You need to check in on the challonge page half an hour before the tournament starts. Standard for tournaments, plus, I gave you a link...

It's okay, a lot of people miss check in- We lost about 10 players this time. But these are weekly tournaments, so hop in for the next one!

Have you tried joining the chatroom via web browser?

Anyway, if you really can't get in the group chat, make sure you can at lease communicate with someone to know what's going on.

For starters, be sure to check in: http://quackout.challonge.com/l9b9m5o7

For most online tournaments, there are usually a handful of people that end up streaming their own matches, and they just post links to their streams. As we get more people, and more participants in the tourneys, we'll inevitably end up getting more people willing to stream.

This cuts out the need for a middleman, too. If one of the players streams, it all still flows just as well. If we want commentary, we can stream the streams. We'll get the "spectator" feel, without needing a spectator.

But really, as fun as it is to watch matches, tournaments will always be for the participants themselves, above the spectators. Keep that in mind. When you get up to semifinals, barely win, and then need to wait half an hour (or more) for finals, it kills the momentum, you aren't warmed up anymore, and it results in a match that could have been a lot better. Both to play, and to watch.

16 people is still a pretty small tournament, as far as online competition goes. It'll just be a matter of time.

To the players- If you can stream, then you should stream. It makes everything better.

I guess. I just see it all as a lot of factors that will just complicate the flow of the tournament. The more the players can do on their own, the better, because tournaments are, first and foremost, for the participants.

I get the feeling that people here have not run or been part of a tournament before, which explains the desire to immediately jump into publicized, governed matches, cause hey, they're the most fun to watch. But we could go back and forth on this forever. I guess I'll just let you guys figure it out. :P

Given time, players will naturally want to stream their games- Especially the top-ranking ones. It's free publicity that we shouldn't need to worry about. lol

If the host has a poor connection, then everyone lags.

It's super easy to want to micromanage matches, but it really isn't necessary. If you want a match with less lag, it'll need less variables (i.e. less people). Otherwise, it just gets that much harder to control.

Ooh, that door in the center is nice. That could work out really well. Maybe add a crate to each side, just to mix things up?

Also, do those platforms on the bottom just drop off the map?

That's only going to work if one of the players can viably stream. With lag being what it is already, for the majority of players, streaming on top of that would cripple the game.

I get that it'd be really cool to be able to watch all the games, but it just isn't going to be a realistic approach.

Originally posted by kilozombie:

dm_recoil could use more of a dividing line between the first and second spawns

This would probably be best. I can see a multitude of drop-kills happening right from the starting gates.

With dm_recoil, it looks like 1 and 4 could have the advantage- Slide and grab the phasers. Then 2 and 3 can either grab the pistols and come out above 1 and 4 (who could likely score a vertical shot in that confined space), or they go for the old pistol and get phaser'd... Or not. Looks like it could be close.

In either case, 1 and 4 have a much better mobile advantage, since they could either cover the center quickly, or drop down the sides and be safe, whereas 2 and 3 risk being hit straight out of the spawn unless they play it carefully.

The other issue I see would be one of lag- The positioning and the relative distance of the old pistol makes it pretty advantageous, but also pretty easy to get to off the spawn, which could easily end up with both players going for it, "wrong hands" bug, etc.

Also noticed that there's no censoring in group forums? That's fucking neat. :P

1. Probably not at first- It'll all depend how it goes. But it's nice to have the option.

2. If we have everyone in the group participate, without a host, we can have a 19/20-man tournament (usually 1 organizer, which I'd be fine filling that role and not playing). With a host for each match, the most people we could have in the tournament and have things run at the same speed is a whopping 6.

It'll make the issue of host advantage harder to predict (Since it'll go to whoever has the better ping, vs. whoever decides to start the lobby), but especially with the current maps, that still creates problem scenarios. If we used tournament-designed levels, as you mentioned, that should mitigate the issue almost entirely.

And what we could do instead is play three matches (Either to 5 points, or 10), and have the loser of the previous match host. Over the course of the set, that should absolutely balance out.

Edit: Well, I guess Tymp is pretty set on having a third-party host. Nevermind all of this, then. lol

That chainsaw map is almost always a massacre. :P

I really love the RC car as a special weapon because it's undeniably powerful (You're driving a grenade around), but it can be shut down by shooting it, and the player controlling it is completely open during it. The mind control works similarly, but in a 1v1, that weakness isn't ever exposed.

For other overpowered guns (blue shotgun, death ray) I think it'd be pretty awesome to have a map or two that just starts all players off with that. I'd imagine it could really change the strategy. For myself, in close-quarters fights, I always aim to bait out all their ammo before taking a shot, cause once they start running, they're a sitting duck (Sorry, I had to). With blue shotguns, that strategy goes away, and for people that play more defensively (Hiding behind cover, throwing boxes to block shots), it wouldn't work at all against death rays. Could be interesting.

I should dive into the editor sometime, see what I can do. Curious to see your maps, as well. :)