Should the Main Tournament Shut Down?

[VySaika]

Soppy's basically said most of what I'd want to. Why should the main tournament stay? Because I still have fun with it. And I still enjoy writing for it. This whole thing is just for fun anyway, so "still have fun with it" is a perfectly legitimate reason.

I like the idea of the 8 week season, splitting the prelims up into 4 weeks.

I like the idea of making result comments optional. Arena page writeups aren't a hassle at all(at least for me, can't really speak for anyone else) so I don't think those need changing.

As such, I'm not a fan of the "standardized writeups" idea. Sorry Djinn, it just strikes me as a bad idea.

Putting notes about MF6/LFT/etc up on the main site would be pretty cool, IMO. As would tapping into the romhacking community for new blood if we're still looking. At the very least, we'd be a hell of a playtesting audience for some stuff.

[Idun]

I joined because Talaysen mentioned a site where people focused more on talking about games than they did about boobs, sex and what people behind their avs really looked like. I wasn't convinced, so first I stalked the chat a bit and then I joined the forums. I have to say that I have been very impressed as everyone here, who are still passionate about games.

Since everyone should understand by now that I am pretty clueless about the tourney, I'll make suggestions for the main site. But I am going to preface these suggestions with more additions than subtractions.Since this site is really reflective of a tight knit community, I don't see any reason that the site doesn't reflect that. The site is solely the Tourney [which is fine], and the writers are being burned out. But from what I gather, there are members in chat who are maintaining their own game-related poll site, or something similar. For example, when I was actually playing games consistently, I made pretty hefty updates via my Wordpress account for game reviews, some game footage (before I deleted YT, etc.) Perhaps I'm asking for those who do these things, to aggregate their work somehow with the site under different sections or come up with a collective example of what they do?

So essentially, I'm backing up OK's suggestion of adding RPG reviews. It would not be stipulated to staff members; it would be purely user-generated, which I believe would make some things less formulaic. The review section hasn't gotten much umpf, but I do find myself re-reading people's reviews because they are interesting.

I've always been interested in adding a card game to the site. Something similar to Triple Triad or Tetramaster, but nothing too close to copyright infringement that the RPGDL may be ransacked by the man. And if we're starting from scratch, nothing flashy or anything needs to be made. Sounds like more work than anything though, since someone spiffy with programming would have to do all that math stuff and randomizing stuff. I mean, RPGDL plays card games all the time right? Why not make our own RPGDL Spades, or RPGDL Poker or something with varying card decks based on seasons or something? Why isn't Laggy's Tactics patch, or any gameplay videos of it on the main site? That way, I wouldn't have to be in chat or stalk his page all day.

If you guys are in unison for making breaks between seasons or something longer, perhaps the apprehension to that could be dissuaded by other spots on the site being able to attract attention? I don't know if this would be in new members though.

Also, the standardized text below characters or something doesn't sound terribly bad. It could be redundant, but that could be offset by different things like rotating staff during seasons or weekly updates, and they could add their own unique twist to the characters? That way, it lessens the work for both people, you see multiple people pitching in for the summaries, and the texts are standardized, but rotate. And accordingly, if there's something that could be added if there's a particular match, it would be.

Plus I asked about a graph I saw. Maybe the RPGDL also needs just a little more advertising? [I can work with flash very slapstick, but--] There's a big section of YT that likes seeing Bleach X Character Versus Bleach X character. I'm sure there's folks out there who want to see more than just Cloud vs. Sephiroth? Perhaps upload some cheesy video about who would win? Again, this is more additive than subtractive. Also, if there are other tourney sites, do they have similar issues? If people have issues with the NR because it doesn't get enough umpf, but the NR DOES have a cult backing (does it?), perhaps there could be a way that those people could sponsor a character after having providing thorough stat backgrounds or what have you? Iono. Those are the only ideas I can think of. I don't think RPGDL needs previews, news, and all of that excessive (and more often than not, useless) stuff that could be added to a game-related website.

[SageAcrin]

I sympathize with the people that are burned out and want to stop writing. There's nothing wrong with that. But as long as we have people who want to keep the arena going and will still put the work in, I believe it should keep going. If there comes a time when no one wants to do it anymore, then let it die a natural death. Let's not artificially kill it right now.

