C&C95 Tournament Again?

[Ferret]

Welcome to the wall of text!

 

Alright so the forums are pretty dead right now. Let's gets some dicussion cooking! So currently C&C95 is slowly dying and something needs to revive it. I've been thinking about a tournament again lately to give a little boost.

 

I'm sure most of you remember the old tournament that I attempted. No one showed up, and it was a complete disaster. We need some sort of time that certain matches should be played at and all of that good stuff. Something needs to happen to bring attention to C&C95. We can always try a RA95 tournament as well but that would just be a heavy tank spam fest. Unless we can get people to play my "Slow Tanks Map" that I created not too long ago.

 

We could even have a map pool where only those maps could be played during the tournament. Set rules such as loser selects the next map or something. I do find C&C95 much more interesting compared to RA95. I do feel like micro does pay off hardcore especially with infantry. It's cool to watch good players like Lovehandles and Myg micro infantry to avoid tanks and changing the looks of a battle in no time. It reminds me of StarCraft but I don't want to get that involved as most of you know that I've had my share with that game at least, if you couldn't tell from my signature.

 

So what do you say? Let's try to get another (not underdeveloped) tournament going again and hopefully get it in working order this time. We can always attempt a ladder of some sort like hifi did with the RA95 ladder. That was pretty cool. Although I feel like hifi's obligations are with RA95 most of the time. All I can is that there are some players that do still play C&C95, but they never come into the IRC. If we could get them into the IRC, this would be golden.

 

So, I would like to hear some thoughts. They necessarily don't have to be nice if you honestly don't think it's a good idea. Just say so!

 

TL;DR

We should have another C&C95 tournament.

[uNdeAd]

1st lets talk about the prize

[Ferret]

1st lets talk about the prize

 

Sounds good.

 

We could offer a cash prize but before we do so. I suggest we do a tournament without one. Mainly because we need to get the groove down and just see how it flows in general. But I would assume the prize would be willing to come from hifi hopefully.

[Myg]

If done like a ladder over the period of a couple weeks, I think it will work.

[Chimas]

Hi,

I wouldn't consider the last tournament a fail. It's like a project: you go on assembling better prototypes. In this case, you start by analyzing what worked in the last tournament, even if you're going to change everything.

 

I'm gonna propose more than 1 format.

 

From the last tournament, I would do an "Everybody against Everybody". It would be a matrix, with everybody playing 1 game against everybody. Assuming of course, that you have less than 20 players. When the matrix is filled, than you take the 4 best players and make the finals with other rules and compress the end of the tournament to a weekend. The finals could be "best of 3" type, intercalating the games. This format is like the soccer championships are being done by FIFA and affiliates. As a soccer fan I dislike this format, but for TD could be of help.

 

Summing up, the classificatories part would have a moving calendar relying on the players with due/valid dates for the matches (say like a round for every 10-15 days) and the finals would be a fixed calendar. When you finish the classificatories, you enterview the 4 finalists to stablish the weekend.

 

The other format is more like a prep than a tournament so it could be done before it.

People apply for the prep stating if they are GOOD or BAD player, simply this way.

The matches are always 1 against 2/3/4 or 2 against 4. EG the quick brown fox against the lazy dogs. I call this the Jack Chan format. And the good players must swear they are always drinking beer in the middle of the game. This is for fun and to record some games. I would you use this format just to stablish divisions before the tournament , if we have 30 or 40 players (A series, B series).

 

I think this format is interesting also to see matches with different tactics than the usual: base crawlers won't crawl, bike rushers won't rush and etc.

 

Have in mind that my personal interest is not winning anything, but have a lot of fun, be decently competitive and play in the proper level. These are the underlying motivations right now. For the tournament I took into account the logistiscs problems of the calendar we had in the last one.

[Chimas]

Some issues:

 

- any number/parameter is to explain a concept. It does not imply a preference or a balanced parameter. For example: if you have 8 or 9 people in the chat room in a weekend they can forward their matches. So instead of a semester the tournament can last a month. If you have 20 players you'll get 19 matches each and they will probably play 14-15 matches in 3 weeks and another 3 weeks for the last 4 matches (paretto's law here) due to time constraits;

 

- another matter that I remembered from the last tournament is that we must rename the maps. Things like "4P - Nazca plains" will become something like "Map 4 Tournament 2012". This is to force the experienced player to scout a little. For some players, if they know the map they already have a strategy. In practice, they will have at least 1minute ahead. So the tournament must have its own pack with few maps for direct confrontations from time to time;

 

- Other thing It could be explored is the "Desert TO" turn, the "Snow TO" turn and etc. TO=theather of operations. By the end of the tournament you'd have everybody played all sorts of maps.

