPORTS CAST ON THE PLANET, you would be able to host an infinitely large tourney and lose nothing production wise.  In fact I would argue that by having a scoreboard-ticker-like-thing at the bottom of the screen would actually add to the feeling of grand-scale and importance of the rumble  and ADD to what you guys are doing each week.

Not to mention your production level on the tourney will inevitably falter when less and less teams sign up for it because they dont have 4 hours to give every week.   

Do what you do I just want to see the rumble continue to grow.

Ok so, first of all, what I'm saying is more in generics because once again, I'm not running TSR, or really any other tournament, so I'm just speaking about what I know about general production standards.

Secondly, c'mon now, you know well that there won't be 15 teams signing up, don't be purposefully obtuse. (btw, if that ever happens, I'd never be happier to be proven wrong because it would mean the game is going in all sorts of right directions)

Thirdly, a scoreboard ticker thing is a hellof a lot harder to pull of than waving your hand and saying make it so. While there can be someone watching another game and passing casters info to put out during in game downtimes, an actual scoreboard ticker is bloody friggin hard to pull off.

Anyways, my point is people assume all sorts of things about streaming and casting by saying just do this or that without actually knowing what kind of stuff happens behind the scenes, and I'm letting you know right now, adding things usually ends up being significantly harder or just not worth the time, because, unlike EVERY OTHER SPORTS CAST ON THE PLANET the budget for something like this is, oh, somewhere along the lines of absolutely zero money.

So once again, I personally understand the frustration with some of this, but I actually have nothing to do with the organization of the tournament. Just wanted to put in a word from a production perspective so that maybe the bashing jerkfest that goes on about casters wouldn't get out of hand.

On a side note, I do like how my point about players taking 15 or so minutes to get games started hasn't been addressed like, at all. G'job, selective posters.