The problem is that a natural death of the DL will come mid-season when no one can be found to write the required amounts of stuff, and will probably involve misery and drama. While I respect the thought there, it's a lot better to discuss the idea before that comes to pass.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Okay, looking at the bracket-division talk, one thing I have to disagree with OK: I feel it's best to keep the seasons shorter rather than longer - NR, to me, highlighted how uninteresting a season gets when it drags on for too long. However, I do agree that culling down on crunch weeks = good. So much that I'd rather have no crunch week at all for writeup numbers. My approach, in this case, would be cut down the amount of duellers who get in per season: instead of 16 per division, we make 8 per division. As for match spread, we have two matches per division, but in a way that we never get more than two per division: so, we get two weeks of eliminations, two weeks of quarterfinals, then semis and finals - finally, with reranking, amounting to the same six weeks we have now.

While this has very obvious disadvantages (less duellers per season = most likely less interesting brackets, and the odds of people's favorites getting in dilute notably. Two weeks of quarterfinals could also dilute interest further), I find that streamlining and reducing the amount of work per week is highly desirable, and it also makes the workload a lot more even. I'd like to see this discussed, really.

Also, this probably would value up the change in the reranking system as well, methinks, but that's just a gutshot.

[Monkeyfinger]

Would seeding have to be handled differently under that idea?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

... probably, yes. Full 1-4 seeding would rig the seasons impossibly, thinking on it.

[Dhyerwolf]

I'd definetely prefer 16 characters a division stretched out over 8 weeks rather than 8 over 6. Granted, I'd take voting closing a day earlier and the update going up a day later and having an extra week over what we normally have too. Actually, I'd prefer split week 2 into 2 over splitting both weeks 1 and 2 into two myself.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You mean, ten week seasons? That would sprawl a season really thin and long, although it'd achieve the no-crunch week effect. That was an idea I toyed with myself, but felt it would make seasons -way- too long.

[Rozalia]

Since I joined (whenever that was) I've enjoyed reading the writeups, stat topics and these great forums. The main tournament was what brought me in and I liked it and still do even though I am guilty of missing voting at times.
A nice game on site might work but I've seen dead sites who had them so they didn't exactly help.

Most likely already stated but here is my input on the matter of team matchs as they've been mentioned in a few posts.

I only see them working in one way. Having teams made up from many casts is a poor idea, so 4 characters from one facing another 4 characters from another would be ideal but that would get boring fast I think (Samey matchups would happen). Putting two casts together and randomly picking the members (mixing them also) would be far better I think.
Godlike and heavy would be pool 1 while middle and light pool 2. I'm struggleing to find words to explain this clearly so I'll use an example.

Wa4 vs G1

If it is a 1st divitions pairup then the teams would be a mixture of:

Pool 1
Belial
Lambda Zellweger
Raquel Applegate
Arnaud G. Vasquez
Kresnik Ahtreide
Jeremy Non
Yulie Ahtreide
Feena
Justin
Liete
Rapp

while if second divition

Pool 2
Jude Maverick
Scythe Riebauer
Tony
Augst Henriksen
Baal
Gadwin
Mullen
Mio
Milda
Saki
Sue
Nana
Evil Gaia
Guido

They could face say a mixture of SH2 and FE9.

If this was translated to a tourny type format it would still work if the above only happened for the first matchs. So the hybrid teams went on to face other hybrid teams.
I think its a good format but it doesn't take care of the main problem Hal listed. I would like to see team tournaments but it wouldn't fix any of the problems and might create some.

[Hunter Sopko]

I sympathize with the people that are burned out and want to stop writing. There's nothing wrong with that. But as long as we have people who want to keep the arena going and will still put the work in, I believe it should keep going. If there comes a time when no one wants to do it anymore, then let it die a natural death. Let's not artificially kill it right now.

The problem is that a natural death of the DL will come mid-season when no one can be found to write the required amounts of stuff, and will probably involve misery and drama. While I respect the thought there, it's a lot better to discuss the idea before that comes to pass.

