THE CUP

Ideally, 1,000,000 players congregate on servers dotted around the planet, competing in Fortress teams, until the final team wins THE TRONIC CUP. How it all goes ahead is determined by players contributing ideas here, and there are different ways of arranged these thoughts; what follows is one way. Feel free to add to the list under any category and please remember that all editions are constructive.

=preparations= At this stage (TRONICv1.3), it is too early to be precise with any plans, however the long-view thinkers amoungst us may have some vague notions of how such an event may be realised. We have learned a lot from THE SPOON competition. Perhaps the most impressive thing was how the seeding round lasted for 2 weeks and consisted of 14 games whereas the play-offs lasted over 5 weeks and homed only 2 games. This will become more precise after the competitions for THE LADLE and THE BOWL have been done, especially the last which should have taken place 6 months before the competition of the TRONIC CUP. Most of the work shall be done in preparation so that the event may have the chance of running smoothly.

initial individual registration
Players can do this now. By investing their £1 now, the set the ball in motion. Click on the paypal button to register your ARMAGETRON name, and remember to include a note of your name in your entryfee.

team registration
Players first have to organise themselves into teams. Perhaps players have the chance of playing on different teams... and as the day of the CUP draws near, they have to make decisions on which teams they play. Perhaps players have the option of playing on different teams. When it comes down to it, the teams need to be registered so that on the day, team-pairing is easy and records of wins and losses are easily tabulated.

server allocation
Stuff to do with PING so that players have reasonable, acceptable PING. If there are enough players and hence servers, players will tend to play others nearby so that PING is roughly equivalent. Towards the end of the competition, neutral, recommended servers, are used to home the finals.

standardised fortress settings
The Fortess settings must be standardised by the time the BOWL has been played.

reaching 1,000,000 players
Something like a marketing strategy. Is it through word of mouth... through advertising.. can players encourage others to join by posting invitations in other game forums? At the root of it all, however, is the game itself. It is essential that the first experience a player has of the game is a pleasurable one, and hence some thought must be paid to how new players are treated. If the growth is exponential (as things seem to be on the net), then at some stage it may be possible to have noob-only servers. If schools participate, schools from all around the world will host teams which may win the school upto £128,000 for the winning team... damned useful for what started off as a lunch-time club.

=the big day= What an event: 1,000,000 players, perhaps up to 64,000 servers, and a lot of sweat.

feasible round-period timing
Can we play 64,000 games simultaneously? Can we spend as long as may be done in THE BOWL competition to determine the result of two teams competing? To make it feasible, we may have to conduct matches between two teams within 1/2 hour.

tracking team-pairings
Is there a strict order of play sequenced play as most tournaments are organised, or is the first-come first-serve matching of teams organised by themselves? This should have been determined in the previous competition for THE BOWL, with improvements based on the lessons learned there. Based on the first competition, the Spoon, the self-organised seeding round seemed easier than the play-offs with 14 games to 2 games respectively.

money distribution
How is the money reallocated? What the percentages to players, developers, designers? Since this is not a major incentive for the original designers, and since the game has been developed through free open-source philosophy, money MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to make the game heavy. The flow of money should be simple, clean and clear, with no aggregation in any body or collective. It is a matter of redistribution of money from individuals to individuals, with no residue, nothing to clogg up our enjoyment; merely a way of redirecting money to those who deserve it (primarily the designers for their vision, the programmers for their work, and the players for their evident skill).
 * forty-forty-twenty
 * trust those who do not ask for our money
 * credit

=other ideas which don't fit the categories that well= Feel free to create any new categories as well list ideas and mechanisms that don't fit the format above. Make use of the discussion options for each page, and use the forums to voice ideas to see if anyone else has been thinking the same things you have been...