[Ferret]

Great analogy there Solo. Although, I feel like whenever people are playing for money. It should have a more serious feel to it. Like "oh, there's money on the line and he did this" or whatever. I think there's a time for competitiveness and a time for having fun. But when there's a tournament, The competitive side for most people shows more.

 

Any other thoughts that someone wants to point out? Can be about anything to improve the next tournament or simply a suggestion.

[Tore]

Ya' know Solo, the modify button is there for a reason.

 

and a new C&C95 tournament would be pretty interesting! Maybe we could use some of the CnCNet donations as a prize.

[Chimas]

Hi Tore,

I was trying to avoid (and tried to disguise) "Welcome to the wall of text II, the bloody mission" ...

[MattAttack]

A tournament? Awesome! I'm not sure how to make it better, but I know I'm definetely interested.  XD

[Ferret]

A tournament? Awesome! I'm not sure how to make it better, but I know I'm definetely interested.  XD

 

Yeah, you weren't necessarily there for the last tournament but I can tell you that it failed really, really hard.

 

But we can also learn from things on what not to do, and so forth.

[pichorra]

About the Prise: We will need to ask to the donators about that. The money is for Maintence. If they agree, then i can't see a problem, but if not...

 

Anyway, we should wait for the next vacations. I probably will not get time to even connect here back in this year.

[Mauricio2000]

there is going to be a c&c95 tournamant  :laugh: that is cool if there is i would like to attend in it i just need to know when and where and how to join and how to play online with others and i do not care if there is a cash prize or not.

[AchromicWhite]

I think certain maps should be the tournament maps also. Like, pick a bunch which are pretty equal to play on. I remember last time, I got out because (well, I was playing Dude), but it was on Green Acres and we started really close to each other.

If the maps for the tournament were picked before hand and were selected by a moderator for the tournament, then it would seem fairer. Just sucks if the other person picks the map and seems to beat you from that. Especially if your more beginner and don't know the map well.

If the map is picked well before the match, you can study up on it a little.

 

Could we look at larger games as well, like 3 or 4 way games. Maybe run a round of pools and then go into direct elimination from the outcome of those pools? Maybe not a great idea, but worth the thought.

 

The other obvious problem was time zones... Had some issue with that last time as I live in New Zealand, but I think, as long as people are actually keen to come and play, there wont be a problem.

In saying that, maybe some sort of backup like, if you're no longer contactable for over a week, you lose, to shift things along would be good?

 

 

[pichorra]

Dude + Close spawn = Defeat.

 

Time zones is a crap. Dunno what we could do with'em.

 

I've kicked out of the last tournament because I had no time to play, Was to busy with school. It was to be all July the tornament. Then it was about november and it was still running.

[AchromicWhite]

lol Pichorra, yup, that about summed it up for me as well...

[Ferret]

For those who didn't see...

 

CnCNet Promotional Video (C&C95)

[Delphi]

Hello,

 

I just read about you planning a cnc95 tournament and I immediately remembered my first time playing multiplayer cnc 1 back in ´96. Pretty good times, and it started my interest for multiplayer rts games

 

The most notable thing of it was, that it was not quite the common 1v1 tournament with a classic tournament ladder. And in retrospect I think this was a pretty cool way to hold a tournament with few players.

 

The rules were as follows:

 

We were 8 players altogether and always played 2 simultaneous games with 4 people each in FFA style.

 

Every player got points for staying alive longer in the games, I don´t remember the exact values, but you will get the picture, kind of like this:

 

First eliminated player: 1 point

Second eliminated player: 2 points

Last eliminated player: 3 points

Winner: 5 Points

 

We played about 8 games I think, and the players are mixed between the 2 4 people teams in every round, so that not everyone is playing against the same players.

 

Now for the game options: Base building was of course on, we had 1 starting unit and 5000 credits, but most notably we played with the options "crates on" and "capture the flag" mode. Alliances are of course forbidden, otherwise this would not work.

 

I can tell you these games were great! Because of capture the flag everybody had to be worried about 3 possible attackers at all time, so that straight out tank or engineer rushes never really were a problem. Also, because of the crates, sometimes there were huge upsets which turned an almost lost game around.

