but, so, from what i've read, the buttons aren't game specific or anything.
won't the people who are really good at the most popular (2) handheld games, essentially win the whole entire thing, because the other people who are good at more specific games, like, lumines, won't have enough people to beat out the massive amount of people who play the other games...
Xenocide Geek on
i wanted love, i needed love
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
Well, maybe being the best player in the most popular game is harder than being pretty darn good in every game.
I guess it would be nice if after some of the "suggested time" sessions, some of the players who appear to be high rollers could go to an official spot, just so the rest of us could see how far of a lead certain players have. Although, I bet there is going to be a lot of excitement as a community when players discuss how they're doing, and tell about how they saw a person with X buttons.
I have instantly fallen for this idea. I like it. I like it a lot.
I forget. What is it called when somebody pretends to suck at billiards, so you beat them, then they suggest raising the stakes, so you accept because they suck, and then it turns out they're a pool shark so you lose your money? Whatever that's called, I have a feeling that is going to happen to me.....unless I do it. But I probably won't do it, because I suck. Wink wink.
Also, I am down for some Pictonary.
I really hope that hustling won't happen at pax. Or its kept to a minimum. I have to say I nearly 99% of the people at pax.
I have some experience with running tournaments, and I know how wild it can get when the number of registrants starts to creep over 32. Calling out matchups for so many players can truly take a while; even when a system is in place to make finding one's opponent easy (i.e. computer screens listing matchups, marked and numbered areas for matches) it can take a while for people to organize themselves. For Tetris DS last year at PAX, the first two multi-way rounds were crazy; only once the tournament moved to the bracket rounds did things start to settle down. Still, things ran rather smoothly without too many hiccups.
I'm interested to see how this open matchup system works out. Having two badges to start is great: it provides both a buffer against elimination, and if you don't want to risk both your badges you can get a souvenir for participation. Collusion is a potential problem, as mentioned by previous posters. Toward the end of the tournament, the remaining players will be hauling around quite a few badges. It's a little bit unsatisfying to not have anything like a 'final bracket round' to concretely establish a winner... strategy of choosing your battles and getting players to face you will be interesting.
I feel like each set of badges should also come with a handout listing the basic guidelines for the tournament. While players should be allowed to decide to do one-time matchups or something like best two out of three, and decide how many buttons are wagered on each match, there are certain games, like Pokemon, that would benefit from some guidelines. In the case of Pokemon, using the ruleset we've been using in the G&T tournaments would probably be a good place to start.
This is a totally awesome idea, the open tournament, great job. For those who think someone may build a reputation in a game and others would stay away, keep in mind that PAX is gonna have 30,000 people. Sure, not all of them will be participating, but I think there will be enough that you don't have to worry about a reputation. Unless your shirt, pants, shoes and hat are all covered in buttons...someone like that comes up to me and challenges me to a game of Nintendogs, I'm turning them down!
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ViscountalphaThe pen is mightier than the swordhttp://youtu.be/G_sBOsh-vyIRegistered Userregular
edited August 2007
I would rather see badges lead into the top 8 to battle it out in a set of games at the end. It would solve the pooling problem since only the top 8 would get into the final matches If you pooled, you would get kicked out of the final matches since you didn't have the proper skill to get there.
I would like to see the pins be a qualifier into the final round so pooling becomes much less desirable.
I didn't notice it before, but on a reread of the topic, it seems like there won't be separate buttons for each game, but generic buttons for a handheld free-for-all. Can this point be clarified? If so, I guess that people can challenge on any game, not just the popular games that have been allotted time slots for play. The generic free-for-all format also benefits those who are multidisciplinary in nature.
Hmm, I wonder if it's possible to hold optional traditional tournaments during the 'suggested times'? Since it is a handheld tournament, it's possible to run things quickly and in parallel, and since the competition is freeform, participation isn't a big deal. For the quicker games like Tetris, it should be possible to organize single-elimination tournaments for up to 64 people, and for medium-pace games like Pokemon, a five-round 32-person tournament isn't out of the question. Advance Wars is about the only game I don't see being able to get a mini-tournament in the scheduled time. For anyone else interested in organizing a small tournament, I've got some excel templates here (.zip). Every player pays 1 button to participate in the tournament: advancing past the initial round(s) returns the investment and further progress in the tournament provides a greater reward, such that the overall winner obtains more than they would normally gain in the five or six battles they participated in, which seems fair enough for a structured tournament. Maybe if it's a good enough idea, the higher-ups will provide the rewards themselves?