There's going to be misery and drama regardless. Why force a decision and kill it off when there are still people willing to do it? I honestly think that there'd be a whooole lot more bitter feelings doing that than if things came to their logical end. If it comes at mid-season then we'll have a conundrum to solve, no doubt I'll admit.  Discussing the idea before it comes to pass, we're doing that now, and I haven't really seen the support for it. If more people come out of the woodwork for it, then it's something to consider.

Snow's idea is worth considering. I'm still more in favor of OK's, but it's a good way to solve the work crunch without extending the season.

I think Dhyer meant split the quarterfinals over two weeks and leave Weeks 1 and 2 the way they are, which would end up with a 7 week season. A 10 week season would just be right out as far as I'm concerned...

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I still don't like the existance of the four-matches weeks if we're doing that shuffle - in that case, OK's idea of making it eight weeks is honestly superior, because regardless of how much time people get to do writeups, the brunt of them is getting done on the day they have to be up -anyway- and that means we only have one hell week for writeups.

[Dhyerwolf]

I actually meant spread it out like

Week 1: 4 Matches
Week 2: 2 Matches (Half of old week 2)
Week 3: 2 Matches (Other half)
Week 4: 4 Matches
Week 5: 2 Matches
Week 6: 1 Match
Week 7: Rerank

The advantage is that now only 1 match of the Week 4 4 matches has the one day ahead of time issue, instead of 2, and I think that was generally the week that the has the biggest issue. I prefer this to stretching out to 8 weeks, and definitely compared to cutting the number of duellers in half. Basically the same as OK's, but the season doesn't drag on quite as long.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The main problem to me is having points with four matches per division at all. How much time you have to get it done is not really the main issue, as I mentioned before - the brunt of the writeups tends to be made at best the day before it has to be up. There's always scrambling. We could try to enforce making writeups ahead of time and miserably fall flat on our faces, like it has happened multiple times - and honestly, I think it's best to work with how things get done than try to enforce a policy that always fell through the cracks whenever brought up. If the crunch is going to be reduced, you need to reduce the amount of writeups per week across the board at a minimum.

[superaielman]

Need to read this topic more in depth, but just a quick response:

Be better to keep week 1-2 as is, and split up week 3.  4-4-2-2-1-extra is much more elegant and we should have advance notice on every week that isn't week 5.

[Dhyerwolf]

You're missing a two in there (as well as another week with no advance notice), but yes, that would work too.

[Ranmilia]

There's going to be misery and drama regardless. Why force a decision and kill it off when there are still people willing to do it?

That would be true, but the thing is that there aren't.  We are ALREADY in a situation where there are not people willing to do the amount of work required every week.  It's getting done by the same few people every week, several of whom I know for a fact are not interested and only do it out of obligation and not wanting to make a scene by quitting.  There's lots of uncomfortable prodding in chat.  I have to jump out weekly since I got yelled at for trying to hang gaming bait on writeups night and just don't want to deal with it. 

By taking this attitude you're putting all the onus of quitting by default on the people who are already stressed about it, and then they're the ones who'll get the blame for killing the tourney when they do.  It's a bad scene all around.  I shouldn't even really be saying anything about it!  But they're my friends and I don't like seeing this get dumped on them... so.

[Hunter Sopko]

Then I would say they need to remember what this topic is all about and speak up now or forever hold their piece. I know it's not fair to put everything on them, but regardless, it's still on them to be the ones to admit that they don't want to work anymore. If they're not honest, we can't have a good discussion on how to move forward.

If thats how you were treated, Alex, then bitchsmack Super or whoever did that, because thats honestly what they deserved. 

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It's amazingly naive of you to say that, Soppy. I will be open-and-shut here: I honestly would be perfectly fine with never having to do another writeup or edit in my life - I mean, the DL is cool and all, but I've been doing this for five years. You have been doing it for almost ten years yourself. It gets tiresome - and I honestly think this is most perceivable within the editors, since we end up with the biggest part of the writing work, even if it's just line-adjusting in theory. But it's just not that simple to leave the community hanging, and you also know that it's very possible that one key member leaving will cause a fallback of multiple people. It's not nearly as easy as you make it out to be, because there's more strings attached than just liking to do voluntary work or not. The dynamics on this are more complex than that, and opening -that- can of worms probably requires its own topic if it is to be done, rather than calling for a wedding stopper in the middle of a distinct topic.

