TRONICv1.2

TRON International Competition: TRONICv1.2

=idealistic objective= 1,000,000 players in a year's time self-organising a tournament of Fortress to be held in one day, the champion team winning THE CUP and £16,000, with post-dated funding of server admin, programming-developers, and game-designers.

=meta: contributor's guidelines= Since all pages on the wiki are editable, all contributions must be constructive and additive: alternative solutions are explored like the growing branches of a tree. Visitors are invited to contribute to to the expansion of any idea, comparing different branches of solutions. Arguments, contention, are conducted in forum, chatroom, or informally through PM's, emails, or telephoney eg skype. The overal structuring of this invitation follows the transition tree of Theory of Constraints, a process engineering tool; we may also want to use the process-management mechanisms followed by the developers, eg with version 0.2.7.1 replaced by 0.2.8, patch-programming and trunk modifications, and following open-source philosophy. Alternative steps to arriving at the idealistic objective are presented as alternatives on this page below. Clicking on any item or heading opens up a page which allows further elaboration, more precise definition, and more practical eventualities.

=timeline= 1 year: THE CUP 1,000,000 players, entry fee £1, primary problem: money-distribution 6 months: THE BOWL 1,000 players, primary problems: credit-distribution, round-timing 3 months: THE LADLE 100 players competition, primary problems: team registration, standardised fortress settings, team-pairing 1 month: THE SPOON existing players self-organise with the current situation, primary problem:register name:

There isn't much point in working out all the solutions for the final 1,000,000 player competition for obvious reasons. Players are encouraged to provide solutions for the current objective with a sense of the idealistic objective to make their solutions future-proof. That is, instead of merely producing a solution which can only work for 100 players, it is built to be able to deal with 100 players now, with the potential for the system to be extendable up to the final target. That is, the developmental process is organic.

=15/16 April 2006 THE SPOON= Without changing any of the current settings, can a bunch of players organise themselves such that they have a great day on the April 15/16. They must organise themselves into teams. They must decide on a day to play together. Teams must meet on an agreed server at an agreed time. The winning team wins the prestigious SPOON.

This experience may produce the following learning outcomes:
 * it's fun
 * high level of play: appreciation of individual skill and teamplay.
 * highlight some of the technical difficulties with respect to PING and servers
 * highlight the social problems of time-differential globally, registering of team-names, determining winners and losers, length of matches.
 * bolster the confidence of players to organise themselves
 * enable players to invite developers to provide solutions to improve gameplay and ease of use for the next competition: the even more prestigious LADLE.

=extras= Although most of the idea is based on organising ourselves, inviting contributions, positive construction, agreeing on pragmatic systems, there's plenty of space for lighter topics.

organise your teamgame here
It may be useful to have some kind of Team List. Stick your name down, and then organise a game. Some organised games are presented below:
 * anarchic wanderers... to give fe-clan a game sometime... one has been played already... more to come...?

wordplay
The title TRONIC is a working title. Feel free to suggest alternatives. The titles of the various competitions are also working titles. We may be familiar with jargon such as rubber, grind, grid, etc, and we can take this a step further by encouraging players to share their own favourite phrases or terms, eg woot, pwned, hold the line. You know the term slip-stream? The acceleration a lightcycle gains from its proximity to a light-trail works in a similar way; does grinding adequately convey this?

ruminations
Ideas, philosophy, personal and social; share your thoughts here. If we encourage players to leave their thoughts here, ego may be left out of the self-organising required to achieve the idealistic objective If you are an Armagetron addict, have you wondered why, why you keep on playing game after game? How deep does this game go...?

previous versions
The original idea (TRONICv1) was presented to Wolverine, Ghableska, and Mazuffer through Skype in order encourage immediate feedback. Initial responses included disbelief, practical considerations, and enthusiasm. A week later, the same group met to discuss more details (TRONICv1.1). Responses included the formation of a network of developers, and the inherent importance of enabling uninterrupted playy. The group disbanded after serving its purpose, to initially receive the idea, and to open up the idea to the community in general. This version (TRONICv1.2) has so far not been condoned by the developers; it is purely player-led.