A final question: how big are the buttons? I want to know how big of a pouch I will need to bring in case I turn out to be a strong contender. :P
It seems pretty clear to me from the OP that any games are fine at any time as long as they're agreed to by both parties. The listed games and times are only suggestions. So you can challenge someone on a game you really like but they can decide they don't want to play that game. Negotiate something.
1) In addition to recieving buttons, you also should recieve an index card, with a gaming # on it. You should have to record the # and game of every opponent you play.
2) You may only play any opponent once, and for one button. If you are concerned about "re-matches" simply play best of 3, 5, 7, 21 etc.
3) It would be cool if people also got something they could pin to their shirt, that advertised what games they had.
I think this doesn't prevent dumping, but it prevents blatant dumping. Like sure you can cheat, but if you win a prize your "game sheet" is going to be recorded, and at least will be looked over to make sure it's legitimate. An even better idea would be to have each game # be randomized out of 100,000. So nobody can just "make up" numbers. If there are a BUNCH of #'s that are fake, you know someone just faked matches with a bunch of their friends.
The one button limit also prevents blatant dumping since your matches are recorded.
I think this is a great idea. Great job to whomever thought this up.
I for one would not probably participate in a conventional tournament because I am not all that good. But this.... sure! I'll grab my buttons and try my best to not loose them in 10 minutes.
I do agree that three buttons would be far better than 2 for the two reasons above....
1) tradition is 3 lives
2) having 3 means I can have a bit more fun before being out of the tournament (2=10 minutes, 3=12 minutes). I think 3 vs 2 allows us "casual gamers" to have a bit more fun before the buttons run out.
How hardcore does competitive puzzle quest usually get? I read in an FAQ that the maximum for stats is 255 (!!!), and considering you can't even reach that with ONE STAT if you poured every skill point into it, that's a hell of a lot of stat farming if people compete in tip-top shape.
I just bought Puzzle Quest last week and I'm loving it, please tell me I'll stand a chance even if I don't spend every waking moment grinding my skills up until PAX.
It has a LED flashlight and you can check battery levels as well. This will be very very handy for DS play at PAX (and other times when I won't be able to charge it easily). Well worth the $20 plus shipping.
ViscountalphaThe pen is mightier than the swordhttp://youtu.be/G_sBOsh-vyIRegistered Userregular
edited August 2007
Ya know. I might just bring my ds phatty and ds lite to pax. for 2 reasons-- tetris is easier on the ds phatty ( I have big hands) and it will be an easy swap out lets say I need to charge one, I pull the other one out and i'm ready to rock.
It's been mentioned, but curbing "pooling" will be a difficult proposition, particularly if participants can elect to play a match for more than one button at a time. A few folks could get together at the end and play a few rounds for all their remaining buttons, eventually coming down to one player from the group holding them all - and those wins would be legitimate by the existing rule set.
While enforcement will be nearly impossible as it is, I'd propose suggesting "one win, one pin". Er...button.
I could see how this could make it difficult at the end if two "upper tier" players wanted to challenge each other but one had considerably fewer buttons just because of where he (or she!) was or how many people refused his challenges. Even if the player with fewer buttons was more skilled, he'd still have a hard time convincing the player with more to sit around while he whittled him down round by round.
I'd also like to cast my vote for 3 buttons, and I think a structured tournament for the top 8 or top 10 would be a fantastic idea.
I think the DS lite is too thin as well. I have another solution that to bring to DSes to PAX though. I have a 8 hour battery pack add on that snaps to the bottom and doubles as a grip.
I like the idea of an end tournament, but it presents the problem of how do you know who has the most buttons?
I think that there could be a booth (or booths) where you can permanently turn in buttons and have it recorded in a database. You wouldn't have to turn in all your buttons though, you could come back later and deposit more, just no withdrawals. At the end you would just take the top names on the list and have a skilled tournament. I'm sure somebody down there has enough knowledge in Oracle or SQL Plus to make it happen.