 

I can still remember some games where a harvester flag steal brought the win in the last second. It was an epic snail race to the flag pole where every building was sold and every minigunner was used to get the harvester home to safety. Also there were games with stealth engineers (so sick), surprise nukes, visceroid outbreaks killing players, harvesters as walls to defend flags, sneaky recon bikes stealing flags, and brutal commando actions

 

Also, since a player is only defeated after every units is killed or his flag is stolen even a player who lost his base can try to defend his flag with his last units to stay in the game a little longer. Sometimes this paid of, since another player got eliminated first, which makes such a last stand even more heroic and rewarding, since you get more points for staying alive longer.

 

But what makes this gameplay mode the best in my eyes is, that on the contrary to classic 1v1 games every player participates in every game played, even if he doesn´t have enough points to win the tournament. You might be unable to win the tournament after a certain number of matches, but you can still play for fun and even win games.

 

Of course this kind of FFA playstyle is not strictly competetive and there is some luck involved. Also this only works when there are no people who secretly play together against another player, but I think in such a small community this should be doable.

 

Well I don´t even exactly know why I wrote this wall of text, but I just felt very nostalgic thinking about the old times, when my love for cnc went to the next level

 

Perhaps, if a new tournament is ever held, one could think about using a somewhat similar system to run it.

[Chimas]

Delphi,

your wall of text is an interesting report, I've read everything. We need this kind of feedback eventually.

[AchromicWhite]

I have had issues with CTF, and that should be noted (like, stealing the flag and then a conyard next to it just blowing up). So a cash prize might not be good on something like this... in many ways I'm against a cash prize because I'd like to see people playing for fun and NOT taking it to seriously.

This kind of 4 player match sounds like it'd be really fun, I actually wouldn't mind seeing allies in, I think that would make it that much more crazy!

Starting with less cash is good too, stops early unit spams, so you have to carefully decide what you want to build, and make escalation slower, meaning you get to see each tech level played.

I'm totally up for it... but live in a time zone where I'm probably not going to be able to really play it unless in the middle of a weekend where I don't have much on, and could stay up all night! xD C&C, 24 Hours a day!

[Delphi]

You are absolutely right, the system I proposed wouldn´t work with a cash prize at stake, because winning is based on luck more or less. But to be honest, I don´t think a cash prize is a that great idea from the start. Playing for cash and playing for fun are 2 completely different things, and personally I prefer the later. Money always seems to bring out the worst in people.

 

But I really hope this tournament happens, regardless of how it is played.

[Chimas]

Hi guys,

I think we will need/have both systems.

I'm totally turned to a fun match rather than a competitive match. But other experienced players will want a more competitive tournament.

In the first page I mention an A and B series regarding the player skills. Maybe we could have a P-series and a F-series (P for prize and F for fun). I personally would play for fun only but we will have people that might want play both and so on.

 

White

The format I've proposed with everyone against everyone without play-offs in the beggining would help the time zones situations. Imagine we have 20 players and then you give let's say 2 months for all the matches. So, you would have to schedule with each player all the matches. When there's no way to meet the calendar you'd drop it to the weekend or the last weekend of the period.

 

I personnally would like to play some sort of 3x3 ffa and crazy things like this.

 

Another format would be teams of 3 (3x3 matches) but whenever you play is never the same team and you "rank up" the longer you stay in each game. The rank would be individual. This format is to force each team to stablish some tactics and comm-codes for ingame match. Actually every game would have to be 2 matches with some days apart from each other - the first as drill, a time to stablish a team strategy based on what was observed in the try-out and the second match that would really count for the rank. Of course, the map will change from one game to the other. You can stablish a mappack for drills and a mappack for the tournament. Just imagine a chat with 3 guys debating and stablishing a strategy in a week base, that would be awesome.

 

 

[Myg]

Delphi's idea has alot of sense in a manner of speaking; not due to any technicalities really: But more due to the age and intents of the game.

 

If you want a truely competetive experience for money, play SC2 (or any other modern game). Id say that how most people feel about it, competing 1v1 for money here seems like we are taking ourselves too seriously.

 

The best way to enjoy games is to enjoy it how it was originally intended, and if Westwood originally held FFA's for prizes, we should do the same and adopt the original tourney system, because thats what the landscape was at the time.

[pichorra]

The problem of 3v3 is that the Neutral ones always wins. Stay quiet out of other players range and you will win. They all kill theyselves, so you just kill the lasting one. who will probably be out of resorces

[gusto88]

So is this happening?PS. I want to play someone in CnC95! beenn way too long