Not sure if i had to post it here or pm Earthworm as this suggestion is rather controversial but here it goes.
My suggestion is to host regular tournaments live, similar to the smogon tour , over the current long-stretched format we have now. I've been thinking about it and i feel that the pro's of applying the smogon tour format to regular tournaments outweights the possible disadvantages.
Why is it better?
- A live tournament lasts a few hours, current tournaments however last 2 months on average: Currently tournaments require at least 2 months of consistent activity from their participants, in other words no busy periods or travels that last longer then a week. For many (including myself) this makes it impossible to join any of the regular tournaments.
- More activity: Trying to maintain your tournament's activity is a time-consuming and extremely frustrating task for any tournament host. Unless you're hosting a tournament with top players, one can assume that at least 20% of players who entered will be inactive at some point. This is rarely the case in live tournaments where it's usually limited to 3 or 4 players.
- Not having to 'find' your opponent: Finding your opponent and discussing a date and hour in which both can play is often a (rather frustrating) challenge by itself. It's unbelievable how much time it can take just to achieve this (sending PM's, checking smogon every day, calculating timezones, searching when both have free time, waiting for your opponent to show up, unexpected events that delay the match, etc...). This is also the reason why one can't effort to join these tournaments during busy periods. For example: I can join smogon tour during the examinations period as i've planned those 3 hour in my study plan beforehand and can focus myself entirely on the exams the rest of the time. I can't schedule however when and how much time i'll have to spend finding and battling my opponent in a regular tournament, as such i have to split my focus during the examinations something I and i assume many others people here can't effort.
- A Tournament atmosphere: Perhaps this is just a personal opinion, but i feel that live tournaments have much more excitement and interest involved then regular ones. People seem to be more interested in the live tournament as a whole and how it finaly ends as evidenced by these youtube video's:
Tournament battles:Secret Santa Year 4 Finals, Fan Favorites Finals, Fuk Dragon Semi Finals
When compared to the ammount of people watching it live on shoddy(youtube views don't count as they are influenced by upload dates, title and tag similarities, music, uploader video priority, etc..) to these
Smogon tour finals: an UU final, OU final, and ubers
Live tournaments also have more discussion involved as pretty much all experts and enthusiasts regarding the played metagame are all in one place. I think this could be even more important for most regular tournaments as they usually have some interesting twist to it. How can these interesting changes in the metagame be researched and analyzed any better then in a live tournament where all participants are already there?
To sum it up, live tournaments are in general more efficient, more active, have a more exciting atmosphere and are easier for both participant and host alike.
Possible disadvantages of this format
- Live tournaments cannot be run simultaneously When hosting a tournament live one has to take a time in the week in which almost everyone can play(Saterday and Sunday 4 PM US East time). Because of this no more then two tournaments can be hosted a week and not a single one during smogon tour.
Personally i don't see this becomming a problem as there is plenty of time between two smogon tours to host all of them and many people don't have the time to actively participate in two tournaments anyway.
- Some people may not be able to enter: People from certain timezones (like India)will have a lot of trouble entering these tournaments. Though current tournaments have similar troubles thanks to the First Come First Serve method as discribed here.
- Less signups: As the time for signups in live tournaments is extremely short it is possible less people might enter. This could have been a serious problem in the past but i don't see this becomming a problem with smogon's current activity.
- Not all tournaments can be hosted live:
These include
*Huge tournaments with more then 200 participants
*Tournaments that change rules between rounds
*Wifi tournaments
How it could be organized
(If you know any more practical way please tell me)
- Host sends his idea to a tournament director for approval
- The director approves and informs the host with the date of the live tournament
- The host opens an information topic, which includes the rules and the date of the tournament. People can ask questions to the host regarding the rules and discuss the possibilities of said tournament
- The host opens a sign up topic at the pre-arranged date and the live tournament can begin.
Also the director will have to update the tournament listing with all upcomming tournaments and their data
That's the end of it. If there is anything that didn't make sense in this post please tell me, as it's rather difficult to make it so in a foreign language.