Hell, you could get away with an Excel spreadsheet.
Drazyr on
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ViscountalphaThe pen is mightier than the swordhttp://youtu.be/G_sBOsh-vyIRegistered Userregular
I think the DS lite is too thin as well. I have another solution that to bring to DSes to PAX though. I have a 8 hour battery pack add on that snaps to the bottom and doubles as a grip.
What kind did you buy? where did you get it? Time is limited for my search.
Khoo, About the 3 pins thing. Just have it first come, first served if you are worried about running out.
What is to stop somebody from having all their friends sign up for this and give the buttons to them? I'm sure everyone is thinking about this. Could we make it so you have to show your DS, and the serial number of the DS is written down by the admins or something?
This is the same issue as pooling, which we are attempting to mitigate by having prizes that cannot be split in any way. Plus, this has another deterrent, which is that if you have 10 friends there (which seems like a lot), you're going to get 20 HDTS buttons.
I'd imagine by the end of this the top five will have a couple of hundred each.
Oh, and a few people have mentioned that two buttons are not enough - the way we saw it is that two buttons is the equivalent to, at worst case, losing two single elimination handheld tournaments... which seems to be more tournaments than the average PAX-goer would normally participate in.
So, sorry, two buttons this year. If I'm massively wrong, then we will adjust accordingly for 2008!
I think the banking your buttons idea is great, with a custom HDTS ID (or whatever ID) or some such. Give a bonus button for every 20 buttons or so deposited, and only allow a withdrawal of 5 buttons at a time (should be pretty obvious who's giving buttons away), removing the bonus button once the proper amount of buttons are withdrawn.
2 buttons ~ 2 rounds in a tournament (double elimination)
So an idea when you challenge another player would be to play a "best out of X" with the winner receiving only 1 badge. Later on when Badges are more stocked on to a single person, matches could still be predetermined as "best out of X" but each game worth a badge. You could end up from -X to +X.
Similarly in order to encourage more types of games played you could agree to X games of Tetris and X games of Mario Kart (assuming 1 player was more confident in another game then the other and vice versa)
Aslong as people arent dicks and agree to some rule set before playing this will work very well.
In order to discourage the potential problem of pooling, Prizes should be very difficult to share and there should be alot of prizes. I mean your essentially removing like 8 tournies (random number based on # of games) well there should be 24 prizes (3 prizes per tourny in old system). A final "handheld-a-thon" would also work for bonus.
I would really hate to see people selling (and conversely buying) there badges on the last day >.>
Are the prizes handed out daily? If someone is only attending for one day, are they out of the tournament? If you can sign up at any time, wouldn't someone who signs up right at the beginning of the day to start their collection have that time advantage?
It seems as though this tournament is a true free-for-all, but where does the time slots come in? Would someone with only one of the games on the list be limited to that and other hosted games? I was really looking forward to an Ouendan tournament, but if people are going to be challenging me to Pokemon battles, I might just bow out. I don't have a team!
And a suggestion...
Perhaps there could be tables (sumo chairs?) set up in the lounge as designated for certain games. So people who are good a specific game can know where to find others. They would perhaps be able to then put together their own game-specific tournament. If not for prizes, other non-tournament players can know where to find people who want to play a certain game.
The buttons are ohhh... about 3/4 inch in diameter.
Prizes = Sunday. If you attend PAX for only one day, yes, you are out of luck, unless you are Sunday Only and are some sort of handheld god. Given that less than 6% of attendees are single-day, we didn't think it would be too much of an issue.
There are also already designated times/areas for specific games. You'll see when you get there.
What is the stance on games where more than two people can play? Many of the games have four player modes, Mario Kart has room for eight people. Would you rather have only two people playing against each other, or are large free-for-alls ok? Also, what's the stance on team battles? I think stuff like that would be a good way to get badges, at higher risk, but it seems like it's a gray area, almost the same as pooling.
Just some thoughts. :P This makes me even more annoyed that I can't go, I'd have loved to do something like this. Excellent idea.
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Moe FwackyRight Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModeratormod
edited August 2007
I would imagine that terms for multi-player games would distribute all wagered buttons to the winner or distribute them among the top 2, 3, 4, etc and how.
