Planning a Game Tournament

Sharp10r

I want to hold a game tournament this Spring, but have no idea what to do/expect. Here's what I've already decided:
*War game FPS of some sort (any guesses on what will be hot this Spring?) with Split Screen Multiplayer
*4 360s networked together at a time for team games? Or should it just be deathmatch?
*At the end I need 1 winner to award with a prize.


So- I guess I need to rent 4 TVS, pick a game, and update each 360, but the part I really don't know how to do is the tournament bracket. Maybe team CTF to rule out teams then switch to deathmatch? I'm a bit out of my league here. Any insight is appreciated! Oh I also want to try to encourage all participants to stick around until the end when prizes are awarded. So maybe a "losers tournament" while the main one is going on? Thanks.

OnTheLastCastle

The best and most popular FPS games for 360 right now are without question Halo and Modern Warfare. Battlefield is third.

Halo: Reach and Modern Warfare: Black Ops are very new. Reach is an official torch-bearer so no one would really want to play Halo 3 anymore. Black Ops is by a different studio, still popular but definitely less liked, and some people may prefer Modern Warfare 2. Anecdotal evidence shows a lot of my XBL friends are back playing MW2 after Black Ops got them in the mood but didn't really deliver. Having played both, I tend to agree.

As for what will be new in the Spring... I'll look and get back to you. For now, it is lunch time.

edit: CTF is an alright gametype. Battlefield made the domination gametype a lot more popular. You hold certain points for points. That and Team Deathmatch are definitely the most popular. Based on whatever game(s) you chose, I'd have more of an answer as to what people play.

Usual tournaments are double elim. Losers bracket people keep fighting until their 2nd loss. But you could always do round robin.

Page-

Well, you've got some conflicting problems here. You want a team tournament, but only want to give out 1 prize, for a start.

It used to be, back when dueling (1v1) was the standard format for fps tourneys, that you would start with a deathmatch game to determine seeding and brackets, then move on to either a single or double elimination format. Usually single elimination, because fps games take a bit longer, and you might even be doing best of 3.

If you're doing pickup teams then you could still do that -- top 3 or 4 players are made team captains (last gets first pick, etc.).

It would help to know who you're doing the tourney for and where. Are these random people that you've never seen before, or a bunch of kids at a birthday party? Can they bring their own equipment, or at least help? Are they familiar with the game they're going to be playing, or are you just picking one out of a hat? For local tourneys there's usually an entry fee that gets put into a pot that's split between at least 1st and 2nd place.

But for general advice it would be, first, to know and establish rules (including gametype, maps, and whatever else) and a format well beforehand. Everyone who shows up should have no surprises or complaints about any of that stuff (unless it's just a party or something and they have no idea). Running a tournament, especially the first time, is going to be problematic and stressful. Know that it will take longer than you thought it would and plan for that. Realize how long it will take each game to play out, and that if you're doing double elimination then everything will take twice as long and people will have to sit around between games. It would be a good idea to have some other distraction on the side to keep people busy, and if you want them to stick around after they're done playing. If you do round robin or iron man then it'll take even longer.

Sample tourney format: Single elimination, best of 3. Maps are taken from a pool, each team can choose 1 map to play, the tie-breaker is random. Fifteen minute games (always do time limit games, never score based games). Finals is best of 5, each team picks 2 maps and they rotate the order of play (team A's 1st choice, team B's 1st choice, team A's 2nd choice, team B's 2nd choice, random tiebreaker).