As I personally, and rather harshly, see it, the simplest way would be to simply automate the entire process, stripping the battles of text, for the sake of keeping the battles around - since the whole concept is what makes most of the data we garnered and put to work revolves around, and what makes many of those things make sense. But it's pretty obvious that people don't want that level of coldness - and, as such, there has to be some compromise, which is what I've been operating under all this time. And this topic, as far as I see it, is about compromise and retooling.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The writeups aren't the reason I like having the tournament on the main site. I like how well organized the main site keeps the tournament. The duelist roster, the records of past duels, their divisions and numeric rankings, and the 'official-ness' of this being the tournament that we have on the main page, instead of just on the forums. It makes doing the work for stat topics, or DL-based art, or things like the List tourney a lot more rewarding to know that they contribute to the main tournament event.

Without it, a lot of those things are still useful for discussion, but there's a lot less application opportunities.

I personally don't come to the main site for the writeups, but I do like them. I certainly like them -more- when it's obvious that a writer was enjoying doing the writeup. That's why I think standardized writeups work better, simply because it allows the writers to work on a more voluntary basis, and I think it will give us more of those inspired, quality writeups.

If standardized writeups don't work for you, then reduced-length writeups are an option, too. Scar brought up the idea of 'stat rundown' writeup. This could be used in conjunction with 1-2 sentence writeups to reduce the overall workload without having to change anything (because honestly, as much as we talk about it, change rarely happens here, better to start small with something that one or two people can dedicate themselves to doing, and then the change will happen progressively).

As an example of something like this, the Punchout-inspired 'stats rundown' from FIT was pretty awesome, and simply included a few basic numerical stats from the duelists' records.

A more generalized 'stats rundown'+writeup example might be more like flavor text grading so it doesn't influence a reader's interps too 'officially'.
e.g.
Cecilia Lyn Adlehyde (WA1)
HP: C-
ATK: F
MAG: A+
SPD: C
Notes: Cecilia's magic-absorbing Parasol is the key to victory this week, as Tir's signature instant death ability certainly qualifies as magic! Cecilia's out to prove that Princesses can play in Godlike just as well as main heroes and final bosses!

It's much shorter, easy-to-read, and serves the same general purpose as current write-ups without being nearly as much of a hassle on our writers.


Also, we still have that 'fiction' section that's been languishing without a new Niu writeup for a while.

We could certainly add things like Meeple's Let's Plays and Abridged series there, OK's legendary IAQ, my DL-Tarot deck/writeups, and any number of notes on MF6 and LFT (and these patches!~), the RPGmon program (that may or may not be helpful to outsiders, but *I* want it, at least), as well as links to the parts of the site that aren't linked anywhere else (FE7 stats, the DL Wiki, votedraw spreadsheet, booted duelists' records/bios). It'd be nice to see Nyarlie's dungeon get a spot on the main site, at least the records of previous teams' performances (and retired incarnations of floors could be interesting too, because it would allow newcomers to use these tools on their own without the voting if they felt like. A mental exercise on if they could make a team that they personally feel would beat certain floors of the dungeon). I have logs of all the old Nyarlie topics from the old forums, too... >.>;;

We're a community site now, let's put the things we have made specifically for our community up on our site!

[Monkeyfinger]

Standardized writeups sound like a decent "break in case of emergency" idea if all writers end up going "fuck it, I can't do this anymore." But we're not to that point yet.

[Hunter Sopko]

It's not naive, because what Hal's been saying this whole time is that IF EVER there was a time for people to be honest about not wanting to work anymore, NOW IS THE TIME. We can't make an informed decision without that. Hal's entire point of this topic is for people to be honest with themselves about whether or not they want to do this anymore, and holding that back is not going to help us any.

If people come out and say "I don't want to do this anymore", then that's the Arena's natural death and while I'll be disappointed, thats just how it goes. If people admit that and are willing to compromise, thats how it goes, but this isn't going to benefit anyone in the long run unless we're honest here and now. It'll be the same stress and beneath the surface tension with a new wrapper.