To me, a nice un-biased way of playing would be for both combatants to be honest with their skill level on certain games you've got, so that maybe you could find a happy medium.
Something like:
Maybe you could dole out minor handicaps at metroid, or give a serious handicap to Combatant A on tetris, and go with a best 2 out of 3 (or whatever). Obviously the rules are up to the combatants, and again, obviously near the end, the battles will be against truly skilled and well-balanced (possibly) players. This is just my own idea thing.
I've only played metroid once online back when I got it at a friends house, and I rarely play against my friends. So I'm not really an expert on multiplayer type situations, plus I won't even be there, but the idea sounds really neat, and I'd really like to go, but again, those are just my thoughts. Sounds awesome.
Riskbreaking_Nate on
With your feet on the air, and your head on the ground.
Note, that Nintendo of America HQ is based in Redmond, only about 30-40 minutes away from the Seattle center, depending on traffic. They have a customer store, and do customer repairs all the time.
So do not panic, there is hope!
Granted, that means taking time from PAX things... But if you are in dire need, (Which that picture shows you are) its an option. PM me and I can give you exact directions to the customer store. I just happen to work in the warehouse, and go in to work using the door next to it
Oh, and I LURVE this open form tourney idea. I am so bringing my DS/DS lite. And buying more multiplayer DS games...
I've been training for kart every single day at work with 8-man tournaments, and these guys are some of the finest kart players I've ever seen. When I started at the company, I came in dead last, eighth place, every single time for a month. Then I got better, better, and now I'd like to say I'm a tough cookie.
So I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to see plenty of matches since I'm going to be playing what is one of the most popular wifi DS games.
Right on. Great idea. True, it will be possible to "game the system," but as has been said, there's no way to completely eliminate that kind of thing with a tournament of this scale and type. I have no doubt that this will add a considerable amount of fun to an already incredible event (the last two years were a blast).
Do your best to keep things clean and fun, and we'll enjoy playing. I look forward to it.
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ViscountalphaThe pen is mightier than the swordhttp://youtu.be/G_sBOsh-vyIRegistered Userregular
Right on. Great idea. True, it will be possible to "game the system," but as has been said, there's no way to completely eliminate that kind of thing with a tournament of this scale and type. I have no doubt that this will add a considerable amount of fun to an already incredible event (the last two years were a blast).
Do your best to keep things clean and fun, and we'll enjoy playing. I look forward to it.
Bring your puzzle fighter turbo cart. I will bring mine and a link cable.
Posts
but, so, from what i've read, the buttons aren't game specific or anything.
won't the people who are really good at the most popular (2) handheld games, essentially win the whole entire thing, because the other people who are good at more specific games, like, lumines, won't have enough people to beat out the massive amount of people who play the other games...
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
I guess it would be nice if after some of the "suggested time" sessions, some of the players who appear to be high rollers could go to an official spot, just so the rest of us could see how far of a lead certain players have. Although, I bet there is going to be a lot of excitement as a community when players discuss how they're doing, and tell about how they saw a person with X buttons.
http://papercrafted.com
yet another outlet of my creative goods
I really hope that hustling won't happen at pax. Or its kept to a minimum. I have to say I
I also promise not to hustle (much)
I'll bring the DS and see what I can find.
I will. Assuming I'm not critically low on badges, I'd wager one on a game of backgammon or chess.
I'm interested to see how this open matchup system works out. Having two badges to start is great: it provides both a buffer against elimination, and if you don't want to risk both your badges you can get a souvenir for participation. Collusion is a potential problem, as mentioned by previous posters. Toward the end of the tournament, the remaining players will be hauling around quite a few badges. It's a little bit unsatisfying to not have anything like a 'final bracket round' to concretely establish a winner... strategy of choosing your battles and getting players to face you will be interesting.
I feel like each set of badges should also come with a handout listing the basic guidelines for the tournament. While players should be allowed to decide to do one-time matchups or something like best two out of three, and decide how many buttons are wagered on each match, there are certain games, like Pokemon, that would benefit from some guidelines. In the case of Pokemon, using the ruleset we've been using in the G&T tournaments would probably be a good place to start.
I would like to see the pins be a qualifier into the final round so pooling becomes much less desirable.