Thanks for reading
My suggestion is to host regular tournaments live, similar to the smogon tour , over the current long-stretched format we have now. I've been thinking about it and i feel that the pro's of applying the smogon tour format to regular tournaments outweights the possible disadvantages.
Why is it better?
- A live tournament lasts a few hours, current tournaments however last 2 months on average: Currently tournaments require at least 2 months of consistent activity from their participants, in other words no busy periods or travels that last longer then a week. For many (including myself) this makes it impossible to join any of the regular tournaments.
- More activity: Trying to maintain your tournament's activity is a time-consuming and extremely frustrating task for any tournament host. Unless you're hosting a tournament with top players, one can assume that at least 20% of players who entered will be inactive at some point. This is rarely the case in live tournaments where it's usually limited to 3 or 4 players.
- Not having to 'find' your opponent: Finding your opponent and discussing a date and hour in which both can play is often a (rather frustrating) challenge by itself. It's unbelievable how much time it can take just to achieve this (sending PM's, checking smogon every day, calculating timezones, searching when both have free time, waiting for your opponent to show up, unexpected events that delay the match, etc...). This is also the reason why one can't effort to join these tournaments during busy periods. For example: I can join smogon tour during the examinations period as i've planned those 3 hour in my study plan beforehand and can focus myself entirely on the exams the rest of the time. I can't schedule however when and how much time i'll have to spend finding and battling my opponent in a regular tournament, as such i have to split my focus during the examinations something I and i assume many others people here can't effort.
- A Tournament atmosphere: Perhaps this is just a personal opinion, but i feel that live tournaments have much more excitement and interest involved then regular ones. People seem to be more interested in the live tournament as a whole and how it finaly ends as evidenced by these youtube video's:
Tournament battles:Secret Santa Year 4 Finals, Fan Favorites Finals, Fuk Dragon Semi Finals
When compared to the ammount of people watching it live on shoddy(youtube views don't count as they are influenced by upload dates, title and tag similarities, music, uploader video priority, etc..) to these
Smogon tour finals: an UU final, OU final, and ubers
Live tournaments also have more discussion involved as pretty much all experts and enthusiasts regarding the played metagame are all in one place. I think this could be even more important for most regular tournaments as they usually have some interesting twist to it. How can these interesting changes in the metagame be researched and analyzed any better then in a live tournament where all participants are already there?
To sum it up, live tournaments are in general more efficient, more active, have a more exciting atmosphere and are easier for both participant and host alike.
Possible disadvantages of this format
- Live tournaments cannot be run simultaneously When hosting a tournament live one has to take a time in the week in which almost everyone can play(Saterday and Sunday 4 PM US East time). Because of this no more then two tournaments can be hosted a week and not a single one during smogon tour.
Personally i don't see this becomming a problem as there is plenty of time between two smogon tours to host all of them and many people don't have the time to actively participate in two tournaments anyway.
- Some people may not be able to enter: People from certain timezones (like India)will have a lot of trouble entering these tournaments. Though current tournaments have similar troubles thanks to the First Come First Serve method as discribed here.
- Less signups: As the time for signups in live tournaments is extremely short it is possible less people might enter. This could have been a serious problem in the past but i don't see this becomming a problem with smogon's current activity.
- Not all tournaments can be hosted live:
These include
*Huge tournaments with more then 200 participants
*Tournaments that change rules between rounds
*Wifi tournaments
How it could be organized
(If you know any more practical way please tell me)
- Host sends his idea to a tournament director for approval
- The director approves and informs the host with the date of the live tournament
- The host opens an information topic, which includes the rules and the date of the tournament. People can ask questions to the host regarding the rules and discuss the possibilities of said tournament
- The host opens a sign up topic at the pre-arranged date and the live tournament can begin.
Also the director will have to update the tournament listing with all upcomming tournaments and their data
That's the end of it. If there is anything that didn't make sense in this post please tell me, as it's rather difficult to make it so in a foreign language.
Thanks for reading