Shit is not going to get fixed just by tweaking the system, the people need to say whats bothering them too. They don't have to make a big scene. Being honest is not making a scene, as long as they're diplomatic about it. I think we're all mature enough to do that. People have already said as much in this very topic- you're a perfect example, Snow. And thats fine. If we don't get a good idea of what kind of workforce we will have going foward, then we can't make an informed decision of how to change. It doesn't mean we've never valued their contributions, nor does it preclude the possibility of them coming back into the fold at some point in the future. Yes, there's the danger of the domino effect, but I'd rather the Arena die than leave members of the DL stuck doing something they don't want to do. And yes, peer pressure can be a bitch, but sadly this is the time that people need to be honest and make a decision. I would just ask them to remember what I said before, that it doesn't mean they're turning themselves into pariahs or they can't come back to writing if things change.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Standardized writeups sound like a decent "break in case of emergency" idea if all writers end up going "fuck it, I can't do this anymore." But we're not to that point yet.

Well, the problem with that is standardized writeups have to be written...

We should -start- making these now, while our writers are still willing to write. Then we have something to fall back on.

More simply, the emergency has come. It's time to break the damn glass.

[Cmdr_King]

Honestly I don't think standardized writeups serve any purpose.  If people are THAT burned out, doing another front-loaded effort like what the bios started as isn't going to happen.  Similarly, doing them as they come up basically involves doing normal site work for years to come, even if it does reduce the season load.  And while having empty arena pages is bad, having filler in their place is little better, since it's a bunch of generic thigns that by nature can't account for the particulars of a fight.  Nevermind that some duellers are much, much more complex than others.  Do you really think you could condence Cecilia's relevant skills down to a write-up sized package?  I certainly don't.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Let's compromise again, then! How about standardized writeups for the crap that no one cares about? It'd be pretty easy to condense what a ShF2 character can do into a single writeup. And once it's written, no more scrambling to find a writer for a PC that no one cares about! (Well, someone might care about them, but not enough to do a writeup about them.)

Note: I am in no way implying that a front-loaded effort is desirable here. This is ONLY a 'do it as we go' suggestion.

[SageAcrin]

Well, if I really need to state it outright, and honestly, etc. I may as well put it as bluntly as possible. I wasn't really trying to beat around the bush, but I tend to get depressed and not really want to talk about this when I think about it.

I:

Enjoy doing writeups with actually fresh material. At least, I think I still do.

Have not had fresh material in a very long time. Why, no, a few casts don't count. One side of two writeups out of sixteen isn't enough.

Do not enjoy doing writeups with stale material.

Have had material that has felt stale for 20 seasons. I have written about...wow, it's kinda scary, probably over half the DL's characters at some point. That means that for every new-to-me character I write about I write about them, on average, against someone I have written about before. Often repeatedly. RPG characters are often at best one-note with rather little depth. This works out badly.

I am not, per se, tired of the work, which is why it's taken so long for me to hit burnout. I am tired of disliking my own work. I am tired of looking at my own writeups and going "That's mildly amusing." instead of "Wow, that's actually funny.". At best, that. Less work would help this, I'd actually be able to write long writeups without writing five or six hours. Trying to keep *those* up *did* burn me out. But it would just help.

I don't see that there's a way, short of completely overhauling the basic DL system, getting two to four seasons off, or shutting down results entirely, that there won't be a day where I go "Well, writer's block is so bad. And I've got bad allergies today. And I have things I'd much rather be doing than stressing about something I hate. Think I'll go do those instead.". Except, realistically, it'll probably have much more profanity IRL, and be much quieter online.

I don't know that those would fix it, but they're the only ideas I have. And the problem with just taking time off is, we don't have enough Results writers to just pick it up. Gate has a life. Tai has a life that he somehow sublimates to this as near as I can tell and frankly, if he's not nearing burnout himself I'd be stunned.

And the thing is, this is just me. I still sorta enjoy the concept, if not the work I'm doing, of Results. It could *still* be fun for me. It's not about raw work burnout, it's about massive apathy.

For the editors and other people doing results, I'm not so sure on this, especially the editors. I don't know what the solution is there at all, short of shutting down the DL, at the very least for a while, or massively overhauling how we handle things like editing and commentary. I don't know. All I know is that we really need to have this talked about.

Honestly, I don't care about the conclusion, which is almost certainly a sign of how bad the apathy *is* for me, thinking on it. I'll do what I have to until I can't stand it anymore, and then I won't. That's all.