Hmm, I wonder if it's possible to hold optional traditional tournaments during the 'suggested times'? Since it is a handheld tournament, it's possible to run things quickly and in parallel, and since the competition is freeform, participation isn't a big deal. For the quicker games like Tetris, it should be possible to organize single-elimination tournaments for up to 64 people, and for medium-pace games like Pokemon, a five-round 32-person tournament isn't out of the question. Advance Wars is about the only game I don't see being able to get a mini-tournament in the scheduled time. For anyone else interested in organizing a small tournament, I've got some excel templates here (.zip). Every player pays 1 button to participate in the tournament: advancing past the initial round(s) returns the investment and further progress in the tournament provides a greater reward, such that the overall winner obtains more than they would normally gain in the five or six battles they participated in, which seems fair enough for a structured tournament. Maybe if it's a good enough idea, the higher-ups will provide the rewards themselves?
A final question: how big are the buttons? I want to know how big of a pouch I will need to bring in case I turn out to be a strong contender. :P
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i242/Draknodred/DSC00084.jpg
PANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANIC
1) In addition to recieving buttons, you also should recieve an index card, with a gaming # on it. You should have to record the # and game of every opponent you play.
2) You may only play any opponent once, and for one button. If you are concerned about "re-matches" simply play best of 3, 5, 7, 21 etc.
3) It would be cool if people also got something they could pin to their shirt, that advertised what games they had.
I think this doesn't prevent dumping, but it prevents blatant dumping. Like sure you can cheat, but if you win a prize your "game sheet" is going to be recorded, and at least will be looked over to make sure it's legitimate. An even better idea would be to have each game # be randomized out of 100,000. So nobody can just "make up" numbers. If there are a BUNCH of #'s that are fake, you know someone just faked matches with a bunch of their friends.
The one button limit also prevents blatant dumping since your matches are recorded.
I for one would not probably participate in a conventional tournament because I am not all that good. But this.... sure! I'll grab my buttons and try my best to not loose them in 10 minutes.
I do agree that three buttons would be far better than 2 for the two reasons above....
1) tradition is 3 lives
2) having 3 means I can have a bit more fun before being out of the tournament (2=10 minutes, 3=12 minutes). I think 3 vs 2 allows us "casual gamers" to have a bit more fun before the buttons run out.
I just bought Puzzle Quest last week and I'm loving it, please tell me I'll stand a chance even if I don't spend every waking moment grinding my skills up until PAX.
It has a LED flashlight and you can check battery levels as well. This will be very very handy for DS play at PAX (and other times when I won't be able to charge it easily). Well worth the $20 plus shipping.
It allows me to hook up to wall, car, or battery and then charge my phone, DS, or iPod.
I think the Triple Charger is a little larger than you Portable Game Charger though.
PAX East Trading Card Organizer | Twitter | Google+
I'm so glad I kept my ds phatty now.
While enforcement will be nearly impossible as it is, I'd propose suggesting "one win, one pin". Er...button.
I could see how this could make it difficult at the end if two "upper tier" players wanted to challenge each other but one had considerably fewer buttons just because of where he (or she!) was or how many people refused his challenges. Even if the player with fewer buttons was more skilled, he'd still have a hard time convincing the player with more to sit around while he whittled him down round by round.
I'd also like to cast my vote for 3 buttons, and I think a structured tournament for the top 8 or top 10 would be a fantastic idea.
I think that there could be a booth (or booths) where you can permanently turn in buttons and have it recorded in a database. You wouldn't have to turn in all your buttons though, you could come back later and deposit more, just no withdrawals. At the end you would just take the top names on the list and have a skilled tournament. I'm sure somebody down there has enough knowledge in Oracle or SQL Plus to make it happen.
Hell, you could get away with an Excel spreadsheet.
What kind did you buy? where did you get it? Time is limited for my search.
Khoo, About the 3 pins thing. Just have it first come, first served if you are worried about running out.
I'd imagine by the end of this the top five will have a couple of hundred each.
Oh, and a few people have mentioned that two buttons are not enough - the way we saw it is that two buttons is the equivalent to, at worst case, losing two single elimination handheld tournaments... which seems to be more tournaments than the average PAX-goer would normally participate in.
So, sorry, two buttons this year. If I'm massively wrong, then we will adjust accordingly for 2008!
I guess knowing the quicker games will be a lot more beneficial, unless stakes are raised for the longer ones.
I think the banking your buttons idea is great, with a custom HDTS ID (or whatever ID) or some such. Give a bonus button for every 20 buttons or so deposited, and only allow a withdrawal of 5 buttons at a time (should be pretty obvious who's giving buttons away), removing the bonus button once the proper amount of buttons are withdrawn.
2 buttons ~ 2 rounds in a tournament (double elimination)
So an idea when you challenge another player would be to play a "best out of X" with the winner receiving only 1 badge. Later on when Badges are more stocked on to a single person, matches could still be predetermined as "best out of X" but each game worth a badge. You could end up from -X to +X.
Similarly in order to encourage more types of games played you could agree to X games of Tetris and X games of Mario Kart (assuming 1 player was more confident in another game then the other and vice versa)
Aslong as people arent dicks and agree to some rule set before playing this will work very well.
In order to discourage the potential problem of pooling, Prizes should be very difficult to share and there should be alot of prizes. I mean your essentially removing like 8 tournies (random number based on # of games) well there should be 24 prizes (3 prizes per tourny in old system). A final "handheld-a-thon" would also work for bonus.
I would really hate to see people selling (and conversely buying) there badges on the last day >.>
Are the prizes handed out daily? If someone is only attending for one day, are they out of the tournament? If you can sign up at any time, wouldn't someone who signs up right at the beginning of the day to start their collection have that time advantage?
It seems as though this tournament is a true free-for-all, but where does the time slots come in? Would someone with only one of the games on the list be limited to that and other hosted games? I was really looking forward to an Ouendan tournament, but if people are going to be challenging me to Pokemon battles, I might just bow out. I don't have a team!
And a suggestion...
Perhaps there could be tables (sumo chairs?) set up in the lounge as designated for certain games. So people who are good a specific game can know where to find others. They would perhaps be able to then put together their own game-specific tournament. If not for prizes, other non-tournament players can know where to find people who want to play a certain game.
Prizes = Sunday. If you attend PAX for only one day, yes, you are out of luck, unless you are Sunday Only and are some sort of handheld god. Given that less than 6% of attendees are single-day, we didn't think it would be too much of an issue.
There are also already designated times/areas for specific games. You'll see when you get there.
Just some thoughts. :P This makes me even more annoyed that I can't go, I'd have loved to do something like this. Excellent idea.
Something like:
Combatant A: I suck at tetris, I rule at pokémon, I'm okay at metroid.
Combatant B: I rule at tetris, I'm okay at pokémon, I suck at metroid.
Maybe you could dole out minor handicaps at metroid, or give a serious handicap to Combatant A on tetris, and go with a best 2 out of 3 (or whatever). Obviously the rules are up to the combatants, and again, obviously near the end, the battles will be against truly skilled and well-balanced (possibly) players. This is just my own idea thing.
I've only played metroid once online back when I got it at a friends house, and I rarely play against my friends. So I'm not really an expert on multiplayer type situations, plus I won't even be there, but the idea sounds really neat, and I'd really like to go, but again, those are just my thoughts. Sounds awesome.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Note, that Nintendo of America HQ is based in Redmond, only about 30-40 minutes away from the Seattle center, depending on traffic. They have a customer store, and do customer repairs all the time.
So do not panic, there is hope!
Granted, that means taking time from PAX things... But if you are in dire need, (Which that picture shows you are) its an option. PM me and I can give you exact directions to the customer store. I just happen to work in the warehouse, and go in to work using the door next to it
Oh, and I LURVE this open form tourney idea. I am so bringing my DS/DS lite. And buying more multiplayer DS games...
I've been training for kart every single day at work with 8-man tournaments, and these guys are some of the finest kart players I've ever seen. When I started at the company, I came in dead last, eighth place, every single time for a month. Then I got better, better, and now I'd like to say I'm a tough cookie.
So I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to see plenty of matches since I'm going to be playing what is one of the most popular wifi DS games.
Do your best to keep things clean and fun, and we'll enjoy playing. I look forward to it.
Bring your puzzle fighter turbo cart. I will bring mine and a link cable.